D&D 5E What Level 20 Class Would Win?

[Benjamin Olson]

Someone voted Artificer. I want to hear their reasoning for that. I mean, they're powerful, but they're not as good as a well built fighter or wizard.

I asked the same question way back when. Especially with no magic items.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I asked the same question way back when. Especially with no magic items.

No magic items, unless you're an artificer or have another class feature that gives you magic items, is what I said. Artificers are free to have their magic items.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Is it reliance if it would be pretty unoptimal to not have a wished contingency on your off-days? It certainly doesn't hurt.

Also, it seems to be a common misconception that Simulacrum is 1500 gp each cast. This is false. It is 1500gp worth of powdered ruby. Unless there's a spell that allows a wizard to have 1500 gp worth of powdered ruby, it's up to DM fiat. Maybe the setting has no rubies in the setting. Or all the rubies have been hoarded by a wizard who already has his own army of simulacrum. Either way, you don't just start with 1500gp worth of powdered ruby.

No, it isn't a big deal of course, but it does mean one day in 10 the Sorcerer doesn't have access to the spell. I wouldn't like 1 in 10 odds myself, but YMMV.

As to the DM fiat, it really isn't. I've already shown Wish can be used to Wish for 25000 worth of ruby dust (allowing 16 castings of Simulacrum). Also, if the DM doesn't have ruby dust in the game world, then they are sort of being a prick of a DM IMO. After all, it is one of the most common material components with a cost:

Continual Flame (ruby dust 50 gp)
Infernal Calling (Ruby worth 999 gp)
Forbiddance (powdered ruby worth 1000 gp)
Force Cage (ruby dust worth 1500 gp)
Simulacrum (powdered ruby worth 1500 gp)

All those spells require powdered ruby or ruby dust (probably not a difference). I'd be more than a little annoyed if my DM said I couldn't cast those spells ever.

EDIT: FYI, if there are no rubies period, that knocks a couple more spells out of the books.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

No magic items, unless you're an artificer or have another class feature that gives you magic items, is what I said. Artificers are free to have their magic items.

Sorry, I meant no magic items not of their own creation. The power of attuning to a maximum of six items is somewhat diminished if none of them are legendary.

I suppose I did put it pretty obtusely, given that under the terms they would be the only ones with a substantial compliment of magic items.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sorry, I meant no magic items not of their own creation. The power of attuning to a maximum of six items is somewhat diminished if none of them are legendary.

I suppose I did put it pretty obtusely, given that under the terms they would be the only ones with a substantial compliment of magic items.

Yeah. They could be fairly powerful, especially as an Artillerist or Battle Smith, with increased Armor Class, and lots of spell slinging, but I don't see how a Level 20 Artificer is going to beat a Chronurgist.

 

[Helldritch]

Being familiar with TTRPG's does not mean you're at all familiar with D&D5e and how to effectively build them. How would someone even begin to understand a portent's weakness if they've never realized how they exactly work.

Easy to say after a six year period. All players had participated to the playtests the years before. (And I still have all the files).

This means that we were not totally in the dark, far from that. TTRPG experience might not matter, but 30+ years of D&D in its various incarnations will mean a lot. Especially if said players were participating in the playtests.

The goals we had in doing these tests were many. The main one was to identify the weaknesses, the potential exploits and whether or not the CR calculations were accurate. We also wanted to see if some spell change were broken or too weak. In other words we tested the edition to its limit.

We immediately saw the potential problems with some feats (SS, GWM), the need to enforce the 4 to 6 encounters per day to balance the various classes and their features. We accomplished a lot during those three weeks and if the diviner's portent had been broken even in normal adventure I would have done a house rule against it. Fortunately D&D is not about dueling. The diviner would simply be OP.

These testing enabled us to see what would be strong, too strong, weak and too weak. We were not so far off the map. In fact we were almost right on spot on many things. If we accomplished this much with 13 persons, imagine what this forum can accomplish with its members...

 

[Hohige]

Easy to beat a Wizard.
The Shadow Sorcerer casts Extended Ethrealness for 16 hours duration. Use Umbral form and Darkness.
His twinned Simulacrum, for extra sweet damage.

Your turn.
Action for reappear
Bonus action: Empowered Quickned Radiant Soul Meteor Swarm for sweet 190 damage.
Move through object, wall, ground and end your turn more than 40ft inside for TOTAL COVER.
Bye Simulacrum

The simulacrum casts Quicken Empowered Radiant Soul Insect Plague to defeat you at 320ft for extra 90 damage and move inside a wall

It's on total cover,

Or Just.

Simulacrum casts Quickened Reverse Gravity

And the Sorcerer Quicken wish to duplicates Dark Star

No save, you are imprisoned, blind, deaf and can't cast spells with verbal components.

Move inside a object and stay there.


Repeat with Ethrealness and Umbral form until you are dead.


Choose the best way to die.

No time preparation, no DM fiat no gold.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Would someone's Wizard just kill Hohige's Shadow Sorcerer already and be done with it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

There's no prep.

So, essentially, you are designing characters to go into combat, but they don't actually exist beforehand. You get to choose all your spells, have all your class features, and so on, but you don't get any prep time.

 

[Hohige]

There's no prep.

So, essentially, you are designing characters to go into combat, but they don't actually exist beforehand. You get to choose all your spells, have all your class features, and so on, but you don't get any prep time.

Distance between them?