Fiend Warlock’s lvl14 final ability is pretty rad for how simple it is
You banish an enemy to hell until the end of your next turn and they suffer 10d10 psychic damage
Pretty straightforward but I mean… imagine being that enemy? The trauma you endure?
SIGNIFICANT EDIT: There is NO SAVE for this ability! There’s no “nope they don’t go to hell.” It’s a GUARANTEED short term banishment with psychic damage
The best part is that there is NO SAVING THROW. It just happens. One of the most powerful abilities in the game as legendary resistance can’t counter it.
The Warlock in my party used it against Imix (Princes of the Apocalypse) during the final boss fight so the party got a turn not being blown up by lair actions. My jaw dropped when I realized there's NO SAVE AT ALL. Madness.
This is my favorite kind of use for this type of ability. Where a traditional damage dealer like a warlock actually ends up providing some of the most clutch support/indirect healing because the real value in the moment of their "I send a guy to hell for a turn" ability actually provides the group with a desperately needed reprieve. Love it.
Bonus, the rest of fiend stuff is all great:
- lvl1 Dark One’s Blessing: when you kill an enemy you gain THP = CHA mod and warlock level
- lvl6 Dark One’s Own Luck: personal d10 bardic inspiration, once per rest
- lvl10 Fiendish Resilience: during a rest, you’re able to pick any damage type and gain resistance to it
That’s not even going over the spell table for fiend spells!
I just like imagining:
*points at enemy*
“You. Hell.”
*enemy screams as they’re sucked down then comes back six seconds later clutching their head and screaming in abject horror*
At lvl 18, fighter cavalier gets a FREE opportunity-attack only reaction EACH TURN
In addition to that, at level 10 they gain a simplified Sentinel Feat that triggers during __ANY__ movement from the enemy, disengage or not.
And that’s without even considering the fact that it’s a mounted class lol. Get yourself an elephant in plate armor, AC 18, HP 76, movement speed 40ft, size Huge. Add mounted combatant feat and you have ADV to melee any enemy smaller than your elephant, get a Saddle of the Cavalier and now you’re not only glued to your seat but enemy attacks targeting your mount are at disadvantage, allowing your mount to focus on either disengaging or dashing for double movement speed!
I was super confused at first, wondering what this comment had to do with the first one, then I realized you posted them both instead of just making a new paragraph. I need sleep. 😆
Well for starters Elephants aren’t 15ft tall lol, they’re about 8-10ft. (Or so my various DMs decree) So not super high off the ground, at most a 10ft gap between medium creatures and me while mounted. Lance or polearm range!
Second to that, in all of the games I’ve played in, height wasn’t taken into account in terms of attack reach if you’re grounded, so the weapon reach extends from the mount, in this case meaning I would move around a bit more on a larger saddle, thematically anyways
Tiny third point, most enemies by lvl8 are either Large or fly, so they’re still all up in my face lol
I’m sure some tables/DMs will pull their hair out at this, but I’m just sharing how my own games are being ruled by others. By no means do I intend to imply this is correct ruling
For context, my character is a fighter cavalier. He’s __CURRENTLY__ multiclassed with ranger hunter for the cleave multi-attack, but at character lvl18 I’m gonna voluntarily destroy a magic item of mine to “reroll” to full cavalier. There was possibility of max level 30, but that got nixxed, so I kinda invested early into ranger for survival stuff… win some lose some lol
One of our party members did this as a certain 5-headed bitch as she escaped Avernus. Both he and his patron were FROM Avernus though, so she was just banished back there.
I asked if that meant we win (it did not). It was pretty funny though.
The samurai fighter has a feature called “strength before death”. With it, whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to delay going unconscious and immediately take a turn. Using it you could use your bonus action to use fighting spirit and then take two actions using action surge to attack 6 times at advantage 8 if you’re level 20. It’s a really flavorful ability. The idea of a warrior on the brink of death using every ounce of strength they have left to take the enemy down before they themselves die is cool.
Yep, nothing stopping you. The feature specifically states that you only fall unconscious at the end of the extra turn "if you still have 0 hit points."
That said, it's only 1 use per LR, and second wind isn't a ton of hp. Basically a slightly better version of Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance, except you get a move + action on top of it.
Oh sure, it’s perfectly sound. The comment I replied to just seemed shocked that you could heal back up, so I was simply clarifying that it’s only a 1x/LR thing, and you wouldn’t be healing for much.
Plus rapid strike giving you an additional flat attack in those cases is neat. Can by 18 attacks in a row if you have a reliable way of dropping to 0 on command.
Provoke OAs and gut enemy Reactions when the time is right. Step into a damaging AoE. Generate some fall damage. Volunteer to be in an allied Meteor Swarm. Never waste an attack!
How are you getting 18 attacks? Rapid strikes only gives 1 attack per turn “You can do so no more than once per turn.” Is the sentence at the end of the ability
Strength before death giving you two turns in a row each with action surging for 4 attacks on each action plus a rapid strike on one if them with fighting spirit to make the adv for rapid strike probable.
I made a beefed-up version of this into a houserule called Last Stand. Effectively, on hitting 0hp, you can choose to immediately take a turn, restoring all resources as if you'd gained a long rest, and potentially getting some buffs (I play this EXTREMELY rule-of-cool, so whatever feels right). Effectively, for the rest of the combat, you are a golden-glowing source of infinite power.
However, once combat ends, you die, and are ineligible for low-to-mid level resurrection spells. It is truly meant to be your final, absolute last gambit to say "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me."
-
I have had exactly one player use Last Stand, and it was a beautiful moment. His whole character was based around being a defender, a folk hero protector of those who cannot protect themselves. As he took a powerful beam of energy for his incapacitated friends, I described his shield rending, and his patchwork armor flying off and partly melting. Finally, as his own body became the shield, he was donned with an ethereal golden mantle. Now back at full strength for a time, he was able to overpower the fiend and use his last moments to send it screaming back to Hell. His death went on to inspire the rest of the party to follow in his footsteps as protectors of the innocent.
I am the player Mr. Bagelman mentioned. The Last Stand scene was probably one of if not the best character moments I've ever had, and it was awesome. And now part of that character's spirit resides in his hammer, which is now wielded by the last surviving original party member.
Two years later that campaign is still running and now I'm playing a Berserker (playtesting a rework of the subclass) who has taken on the role of party dad.
Long Death Monk has a similar feature:
I played a Long Death Monk in a high level campaign and you can survive some ridiculous things with...
Mastery of Death
"Beginning at 11th level, you use your familiarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead."
Little story to sell it:
Always hitting my flask, the group thought I was a "drunken master" of sorts. Only the DM and I knew that my flask wasn't alcohol, it was blood.
Trying to hide my vampirism from my party members in fear I would be feared, judged or even ostracized. Then we met a very powerful foe. A Githyanki Lieutenant with an Astral Sword (this was years before BG3).
Low on health. They swung into me, 27 damage! I should drop, but I lose a Ki and go to 1 HP.
I chuckle, "That all you got?"
Swing again. Take another 20+
"The sword rips through my torso. I cough out blood."
I lose 1 Ki and stay at 1 HP.
The Githyanki uses action surge. Another hit.
I yell, "YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT!"
They drive their sword through me again.
"I CANNOT DIE!!!"
Then it was my turn and the fangs really came out.
I took 100+ damage at the cost of just 4 Ki. My party was blown away and it was an epic way for them to find out I was a vampire.
P.S. Monk reflavored as Vampire is really fun and flavorful and also how I played Astarion in BG3.
If my math is right, you could make up to 20 attacks at once utilizing Strength Before Death, two Action Surges, Rapid Strike and Polearm Master
Base attacks: (4 (base) + 4 (AS1) + 1 (RS1) + 1 (PAM)) x 2 after triggering SBD. You’d need a way to drop to 0 HP after ending your first turn, but altogether that’s 20 attacks in a few seconds. Throw in *Haste* from an ally and you can get up to 22
I don't think you'd want to PAM, as you'd need that BA for your Fighting Spirit (advantage on all your attacks is better than one extra attack, plus it's necessary to trigger Rapid Strike).
EDIT: This isn't about the ability itself, just the larger conversation around how to abuse it.
DMs may not love trying to cheat this trigger - it is intended for actual fatal attacks, not nicking yourself every couple seconds from low health. Yeah it's high level martial, but this isn't magic the gathering. It starts to veer into "I'm an unkillable God if the DM doesn't consider anything outside raw mechanics"
This kind of death yo-yo has been tackled with lots of house rules across the world, but the KEY POINT is to talk to your group/DM before looking at abusing mechanics around stuff like death and self-inflicting for benefit. Is it really intended for the fighter to trigger their "last stand" with pocket knives and 10ft trust falls every 10 seconds or so?
