Advice on becoming OP - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 CorporalSmall Jul 17, 2015 0:05:54	In my current game (5e), I should be extremely happy and satisfied. Our DM has rolled up some sweet loot, including a +3 enchanted broadsword which adds my STR modifier to my hit and damage, and to compliment that, a fire giant's belt which sets my strength to 25 (as long as my natural strength is lower). I am a fighter, spec'd into champion, and so I have taken great weapon fighting. At level 5, I can deal guaranteed 20 damage with great weapon fighting and the bonus damage on my sword, plus 2d6 for the actual sword damage. Yet, even with all that power and multiple attacks, I am somewhat dissatisfied. Why? The sorcerer of the party chuckles everytime we fight, because, as an example, he can easily twin an enhanced fireball to wipe out a squad of bugbears running through a door at our party. He soaks up all the XP, and i never feel like I add anything to the party, ususally because I attack an unharmed enemy to get the kill and fall 1 or 2 damage short. My thought process is this: by all rights I should be OP. But my OPness pales in comparison to that of the sorcerer. Even with godly loot rolls, I do nothing compared to him. So how do I validate myself? Get stronger. How do I get stronger? Get better loot? Unreliable, as the DM will probably never roll so amazingly again (pessimism leads to many pleasant surprises, so I take the worst case scenario into account). Thus I reach my dilemma. What can I get in order to beef myself up even more? I'm talking even the most remote possibilities. My party members are good guys, and so is the DM, so they'll help me even if the tasks are difficult. I'm talking crafting or efficiently finding epic wondrous items like the Bracers of Relentless Might (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Bracers_of_Relentless_Might), and other absurd items which will let me stop nearly killing bugbear chiefs in 1 turn, and start killing bugbear chiefs in 1 turn, or at least not put in all the work and then die due to my ac of 18. *TLDR*: I am whining about not killing enough things. What can I do to boost my combat efficiency? Feel free to ask me for more information for either clarity or with the intent of giving me help based off of what my character has/ is like already. I am perfectly willing to put in the time and work to achieve my goals. I'm not looking for some "whoops you tripped on every legendary loot item ever" from our DM, I'm looking for "holy crap you legitimately got something crazy good via your own efforts" Thanks in advance!
#2 randl Jul 17, 2015 0:34:10	CorporalSmall wrote:
#3 Razintarr Jul 17, 2015 1:16:34	Fireball can't be twinned.
#4 OrwellianHaggis Jul 17, 2015 1:41:51	Firstly I'd suggest talking to the player and trying to work out a way of playing in which you can both have fun. E.g. take turns in being the "leader" when dealing with threats, so that in one encounter you get to choose how to deal with it, and in the next the sorcerer player does. If that doesn't work (for whatever reason) I'd say: Boost your initiative through feats and increasing your dexterity. Then, when a threat appears that the sorcerer would simply blast out of existence, you run in first. Will the sorcerer kill you as well as the enemies? I'd wager not. Is this player a friend of yours, by the way, or someone you pay with at a shop?
#5 jaappleton Jul 17, 2015 3:21:30	Yeah, learn the Sorcerer very carefully. I believe it was Errata'd so Fireball, and some other kickass spells, can't be Twinned anymore. EDIT: Yup, he can't Twin the Fireball spell. So... he's cheating. http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/Errata_PH.pdf HOWEVER! You are now in an odd situation. Are you all a team? Or competing for glory? If your DM hands out XP per party member based on who gets the most kills, then... Your hand is kinda being forced. You have to make this known. Because not being able to Twin the Fireball spell is gonna make combat a lot harder, for everyone. An unintended consequence includes getting another party member killed because the enemies lived too long. Also, he does know that when any spell is Twinned, the second spell still consumes a spell slot, right? It's not a free cast of it. It just casts it faster.
#6 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 3:42:22	Twinned doesn't consume a spell slot, although Quicken does.
#7 Leugren Jul 17, 2015 3:53:45	Here is the relevant passage from the Player's Handbook Errata document which was released last month: Twinned Spell (p. 102). To be eligible for Twinned Spell, a spell must be incapa- ble of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level. As others have stated, the Fireball spell cannot be twinned. Also, if the sorcerer Quickens a spell, the only other spell that he or she can cast on his or her turn is a cantrip. The relevant rule appears on page 202 of the Player's Handbook, within the section titled "Bonus Action": A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action. As such, there is no way to cast the Fireball spell twice in one turn using the Sorcerer metamagic ability. Finally, keep in mind that a 5th level sorcerer has a very limited number of spell slots available per day. He or she only has 4 1st level slots, 3 2nd level slots, and 2 3rd level slots. He or she can convert all 5 of his/her sorcery points into an additional 3rd level slot, which grants him a maximum of 3 fireball spells per day. You, on the other hand, have the Extra Attack feature, which means that you can make two attacks per turn... every turn... all day... every day, not to mention your Action Surge ability which bumps this up to four attack per turn once per short rest. Unless your DM is only throwing one or two encounters at you per day, you should definitely be outshining the Sorcerer at least as often as he or she is outshining you, especially with all of the magical gear you have. I therefore believe that your complaints are largely unfounded. Talk to your DM, and point out the rules that I have cited above. If your sorcerer buddy, is smart, he or she will start twinning the haste spell, making you one of the beneficiaries.
