Top 8 Most BANNED Subclasses in D&D 

That was just about the most epic sponsorship segment ever

I need to thank you for perfection 👌 my future DM will HATE MY GUTS, but that's totally fine by me😂 We have an Evil Campaign planned and i was looking for a good charlatan. Enter Eloquence bard with charlatan back ground. Since I want to be Evil, but have people think i am a good person😂 you just made that a whole lot easier to accomplish 👌😁

Could you list all the shows, animations, etc played during this video? Some of them look cool and I hate the fact you didn't make a mention of them in the descriptions...

Even with 20% off this is still $140 I don't really get how this is saving that much money except in the long run Also the second link does not work

Zealot Barbarian vs Chronology Wizard

I love that analogy.

thats the best analogy for this subclass ban for sure cause the zealot literally cant die, but like...whats he gonna do. sure as hell aint gonna force cage microwave your ass

Perfect

Exactly since it's not all that hard to knock one out with mind attacks.

@@rabbidninja79 any incapacitation effect will insta-kill a dead zealot, so yeah you’re correct it isn’t hard at all

My one DM didn't let players use rage with ANY magic like ability. Shifter transformation, nope Echo knight echo: nope Fbinr smite: nope Left that game for many reasons but thet were weird

@@Jedibigfoot I have now added another person to my hit list. What kind of trauma did he have with barbarians to nerf them to such a point? Like, not even Pathfinder 2e has set such idiotic restrictions

That depends, can wizards modify reality to make themselves immortal through sheer zealotry?

@@Catalyst375 Wizards don't need zealotry to be immortal. There are multiple ways for them to achieve that.

@@Catalyst375No. but a Calm Enotions (the second level spell) is enough to just end Rage and instant kill the Barbarian who already failed 3 saves from being smacked enough, and has been moving only because of their rage. Maybe not a Wizard soell, but any caster at that kevel tends ti be really powerful too

And the objective of these legendary heros, the ones who can rivalize against the gods, are none other than... Get fame and funds to open a local bakery called "the cutie pie"

Against such a party the enemies must be smarter and higher CR. Better yet you just designed the sinister 6 as villains.

@@its_sisha_not_chair505form pointy hat ideas (((or objective of legendary hero to figth family of lich of ever class (lich of bard=intoner),(lich of druids=bligth),(lich of artificers=necromaton) and head of family (lich of corcerer=hierarch) and they ally family of monk way of the flesh))) form pointy hat ideas

Funnily enough, in the game I am in, we have a zealot barbarian/glory paladin multiclass, an eloquence bard/hex blade multiclass, a moon druid, a friendly NPC is an artificer, the backup character of one of the players is a chronurgy wizard, and (something i think is an underrated class that if people looked at more would be banned more) my character, an echo knight fighter/soulknife rogue

Got a sorcadin, Artichron, twilight shadow monk, psiknife and Shepard muscle druid that slogs the fights with creatures

Twilight is probably the single most powerful subclass in the game.

@@Kylora2112 Easy enough to sprinkle my encounters with magic users knowing Ice Knife. Not enough to entirely stopping cleric from doing anything and destroying the players fun, but get them playing smartly. Everything other than mass heal that a Twilight Cleric gets is able to be gotten easily with multiclasses that make cleric better anyway or races that already have proficiency in heavy armor. Being strong is fine. Being OP, where no one else has any fun is not. Those are the only things that should be being banned at a table.

​@@Kylora2112i think that title goes to chronurgy wizard

@@yitlerxyeezus Chronurgy and Graviturgy are both Critical Role quasi-homebrew, so I don't count them as *official* content (like any of their partnered content), even though both are incredibly stupidly broken.

@@Kylora2112 They aren't actually partnered content, they are fully official in the setting that is published by WoTC. They occupy the same position as Ebberon content. 100% official just a little off for forgotten realms content.

Yes but you might lose effective range with channel divinity for your teammates that cant fly.

@@okgut2033This is true. But being out of enemy melee reach is still being out of enemy melee reach

@@okgut2033 Sure but if they all somehow die you can fly away!

Oath of Watchers gets to essentially be Dragon Senes at Lv 20. I get Lv 6 is early but banning anything is genuinely just retarded. DMs can always improvise, if youre creative you can get over being a shit DM

​​@@youtubesucks3490ou say that; But there's alot of bull some players can pull with some subclasses; especially with multi classing. If you as a DM know you can't handle a certain combo or sub class; it's fine to ban it or talk to the player about nerfing it/not using it in a certain way. That's what a Good dm does; Adapt and talk to their players and don't sit there taking all their Overpowered shit. If they know they can't handle it.

A good optimizer will never go all-out unless the table or situation demands it, because the most important things to optimize first are fun and table etiquette. But oh boy is it satisfying when you get a justifiable opportunity to pop off.

@@RaethFennec haha yeah, I love it. Hiding your true power to unleash at right moment must be one of the most satisfying things ever.

@@RaethFennec I've been playing an Arcane Archer like this. My DM loves to create magic items and he knows I like picking up little knick-knacks that my party is like "Eh, not the best, replace it". In my last session, 2 players slapped damage buffs on me and the DM was like "Well, the NPC you're trying to reach isn't doing very good", so I decided to 'pop off' to save an NPCs mother. 4 attacks (Action Surge)+Sharpshooter+Buffs= 153 damage in a round to a Yuan-ti Anathema at level 7 lol. Half the table was kind of slack jawed because normally the way I do combat is environment interaction, making creative use of magic items or just usable items in general or just provide simple cover fire for the more squishy party members. I don't like flexing despite my love of number crunching, so I do my part to roleplay more often than dunk lol.

