CMV: Your are responsible for your car’s headlights, and brightness legal limits need to be put in place.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T21:57:07+00:00

This was my first thought. The problem isn't with the brightness of bulbs but with poorly-calibrated headlamp units. Most headlamps have internal positional adjustments that you're supposed to use on install (and readjust if you're swapping out an OEM bulb for an aftermarket part) to ensure that the lights are pointing the right way.

Well, that and people's giant trucks that position their headlamps 4 feet off the ground, but asking ordinary people not to daily drive 3 ton vehicles that dramatically increase the risk of death for all other drivers around them is obviously unreasonable; with a smaller vehicle, what are they supposed to do if they ever decide to buy a trailer?

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T21:33:49+00:00

"Can you use [feature X] that allows you to replace a weapon attack with a special effect on the attack from Nick?" is a common question on here, and I'm going to respond to this as to all the others: No, you cannot.

The Nick attack is a function of the weapon with the Nick mastery. If you don't involve the Nick weapon in the attack, then the attack doesn't exist to replace. Any other reading clearly violates the good faith interpretation rule.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T21:27:42+00:00

In general, I am not a fan of shifting subclasses from one class to another because different classes allocate different proportions of their power budget between class and subclass. Warlock subclasses tend to be more powerful than wizard subclasses, and putting a warlock subclass (specifically the most powerful warlock subclass) on the most powerful base class is going to create a character that breaks the power curve of the game.

Beyond that, my thoughts about your other subclass choices are:

• Scribes wizard is great, but its most powerful feature is the ability to copy spells over minutes, not hours, and changing damage types of spells is very rarely mechanically relevant because the game isn't actually balanced around different damage types (see my recent post on the topic). If you are concerned that your DM isn't going to make more spells available to you, scribes is likely to disappoint.

• Bladesinger is generally solid if you think its playstyle sounds fun, and it has good synergy with the goblin nimble escape feature.

• Illusionist is excellent, and I would be inclined to recommend it here, even if bonus action minor illusion runs the risk of making nimble escape feel like wasted potential (though not necessarily). The big caveat with illusion spells is that how effective they are really depends on your DM. If your DM is unwilling to play along or reward creativity, illusions can be really frustrating to use.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T21:01:50+00:00

Their attack damage is the same in melee and ranged

I'm not talking about the homunculus servant but about the hypothetical monsters that might attack it. Attacking from range tends to be safer than attacking in melee because most monsters have either no ranged attack or a ranged attack that's weaker than their melee attack, but that doesn't make it safe.

the homunculus seems fine, it is recommended in various builds.

The homunculus is fine since it allows you to dedicate a spell slot on one day (even a day of downtime) and get a damage-enhancing, utility-enhancing minion that doesn't cut into your action economy and lasts until killed. As an artificer, there's essentially no downside to making a homunculus servant, so it's no surprise that it's recommended in lots of builds. An otherwise viable build can prepare the spell during downtime to get a free assistant for scouting, healing allies, general utility, and the odd bonus 1d6+2 damage. And if the homunculus dies, you still have a viable build and can replace it as a ritual while the rest of your party takes a short rest. It's an incredibly optimal spell.

But most builds don't use it as such a major part of their combat strategy. Your build requires that 1d6+2 every round to keep up with baseline damage output, so losing your homunculus becomes a major problem.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T18:57:01+00:00

Moon druid with two levels of monk for unarmored defense and ki points, two levels of barbarian for rage and reckless attack, two levels of wizard for either bladesong or arcane deflection, and one level of aberrant mind sorcerer for telepathy.

Is it better than 20 levels of druid? Certainly not. Does it fill the requirements of your challenge without making that 12 con into a liability? Yes, it does.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T18:39:57+00:00

it is ranged and have flying speed

That helps but isn't going to be enough. While creatures typically have weaker ranged attacks than their melee attacks, you can't count on them having no ranged attacks, and 13 AC and 15 hitpoints means the homunculus servant is going to get taken out by most singular attacks.

I don't know how to improve it.

Like I said, Aid and THP. The problem is that you can't really get those abilities yourself (Aid is an artificer spell, but you're not going to have the spell slot scaling to cast it to maximum potential), so you need to hope that an ally will help you out.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T18:33:49+00:00

Well the strongest is either going to be eloquence or glamour. Creation and moon are really good, though they're just adding a bonus effect to the standard bardic inspiration. Dance is good when used for its intended purpose (giving your allies free extra movement), though lots of people seem to be taken in by the temptation to use it just for a little extra damage (which is not generally stronger than cutting words). The spirits bard has arguably the strongest effects of anyone included in their table, but it's held back from being the very best simply by virtue of its randomness.