(Reply to #6) jaappleton	Yunru wrote:
#9 Elfcrusher Jul 17, 2015 5:47:01	Is the OP trolling?
#10 jaappleton Jul 17, 2015 6:25:47	I think that OP might be taking issue with how the Sorcerer can nova. Also, it is not normal for the party to have a long rest multiple times a day (if that's happening), so the Sorcerer's spell slots should not be refreshing multiple times a day.
#11 Vulf Jul 17, 2015 6:37:30	To CorporalSmall, it seems a little insane that you have such good equipment at level 5, but anyway.. I think a little bit of the problem was going for the Champion build, it does slightly less damage on average and has less interesting mechanics than the Battlemaster. Staying a straight fighter will limit your damage dealing too. If you want to fix the Champion, there are a couple options: Multiclass Barbarian. 2 levels of Barbarian will give you Wreckless Attack, letting you get advantage (rolling twice) on every swing, doubling the chance you have to get critical hits. Further levels will give you a couple more nice features. If you are a Half-Orc, you are better off using a Greataxe over a Greatsword, but the sword is probably fine. Multiclass Psion. The Unearthed Arcana article has the Path of the Immortal that features the ability to get extra actions during a turn. Multiclass Paladin, getting a critical hit is a great time to dump a 4th level spell slot into a divine strike. 10d8 damage added to the hit. Another option, when you show your DM how Fireball can't be twinned, show him the alternate cleave rules too.
#12 Elfcrusher Jul 17, 2015 7:00:50	If he weren't trolling, and this actually happened, then on the fight after the Socerer killed all the bugbears, and the fight after that...and the fight after that...the Sorceror would have been next to useless while his ridiculously overgeared fighter killed everything in sight. And he wouldn't be complaining. Troll.
(Reply to #10) Yunru	jaappleton wrote:
#14 Jared711 Jul 17, 2015 9:42:32	Level 5 is the time for the fireball users to shine. Level 8-10 is where fireball doesn't do much damage vs. critter HP and won't be killing anything unless a few shots are made. Seems like your GM is crazy giving you all that loot. Your other job is to tank and make sure that Sorcerer doesn't get smacked in the face too much. Your game master needs to learn the rules and not give out ridiculous loot and prevent the Sorc from tossing too many fireballs.
#15 jaappleton Jul 17, 2015 10:28:07	Yeah, assuming this is all actually happening.... There's a lot of outright wrong stuff happening at your table, OP.
#16 CorporalSmall Jul 17, 2015 11:20:12	Thanks for all your responses so far. First of all, i will let everyone know about fireball's inability to be twinned. Second of all, i can assure you I am not trolling. The bugbear squad thing was an imaginary example, though the sorcerer has done things like cast minor illusion to cause 16 giant spiders to group up on his fake body and then fireball them from above to get 16 kills. While the inability to twin will reduce his power a bit, he still does insane damage, and our DM screwed up early by giving us a homebrew magical liquid which restores spell slots (we have like 20 charges. He's new to DM, and the rest of us are new to the game overall). Whenever we can't get through a day of fighting without him running out of spell slots, he just chugs a charge and is good to go again. This is a group of my close friends, so while we are all working together, this one guy has the "if i can get it i will take it" personality (he always has - we don't fault him for it). He will definitely not go with any "take turns leading combat", nor will anyone else because that's how we are as a group of friends. As for your power increase suggestions: i have head that multiclassing in 5e is kind of nerfed, so that often it is better to just stick to your 1st class all the way through. Someone said that I should be outshining the sorcerer as often as he does to me; if we run into weak enemies, i can easily kill two or 3 should i get the right initiative. Let me give you an example fight. We just faced four skeletal minotaurs (maybe they were undead minotaurs- I dont remember exactly). We were down a party member because he was sick irl, and these enemies looked very, very strong and scary. We get the jump on them, and after our combined efforts, we deal something like 90 damage to one (of which something like 53 was mine with 2 hits and 2 misses after action surge). The DM's description of the minotaur we had focused was along the lines of "it's feeling pretty beat up". Next turn, i went from 51 hp to 0 hp via three minotaurs with excellent initiative, and the fourth hit our sorcerer. The sorcerer ended up killing 3 of them and the ranger the 4th. I was left on the ground to do nothing the entire fight. Afterwards, our DM told us they had a base HP of 108 and pumped strength, constitution, and dex. It's fights like these that i woild love to be a part of, but get knocked out of immediately. As far as i can tell i haven't made any major mistakes, I'm just not strong enough or I don't get good rolls (the latter which i realize there's not much to be done about). For my more in depth questions, let me ask: how does crafting work? I have no idea myself. I want to be able to craft epic wondrous items at some point, but i don't know where to begin. Please feel free to continue asking questions and discussing with me. Thanks again!
#17 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 11:12:34	Scrap your campaign. Your DM's done so much wrong it would only be salvagable by an experienced DM. For instance, he gave you rediculously over powered stuff. Then, rather than retract that, upped all the monsters. So now you have rediculously swingy fights because the system isn't designed for such changes.