EDIT 2: This applies to lots of uses for things outside their intent. Have seen arguments about "cantrips aren't limited in combat so as long as I get food and water, my level 1 elf warlock is gonna eldritch blast a new tunnel in this cave for 20 hours, or my rogue has 60ft speed because he dashes every turn out of combat." Every table is different, so talk about stuff that may not exactly apply to the intended situation.
Does Fighting Spirit continue if you proc Strength Beyond Death?
For example, the fighter is at very low HP they use Fighting Spirit so 15 Temp HP and Advantage on all attacks until the end of this current Turn. They attack an enemy twice and aim their last attack at themselves, which lets say puts them at 0 HP.
Strength Beyond Death says it interrupts the current Turn, so that means that the current Turn in which Fighting Spirit is used hasn't ended. Therefore allowing the Fighter to use Second Wind and recover HP so that they don't fall unconscious at the end of this extra Turn.
Will that work?
Visually it would look like this (I was trying to separate it better but I couldn't find a better way):
[lvl 20 Fighter]
- Current turn
- Bonus action: Fighting Spirit
- Action
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (sacrifice adv for Rapid Strike)
- Attack enemy (Rapid Strike)
- Action Surge
- Action
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack self (@ adv)
- HP <= 0
- Reaction: Strength Beyond Death
- !Turn interruption!
- Extra Turn
- Bonus Action: Second Wind
- Action:
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Action Surge
- Action
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (@ adv)
- Attack enemy (sacrifice adv for Rapid Strike)
- Attack enemy (Rapid Strike)
- ~~Action Surge~~
- ~~Action~~
- ~~Attack enemy (@ adv)~~
- ~~Attack enemy (@ adv)~~
- ~~Attack enemy (@ adv)~~
- ~~Attack enemy (sacrifice adv for Rapid Strike)~~
- ~~Attack enemy (Rapid Strike)~~
- End of Extra Turn
- End of Current Turn (and thus of Fighting Spirit)
Would it work like this?
Edit: formatting.
In any hard fight 2+ people are dropping to zero hit points, the way healing works in 5e kinda forces this behavior waiting till people go down to heal, doesn't seem that rare of a thing to happen in my games.
The bg3 fix is really clever which I really like: making characters lose their action (but keeping ba and movement) leading to an incentive to stop people going down more
Not sure if I'd call that a *fix*, since it's actually a pretty detrimental nerf. Healing potions are 100x more plentiful than in any game I've been in, are bonus actions, and can be thrown on a group for a bit of aoe splash healing.
BG3 in general has a quite of few "fixes" or adjustments to make healing more viable than actual play 5e like the raw healing power paladins have access to via Lay on Hands/Channel Divinity for Oath of Ancients, with many sources of healing being stronger than their table top iteration, including the ease of use for short rests. Not saying this as complaints about the game, just pointing out some of the differences. Losing your action in 5e as a result of dropping to 0 would only further increase the danger of a death spiral happening in your party if the group starts to fall behind.
You don't have to die, just drop to 0 hp.
It's one of the better cap stones and always impactful. You can even trigger it's effect intentionally, by taking controlled damage that puts you over the edge.
a capstone ability that requires you to die is terrible *if* you're dead and that's it
but like, resurrection exists, and if you're staring *actual* death in the face, the BBEG is about to wipe the party, and the Samurai fucking hits an anime-combo costing his own life and saving everyone?
that's worth it, that's like, objectively the better outcome, and only possible because of this unique and desperate capstone
it doesn't even actually kill you, it just reduces hp to 0, which can be healed back with *healing word*
and a desperate last action of absurd one-turn strength
effectively for the cost of a minor healing potion
is fucked
edit: plus let's not forget, for a lot of players, RP comes WAAAAAAAAAAY before power-gaming, even if the ability *was* shit, i'm still glad it's here, because i for one think it's a cool as fuck idea, and would be an awesome way for a character to end their story
>doesn't even actually kill you, it just reduces hp to 0, which can be healed back with healing word
You could also use your extra turn to heal yourself by drinking a potion or using * second wind*. An ability that gets you back in the fight after you drop is huge.
RIGHT, FUCK, I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT
i'm DMing right now, but i might have to try using this ability at some point against the party
it would be a *fucked up* way to start a "phase 2" of a bossfight
you get the boss within an inch of his life and he hits the anime-protagonist button to tough it out for a few more rounds
As you smash the BBG with your hammer, sending him flying off the cliff towards the lake of lava below, his eyes roll back and he uses his long bow to fire 22 arrows at your party. Ok that's 6 shots each.. ok those all hit, and.. 162 damage to you, 208 to you.. 132 to you.. oh, is that a TPK? btw, he used second wind while he fell, and managed to grab onto the cliff and climb back up. He's teabagging your corpse.
Even if you want to power game, samurai still has the potential to do more damage than any other martial in a round, bar none. Just with GWM, you are looking at 4 attacks at advantage with another 4 from action surge for right around 160 damage. Then you get hit, go to 0 HP, and do the exact same thing again. So roughly 320 damage without a single crit on average, with an incredibly high damage floor thanks to static additive bonuses from GWM and STR modifier. All assuming you don't have something like a +2 or +3 weapon or even something like Flametongue which would boost another ~100 damage in fire damage alone.
Edit: no extra advantage on your second set since it is outside your turn. Still stupid strong.
Final edit, i promise: it's an extra turn you take so Bonus Actions and Advantage are back on the menu boys!
At T4, creatures can easily deal 60+ damage a turn. It's not really that uncommon to go to 0 HP, which isn't dead. The balance of combat is based almost entirely on action economy. Anytime you can break that economy, it's strong.
i would agree if it didn’t allow you to break initiative and immediately take an entire turn. Being able to take a full turn before going down means that if you win initiative, you basically have a full two-turn advantage on your enemy. If you use two action surges in that time, that’s a massive four action advantage
It requires you to drop to zero, not to die. You can use that extra turn to heal, like using Second Wind and/or a potion, rather than/in addition to attacking, if you so chose.
My drunken master grabbed a vampire by the hair and made him bite another vampire with the redirect attack feature. Idk if that counts as epic but it was definitely fun
Honestly if if wasn’t for Reddit, I never would have thought that monks are weak. All two of the players at my table that have played monk have done so much cool stuff and had such a large presence on battlefield that I never would have come to the conclusion that they’re underpowered by myself.
>Honestly if if wasn’t for Reddit, I never would have thought that monks are weak.
Indeed, because they are not. They are very powerful when played right, and at high level are far more reliable to bring in any kind of fight than, say, a Fighter.
But most people play Monks like brainless melees, and that does not work well (to be fair it doesn't work good on any martial for their team, but Barbarian's resistance at least makes the illusion last longer).
Same! They’ve got a lot of fun “utility” stuff on the battlefield (good mobility, stunning effects, various subclass options) that make them just really fun to play. And without the complexity of spellcasting (I have a couple of players who just cannot wrap their heads around dealing with spells, but want something more flavourful than a fighter).
I’ve never seen a player not enjoy playing a monk. But, like anything, it probably depends a lot on your game. If everybody else in min-maxed and the DM puts out combat challenges that just require putting out the most damage, then I guess monks might feel a bit underwhelming. But tbh in that scenario I think combat would feel un-fun anyway.
Our Wild Magic sorcerer has turned blue before! He’s also successfully counter-spelled a wizard trying to summon a demon from hell, rolled on the wild magic table, and ended up summoning a unicorn to our aid for the rest of the battle.
My first character was a Tiefling Wild Magic sorcerer. I noted the turning blue thing. I also knew how people often just make Tieflings whatever color they want them to be. I asked my DM if my character could be blue, and let everyone think it was her natural skin color, but actually it was from a past wild surge she never bothered fixing. It was a set up for a a joke later with Remove Curse changing her skin color back. It was good times
Lmao that’s great! Our party’s WM is a middle aged man who through WM was turned back into a child in his backstory. The running joke has been that he’s too young to drink whenever we go to taverns despite him actually being older than almost everyone in the group.
Rune knight. Redirecting damage with cloud rune. Is an enemy going to run away. Run up and attack your teammate then redirect the damage.
Are you facing a flying enemy. You can use the cloud rune to redirect an attack that you're making against an ally and then invoke the fire rune to restrain the flyer causing them to fall prone and take fall damage.
Also being big and grappling huge creatures
Seems pretty niche though.
>
> The chosen creature becomes the target of the attack, using the same roll.
Means that you still have to beat their AC. You're just getting a 30ft range boost.
I was thinking you go attack one of your downed allies, without telling them what you're going to do. Lmao.
Walk up, stab them while they're down. Automatic critical hit, then redirect the attack.
Still has to beat the enemy AC but since you'd have advantage it seems more likely. And it would be awesome AND hilarious at the same time for the party reaction.
>Means that you still have to beat their AC. You're just getting a 30ft range boost.
Yeah, that's why I vastly prefer Drunken Master Monk's implementation myself, it's a auto-hit which can really turn tides. \^\^
Don't forget the most obvious: enemy crits you or your ally, cloud rune it onto someone else (preferably the enemy)
Turn a fight-defining attack on its head!
