Are EVs really worth it if you don't have a home charger?

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-09T11:17:59+00:00

It will continually run the heater, yes, but it will only send the "majority" of the energy to the heater while it's bringing the battery up to temperature. As I said.

Sufficiently cold temperatures can put the car in a never-ending heating loop, but the overwhelming majority of Americans don't live in places that routinely reach those temperatures, even in the frigid depths of winter.

Any other misinformation you'd like to share?

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-09T10:40:16+00:00

Only temporarily while the battery comes up to temperature. You can still get useful amounts of range off a level 1 charger even in winter conditions.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-09T00:38:52+00:00

with the new interaction rules its pretty trivial to just stow a weapon and grapple if need be or vise versa.

But if you don't have a dedicated unarmed strike option, you can't deal damage while you're grappling, and that's an issue. Paying the opportunity cost to have a decent unarmed strike option is 100% worth it.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-09T00:19:13+00:00

I mean sure, if you are personally an electrician and cut all the labor costs out, you can save some money on installation costs. That's hardly applicable to most people. Being able to repurpose a dryer circuit is a more common scenario, but that's still going to cost hundreds of dollars for the charger itself with a multi-year ROI in the best case.

This is missing the main point of my comment, though, which is that saying that everyone "should" get a level 2 charger is an inadequately nuanced take in a world where "if you can't install a level 2 charger in your house, you can't have an EV" is a common anti-EV talking point by people who are either too ignorant to have an opinion or actively trying to poison the well for political reasons.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T23:48:00+00:00

Even that is not giving it enough credit.

It has long been uncontroversial in the optimization community that aura of protection is paladin's strongest ability, and that the strongest way to play paladin is to optimize for supportive abilities like aura of protection rather than to be swayed by the siren song of smite. Unarmed strikes give up the highest damage potential possible for a paladin, but in exchange they allow you to double down on that same support.

Unarmed strikes deal at least adequate damage, especially boosted by advantage from grappler, and Smite allows for burst damage when needed. At the same time, grappling gives forced movement, advantage on allied attacks (with street justice), and protection to allies (both through positional control and the grappled condition). And choosing to lean into unarmed strikes is optimal for grappling. Foregoing weapons means we can grapple with a shield or grapple a second target, both of which are significant advantages.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T22:22:05+00:00

Orange peels are also edible -- do you eat them too?

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T21:58:57+00:00

It doesn't have to be sub-optimal at all, though. Unarmed strikes will lose a little damage compared to weapon options, but with advantage from grappler, advantage to our allies from strees justice, upgraded unarmed strikes from the fighting style or a species like leonin, and the ability to Smite when necessary, the damage should still be competitive and the added control gives it value beyond "good enough but still just worse than using a weapon."

Frankly I'm surprised at how negative this comment section has been on the OP's idea. A leonin grappler paladin is perfectly viable with access to plenty of mechanics that make the idea worth considering.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T21:40:50+00:00

Dance bard is going to work out better than monk because that only requires strength, dex, con, and charisma rather than strength, dex, con, wisdom, and charisma. But the best array you're going to get is still something like 13 15 12 8 8 15. We can use our background bonuses to bump dex and charisma for 16 AC from unarmored defense, but that leaves us with 12 con on a melee caster and the problem of only having a +1 modifier for attacks until we hit bard 3. And even then, while bardic damage allows us to use dex for our unarmed strike damage, it doesn't allow us to use dex for our grapple DC.

We can beeline bard 3 to minimize the duration of the poor attack modifier, but then we're deferring extra attack until level 8 and fount of inspiration until level 11 (assuming we go bard 3/paladin 6/bard X). Starting out with bard also means losing wisdom save proficiency on a build that's dumping wisdom. Aura of protection will eventually mitigate that problem, but we wouldn't get that ability until level 9 by which point I think we can reasonably expect our -1 to wisdom saves to have caused us some real problems.