#18 Elfcrusher Jul 17, 2015 11:18:29	Yunru wrote:
#19 Ralif_Redhammer Jul 17, 2015 11:27:21	I’d have said pushing on without taking a long rest, but that goofy magic liquid scratches that idea. The fighter has higher AC and HP than the sorcerer. I’m guessing you’re doing the tanking while the sorcerer is artillery. Even though you’ve got a nice sword, maybe start doing some ranged attacks. Perhaps take a couple levels of rogue. Basically, get off the front line and let the sorcerer deal with melee attacks. Though, the suggestion of barbarian's a good call. Especially the path of the bear, which gives resistance to everything but psychic while raging. Cleric also could be a potential option – some healing magic might help your staying power. I wouldn't say multi-classing is nerfed in 5e, but I think you do get more out of sticking with a single class. I wouldn’t say you should be outshining the sorcerer, but you should certainly not be getting outclassed. That spell-slot restoring potion really monkeys with one of the key balancing factors.
#20 CorporalSmall Jul 17, 2015 11:29:18	I think the issue with loot is that my DM didn't set limits on item power per our level. He gave us entirely random loot from the get-go, meaning if we got god-tier stuff, fine. If we got crap, fine. We just lucked out early. You say this is unfixable? I didn't think it was so bad. Is a loot curve really that necessary?
#21 Elfcrusher Jul 17, 2015 11:37:32	CorporalSmall wrote:
#22 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 11:52:27	When you've a poiton that completely mitigates the biggest draw back of every spellcaster? It's not beyond repair. However for a novice DM this means a soft reset of the campaign with any homebrew alterations (s)he made removed.
#23 BoldItalic Jul 17, 2015 11:54:37	You aren't really doing anything wrong. Your DM has made the Sorcerer overpowered with the slots potion and made the monsters tougher to compensate, so of course you are left behind in the race even though he has given you overpowered magic items. In 5e, the rule is that XP is divided equally between all the members of the party, regardless of who kills what . So your best play is to let the sorcerer carry on taking out the monsters while you hang back and toss missiles from a safe distance. That way, you get the all benefit for less risk. You can amuse yourself by doing entertaining fun stuff like swinging from chandeliers, kicking over tables, dropping onto the heads of large monsters, and so on. The crafting rules for magic items are in the DMG but they are optional and, basically, it's up to the DM if he is going to allow it and how difficult he wants to make it, but it probably won't help you much anyway. Magic items are not intended to make a huge difference in 5e and it sounds like what you already have is more than enough. Items like yours would normally not kick in before 11th level if the DM is following the guidelines. Talk to your DM and try to explain that he has made the game un-fun for you by handing out game-breaking stuff.
#24 ChaosTheory416 Jul 17, 2015 11:55:30	Hey guys, OP's Sorcerer friend here, just like to correct a couple things to see if they help get any better advice First, this is almost all of our first time playing, so that accounts for things like the twinned fireball (super bummed I wont be able to anymore, it was really fun). I have been pretty OP because of that and the fact that for the most part, we have like 1 encouter per day. Some of you have mentioned, and we have observed, I get much more balanced when we're in longer dungones, where my average turn's damage will be much weaker thany most of the other players, but I can pull out the stops and blow my higher level spell slots for some kick ass burst and AoE. As for the magic liquid stuff, what happened was he created this "well" in our first dungeon, a normal vial would hold one charge (restore one level 1 spell slot, drink two vials to restor two level 1s or one level 2, etc.) and he limited us to 5 vials each. That dungeon, I kept on running back to refil after every fight, but since then I believe only one vial has been used, so while they could be nice for tight spots, they havent effected us much (again, outside of that first dungeon when we were all ~level 2). Anyway. Yeah we've gotten some super OP gear, probably somethings gone wrong with the loot but we've all gotten a couple incredible items, and we all seem to be having fun with that, so none of us really mind. OP's real problem has been, even though he can deal some damn nice damage (EDIT: thinking about it he easily has the best single-target damage of anyone in the group), landing the killing blows, as well as getting knocked down when he does his tanking thing, and being unable to participate in the rest of the fight (so even less KBs). Anyway, hope this helps for any advice giving, and thank you and damn for correcting my fireball twinning
#25 Vulf Jul 17, 2015 12:18:39	Having fun is the most important part. Whoever told OP about multiclassing being weak probably looked at the level 20 abilities, without realising that every campaign released so far ends around level 16.
#26 BoldItalic Jul 17, 2015 12:31:01	ChaosTheory416 wrote:
#27 jaappleton Jul 17, 2015 12:43:44	Pure spellcaster classes aren't supposed to be using spells constantly. That's why there are Cantrips.
(Reply to #26) ChaosTheory416	BoldItalic wrote:
#29 OoftaMeg Jul 17, 2015 13:05:17	Rule number zero is that as long as everyone is having fun, you are playing right. However it sounds like you have what has been traditionally called a "Montey Haul" campaign. Tons of cool stuff (+3 sword? belt? sorcerers effectively getting a long rest between every fight?) that is not typical for your level. Or ever. That will make it very difficult to balance things out. That, and your character already has stuff that I wouldn't expect to get in a campaign until close to level 20, if then. The arms race you have going on between your characters and your dm's monsters is probably not sustainable. What is he going to give you at level 10? A +5 Vorpal sword? What about level 15 or above? There is no way you can keep up with the sorcerer if there are no limits. I would probably suggest rebooting the campaign. Double check the rules (like the twinned spell), read up on the DMG suggestions of 1-2 short rests per day and multiple fights. The sorcerer will still have their spot to shine now and then and so will the fighter. If you want to keep the same characters, just re-boot as level 5 characters (using the suggested wealth from the DMG) and some of the silliness was just all a dream. Most important, discuss the issue with your DM. Nobody has done anything wrong, he's made some typical newbie DM mistakes. Oh, and remember rule zero.
#30 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 17, 2015 13:28:03	OoftaMeg wrote:
#31 Leugren Jul 17, 2015 13:43:21	ChaosTheory416 wrote:
#32 Ralif_Redhammer Jul 17, 2015 13:44:12	It’s great to hear that everything being resolved so...amicably. There are more experienced players and DMs out there that would have thrown fits.
#33 Coredump00 Jul 17, 2015 13:57:42	Having a ton of powerful magic isn't necessarily a problem, but it tends to turn combats very one sided.... Fights are either too easy because you have a ton of powerful gear, or the fights are too hard because the DM upped the bad guys and you don't have that many HPs or other class features. IOW, you become glass cannons.... you either get cake-walks, or you get a total party death. The BIGGEST problem, however... is the XP distribution. Everyone should be working as a team, so everyone should be getting about the same XP. Its cool to have a small boost for one thing or another, but it should not be a big difference. Why? GIving out individual XP means no one wants to play the support character. Our party is a lot better with our Bard around... he does almost no damage. It incentivizes people to try and steal kills.... why attack the big guy, when I can 'kill' the little guy and get the XP. I will wait until you wound the big guy, then take him out. Why heal the guy down, when I can attack and get a kill? etc etc You want the team working as a team, doing what is best for the team..... dont' incenitvize selfish play. Those are the two big things..... the rest is learning the rules, and the DM getting more experience. EX. I doubt it made any sense for all 16 spiders to go check out 1 dead guy. You need to have more than 1 encounter a day. Things like that. If you do a search for any post by Iserith or Bawlie they have some good links in the signature that may help both players and DMs. I dont' agree with all of their gaming beliefs.... but its good stuff.
#34 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 17, 2015 14:08:30	Leugren wrote:
#35 BoldItalic Jul 17, 2015 14:21:12	Leugren wrote:
(Reply to #35) jaappleton	BoldItalic wrote:
#37 Yunru Jul 17, 2015 14:50:26	My group tried to one-up each other in how supportive and/or lazy we could be :P
#38 Macv12 Jul 17, 2015 17:12:09	The other thing about exp: you get it for surpassing challenges, not killing a thing. The challenge is the entire combat. Each party member that did something to get everyone past that challenge should be getting rewarded for it. As they should be getting rewarded if they surpassed a challenge without combat. Those are the reason why things like the Friends cantrip, the Suggestion spell, the rogue's Expertise, the ranger's Natural Explorer, and so on, all exist, despite lack of Killing Blow utility.
#39 CorporalSmall Jul 17, 2015 19:39:40	I'd like to thank you all for your suggestions and help. We only have until the end of the summer to play as we all go to different colleges, and our schedules make getting the group of us together a bit of a pain. We have recently been doing 1 session every 2 weeks, which needless to say isn't enough to satisfy the new player DnD craving (at least for me) I'm sure our game will improve as a result of what's being written here, and I can say for sure that our mistakes now are only more encouragement to play more and play better in the future. Though i may take a d4 from stubbing my toe on the 4th wall, I'd like to say: may your rolls favor your victory!
#40 Nevvur Jul 18, 2015 1:25:02	re: going down early in the fight when you tried to do tanky stuff You did exactly what tanks are supposed to do. Imagine all those hits which barely missed because you had one or two higher AC than the attack roll and compare that to your allies lower AC. Then account for all the hits which did land on you, and apply those to your allies as well. 1 KO could've turned into a TPK. In any case, your group is new to the game, but hopefully the DM will find ways to make at least some of your combats more than a battle of HP attrition. When summer is over and you guys head separate ways, you might consider keeping the game going on roll20.net or another digital table top.
(Reply to #39) Radaceus	ChaosTheory416 wrote:
#42 shintashi Jul 18, 2015 9:00:12	CorporalSmall wrote:
#43 Jared711 Jul 18, 2015 23:05:25	1. Get your GM to start using the rules for the game. XP is given to the party. No twinned fireballs, etc. 2. Each person should be stripped of magic items. Give one or two uncommon magic items to each player max. 3. Know that there is more to winning a fight than doing damage. That sorcerer would be dead if it wasn't for you to take all the damage. If you want to stay conscious longer, you can use the dodge action. I believe, the Eldritch knight option can allow you to cast shield which is a huge boon to survivability. Everyone has a job in a fight and you might not be to do damage but you can shine in other ways. Use a shield and one handed weapon can be another good option too in a difficult fight.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