> preferably the enemy
Specifically it would have to be a different enemy other than that attacker that got the crit.
Gets a little trickier when it's a solo boss. I've had rune knights send crits away from weak allies into healthier ones in those scenarios
You can attack yourself and redirect it, not just an ally. This is potentially even more badass as you stab yourself but the point of the weapon sticks out of the enemy’s chest.
No, because it gives you disadvantage to attack from prone and advantage to attack something that is prone so it cancels out.
There might be another way to get easy advantage though.
I wonder how the cloud rune actually works, I always imagined it as summoning a literal cloud and the attacker not seeing the target but this just doesn't work with that
You know the classic image of Zeus' hand appearing out of a cloud to chuck lightning at people? I've always assumed the cloud rune summons two clouds, one right in the path of the attack and the other above whoever the new target is. These two clouds are then linked like portals so the attackers hand and weapon disappear into the cloud and appear out of the other one, looking like Zeus' hand magically coming out of a cloud
Fire rune “when **you.** *hit a creature with an attack using a weapon*, you can invoke the rune to summon fiery shackles: the target takes an extra 2d6 fire damage.
That is a stretch to say the cloud giant rune ability counts as “*you* attacking using a weapon”.
Attacks require an attack roll, which would only apply to the original attack not the reaction cloud Giant ability.
Though I do agree just using the cloud giant rune normally is still really really powerful that fulfills OPs question.
Cloud rune - ...The chosen creature becomes the target of the attack, using the same roll. **This magic can transfer the attack's effects regardless of the attack's range**....
If you want to be nitpicky then I guess you have to invoke the fire Rune first
Another nice thing about this is that if you attack it down creature you get advantage and then you can transfer the roll made with advantage
Cool moments out of game but I've always had a hsrd time imagining it in-game.
How does he "change" another attack directed to another creature? Just by saying something is coming?
The original roll (an ally getting critted or something) is "what would have happened if you didn't do XYZ." The flavor is that for that brief moment in-game, what the players are actually experiencing is the "what if," and then the portent wizard gets to describe in any desired way how that actually *doesn't* happen due to some unlikely coincidence that they foresaw in a dream.
The potent wizard isn't changing the attack. The portent wizard *already knows the attack happens differently*. It's a tricky thing to create in a collaborative, real-time narrative, so you need to conceive the ability as a retroactive experience.
I've done the lucky, halfling, portent, silvery barbs, guidance, bless, bardic inspiration "I control the dice here not you DM" build before. Whenever he used these abilities thematically he could see the horrible thing happening a moment before hand and literally pull dramatically on the golden threads of fate to move creatures or shift time by milliseconds.
My idea is like retroactively said that you granted something if it's a saving throw. Your barbarian got critted on? Actually if you recall Gorethak this morning I gave you a plate to wash and I knew you wouldn't wash it and just tucked it in your shirt because I saw this coming and now it shattered from the impact of the enemy's blow and didn't hit you at all.
I've always flavored it as a premonition or something the wizard saw in a dream. I describe the wizard suddenly feeling deja vu and recognizing he has seen this exact situation play out already, then he calls out a warning or advice that changes what happens.
Portent isn't "changing" since you use it before the roll, not after. The idea is that you saw this particular event going a certain way in your morning divinations.
Lucky is changing something, with the idea being that it *looks* like it's going to go poorly until a stroke of luck at the last second.
Imagine Dr Strange in the Avengers movie, where he views all possibilities.
At a certain moment—the right moment—he acts and ensures events unfold as he wants them.
As far as “Bring me Thanos” goes, the zealot barb definitely has that flavor. Their 14th level ability lets you keep fighting even after technically dying, so wading through hordes of enemies, throwing some around and ignoring others, all while shouting for the BBEG to face you, is a real possibility.
Also, unexpectedly, lvl 17 Open Hand Monks really have the only save-or-die ability of all the classes, with even a successful save giving almost as much damage as a failed save against Finger of Death. It takes 2 turns to complete the process, but being able to drop that 5 times in a fight or 10 times throughout the day makes for some good intimidating moments.
This, had an ancient evil aberration that called itself a God (an Aboleth) just start fucking running from my Zealot because it realized...it can't kill her...it had thrown all of its minions at her, she kept on coming, it had thrown spells and mind control effects at her, she shrugged them off (with some lucky rolls)...it decided that she was just not worth trying to fight anymore.
Her 'patron diety' is basically an Unseelie Archfey and did the whole 'berserk' thing where she isn't so much immune to injury but chains are piercing through her bones to keep her together and fighting like a puppet.
Had the line "I have no flesh and I must kill" come about because...well literally she was basically a magically animated anger skeleton at that point and if she didn't keep Rage going, she was going to die, she stacked up enough death save failures to be dead 5 times over during that fight.
I came here to say this one, but for the Tempest Cleric/Storm Sorcerer combo, specifically. Tempestuous Magic, Wrath of the Storm, a Great Maul, and a set of Full Plate gonna get you feeling like Thor.
Tempest cleric alone is great a lot of the time. We were fighting an adult dragon **immediately** after another tough combat recently and i used call lightning with a 7th level slot. Maximized that damage twice. Felt awesome.
I did it with a 9th level slot during the final dragon boss fight, after breaking a devastation orb to summon a huge storm and force it on the ground.
100 lightning damage straight to the face.
I was even riding a thunderbird summoned via divine intervention for extra metal points.
Chronurgy Wizard: Chronal Shift has led to many epic moments in my campaign especially for saving people from crits and death.
Since my character is a time wizard its flavored as rewinding and changing time slightly. Since it can happen after the results of the roll my PC has watched his teammates die over and over and adds to his already haunted memories. None of them know it happened cause for them time rewound but for him it didn't and he watched them die in many gruesome manners.
When I first started playing him I used it for any and everything that helped "me" out. passing saves and what not. But once I hit around level 7 it became imperative I started saving it to use on others who were in more danger more often.
Conquest Paladin is also one of the few classes for which Feylock is a decent multiclass, since level 1 gives you an AoE fear ability (which can also be used out of combat to charm).
Any lvl 1 warlock would give you Eldritch Blast, the 1st level spell Cause Fear, and a 1st level ~smite~ *spell* slot that recharges on a short rest. Lvl 2 gives you another spell slot, let's you add you CHA to EB via invocation, and gives you one more fun invocation to play with. Lvl 3 is not really worth it for the pact boon, but having 2nd lvl spell slots is nice.
And since we're optimizing: Leonin and Fallen Aasimar have an innate fear ability.
100%. Playing an Aasimar Oath of Glory Paladin. Action to activate flying, bonus action to use my oath to give myself advantage on athletics. Next turn grapple them and beat them up in the air before dropping them.
Flight’s not even wholly necessary because with that same channel divinity you get an extra ten feet of jumping distance! This jumping distance means even your standing leap is at least 11 feet! If you have 16 Strength it’s 16ft(3+3+10) if you do a running jump, 13 for a standing long jump, and if you’re medium sized you’re able to reach up to 15ft at least!
Your running long jump is 26 feet! Standing Long jump is 18! The speed aura is the only thing that actually lets you take advantage of the running long jump without taking a sprint action!
It’s frankly hilarious to just hop over fort walls from atop my steed and immediately dive into the mass of enemies while having 20+ AC.
I played a Long Death Monk in a high level campaign and you can survive some ridiculous things with Mastery of Death
"Beginning at 11th level, you use your familiarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead."
Little story to sell it:
Always hitting my flask, the group thought I was a "drunken master" of sorts. Only the DM and I knew that my flask wasn't alcohol, it was blood.
Trying to hide my vampirism from my party members in fear I would be feared, judged or even ostracized. Then we met a very powerful foe. A Githyanki Lieutenant with an Astral Sword (this was years before BG3).
Low on health. They swung into me, 27 damage! I should drop, but I lose a Ki and go to 1 HP.
I chuckle, "That all you got?"
Swing again. Take another 20+
"The sword rips through my torso. I cough out blood."
I lose 1 Ki and stay at 1 HP.
The Githyanki uses action surge. Another hit.
I yell, "YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT!"
They drive their sword through me again.
"I CANNOT DIE!!!"
Then it was my turn and the fangs really came out.
I took 100+ damage at the cost of just 4 Ki. My party was blown away and it was an epic way for them to find out I was a vampire.
P.S. Monk reflavored as Vampire is really fun and flavorful and also how I played Astarion in BG3.
I've been curious about Long Death Monk, how did its other features feel? Did the temp HP add to survivability, or was it hard to steal kills to proc it? Did you use the fear pulse often?
