@@Demolitor- free D&D Beyond accounts only give you access to the data available in the SRD, so only Improved Grappled is available until you purchase the PHB access.
@@Anton_Jermakoŭ Most of the tables I have been seem to ignore the somatic components unless our hands are tied up etc. War caster for us is generally taken for the concentration advantage and the cantrip opportunity. I like that approach cause it makes war caster feels less of a mandatory feat to start with (which is also mandating a race with a starting feat).
@@octapusxft This is what my DM decided to do and it makes the feat choice a lot less forced. Feels nicer, imo, and honestly depending on the type of shield even in reality you could still move your hands/arms.
Just to make you aware absorb elements doesn't absorb a d6 of the damage. It gives you resistance to the damage type until your next turn. You can then add a d6 of damage of that type to your next attack.
I saw that Shadow Sorcerer was mentioned in the comments, but have you considered Hexblade Warlock dip instead of Sorcerer? It gives you the shield spell, through Hexblade's expanded spell list, Armor of Agathys for temporary hp and retaliatory damage, Hexblade's curse for marking, a level 1 spell slot that recharges on a short rest, and Hex Warrior that allows you to stop worrying about upping your strength for doing more damage and can instead just up your charisma for more damage and better saves/spell dc. Another enjoyable video, glad to have found your channel.
Thanks! I absolutely considered Hexblade and think it worth considering. Honestly, the only reason I went sorc instead was simply to make sure I didn't fall behind in my # of spell slots/spell levels, but HB is definitely a worthy alternative.
Hi there! I'm currently running this build in our homebrew campaign! I rolled a Warforged Tankadin as we get a free feat at the start and I love it! And thank you for your advice on talking to my DM on the channel divinity: Champion Challenge! My DM implement it to stop the mobs from moving away from me, without me being the focus of their attacks!
I loved your build! I'm listening to this show every day when I go to/from the work, and I'm having lots of fun doin it.. so.. thank you! As a quick note, path of the Ancestral Guardians Barbarians and Cavalier Fighters have pretty good taunts too. This paired with sentinel/poliarm master is really strong.
It’s good to remember for shield tanks, quarter staffs and spears do count as Polearms. (I think it was an errata / reprint) you can take PAM and sentinel feats with a spear and lock things down while you have a shield equipped.
This is something I like to take advantage of, I made a build inspired by Achilles that used a spear with a shield, he was a Conquest Paladin with Polearm Master and Sentinel...I felt a bit mean but he was both strong and thematic
This is great! I've found a channel to listen to one of the days of the week on my drive to work! Best of luck to your channel, you've got a subscriber in me
Great build made a dark twist on it went oath of conquest and shadow sorcerer, conquest gives you the ability to give your enemies disadvantage on their attacks making you even harder to hit, conquering presence causing fear in your enemies and at higher lvls you lock them in place to. Also they get the spells armour of agathys and stoneskin giving you temp hits points and resistance to physical attacks. Thanks for the inspirition.
Love it. For me, the one thing I’d maybe think twice about is giving your enemies disadvantage on attacking. Unless you’re in a place where you’re really confident they (the DM) will go after you, you kind of don’t want to discourage them from gunning for you, since you’re such a great tank :). Still, in certain situations (blocking a bottle neck or something?) could be super powerful.
Hey, thanks for another video. Crown paladins get Spirit Guardians as an oath spell, albeit a bit late. Awesome against minions when you don't need a 25 AC, slow 'em down and wipe them out whilst the barbarian starts on the bbeg. Your "squishys" are protected in the back lines and then its party time. Throw in a decent wall spell from another caster and job done.
Dude this is such a great channel love your content! And I'm enjoying your tank builds everyone in my group competes with each other to deal the most damage and I want to stand out and do something different the tank builds are perfect 👌
I can imagine this character having a personality very much like Reinhardt from Overwatch. Really loud and boisterous and willing to be the meatshield.
I keep coming back to this video because I love Paladins so much! Have you considered making a mounted character? The mobility from a mount on a Paladin or fighter can be pretty vicious.
I like the build overall and I'm even playing a non-optimized tank-ish paladin in a Strahd campaign myself. One feat I think you slept on though is Inspiring Leader. That level+Cha temp hp per short rest for up to 6 targets including yourself makes a nice little buffer not just for you but for your whole party (unless you have a huge party) which helps not just your survivability but it helps protecting the others as well. In my character's case, +3 Cha and level 4 equates to 42 extra hp on the battlefield each short rest which may not be amazing but certainly shouldn't be overlooked either.
If you want to Optimize warhammer is the only solution. at low level (before finding a magic item) - you should encounter skeleton who are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. (1 point to warhammer) - you might encounter some ooze like the black pudding or Ochre Jelly who can split when hit by slashing weapon. Ok for the splitting ooze, it depend on your team comp. If you have a wizard ready to burning hand, then sure split those ooze into 6 little oozes and burned them to a crisp. If you have weak AoE, 1 big ooze will be easier to handle since their HP might be half, but teir damage is double... so point to Warhammer, (since propably someone else in the team got a slashing weapon to spli tthem in half if the wizard can burn them) Why 1 level of sorcerer. If you are going to go for a single level just to get shield, might as well take warlock hexblade. So you can ignore your strenght and go full Charisma (wil be useful for your compel duel spell, and your aura that add your charisma bonus to all your allies within 10/30ft of you. Hexblade still give you access to shield, and the spell slot you gain refresh on a short rest and are in addition to what you have as a paladin. Plus you get the curse of the hexblade.
My dm and I like to run 3v3s against each other pretty often so I would love to see good combos. A couple strong combos I've noticed; drow darkness comps with hexblades using shadow blade is really good. Also 2 divination wizards with a sorcadin gives a free quickened hold person, crit smite combo almost always once or twice.
This character would work great with the bladesinger as they both have great AC but when an attack does get to the bladesinger the paladin could take the damage instead.
I am rolling MT on the next campaign so this is perfect! I was thinking of going Fallen Aasimar/Oath of Conquest for double fear and DM allows one feat of choice so I was thinking of picking Sentinel for that, to eventually go into polearm master, and become generally a nuisance to the DM in the middle of combat, but maybe the survivability might be an issue so I might augment my build to this.
Absorb elements is a bit better than I think you are quoting: When you are hit with acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder you capture the energy and use it on your next melee attack. You gain resistance to the damage type (1/2 damage) and your next weapon attack does an additional 1d6 per level damage of that type. So you get hit by a fireball for 30. Cast absorb elements gain resistance (Dmg is now 15) your next melee attack would do 1d6 extra fire damage.
As a tank I need to be either dangerous or a problem to solve, probably more towards the "problem to solve" I would thing. Is a Net a viable piece of equipement? That would make me a bigger problem I would think?
huh this was a while ago but, at level 4 and 9 ASI why not use tough? double the hp bump, just without the save and check increase. it does look like tough is taken at 12 but having tough sooner would probably be for the better
Sentinel for my first feat. Then, at least level 3 Sorc so I can cast Mirror Image. It's great defense if they waste their attacks on images and you get opportunity attacks!
yooo. I found your podcast first! its awesome that you do this. It pulls in a bunch of multiclass combos that I never thought of! So, thank you for doing this.
Hey dude, great video! But I still have a feeling that "tanking" can be heavily optimized by damage mitigation (even more than raw damage absorption), so, I have this weird feeling that an "Ancestral Guardian" barbarian with some multiclass could be potentially the most tanky char you can theorycraft... any idea? :D
Barbarians are bad multiclass for paladins. Non of barbarian features work in heavy armour. Also, when you rage, you can't cast or concentrate on spells. Barbarians on it's own have survivability but they lack crowd control. Best crowd control tools are available from caster classes and these don't synergise with barbarian at all.
Can this character ignore the Somatic component of the Shield spell? Because if not I don't think you'll be able to cast it whilst sword and boarding (without War Caster).
Also, do your calculations for survival vs. enemies take into account the limited number of times you can cast Shield? Lasting 21 rounds with Shield only make sense if you can cast Shield 21 times.
I actually thought about that - I assume that you'd be ok to drop your weapon and cast shield as a reaction, then, on your turn, pick up your weapon as a free action and keep going. I'm sure there are DMs who would call foul there, so good catch and something to at least discuss with the DM!
Theres more than one way to optimize dnd, brother. I made a character who never attacked.. he just stood there. Boring, i know, but his ac and saves were so high that he acted as a mobile wall. And id just place him in doorways to block enemies from getting to my team; using my spiritual weapon for damage.. They needed to crit to hit me at all... enter dodge action.. my dm was pulling his hair out Sometimes its not about damage. Sometimes its just standing in the right place at the right time with the right build.
I think that works in the specific environment and opponents. A bit.more open environment where they could just walk past you (anything wider than 15ft) makes that kind of tank useless. If i was your dm, i'd also send casters, teleporters and ranged attackers every now and then to see how you'd perform your role. I do agree that optimization is not always about dmg but it should be optimization of what your character is supposed to do and making it repeatable in different types of encounters. Builds can be optimized supports, summoners, controllers, etc.
What cantrips would you recommend for the 1 sorcerer level? I was thinking something like lightning lure for extra taunting would be great, and if you pick up war caster booming blade could be nice for the opportunity attack nova damage.
