D&D 5E Most powerful class in 5e

[Tony Vargas]

Interestingly enough, the EXP per day guidelines also don't support 6-8 encounters per day. For a level 5 party, a medium encounter is 500 exp per PC, a hard is 750 per PC, and a deadly is 1100 per PC. The adjusted EXP budget is 3500 per PC. This means you can have 7 medium encounters, 4 medium and 2 hard, 4 hard and 1 medium, or 3 hard and 2 medium encounters per day. If you have any deadly encounters, you must reduce the total number of encounters you will have per day by ~2 on average.

Of course, all that's for a party of 4 or 5 having encounters with individual monsters. If you have groups, the multiplier kicks in, increasing the difficulty, but not the exp against the daily budget...

... I had thought the multiplier would screw things up, but it looks like it salvages them, instead. You're forced to use some larger encounters to pull the difficulty up to medium-hard, while keeping w/in the exp budget.

Interesting.

The 6-8 number seems to have no support, either from the encounter building rules or from actual gameplay experience. It is almost as if the person writing the book chose that number seemingly at random.

I doubt that very much. Whether from theory or playtesting or both, they probably determined that such a large number of encounters was needed to keep resources stretched and thus encounters and class designs remotely balanced, or at least playable...

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Math time!!!

So a level 5 fighter with a 14 Con has about 44 HP. He also has 2 HD per day to spend, for another 16 HP. His daily HP is 60. He also has 10.5 HP from each use of second wind. Not bad!

Now a group of 4 PCs fights a Hill Giant and 2 ogres (a hard difficulty fight). The giant does about 23.5 DPR to a 17 AC PC and the Ogres deal about 7 each to a 17 AC PC. This means that combined, they deal about 37.5 DPR.

Now, a group is supposed to be able to get through 6 such encounters per day. Assuming they each of these battle lasts for only 3 rounds (a rather low estimate), that means the party takes roughly 112 damage per combat. Let us say the monsters are dumb and never focus fire, and spread that damage around evenly among the
party. That is 28 damage per party member every combat. Now with just 6 combats per day, that is 168 damage per party member.

Yeah, if the PCs are tactical morons. By level five you can have a front line tank with an AC of 23, 28 Shielded. Even without Shield he can Dodge and take maybe 15 points of damage total during the fight, e.g. tanking with Sentinel + Shield of Faith while the ranged strikers take out the enemy. Or have the wizard Web instead of you dodging: it's cheap and effective.

Math based on terrible tactics just proves that terrible tactics are terrible.

 

[Ashkelon]

Yeah, if the PCs are tactical morons. By level five you can have a front line tank with an AC of 23, 28 Shielded. Even without Shield he can Dodge and take maybe 15 points of damage total during the fight, e.g. tanking with Sentinel + Shield of Faith while the ranged strikers take out the enemy. Or have the wizard Web instead of you dodging: it's cheap and effective.

Math based on terrible tactics just proves that terrible tactics are terrible.

It would be equally terrible tactics to attack a tank. The Giants could throw rocks. The ogres can throw javelins. They all have a high strength so web isn't super effective. If they get based, they can simply shove the fighter away. If the fighter is a shield fighter, his damage is low enough that they don't really need to worry about provoking sentinel attacks. And if the monsters were smart, they would focus fire on the cleric or wizard, instead of spread their damage out evenly.

I gave everyone equally stupid tactics merely to illustrate a point. Even with smart tactical play, the game simply doesn't support a 6-8 encounter work day. There simply isn't enough HP to go around. Even if smart tactics in the players part reduced enemy damage to 1/3, the group would still only be able to get through 3 or 4 hard encounters before running out of HP.

 

[Celtavian]

It would be equally terrible tactics to attack a tank. The Giants could throw rocks. The ogres can throw javelins. They all have a high strength so web isn't super effective. If they get based, they can simply shove the fighter away. If the fighter is a shield fighter, his damage is low enough that they don't really need to worry about provoking sentinel attacks. And if the monsters were smart, they would focus fire on the cleric or wizard, instead of spread their damage out evenly.

I gave everyone equally stupid tactics merely to illustrate a point. Even with smart tactical play, the game simply doesn't support a 6-8 encounter work day. There simply isn't enough HP to go around. Even if smart tactics in the players part reduced enemy damage to 1/3, the group would still only be able to get through 3 or 4 hard encounters before running out of HP.

If you vary the strength of encounters and give sufficient short rests, you can do a 6-8 encounter day. I recently ran such a day and beyond. It's a matter of smart planning as a DM and understanding the capabilities of the party you're running including their ability to recover hit points and employ equally intelligent tactics to ensure they don't get hit by an enemy some of the time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I gave everyone equally stupid tactics merely to illustrate a point. Even with smart tactical play, the game simply doesn't support a 6-8 encounter work day. There simply isn't enough HP to go around. Even if smart tactics in the players part reduced enemy damage to 1/3, the group would still only be able to get through 3 or 4 hard encounters before running out of HP.

I'm not convinced. Between the variability of encounter difficulty, and that confounded multiplier, I'm sure it's possible to come up with 6-8 encounter days that fit within the daily exp budget, where the encounters 'average' medium-hard, and that the party can make it through alive.

I wouldn't - I'd come up with those days 'by feel' as I went, because I've been doing this for 35 years - but I'm sure that, in theory, you could do it even if sticking to the encounter design guidelines.