@@thebenis3219 153!? Those were some powerful buffs for level 7. I'm thinking Dragonwing Longbow with Hunter's Mark and Flame Arrows and a crit or something. lol

Druids in general are just powerful

Now make the entire party that cleric class: 😈

@@DarkMark-cf1ec Doesn't actually help that much? Part of the power of the Twilight Cleric is that they give buffs to the rest of the party (passive healing, etc.) but the buffs don't stack, so multiple Twilight Clerics kind of interfere with each other.

You just gave the DM trauma

@@Guy_With_A_Laser They can also share their hideously overpowered Darkvision, which can turn encounters into long-distance shooting galleries where the enemies are dead before they can even charge close enough to see you. I houseruled that trying to range in infrared (darkvision) is unreliable past 150 feet because our eyes are too close together. You can still see oncoming enemies without a problem, but if you try to shoot at them you'll have Disadvantage (canceling the Advantage of them not seeing you, and leading to taking the shot with Vantage). This doesn't negate the cheese tactic of sniping from a quarter mile away, but it does mean the enemies occasionally survive long enough to actually see the party.

​@@mal2ksc As the DM , just make the encounter in an enclosed space like a castle. Use hallways. Twilight cleric while strong is far from game breaking.

Right? Suggestion has both verbal and material components. Everyone in the room watches you very obviously cast a spell on the king, and they're like "Huh, ok, I guess.."? Nah fam. In my game that would be an instant roll initiative.

​@@theunluckybard7517subtle spell

@@freyrgrimsson4607or the very powerful king in a world full of magic has an item that halts mind control, and charming?

@@prophetchosen862 fair enough

It's a whole campaign plot. The king is under mind control, heroes will notice and try and stop it.

I never banned Moon Druids (or any subclass really), but I run almost exclusively low level D&D, and they do kinda overshadow many other characters at low level. It's fine if you go for long-term progression where other characters will have their time to shine, but otherwise I see how it could be frustrating.

@@Darkprosper - having different abilities between the classes is a good thing. In what way besides survivability do you see them overshadowing other classes?

@@sleepinggiant4062 Basically, they are on par with the best melee warrior builds, while still being a strong caster. It may be frustrating for a fighter or a barbarian to see another character as strong as them with still a whole bunch of class features on top, or for a paladin to be completely overshadowed in every possible way. On top of that, they are incredibly versatile, but to be fair that's a druid problem, not specifically a moon druid problem. In fact they are probably the least versatile of the druids.

@@Darkprosper - Every possible way? No. They are not as strong as the other melee classes at level 1. Once they get wild shape, they are as strong only twice a day (not stronger). To Hit is comparrible, and damage is on par with using a 1 handed weapon (2Her is better). Granted, they do have a huge HP pool to go through, but that is the only thing that overshadows other melee classes. Their AC sucks, they can't communicate, and cannot cast spells while wildshaped. Fighters and barbarians are 'always on', and not a twice a day thing.

One of my players is a swashbuckler rogue with expertise in persuasion and deception. With reliable talent, he can't roll less than a 23 in those skills. It is quite challenging to prep fo my sessions because of it. Whenever the party is in a social encounter, he is basicaly the only one to play, which is borring for everyone else. Because he is intelligent and a great roleplayer, I have to make most of the fights mendatory by trying to create narative reasons justifying why he wouldn't be able to resolve them diplomaticaly, otherwise he just would. I also have to keep some encounters solvable through social interactions, otherwise his build would be worthless. He clearly is the character that require the most work from me, even though he is the weakest of the party when it comes to combat.

Imagine a random homeless person that was really REALLY eloquent walked up to your car and "rolled a 20" in explaining to you that his magic banana could end the world. And he will totally do it, too, unless you get out of your car and hand him your keys and wallet. You would laugh and drive away no matter what he said. If it was your mom or whoever you would trust the most in the whole world you would not give her your car. If it was the Pope or the President or whoever is the person you consider the greatest authority figure in the world you would not give that person your car. This is why the implementation chosen for social skill rolls in 5e is a stupid game design decision.

@@googiegress7459 The difference is we don't live in a world of actual magical items. If the same homeless man approached you in an alley and "rolled a 20" to convince you that he had a gun and would kill you if you didn't give him your wallet and shoes, you would walk home barefoot.

@@abonynge You are proven wrong by reality, my friend. While there are carjackings on occasion, it is not simply a matter of anyone walking up and "making their roll" and 5% of the time walking away with literally anything they want. Reality is just not like that. Secondly, the homeless guy with a gun has a wild power imbalance vs. a typical office worker on their commute. That power imbalance lends credence to the scam. Guns are outsized int heir leveling-out capability; if guns didn't exist and the homeless guy convinced you he had a knife, you'd just run away. It's a lot like a pair of 1st level Humans in D&D facing off but one of them has a Wand of Magic Missiles, or there's a 1st level Human facing off against a 10th level. So it is that a piddly-ass crapsack Bard who picked a build off Reddit approaches someone with a title of nobility or ownership of a business, and there's literally nothing that Bard can do or say that would elevate him in the eyes of his betters TO THE POINT THAT THEY GIVE HIM EVERYTHING. Furthermore, it is bad game design policy for that to be a possibility, because if one PC can do it then we must assume there are significant numbers of NPCs who do it too. Which means the world is only and strictly populated by all-powerful low-level Bards and the remaining 99.99999% of the population can possess only the things those Bards can't be bothered to take. Nobody wants a game like that. Ergo, Bards must not be enabled to do that, not even once. So it doesn't matter what your arguments are, because the end result is BS that no reasonable person would stand for.

