D&D 5e ban-a-thon continued
5. Fighter
Okay, so 5th spot actually requires some thought.
On the caster side, Druid, Bard, and Sorcerer are all pretty good, but don't necessarily stand out next to each other. There's also warlock, which is a really common dip for Bard and Sorcerer. Warlock and Sorcerer have one of those interesting standoffs you sometimes see in ban-a-thons where they're the last two easy ways to access the shield spell, so when one of them goes, probably the other one goes right afterwards. That said...I'm not seeing an obvious weak link that would dramatically lower the power level of parties if it was removed here. Dipping hexblade warlock for medium armor is popular, but dipping a level of Artificer would be an easy enough replacement.
But meanwhile, on the martial side, there is a dream team that I think I want to break up, and that dream team is Echo Knight Fighter + Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. You can recklessly attack through your echo while being nowhere close to a target. And then Ancestral Guardian Barbarian will make that enemy basically harmless at attacking anyone other than you while you're out of range (the enemy has disadvantage to attack anyone but you, AND if they hit, the party member gets resistance to the damage too LOL).
Now, I mean, is the ban Barbarian, is the ban Fighter? I think it's Fighter. For one thing, Echo Knight is probably the real power behind the build here (infinitely spawning echos, free teleports, a 7th level feature that's really good for scouting). For another thing, Fighter has a lot more scope for other builds, like fighter still can do archer builds, which Barb cannot. Fighter's now the only easy way to get a fighting style, and some fighting styles are very good (like Archery fighting style). 1 level dip of fighter is not a bad dip on mages. Some mages even take 2 level dips for action surge. Action Surge is good on martial builds too.
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I suppose I should make a note on Druid, cause like...I don't know if a typical RPGDL reader would object in this way, but there are random people on the internet who will say things like "conjure animals outdamages any martial in D&D" and like...it's not like there aren't calculations to back that up, but I calculate slightly differently and I'd like to explain my calculations real quick.
Conjure animals damage is a lot worse if you go by the Jeremy Crawford tweet where the DM picks the animals (if we just assume the DM randomly rolls for animals among CR 1/4 beasts in the monster manual). I'm also making an assumption slightly different from the rest of the internet which is that you get some basic magic items.
Like...let me do a very basic level 11 fighter with no subclass using crossbow expert, sharpshooter, and 20 DEX. Variant human or custom lineage. With a +2 hand crossbow because that's the level when I said they'd get up to +2 magic weapons.
To hit the fighter has +4 from proficiency, +2 from archery fighting style, +5 from DEX, +2 from their hand crossbow. So...+13 to hit. They will take -5 to hit for sharpshooter, so that will drop down to +8 to hit. Let's say they're facing...18 AC; that AC seems reasonable, given the level and the +2 weapons. 55% chance to hit,
By comparison, a lot of CR 1/4 beasts have +4 to hit (Axe Beak, Giant Lizard) and some have +3 to hit (Boar, Giant Frog). But let's assume your DM is rolling on a table of beasts to decide what spawns, and you get something above average like a Draft Horse--+6 to hit, 9 damage. Excellent.
Fighter with no subclass not using action surge is dealing 45.8 damage per turn.
Conjure Animals with 8 Draft Horses is dealing 34.4 damage per turn.
And then if you low roll on the animal, the DM rolls randomly for an animal and gets something mildly below-average like Giant Lizards, then we're talking 20 damage per turn from 8 giant lizards.
Now, granted, Conjure Animals can be upcast for 16 animals out of a 5th level slot, so with a relative highroll like Draft Horses yeah, now that's 69 damage per turn. And 40 damage with a relative lowroll like Giant Lizards. But also...I've watched Conjure Animals in action in high level games--AoE damage happens, the animals die. You also need to be specifically Shepherd Druid or you'll do half damage to some percentage of monsters.
And...we could start adding in stuff like...Bless despite banning paladin and cleric still isn't that hard to get, either from Fey Touched or from Divine Soul Sorcerer. And Bless gets more value buffing a single fighter than it does buffing 3/8 of a Conjure Animals spell.
Or we could consider that some enemies fly--presumably your DM isn't so strict with conjure animals that they will give you cows against a flying dragon, presumably they'll pick randomly between flying beasts in the monster manual--Giant Owls, Giant Bats, or Swarms of Bats, but all three of those deal pretty bad damage, so your damage will always be low-ish vs flying enemies.
We could also consider subclasses for the fighter, we could factor in stuff like Action Surge.
And then there's just party diversity to consider--one of the roles of a martial character in a party is to bail the party out if there's anti-magic stuff--like an anti-magic field, or like a monster that has some level of magic immunity. And a lot of that stuff does stop conjure animals.
This isn't to say that Druids can't deal good damage with conjure animals. Druids can absolutely do good damage, even with my extra assumptions.
But if you relied exclusively on Druids and not martial characters to deal damage, the party would have some real weaknesses--some real fights where they would really struggle. Flying enemies, anti-magic fields, enemies with limited magic immunity, enemies that can center AoE damage on themselves.