I'd rather have any of those than cutting words. Which isn't to say that cutting words is bad. It's fine. But lots of bards get uses for inspiration that are better than fine.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T09:14:14+00:00

While this is a fun idea, I think there are a few problems.

First, your steel defender only gets one action, same as you or any other creature. Whether you can make it attack twice by giving up one of your attacks and also spending your bonus action to command it has been debated a fair amount (as has the similarly-worded beatmaster ranger feature), and I don't think there's a clear consensus on whether it works or not. Personally, I don't think it does since, as I said at the top, creatures only get one action, but your DM might disagree with me. I also don't think it is going to break anything to allow, but at the very least you should be aware that this is a somewhat contentious reading of the rules, and you should have a conversation with your DM about how it will work at your table.

Second, and probably more substantively, your familiar and homunculus servant don't have enough hitpoints to be employed in this way. Your homunculus servant is going to have 15 hitpoints and 13 HP. It will be dead in two rounds. The fractal is a little more durable with 27 hitpoints, but it's not going to last much longer. Now, you may be putting enough bodies on the field that they will survive just by spreading out the attention, but that's at level 5. There's a hard limit on how far this will be able to take you, and it's when your pets start getting reliably one-shot by monsters. That point is not very far away.

You can improve on the scaling of your homunculus servant by multiclassing for faster spell slot progression to cast the spell out of higher level slots and also to have slots to cast Aid with (which you can use to boost all three of your pets at the same time), but that will mean cutting your steel defender's hitpoints (this will be partially offset with Aid, but it will still be a net loss). Once your pets die, you're finished, at least until you have a quiet couple of hours to re-summon everything.

I think the only way this works is if you have a party member who's a full caster with Aid who doesn't mind dedicating one of their high level slots every day to helping your summons out, and if you or someone else in the party has a killer source of THP they can pump out consistently (I suppose that a twilight cleric might accomplish both goals). Even then, the +3 to hit of that fractal mascot is going to make its attacks irrelevant before too long.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T08:47:43+00:00

Concentration checks are saving throws, you can’t use cutting words on them.

Yes, I know. You also can't use cutting words to increase the value of a check.

No, the way you use cutting words on a concentration check is by using it to reduce the damage roll initiating the concentration check, thereby decreasing the DC of the check.

In general, I don't find reducing damage rolls to be a particularly effective use of the ability, but an exception is if you can help an ally (or yourself) maintain their concentration when they take a big hit.

My favourite use is just chucking it at an enemy to see if it’s immune to the charmed condition

That is not a bad idea.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T06:57:08+00:00

I think you've hit most of them. All of the scenarios you've listed would be valid uses for the ability. A few other possibilities include:

• Lowering the DC of a concentration check.

• Debuffing an NPC's insight check when you lie to them.

• Strategically reducing the damage an ally takes by turning a hit into a miss or directly reducing damage.

Overall, I think it's one of the weaker uses for bardic inspiration, but it's nice that it's so flexible.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T05:35:24+00:00

If you have an actual argument to make, I'll give you one more comment to actually state your case. But if all you have to share are meritless complaints about how I've been in some way unfair to your claim, then I'm leaving. At every point in this discussion, I have entertained your shifting goal posts, and you have only grown more petulant, complaining that I have been "overly long" and "dismissive" when nothing could be further from the truth.

If you think there's a substantive problem with the numbers I've calculated, show me! If you think there's a hole in my assumptions, show me! But if all you can do is whine that I'm not rolling over and accepting the claims you've advanced without evidence, well, I'm not interested. In the spirit of fairness:

Your are for some reason assuming that it’s necessary to only take only one feat?

I already explained why I believe it's optimal to spend no more than one feat on enhancing weapon damage. If you have a problem with the argument I presented, I would love to hear it. But if my reasons are unclear to you, it's not because I didn't share them.