@@googiegress7459 You really underestimate how successful carjacking attempts are. Firearms are only present in 38% of carjackings. In 41% of carjackings, the offender is unarmed. You live in some kind of fantasy land where people do not have a fear for their well being and it is crazy. No one is arguing that a lord should give a Bard everything they own. This dude just said he convinced some thugs he had a cup that could suck them into another dimension. In a world with magical items this is very comparable to convincing someone you have a gun you don't have. Nearly every DM agrees that a Nat 20 does not simply mean the impossible happens. You are screaming into the ether about an argument no one is making. No one has the expectation to walk up to the BBEG and say "Kill yourself or I will kill you." then roll a Nat 20 and the campaign is over level 1.

@@googiegress7459 It's not 5e's problem, it's DM's problem. DM can always tell them: ok, bandits believe you but they are too desperate/high on some underdark shrooms/mind controlled by the lich so they don't care and will attack you anyway. But since they beleive you - you can use the cup to effectively cast fear on them once, for one turn.

This, so much this. A lot of DM'ing comes down to moments of pure pressure: party is near death, nearly out of options, and you crit the cleric, knowing it's probably the start of TPK (those aren't fun from the other side of the screen either) only for the Wizard to go: NO. It's a 2. I feels just a good as the DM when that moment is created, something that will be talked about for years.

How about a full party of divination wizards? "Im all around you and you don't even know it, Portent everywhere in this bitch"

Im running this exact PC rn (only diffrence i also took a dip into fighter for action surge and got sharpshooter aswell). This effectivly turns me into a minigun and is mighty fun to play

Played this build as a Monsters of the Multiverse Bugbear not too long ago. Also added some levels into Assassin and eventually 2 levels in Fighter for Action Surge. Safe to say, I oneshotted pretty much anything I could sneak up on. Coupled with the extra turn I gave my team from surprise attacks and the fact I could scout 300 feet ahead while also being a backup Cleric made the DM have to kill off my character through an untreatable disease in one of the final battles. It was sad, but understandable. He let me play as one of the NPC's who just so happened to be a polymorphed dragon so I wasn't really complaining. The last boss fight was pretty epic.

@@reokado4783 I did something similar, except I specifically went Echo Knight as well. At level 9 I rarely go below 70 damage on average in the first round of combat

Here's my build by endgame, campaign ended at level 16. Played a dragon for the last session since my boy was too good for his own good. - 5 gloom stalker, 4 assassin, 2 twilight cleric, 4 brute - Feats: stalker, piercer, sharpshooter - Damage modifiers for first turn: (I think I got them all, tell me if I didn't) - 3 attacks: extra attack + dread ambusher - Action Surge: + 1 action after every short rest - Assassinate: crit on surprise attacks (roll damage dice twice) - Used a longbow: + 1d8 damage - Ability modifier for dexterity: +4 - (Bugbear Racial Skill) Surprise Attack: + 2d6 damage if I have the higher initiative - Sneak Attack: + 2d6 damage for one attack - Dread Ambusher: + 1d8 damage for one attack - Brute Force: + 1d4 damage - Piercer: + 1d8 damage on crit since I used a longbow - Hunter's Mark: + 1d6 damage - Sharpshooter: +10 damage flat - Potential damage for the first turn: (assuming I hit all attacks and land a surprise attack which wasn't hard for this build) - Basic attack + bugbear + brute + hunter's mark = Avg/Max - 1d8 + 2d6 + 1d4 + 1d6 = 15 to 30 per attack (I got 3 so x3 = 45 to 90) (x2 for action surge = 90 to 180) (x2 again for assassinate = 180 to 360) - Piercer + sharpshooter + ability modifier = Avg/Max - 1d8 + 10 + 4 = 18 to 22 per attack (I got 3 so x3 = 54 to 66) (x2 for action surge = 108 to 132) - Sneak attack + dread ambusher = Avg/Max - 2d6 + 1d8 = 10 to 20 (x2 for action surge = 20 to 40) (x2 again for assassinate = 40 to 80) - Average: 180 + 108 + 40 = 320 damage / Max: 360 + 132 + 80 = 572 damage I probably botched the math somewhere, but doesn't change the fact that this build did way more damage than I initially thought it would when I was going for a surprise attack build. The strength of the build was supposed to come from the extra turn provided from surprised targets not being able to act on their first turn. It was too OP lol.

@@reokado4783 But what is his favorite flavor of jerky;)?

Any party of six wizards would be busted though. Strongest class times 6 is good.

@@davidwilfand916 But could all die in ealry leves if they aren't carefull and get ambush.

@@fabiovarra3698 you just have to farm cats like in the blaine simple video

...and if they all took silvery barbs...

If you want to be extra evil, make them halflings with the lucky feat and silvery barbs, and well...

This is an excellent response. So what if the Bard gets a 21 on Persuasion. If their tactics for persuading someone are bad, they’re bad and they don’t work. Like, if a battalion of guards is chasing the party down and the Bard tries to say “You don’t want to take us on, we’re absurdly strong and hurt you!” then they roll a 24. Guards respond with some trepidation and speculation. “If you’re so strong why’re you running away from us? Wouldn’t you have stood your ground?” Give the Bard a “second chance” to actually make an argument that is sound. If they do, they’ll probably meet the requirements and be fine. If they don’t, even if they have a fantastic roll, the guards realize it’s a bluff. A very convincing bluff, but a bluff nonetheless.

