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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6609119" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Don't get me wrong, I love pumping Con, and I realize that in 5E, more effects than ever interact with HP. (E.g. Disintegrate spell is now HP damage.) But it really isn't a 10% boost in survivability because a lot of the things that will kill you bypass HP. Intellect Devouring, Medusa petrification, pushing the wrong button in the mad scientist's lair... even the things that kill you via HP loss tend not to be sensitive to small gradations in HP. Getting jumped by hobgoblins when you're wandering ahead of the party is less sensitive to whether you have 44 vs 50 HP than to whether you have Shield memorized. (It also illustrates perfectly a case where Medium Armor is a lifesaver... dragon scales not so much, unless you pumped Dex instead of Con.) In addition, HP is easier to pump than AC is. Look at it this way: you're giving up AC 17+ in order to get what is essentially 1/3 of an Aid spell (extra 5 HP). Unless you habitually cast Aid at max level every day already, you're implicitly acknowledging that the marginal value of 5 HP is low.In short, HP is great, but opportunity costs are real, and giving up +4 AC in exchange for half of the Toughness feat isn't something I personally view as a good trade. But this probably has a lot to do with playstyle. For various reasons including BA and old AD&D tropes, I expect to fight a metric ton of low-level foes with +4 to +6 attack bonuses, which means that +4 to AC is cutting my damage taken roughly in half against those foes, so call it a 25% increase in survivability overall if half of my foes are in that range. If I were expecting to fight exclusively ancient red dragons and beholders every day, both of which basically ignore your AC, HP won't help much (10% vs dragons, 5%? vs beholders) but AC will help even less (3%?) so I might as well take the HP, right? But I still wouldn't be excited about it because it's not a qualitative improvement, only quantitative. YMMV.But adding a spell level to Fireball is terrible. Most of the things you're really interested in fireballing die to 28 just as easily as 33 points of damage, or they don't die at all to either and you're better off Twinning Polymorph on your allies into a couple of rock-chucking giant apes with hundreds of free HP. Scorching Ray is mediocre without +CHA; with +CHA it's good, but 1.) only red dragon sorcs get that boost; 2.) you're still spending a 2nd level spell slot to do maybe 20 points of damage. Don't I have something better to do with my spell slots and action economy, like Web/Polymorph/Animate Objects?Legendary resistance tells me that I ought to be Sharpshooting things from a distance, or Eldritch Blasting things. Burning things with fire is pretty weak in comparison, even with a dragon sorc, unless you do things like burn 7th level spell slots on Scorching Ray. If you want DPR, be a Sharpshooter fighter instead and let the Favored Soul cast Bless on you.</blockquote>

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