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Message: <blockquote data-quote="borg286" data-source="post: 7990861" data-attributes="member: 68679">Done.I added a section called Defend or Blast, pick one. I realize I failed to anticipate that people would get the impression that I was trying to fulfill both roles simultaneously. I added a note in the summary, and in the section dedicated to how the Sorlock defends, and their exclusivity.  I'm still proud of just how many defendery abilities I could get. Perhaps Warcaster is too great a price for its benefit given I have Magic Resistance and Shield and Proficiency in Constitution saves. Would a +2 cha be better?The way I approached it was to <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Check off the Healing Word checkbox to deal with overkill and DM picking on a foe.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Do proactive healing for combat (Haste, Polymorph, Invisibility)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">And finally deal with monster damage using either Heal, Healer or Inspiring Leader, where i favored the latter. Heal is late game. Both feats are are out of combat yet resourceless ways of dealing with monster damage.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Everything else I'd leave up to a player's HP pool simply being another resource that can be drained and replenished through Hit dice. Inspiring Leader increases this HP pool depth.  Rather than fixing a player's drained HP, I'd do battlefield control to let them get away. I now see that Minor Illusion and Greater Invisibility are the only tools in my kit to deal with characters not dead yet needing to get away.</li> </ol>I could only find that access to Heal and Polymorph, and twinning it, was a worthwhile use of my resources and actions in combat to deal with a character that was getting hammered and needed to be healed. Are you proposing a healer should be able to deal with this in combat? This is a great point. Only Sentinel, and other hard immobilization effects check the stickiness in high levels. I had been imposing my 3.5 and 4e experience into 5e. Shamefully I've never played a 5e game before, only theorycrafted. This makes it clear why wizards need so many ways to deal with foes getting in their faces. I'll drop Haste as a proactive healing spell.  You've made a fair point. I've moved haste into a section titled A good defense is a good Offense. I feel it incorporates your very valid points.I like this model.  I'll continue with my table for estimating targets for AOE spells, and then use your multipliers rather than the targets themselves for the biased converstion to single target damage.It may take me some time to redo the calculations and sections to explain the reasoning.  If you could find that discussion I'd love to read and reference it.A character is not an island.There is bound to be a single target focused ally in your team. Most of them use their bonus actions and are often in range of multiple targets.  There is bound to be another character with access to AOEs. How do we model this.  Let's go with your 1 KPR baseline for the striker, and 0.5 KPR for 4 other members.This totals 3 KPR.  Let's assume we have 10 appropriately leveled monsters and we want to minimize the number of actions the monster team makes.Everyone is Single Target<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go:  100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% = 10 actions    |    Players go: 10 - 3 KPR</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 7 actions     |    Players go: 7 - 3 KPR</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 4 actions     |    Players go: 4 - 3 KPR</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 100% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 1 actions     |    Players go: 1 - 3 KPR</li> </ol>Total actions 22 actionsEveryone is AOENote that we are assuming their 1 KPR is before the above 50% penalty. Because I'm minimizing enemy actions I don't need to apply a 50% weight to secondary targets. Without doing this penalty one would see an AOE do way more than 1 KPR. Thus our sample party here is doing a rather weak 1 KPR of AOE, but let's run with it.<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% = 10 actions     |  Players go: Each monster gets 3 KPR total / 10 targets = 0.3 KPR  </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% | 70% = 10 actions |  Players go: 10 targets take 0.3 KPR</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% | 40% = 10 actions  | Players go: 10 targets take 0.3 KPR</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% | 10.% = 10 actions | Players go: 10 targets take 0.3 KPR and each target is dead</li> </ol>Total monster actions 40 actions.  This exemplifies your pointNow to my point that a character is not an island.  Assume I'm the AOE attacker and the rest of the team is single target, same KPRs as before<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% = 10 actions  | I go dealing 0.1 KPR to each foe, allies finish off 2 targets</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 90% | 70% | 0% | 0% = 8 actions  | I go dealing 0.11 KPR to each foe, allies finish off 2 targets</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 77.5% | 77.5% | 77.5% | 77.5% | 77.5% | 12.5% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 6 actions | I go dealing 0.13 KPR to each foe, allies finish off 4 targets</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Monsters go: 60.8% | 43.3% | 0% | 0% | 0% | -4.2% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% = 2 actions  | I go dealing 0.5 KPR to each foe, allies finish off the last target</li> </ol>Total monster actions 26.  This isn't too far off of the optimal 22.  The main point is that given that the rest of the party is likely to have single target abilities, your AOE's inability to disable foes immediately, is cushioned by the fact that single target attacks can eat the remainders you leave behind.Often the AOE attack is doing considerably more than an effective 1 KPR, potentially 8 KPR if mooks are bunched up well enough.To the goal of the build, we want versatility between AOE and single target, and even doling out the single target into multiple attacks so that we don't waste damage through overkillIn the end we want at least 1 AOE spell, and 2 is often redundant.  Fireball is best in slot for a window of levels. Cone of Cold beats it out due to rarity of cold resistance, and finally Chain Lightning wins as the single target KPR is respectably high, and the friendliness should make the penalty smaller.</blockquote>

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