@@SchmartsyMan Right. As another example, if the bard tries to persuade the King to give him his daughter's hand in marriage, but the King's daughter turns out to be way young (to the point that the suggestion of marriage is creepy), the King will still likely order him arrested if it's not swiftly made apparent that the Bard didn't know better, and even then, it's not going to endear the Bard to the King. Or if he tries to convince a merchant to take an IOU from a Baron as payment in lieu of gold...and the merchant has a particular beef with the Baron and wouldn't trust the Baron to keep his promises. Not going to work. Really, what the persuasion or deception rolls should be used for are to convince the NPC of the Bard's sincerity, his honesty, and his ability to deliver. He MIGHT be able to fan the flames of already-present desire (for goods, services, or companionship), to the point of bargaining for something in return for promises or intangibles, but he isn't going to be able to convince somebody to accept nothing they want. The eloquence bard will have no trouble persuading the smith who wants the goblins cleared out that, in fact, the party DID clear out the goblins, at least enough that the smith will trust them to the point of doing the minimum verification he allows himself with anybody, and may even be able to persuade the smith to forge them some silver daggers for free as a down payment on a "we definitely will slaughter the wererats for you, sir," quest. But he's not going to convince the smith to forge those silver daggers just because slaying wererats three counties over is such a good and noble task; the smith isn't getting anything out of it.

The Exalted RPG has a nice idea called "Intimacies", where you can't persuade someone of something unless you tie it to something they care about or an aspect of their personality, and it's importance to them must be intense enough to justify what you're asking them to do. If you ask them out the blue to join your rebellion, they'll refuse. If you know they have a Major Intimacy to protecting their family, and you get them to believe their son is going to get conscripted, that gives you a chance.

@@paulgibbon5991 Indeed! And you can use 5e's ideal, bond, and flaw similarly.

@@paulgibbon5991 Yeah this basically how I view significant persuasion attempts (especially ones which will have serious narrative impacts): you (as the player) have to come up with an actual compelling argument and your character's persuasion skill determines how convincingly you deliver it. And you cannot persuade/deceive someone about something they wouldn't reasonably believe/want to do. Like, you couldn't persuade someone to sacrifice their best friend to your dark god just because you rolled a nat20 on persuasion. Making persuasion into mind control makes every npc seem like an idiot and ends up peeling away the facade of believability to reveal the game mechanics underneath.

Yeah I play a div wizard and the idea of basing my actions around portents has never occurred to me. those rolls are for giving my PC's girlfriend better initiative rolls and saving throws bc she rolls terribly

@@caseyw1288the kindest soul in the comments 😂

Bro I just played a character in a TTRPG called "Siobhan" This comment briefly had me asking questions lol

Tbf because of the pace at which a D20 campaign moves there aren't that many long rests. As a result, there's less scope for abusing the power of just waiting around in a village until you get a nat20 one day and going off to do something. Plus Brennan (in his usual brilliant DM way) in Sophomore Year made the party scared of taking rests, which made lessened the effectiveness of the portents even more

@@SciFiPhiChiPsi Again though, that's the player abusing the subclass, not the subclass being wildly unbalanced. If div wizard is making the game less fun for your party or DM because everyone just takes long rest after long rest waiting for the pocket nat20, it's not that div wizard is making the game less fun, it's that the people at the table need to have a talk about metagaming.

You had a blast. It was an Eldritch Blast. (You had a blast!) o/` An OP multiclass! (You had a blast!) o/`

​@RaethFennec I was gonna say something negative about Artificer, but how can I say anything negative when this comment exists. Legit the best thing I've seen today & my Barbarian did over 300 damage in a single turnearlier, so that's a high bar.

Was your Warlock a Hexblade?

@@MrSDegnan Nope she was a water genasi marid genie

At least, if everyone is broken, nobody is overshadowed ? Except the encounters, I guess.

That’s a wonderful idea!

Shut up and take my money!

I'm in, I've already got a zealot barbarian ready to go.

and if it still feels too powerful, then limit the rolls to the session rather than between long rests

Yeah, as a DM, if your campaign is so lacking in urgency that the party can unironically afford to sit around for a week without doing anything so they can fudge a single roll you probably need to add stakes lmao. Obviously a time crunch isn't always desirable but just making the party aware of something as simple as 'we think the bandits/cultists/monsters are going to attack kill everyone in the surrounding villages soon' or 'X npc is dying of a disease and needs a cure as soon as possible' is an incredibly easy way to add urgency to a plot. Honestly I think this generally makes for more interesting storytelling anyway, disregarding mechanical reasons. And like you said, one high roll doesn't decide entire the outcome of an entire story. If it does then your plot thread was susceptible to being completed by a single lucky roll even without features like this, which you probably don't want in the first place.

Divination is harmless in comparison to the Scribe .... unlimited drone warfare ....

Divination wizards also become non-issues if long rests are treated as weeks and not days

Ay, as a DM if you try that shit "Okay so while you were lazing about the village has been getting attacked"

People generally try to misuse the portent as a reaction re-roll, but the wording specifically states that the portent must be used before the roll is made. When used like that, it's a lot less of a threat.

Any technological construct can just as easily be an earth elemental or a golem your character created. I don't get the hate at all. Artificer might as well be a magical Enchanter and you'd get the same effects.

@@LupineShadowOmega for a hobby all about creativity and storytelling you'd be surprised how many TTRPG players are mid at storytelling and being creative.

That is literally what Artillerist Artificers do. Their Arcane Firearm isn't an actual magic gun, it's a wand or staff engraved with runes to aid them with casting spells. Artificers are magic craftsmen mixed with engineers. They aren't people who make guns.

It annoys me when everyone goes to steampunk for Artificers, and I blame the illustrators for the class. You can play an Artificer as a witch who brews potions and has a familiar made from sticks and clay, or a runesmith who etches symbols of power onto items (like the Rune Knight, which has never been accused of being steampunk).