CorporalSmall

Jul 17, 2015 0:05:54

In my current game (5e), I should be extremely happy and satisfied. Our DM has rolled up some sweet loot, including a +3 enchanted broadsword which adds my STR modifier to my hit and damage, and to compliment that, a fire giant's belt which sets my strength to 25 (as long as my natural strength is lower). I am a fighter, spec'd into champion, and so I have taken great weapon fighting. At level 5, I can deal guaranteed 20 damage with great weapon fighting and the bonus damage on my sword, plus 2d6 for the actual sword damage.

Yet, even with all that power and multiple attacks, I am somewhat dissatisfied. Why? The sorcerer of the party chuckles everytime we fight, because, as an example, he can easily twin an enhanced fireball to wipe out a squad of bugbears running through a door at our party. He soaks up all the XP, and i never feel like I add anything to the party, ususally because I attack an unharmed enemy to get the kill and fall 1 or 2 damage short.

My thought process is this: by all rights I should be OP. But my OPness pales in comparison to that of the sorcerer. Even with godly loot rolls, I do nothing compared to him. So how do I validate myself? Get stronger. How do I get stronger? Get better loot? Unreliable, as the DM will probably never roll so amazingly again (pessimism leads to many pleasant surprises, so I take the worst case scenario into account). Thus I reach my dilemma.

What can I get in order to beef myself up even more? I'm talking even the most remote possibilities. My party members are good guys, and so is the DM, so they'll help me even if the tasks are difficult. I'm talking crafting or efficiently finding epic wondrous items like the Bracers of Relentless Might (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Bracers_of_Relentless_Might), and other absurd items which will let me stop nearly killing bugbear chiefs in 1 turn, and start killing bugbear chiefs in 1 turn, or at least not put in all the work and then die due to my ac of 18.

TLDR: I am whining about not killing enough things. What can I do to boost my combat efficiency? Feel free to ask me for more information for either clarity or with the intent of giving me help based off of what my character has/ is like already. I am perfectly willing to put in the time and work to achieve my goals. I'm not looking for some "whoops you tripped on every legendary loot item ever" from our DM, I'm looking for "holy crap you legitimately got something crazy good via your own efforts" Thanks in advance!

randl

Jul 17, 2015 0:34:10

CorporalSmall wrote:

Razintarr

Jul 17, 2015 1:16:34

Fireball can't be twinned.

OrwellianHaggis

Jul 17, 2015 1:41:51

Firstly I'd suggest talking to the player and trying to work out a way of playing in which you can both have fun. E.g. take turns in being the "leader" when dealing with threats, so that in one encounter you get to choose how to deal with it, and in the next the sorcerer player does. If that doesn't work (for whatever reason) I'd say: Boost your initiative through feats and increasing your dexterity. Then, when a threat appears that the sorcerer would simply blast out of existence, you run in first. Will the sorcerer kill you as well as the enemies? I'd wager not. Is this player a friend of yours, by the way, or someone you pay with at a shop?

jaappleton

Jul 17, 2015 3:21:30

Yeah, learn the Sorcerer very carefully. I believe it was Errata'd so Fireball, and some other kickass spells, can't be Twinned anymore.

EDIT: Yup, he can't Twin the Fireball spell. So... he's cheating.

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/Errata_PH.pdf

HOWEVER! You are now in an odd situation. Are you all a team? Or competing for glory? If your DM hands out XP per party member based on who gets the most kills, then... Your hand is kinda being forced. You have to make this known. Because not being able to Twin the Fireball spell is gonna make combat a lot harder, for everyone. An unintended consequence includes getting another party member killed because the enemies lived too long.

Also, he does know that when any spell is Twinned, the second spell still consumes a spell slot, right? It's not a free cast of it. It just casts it faster.