Also: don’t forget oath of the crown gives spirit guardians at level 9. It does cost concentration, which means the armor class drops by two, but you’re effectively making a 15 ft radius around you difficult terrain for enemies, another great pseudotaunt, and you’re hitting them for a potential extra 3d8 damage every turn. Seems like a great trade-off to me. Of course, damage isn’t the goal of this build, but increased damage improves survivability in the since that it helps end combat quicker. And since I’m suggesting a bit of extra offence anyway: why not go wild magic for the one level sorcerer? Advantage on attacks one per day (or at will, given a DM that revels in chaos as much as my party does) is always helpful. The flavor can be a lot of fun too: your goodie-two-shoes paladin worrying so much about maintaining their oath, that the repressed emotions give way to a wild magic surge.
Yup, Lightning Lure and BB would be my top choices, though I'd look at BB as more of a "you'd better stay near me and not go after the squishy" way to encourage enemies to stay near you more than anything :)
I've been tinkering with a Moon Druid Barbarian. A Raging Brown Bear can take 68 physical damage, with an AC or 13 from Barbarian's Unarmored Defense. A level 2 Moon Druid can wild shape twice per short rest, generating each beast at full health, and a level 1 Barbarian can Rage twice a day, meaning in any one encounter (or spread across 2 encounters) you could potentially absorb 136 physical damage before it even touches your character's actual health... at LEVEL 3. On top of that, against an AC of 10, you average 18.8 damage, and AC 15, 12.9 damage, from the Raging Bite & Claw multiattack. At level 4 you take one more level of Barbarian, and now you have advantage on all those attacks. Here's the problem. From there, it doesn't really scale quickly or well in either damage or defense. You need to be at level 7 to get an extra attack if from there you go all Barbarian, or level 8 to get a challenge rating 2 beast such as Polar Bear, if you go all Druid. Druids in general have few class features throughout the mid levels. At Barbarian 3 you can take Bear Totem for resistance to most magic damage, but that's about as good as it gets. Concentration spells don't work while Raging, nor can you cast Shield while wildshaped and/or raging, and the best AC you could get with a non-concentration spell would be casting Mage Armor, which gives you 15 AC if you wild shape into a Dire Wolf, but still only 13 AC as a Brown Bear. The best I can come up with is adding 2 levels of Paladin so you can be a Smiting Bear, or adding 3 levels of Assassin or Gloom Stalker for high damage opening rounds, though Beasts cannot Sneak Attack, so you lose a lot of the value of being a Rogue. Overall, it's a stellar combo for lower levels, but from there, it's quite a puzzle I've been wrestling with for the past few days. Any thoughts?
Hm... this is really compelling. I've had more than one ask for a Moon Druid build now. Going to have to take a deeper look at this in the coming weeks as a potential alternative. You're right that most of the Barb benefits come at an early level... and there *are* some really great creatures the Moon Druid gets access to at high CR, but yeah, they plateau early as well. Maybe combining them though they can get strong enough that the plateau won't hurt as much. Hang tight :).
I'd love to see an optimized party build. I've been playing around all summer on DnD beyond and have made some great characters, only problem is most Dm's don't run for parties of 12 players, I know I wouldn't. Maybe 5 tops, but 3 or 4 for most Dm's ,
You don't have a write up for the Tankadin yet. Please rectify. Thanks! Third level Paladin Spells don't come till Paladin level 9. You do have 3rd level slots, because of the Sorcerer dip. Likewise, Paladins get level 4 spells at Paladin level 13, but they get level 4 spell slots at level 12. Paladins don't get 5th level spells until Paladin Level Seventeen.
I enjoy your videos. Often I agree with your direction. I had a couple ideas. How about a Monk build that is resilient enough to stand in the front line. Also, for a comparison, what is better; multiclassing or single class? I know you do a lot of multi class theory crafting but how do those builds stack up with a single class caster? Is it better to have Meteor Swarm or Prismatic Wall better than having an upcasted Dawn spell? Stuff like that
Multiclass is better 90% of the time. The reason to stay pure class is because you're playing a caster and you want to get to 7th-9th level spells (especially as a wizard these are where the OP spells are). This is of course good in theory but very bad in practice as most tables are ending their campaigns by the time you get access to 7th level spells and you will never sniff 9th level spells. So if the reason to stay pure is eliminated, in reality, you gain more from multiclassing as there isnt a spell before 7th level (simulacrum) that is worth staying pure class for (especially with alot of 6th level spells being meh).
@@TheRobversion1 I think Colby and I suffer from a similar malady. We hate slowing class progression. Personally I really hate slowing progression so I almost never multi-class. And honestly I feel it even in low levels. When a wizard hits 5th lvl, we want fireballs, counterspells, and haste. 7-8 lvl, polymorph. 9-10 animate objects, wall of force. I play a lot. A lot. I almost never multi-class. I play with ALL kinds of folks, lots of builds, multi class, single class. I never ever feel outclassed. I do just fine with single class characters straight out of the PHB. Multi-classing is fine but single class character don't lag behind, IMO
@@dhaas4698 oh i dont think they lag behind. They can still be effective. The multiclassed character simply just does a bit better because they have less dead levels. Especially for martials. Spellcasters pure class have less dead levels due to spell progression but what i was simply saying is that multiclassing simply adds more oomph. Let me illustrate. Let's say i'm a wizard, just like as you stated. You are going for versatility. I am as a multiclasser prefer expertise and focus. I will be a controller. Let's say 10 levels limit as well. I'm going to go wizard 7 only and 3 eloquence bard. You try to control/polymorph/banish the bbeg. You have a dc of 17 with no magic items. I have a dc of 17 as wel but i apply a 1d6 penalty to the save. my control spell will succeed more times mathematically than yours therefore making me more effective. it doesn't mean a pure class can't be effective as well. i just hope it's clear how multiclassing can make you more effective in a chosen function. And just so there's no confusion that it's an isolated case for eloquence bards I could go these following routes as well: 2 fighter- i can throw out 2 polymorph/banish/control spells to start to ensure they fail 3 sorc- i can impose disadvantage on the saves via heighten spell or go quicken my control spell and cast mind sliver as my action. I play alot as well (i have 27 core builds at the moment and tinkering with 3 more) and 90% of the time multiclass. I agree that single classes aren't out classed especially with proper race, spell, feat, equipment selection. Multiclassing is simply about being the most effective. Lastly, you may retort that "rob you are giving up animate objects, wall of force... those are 2 great spells! it's right there." While i think both are great spells, here's my thought process for giving up both. 1. animate objects-it's a damaging spell. I'm a controller. This doesn't add anything to what i want to do. It's ok if i got it without opportunity cost to improving my control abilities but it does. 2. wall of force-is an awesome control spell. This made me think. However, wall of force as i've realized after playing with it for some time is a great control spell to divide the battlefield. but that's it. it isn't a combat ender. As a 7th level wizard, i have access to 2 combat ender spells: polymorph and banishment (hold is another for humanoids). It's better to focus on that as the earlier you end combats the less chances for things to go wrong/heal/revive/tank. Banish/polymorph/hold the BBEG on round 1 and the threat is largely mitigated then you can just wrap up mobs. TBH i was more hesitant about losing hold monster than wall of force. Of course all of the analysis above focuses on combat. that's my focus. i'm not going to focus on the outside combat applications of animate objects and wall of force.
@@jameswise8396 Such a great spell, and I forgot it's available to Oath of the Crown! Not until relatively late, but still. I actually considered discussing/accounting for things that would give the enemy disadvantage, but to be honest, I think if you're trying to really "tank" for your party, you probably need to make yourself somehow an attractive target to the DM (er... Monsters), as opposed to more difficult to hit, so I opted not to mention. That said, if your DM seems perfectly willing to target you, maybe especially if they let your Champion Challenge work as I think it was intended, then I *strongly* encourage dodging! :)
Ha ha, I'm actually working on a *double* warlock build right now! Admittedly, they're both fairly similar to my very first episode, BUT there are some cool things to tweak and talk about when you put two of them together that I'm really excited to share :).
5th level combo; plant growth, no concentration, movement reduced to 1/4. Spiritual Guardians, concentration, movement halved again, so 1/8 movement. Then spike growth, concentration , difficult terrain, move halved again, 1/16th. An enemy with a move of 30 can move 2 feet per turn, and it hurts. That's lockdown. Add forced movement with Warlock or Druid CANTRIPS or martial features, job done. I know this isn't possible with a 5th level Paladin, but it's still pretty cool at higher levels, except they tend to fly by then.
Love it - do you know: if a creature can't move at least 5 feet, can they basically not move during their turn? Or is there some sort of "minimum" move speed that comes into effect where, if you can move at all, you can move at least one square on the board? Or maybe it takes them 3 turns to move a square? (2 feet each round until they hit a minimum of 6?)
I'd call DM dependent, but a strong case for 3 rounds to move 1 square. The move speed isn't reduced to zero as per grapple, hold person, blah blah, they can move, just not much. Then the Warlock hits them with a repelling blast and they take more damage and are 9 turns away. Battlefield control in a co-op party is Legendary! Even with low level spells.
You missed a trick there, 3 levels of Shadow Sorc means you can cast Darkness which YOU can see through, then Compel duel or force them to attack you at disadvantage,
This is similar to the Hexblade darkness-devil’s sight combo. The problem is that even though you can hit the target with advantage and theyhave disadvantage against you, the rest of the party can’t see the target either. This is bad because they have disadvantage on all their attacks - a tough DM might rule that if the enemy moved all attacks would miss by default since your party doesn’t know where they are - so you’re losing a lot of damage per round from your party. Also, since D&D is a team game, you’re cutting the rest of your group off from a lot of the fun. If you want single player D&D, wait until the upcoming video game comes out.