I have a lizardfolk artificer. He lost an arm, so he collected the bones of his enemies and enchanted them into a magic skeletal arm. The bones have runes carved into them that he channels magic through.

it's true, I'm a DM, they just destroyed a Stone Giant easily

Summon a buncha cows, call that spell Bovine Intervention

Summon a bunch of cows, call that Bovine Intervention

@@sarge1408 🤣🤣🤣

You think Instead you could break them up into a group of like 2 or 4? Give them all the same damage roll plus the numbers of wolves in a pack. Then you just cut down on turns by a lot.

@@KW-de9sc Eh, splitting them up among the other players has been super fun, people actually APPRECIATE having a summoner druid at the table if you do it that way.

We did that with one our necromancers once

I mean, fair enough, but since Conjure Animals acts as a group it shouldn't really be THAT long of a turn. Any other class doing some over the top overly complicated strategy during their turn takes roughly the same time. Unless you as a player are mentally slow, attacking with a bunch of animals that can't do much except attack or grapple someone doesn't take a lot of time. Not to mention that, if you summon more, they die quicker due to lower HP so your turns get progressively faster with each round anyway.

​@@KW-de9scThey have Mob Calculators online that do this.

Ah yes, sleep The spell every high level caster definitely still keeps prepared

Good to know! Note to self, make sure my zealot barbarian is an elf!

@@CJWproductions I was simply pointing out that there are ways to counter this ability, anything that will incap a character would work. Hypnotic pattern would do the something and that might fit your needs better as it is a crown control spell.

@@lschantz64 Honestly, it's a pretty big brained play. If you have a villain that has studied the party, but you don't want to slap them too hard and make it feel like you're purposely trying to kill them, sleep might be a pretty good spell. You still have to have gotten the barbarian down to that point though, so it's not like it's cheese. Maybe town guards have a scroll of Sleep to try and subdue criminals. Town guards getting sleep off on the barbarian is a bit of a stretch, but it's important to think of other mundane places where killing the party isn't necessarily the goal.

@@cameronlancefrii7356 I never set out to kill the party and i agree that the likelihood of a high level wizard having sleep prepared is very slim. I was just pointing out that it is not as full proof as other people like to think it is, not to mention the rage also still only last 1 minute. Can a Zealot take a ton of damage and keep on dishing it out, yes and personally I think that is amazing. Think about the story of the last party member able to keep the fight going until the bad guy was dead, saved the world, his anger fueled him to defeat the bad guy. Epics tales.

Yeah, single level Peace Domain dip is one of the most powerful things to add to a full caster like Wizard or Sorcerer, particularly if no one else in the party has Emboldening Bond. Proficiency Bonus times per day of a powerful ability that stacks with Bless, lasts 10 minutes, medium/heavy armor + shield proficiency, bless, healing word, guidance, toll the dead/light/mending as needed, all for a single level... it's up there with Hexblade for the most powerful 1-level dip in the game.

​@@RaethFennecnot only casters; a peace dip on fighter gives you bless + emboldening bond + access to cantrips and healing word at that point you can use sharpshooter and still have a net +2 to hit modification between the features you got from each classes first level

I really don't see what the problem with Peace Domain clerics is? If someone else already has Emboldening Bond, it doesn't stack (unless multiple instances of Emboldening Bond does stack in which case the solution is to say, no they don't stack). Emboldening Bond is definitely a powerful ability, acting like a weak bless that lasts 10 minutes, isn't a spell and isn't concentration, but it only works for a party of people at peace with one another, which can make for really cool moments when tension in the party is high and the emboldening bond simply fails. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm currently playing a 9th level peace domain cleric and loving it, but I have no clue how people exploit them to the point they get banned or nerfed?

@@IsStillVicarious Peace Domain is so strong because a single level of cleric on, say, a Wizard or Sorcerer nets them medium/heavy/shields armor proficiency for an easy 18-19 AC as early as level 2, bless, healing word, guidance and a choice of some solid cantrips, a level of full caster progression, AND Emboldening Bond, which scales daily uses with Proficiency Bonus rather than class levels, meaning it grows with you even with 19 levels elsewhere. All that on, say, a Wizard at the cost of... having higher level spell tiers one level before you unlock that level of spells. You get to be tanky, heal people, and mega-buff skill checks and saving throws, AND then you have 19 levels of whatever else. A straight-class Peace Cleric is no problem at all.

@@RaethFennec Ohhh, that makes a lot of sense! Thank you! Though I do wonder what gives the heavy armour proficiency? Is this some edge case of the rules that says if you gain proficiency with medium armour a second time get proficiency with heavy armour or something?

This is why you duke the DM by wasting those with other annoying, but not costly effects, like using hold monster, banishment and polymorph, then when the DM has declared all 3 resistances you bust out the disintegrate or finger of death with the wizards portent.

@@CarrowMind Ah found the minmaxer that DMs hate!

@@DJBlackNGold We found the very reason why these classes are banned by certain DM! Player like him!

​@@CarrowMind that's when the DM pulls a 4th resistance

@@CarrowMind Given that a lot of these monsters have pretty epic saves pretty much all around, you're gonna be spending a lot of effort and turns trying to get them to fail enough to use up their resistances, by which point the fight is probably over or almost over anyway and the fighters did all the work while your casters contributed very little... or it's a tpk. Seen it happen a lot even without portent, the casters spend every turn trying to burn the resistances and end up achieving nothing.

yes and no, the results just vary, not the dc... though it mention an 'openly' hostile creature could be so ill-disposed against the party that no charisma check could sway it's attitude... so even an hostile (let's say 'unfriendly') creature could be swayed to help the party with some dc20 charisma check, as long as it involve no risk or sacrifice from it...