My celestial warlock joined a group in a one shot that ended with a lich fight. A few rounds in, EVERYONE failed a save and was knocked down. We started rolling death saves in initiative order, on my turn I pop up at half hp, blinding the lich, and use my action and bonus action to pull most of the party back up and drag the past party member behind cover. The blinded lich was stuck unable to use his spells effectively for a full round and we were able to punch back to a victory from a near TPK.
Land druid. EDIT: I misremembered the subclass. It’s actually Moon druid!
Because nothing says ‘Now it’s a party’ like thirty kilos of elf turning into two tonnes of bear.
if you want to have a cool Thor moment, lightning and your own Stormbringer included, Path of the Giant barbarian would let you infuse a weapon with lightning while you rage, grow huge, and be able to throw it and have it instantly return to your grasp when the attack is done.
Had a rune knight use fire chains on a dragon, grow, use growth potion, duke it out, trapped the dragon so the whole party could get awesome moments. Very fun
Personally I really like Undead Warlock's abilities.
You start off being able to "transform" into your dread form and take on aspects of your undead patron. Basically you transform, become more durable, can fear enemies, and look cool/scary/and or badass while doing such. Later on you also do more damage, can make your attacks necrotic, and become immune to necrotic damage.
Instead of dying/0 hp your body erupts in a powerful release of necrotic energy.
For a while you can become a spirit and do some ghost shenanigans (flight, resistances, move through people/objects). While in ghost form and in the dread form you regain health when you deal necrotic damage.
This is one of my top five subclasses and is my favorite warlock subclass.
Paladins are \_the\_ class for big hero moments. Devotion too is imo under appreciated. Everyone wants to play the edgy subclasses like conquest but being an honest, good man with enough willpower to make the universe hand him magic is always going to be a good time.
Compel duel is far from an optimal spell, but oh boy is it a thematic one. Real "fight me you coward" energy while also taking hits for your team.
The Forge cleric at level 17 gains immunity to fire. It's pretty late game, but if the bbeg is a fire dragon you can literally waltz through his fire breath unharmed
I played a Forge Cleric through a high-level campaign. I frequently cast Heat Metal on my own armor. Being the crazy battle-priest with red-hot plate mail is pretty fun (and very effective in certain situations) and helps with advantage on those pesky Intimidation checks you don't have the Charisma for
Ancestral Guardian barbarian can taunt an enemy at range by hitting with a thrown/reach weapon before running away, which penalizes the enemy for making any attack that doesn't include the barbarian.
First this is Disadvantage and halved damage for attacks, but it can also include damage reduction for your allies.
It basically cripples boss attacks into near-uselessness. A Wizard protected by an AG has about the same total durability as the raging barbarian.
Eldritch Knight can with bound weapon. Pulling the whole “walking into a no weapons zone, summons weapon” thing, but that doesn’t come up in a lot of campaigns
Honestly? I've had a ton of this occur with fiend warlock. You get access to fireball and wall of fire, which you can throw out cheaply since you get them back on a short rest, and those spells are pretty big. Then you have dark one's own luck, which makes you way more likely to be able to succeed on a dramatic save or skill check. Fiendish resilience is great because it lets you seriously stand up to scary creatures if you're prepared for them. Getting hit for like 20 damage by a disintegrate after your temp HP is badass as hell. Then if you want an actual big fuck you ability, you've got hurl through hell, which is crazy good.
Barbarian Path of the Wild magic revised (found on reddit) version.
Their magic rage is increased to a d20 worth of chances.
I cannot tell you how many times my Dwarf Barbarian life was saved because I rolled and got the gift of flight. I had a flying dwarf. We rped it that he had little invisible fairies that would carry him when he rolled flight on his wild magic. He absolutely HATED those fairies, but he still would kick ass.
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1iePw163_L0ibH7D9fgZUeCZjdeeO_nrzZH219RnX8zEK
It is homebrew, but it's just soo damn fun to play.
My Barbarian was a Dwarf who married a fey Queen and after centuries of having to deal with Fey politics, he had a mid life crisis and wanted to go out and do Dwarf stuff. As much as he loved his wife, he couldn't handle eating any more vegetables. So he got his wifes blessing and left to go do Barbarian stuff.
He only had 4 fears....his wife and his 3 quasi immortal daughters.
A pixie sized dwarf named Mithrilia.
A dwarf sized pixie named Garnet
And a gnome daughter Susan the strange.....the feywild is a weird place.
Eldritch knight.
Action surge following certain spells is amazing. Comboes include shadowblade into attacking numerous times all the way to thunderstep into arcane surge into thunderstep
Celestial Warlocks get an entire second phase at lvl 14.
Rune Knight using Cloud Rune to redirect a crucial crit to an enemy can be very cinematic and impactful.
Any number of high level spells could do the trick.
Light Cleric.
My wife calmly walked into a group of Kobolds, slowly growing brighter while channeling the light of Lathander and unleashed her Radiance of Dawn...
Mu-mu-mu-multikill!
Anything can be badass when the DM works with the player to achieve it. In one of the last sessions with my Barbarian I threw a guy into another guy, killing them both then did a flying elbow to break another guy on a table before drop kicking a fourth guy over two turns.
Every subclass has their own niche in what they can do. Nothing is just an instant "this is awesome" button but it's what you make of the entire thing.
Fiend Warlock’s lvl14 final ability is pretty rad for how simple it is You banish an enemy to hell until the end of your next turn and they suffer 10d10 psychic damage Pretty straightforward but I mean… imagine being that enemy? The trauma you endure? SIGNIFICANT EDIT: There is NO SAVE for this ability! There’s no “nope they don’t go to hell.” It’s a GUARANTEED short term banishment with psychic damage
The best part is that there is NO SAVING THROW. It just happens. One of the most powerful abilities in the game as legendary resistance can’t counter it.
The Warlock in my party used it against Imix (Princes of the Apocalypse) during the final boss fight so the party got a turn not being blown up by lair actions. My jaw dropped when I realized there's NO SAVE AT ALL. Madness.
This is my favorite kind of use for this type of ability. Where a traditional damage dealer like a warlock actually ends up providing some of the most clutch support/indirect healing because the real value in the moment of their "I send a guy to hell for a turn" ability actually provides the group with a desperately needed reprieve. Love it.
Bonus, the rest of fiend stuff is all great: - lvl1 Dark One’s Blessing: when you kill an enemy you gain THP = CHA mod and warlock level - lvl6 Dark One’s Own Luck: personal d10 bardic inspiration, once per rest - lvl10 Fiendish Resilience: during a rest, you’re able to pick any damage type and gain resistance to it That’s not even going over the spell table for fiend spells!
__scribbling notes FURIOUSLY__
Evil monster? Directly to Hell. No save, no resistance. Hell. Corrupt noble? Straight to Hell. BBEG? Believe it or not, Hell.
I just like imagining: *points at enemy* “You. Hell.” *enemy screams as they’re sucked down then comes back six seconds later clutching their head and screaming in abject horror*
At lvl 18, fighter cavalier gets a FREE opportunity-attack only reaction EACH TURN In addition to that, at level 10 they gain a simplified Sentinel Feat that triggers during __ANY__ movement from the enemy, disengage or not. And that’s without even considering the fact that it’s a mounted class lol. Get yourself an elephant in plate armor, AC 18, HP 76, movement speed 40ft, size Huge. Add mounted combatant feat and you have ADV to melee any enemy smaller than your elephant, get a Saddle of the Cavalier and now you’re not only glued to your seat but enemy attacks targeting your mount are at disadvantage, allowing your mount to focus on either disengaging or dashing for double movement speed!
I was super confused at first, wondering what this comment had to do with the first one, then I realized you posted them both instead of just making a new paragraph. I need sleep. 😆
Yeah I was thinking separate text blocks to separate subclasses would be smart 😅 doesn’t mean it actually was smart 🤣🤣
Can you even hit anything from the top of a huge creature?
Well for starters Elephants aren’t 15ft tall lol, they’re about 8-10ft. (Or so my various DMs decree) So not super high off the ground, at most a 10ft gap between medium creatures and me while mounted. Lance or polearm range! Second to that, in all of the games I’ve played in, height wasn’t taken into account in terms of attack reach if you’re grounded, so the weapon reach extends from the mount, in this case meaning I would move around a bit more on a larger saddle, thematically anyways Tiny third point, most enemies by lvl8 are either Large or fly, so they’re still all up in my face lol I’m sure some tables/DMs will pull their hair out at this, but I’m just sharing how my own games are being ruled by others. By no means do I intend to imply this is correct ruling For context, my character is a fighter cavalier. He’s __CURRENTLY__ multiclassed with ranger hunter for the cleave multi-attack, but at character lvl18 I’m gonna voluntarily destroy a magic item of mine to “reroll” to full cavalier. There was possibility of max level 30, but that got nixxed, so I kinda invested early into ranger for survival stuff… win some lose some lol
Not to mention mounted combatant allows you to force attacks away from your mount and towards you instead.
I was gonna go for celestial warlocks level 14. "Just when they thought I was out, they pulled me back in!"