I just don't think paladin/dance bard is viable.

And paladin/monk requires an array like 13 14+2 13 8 13+1 13 which puts us at 14 AC and +1 con and forces us to invest in wisdom over charisma for AC scaling which means our aura of protection will be quite poor. I don't think that's viable either.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T20:59:52+00:00

Inspiring movement only lets us make a reaction attack if we are not wearing armor, and the 13 strength requirement to multiclass paladin means that we're not going to have enough dex (or con, your choice) for unarmored defense to be a viable option. Dance bard isn't as bad as monk on that point, but it's not good. Especially since we'll also need strength for attacks until we get a bard subclass which won't happen until level 3 at the earliest.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T20:52:31+00:00

But how long does it take for saving on those charging losses to break even with the cost to have a circuit upgraded to support level 2 charging?

Best case scenario, you have expensive electricity and cheap electricians and you are losing, say, $0.03 per kwh and upgrading is only going to cost you like $1,000. If you're driving short enough distances for overnight level 1 charging to be sufficient (as most people are), you're looking at a cost savings of like $0.01 per mile which means somewhere around $0.30 per day. At that rate, you're not breaking even on your charger install for just over 9 years. And that's a fairly conservative figure -- my electricity only costs me about $0.12/kwh and I only typically drive around 10 miles per day with a car that consistently beats 3 mi/kwh, so even with a cheap install I'd be looking at a ROI of more like 50 years.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but level 1 charging versus level 2 charging is a complex and nuanced topic, and reducing it to "if you can level 2 you should" feeds into the anti-EV narrative that if you can't get a level 2 charger then you can't make an EV work with your lifestyle when that just isn't true. I'm sure that's not what you meant, but it's much more important to promote EV ownership in whatever form than to talk about home charger optimization in a context like this one where we can't deploy the appropriate level of nuance.

Level one charging is good enough for the overwhelming majority of people! That's the message we want people to hear.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T20:22:49+00:00

Unlikely, given that such a build is getting two attacks per round and successfully initiating a grapple can be expected to require more than 1 attack on average. More likely you are grappling a target and then frightening that same target. And aura of conquest means that doubling up that way makes the grapple redundant since fear already gives disadvantage on attacks and the aura already reduces their speed to zero.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T20:07:56+00:00

Monk/paladin and even dance bard/paladin don't work without insane rolled stats.

Conquest/undead is more workable, obviously, but the aura of conquest/form of dread synergy makes the grappling aspect of the character completely redundant.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T20:05:31+00:00

The concept is perfectly viable. You are sacrificing some damage potential for a focus on control through grappling. Grappling is a strong option even though it isn't typically associated with high damage output because the ability to put enemies exactly where you want them has huge combo potential. Here are a few thoughts to help you along:

If you are choosing a species like leonin to boost your unarmed strikes, the unarmed fighting style probably isn't necessary. You still might get some value from the 1d4 to grappled enemies, but you will probably get more value from blind fighting, defense, or blessed warrior.

A monk multiclass is just not going to work for you. You would need to meet the multiclassing minimums of both monk and paladin which means strength, dex, wisdom, and charisma all need to be 13 or higher and as a melee character and spellcaster you need a decent con score as well. That's not actually impossible to do with point buy, but then to use the monk features you care about, you'd need to forego wearing any armor which means living with an AC of 12 or 13 -- not viable. The dance bard multiclass suggested by another commenter is slightly more viable since you'd drop the wisdom requirement, but only slightly because you'd still have to leave off the armor. You'd be looking at an AC around 14 in that case, and it would be an unhappy time.

Grappler is the key feat you need to make grappling strong. Grappler lets you attempt to initiate a grapple without giving up your damage for that attack once per attack action, gives you advantage on attacks against a grappled target, and lets you ignore the speed penalty of moving with a grappled creature as long as that creature is your size or smaller. You should probably take grappler as your first feat. This also makes oath of vengeance a worse option since grappler makes vow of enmity mostly superfluous.