Yunru

Jul 17, 2015 3:42:22

Twinned doesn't consume a spell slot, although Quicken does.

Leugren

Jul 17, 2015 3:53:45

Here is the relevant passage from the Player's Handbook Errata document which was released last month:

Twinned Spell (p. 102). To be eligible for Twinned Spell, a spell must be incapa-

ble of targeting more than one creature at the spell’s current level.

As others have stated, the Fireball spell cannot be twinned. Also, if the sorcerer Quickens a spell, the only other spell that he or she can cast on his or her turn is a cantrip. The relevant rule appears on page 202 of the Player's Handbook, within the section titled "Bonus Action":

A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell,

provided that you haven't already taken a bonus action this turn. You can't cast another spell during the same

turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.

As such, there is no way to cast the Fireball spell twice in one turn using the Sorcerer metamagic ability.

Finally, keep in mind that a 5th level sorcerer has a very limited number of spell slots available per day. He or she only has 4 1st level slots, 3 2nd level slots, and 2 3rd level slots. He or she can convert all 5 of his/her sorcery points into an additional 3rd level slot, which grants him a maximum of 3 fireball spells per day. You, on the other hand, have the Extra Attack feature, which means that you can make two attacks per turn... every turn... all day... every day, not to mention your Action Surge ability which bumps this up to four attack per turn once per short rest. Unless your DM is only throwing one or two encounters at you per day, you should definitely be outshining the Sorcerer at least as often as he or she is outshining you, especially with all of the magical gear you have. I therefore believe that your complaints are largely unfounded. Talk to your DM, and point out the rules that I have cited above. If your sorcerer buddy, is smart, he or she will start twinning the haste spell, making you one of the beneficiaries.

(Reply to #6)

jaappleton

Yunru wrote:

Elfcrusher

Jul 17, 2015 5:47:01

Is the OP trolling?

#10

jaappleton

Jul 17, 2015 6:25:47

I think that OP might be taking issue with how the Sorcerer can nova. Also, it is not normal for the party to have a long rest multiple times a day (if that's happening), so the Sorcerer's spell slots should not be refreshing multiple times a day.

#11

Vulf

Jul 17, 2015 6:37:30

To CorporalSmall, it seems a little insane that you have such good equipment at level 5, but anyway..

I think a little bit of the problem was going for the Champion build, it does slightly less damage on average and has less interesting mechanics than the Battlemaster. Staying a straight fighter will limit your damage dealing too. If you want to fix the Champion, there are a couple options:

Multiclass Barbarian. 2 levels of Barbarian will give you Wreckless Attack, letting you get advantage (rolling twice) on every swing, doubling the chance you have to get critical hits. Further levels will give you a couple more nice features. If you are a Half-Orc, you are better off using a Greataxe over a Greatsword, but the sword is probably fine.

Multiclass Psion. The Unearthed Arcana article has the Path of the Immortal that features the ability to get extra actions during a turn.

Multiclass Paladin, getting a critical hit is a great time to dump a 4th level spell slot into a divine strike. 10d8 damage added to the hit.

Another option, when you show your DM how Fireball can't be twinned, show him the alternate cleave rules too.

#12

Elfcrusher

Jul 17, 2015 7:00:50

If he weren't trolling, and this actually happened, then on the fight after the Socerer killed all the bugbears, and the fight after that...and the fight after that...the Sorceror would have been next to useless while his ridiculously overgeared fighter killed everything in sight. And he wouldn't be complaining.

Troll.

(Reply to #10)

Yunru

jaappleton wrote:

#14

Jared711

Jul 17, 2015 9:42:32

Level 5 is the time for the fireball users to shine. Level 8-10 is where fireball doesn't do much damage vs. critter HP and won't be killing anything unless a few shots are made. Seems like your GM is crazy giving you all that loot. Your other job is to tank and make sure that Sorcerer doesn't get smacked in the face too much.

Your game master needs to learn the rules and not give out ridiculous loot and prevent the Sorc from tossing too many fireballs.

#15

jaappleton

Jul 17, 2015 10:28:07

Yeah, assuming this is all actually happening.... There's a lot of outright wrong stuff happening at your table, OP.

#16

CorporalSmall

Jul 17, 2015 11:20:12

Thanks for all your responses so far. First of all, i will let everyone know about fireball's inability to be twinned. Second of all, i can assure you I am not trolling. The bugbear squad thing was an imaginary example, though the sorcerer has done things like cast minor illusion to cause 16 giant spiders to group up on his fake body and then fireball them from above to get 16 kills. While the inability to twin will reduce his power a bit, he still does insane damage, and our DM screwed up early by giving us a homebrew magical liquid which restores spell slots (we have like 20 charges. He's new to DM, and the rest of us are new to the game overall). Whenever we can't get through a day of fighting without him running out of spell slots, he just chugs a charge and is good to go again.