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6. Warlock
So okay, what's going on with martials at this point? Barbarians do the most damage, and soak more hits than Rogues and Monks usually, but they're mostly limited to melee. And they can't concentrate on spells while raging, which is noteworthy--you can't dip a couple levels of say, druid, to concentrate on pass without trace with a barbarian build, but a rogue or a monk sure could do that.
Monks and Rogues can both go ranged, which...ranged physical attackers are worth having. Rogues deal a bit more damage than monks by going Elven Accuracy, and then using Steady Aim to get advantage every turn. Although gunner monks can technically sink a lot of ki into Focused Aim to pull ahead on damage, but with small ki investments it's a bit lower on average.
I suppose there's also Barb/Rogue multiclasses to consider (Rogue is a better exit multiclass for Barb than Monk is).
Artificer probably also pops into consideration at this point. They get extra attack, they hit things. Hmm...ok well actually, running some numbers gunner monk and steady aim rogues should out-damage battle smith artificers by a decent amount. But artificers come with some party support, and they're kinda tanky so that's nice.
Mmm...It's not clear that losing any one of these would hurt all that much to lose though.
What about the casters?
...I am side-eyeing one combo on the caster side, which is Eldritch Blast plus quicken Eldritch Blast, which does actually pull into the lead for ranged damage at level 11 when Eldritch Blast gets the third beam (pull into the lead in terms of damage compared to ranged rogues, monks, etc). This is with no hex or hexblade's curse or anything like that, so you can be concentrating on a real spell while you do this--maybe a Tasha's summon with more ranged damage--Aberrant Mind Sorcerer gets Summon Aberration for example. I mean, it's not free, but 2 sorcery points a turn can be sustained for quite a while if you convert sorcery points to spell slots, the range is good, and it comes with some utility (repelling blast).
Yeah, I mean, I don't think I necessarily made an error banning fighter first, the echo knight combo is still very unique, but this combo it is starting to stand out a little now.
And...as mentioned earlier, the moment we ban one of Sorcerer/Warlock, the other one probably goes next, cause they'd be the last easy access to the shield spell.
Sorcerer without Warlock...you would just dip a level in...probably Artificer instead for medium armor and shields. I suppose Druid also an option if your DM is nice about offering non-metal armor or isn't super stringent about enforcing the "druids will not wear metal armor". The main thing you would lose is access to a strong at-will option in Eldritch Blast, but you would pick up more spell slots. But also worth noting, Bard would also lose access to Eldritch Blast and probably its favourite dip target for getting medium armor and shields and access to the shield spell. Swords and Valor bard in particular basically would not want to focus on weapon attacks at all with no hexblade dip. You also wouldn't be able to be a mono-class warlock, which...isn't nothing, Geenie Warlocks are pretty good, Hexblade Warlocks are kind-of like fighters, and those just got themselves banned.
Warlock without Sorcerer...there's basically no access to metamagic, but that's not necessarily a dealbreaker. Divine Soul Sorcerer is still a pretty good one-level dip for anyone with spell slots who doesn't have the shield spell (lets you pick up shield, and bless, and the 1st level DSS feature which is a once-per-rest +5 to a saving throw). If you're going primarily sorcerer, I will say I think Clockwork Soul Sorcerer is probably overall better than any official Bard, just gets so many more spells prepared than any bard, and with Wizard banned sorcerer in general gains a lot of uniqueness from Wizard spells like Web and Haste and Fireball. (These are available from other classes like Artificer, and some Circle of the Land Druid subclasses but the opportunity cost of getting them from those methods is much higher). If for some reason you really want Spirit Guardians, Divine Soul Sorcer is probably the best way to grab that, though I don't see an obvious build where the party would suffer without spirit guardians.
Interestingly Warlock and Sorcerer have a lot of overlap--like one of the things sorcerer does that Bard does not is AoE damage like fireball which is now becoming relatively scarce with Wizard and Cleric banned. But warlock does that too.
That said, I think going back to a bit of utility discussion--Bard is still worth considering bringing with the current class limitations. It's a ritual caster, it has Leomund's Tiny Hut and Detect Magic; yeah, you have to prepare them but better than wasting a feat on them. Bard also has skill checks and expertise. Bard protects your saving throws a bit. And if you have a bard in your party, you probably don't bring a sorcerer (too similar, not good for party diversity) but the bard could easily dip Warlock. Full warlock teamed with bard also arguably makes a bit more sense than full sorcerer teamed with bard (less overlap).
I think Warlock is probably the link that hurts the jenga tower the most here.
7. Sorcerer
OK, so I predicted whichever of Sorcerer/Warlock went first, the other one would go right afterwards. Am I still sticking with that?
Mmm...sorcerer is a pretty good 1 level dip on a Bard or a Druid, gets CON saving throws, the shield spell, and a subclass (usually divine soul on a 1 level dip). Whereas dipping the other way around, sorcerer dipping druid or Bard...probably not.
This is in addition to a select few subclasses of Sorcerer like Clockwork Soul just having a lot more spells prepared and a lot more access to wizard spells than their Bard or Druid counterparts, so you might just want to bring a full Sorcerer anyway.
There are other ways to get the shield spell of course--3 level dips into artificer. Picking a specific race from monsters of the multiverse. But these are much more expensive.
Yeah, I think it's still Sorc next.