@@ZoroarkChampion This was more to lock down a single bad guy, so the rest of the party can deal with the others, so lock down the Chaos knight while the rest deals with his mooks.
Has anyone shot for action surge paladin? Did y’all have fun? Looking to be built by lv 15 Intent: my party has a fighter and barbarian, I’m looking to augment and support my front line. I’m hoping to be able to capitalize on bonus actions and reactions to maximize the benefit to the team and myself. Aura protections mean later on people are going to cling to me anyway right? I plan on casting buffs but I want them to hold strong when I do use slots for those. This is what I’m looking at. Dragonborn Action Surge Shield Caster Paladin gets a fighting style: Protection- shield required- impose disadvantage on an enemies attack roll in 5ft as a reaction Lv 4- feat war caster - advantage on holding concentration for spells -can cast spells with shield in hand so long as all other requirements are met -other features but these two are the main focus^ Lv8 feat shield master- when you attack you can use your bonus action to shove an opponent within 5ft -other benefits but I’m focusing on this^ Lv 5 paladin Extra attack- attack twice when you take an attack action Lv 9 nothing- start multiclass to fighter Fighter gets a fighting style: Dueling- +2 bonus to damage rolls when wielding a weapon one handed. Shield in off hand is acceptable Lv 13 nothing - second level multiclass to fighter Fighter gets second wind and action surge Second wind-recover 1d10 as a bonus action once a rest. Free health for a bonus action Action surge- y’all know this. Take another action once a rest. Action surge extra attack combo yields 4 attacks + whatever divine smites 2 attacks + 1 breath weapon (side campaign goal is to grapple Someone and breath weapon their face off) What do y’all think?
I know you specifically state you're not counting the breath weapons for the dragons, but since that's a significant amount of a dragons DPR, that numbers a tad misleading. I feel like you should've used Giants or some kind of Demon/devil to show the DPR for a Boss fight, if you didn't wanna calculate Aoe damage/saves
dude, I love a lot of what your saying and your super smart and hitting on things for new people coming into DnD. I have been playing PnP for 20 years. My buddy makes his own, he is a computer programmer, coder and knows how to make Epic games however this is my first time doing DnD. I have to ask why the red sulat shirt? you like commy China? j/k :P I understand people don't think that is what it means but I'm old and that is what it has mint forever. ;)
What about a Paladin - War mage ? War magic gives you +2 to AC and +4 to saving throws as a reaction at level 2, and +2 AC +2 to saving throws at level 10 while concentrating.
you could multiclass in sorcerer divine soul and hexblade warlock... you get shield from the warlock and armour of agathys and Eldrich blast for range sorcerer give you bless toll the dead guidance healing Word ... if you deep more you can get spirit guardian
I played a vengeance paladin who was neutral and played it so, towing the line, but still helping people. Then i was late one day... my dm had this thing, if we were late without reasonable excuses, we had to pick from the deck of many things. I could have left earlier, but did not that day. So i drew my punishment. I got what was supposed to be a moot card. The one that makes you switch alignments. So good becomes evil or vice versa. So my dm says, you become chaotic neutral. I am like... ok then. So i play my character like he is slowly going insane. Doing nutty things i would never normally do. Like throwing people (who deserve it) out of windows or charming up a pirate queen and getting her pregnant... a lot of str and con saves were made for that month... got married too. Anywho, so after becoming crazier and crazier, my level 7 vengeance paladin took shadow sorcerer levels... the havoc on the battlefield of seeing through darkness, having shield spell-absorb elements, +1 shield, and platemail, plus other awsome stuff. I was hard to kill. Baosting 23 to 28 ac in a fight. So my dm, (cunning as he is...) makes a new monster, an abomination. Half Beholder, half Hydra... The Behydra. It was meant to cause us no end of trouble, and we even got warned of a possible TPK. But we wanted that thing. It was awsome, and terrifying. It had 3 necks and no heads, instead it had giant beholder eyes... Turns out, my chracter was a complete counter to it though. Not intentionally eather, i used bless for the saving throws on some of us and my paladin aura gave people a boost too. So those lazer beam eyes, slight regeneration, and nasty surprises were not too bad. Anyways. That was a fun character to play.
In your tank ranking you mentioned that when creating this build you did not yet fully understand the importance of soft taunting. Since I'm going to start playing with an mmo style paladin tank soon, what would you change in this build today to make it a better defender?
Great review. What about taking the Oath of Battle at 3rd lvl and skipping the lvl of sorcerer? Shield is an oath spell in that list.. just an idea. Cheers!
Thanks! A valid option! I would be sad to miss out on all the Cleric spells that Pallies don't otherwise get, but if you're hungry for each and every level...
@@DnDDeepDive Well, the goal is remain effect within the group. Recently, the sorcerer was replaced by a 1/2 Orc Barby, so, the Paladin is no longer the center of battle with the rag'n Orc.. Taking an additional level outside of Paladin then slows down the Paly build. If that makes sense. I see the bonus to adding a level of spell caster, but at the cost of being a level behind with the Paladin.. I took the "Interception" fighting style from Tasha's book and that has proven useful in just 2 sessions. At 4th lvl, I am planning on taking the Heavy Armor Master for the damage reduction by weapon attacks, ofc, the goal there is to survive longer.. Need to acquire Platemail to increase the AC... Using long sword + shield, along with a flail as a secondary melee weapon. Thoughts/suggestions?
Hi there , i have a question about Tower Shield. If I plant it into the ground for 3/4 cover can mobs simply walk around the shield and ignore the 3/4 cover?
your damage calculation should include some non-physical dmg. Add in a bunch of fire elementals or something with saves like ghouls or a bunch of giant centipedes
A paladin or fighter using the protection fighting style would pair nicely with a recklessly attacking barbarian to take some of the sting of enemy attacks having advantage
What do you think of earth genasi, oath of ancients. Following same build order. Earth genasi can use blade ward as bonus action, and oath of aincients gets resistance to spells in a 10 ft aoe at 7. And then sorcerer gives u access to shield and absorb elements. Lots of ways to gain resistance.
Back in the day I was under the impression that my DMs would let me drop a weapon as part of the reaction to cast the spell. They have since corrected the error of my ways :).
@@DnDDeepDive yeah RAW though this works. you can solve it anyway once you get warcaster. of course, if the weapon is magical, you might have 2nd thoughts about dropping it as it might get stolen or kicked away. haha.
I have created the following write ups Episodes: 4, 7 10,12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 43. If you want them, please let me know how to send them to you.
Looking at the optimized master tank comparison chart, it seems like the paladin tank is pretty good at everything but surviving spells, I wonder if oath of the ancients paladin would make it a better meat shield though obviously it would lose out on some of the crown's ability to protect teammates
That feeling when you go to look at the google doc for a build and it doesn't exist yet. It cuts real deep. It isn't a physical pain, it is an emotional pain.
As long as you’re Silver or higher, just navigate to the main page of my YT channel, under the “community” tab I post links to the library every week :)
There's a build that I would love to see you take a look at, but this might be a little unusual since it has nothing to do with combat. There's a meme build that I've seen going around that can get you proficiency in every skill in the game: Scout Rogue/Lore Bard/Knowledge Domain Cleric. (In fact, you even run out of skills you can get proficiency in depending on the race and feats you take.) How would you optimize a character explicitly to maximize the bonus for every single skill check? There are a number of different things that could be optimized, such as getting the highest possible average skill bonus, or trying to get the highest possible bonus for your lowest skill check. It seems like this kind of build would favor keeping your stats balanced instead of focusing only on one or two, but what would the trade off be to dump Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution and instead just get expertise in Acro, Ath, SoH, and Stealth? Alternately, one could dump Intelligence and focus expertise in those skills instead. What do you think would be the most optimal strategy?
Hm... will have to consider. Really at that point we're *mostly* talking about optimizing for Roleplaying, no? Definitely something that someone should do if they want, but also difficult to quantify/put into a spreadsheet ;)
If you really want to be the ultimate skill monkey, my advice to start off would be using point buy to make give you an array of 11/13/12/13/13/13. Strength and Constitution will have to take the hit here because STR only governs Athletics and CON doesn't govern anything. Next would be to take standard human to give you +2 to almost everything. For feats I would say Human Determination and Prodigy both work really well.
@@DnDDeepDive I’m as interested in your analysis of the character build itself. Dump Int/Cha vs Dex/Con? Feats & ASIs. Races (ghostwise halfling of course). Spell synergy. Etc.
My favorite tank character currently is a multiclassed Gnome Barbarian (5 starting) Rogue (15 ending), using a whip (Reach is amazing) and a shield. Helped a lot by magic items, but at 5th level without magic items, you take resilient dex at 4th level, and you have Str, con, dex saving throw proficiencies, and gnome cunning gives advantage on Int, Wis, and Cha, saving throws vs magic, and you got dex advantage from danger sense. You get all that nice resistance from raging, plus you hit 10th level, you can use uncanny dodge as your reaction vs a single attack every round, so if you attack recklessly, and something crits you because, well, it has advantage, you can halve the damage of the critical hit (or a different attack), and reduce it by half very likely because of raging as a bear totem barbarian. And of course at 12th level you get evasion, and you never take any damage from a dex saving throw ever again. My DM has no idea how to kill the character, because my paladin friend gives me +5 to all my saves from his aura of protection, so I didn't even get bloodied when we killed an ancient red dragon at level 12 Also, since you go arcane trickster, when rage isn't running you can use shield +illusion spells to boost survivability nicely once you are high enough level, without needing high int/charisma for multiclassing normally. If you want, you can take resilient Charisma and intelligence, at 9th and 13th levels, and have (at level 20) proficiency in all saves, advantage in many, get lucky to help get rid of crits/bad saving throw results, and your gnome is just impossible to pin down. I have a belt of giant strength, and expertise in athletics, and raging, means your small gnomish body can break out of manacles like they are nothing, or break out of dimensional shackles somewhat easily once level 20 (+17 and advantage on a check? higher with some belts of giant strength) This post turned out a ton longer than it was meant to be, but great video as always
ha ha! I love this - it's so hard to quantify/graph magic damage because, well, there's just such a huge variety of magic damage/spells that you might possibly run into, but we/I definitely under-appreciate how valuable having high resistance/saves etc. to spells can be in a game. Especially if your DM likes to use lots of magic attacks against you.