This is a group of my close friends, so while we are all working together, this one guy has the "if i can get it i will take it" personality (he always has - we don't fault him for it). He will definitely not go with any "take turns leading combat", nor will anyone else because that's how we are as a group of friends.

As for your power increase suggestions: i have head that multiclassing in 5e is kind of nerfed, so that often it is better to just stick to your 1st class all the way through. Someone said that I should be outshining the sorcerer as often as he does to me; if we run into weak enemies, i can easily kill two or 3 should i get the right initiative.

Let me give you an example fight. We just faced four skeletal minotaurs (maybe they were undead minotaurs- I dont remember exactly). We were down a party member because he was sick irl, and these enemies looked very, very strong and scary. We get the jump on them, and after our combined efforts, we deal something like 90 damage to one (of which something like 53 was mine with 2 hits and 2 misses after action surge). The DM's description of the minotaur we had focused was along the lines of "it's feeling pretty beat up". Next turn, i went from 51 hp to 0 hp via three minotaurs with excellent initiative, and the fourth hit our sorcerer. The sorcerer ended up killing 3 of them and the ranger the 4th. I was left on the ground to do nothing the entire fight.

Afterwards, our DM told us they had a base HP of 108 and pumped strength, constitution, and dex. It's fights like these that i woild love to be a part of, but get knocked out of immediately. As far as i can tell i haven't made any major mistakes, I'm just not strong enough or I don't get good rolls (the latter which i realize there's not much to be done about).

For my more in depth questions, let me ask: how does crafting work? I have no idea myself. I want to be able to craft epic wondrous items at some point, but i don't know where to begin. Please feel free to continue asking questions and discussing with me. Thanks again!

#17

Yunru

Jul 17, 2015 11:12:34

Scrap your campaign. Your DM's done so much wrong it would only be salvagable by an experienced DM. For instance, he gave you rediculously over powered stuff. Then, rather than retract that, upped all the monsters. So now you have rediculously swingy fights because the system isn't designed for such changes.

#18

Elfcrusher

Jul 17, 2015 11:18:29

Yunru wrote:

#19

Ralif_Redhammer

Jul 17, 2015 11:27:21

I’d have said pushing on without taking a long rest, but that goofy magic liquid scratches that idea.

The fighter has higher AC and HP than the sorcerer. I’m guessing you’re doing the tanking while the sorcerer is artillery. Even though you’ve got a nice sword, maybe start doing some ranged attacks. Perhaps take a couple levels of rogue. Basically, get off the front line and let the sorcerer deal with melee attacks.

Though, the suggestion of barbarian's a good call. Especially the path of the bear, which gives resistance to everything but psychic while raging. Cleric also could be a potential option – some healing magic might help your staying power.

I wouldn't say multi-classing is nerfed in 5e, but I think you do get more out of sticking with a single class. I wouldn’t say you should be outshining the sorcerer, but you should certainly not be getting outclassed. That spell-slot restoring potion really monkeys with one of the key balancing factors.

#20

CorporalSmall

Jul 17, 2015 11:29:18

I think the issue with loot is that my DM didn't set limits on item power per our level. He gave us entirely random loot from the get-go, meaning if we got god-tier stuff, fine. If we got crap, fine. We just lucked out early. You say this is unfixable? I didn't think it was so bad. Is a loot curve really that necessary?

#21

Elfcrusher

Jul 17, 2015 11:37:32

CorporalSmall wrote:

#22

Yunru

Jul 17, 2015 11:52:27

When you've a poiton that completely mitigates the biggest draw back of every spellcaster?

It's not beyond repair. However for a novice DM this means a soft reset of the campaign with any homebrew alterations (s)he made removed.

#23

BoldItalic

Jul 17, 2015 11:54:37

You aren't really doing anything wrong. Your DM has made the Sorcerer overpowered with the slots potion and made the monsters tougher to compensate, so of course you are left behind in the race even though he has given you overpowered magic items.

In 5e, the rule is that XP is divided equally between all the members of the party, regardless of who kills what . So your best play is to let the sorcerer carry on taking out the monsters while you hang back and toss missiles from a safe distance. That way, you get the all benefit for less risk. You can amuse yourself by doing entertaining fun stuff like swinging from chandeliers, kicking over tables, dropping onto the heads of large monsters, and so on.

The crafting rules for magic items are in the DMG but they are optional and, basically, it's up to the DM if he is going to allow it and how difficult he wants to make it, but it probably won't help you much anyway. Magic items are not intended to make a huge difference in 5e and it sounds like what you already have is more than enough. Items like yours would normally not kick in before 11th level if the DM is following the guidelines.

Talk to your DM and try to explain that he has made the game un-fun for you by handing out game-breaking stuff.

#24

ChaosTheory416

Jul 17, 2015 11:55:30

Hey guys, OP's Sorcerer friend here, just like to correct a couple things to see if they help get any better advice

First, this is almost all of our first time playing, so that accounts for things like the twinned fireball (super bummed I wont be able to anymore, it was really fun).

