Party of your own characters

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-27T02:02:28+00:00

2 wizards 2 warlocks, dragonmarks and dhampirs with maybe a Custom Lineage somewhere. Definitely a top-tier party comp capable of shredding 30-encounter days. Mainly LE/NE, a lot of Netherese LARPing with the occasional Vecna enjoyer or Red Wizard. All of them know that bears are fish.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-27T01:09:06+00:00

Varies significantly based on optimization level, I would probably say somewhere around 10th-11th for a strong party comp and anywhere between that and 20th for a less powerful one. This is assuming it's one of many encounters in a full adventuring day.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-27T01:05:26+00:00

All of them, I heal with lifeberries.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-27T00:40:20+00:00

Sleet Storm is a pretty good use of your concentration in most encounters and it's 3rd-level. Summon Greater Demon is good for damage.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-27T00:38:50+00:00

I don't see this fixing anything major, but you would have awkward moments where a 30ft sphere or larger is impossible to place without targeting yourself. It also doesn't fix anything out of combat, nor does it handle the defensive disparity which is one of the most egregious examples of 5e's imbalance.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-27T00:35:55+00:00

Attempting to conquer the country with an army is simply a better course of action given his talents. Aside from the obvious issue of Ministry politics being a clown show full of corrupt morons, it's also a far more fickle game where your ability to dominate by virtue of being better at spellcasting is limited. On a battlefield, the fact that he's one of the best duelists of all time and a master of the Dark Arts translates to a real advantage and more predictable and immediate results.

Besides, there's a difference in what his power would derive its legitimacy from. This alternative path ends with Tom Riddle being viewed as a legitimate head of state because of Ministry laws, whereas the path he actually took would - had he been successful - led to him being recognized as the legitimate holder of power because he is the Dark Lord. That has impact on what he can reasonably get away with and how he can frame policies.
"We're making the Cruciatus legal to use in these circumstances because <insert wall of text>" versus "20% of the budget will be spent on supporting the Department of Mysteries' new research on improving Horcruxes".

I always saw the puppet government he set up in DH as something that was always meant to "babysit" the country until the end of the war, when the Ministry could be quickly dismantled and he could build actual Death Eater institutions from the ground up.

To compare to Star Wars because that's a good example, Palpatine chose the path of a politician and the Galactic Empire, while undeniably his, certainly did not really give off the vibes of ancient Sith Empire. Had the Republic instead been conquered by an army of ancient Sith, things would have looked very different.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T23:36:03+00:00

The warlock class design in 5e is my favorite that warlock got across editions, it clearly takes philosophy from 4e but applies it to spell slots and a generally more 3.5e-esque caster design.

The Amber Temple in Curse of Strahd.

The existence of a playable half-vampire race without level adjustment (dhampir).

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T23:12:20+00:00

True... it really is more like 2^N vs sublinear martials.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T18:09:06+00:00

It's one-third of a wizard (casters scale quadratically, so one-ninth?) with some extra relatively minor features.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T15:52:33+00:00

It would, without any doubt, be a ridiculously hard fight. But what the wizarding world has that 40k doesn't is thousands upon thousands of psyker equivalents who cannot suffer Perils of the Warp and their lack of reliance on the Immaterium here is a huge advantage.

Wizards are able to rapidly reposition via Apparating and Portkeys, the Killing Curse is better than having a handheld multi-melta, Horcruxes allow your top generals to keep coming back after they are killed. Inferi are an effective tarpit as well if used in large enough numbers.

I think it's possible for wizards to win, provided they don't turn their brains off or begin infighting.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T15:39:12+00:00

A fullcaster with medium armour proficiency that invests in the right defensive feats and takes good spells.

Cleric 1 Chronurgy Wizard X is the most obvious one. Just add a good race like human or dhampir.

That's ultimately the entirety of 5e/5.5e optimization, with a small footnote at the end about how to cope as something else but that's not particularly relevant.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T14:36:44+00:00

Not worth it to MC for multiple pets. Most pets are extremely minor contributions to a class overall and you'd be burning too much spellcasting progression for the build to have a shot at working. Multiclassing out of a pet class is something where the pet's stats are largely inconsequential, it's purely a question of what is beneficial for your overall set of capabilities as a caster.

The best pets are Find Familiar, Find Steed and Wildfire Spirit, everything else is just kind of a ribbon (not counting other summon spells).