@@Sephiroth517 there is no reason why you couldn't take that and just make the dc vary instead

I was going to point this out. Even if you don't use the tables, DMs should remember that an NPC should have a base level of how they feel about the party. A single check won't make those feelings change from 0 to 10 or 10 to 0. So yes, if a guy was never going to do what the party asked no matter how convincing they are... then a successful check might at best make him offer an alternative that also benefits him somehow. I honestly view the issue here being if a player has had other DMs who don't run their games this way. They may get upset the first time that their persuasion roll doesn't work like charm person.

Yeah, persuasion and deception aren't mind control. This binary idea of "If there's even a single person who can't be persuaded, the whole subclass is trash" is stupid. One guard might be really dedicated to the rules and procedures of his job, and won't let you in even if he does believe you're the son of the king who forgot his key, or that there's an assassin in the building right now, or whatever. The real world is full of those people. The subclass isn't suddenly trash if these kinds of folks are scattered around every so often. But I guess if I have even one agentic NPC in my whole game, I'm destroying the subclass by making it so someone *else's* idea has to be the go-to for a change.

@@theunluckybard7517 I was looking for this. I would also add that you have to look at the guards orders. If the guard was told by the king or the captain of the king's guard to let no one in, that guard cannot be persuaded even if they have been persuaded on other occasions. That guard knows they are taking their life into danger by disobeying orders from such a powerful boss. And aren't likely to in that situation even if they have been open and friendly with the party before.

The only thing iv ever banned is kender because 90% of people play them like cunts. Using the excuse to steal t hoard valuable items rather than thematic borrows examines gets bored gives it back or abandons it.

The thing with Kenders is that a good one will respect "give it back". They're not unapologetic, they just genuinely misunderstand that in this culture, things belong to people, and it's bad form to take without asking. A Good-aligned Kender might pick something of someone else's up and look at it, but if told "I need you to pay for that if you want to take it" or "Please don't touch that, it's important", they'll go along with it. This is not how people play them, which is why they're so hated.

Only until you hit level 15 I believe, wherein your rage only ends if you choose to end it; meaning you don't have to worry about attacking or taking damage. Sleep still fucks you over, though.

Yeah if my party wants to summon multiple creatures, it's pretty much one entity with multi attack anyway. They are all attacking the same target, and I will be doing the rolls digitally so it doesn't take ages. If they want to have full control, they can summon one creature.

or maybe.. you find someone who doesn't impose limitations on how you want to play a game. a wild concept, i know.

@@jishani1 Sure, that's a possibility, but an unlikely one. DMs are already a rare breed, and most don't like dealing with something like Conjure Animals since it can both trivialize and bog down combat. Even if you convince the DM to use mob rules (which allow you make a bunch of attacks at once without rolling anything, just using expected/average damage values), there's still the issue of summoning multiple creatures being OP.

A lot of summon spells are balanced, it's just the early spells from the PHB (namely conjure animals) that's crazy. 8 wolves is always crazy, but the spell is just too vague in general, letting you draw from almost any beast statblock. If Onednd is intent on changing druid to not being able to change into any beast, they should also look at this spell too, honestly moreso than druid.

The new summon spell are way better, like summon beast, summon fey, ecc.

You could also try to say that they: 1) Take their turn directly after the player 2) Throw 1 Dice for all attacks and either throw X times die or do X Times damage and 3) If necessary, use average damage 4) If you want, let them check if the throw was good enough to beat the AC of an extra target and take over excess damage With this everyone can have fun with the Summons without them taking over half the combat time. Did that for my 8 Summons and it only added like 2-5min per turn. Now the wizard is back in its rightful position of wasting every bodies time :D

How my table runs summoning spells when there is more than 1 summoned, the other players get an even amount of creatures to control. The spells says that they are friendly, but not controlled by the summoner. The controlling player gets to use their summon either before or after their own initiative. That way the "slog" isn't so bad since everyone gets to participate.

My DM completely overhauled the conjure animals spell with me. 1) i can choose the animals but limit myself for 3-4 animaltypes. 2) i can have max. 2 pets at the same time. But cause that the pets are a little buffed (still weaker then a mostly oneshot spell) 3) the pets are modified (would be too long for everything). But one eg. Would be spiders: theyr poison ac gets higher, theyr web resets faster and at all are more tool oriented. While wolfes just have more attacks and damage. Ofc all pets also have more hp and higher acs if i upcast the spell and some get new abilities ;) 4) they act after me. For me its far better then strait have a random pet or worse the spell be banned. Also that way the spell feels more like my druids unice spell. That ofc just worked cause i talked with my dm and thought myself options out in the setting my dm gave me and im glad i did that. Ohh and that motivated me to look up more abilities and spells to make it more specific to my characters. Thanks DM ❤️

Also 1 lev Hexblade, rest Sword Bard ps very good.

My build on a half elf point buy: Strength 14+1 Dexterity 8 (heavy armor & all) Constitution 14+1 (Resilience: Constitution later on down the road) Intelligence 10 Charisma 14+2 Wisdom 10

Hope the DM is throwing you lots of tricky conflicts between your Patron and your Oath.

They 15 Str also isn't nessesary when playing a Dwarf. (they dont gain the "-10 speed penalty for wearing Heavy Armor without meeting the Str requirement" !)

@@arkdeniz What if the oath is just what the patron wants though?