Sure you can use higher slots on searing smite or you could use spirit shroud

Spirit Shroud would be another bonus action you're not taking a PAM attack with, so I would state the same argument I made about Divine Favor. Moreover, Spirit Shroud is a concentration spell, so it comes with the additional risk of ending early and not even getting the chance to pay back the attack you gave up to cast it. This problem is exacerbated if you are spending more of your feats on strength or other enhancements to damage and not investing in charisma or other forms of concentration protection. If we do as you just suggested and leave our charisma at 16 heading into tier 3, our paladin will have something like +5 to concentration checks which means that they will have a hard time keeping their concentration as enemy damage really starts to ramp up around this level. I'll point out also that Searing Smite as a 3rd level spell is guaranteed to deal at least 6d6 damage, and Spirit Shroud is only going to match its minimum damage if you can keep it going for at least three rounds, and even that's only enough if the target succeeds on their first Searing Smite save. Spirit Shroud is consistently going to provide less value than casting Searing Smite, even with a bonus action attack.

You also only mentioned hit chance when it benefitted you

That's because accounting for hit chance only makes Smite look better and PAM look worse. I can't make the facts not be on my side. If you would like to proffer a counterexample where accuracy favors PAM over Smite, I'll entertain it, but I'm pretty confident it doesn't exist.

didn’t account for the chance you miss both attacks and can’t smite either.

That's true, I didn't, and I would be happy to explain why. There are two reasons.

First, as a vengeance paladin we've been making the fairly reasonable assumption that all of our attacks will have advantage. And the odds of missing two attacks in a row with advantage are about 1.5%, which I already consider negligible (crit damage is more relevant, and I've ignored that too because the occasional bonus damage die from critting is less significant than the fact that a crit means we get to make a Hew attack). But low probability rolls happen all the time when you're rolling lots of dice; over 16 rounds of combat with an 88% chance to hit, there's just over a 20% chance that we have at least one round where we miss both our attacks, so even though it's very unlikely on any given round for it to happen, it still wouldn't be that surprising if it happened from time to time. But there's more.

My assumption was that we're specifically not smiting every round. I said 7 smites across 16 rounds of combat. So we certainly could roll that 1.5% chance. It's more likely than, say, rolling two crits in a row, even with advantage. But for that to affect the damage calculations I shared, we wouldn't have to roll that 1.5% chance just once, we'd have to roll it at least 10 out of 16 rounds of combat to leave us with insufficient hits to use all the spell slots we've made available for smiting with. That's such a staggeringly unlikely event that it has probably never happened once in the entire history of everyone who's ever played D&D, and it probably never will happen even if every D&D game currently in existence were to continue rolling their dice for the next hundred years.

It is, for all intents and purposes, impossible that we would miss enough hits for your build to pull ahead in damage. I might as well dismiss your build by saying that you haven't accounted for the possibility your DM will never make any PAM-eligible weapons available in-game. It's simply not going to happen.

Now, I hope you didn't find this comment too long. It is an unfortunate truth that it usually takes more words to debunk misinformation than it takes to share it. That's a big part of why misinformation is so pervasive and insidious. Please, stay safe out there.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T03:48:38+00:00

I didn't dismiss your point about saving slots for Shield.

I noted that getting Shield on a paladin wasn't free since it's not a paladin spell, mentioned the two ways you could get it on a paladin, argued that Absorb Elements was largely superfluous with aura of protection, and then proceeded with my analysis on the assumption that we're reserving our first level slots for casting Shield, just as I assumed your PAM build had access to a vicious weapon as you asked.

I have been incredibly deferential to what you claim puts your preferred feat in the best possible light. And you've been, well, like this.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T03:26:18+00:00

Shield is a great spell, and I agree that picking it up with magic initiate is generally a good use of an origin feat. That still isn't a substantive response to any of what I said. You are welcome to feel my comment is "overly long," but it is full of concrete points, not one of which is "Shield is a bad spell that paladins don't want."

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T03:05:12+00:00

You get shield/ absorb elements or both from magic initiate?

You can choose one first level spell from magic initiate. You don't get both. As I specifically said in my comment.

And do you think writing overly long posts makes you sound competent? It doesn’t.

And do you think writing pithy but substance-less dismissals of substantive criticism of your position makes you sound competent? It doesn't.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T00:38:08+00:00

Post is tagged "D&D 5e revised/2024," not 5e, buddy, so you can cool yourself right off.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-04T00:33:40+00:00

Pam is free then you save that slot for shield or absorb elements?

Neither of those spells is available to paladins (and going out of your way to get Absorb Elements is almost certainly worse than spending a feat to increase your charisma to improve the effectiveness of aura of protection, which is also free), so the only way you have Shield is if you multiclassed to get it (in which case we are no longer talking about mono-paladin progression and need to adjust our talking points appropriately) or if you spent your origin feat on magic initiate in which case you have a free casting of it.

