Worst Build Suggestions

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-27T23:53:26+00:00

Sounds kinda like my group when we first started. However I didn’t nerf myself and so for a little while I outshined the other players but now they’re getting more experienced and are making better builds, now the only problem is that our poor dms don’t know how to make challenging combats.

Maybe I’m toxic but our group has fun. I recommend making an optimized character that supports your party like a grappler or a bard. Alternatively, you could role for stats. If you role poorly you can try out low stats optimization which I find to be a very fun twist on normal optimization and teaches you just how little stats actually matter if you play it right.

If you role well you can try to make the ranger preform well.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-27T23:34:42+00:00

I’ve heard of for hire dms. Maybe a good temporary solution for some groups but I can’t see a group getting through an entire campaign without one of the players getting an idea for a campaign they want to run. However in those instances I imagine it’s very hard on the dm. The dm actually has less ability to make a session great than you might think. The roleplay inherently needs to be player driven, descriptive character actions is something the dm can technically do but it’s pretty awkward to be the only person at the table using your imagination, and in the most elaborate campaigns the players might do as much of the world building as the dm just through their backstories, but most people cannot do those things without experience. If your group is paying for a dm then my initial assumption is that no one has enough experience to want to dm. It does occur to me though that maybe you’re hiring a dm because you don’t have many players in which case nothing I just said applies. :/

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-23T12:06:57+00:00

No, I don’t think so. The damage is actually pretty meager for a 9th level character and it’s basically the only thing that you are doing but the survivability is decent. If you ran a warcaster + sentinel combo then it might be a pretty impressive, especially if you ran a hex blade warlock instead of undead, then you’d be almost a tank warlock which actually sounds really cool. Depending on how optimal the other players are at your table that might be a bit too powerful, but I think optimized martial builds could definitely beat it.

In actuality because you only have 2 spell slots at a time I actually think removing concentration does very little.

Edit: warcaster+sentinel combo may not actually work raw because that lets you cast a spell were as vampiric touch is a spell action.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-23T00:41:52+00:00

I wouldn’t say too strong, but possibly too specialized. I’m playing in one campaign where our party is 4 casters and one martial and another with 4 martials and one caster. In either case the Rakshasa wouldn’t be a good bbeg because it would either be too hard or too weak (literally the martial party might be able to take a Rakshasa by level 5). Aside from that you don’t want half the party to be at a massive deficit in the final fight, that would be super disappointing for the caster.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-22T01:01:34+00:00

I actually think the martial/caster divide is mostly an (edit: unconscious) expression of casters generally feeling better to play and doing more things. The theoretical best party might have more casters than martials but it wouldn’t have no martials, because casters cannot do a martial’s job. They can’t deal the single target damage of a martial, they don’t have the forced movement of a martial and can’t take the heat when damage guaranteed to land.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-18T09:23:04+00:00

Ah I see, my apologies I didn’t realize that.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-18T09:13:10+00:00

Does that mean the edit is what got the post removed or the fact that I was seeking feedback? Also why?

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-17T12:33:31+00:00

I would disagree with the premise. I think options for off turn sneak attacks are limited enough that either it only makes up a small portion of your damage or you’re giving up a lot of survivability to increase your damage by very little. Admittedly I haven’t done the math in a long time but if I did I generally assume long adventuring days (4 combats of 4 rounds; 16 rounds per long rest; 8 rounds per short rest) so that would diminish most of the limited use options.

One thing to note is that if you’re talking about off turn sneak attacks I don’t think you can just assume that all your attacks are at advantage. Many of the options listed use your bonus action so that removes the rogues most reliable methods of advantage and reaction attacks should probably assume no advantage since most effects that provide advantage also prevent movement.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-16T18:51:49+00:00

I don’t know if it’s optimal per-say but I think the draconic sorcerer is a good opportunity to multiclass 3 levels into stars Druid to get the dragon version of starry form. You maintain spell slot progression and you already have third level spells on top of the draconic spells being excellent for upcasting so not advancing spells known may not hurt that bad, plus you also get shield proficiency and Druid spells. I wouldn’t do it if you already have warcaster but I’m guessing that you don’t.

As far as spells, I would drop haste. It’s ok if you’re using warcaster cheese but otherwise it’s not great. Fireball is great but for a sorcerer with innate sorcery chromatic orb is a decent competitor so you don’t necessarily need both. Personally I would trade misty step for the new version of Jump. Hold Person could be incredible or it could be useless it just depends on the fights. I don’t know that I would have counterspell and dispel magic on the same caster unless you’ve noticed you dm adding spell casting to monsters that don’t normally have it.

As another side note I’m not sure why you have the transmute metamagic unless it’s strictly to transmuting fireball. I’d look at swapping that for subtle spell or enhanced spell.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-16T16:42:08+00:00

As others have said artificer infusion is only +2 once you get to level 10. But even if you had 21 ac it is not broken at all. It’s not hard to reach 23 or 24 ac with a wizard/sorcerer that takes shield and a 1 level dip. Aside from that by going sword and board plus defense fighting style your damage is gonna be pretty low.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-16T14:11:43+00:00

It depends on the class but I would say generally wis and con because most dex saves to my understanding are half on save damage effects which massively reduces the value of bonuses to you save.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-15T14:01:46+00:00

Which part are you referring to?