I feel like the only problem with the comparison is that the paladin's tankieness is dependent on lots of factors - can you retain concentration, do you have to cast another concentration spell for better control maybe, are you in the presence of someone that can dispell/anti-magic-field you, etc. While the bear totem is more reliable, because he has a bit lower tankieness, but it is consistent and can't really be turned off, unless your enemy can ignore resistances, which veeery few do. Or, you can build the bear totem barbarian to be tanky and still dish out enormous amounts of damage. The paladin has to choose between the two. And finally, your build only has a +2 to hit (from strength), which is pretty abysmal, especially with a class that can't really get advantage. So, as a DM, you're right - the paladin has very little chance of affecting with a spell, he has very little chance of hitting, does very little damage if he spares his spell slots for shields and so on - I would literally ignore him, cause he's more a small nuisance than anything else. I would kill the whole party and then kill him. Tanks still have to pose a threat. That's true even in computer MMOs and so on - if you don't deal damage, you lose threat.
this is why either build has to pack tanking abilities aside from just defensive buffs so that the DMs "wastes his actions" by doing something ineffective if they ignore you. bear totem doesn't really pack those so is actually an inferior tank. a cha based paladin can use compelled duel is superior. ancestral guardians barb is better than both. relying on dealing dmg to generate threat is not optimal. it's not enough to make yourselves a threat (you won't ever be the biggest threat on the field as you arent a caster nor a striker). you have to make actions towards your allies ineffective so it's more attractive for the dm to hit you (actions against you are more effective and you are a significant threat).
@@TheRobversion1 Maybe I'm a bit biased, because I've played a tank paladin and my experience was very bad. It even became a running joke that every encounter had a 300 gold tax to revivify my character, because the DM, no matter how strong I made my character, would always kill him. And my character had rolled stats and had 20 STR, 18 CON, 18 CHA, 14 WIS, basically, my lowest saving throw was +9, and DEX was +4. Right now I'm playing a barbarian and I've been having way better experience as a tank, at least when it comes to surviving and getting people to attack me. However, even though I'm an Ancestral guardian, I honestly don't feel like the character brings much more to the table than a bear totem. Of course, this might be just my personal experience. I don't mean to deny your post. I see your point. My personal experience has just been very different and I've found paladins, even very, very geared and with great stats don't really do the tank job that well. Our rogue could survive much longer when attacked by a big bad guy than my paladin.
@@Notsogoodguitarguy its because tanks as an archetype is suboptimal. In terms of defensive archetypes: Burst striker (no need to defend if enemy is dead on round 1) > controller (they are disabled. They wont really do dmg) > debuffer/support ( their attacks are generally ineffective so there's little to mitgate) > tank (redirects dmg and mitigates it) > healer (party takes full dmg/effect then recovers/removes them after). Not saying paladins are better than all barbs in tanking in general. Just saying better than totem barb. Of course the ideal route is not to go straight class but to multiclass. You probablu arent getting the full affect of the abilities as you arent picking the proper spells/multiclass/feats. You also probably feel that way about the paladin and probably arent blown away by the experience as barb either is because you are playing a tank. I get alot of people want to play the archetype and its optimizable. Its just that it tends to leave a not so good experience more often than not compared lets say to playing a striker, controller, or summoner. if your goal is not really to tank but just to be tough to takedown then yes, totem barb s a good option though i feel it can be done better by other classes with more levels such as rune knight, daolock, etc (if resistance is your main defensive mechanic). The better route of course is to build around not getting hit at all as taking dmg and resisting it can come with debilitating riders such as poison, frighten, etc. This is why casters survive longer as they are far away, can pump their ac to ridiculuous amounts with shield, can have layers of defenses like obscurement/mirror images and can counterspell.
@@TheRobversion1 Yeah, you're probably right. But, that's one of the points why I like totem warriors. I'm free to take feats such as great weapon master and multiclass into fighter or something else, do quite decent damage and still be sure I won't die easily. The build that I'm playing next will probably be 3 levels in barb (for bear totem) and then all the way in fighter, either Echo Knight or Battle Master.
@@Notsogoodguitarguy made some edits to the previous comment you might want to react to. Anyway yeah barb dips are fine and usually optimal. Going past 3-4 barb though is when it starts to become suboptimal. It is generally a weak class where its best ability is at level 2. Fighter is always an excellent choice as its very versatile and you get the very powerful action surge. I generally dont play tanks but you can never go wrong with having at least fighter 2 in any build. I think among all my optimized builds only one was a "tank". Theorycrafted and played a rune knight 4, clockwork soul 6. It was built around grappling+shoving, then little dmg ticks via retributive dmg (armor of agathys, flames of phlegethos, hellish rebuke) and persistent dmg (create bonfire). And it packed bastion of law and the typical caster defensive suite for defense (aid, shield, absorb elements, counterspell). I wouldnt really classify it as a tank as it was more of a controller build (grappling) but packed the typical tank caster defensive spells.
Come join the conversation at reddit.com/r/DnDoptimized/
Level 1:(see above) [paladin 1, race & feat]
Level 2:(@8:43) [paladin 2 & fighting-style]
Level 3:(@10:22) [paladin 3 & sub-class]
Level 4:(@14:08) [paladin 4 & ASI]
Level 5:(@14:22) [paladin 5]
Level 6:(@14:49) [sorcerer 1]
Level 7:(see above) [paladin 6]
Level 8:(@22:29) [paladin 7]
Level 9:(@23:40) [paladin 8 & ASI]
Level 10:(see above) [paladin 9]
Level 11:(@26:01) [paladin 10]
Level 12:(@26:16) [paladin 11]
Level 13:(@26:29) [paladin 12 & ASI]
Level 14:(skipped) [paladin 13]
Level 15:(see above 14-17) [paladin 14]
Level 16:(@28:15) [paladin 15]
Level 17:(@28:41) [paladin 16 & ASI]
thanks mate!
Speaking of feat, where is the heavy armor mastery feat? All I have for an option is grappler in dnd beyond
@@Demolitor- free D&D Beyond accounts only give you access to the data available in the SRD, so only Improved Grappled is available until you purchase the PHB access.
Dipping 1 lv. hexblade warlock grants shield spell at 1st level as well and synergizes with paladins really well.
I am pretty sure you can't cast shield spell since it requires somatic components and this dude has sword and shield
You'll need warcaster feat
Or, sentinel human for shield
@@Anton_Jermakoŭ Most of the tables I have been seem to ignore the somatic components unless our hands are tied up etc. War caster for us is generally taken for the concentration advantage and the cantrip opportunity.
I like that approach cause it makes war caster feels less of a mandatory feat to start with (which is also mandating a race with a starting feat).
@@octapusxft This is what my DM decided to do and it makes the feat choice a lot less forced.
Feels nicer, imo, and honestly depending on the type of shield even in reality you could still move your hands/arms.
@@Anton_Jermakoŭ couldn’t your spell casting focus be your sword or shield if it has symbols on it?
Just to make you aware absorb elements doesn't absorb a d6 of the damage. It gives you resistance to the damage type until your next turn. You can then add a d6 of damage of that type to your next attack.
Correct! I had someone point this out to me earlier and gotta make sure I get in and fix the vid at some point - thanks for the catch :).
I saw that Shadow Sorcerer was mentioned in the comments, but have you considered Hexblade Warlock dip instead of Sorcerer? It gives you the shield spell, through Hexblade's expanded spell list, Armor of Agathys for temporary hp and retaliatory damage, Hexblade's curse for marking, a level 1 spell slot that recharges on a short rest, and Hex Warrior that allows you to stop worrying about upping your strength for doing more damage and can instead just up your charisma for more damage and better saves/spell dc. Another enjoyable video, glad to have found your channel.
Thanks! I absolutely considered Hexblade and think it worth considering. Honestly, the only reason I went sorc instead was simply to make sure I didn't fall behind in my # of spell slots/spell levels, but HB is definitely a worthy alternative.
Hi there! I'm currently running this build in our homebrew campaign! I rolled a Warforged Tankadin as we get a free feat at the start and I love it!
And thank you for your advice on talking to my DM on the channel divinity: Champion Challenge! My DM implement it to stop the mobs from moving away from me, without me being the focus of their attacks!
I loved your build! I'm listening to this show every day when I go to/from the work, and I'm having lots of fun doin it.. so.. thank you!
As a quick note, path of the Ancestral Guardians Barbarians and Cavalier Fighters have pretty good taunts too. This paired with sentinel/poliarm master is really strong.
Thanks glad you're enjoying it! Yes, I plan on getting to a cavalier build soon, hopefully, once I wade through all of the Tasha's update stuff! :)
It’s good to remember for shield tanks, quarter staffs and spears do count as Polearms. (I think it was an errata / reprint)
you can take PAM and sentinel feats with a spear and lock things down while you have a shield equipped.