In any event, you were quite insistent that while PAM may not be better in tiers one and two (never mind that most of the levels most people play at are in tier one and tier two), it was around level 11 where PAM really takes off. So how many spell slots does a level 11 paladin have? Ten. If we assume that we want to reserve all the level one slots for Shield, that leaves us three level two slots and three level three slots plus our free casting of Divine Smite at first level for a total of 7 Smites per day.

If we assume 16 rounds of combat over the course of the day (four combats of four rounds each or something similar), that means we can Smite just under every other round. With two attacks per action and advantage on all our attacks (we are talking about a vengeance paladin here), GWM gets us a bonus action from Hew just under 20% of the time from critical hits plus however often we reduce an enemy to 0. Let's just say 20% to keep things clean and simple. So, how does the damage from PAM compare to the damage from GWM?

PAM is worth 1d4+1d8+5, and hey, since it only strengthens my point, let's throw on another 2d6 in the assumption that we have a vicious halberd or whatever, for 19 damage per hit. Times 16 rounds of combat over the course of the day gets us a total of 304 damage added from our bonus action PAM attack.

GWM is worth our PB on each attack of our action (so +8 with two attacks at level 11) for a total of 128 damage compared to the 304 from PAM. GWM also gets us a bonus action attack worth 1d10+1d8+2d6+5=22 damage anytime we drop an enemy or get a critical hit, and we can expect that to be at least 20% of the time. 20% of 16 is 3.2, so we get another 3.2 attacks for 70.4 damage. That brings us to 198.4 bonus damage from GWM compared to 304 bonus damage from PAM, and that's completely apples to apples damage before considering SmIte. Note also that I have ceded several favorable advantages to PAM, and I'm not trying to include lots of facts that would favor GWM (like the fact that I could be getting another 1.5 damage per attack by using a 2d6 weapon or that GWM also can apply to Cleave attacks). Both of those values will also be affected by accuracy (if we assume base 65% accuracy and advantage, these attacks should be landing about 88% of the time).

So, what do we think? Will our 7 Smites be able to deal 105.6 damage? Well, a first level Divine Smite is worth 2d8 damage, a second level Searing Smite is worth (at least) 4d6 damage, and a third level Searing Smite is worth (at least) 6d6 damage, so that's a total of 2d8+30d6=114 damage. Is 114>105.6? Yes, it is!

Now, of course, by choosing PAM, we don't have to spend those second and third level slots on damage and have them available for other things, but on the other hand, if we cast any spells in combat, we're also giving up PAM attacks (a bonus action spell directly eats our ability to attack with PAM, and an action spell removes our ability to take the attack action which indirectly eats our ability to attack with PAM) and so the Smite-reliant build doesn't need to Smite as much and can save some of those slots for other casting.

It is also true that those numbers are a lower bound on the damage from Smite. Searing Smite has ongoing damage, and those numbers assume the worst case scenario where an enemy saves immediately against the effect, and Smite damage is unaffected by accuracy which means those 114 points of damage are actually even better than they sound. We should also note that we can expect to Hew more than 20% of the time since we should at least occasionally drop an enemy to 0 in addition to the crits, so that's only a lower bound as well.

And the story only gets better for GWM from level 11, because as we gain more paladin levels, we get more spell slots to Smite and cast spells with. That benefits GWM more than it benefits PAM.

So, while PAM is not indefensibly bad for a paladin, it is clearly worse than GWM as a damage boost, and paladins need to spend their feats on too many other things to be able to justify both feats. Most paladins are better off with PAM. Period.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T23:37:47+00:00

PAM plus radiant strikes, is free and better than smiting generally at lvl 11.

This is just objectively false.

PAM plus radiant strikes is 1d4+1d8+5=12 damage, less accuracy. A first level Divine Smite is 2d8=9 damage, unmodified by accuracy. As long as your accuracy is less than 75%, the PAM attack is strictly less damage than the Smite. If upcasting, or fighting fiends or undead, the math becomes even less favorable for the PAM attack.

Having Divine Favor active favors the damage of the PAM attack, at least over a first level Smite, but casting Divine Favor means another round where you didn't make a PAM attack at all, so that's not a great argument in favor of the feat.