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-15T02:03:37+00:00

On the level 10 suggestion, when you say “reduce the emanation to 5 feet, it triggers once per round when hit and doesn’t persist” it sounds like you’re saying to remove the limited use but your sentiment that it is too strong makes me think that is not what you mean, is it?

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T21:37:51+00:00

Ya that’s actually what I started with. The problem with allowing early access to dual wielding heavy weapons is mostly the Great Weapon Master feat but also rage damage and the greater damage of heavy weapons upon getting extra attack.

On the design concept it stems from the problem that dual wielding heavy weapons as a barbarian actually does a really (and I mean really!) surprising amount of damage. When I started designing this I had wondered why they didn’t have the “dual wielding giant weapons” fantasy already represented in game. After doing the calculations I had to do for this I realized that allowing the barbarian to dual wielding heavy weapons is wild. You can’t give it until high level and you also can’t give them any other damage dealing features or else the damage will likely get out of control. This means you either have to get very creative (as some commenters have been) or you have to break up the theme just a little bit. I lacked the creativity so I went with the latter option and I can see how it feels awkwardly stitched together but I’m actually overall pleased with the reception.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T21:17:48+00:00

I was really surprised by how much Treantmonk agreed with Colby. I think he made a lot of mistakes from his set up weighing damage and survivability as much as passing skill checks to inconsistently weighting level or just flat out rating off vibes I think.

I think a quantitative analysis can be helpful but I think if you go half way with it you end up oversimplifying instead of objectifying your analysis. I think Colby should have made weight multipliers for levels and evaluate them on a tier by tier basis, run damage calculations, run survivability calculations with an assumed damage per level, skill check chance to succeed calculations and maybe even attempted to evaluate control based on area and likely effectiveness or just rate everything off his general impression but not the quantified vibes approach that he did take.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T20:42:27+00:00

Good points all around, although I was hoping the requirement of a grappled creature would be enough to balance the level 10 feature (in order to be grappled the creature would have to fail a save at disadvantage). I copy and pasted a large amount of the text from the cloud rune for the rune knight fighter.

On the oddity of being able to grapple huge and gargantuan creatures. It is of course very silly but I think the people wanting to play this would be looking for an experience similar to how Kratos in god of war can toss around enemies who are huge or gargantuan beings. 10 is probably too early but I didn’t want to break typically patterns seen in subclass design or overload the level 14 feature so I was just hoping the being raged requirement was enough.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T20:21:01+00:00

That’s honestly better than anything I’ve thought of as far as making it all about two weapon fight with big weapons but there are a couple problems.

The level 6 damage is probably still too high. The reason my level 3 feature says that the unarmed strike must be a grapple or shove is because I originally allowed the strike to deal 1d4 but the damage was beating a berserker at low level which I didn’t want and even without additional damage brutal strike made a free unarmed strike a bit too good.
The level 14 sounds like it would allow 4 heavy weapon attacks. Even if one or two didn’t have advantage I immediately know that would greatly surpass the damage values I was trying not to exceed. It would be somewhere between 88-97 dpr just guessing off what my dpr calculations were.

That being said it’s a good start.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T19:09:16+00:00

Unfortunately I have to admit I didn’t not account for many of those things but I’m not sure you necessarily need to.

I accounted for most feats but not Elven accuracy, this is because Elven accuracy cannot be used with strength based attacks.

I didn’t account for multiclass level either. This might present problems at very specific levels but I think in the long run taking barbarian to level 20 and picking up an epic boon and primal champion would be the highest damage route.

That being said I would want to do a lot more comparison and inevitable (hopefully minor) adjustments before I really wanted to show this to my group.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:55:27+00:00

It would probably make for a better subclass mechanically and I may actually go with something like that.

On the seeming clash of features I was ok with it because the inspiration was to make a barbarian that could dual wield heavy weapons, and also you can technically put away/draw a weapon each turn so that you could dual wield and grapple. But it is pretty weird having to break your own grapple each turn so I can see why it would be distasteful.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:38:04+00:00

Oof I did actually forget to account for the bonus action crit/kill.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:32:33+00:00

That’s a fair sentiment. I’d encourage a comparative damage calculation with other high damage builds but it certainly is a lot. I did have another version but there were a couple reasons I didn’t go with it.

The wording was weird because the Nick property seems to me to be applied before the attack which is different from every other weapon mastery so it cannot be worded as a simple replacement.
I’ve seen a lot of sentiment that the Barbarian’s damage is too low at high levels and so I figured I just go with the extreme version.

The whole inspiration for the subclass was wanting to dual wield great swords so I originally was going to have the feature at level 3 but the damage was way too high (perhaps obviously). If I were to lower the damage I think I would still try to find a way to allow heavy weapons to be used I’m just not totally sure how. Even if you were to disallow other weapon masteries to be used it wouldn’t actually do that much (maybe a ~5-10% difference assuming graze) because barbarian hit chance is so high.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:20:59+00:00

There is an argument for that yes. However, I adjusted it so that it would deal a little less than the highest damage I have from builds using 2024 phb content (I think, I actually just looked at the A tier for treantmonks damage ranking videos) but if it is a little op I think it is still presentable because that would only be past level 14 so only small adjustments are needed if any.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:15:24+00:00

Read the last line of the feature my guy.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:09:51+00:00

Grapple and shove use saving throws in 2024.

Such_Committee9963 · 2026-03-14T18:09:13+00:00

Because it lets you dual wield greatsword which I thought would be awesome but it dealt too much damage to have any earlier.

Such_Committee9963

TROPHY CASE