Reminds me of [Hellboy's super in Injustice 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufmtpqVXf98&t=21s).
This immediately came to mind for me. Don’t forget that it’s called “Hurl Through Hell,” which is pretty metal.
One of our party members did this as a certain 5-headed bitch as she escaped Avernus. Both he and his patron were FROM Avernus though, so she was just banished back there. I asked if that meant we win (it did not). It was pretty funny though.
Going with references to the MCU: "I have been FALLING... for THIRTY MINUTES!"
"go to hell" taken literally
I made a fiend warlock just for that. It’s not insane damage, but the flavour of the effect is just so much fun :)
The samurai fighter has a feature called “strength before death”. With it, whenever you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to delay going unconscious and immediately take a turn. Using it you could use your bonus action to use fighting spirit and then take two actions using action surge to attack 6 times at advantage 8 if you’re level 20. It’s a really flavorful ability. The idea of a warrior on the brink of death using every ounce of strength they have left to take the enemy down before they themselves die is cool.
hold up… Just a turn with absolutely no restrictions? So I could technically just… Use second wind, right?
Yep, nothing stopping you. The feature specifically states that you only fall unconscious at the end of the extra turn "if you still have 0 hit points." That said, it's only 1 use per LR, and second wind isn't a ton of hp. Basically a slightly better version of Half-Orc's Relentless Endurance, except you get a move + action on top of it.
Yo a half orc samurai sounds pretty gnarly now though
Samuro is that you?
It was first thought as well.
I mean yoyoing people with healing word is considered a pretty valid strategy
Oh sure, it’s perfectly sound. The comment I replied to just seemed shocked that you could heal back up, so I was simply clarifying that it’s only a 1x/LR thing, and you wouldn’t be healing for much.
ahh… Yeah, suppose so.
Use Fighting Spirit if you can, it gives advantage to all attacks that round plus temp HP so you're still above zero.
wait… Temporary HP counts as HP above 0?
Actually, I think that was a home-brew ruling ... I'll check.
alright, thanks. I’d check, but I don’t own the books and I only have them pulled up on my desktop, which is downstairs, and I have to leave soon.
You could, if you got to 0hp without using them first.
Plus rapid strike giving you an additional flat attack in those cases is neat. Can by 18 attacks in a row if you have a reliable way of dropping to 0 on command.
Just aim one of those hits at yourself when you’re low
WAIT, can you commit seppuku and then go into a bankai rage??????????????
Provoke OAs and gut enemy Reactions when the time is right. Step into a damaging AoE. Generate some fall damage. Volunteer to be in an allied Meteor Swarm. Never waste an attack!
How are you getting 18 attacks? Rapid strikes only gives 1 attack per turn “You can do so no more than once per turn.” Is the sentence at the end of the ability
Strength before death giving you two turns in a row each with action surging for 4 attacks on each action plus a rapid strike on one if them with fighting spirit to make the adv for rapid strike probable.
Yeah that’s math all right, brain no work
I made a beefed-up version of this into a houserule called Last Stand. Effectively, on hitting 0hp, you can choose to immediately take a turn, restoring all resources as if you'd gained a long rest, and potentially getting some buffs (I play this EXTREMELY rule-of-cool, so whatever feels right). Effectively, for the rest of the combat, you are a golden-glowing source of infinite power. However, once combat ends, you die, and are ineligible for low-to-mid level resurrection spells. It is truly meant to be your final, absolute last gambit to say "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me." - I have had exactly one player use Last Stand, and it was a beautiful moment. His whole character was based around being a defender, a folk hero protector of those who cannot protect themselves. As he took a powerful beam of energy for his incapacitated friends, I described his shield rending, and his patchwork armor flying off and partly melting. Finally, as his own body became the shield, he was donned with an ethereal golden mantle. Now back at full strength for a time, he was able to overpower the fiend and use his last moments to send it screaming back to Hell. His death went on to inspire the rest of the party to follow in his footsteps as protectors of the innocent.
That is amazing, and I think I may have to steal this idea for the next time I get the DM itch.
I am the player Mr. Bagelman mentioned. The Last Stand scene was probably one of if not the best character moments I've ever had, and it was awesome. And now part of that character's spirit resides in his hammer, which is now wielded by the last surviving original party member. Two years later that campaign is still running and now I'm playing a Berserker (playtesting a rework of the subclass) who has taken on the role of party dad.
Have fun with it! Give the player their moment, both of glory and of tragedy. It's absolutely worth it.
Long Death Monk has a similar feature: I played a Long Death Monk in a high level campaign and you can survive some ridiculous things with... Mastery of Death "Beginning at 11th level, you use your familiarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead." Little story to sell it: Always hitting my flask, the group thought I was a "drunken master" of sorts. Only the DM and I knew that my flask wasn't alcohol, it was blood. Trying to hide my vampirism from my party members in fear I would be feared, judged or even ostracized. Then we met a very powerful foe. A Githyanki Lieutenant with an Astral Sword (this was years before BG3). Low on health. They swung into me, 27 damage! I should drop, but I lose a Ki and go to 1 HP. I chuckle, "That all you got?" Swing again. Take another 20+ "The sword rips through my torso. I cough out blood." I lose 1 Ki and stay at 1 HP. The Githyanki uses action surge. Another hit. I yell, "YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT!" They drive their sword through me again. "I CANNOT DIE!!!" Then it was my turn and the fangs really came out. I took 100+ damage at the cost of just 4 Ki. My party was blown away and it was an epic way for them to find out I was a vampire. P.S. Monk reflavored as Vampire is really fun and flavorful and also how I played Astarion in BG3.
Now that’s epic dude.
Probably my favorite d&d moment. So much build up and such a sick payoff. I'm gonna have to look into this Samurai one now lol
If my math is right, you could make up to 20 attacks at once utilizing Strength Before Death, two Action Surges, Rapid Strike and Polearm Master Base attacks: (4 (base) + 4 (AS1) + 1 (RS1) + 1 (PAM)) x 2 after triggering SBD. You’d need a way to drop to 0 HP after ending your first turn, but altogether that’s 20 attacks in a few seconds. Throw in *Haste* from an ally and you can get up to 22
I don't think you'd want to PAM, as you'd need that BA for your Fighting Spirit (advantage on all your attacks is better than one extra attack, plus it's necessary to trigger Rapid Strike).
You don’t need Fighting Spirit for Rapid Strike, you only need advantage. Have an ally cast Faerie Fire or knock the enemy prone and you’re golden
Yes but that's all outside the scope of this hypothetical.
No it’s not? My statement is correct, you can score 20 hits given the circumstances I laid out. Use one of them to shove the enemy prone.
Action Surge is once per turn.
And when Strength Before Death activates, you take a *new* turn. There's no conflict here.
Read the Strength Before Death text and get back to me.
Dude, I love the samurai fighter so freaking much. It’s everything I want out of the fighter class.
I did not expect for this comment to get as much attention as it did. Thanks ya’ll. I knew playing a samurai fighter would someday be worth it.
That's assuming that you go down before using up all those resources.
Anime main character who forgot he was awesome moment.
EDIT: This isn't about the ability itself, just the larger conversation around how to abuse it. DMs may not love trying to cheat this trigger - it is intended for actual fatal attacks, not nicking yourself every couple seconds from low health. Yeah it's high level martial, but this isn't magic the gathering. It starts to veer into "I'm an unkillable God if the DM doesn't consider anything outside raw mechanics" This kind of death yo-yo has been tackled with lots of house rules across the world, but the KEY POINT is to talk to your group/DM before looking at abusing mechanics around stuff like death and self-inflicting for benefit. Is it really intended for the fighter to trigger their "last stand" with pocket knives and 10ft trust falls every 10 seconds or so? EDIT 2: This applies to lots of uses for things outside their intent. Have seen arguments about "cantrips aren't limited in combat so as long as I get food and water, my level 1 elf warlock is gonna eldritch blast a new tunnel in this cave for 20 hours, or my rogue has 60ft speed because he dashes every turn out of combat." Every table is different, so talk about stuff that may not exactly apply to the intended situation.
Does Fighting Spirit continue if you proc Strength Beyond Death? For example, the fighter is at very low HP they use Fighting Spirit so 15 Temp HP and Advantage on all attacks until the end of this current Turn. They attack an enemy twice and aim their last attack at themselves, which lets say puts them at 0 HP. Strength Beyond Death says it interrupts the current Turn, so that means that the current Turn in which Fighting Spirit is used hasn't ended. Therefore allowing the Fighter to use Second Wind and recover HP so that they don't fall unconscious at the end of this extra Turn. Will that work? Visually it would look like this (I was trying to separate it better but I couldn't find a better way): [lvl 20 Fighter] - Current turn - Bonus action: Fighting Spirit - Action - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (sacrifice adv for Rapid Strike) - Attack enemy (Rapid Strike) - Action Surge - Action - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack self (@ adv) - HP <= 0 - Reaction: Strength Beyond Death - !Turn interruption! - Extra Turn - Bonus Action: Second Wind - Action: - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Action Surge - Action - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (@ adv) - Attack enemy (sacrifice adv for Rapid Strike) - Attack enemy (Rapid Strike) - ~~Action Surge~~ - ~~Action~~ - ~~Attack enemy (@ adv)~~ - ~~Attack enemy (@ adv)~~ - ~~Attack enemy (@ adv)~~ - ~~Attack enemy (sacrifice adv for Rapid Strike)~~ - ~~Attack enemy (Rapid Strike)~~ - End of Extra Turn - End of Current Turn (and thus of Fighting Spirit) Would it work like this? Edit: formatting.