This is something I like to take advantage of, I made a build inspired by Achilles that used a spear with a shield, he was a Conquest Paladin with Polearm Master and Sentinel...I felt a bit mean but he was both strong and thematic
Only bad thing, Spears only have 5 feet of range
@@andrewcastanon5313 no? they have 10. They do that disadvantage when enemies are at 5 ft, maybe that's what you meant?
@@Leonardo-fv4vu Google 5e spear and look at their Range. There are Pikes, but they are mandatory 2 handers and they don’t use the PoleArm Master.
The Paladin tank, AKA the M109A6 is a 155mm Artillery System.
This is great! I've found a channel to listen to one of the days of the week on my drive to work! Best of luck to your channel, you've got a subscriber in me
Thanks friend!
Great build made a dark twist on it went oath of conquest and shadow sorcerer, conquest gives you the ability to give your enemies disadvantage on their attacks making you even harder to hit, conquering presence causing fear in your enemies and at higher lvls you lock them in place to. Also they get the spells armour of agathys and stoneskin giving you temp hits points and resistance to physical attacks. Thanks for the inspirition.
Love it. For me, the one thing I’d maybe think twice about is giving your enemies disadvantage on attacking. Unless you’re in a place where you’re really confident they (the DM) will go after you, you kind of don’t want to discourage them from gunning for you, since you’re such a great tank :). Still, in certain situations (blocking a bottle neck or something?) could be super powerful.
Great video. Sentinel goes a long way to force enemies to attack your tank.
Hey, thanks for another video. Crown paladins get Spirit Guardians as an oath spell, albeit a bit late. Awesome against minions when you don't need a 25 AC, slow 'em down and wipe them out whilst the barbarian starts on the bbeg. Your "squishys" are protected in the back lines and then its party time. Throw in a decent wall spell from another caster and job done.
Tom Tomlinson ha ha yeah was just discussing this with another commenter (James) - such a strong spell.
Paladin is for sure my go-to favorite class. Warforged Paladin dedicated to the Dwarven Forge God is most fun.
Dude this is such a great channel love your content! And I'm enjoying your tank builds everyone in my group competes with each other to deal the most damage and I want to stand out and do something different the tank builds are perfect 👌
Thank you! And I'm happy to see my Pally tank getting some love - he has a soft place in my heart :).
I can imagine this character having a personality very much like Reinhardt from Overwatch. Really loud and boisterous and willing to be the meatshield.
I keep coming back to this video because I love Paladins so much! Have you considered making a mounted character? The mobility from a mount on a Paladin or fighter can be pretty vicious.
it's probably my most-oft requested build, so I think I'm going to have to buck up and make one soon! :)
I like the build overall and I'm even playing a non-optimized tank-ish paladin in a Strahd campaign myself. One feat I think you slept on though is Inspiring Leader. That level+Cha temp hp per short rest for up to 6 targets including yourself makes a nice little buffer not just for you but for your whole party (unless you have a huge party) which helps not just your survivability but it helps protecting the others as well. In my character's case, +3 Cha and level 4 equates to 42 extra hp on the battlefield each short rest which may not be amazing but certainly shouldn't be overlooked either.
A great feat, for sure.
Taking heavy armor master feat will add another + 1 to strength. So point buy is 15 strength. +1 race. +1 heavy armor Master.
17 strength ar lv 1.
I think he took +1 from race as CON & CHA. so three 16's.
:)
If you want to Optimize warhammer is the only solution. at low level (before finding a magic item)
- you should encounter skeleton who are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. (1 point to warhammer)
- you might encounter some ooze like the black pudding or Ochre Jelly who can split when hit by slashing weapon. Ok for the splitting ooze, it depend on your team comp. If you have a wizard ready to burning hand, then sure split those ooze into 6 little oozes and burned them to a crisp. If you have weak AoE, 1 big ooze will be easier to handle since their HP might be half, but teir damage is double... so point to Warhammer, (since propably someone else in the team got a slashing weapon to spli tthem in half if the wizard can burn them)
Why 1 level of sorcerer. If you are going to go for a single level just to get shield, might as well take warlock hexblade. So you can ignore your strenght and go full Charisma (wil be useful for your compel duel spell, and your aura that add your charisma bonus to all your allies within 10/30ft of you. Hexblade still give you access to shield, and the spell slot you gain refresh on a short rest and are in addition to what you have as a paladin. Plus you get the curse of the hexblade.
I am late, but you have to Talk some day about combos with 2 or more characters.
I have one such combo in mind already... will have to add it to the queue :P
My dm and I like to run 3v3s against each other pretty often so I would love to see good combos. A couple strong combos I've noticed; drow darkness comps with hexblades using shadow blade is really good. Also 2 divination wizards with a sorcadin gives a free quickened hold person, crit smite combo almost always once or twice.
Now that is a great idea!
This character would work great with the bladesinger as they both have great AC but when an attack does get to the bladesinger the paladin could take the damage instead.
I love that new heavy armor master would make kobolds do 0 on a crit :)
I am rolling MT on the next campaign so this is perfect! I was thinking of going Fallen Aasimar/Oath of Conquest for double fear and DM allows one feat of choice so I was thinking of picking Sentinel for that, to eventually go into polearm master, and become generally a nuisance to the DM in the middle of combat, but maybe the survivability might be an issue so I might augment my build to this.
Absorb elements is a bit better than I think you are quoting: When you are hit with acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder you capture the energy and use it on your next melee attack. You gain resistance to the damage type (1/2 damage) and your next weapon attack does an additional 1d6 per level damage of that type.
So you get hit by a fireball for 30. Cast absorb elements gain resistance (Dmg is now 15) your next melee attack would do 1d6 extra fire damage.
Correct! Hashed this out in some other comments - thanks for the feedback.
Thanks Homelander!
Just found your channel. Currently playing a Dragonborn Paladin of the Watchers. Just hit Lvl 8 and just hunting for ideas for this benchmark.
As a tank I need to be either dangerous or a problem to solve, probably more towards the "problem to solve" I would thing. Is a Net a viable piece of equipement? That would make me a bigger problem I would think?
huh this was a while ago but, at level 4 and 9 ASI why not use tough? double the hp bump, just without the save and check increase.
it does look like tough is taken at 12 but having tough sooner would probably be for the better
Sentinel for my first feat. Then, at least level 3 Sorc so I can cast Mirror Image. It's great defense if they waste their attacks on images and you get opportunity attacks!
Absorb Elements gives you resistance. It doesn’t reduce the damage by d6. It adds a d6 per level on your next attack.
yep! Clarified this in some comments earlier - thanks for the catch :).
love to see bearbarin
Done! Ep 3 :)
yooo. I found your podcast first! its awesome that you do this. It pulls in a bunch of multiclass combos that I never thought of! So, thank you for doing this.
You're welcome! Glad you're enjoying :) - and happy to know I have a podcast listener! :P
I like this.
I'm playing paladin/barbarian in my table and I love it.
Hey dude, great video! But I still have a feeling that "tanking" can be heavily optimized by damage mitigation (even more than raw damage absorption), so, I have this weird feeling that an "Ancestral Guardian" barbarian with some multiclass could be potentially the most tanky char you can theorycraft... any idea? :D
Tanking is more about threat redirection over surivival.
Barbarians are bad multiclass for paladins. Non of barbarian features work in heavy armour. Also, when you rage, you can't cast or concentrate on spells. Barbarians on it's own have survivability but they lack crowd control. Best crowd control tools are available from caster classes and these don't synergise with barbarian at all.
Can this character ignore the Somatic component of the Shield spell? Because if not I don't think you'll be able to cast it whilst sword and boarding (without War Caster).
Also, do your calculations for survival vs. enemies take into account the limited number of times you can cast Shield? Lasting 21 rounds with Shield only make sense if you can cast Shield 21 times.
(Loving the videos though - really enjoyable)
I actually thought about that - I assume that you'd be ok to drop your weapon and cast shield as a reaction, then, on your turn, pick up your weapon as a free action and keep going. I'm sure there are DMs who would call foul there, so good catch and something to at least discuss with the DM!
@@DrBeerface I actually address that at around 20:40 :)
@@DrBeerface Thanks!
Theres more than one way to optimize dnd, brother.
I made a character who never attacked.. he just stood there. Boring, i know, but his ac and saves were so high that he acted as a mobile wall. And id just place him in doorways to block enemies from getting to my team; using my spiritual weapon for damage.. They needed to crit to hit me at all... enter dodge action.. my dm was pulling his hair out
Sometimes its not about damage. Sometimes its just standing in the right place at the right time with the right build.
I think that works in the specific environment and opponents. A bit.more open environment where they could just walk past you (anything wider than 15ft) makes that kind of tank useless. If i was your dm, i'd also send casters, teleporters and ranged attackers every now and then to see how you'd perform your role.
I do agree that optimization is not always about dmg but it should be optimization of what your character is supposed to do and making it repeatable in different types of encounters. Builds can be optimized supports, summoners, controllers, etc.
Well true, we play with our DMs and you don't play with food
😂
What cantrips would you recommend for the 1 sorcerer level?
I was thinking something like lightning lure for extra taunting would be great, and if you pick up war caster booming blade could be nice for the opportunity attack nova damage.
Also: don’t forget oath of the crown gives spirit guardians at level 9. It does cost concentration, which means the armor class drops by two, but you’re effectively making a 15 ft radius around you difficult terrain for enemies, another great pseudotaunt, and you’re hitting them for a potential extra 3d8 damage every turn. Seems like a great trade-off to me. Of course, damage isn’t the goal of this build, but increased damage improves survivability in the since that it helps end combat quicker.