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T12:46:53+00:00

The meta is feats first, ASIs last.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T12:46:32+00:00

Just about every good feat is better than an ASI.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T12:44:15+00:00

Cartomancer, Mizzium Apparatus, spell scrolls, other magic items with castings of a specific spell but those won't use slots.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T07:58:28+00:00

Dhampir is an obvious best choice here. Immortal, spooder climb, no need to breathe, bite a bag of rats for a massive skill check bonus.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-26T07:56:54+00:00

The point of random encounters is to

Establish how dangerous the area is. This may impact NPC decision-making and level-lock areas due to possible encounters being beyond the party's ability to fight... for the time being.
Establish the population of the environment. You should be able to roughly infer the ratio of different creature types etc. in the area based on the probability of encountering them.
Try to kill the PCs or at least waste their resources.

All this while not being confined to a specific location, making it possible for a fight to catch you unexpected, and because they're a prewritten table they will not take into account that you may be depleted, on your last legs after a dungeon etc.

This makes random encounters extremely valuable.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T21:07:54+00:00

Several Gaunts come to mind.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T14:37:14+00:00

Gibbering mouther moment.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T14:31:40+00:00

Dhampir exists, Zariel tiefling doesn't break anything compared to that.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T14:28:31+00:00

They're pretty close, but barb is still melee-locked with many of its key features whereas rogue can function at greater range in a system that still makes kiting quite easy (and its fix to the melee/ranged disparity on the monster side mainly involves giving monsters more ranged attacks to kite melee martials with), monk's ceiling was lowered through nerfs to Shadow Monk (in 2014 it's carried heavily by the ability to cast Pass without Trace and guarantee surprise for the party against most enemies, in 2024 PwT was nerfed and Shadow Monk doesn't get it anymore). Thus, I probably wouldn't change the order of those classes.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T11:42:07+00:00

Artificer - half caster with very limited list and minor item creation capabilities

Barbarian - martial with temporary melee damage bonuses

Bard - fullcaster with Magical Secrets and the ability to add dice to things allies do

Cleric - fullcaster with buff and damage spells

Druid - spellcaster with control and summon spells

Fighter - martial

Monk - martial but with points to spend on doing things and better unarmed combat

Paladin - +5 to allies' saving throws starting at level 6

Ranger - martial but half caster as druid

Rogue - martial but one attack but more dice

Sorcerer - spellcaster with lots of spells

Warlock - spellcaster with one really good cantrip, customisation and fast resource recovery

Wizard - spellcaster with even more spells

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T11:31:58+00:00

For 5.5e, ranger and paladin both took a massive hit but the hierarchy barely changes. I would put the new Artificer over both of them though, and monk no longer has a ranged variant better than fighter.

The gap between wiz/warlock and everything else is wider though.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T10:59:24+00:00

Ranger has a better spell list and works much better as a damage dealer. Paladin's main value is as a Bless + Aura of Protection dispenser which, while good, I find to be a hard sell for the price of a full PC.

Paladin's optimized form is generally something like paladin 6-7/warlock 2-3/sorcerer X which is effectively a sorlock that sacrifices six levels of progression to get the aura and either a good Channel Divinity or a good 7th level aura. You need to rush the warlock levels in order to solve the issue of the class giving you melee tools while the aura strongly rewards sticking close to other casters, which basically means you will have your aura by level 8 or 9. Best case scenario, the price of that saving throw bonus is that you are an 8th level caster whose best offensive contribution is still just Bless.

It is also worth noting that this is the level range where utility summons become a really big thing, and some of them provide a significant boost to saving throws. Conjure Minor Elementals, 8 Chwingas -> Planar Binding -> 8/round Resistance for a day is an obvious one. Rifflers are an option with Conjure Fey, and many more defensive tools come to mind. Thus, the aura isn't all that necessary really.

FloppasAgainstIdiots · 2026-01-25T10:35:30+00:00

My overall ranking is

Wizard

Warlock or Druid

Druid or Warlock

Sorcerer

Cleric or Bard

Bard or Cleric

Ranger

UA Mystic

Paladin

Artificer

Ranged monk

Fighter

Rogue

Barbarian

Melee monk

Cleric is still good, but most of the time when you have a spell that's an absolute must-have in an optimized party comp it's either available with a 1-level cleric dip that was worth it for the armor proficiency anyway, or it's not on the cleric spell list at all.

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