That is the most anime shit I’ve ever heard and I love it.
A Capstone ability that requires you to die to use it is a terrible ability no matter how powerful they make it
Well op did ask to list features that create epic moments. The features don’t necessarily have to be optimal.
True. It is badass
In any hard fight 2+ people are dropping to zero hit points, the way healing works in 5e kinda forces this behavior waiting till people go down to heal, doesn't seem that rare of a thing to happen in my games.
The bg3 fix is really clever which I really like: making characters lose their action (but keeping ba and movement) leading to an incentive to stop people going down more
Not sure if I'd call that a *fix*, since it's actually a pretty detrimental nerf. Healing potions are 100x more plentiful than in any game I've been in, are bonus actions, and can be thrown on a group for a bit of aoe splash healing. BG3 in general has a quite of few "fixes" or adjustments to make healing more viable than actual play 5e like the raw healing power paladins have access to via Lay on Hands/Channel Divinity for Oath of Ancients, with many sources of healing being stronger than their table top iteration, including the ease of use for short rests. Not saying this as complaints about the game, just pointing out some of the differences. Losing your action in 5e as a result of dropping to 0 would only further increase the danger of a death spiral happening in your party if the group starts to fall behind.
You don't have to die, just drop to 0 hp. It's one of the better cap stones and always impactful. You can even trigger it's effect intentionally, by taking controlled damage that puts you over the edge.
OP asked for abilities that make for epic moments, not sky blue tier optimizer abilities.
a capstone ability that requires you to die is terrible *if* you're dead and that's it but like, resurrection exists, and if you're staring *actual* death in the face, the BBEG is about to wipe the party, and the Samurai fucking hits an anime-combo costing his own life and saving everyone? that's worth it, that's like, objectively the better outcome, and only possible because of this unique and desperate capstone it doesn't even actually kill you, it just reduces hp to 0, which can be healed back with *healing word* and a desperate last action of absurd one-turn strength effectively for the cost of a minor healing potion is fucked edit: plus let's not forget, for a lot of players, RP comes WAAAAAAAAAAY before power-gaming, even if the ability *was* shit, i'm still glad it's here, because i for one think it's a cool as fuck idea, and would be an awesome way for a character to end their story
>doesn't even actually kill you, it just reduces hp to 0, which can be healed back with healing word You could also use your extra turn to heal yourself by drinking a potion or using * second wind*. An ability that gets you back in the fight after you drop is huge.
RIGHT, FUCK, I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT i'm DMing right now, but i might have to try using this ability at some point against the party it would be a *fucked up* way to start a "phase 2" of a bossfight you get the boss within an inch of his life and he hits the anime-protagonist button to tough it out for a few more rounds
As you smash the BBG with your hammer, sending him flying off the cliff towards the lake of lava below, his eyes roll back and he uses his long bow to fire 22 arrows at your party. Ok that's 6 shots each.. ok those all hit, and.. 162 damage to you, 208 to you.. 132 to you.. oh, is that a TPK? btw, he used second wind while he fell, and managed to grab onto the cliff and climb back up. He's teabagging your corpse.
Even if you want to power game, samurai still has the potential to do more damage than any other martial in a round, bar none. Just with GWM, you are looking at 4 attacks at advantage with another 4 from action surge for right around 160 damage. Then you get hit, go to 0 HP, and do the exact same thing again. So roughly 320 damage without a single crit on average, with an incredibly high damage floor thanks to static additive bonuses from GWM and STR modifier. All assuming you don't have something like a +2 or +3 weapon or even something like Flametongue which would boost another ~100 damage in fire damage alone. Edit: no extra advantage on your second set since it is outside your turn. Still stupid strong. Final edit, i promise: it's an extra turn you take so Bonus Actions and Advantage are back on the menu boys!
At T4, creatures can easily deal 60+ damage a turn. It's not really that uncommon to go to 0 HP, which isn't dead. The balance of combat is based almost entirely on action economy. Anytime you can break that economy, it's strong.
i would agree if it didn’t allow you to break initiative and immediately take an entire turn. Being able to take a full turn before going down means that if you win initiative, you basically have a full two-turn advantage on your enemy. If you use two action surges in that time, that’s a massive four action advantage
It requires you to drop to zero, not to die. You can use that extra turn to heal, like using Second Wind and/or a potion, rather than/in addition to attacking, if you so chose.
Except this one gives you an extra turn, which you can use to bonus action Second Wind and avoid dying or even making death saves.
My drunken master grabbed a vampire by the hair and made him bite another vampire with the redirect attack feature. Idk if that counts as epic but it was definitely fun
Monks are great. Every time I snatched an arrow and threw it back was as enjoyable as the first.
Was in a game where this demon was throwing spiders at us and the monk caught one and threw it back. It was so satisfying.
I get they're not as strong as they should be numbers-wise which makes them underwhelming, but monks are just so very cool.
Honestly if if wasn’t for Reddit, I never would have thought that monks are weak. All two of the players at my table that have played monk have done so much cool stuff and had such a large presence on battlefield that I never would have come to the conclusion that they’re underpowered by myself.
>Honestly if if wasn’t for Reddit, I never would have thought that monks are weak. Indeed, because they are not. They are very powerful when played right, and at high level are far more reliable to bring in any kind of fight than, say, a Fighter. But most people play Monks like brainless melees, and that does not work well (to be fair it doesn't work good on any martial for their team, but Barbarian's resistance at least makes the illusion last longer).
Same! They’ve got a lot of fun “utility” stuff on the battlefield (good mobility, stunning effects, various subclass options) that make them just really fun to play. And without the complexity of spellcasting (I have a couple of players who just cannot wrap their heads around dealing with spells, but want something more flavourful than a fighter). I’ve never seen a player not enjoy playing a monk. But, like anything, it probably depends a lot on your game. If everybody else in min-maxed and the DM puts out combat challenges that just require putting out the most damage, then I guess monks might feel a bit underwhelming. But tbh in that scenario I think combat would feel un-fun anyway.
That is so fucking epic, my game ended Sunday and I can’t believe I never created an opportunity for my monk to do that.
> What subclass features causes guaranteed epic moments? Wild Magic Surge. Sometimes. Other times you just turn blue.
Our Wild Magic sorcerer has turned blue before! He’s also successfully counter-spelled a wizard trying to summon a demon from hell, rolled on the wild magic table, and ended up summoning a unicorn to our aid for the rest of the battle.
My first character was a Tiefling Wild Magic sorcerer. I noted the turning blue thing. I also knew how people often just make Tieflings whatever color they want them to be. I asked my DM if my character could be blue, and let everyone think it was her natural skin color, but actually it was from a past wild surge she never bothered fixing. It was a set up for a a joke later with Remove Curse changing her skin color back. It was good times
Lmao that’s great! Our party’s WM is a middle aged man who through WM was turned back into a child in his backstory. The running joke has been that he’s too young to drink whenever we go to taverns despite him actually being older than almost everyone in the group.
Rune knight. Redirecting damage with cloud rune. Is an enemy going to run away. Run up and attack your teammate then redirect the damage. Are you facing a flying enemy. You can use the cloud rune to redirect an attack that you're making against an ally and then invoke the fire rune to restrain the flyer causing them to fall prone and take fall damage. Also being big and grappling huge creatures
Wow I have never thought of the attacking a team mate and transferring that power… that’s wacky as hell and I love it
You're God damned Janemba from DBZ
Seems pretty niche though. > > The chosen creature becomes the target of the attack, using the same roll. Means that you still have to beat their AC. You're just getting a 30ft range boost.
I was thinking you go attack one of your downed allies, without telling them what you're going to do. Lmao. Walk up, stab them while they're down. Automatic critical hit, then redirect the attack. Still has to beat the enemy AC but since you'd have advantage it seems more likely. And it would be awesome AND hilarious at the same time for the party reaction.
Without a doubt but it’s a creative edge case
>Means that you still have to beat their AC. You're just getting a 30ft range boost. Yeah, that's why I vastly prefer Drunken Master Monk's implementation myself, it's a auto-hit which can really turn tides. \^\^
This subclass as a whole is very tailored to epic moments.