And since I’m suggesting a bit of extra offence anyway: why not go wild magic for the one level sorcerer? Advantage on attacks one per day (or at will, given a DM that revels in chaos as much as my party does) is always helpful. The flavor can be a lot of fun too: your goodie-two-shoes paladin worrying so much about maintaining their oath, that the repressed emotions give way to a wild magic surge.
Yup, Lightning Lure and BB would be my top choices, though I'd look at BB as more of a "you'd better stay near me and not go after the squishy" way to encourage enemies to stay near you more than anything :)
I've been tinkering with a Moon Druid Barbarian. A Raging Brown Bear can take 68 physical damage, with an AC or 13 from Barbarian's Unarmored Defense. A level 2 Moon Druid can wild shape twice per short rest, generating each beast at full health, and a level 1 Barbarian can Rage twice a day, meaning in any one encounter (or spread across 2 encounters) you could potentially absorb 136 physical damage before it even touches your character's actual health... at LEVEL 3. On top of that, against an AC of 10, you average 18.8 damage, and AC 15, 12.9 damage, from the Raging Bite & Claw multiattack. At level 4 you take one more level of Barbarian, and now you have advantage on all those attacks.
Here's the problem. From there, it doesn't really scale quickly or well in either damage or defense. You need to be at level 7 to get an extra attack if from there you go all Barbarian, or level 8 to get a challenge rating 2 beast such as Polar Bear, if you go all Druid. Druids in general have few class features throughout the mid levels. At Barbarian 3 you can take Bear Totem for resistance to most magic damage, but that's about as good as it gets. Concentration spells don't work while Raging, nor can you cast Shield while wildshaped and/or raging, and the best AC you could get with a non-concentration spell would be casting Mage Armor, which gives you 15 AC if you wild shape into a Dire Wolf, but still only 13 AC as a Brown Bear. The best I can come up with is adding 2 levels of Paladin so you can be a Smiting Bear, or adding 3 levels of Assassin or Gloom Stalker for high damage opening rounds, though Beasts cannot Sneak Attack, so you lose a lot of the value of being a Rogue.
Overall, it's a stellar combo for lower levels, but from there, it's quite a puzzle I've been wrestling with for the past few days. Any thoughts?
Hm... this is really compelling. I've had more than one ask for a Moon Druid build now. Going to have to take a deeper look at this in the coming weeks as a potential alternative. You're right that most of the Barb benefits come at an early level... and there *are* some really great creatures the Moon Druid gets access to at high CR, but yeah, they plateau early as well. Maybe combining them though they can get strong enough that the plateau won't hurt as much. Hang tight :).
I'd love to see an optimized party build. I've been playing around all summer on DnD beyond and have made some great characters, only problem is most Dm's don't run for parties of 12 players, I know I wouldn't. Maybe 5 tops, but 3 or 4 for most Dm's
,
You don't have a write up for the Tankadin yet. Please rectify. Thanks!
Third level Paladin Spells don't come till Paladin level 9. You do have 3rd level slots, because of the Sorcerer dip. Likewise, Paladins get level 4 spells at Paladin level 13, but they get level 4 spell slots at level 12. Paladins don't get 5th level spells until Paladin Level Seventeen.
Thaks for your video. I wish i was more condensed and focused. I will sub and look forward to more
I enjoy your videos. Often I agree with your direction. I had a couple ideas. How about a Monk build that is resilient enough to stand in the front line. Also, for a comparison, what is better; multiclassing or single class? I know you do a lot of multi class theory crafting but how do those builds stack up with a single class caster? Is it better to have Meteor Swarm or Prismatic Wall better than having an upcasted Dawn spell? Stuff like that
Monks can make good tanks! I'll add these to the list!
Multiclass is better 90% of the time. The reason to stay pure class is because you're playing a caster and you want to get to 7th-9th level spells (especially as a wizard these are where the OP spells are). This is of course good in theory but very bad in practice as most tables are ending their campaigns by the time you get access to 7th level spells and you will never sniff 9th level spells. So if the reason to stay pure is eliminated, in reality, you gain more from multiclassing as there isnt a spell before 7th level (simulacrum) that is worth staying pure class for (especially with alot of 6th level spells being meh).
@@TheRobversion1 I think Colby and I suffer from a similar malady. We hate slowing class progression. Personally I really hate slowing progression so I almost never multi-class. And honestly I feel it even in low levels. When a wizard hits 5th lvl, we want fireballs, counterspells, and haste. 7-8 lvl, polymorph. 9-10 animate objects, wall of force.
I play a lot. A lot. I almost never multi-class. I play with ALL kinds of folks, lots of builds, multi class, single class. I never ever feel outclassed. I do just fine with single class characters straight out of the PHB. Multi-classing is fine but single class character don't lag behind, IMO
@@dhaas4698 oh i dont think they lag behind. They can still be effective. The multiclassed character simply just does a bit better because they have less dead levels. Especially for martials. Spellcasters pure class have less dead levels due to spell progression but what i was simply saying is that multiclassing simply adds more oomph. Let me illustrate.
Let's say i'm a wizard, just like as you stated. You are going for versatility. I am as a multiclasser prefer expertise and focus. I will be a controller. Let's say 10 levels limit as well. I'm going to go wizard 7 only and 3 eloquence bard.
You try to control/polymorph/banish the bbeg. You have a dc of 17 with no magic items. I have a dc of 17 as wel but i apply a 1d6 penalty to the save. my control spell will succeed more times mathematically than yours therefore making me more effective. it doesn't mean a pure class can't be effective as well. i just hope it's clear how multiclassing can make you more effective in a chosen function. And just so there's no confusion that it's an isolated case for eloquence bards I could go these following routes as well:
2 fighter- i can throw out 2 polymorph/banish/control spells to start to ensure they fail
3 sorc- i can impose disadvantage on the saves via heighten spell or go quicken my control spell and cast mind sliver as my action.
I play alot as well (i have 27 core builds at the moment and tinkering with 3 more) and 90% of the time multiclass. I agree that single classes aren't out classed especially with proper race, spell, feat, equipment selection. Multiclassing is simply about being the most effective.
Lastly, you may retort that "rob you are giving up animate objects, wall of force... those are 2 great spells! it's right there." While i think both are great spells, here's my thought process for giving up both.
1. animate objects-it's a damaging spell. I'm a controller. This doesn't add anything to what i want to do. It's ok if i got it without opportunity cost to improving my control abilities but it does.
2. wall of force-is an awesome control spell. This made me think. However, wall of force as i've realized after playing with it for some time is a great control spell to divide the battlefield. but that's it. it isn't a combat ender. As a 7th level wizard, i have access to 2 combat ender spells: polymorph and banishment (hold is another for humanoids). It's better to focus on that as the earlier you end combats the less chances for things to go wrong/heal/revive/tank. Banish/polymorph/hold the BBEG on round 1 and the threat is largely mitigated then you can just wrap up mobs.
TBH i was more hesitant about losing hold monster than wall of force. Of course all of the analysis above focuses on combat. that's my focus. i'm not going to focus on the outside combat applications of animate objects and wall of force.
@@TheRobversion1 perfect illustration of how many different approaches their are to the game
If this is sword and board how are we making somatic components for shield? 😢
Hi ! Can you do a video explaining how to play a tank in combat please ?
Shadow sorcerer gets you dark vision to 120' and an extra chance to stay up.
That was actually going to be the other one I mentioned and forgot :). I love that little "unless it's radiant damage" fine print :).
@@DnDDeepDive you can also cast spirit guardians and take the dodge action to live forever lol
@@jameswise8396 Such a great spell, and I forgot it's available to Oath of the Crown! Not until relatively late, but still. I actually considered discussing/accounting for things that would give the enemy disadvantage, but to be honest, I think if you're trying to really "tank" for your party, you probably need to make yourself somehow an attractive target to the DM (er... Monsters), as opposed to more difficult to hit, so I opted not to mention. That said, if your DM seems perfectly willing to target you, maybe especially if they let your Champion Challenge work as I think it was intended, then I *strongly* encourage dodging! :)
Interesting approach, though (only personal opinion) I'd go Resilient:Con instead of HAM.
Any plans of doing a warlock build for 666 subscribers ? :)
Ha ha, I'm actually working on a *double* warlock build right now! Admittedly, they're both fairly similar to my very first episode, BUT there are some cool things to tweak and talk about when you put two of them together that I'm really excited to share :).
@@DnDDeepDive looking forward to those, don't rush it
5th level combo; plant growth, no concentration, movement reduced to 1/4. Spiritual Guardians, concentration, movement halved again, so 1/8 movement. Then spike growth, concentration , difficult terrain, move halved again, 1/16th. An enemy with a move of 30 can move 2 feet per turn, and it hurts. That's lockdown. Add forced movement with Warlock or Druid CANTRIPS or martial features, job done. I know this isn't possible with a 5th level Paladin, but it's still pretty cool at higher levels, except they tend to fly by then.
Love it - do you know: if a creature can't move at least 5 feet, can they basically not move during their turn? Or is there some sort of "minimum" move speed that comes into effect where, if you can move at all, you can move at least one square on the board? Or maybe it takes them 3 turns to move a square? (2 feet each round until they hit a minimum of 6?)