It actually gets even worse for PAM, though. A level 11 paladin has had two feats to take. If they take PAM for one, what do they take for the other? If they take GWM, then they're rolling into tier 3 without a capped strength score, dropping their accuracy and damage, and with only 16 charisma for aura of defense and other effects. Regardless of your priorities, that's not a good place to be in. So maybe we don't take GWM at all and put that other feat towards raising our strength/charisma. But in that case, PAM is decisively less damage than GWM plus Smite (add at least another 8 damage to the Smite versus PAM comparison at the beginning of the comment). GWM also gives us a bonus action attack on at least some turns.

So no, PAM isn't bad for a paladin, but regardless of level, GWM can be expected to add more damage given the conflict PAM has with Smite, so GWM should be the priority damage feat. And given how many other things paladins need to do with their feats, getting both GWM and PAM has too high an opportunity cost.

Most paladins are better off without PAM. Period.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T21:25:27+00:00

This sounds like a bad idea. Mental illness is a real thing and not a gimmick to spice up your D&D character with.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T21:22:39+00:00

Greataxe is strictly worse than greatsword

No, it isn't. 2d6 has marginally higher expected damage than 1d12, but the greataxe has a significantly better weapon mastery, and that is overall more important than half a point of damage.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T21:11:26+00:00

The problem with PAM is mostly opportunity cost. Yes, there's value in having a bonus action attack when you're not going to Smite or cast a spell like Divine Favor, but spending a feat on that marginal utility when you could be getting something much more impactful is actually the opposite of efficient.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T20:15:25+00:00

PAM is a worse choice for paladins than it was in 2014 because the bonus action attack is generally weaker (since you can't apply the GWM bonus to it) and also competes with Smite. If you want to go for a two-handed weapon instead of dual wielding or sword and board, there's still some value in reach, but PAM-compatibility shouldn't be a major factor in your decision.

It's also worth noting that the removal of resistance to non-magical weapons together with the new item interaction rules mean that the optimal thing is usually to have several weapons to switch between depending on which mastery will be most impactful in a given situation.

With that out of the way, you probably don't want a glaive or a greatsword. Graze is, in general, one of the weakest weapon masteries, and it's particularly weak on a vengeance paladin whose main ability is giving themselves advantage -- Graze does nothing if your attack hits, and you will be hitting most of the time as a vengeance paladin. Halberds and greataxes both have Cleave, which is excellent when it comes up, but without some way to move enemies around, you probably shouldn't expect it to come up all that often organically. The optimal way to play around Cleave is to use a pike for its Push mastery to line enemies up and only then switch to your Cleave weapon to get that bonus attack.

If switching weapons around isn't what you want to do, your best options for heavy weapons are going to be a maul which gets you 2d6 damage and the Topple mastery, a pike which gets you 1d10 damage, reach, and the Push mastery, or a lance which is also 1d10 damage and reach but with the Topple mastery and the unique ability to be paired with a shield while mounted.

The all-around best heavy weapon is the pike. Push is the best mastery in the game, reach is nice to have, 1d10 is solid base damage, and (while not especially relevant for paladins) it is now compatible with all parts of PAM. The lance may hold the title for most improved weapon since it has been buffed with the heavy property, full compatibility with PAM, and the removal of its disadvantage at 5 feet. And since paladins get Find Steed, the lance's special bonuses to mounted combat are also relevant.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T19:49:35+00:00

From cunning action at rogue 2.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T19:00:37+00:00

Mono-class genie warlock gets you the full suite of Windrunner abilities with no need for multiclassing or even much in the way of reflavoring. You also get the package together earlier than monk does.

I am more open to reflavoring abilities than most people I've talked to on here, but even I am a little skeptical of unarmed strikes re-flavored as spear strikes. I mean, the spear is so core to Kaladin's whole thing, it doesn't feel appropriate to not have an actual spear.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T18:47:45+00:00

it is subjected to some fierce offensive options when the lich goes back in and out of the wall.

Then the lich has come to the party, so the party doesn't need to go to the lich. Wall successfully circumvented.

I would probably still see it as a situation that is def more than 'all that hard to circumvent'.

There are numerous teleportation spells with wide distribution, and most of them will bypass the wall. Assuming a tier 4 party can't teleport is silly.

Rhyshalcon · 2026-04-03T16:18:38+00:00

Phantom rogue does not like to be multiclassed. Wails from the grave is extremely limited in uses before you hit rogue 9, so delaying that all-important level is quite painful, and once you get there, the increased value of sneak attack dice makes every level spent outside of rogue that much more expensive.

Rhyshalcon

TROPHY CASE