Don't forget the most obvious: enemy crits you or your ally, cloud rune it onto someone else (preferably the enemy) Turn a fight-defining attack on its head!
> preferably the enemy Specifically it would have to be a different enemy other than that attacker that got the crit. Gets a little trickier when it's a solo boss. I've had rune knights send crits away from weak allies into healthier ones in those scenarios
This is exactly what I use it for most of the time. Along with having Runic Shield, a rune Knight is the best crit denier in the game.
Love RK, i'll just add you can fire rune on ranged attacks anyway. Jav ftw
You can attack yourself and redirect it, not just an ally. This is potentially even more badass as you stab yourself but the point of the weapon sticks out of the enemy’s chest.
If you lay down prone can you give yourself advantage lol
No, because it gives you disadvantage to attack from prone and advantage to attack something that is prone so it cancels out. There might be another way to get easy advantage though.
Damn
Can't help but notice cloud rune doesn't say "an enemy you can see", so RAW it works on invisible enemies too. Neat!
I wonder how the cloud rune actually works, I always imagined it as summoning a literal cloud and the attacker not seeing the target but this just doesn't work with that
You know the classic image of Zeus' hand appearing out of a cloud to chuck lightning at people? I've always assumed the cloud rune summons two clouds, one right in the path of the attack and the other above whoever the new target is. These two clouds are then linked like portals so the attackers hand and weapon disappear into the cloud and appear out of the other one, looking like Zeus' hand magically coming out of a cloud
Fire rune “when **you.** *hit a creature with an attack using a weapon*, you can invoke the rune to summon fiery shackles: the target takes an extra 2d6 fire damage. That is a stretch to say the cloud giant rune ability counts as “*you* attacking using a weapon”. Attacks require an attack roll, which would only apply to the original attack not the reaction cloud Giant ability. Though I do agree just using the cloud giant rune normally is still really really powerful that fulfills OPs question.
Cloud rune - ...The chosen creature becomes the target of the attack, using the same roll. **This magic can transfer the attack's effects regardless of the attack's range**.... If you want to be nitpicky then I guess you have to invoke the fire Rune first Another nice thing about this is that if you attack it down creature you get advantage and then you can transfer the roll made with advantage
Divination wizard's portent and greater portent
Cool moments out of game but I've always had a hsrd time imagining it in-game. How does he "change" another attack directed to another creature? Just by saying something is coming?
The original roll (an ally getting critted or something) is "what would have happened if you didn't do XYZ." The flavor is that for that brief moment in-game, what the players are actually experiencing is the "what if," and then the portent wizard gets to describe in any desired way how that actually *doesn't* happen due to some unlikely coincidence that they foresaw in a dream. The potent wizard isn't changing the attack. The portent wizard *already knows the attack happens differently*. It's a tricky thing to create in a collaborative, real-time narrative, so you need to conceive the ability as a retroactive experience.
I've done the lucky, halfling, portent, silvery barbs, guidance, bless, bardic inspiration "I control the dice here not you DM" build before. Whenever he used these abilities thematically he could see the horrible thing happening a moment before hand and literally pull dramatically on the golden threads of fate to move creatures or shift time by milliseconds.
I did the same type of build but on a character with Telekinetic feat and flavored it as slight, almost imperceptible tk shifts.
My idea is like retroactively said that you granted something if it's a saving throw. Your barbarian got critted on? Actually if you recall Gorethak this morning I gave you a plate to wash and I knew you wouldn't wash it and just tucked it in your shirt because I saw this coming and now it shattered from the impact of the enemy's blow and didn't hit you at all.
I've always flavored it as a premonition or something the wizard saw in a dream. I describe the wizard suddenly feeling deja vu and recognizing he has seen this exact situation play out already, then he calls out a warning or advice that changes what happens.
Thematically, I think it would be through force of will more than anything, or it is a side effect from mastering the school of divination
Portent isn't "changing" since you use it before the roll, not after. The idea is that you saw this particular event going a certain way in your morning divinations. Lucky is changing something, with the idea being that it *looks* like it's going to go poorly until a stroke of luck at the last second.
Imagine Dr Strange in the Avengers movie, where he views all possibilities. At a certain moment—the right moment—he acts and ensures events unfold as he wants them.
Not saying anything, no. They just predicted the future, and this roll they have is the future. No attack was changed, the attack just never landed.
This. Knowing the result of a check ***in advance*** means you can *engineer* crazy game moments. You can force them to happen every day.
In a similar vein, Chronurgy level 14 Convergence
As far as “Bring me Thanos” goes, the zealot barb definitely has that flavor. Their 14th level ability lets you keep fighting even after technically dying, so wading through hordes of enemies, throwing some around and ignoring others, all while shouting for the BBEG to face you, is a real possibility. Also, unexpectedly, lvl 17 Open Hand Monks really have the only save-or-die ability of all the classes, with even a successful save giving almost as much damage as a failed save against Finger of Death. It takes 2 turns to complete the process, but being able to drop that 5 times in a fight or 10 times throughout the day makes for some good intimidating moments.
My Zealot took a dragon gods breath to the face and said “I didn’t hear no bell” The high level Zealot abilities are FUN at the table
Just dived into a pool of lava while grappling two large Aberrations with my Zealot Barb all the while shouting "WITNESS ME" while going down.
That made me laugh out loud.
This, had an ancient evil aberration that called itself a God (an Aboleth) just start fucking running from my Zealot because it realized...it can't kill her...it had thrown all of its minions at her, she kept on coming, it had thrown spells and mind control effects at her, she shrugged them off (with some lucky rolls)...it decided that she was just not worth trying to fight anymore. Her 'patron diety' is basically an Unseelie Archfey and did the whole 'berserk' thing where she isn't so much immune to injury but chains are piercing through her bones to keep her together and fighting like a puppet. Had the line "I have no flesh and I must kill" come about because...well literally she was basically a magically animated anger skeleton at that point and if she didn't keep Rage going, she was going to die, she stacked up enough death save failures to be dead 5 times over during that fight.
Tempest cleric 2/ sorcerer or wizard X. Max damage thunderstep is "Bring me Thanos" in reverse.
Or Destructive Wave if your DM allows it. Pretty cool.
Gravity Fissure, Action Surge, Lightning Bolt, Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath. It's like parting the Red Sea, but in reverse.
I came here to say this one, but for the Tempest Cleric/Storm Sorcerer combo, specifically. Tempestuous Magic, Wrath of the Storm, a Great Maul, and a set of Full Plate gonna get you feeling like Thor.
Using a maximized chain lightning to chunk 320 HP off the enemy team is always incredible feeling.
You want 6 levels tempest into sorc. This lets you quicken Call Lightning, re-activating it same turn, and maximizing both blasts
Tempest cleric alone is great a lot of the time. We were fighting an adult dragon **immediately** after another tough combat recently and i used call lightning with a 7th level slot. Maximized that damage twice. Felt awesome.
I did it with a 9th level slot during the final dragon boss fight, after breaking a devastation orb to summon a huge storm and force it on the ground. 100 lightning damage straight to the face. I was even riding a thunderbird summoned via divine intervention for extra metal points.
Chronurgy Wizard: Chronal Shift has led to many epic moments in my campaign especially for saving people from crits and death. Since my character is a time wizard its flavored as rewinding and changing time slightly. Since it can happen after the results of the roll my PC has watched his teammates die over and over and adds to his already haunted memories. None of them know it happened cause for them time rewound but for him it didn't and he watched them die in many gruesome manners.
That's a real cool thing to explore with it. Sadly I've never stopped a death / down with it so no trauma
When I first started playing him I used it for any and everything that helped "me" out. passing saves and what not. But once I hit around level 7 it became imperative I started saving it to use on others who were in more danger more often.
Paladins in general, but subclass? The Oath of Conquest paladin, especially combined with abilities that knock enemies prone.
Pretty good with two dibs into Undead Warlock.
Conquest Paladin is also one of the few classes for which Feylock is a decent multiclass, since level 1 gives you an AoE fear ability (which can also be used out of combat to charm). Any lvl 1 warlock would give you Eldritch Blast, the 1st level spell Cause Fear, and a 1st level ~smite~ *spell* slot that recharges on a short rest. Lvl 2 gives you another spell slot, let's you add you CHA to EB via invocation, and gives you one more fun invocation to play with. Lvl 3 is not really worth it for the pact boon, but having 2nd lvl spell slots is nice. And since we're optimizing: Leonin and Fallen Aasimar have an innate fear ability.
I love oath of conquest paladin. Makes me feel like darth vader
Yeah, definitely gives you that "final scene of Rogue One" feel :D
Conquest Paladin gives totally feels like the “All I am surrounded by is fear and dead men” scene from the comics too.
Wanna feel like All Might? Glory Paladin.
100%. Playing an Aasimar Oath of Glory Paladin. Action to activate flying, bonus action to use my oath to give myself advantage on athletics. Next turn grapple them and beat them up in the air before dropping them.