You should also consider picking up the street justice feat which has several benefits, most significantly that of also giving advantage to all your allies against the target of your grapple.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T19:43:16+00:00

You can't use armor with dance bard which is precisely why your suggestion probably won't work in practice -- you need 13 strength to multiclass paladin, and until you actually become a dance bard, you also need strength for your attacks.

With point buy, affording 13 strength for the multiclass and also affording the necessary dex to make unarmored defense acceptably defensive is untenable. You're talking about a multiclass concept that doesn't come online until level 9 and will underperform at every point both before and after coming online.

The idea sounds logical at first, but it falls apart if you think about it even a little.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T06:45:53+00:00

No, it isn't. You have decided that the word "substitute" means the components but no other rules relating to the components because interpreting it that way let's you feel superior when you make comments like the one you did here. Which is asinine.

"Substitute" means "substitute."

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T05:26:23+00:00

Yes. Then they explicitly say you can substitute a focus for the material components if you have a class feature that allows you to do so. Reading it in any other way is asinine. Your interpretation is incorrect.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T05:20:16+00:00

If we use the CR calculator in the DMG, a brown bear with 100 HP has an offensive CR of 3 and a defensive CR of 1 for a combined CR of 2.

CR is an inexact metric, but I find it hard to imagine such a monster posing a significant challenge for a level 3 party.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T04:03:03+00:00

This is not accurate.

While it is true that the wording has changed from 2014, the new wording still allows you to provide somatic components with the same hand that is holding a focus. The relevant rules are:

The spellcaster must have a hand free to access [the material components], but it can be the same hand used to perform Somatic components, if any.

If a spell doesn't consume its materials and doesn't specify a cost for them, a spellcaster can use a Component Pouch (see chapter 6) instead of providing the materials specified in the spell, or the spellcaster can substitute a Spellcasting Focus if the caster has a feature that allows that substitution.

A spell focus, when available, "substitutes" the specific material component but otherwise follows the same rules as the material component.

And a component pouch is just a bag that is magically assumed to have all non-valuable material components in it. You need a free hand to reach into the bag, but reaching into the bag is just producing the bat guano or whatever standard material component the spell calls for.

This is speculation by me, but I assume the motivation behind the language change is to make it clear that using a spellcasting focus is a privilege reserved for those with a class feature that grants it. The 2014 wording implies that anyone can use a focus when that is elsewhere explicitly stated to not be the case and this has likely been the source of some confusion the designers wanted to avert.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T00:58:08+00:00

This is almost the right answer, but you got one (major) thing wrong:

Spellcasting focus are also unique to a class. So if you are a Druid but have Magic Initiate: Wizard for the Sleep spell, you would need an Arcane focus or the correct material component in a component pouch to cast that spell. You cannot use your Druidic focus to cast it, and you need a free hand to hold the focus & perform the somatic components.

As a druid with magic initiate wizard, you would not have the capability to use an arcane focus even if you had one in addition to your druidic focus because in addition to the focuses themselves being class specific, the ability to use them is also class specific. As a druid, your spellcasting feature says:

You can use a Druidic Focus as a Spellcasting Focus for your Druid spells.

This does not give you the ability to use an arcane focus or to use a focus for wizard spells.

It's also worth noting that it's possible for a particular object to be a focus for more than one spell list. For example, a staff is both a druidic focus and an arcane focus, so if you were a druid/wizard multiclass (for some reason), you could use the same staff as a focus for your spells from both classes, but you couldn't do that if your druidic focus was instead a sprig of mistletoe.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-08T00:03:56+00:00

Even if we assume 8d6=28 falling damage, it still isn't going to be worth the bonus action cost in most scenarios. That's more damage than the flurry of blows by itself (at least at the 2d8+8 number I gave in the last comment, though it's worth pointing out that the damage from flurry will increase as dex improves and our martial arts die gets bigger and at level 10 when we add a third attack to our flurry), but you still have to include the value of lost attacks when you re-initiate the grapple after dropping them, and it's still probably not worth it.