I'd call DM dependent, but a strong case for 3 rounds to move 1 square. The move speed isn't reduced to zero as per grapple, hold person, blah blah, they can move, just not much. Then the Warlock hits them with a repelling blast and they take more damage and are 9 turns away. Battlefield control in a co-op party is Legendary! Even with low level spells.
Oh yeah, and there's no save against the move penalties, or Spike Growth damage, just against the SG damage.
You missed a trick there, 3 levels of Shadow Sorc means you can cast Darkness which YOU can see through, then Compel duel or force them to attack you at disadvantage,
This is similar to the Hexblade darkness-devil’s sight combo. The problem is that even though you can hit the target with advantage and theyhave disadvantage against you, the rest of the party can’t see the target either. This is bad because they have disadvantage on all their attacks - a tough DM might rule that if the enemy moved all attacks would miss by default since your party doesn’t know where they are - so you’re losing a lot of damage per round from your party. Also, since D&D is a team game, you’re cutting the rest of your group off from a lot of the fun. If you want single player D&D, wait until the upcoming video game comes out.
@@ZoroarkChampion This was more to lock down a single bad guy, so the rest of the party can deal with the others, so lock down the Chaos knight while the rest deals with his mooks.
Has anyone shot for action surge paladin?
Did y’all have fun?
Looking to be built by lv 15
Intent: my party has a fighter and barbarian, I’m looking to augment and support my front line. I’m hoping to be able to capitalize on bonus actions and reactions to maximize the benefit to the team and myself. Aura protections mean later on people are going to cling to me anyway right? I plan on casting buffs but I want them to hold strong when I do use slots for those. This is what I’m looking at.
Dragonborn Action Surge Shield Caster
Paladin gets a fighting style:
Protection- shield required- impose disadvantage on an enemies attack roll in 5ft as a reaction
Lv 4- feat war caster
- advantage on holding concentration for spells
-can cast spells with shield in hand so long as all other requirements are met
-other features but these two are the main focus^
Lv8 feat shield master- when you attack you can use your bonus action to shove an opponent within 5ft
-other benefits but I’m focusing on this^
Lv 5 paladin Extra attack- attack twice when you take an attack action
Lv 9 nothing- start multiclass to fighter
Fighter gets a fighting style:
Dueling- +2 bonus to damage rolls when wielding a weapon one handed. Shield in off hand is acceptable
Lv 13 nothing - second level multiclass to fighter
Fighter gets second wind and action surge
Second wind-recover 1d10 as a bonus action once a rest. Free health for a bonus action
Action surge- y’all know this. Take another action once a rest. Action surge extra attack combo yields
4 attacks + whatever divine smites
2 attacks + 1 breath weapon
(side campaign goal is to grapple Someone and breath weapon their face off)
What do y’all think?
I know you specifically state you're not counting the breath weapons for the dragons, but since that's a significant amount of a dragons DPR, that numbers a tad misleading. I feel like you should've used Giants or some kind of Demon/devil to show the DPR for a Boss fight, if you didn't wanna calculate Aoe damage/saves
dude, I love a lot of what your saying and your super smart and hitting on things for new people coming into DnD. I have been playing PnP for 20 years. My buddy makes his own, he is a computer programmer, coder and knows how to make Epic games however this is my first time doing DnD. I have to ask why the red sulat shirt? you like commy China? j/k :P I understand people don't think that is what it means but I'm old and that is what it has mint forever. ;)
What about a Paladin - War mage ? War magic gives you +2 to AC and +4 to saving throws as a reaction at level 2, and +2 AC +2 to saving throws at level 10 while concentrating.
Hard for me to justify getting to 13 in Intelligence when we want Str, Cha, *and* Con, but make it work if you can!
you could multiclass in sorcerer divine soul and hexblade warlock... you get shield from the warlock and armour of agathys and Eldrich blast for range
sorcerer give you bless toll the dead guidance healing Word ... if you deep more you can get spirit guardian
Yeah... F Artificers !
lol
I played a vengeance paladin who was neutral and played it so, towing the line, but still helping people.
Then i was late one day... my dm had this thing, if we were late without reasonable excuses, we had to pick from the deck of many things.
I could have left earlier, but did not that day. So i drew my punishment. I got what was supposed to be a moot card.
The one that makes you switch alignments. So good becomes evil or vice versa. So my dm says, you become chaotic neutral.
I am like... ok then. So i play my character like he is slowly going insane. Doing nutty things i would never normally do. Like throwing people (who deserve it) out of windows or charming up a pirate queen and getting her pregnant... a lot of str and con saves were made for that month... got married too.
Anywho, so after becoming crazier and crazier, my level 7 vengeance paladin took shadow sorcerer levels... the havoc on the battlefield of seeing through darkness, having shield spell-absorb elements, +1 shield, and platemail, plus other awsome stuff. I was hard to kill. Baosting 23 to 28 ac in a fight.
So my dm, (cunning as he is...) makes a new monster, an abomination. Half Beholder, half Hydra... The Behydra.
It was meant to cause us no end of trouble, and we even got warned of a possible TPK. But we wanted that thing.
It was awsome, and terrifying. It had 3 necks and no heads, instead it had giant beholder eyes...
Turns out, my chracter was a complete counter to it though. Not intentionally eather, i used bless for the saving throws on some of us and my paladin aura gave people a boost too.
So those lazer beam eyes, slight regeneration, and nasty surprises were not too bad.
Anyways. That was a fun character to play.
In your tank ranking you mentioned that when creating this build you did not yet fully understand the importance of soft taunting. Since I'm going to start playing with an mmo style paladin tank soon, what would you change in this build today to make it a better defender?
Great review. What about taking the Oath of Battle at 3rd lvl and skipping the lvl of sorcerer? Shield is an oath spell in that list.. just an idea. Cheers!
Thanks! A valid option! I would be sad to miss out on all the Cleric spells that Pallies don't otherwise get, but if you're hungry for each and every level...
@@DnDDeepDive Well, the goal is remain effect within the group. Recently, the sorcerer was replaced by a 1/2 Orc Barby, so, the Paladin is no longer the center of battle with the rag'n Orc.. Taking an additional level outside of Paladin then slows down the Paly build. If that makes sense. I see the bonus to adding a level of spell caster, but at the cost of being a level behind with the Paladin.. I took the "Interception" fighting style from Tasha's book and that has proven useful in just 2 sessions. At 4th lvl, I am planning on taking the Heavy Armor Master for the damage reduction by weapon attacks, ofc, the goal there is to survive longer.. Need to acquire Platemail to increase the AC... Using long sword + shield, along with a flail as a secondary melee weapon. Thoughts/suggestions?
Hi there , i have a question about Tower Shield. If I plant it into the ground for 3/4 cover can mobs simply walk around the shield and ignore the 3/4 cover?
what about the Aberrant Dragonmark feat?
Goliath with 3 levels of rune knight fighter, make sure you grab the hill rune, and then paladin
Eberron: Rising From the Last War was the title you were looking for. :D
your damage calculation should include some non-physical dmg. Add in a bunch of fire elementals or something with saves like ghouls or a bunch of giant centipedes
I do add a Fireball/dex save calculation in later tank vids, and updated the comparison spreadsheet accordingly :)
Sad to see this build is bugged. Guys, what do you think about protector feat on the first level? Looks like a goat tank feat to me.
A paladin or fighter using the protection fighting style would pair nicely with a recklessly attacking barbarian to take some of the sting of enemy attacks having advantage
What do you think of earth genasi, oath of ancients. Following same build order. Earth genasi can use blade ward as bonus action, and oath of aincients gets resistance to spells in a 10 ft aoe at 7. And then sorcerer gives u access to shield and absorb elements. Lots of ways to gain resistance.
How are you casting shield with out Warcaster feat?
Back in the day I was under the impression that my DMs would let me drop a weapon as part of the reaction to cast the spell. They have since corrected the error of my ways :).
@@DnDDeepDive you could still drop it at the end of your turn. free action. then pick it back up on your turn. free object interaction.
@@TheRobversion1 Indeed, but at the end of the turn when you picked it up at the beginning? Gets a little clunky :).
@@DnDDeepDive yeah RAW though this works. you can solve it anyway once you get warcaster. of course, if the weapon is magical, you might have 2nd thoughts about dropping it as it might get stolen or kicked away. haha.
I have created the following write ups Episodes: 4, 7 10,12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 23, 24, 25, 43. If you want them, please let me know how to send them to you.
Oh wow, thanks! You could just email them to dndoptimized@gmail.com :)
@@DnDDeepDive Done
I would think a new video would be a a lot but do you ever go back and update based on new books?
Looking at the optimized master tank comparison chart, it seems like the paladin tank is pretty good at everything but surviving spells, I wonder if oath of the ancients paladin would make it a better meat shield though obviously it would lose out on some of the crown's ability to protect teammates
Thanks so much for the videos! I normally look you up when I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for a new character!
That feeling when you go to look at the google doc for a build and it doesn't exist yet. It cuts real deep. It isn't a physical pain, it is an emotional pain.
I want to build a asimar psionic paladin but a lot of people are not fond of psionics
I made a Yuan TI pureblood oath of the ancients and now I am very resilient against spells and magical effects in general.
Absorb elements grants resistance.
yes I forgotten about that most important aspect of the spell until another viewer pointed it out :). Good to remember!
Can u do an oath of the watchers build? Thanks amazing channel
How do I find the write-up / character sheet for this? I have joined, but I do not see a link or a section for it
As long as you’re Silver or higher, just navigate to the main page of my YT channel, under the “community” tab I post links to the library every week :)
And then the DM refuses to attack you.