Unless the Bard player is being very careless with their rolls, this just feels like punishing the player for picking the subclass

​@@BladedwindThis is why I consider the feature, and by extension the subclass poorly designed. You basically have to ignore the feature or make many persuasion and deception tasks impossible if you want it to be remotely balanced. It's really a consequence of the fact that it basically transforms very hard tasks into auto-successes at early levels, so it's too easy to perform checks in the world and this makes it broken. Reliable Talent also needs to be changed with a lower level like 6th or 3rd level and lower minimum rolls, like 4-5, and the same applies to Silver Tongue to make sure you don't make a fool of yourself, but prevent the game from becoming unbalanced or warped heavily.

@@sharmakefarah2064 While I do agree it's incredibly strong in social check situations, it's important to note that Persuasion and Deception checks are not mind control. The tricky part is making sure that the player in question does not abuse the feature to trivialize certain aspects of the game, while also making sure the player feels it's an impactful feature they're getting value from. As for Reliable Talent, I feel it's fine. It comes online much later, and I usually don't see many people complain about how it breaks the game at that level. Heck, many tables don't get to the level where it comes online for Rogue.

@@Bladedwind I agree that there's a tricky line, but I think that it's way harder to balance for primarily because it makes tasks trivial or impossible, and basically means that if you don't make a lot of social tasks impossible, it's easy to trivialize them. It removes the space of hard/very hard, but possible checks, and that's why it's a problem to balance. Persuasion and Deception checks, while not mind control, getting high results almost all the time, especially at the DC 25 and 30 levels, is still going to get insanely good results for you 99.99% of the time, and the fact that it's possible at all speaks to it's brokenness. A reworked feature like this needs to provide space for hard/very hard, but possible tasks to be done, and then it'd be more balanced. On Reliable Talent, I'd like it to be lower level so players can actually use it in a campaign, but if this was at 6th or 3rd level, it would be even more game breaking than Silver Tongue due to applying it to more skills, and that's why I want to nerf it to something like a 5 or so. Prevents making them fools of themselves, but gives more space to hard/very hard, but possible tasks. It's less broken than spellcasting in general, but then again, the full spellcasting feature is a nightmare to balance, and is heavily broken.

I wonder if my DM would allow me to preroll on other players turns so when it's my turn I'm ready to go

And while it does stack on exhaustion…in a boss fight? You literally just say “No” every round until they are dead. And then you sleep for a week. 😂

It does cost exhaustion tho, so you only get 6 uses in a fight before you die, less if you have lost a lot of hp

there level 6 feature about storing a spell and giving it to people is far more op you can store leomund tiny hut and boom it on the battlefield

Pair thos with magic jar on something immune to exhaustion and they win dnd

I would actually argue that the most powerful ability of the chronurgy wizard is actually not any of their class features, but the fact that they, and they alone (along with graviturgy wizards) get access to the dunamancy spell list, which has many useful and poweful spells. You want to get an extra d8 on all initiative rolls for 8 hours, on top of your +Int mod to your initiative already, and nearly guarantee you go first in any combat? Go for it! You want to make any object an immovable rod? Sure! You want to blink an enemy out of existence for a round when they try to cast a spell or attack? Do it! You want to summon an actual fucking black hole on the battlefield? Why the fuck not? The fact that these wizards get access to over a dozen extra spells that they can add to their spell list, some of which are very powerful, is what I believe makes this class so powerful.

I have thought about a Twilight Cleric/Shepard Druid combo before. Having the ability to give temp HP to your summons, your summons getting 2 extra HP per hit dice to their HP max, and they get healed every time they start their turn in your aura, and get healed if they are in your aura anytime you cast a healing spell..... In the right circumstances this build could solo an encounter.

​@@badwolf3618That's my plan but even that sounds like alot of math

it is for this reason that halflings in my homebrew world are extinct (the reason also the cause of gnomes being an endangered species), and the lucky feat is getting banned. also, a friend of mine played a divination wizard the first time I ran a 5E campaign for my group. This was a decade ago, when 5E had just come out and there were like.... a whopping 5 books for it (which included the core 3 of PHB, DMG, and MM). He loves his wizards and since divination wizards were fucking useless in 3.5E, he wanted to see what they were like in 5E, thinking they'd be equally useless. Needless to say, after that campaign and how fucking busted it became (especially when literally everyone at the table took the Lucky feat, including him), he's kindly agreed to never play divination wizards ever again.

Playing one Too. We homebrewed it to give Every CREATURE in the Radius the tempHP, Not only allies. Also I never use it, as basically everyone in our Party hates each other. But toll the Dead is nice.

The only caveat is that it's on the Beginning of their turn so if something happens before then it doesn't use Temp HP

Sorry for late, but many enemy in the underdark have complementary sense as their method to locate enemies. Alot have blind sense or more weird esoteric one tough.

@@jeromemartel3916 i didnt specifically mean underdark but more like caves :) but yeah there are many but i still ban the subclass for free invisibility against most creatures especially if the player plays well and has high stealth and i specifically did mention other sensory abilities.

Yeah, but a lot of DMs are lazy, and don't think things out or want to engineer solutions. It's easier to just banhammer and walk away.

@@RaethFennec its insane tho cause its not even like you the DM needs to make a solution!!! Just ask the player to do a basic reflavor and clear it with you, its literally that simple! That goes beyond lazy into just pure blind pride. maddening stuff

@@icefang111 Hahaha you're not wrong! Maybe some of them worry if they give an inch, the player will try to take a mile and it will become a point of contention. I don't know. I can't understand their mindset because I'm very flexible and adaptive with my players. I'm not beholden to anything.

So you're saying, if a player shows up as a Divination wizard, you're going to change the ecology, pace, and story of your game to punish the player for wanting to use a class feature, and therefore put pressure on the other players who may not want to play optimized characters, instead of just letting someone know that you're not willing to let them play that character? "If you're going to play a divination wizard, I'm going to make certain your class features are worthless."