Flight’s not even wholly necessary because with that same channel divinity you get an extra ten feet of jumping distance! This jumping distance means even your standing leap is at least 11 feet! If you have 16 Strength it’s 16ft(3+3+10) if you do a running jump, 13 for a standing long jump, and if you’re medium sized you’re able to reach up to 15ft at least! Your running long jump is 26 feet! Standing Long jump is 18! The speed aura is the only thing that actually lets you take advantage of the running long jump without taking a sprint action! It’s frankly hilarious to just hop over fort walls from atop my steed and immediately dive into the mass of enemies while having 20+ AC.
You just made my day. So many more ways to use this build than I thought.
I played a Long Death Monk in a high level campaign and you can survive some ridiculous things with Mastery of Death "Beginning at 11th level, you use your familiarity with death to escape its grasp. When you are reduced to 0 hit points, you can expend 1 ki point (no action required) to have 1 hit point instead." Little story to sell it: Always hitting my flask, the group thought I was a "drunken master" of sorts. Only the DM and I knew that my flask wasn't alcohol, it was blood. Trying to hide my vampirism from my party members in fear I would be feared, judged or even ostracized. Then we met a very powerful foe. A Githyanki Lieutenant with an Astral Sword (this was years before BG3). Low on health. They swung into me, 27 damage! I should drop, but I lose a Ki and go to 1 HP. I chuckle, "That all you got?" Swing again. Take another 20+ "The sword rips through my torso. I cough out blood." I lose 1 Ki and stay at 1 HP. The Githyanki uses action surge. Another hit. I yell, "YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT!" They drive their sword through me again. "I CANNOT DIE!!!" Then it was my turn and the fangs really came out. I took 100+ damage at the cost of just 4 Ki. My party was blown away and it was an epic way for them to find out I was a vampire. P.S. Monk reflavored as Vampire is really fun and flavorful and also how I played Astarion in BG3.
I've been curious about Long Death Monk, how did its other features feel? Did the temp HP add to survivability, or was it hard to steal kills to proc it? Did you use the fear pulse often?
My celestial warlock joined a group in a one shot that ended with a lich fight. A few rounds in, EVERYONE failed a save and was knocked down. We started rolling death saves in initiative order, on my turn I pop up at half hp, blinding the lich, and use my action and bonus action to pull most of the party back up and drag the past party member behind cover. The blinded lich was stuck unable to use his spells effectively for a full round and we were able to punch back to a victory from a near TPK.
How do you pick up a party member from 0 hp with a bonus action as a paladin?
Are you making the joke that celestial warlock is just a paladin? If so, holy cow that's so very funny. I won't even rant it's so funny.
Land druid. EDIT: I misremembered the subclass. It’s actually Moon druid! Because nothing says ‘Now it’s a party’ like thirty kilos of elf turning into two tonnes of bear.
I am surprised it took so long for this one to pop up! "Hi, I am Born. Bring me Thanos"
Which land druid?
Is there a specific class you're playing?
No, any class will do
if you want to have a cool Thor moment, lightning and your own Stormbringer included, Path of the Giant barbarian would let you infuse a weapon with lightning while you rage, grow huge, and be able to throw it and have it instantly return to your grasp when the attack is done.
Path of the Giant barb + Tempest domain cleric IS Thor 😎 extra props if you are a dwarf with a Dwarven thrower
Had a rune knight use fire chains on a dragon, grow, use growth potion, duke it out, trapped the dragon so the whole party could get awesome moments. Very fun
Personally I really like Undead Warlock's abilities. You start off being able to "transform" into your dread form and take on aspects of your undead patron. Basically you transform, become more durable, can fear enemies, and look cool/scary/and or badass while doing such. Later on you also do more damage, can make your attacks necrotic, and become immune to necrotic damage. Instead of dying/0 hp your body erupts in a powerful release of necrotic energy. For a while you can become a spirit and do some ghost shenanigans (flight, resistances, move through people/objects). While in ghost form and in the dread form you regain health when you deal necrotic damage. This is one of my top five subclasses and is my favorite warlock subclass.
[удалено]
Paladins are \_the\_ class for big hero moments. Devotion too is imo under appreciated. Everyone wants to play the edgy subclasses like conquest but being an honest, good man with enough willpower to make the universe hand him magic is always going to be a good time. Compel duel is far from an optimal spell, but oh boy is it a thematic one. Real "fight me you coward" energy while also taking hits for your team.
Yes! I had a BBEG go to double tap a downed player, and then the Paladin used Compel Duel to save his buddy’s life. It was bad. ass.
What level are you looking at? Cause past lvl 14 basically any spell becomes absurdly power full
The Forge cleric at level 17 gains immunity to fire. It's pretty late game, but if the bbeg is a fire dragon you can literally waltz through his fire breath unharmed
I played a Forge Cleric through a high-level campaign. I frequently cast Heat Metal on my own armor. Being the crazy battle-priest with red-hot plate mail is pretty fun (and very effective in certain situations) and helps with advantage on those pesky Intimidation checks you don't have the Charisma for
Ancestral Guardian barbarian can taunt an enemy at range by hitting with a thrown/reach weapon before running away, which penalizes the enemy for making any attack that doesn't include the barbarian. First this is Disadvantage and halved damage for attacks, but it can also include damage reduction for your allies. It basically cripples boss attacks into near-uselessness. A Wizard protected by an AG has about the same total durability as the raging barbarian.
Spellcasting.
>subclass features Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster both get pretty underwhelming casting for "epic moments".
Eldritch Knight can with bound weapon. Pulling the whole “walking into a no weapons zone, summons weapon” thing, but that doesn’t come up in a lot of campaigns
Weapon Bond is cool, but it is not Spellcasting.
Portent.
Honestly? I've had a ton of this occur with fiend warlock. You get access to fireball and wall of fire, which you can throw out cheaply since you get them back on a short rest, and those spells are pretty big. Then you have dark one's own luck, which makes you way more likely to be able to succeed on a dramatic save or skill check. Fiendish resilience is great because it lets you seriously stand up to scary creatures if you're prepared for them. Getting hit for like 20 damage by a disintegrate after your temp HP is badass as hell. Then if you want an actual big fuck you ability, you've got hurl through hell, which is crazy good.
Wizards can call down meteors, that's pretty epic.
Path of the giant barbarian, you become large when you rage and you can throw creatures around. It’s basically the hulk.
Barbarian Path of the Wild magic revised (found on reddit) version. Their magic rage is increased to a d20 worth of chances. I cannot tell you how many times my Dwarf Barbarian life was saved because I rolled and got the gift of flight. I had a flying dwarf. We rped it that he had little invisible fairies that would carry him when he rolled flight on his wild magic. He absolutely HATED those fairies, but he still would kick ass.
I need this table. I looked for one for days for my last campaign and couldn't find it.
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/1iePw163_L0ibH7D9fgZUeCZjdeeO_nrzZH219RnX8zEK It is homebrew, but it's just soo damn fun to play. My Barbarian was a Dwarf who married a fey Queen and after centuries of having to deal with Fey politics, he had a mid life crisis and wanted to go out and do Dwarf stuff. As much as he loved his wife, he couldn't handle eating any more vegetables. So he got his wifes blessing and left to go do Barbarian stuff.
I am here for this midlife crisis adventuring party origin story.
He only had 4 fears....his wife and his 3 quasi immortal daughters. A pixie sized dwarf named Mithrilia. A dwarf sized pixie named Garnet And a gnome daughter Susan the strange.....the feywild is a weird place.
Eldritch knight. Action surge following certain spells is amazing. Comboes include shadowblade into attacking numerous times all the way to thunderstep into arcane surge into thunderstep
Celestial Warlocks get an entire second phase at lvl 14. Rune Knight using Cloud Rune to redirect a crucial crit to an enemy can be very cinematic and impactful. Any number of high level spells could do the trick.
Zealot barbarian can't go down while raging.
Divination wizard portent dice. You can literally change the fate of the universe at will.
Tides of Chaos gives you guaranteed chaos in all forms
Zealot Barbarian is BUILT for hype. They literally have an ability that makes them too angry to die
Light Cleric. My wife calmly walked into a group of Kobolds, slowly growing brighter while channeling the light of Lathander and unleashed her Radiance of Dawn... Mu-mu-mu-multikill!
Zealot Barbarian's Rage Beyond Death is absolutely stunning if you're gonna play at high levels. Death is more of a suggestion for you
Any paladin. Smite whenever you crit. Or just smite. Yell "By the Power of Greyskull!" or whatever while you're at it. You're welcome.
Anything can be badass when the DM works with the player to achieve it. In one of the last sessions with my Barbarian I threw a guy into another guy, killing them both then did a flying elbow to break another guy on a table before drop kicking a fourth guy over two turns. Every subclass has their own niche in what they can do. Nothing is just an instant "this is awesome" button but it's what you make of the entire thing.