This is why in his newer tank builds he chooses to always include a taunt feature
I love this build, yet wondering how much damage this paladin can also Output? Any ideas how to increase single handed weapon damage.
sustainably, not a ton, but smite always gives some decent burst damage :). Fighter dip for dueling fighting style? A good magic weapon? :)
Ooh, do Melee dps next :)
Im trying this new oathbreaker paladin and thinking of multiclassing to warlock.
always a good combo. i'd recommend the hexblade.
@@TheRobversion1 i need to get that subclass tho
There's a build that I would love to see you take a look at, but this might be a little unusual since it has nothing to do with combat. There's a meme build that I've seen going around that can get you proficiency in every skill in the game: Scout Rogue/Lore Bard/Knowledge Domain Cleric. (In fact, you even run out of skills you can get proficiency in depending on the race and feats you take.) How would you optimize a character explicitly to maximize the bonus for every single skill check?
There are a number of different things that could be optimized, such as getting the highest possible average skill bonus, or trying to get the highest possible bonus for your lowest skill check. It seems like this kind of build would favor keeping your stats balanced instead of focusing only on one or two, but what would the trade off be to dump Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution and instead just get expertise in Acro, Ath, SoH, and Stealth? Alternately, one could dump Intelligence and focus expertise in those skills instead. What do you think would be the most optimal strategy?
Hm... will have to consider. Really at that point we're *mostly* talking about optimizing for Roleplaying, no? Definitely something that someone should do if they want, but also difficult to quantify/put into a spreadsheet ;)
If you really want to be the ultimate skill monkey, my advice to start off would be using point buy to make give you an array of 11/13/12/13/13/13. Strength and Constitution will have to take the hit here because STR only governs Athletics and CON doesn't govern anything. Next would be to take standard human to give you +2 to almost everything. For feats I would say Human Determination and Prodigy both work really well.
they should know better! deus vult, the perfect party is 5 paladins, lets go bully some bad guys.
Moon Druid. We want to see a Moon Druid.
I've actually been wanting to do Moon Druid... it's just... so... many... beasts... :P
@@DnDDeepDive I’m as interested in your analysis of the character build itself. Dump Int/Cha vs Dex/Con? Feats & ASIs. Races (ghostwise halfling of course). Spell synergy. Etc.
@@revgizmo Alright, it's in the queue :)
OathBreaker Hexblade
My favorite tank character currently is a multiclassed Gnome Barbarian (5 starting) Rogue (15 ending), using a whip (Reach is amazing) and a shield. Helped a lot by magic items, but at 5th level without magic items, you take resilient dex at 4th level, and you have Str, con, dex saving throw proficiencies, and gnome cunning gives advantage on Int, Wis, and Cha, saving throws vs magic, and you got dex advantage from danger sense. You get all that nice resistance from raging, plus you hit 10th level, you can use uncanny dodge as your reaction vs a single attack every round, so if you attack recklessly, and something crits you because, well, it has advantage, you can halve the damage of the critical hit (or a different attack), and reduce it by half very likely because of raging as a bear totem barbarian. And of course at 12th level you get evasion, and you never take any damage from a dex saving throw ever again.
My DM has no idea how to kill the character, because my paladin friend gives me +5 to all my saves from his aura of protection, so I didn't even get bloodied when we killed an ancient red dragon at level 12
Also, since you go arcane trickster, when rage isn't running you can use shield +illusion spells to boost survivability nicely once you are high enough level, without needing high int/charisma for multiclassing normally.
If you want, you can take resilient Charisma and intelligence, at 9th and 13th levels, and have (at level 20) proficiency in all saves, advantage in many, get lucky to help get rid of crits/bad saving throw results, and your gnome is just impossible to pin down.
I have a belt of giant strength, and expertise in athletics, and raging, means your small gnomish body can break out of manacles like they are nothing, or break out of dimensional shackles somewhat easily once level 20 (+17 and advantage on a check? higher with some belts of giant strength)
This post turned out a ton longer than it was meant to be, but great video as always
ha ha! I love this - it's so hard to quantify/graph magic damage because, well, there's just such a huge variety of magic damage/spells that you might possibly run into, but we/I definitely under-appreciate how valuable having high resistance/saves etc. to spells can be in a game. Especially if your DM likes to use lots of magic attacks against you.
Great vid
I feel like the only problem with the comparison is that the paladin's tankieness is dependent on lots of factors - can you retain concentration, do you have to cast another concentration spell for better control maybe, are you in the presence of someone that can dispell/anti-magic-field you, etc. While the bear totem is more reliable, because he has a bit lower tankieness, but it is consistent and can't really be turned off, unless your enemy can ignore resistances, which veeery few do. Or, you can build the bear totem barbarian to be tanky and still dish out enormous amounts of damage. The paladin has to choose between the two. And finally, your build only has a +2 to hit (from strength), which is pretty abysmal, especially with a class that can't really get advantage. So, as a DM, you're right - the paladin has very little chance of affecting with a spell, he has very little chance of hitting, does very little damage if he spares his spell slots for shields and so on - I would literally ignore him, cause he's more a small nuisance than anything else. I would kill the whole party and then kill him. Tanks still have to pose a threat. That's true even in computer MMOs and so on - if you don't deal damage, you lose threat.
this is why either build has to pack tanking abilities aside from just defensive buffs so that the DMs "wastes his actions" by doing something ineffective if they ignore you. bear totem doesn't really pack those so is actually an inferior tank. a cha based paladin can use compelled duel is superior. ancestral guardians barb is better than both. relying on dealing dmg to generate threat is not optimal. it's not enough to make yourselves a threat (you won't ever be the biggest threat on the field as you arent a caster nor a striker). you have to make actions towards your allies ineffective so it's more attractive for the dm to hit you (actions against you are more effective and you are a significant threat).
@@TheRobversion1 Maybe I'm a bit biased, because I've played a tank paladin and my experience was very bad. It even became a running joke that every encounter had a 300 gold tax to revivify my character, because the DM, no matter how strong I made my character, would always kill him. And my character had rolled stats and had 20 STR, 18 CON, 18 CHA, 14 WIS, basically, my lowest saving throw was +9, and DEX was +4. Right now I'm playing a barbarian and I've been having way better experience as a tank, at least when it comes to surviving and getting people to attack me. However, even though I'm an Ancestral guardian, I honestly don't feel like the character brings much more to the table than a bear totem. Of course, this might be just my personal experience.
I don't mean to deny your post. I see your point. My personal experience has just been very different and I've found paladins, even very, very geared and with great stats don't really do the tank job that well. Our rogue could survive much longer when attacked by a big bad guy than my paladin.
@@Notsogoodguitarguy its because tanks as an archetype is suboptimal. In terms of defensive archetypes:
Burst striker (no need to defend if enemy is dead on round 1) > controller (they are disabled. They wont really do dmg) > debuffer/support ( their attacks are generally ineffective so there's little to mitgate) > tank (redirects dmg and mitigates it) > healer (party takes full dmg/effect then recovers/removes them after).
Not saying paladins are better than all barbs in tanking in general. Just saying better than totem barb. Of course the ideal route is not to go straight class but to multiclass. You probablu arent getting the full affect of the abilities as you arent picking the proper spells/multiclass/feats.
You also probably feel that way about the paladin and probably arent blown away by the experience as barb either is because you are playing a tank. I get alot of people want to play the archetype and its optimizable. Its just that it tends to leave a not so good experience more often than not compared lets say to playing a striker, controller, or summoner.
if your goal is not really to tank but just to be tough to takedown then yes, totem barb s a good option though i feel it can be done better by other classes with more levels such as rune knight, daolock, etc (if resistance is your main defensive mechanic). The better route of course is to build around not getting hit at all as taking dmg and resisting it can come with debilitating riders such as poison, frighten, etc. This is why casters survive longer as they are far away, can pump their ac to ridiculuous amounts with shield, can have layers of defenses like obscurement/mirror images and can counterspell.
@@TheRobversion1 Yeah, you're probably right. But, that's one of the points why I like totem warriors. I'm free to take feats such as great weapon master and multiclass into fighter or something else, do quite decent damage and still be sure I won't die easily. The build that I'm playing next will probably be 3 levels in barb (for bear totem) and then all the way in fighter, either Echo Knight or Battle Master.
@@Notsogoodguitarguy made some edits to the previous comment you might want to react to. Anyway yeah barb dips are fine and usually optimal. Going past 3-4 barb though is when it starts to become suboptimal. It is generally a weak class where its best ability is at level 2. Fighter is always an excellent choice as its very versatile and you get the very powerful action surge. I generally dont play tanks but you can never go wrong with having at least fighter 2 in any build.
I think among all my optimized builds only one was a "tank". Theorycrafted and played a rune knight 4, clockwork soul 6. It was built around grappling+shoving, then little dmg ticks via retributive dmg (armor of agathys, flames of phlegethos, hellish rebuke) and persistent dmg (create bonfire). And it packed bastion of law and the typical caster defensive suite for defense (aid, shield, absorb elements, counterspell). I wouldnt really classify it as a tank as it was more of a controller build (grappling) but packed the typical tank caster defensive spells.
Are you sure RAW that the HAM feat can reduce damage to 0? I thought you automatically did 1 point of damage minimum on a hit.
Great video!
Thanks! As per the PHB: "With a penalty, it is possible to deal 0 damage, but never negative damage."
@@DnDDeepDive Thanks man! What page is that? My paladin just took this feat!
@@krunchyfrogg I don't use the hard copy :) www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/combat#DamageandHealing
First!
lol