@@KitsuneSoup Yeah I think ramping up the difficulty just because you want players to not have fun with their features isnt the way to go. Its like draining spellcasters of spellslots and then continuing to push the adventure while the non-spellcasters have fun. I do think long rest abuse can be a thing- but 2 or 3 rolls getting replaced- and thats even assuming the wizard rolled well- shouldn’t damper sessions at all. Esp if the roll doesnt use modifiers.

@@KitsuneSoup I don't think that's the point so much as saying "cool, you can *absolutely* do your fun/awesome thing, but the whole world doesn't pause long enough for you to while away a week digging for a 20 or a 1, and you're going to be facing more than one significant roll per rest period so you can't just cheese the whole game." It's letting the players, *plural,* have their fun, and allowing the DM to have fun as well. It's cooperative storytelling and *every player* should have a chance to do their "thing" without said thing being a crux point around which the world revolves.

@alexisauld7781 My problem is more that he said he would deliberately increase encounter rates to ensure that the player has no choice but to burn those dice in suboptimal situations. The rest of the party doesn't have infinite resources either, so based on his statement, he's going to completely change the world danger level and allow someone to play a character, instead of just saying no. It'd be like telling the party they don't get combat encounters any more because the barbarian deals too much damage; it's an active penalty to the table because you won't say no.

That is actually something that a lot of tables do the other way around, instead treating portent like a reaction. But yeah, the ability straight up reads, that you have to do it beforehand.

I have been playing an eloquence bard for about a year (almost level 5) and the party roll dynamics make it a non-issue. The other PCs know it's my PC's thing, but they rarely let that stop them from trying their own persuasion and such; if it's in character to step up and say something, they do. Our ranger shares a decent CHA score and tries persuasion relatively often, and our fighter intimidates a lot as well (which happens to be one of my expertise) By that same token, I've had to rp the in-character emotional stress it gives her when she has to be the face most of the time, particularly dangerous situations (Talking to dragons, kobold and goblin tribes, casters, etc) Despite being the party face, it doesn't really turn it into a videogame experience where my character is the party face all the time in all situations. So my point is, it's only as much of an issue as the table itself makes of it, if that's any consolation. Personally, I find Paladins and Hexblades kinda step on the same train of thought - they can both be the face, the best damage dealer, and a tank all at the same time to the point where an optimized one can make other party players feel left out.

Sure if your bread didn't do much and you couldn't get enough bread made to affect the culture in any way.

Or somebody who is absolutely convinced that you are using some kind of magic to be able to persuade every person you come across. (Minor Side Villain hint hint)

Reminder that eberron, the setting that artificers are from, has 0 tech, it's all magic. Artificers are magical craftsmen, not irl technological engineers

@@tomykong2915 the point here was that magic wasn’t very developed either - wizards were also not allowed for the same reason. Magic had barely started to be codified and weaponry was still in a pre-Roman era

Reminder that eberron isn't a steampunk or tech setting, in fact, they have nothing of that sort, this is already the default flavor of artificers

@@tomykong2915 Unfortunately, a couple of artists didn't get the memo.

@@paulgibbon5991 unfortunately, wotc are idiots, and decided to ignore the original creator of the settng

Aberrant mind sorcerer?

@@Pablo17781I was more thinking in terms of Larp, but that is an interesting idea!

Well, this is a weird take. The rules for surprise rounds and hiding are all in the phb. Surprise rounds is probably one of the most commonly changed mechanic in the game. It's basically everyone rolls initiative, and if the ambushed enemies haven't gone in the first round yet they have no reactions. They also can't take any actions or move on their first turn. In this, the assassin has advantage against anyone that didn't realize they were there or attacking. If the assassin beats them in initiative, the attack is automatically a critical hit, if it hits. As for stealth, you need to be unseen. You can't be standing out in the open, in line of sight, and go "I hide. that's a roll of 27. They can't see me." If you have attacked someone and wish to hide from them, you have to break line of sight. In a forest, there would realistically be any number of bushes to hide behind, as well as possibly climbing trees, and using the vast number of trees to keep line of sight broken. In a castle, running out of the room will leave the enemy going "He could have gone anywhere. We might never find him." Even in a room with a heavy fight, if there's lots of furniture or flipped tables to hide behind, it is possible that the assassin might move behind these things and go unnoticed for a short time, to which it may seem like they teleported from one end of the fight to the other, but really they just walked. Where ever they decide to attack from, they would be attacking from stealth and have advantage. Unless, of course, they failed their hide check. How the DM wants to run detection for this is a little more up in the air. Passive perception is a thing, so generally the rogue would be rolling stealth against a flat number. But then would the seeker have disadvantage for being in combat? They can use their action to search. I don't remember anything about having disadvantage on this, it would have to be something specific doing so, such as dim light giving you disadvantage. can you hide in dim light? Not really. But passively, you might not notice traps, writing on walls, or secret doors, if the -5 to your passive brings it below the dc to find such things.

wise words a nice rule of thumb is, if the suggestion spell can't do it, a persuasion check can't either. should be obvious, but interestingly enough, most dm horror scenarios of that kind violate it

It's like rolling an athletics check to leap to the moon. No matter how high you roll it fails. Sometimes NPCs just can't be convinced of things. The king will never just randomly hand over his crown to a stranger because the stranger asked really nicely.

​​@@derimperator3847Eh, suggestion is frankly ludicrous in what it does, and there's an argument that their power level is different amongst different things, and giving people unlimited uses of suggestion would break the game world, so it's still way too good for what it does. Basically all DM horror stories, with the exception of outright damaging you is allowed, and you don't even know you're mind controlled/charmed.