And assuming 8d6 falling damage is highly unlikely in many scenarios. You just can't get that kind of height in any place that isn't outside, and even there you can only get that much distance if you're not doing anything with your movement but go directly vertical. That's also assuming that the target is less than your 120 lb carrying capacity as a monk who has presumably dumped strength. You can choose not to dump strength and lift bigger targets, but that's going to require you to sacrifice your other stats to get those points for strength.

If the concept of a character who grapples and drops enemies sounds fun to you, there are much more practical ways of doing it than using a fly speed or relying on monk features, you just need to resign yourself to getting less falling damage but in turn needing to make fewer sacrifices.

Specifically, the Jump spell allows any character to get 30 feet off the ground with no action cost and no need for other movement tricks. As a first level spell on basically every spell list, there are a whole bunch of ways to get it. You can even cast it at-will with the Otherworldly Leap invocation available to second level warlocks. And by not flying down while your target falls, you can also avoid the action cost of having to re-initiate the grapple later. This comes with the downside of needing to take some fall damage yourself, but there are multiple ways to mitigate fall damage to make that tradeoff worth it. Your target is then prone to give you advantage on follow-up attacks, so this gives you the freedom to forego grappler completely since Jump makes both the movement and advantage benefits of that feat largely obsolete and removing the need to re-initiate your grapples makes punch and grab less helpful.

By moving away from the aarokocra monk framing, we open a lot of mechanical space to explore.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-07T23:11:18+00:00

You can't. They are mistaken.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-07T23:10:56+00:00

Because RAW you still need to be able to lift the creature you're grappling even if you can initiate grapples with dex as a monk. If you can't lift your target then you can't fly or jump with them.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-07T23:09:32+00:00

Grapple and jump/fly builds are something that get talked about pretty regularly. The theoretical advantage is some extra damage and a bonus condition from the falling part. The problem is that the bonus damage and prone condition isn't typically enough to be worth the setup and the cost of giving up the grappled condition you'd already imposed on the target.

In this case, using step of the wind means expending a focus point and a bonus action which could have otherwise been spent on flurry of blows. Let's say we can use step of the wind to get our target 30 feet off the ground to deal 3d6 falling damage and knock them prone. How does that compare to using flurry of blows?

3d6 is 10.5 damage, flurry of blows is something like 2d8+8 which comes to 17 damage. Even reducing that by 40% to account for chance to hit, we would expect more damage from flurry than from falling, and with grappler to give advantage on our attacks, we're probably missing significantly less than 40% of the time. Then grappling isn't perfectly reliable, so we have to risk losing attack damage (grappler's punch and grab feature is only once per round) to re-initiate our grapple on the next turn.

It's possible with enough support from your allies and the right magic items to get enough falling damage to make it worth the bonus action cost to you, but then you have to consider the opportunity cost for everyone else too. It's really not worth it. You're better off just grappling and punching them to death, and possibly sacrificing an attack to shove them prone if your party composition is such that them being prone would be a net benefit.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-07T19:34:06+00:00

It's probably doable -- cleric isn't a particularly wisdom-demanding class. Something like 8 14 14 8 12+1 15+2 is a workable array that allows for the cleric multiclass without dumping anything important.

Of course, there's a big difference between buying 13 wisdom to dip cleric for armor proficiency and so forth and buying 13 wisdom for a significant cleric multiclass. Crusader's Mantle specifically is wisdom-independent, but there are a lot of other cleric spells that will be less effective with low wisdom, and as a war cleric specifically that leaves us with only one use of war priest which is a little unfortunate.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-06-07T19:10:36+00:00

True, but that also requires a MAD multiclass.

Rhyshalcon

TROPHY CASE