I don't think we can dismiss the 6-8 encounter day as impossible. Criticize it as being constraining to the DM's storytelling, or a PITA to come up with using the encounter guidelines, maybe. But impossible seems far fetched.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It would be equally terrible tactics to attack a tank. The Giants could throw rocks. The ogres can throw javelins. They all have a high strength so web isn't super effective. If they get based, they can simply shove the fighter away. If the fighter is a shield fighter, his damage is low enough that they don't really need to worry about provoking sentinel attacks. And if the monsters were smart, they would focus fire on the cleric or wizard, instead of spread their damage out evenly.

Hill Giants and ogres aren't smart, and javelins and rocks aren't very effective at range compared to what the ranged party is outputting. Sentinel doesn't rely on damage to be effective--it's about movement control. And Web costs an action to break free of, no matter how high your strength is. Good luck identifying who the wizard and the cleric are with your Int 5--that may work once in the campaign, and from then on the PCs will adapt and either wear armor/dodge (if a cleric) or Disguise Self (if a wizard) to look like a knight in plate mail with a great big sword. Either the wizard or the cleric can fall back behind cover.

In short, the wizard wizard will be taking only 12.72 points of damage per round (AC Mage Armor + Shield = 18, disadvantage due to long range) even if he's caught wide out in the open, has DX 10, and the monsters know exactly who he is. If he has DX 14 or partial cover from a fighter buddy standing in front of him, he'll take only 8.26, and if he has 3/4 cover and DX 10 he'll take 3.41. If he has total cover he'll take zero, of course, and the ogres will have to target someone else. In all of these scenarios the damage is low enough that the party is more likely to be limited by other resources (e.g. spell slots for Shield) than by HP, especially since the party is only one level away from the bard getting access to Aura of Vitality and 420 HP of healing per long rest.

PCs don't always use optimal tactics, and some players are real tactical morons, but you shouldn't begin an impossibility theorem by assuming poor tactics or else good play will invalidate your proof. 6-8 encounters is not impossible or unreasonable, except from a verisimilitude perspective.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm not convinced. Between the variability of encounter difficulty, and that confounded multiplier, I'm sure it's possible to come up with 6-8 encounter days that fit within the daily exp budget, where the encounters 'average' medium-hard, and that the party can make it through alive.

I wouldn't - I'd come up with those days 'by feel' as I went, because I've been doing this for 35 years - but I'm sure that, in theory, you could do it even if sticking to the encounter design guidelines.

I don't think we can dismiss the 6-8 encounter day as impossible. Criticize it as being constraining to the DM's storytelling, or a PITA to come up with using the encounter guidelines, maybe. But impossible seems far fetched.

The XP budget is mostly irrelevant. Players will chew through a lot of encounters using simple tactics like scouting and opening missile volleys. A group of players can chew through a lot of hit points very quickly. Unless your terrain is extremely advantageous for your enemies, the advantages the players have should allow them to defeat most enemies with minimal damage taken quite often.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The XP budget is mostly irrelevant.

Sure - for an experienced DM....

Players will chew through a lot of encounters using simple tactics like scouting and opening missile volleys. A group of players can chew through a lot of hit points very quickly. Unless your terrain is extremely advantageous for your enemies, the advantages the players have should allow them to defeat most enemies with minimal damage taken quite often.

...and/or a party of system-masters.

But, I'd like to understand the assumptions of the guidelines, anyway (even though I'm already ignoring them, myself).

 

[jgsugden]

Honestly, trying to find *the* most powerful class is a waste of time. Power is a measure of an ability to do work - and the level of power is thus going to be defined by the type of work that needs to be done. Is it just a single combat? Surviving a series of encounters? Surviving all of the challenges you might find in a dungeon (combat and non-combat?) Performing a combination of combat and non-combat tasks? Engaging armies or single threats?

Every class can be overpowered or underpowered based upon how it is utilized and the parameters of the game/setting.

That being said, if I were going to be taking PCs into a one on one head to head battle against other PCs and I was looking for the PC design that was going to win the day, I'd most likely be looking at a high initiative design with a save or incapacitate ability with a max DC using a non-Wis/Dex/Con save. Most likely, it'd be a charisma save as a lot of classes would use that as a dump stat and I'd go with a couple levels of fighter (for action surge) combined with sorcerer (for quickened spell) to give me the opportunity to try three save or incapacitate spells on that first turn.

If I were going to do a solo PC trying to solo a dungeon without being able to take a long rest, I would go with a polearm fighter/barbarian at lower level and a sorcerer at higher levels (with 1 wizard level for rituals). However, in both situations, I'd be focusing on stealth abilities to be able to avoid encounters rather than use resources to outfight them.

Finally, if I were going to be a PC looking to contribute the most to a dungeon delve in a group setting, I'd be a wizard. Their ability to bring a lot of rituals to the table is so useful. Unlimited unseen servant can do a lot if you're inventive.

 

[Celtavian]

Sure - for an experienced DM....
...and/or a party of system-masters.

You think scouting and using missile weapons requires a party of system-masters? Those are very basic tactics.

But, I'd like to understand the assumptions of the guidelines, anyway (even though I'm already ignoring them, myself).

I never worry about it. I've never seen accurate CR/XP system. Too much variation between monsters.