I have been pretty OP because of that and the fact that for the most part, we have like 1 encouter per day. Some of you have mentioned, and we have observed, I get much more balanced when we're in longer dungones, where my average turn's damage will be much weaker thany most of the other players, but I can pull out the stops and blow my higher level spell slots for some kick ass burst and AoE.

As for the magic liquid stuff, what happened was he created this "well" in our first dungeon, a normal vial would hold one charge (restore one level 1 spell slot, drink two vials to restor two level 1s or one level 2, etc.) and he limited us to 5 vials each. That dungeon, I kept on running back to refil after every fight, but since then I believe only one vial has been used, so while they could be nice for tight spots, they havent effected us much (again, outside of that first dungeon when we were all ~level 2).

Anyway. Yeah we've gotten some super OP gear, probably somethings gone wrong with the loot but we've all gotten a couple incredible items, and we all seem to be having fun with that, so none of us really mind. OP's real problem has been, even though he can deal some damn nice damage (EDIT: thinking about it he easily has the best single-target damage of anyone in the group), landing the killing blows, as well as getting knocked down when he does his tanking thing, and being unable to participate in the rest of the fight (so even less KBs).

Anyway, hope this helps for any advice giving, and thank you and damn for correcting my fireball twinning

#25

Vulf

Jul 17, 2015 12:18:39

Having fun is the most important part.

Whoever told OP about multiclassing being weak probably looked at the level 20 abilities, without realising that every campaign released so far ends around level 16.

#26

BoldItalic

Jul 17, 2015 12:31:01

ChaosTheory416 wrote:

#27

jaappleton

Jul 17, 2015 12:43:44

Pure spellcaster classes aren't supposed to be using spells constantly. That's why there are Cantrips.

(Reply to #26)

ChaosTheory416

BoldItalic wrote:

#29

OoftaMeg

Jul 17, 2015 13:05:17

Rule number zero is that as long as everyone is having fun, you are playing right.

However it sounds like you have what has been traditionally called a "Montey Haul" campaign. Tons of cool stuff (+3 sword? belt? sorcerers effectively getting a long rest between every fight?) that is not typical for your level. Or ever. That will make it very difficult to balance things out. That, and your character already has stuff that I wouldn't expect to get in a campaign until close to level 20, if then.

The arms race you have going on between your characters and your dm's monsters is probably not sustainable. What is he going to give you at level 10? A +5 Vorpal sword? What about level 15 or above? There is no way you can keep up with the sorcerer if there are no limits.

I would probably suggest rebooting the campaign. Double check the rules (like the twinned spell), read up on the DMG suggestions of 1-2 short rests per day and multiple fights. The sorcerer will still have their spot to shine now and then and so will the fighter.

If you want to keep the same characters, just re-boot as level 5 characters (using the suggested wealth from the DMG) and some of the silliness was just all a dream.

Most important, discuss the issue with your DM. Nobody has done anything wrong, he's made some typical newbie DM mistakes.

Oh, and remember rule zero.

#30

Tempest_Stormwind

Jul 17, 2015 13:28:03

OoftaMeg wrote:

#31

Leugren

Jul 17, 2015 13:43:21

ChaosTheory416 wrote:

#32

Ralif_Redhammer

Jul 17, 2015 13:44:12

It’s great to hear that everything being resolved so...amicably. There are more experienced players and DMs out there that would have thrown fits.

#33

Coredump00

Jul 17, 2015 13:57:42

Having a ton of powerful magic isn't *necessarily* a problem, but it tends to turn combats very one sided.... Fights are either too easy because you have a ton of powerful gear, or the fights are too hard because the DM upped the bad guys and you don't have that many HPs or other class features.

IOW, you become glass cannons.... you either get cake-walks, or you get a total party death.

The BIGGEST problem, however... is the XP distribution. Everyone should be working as a team, so everyone should be getting about the same XP. Its cool to have a small boost for one thing or another, but it should not be a big difference.

Why? GIving out individual XP means no one wants to play the support character. Our party is a *lot* better with our Bard around... he does almost no damage.

It incentivizes people to try and steal kills.... why attack the big guy, when I can 'kill' the little guy and get the XP. I will wait until you wound the big guy, then take him out.

Why heal the guy down, when I can attack and get a kill?

etc

You want the team working as a team, doing what is best for the team..... dont' incenitvize selfish play.

Those are the two big things..... the rest is learning the rules, and the DM getting more experience. EX. I doubt it made any sense for *all 16* spiders to go check out 1 dead guy. You need to have more than 1 encounter a day. Things like that.

If you do a search for any post by Iserith or Bawlie they have some good links in the signature that may help both players and DMs. I dont' agree with all of their gaming beliefs.... but its good stuff.

#34

Tempest_Stormwind

Jul 17, 2015 14:08:30

Leugren wrote:

#35

BoldItalic

Jul 17, 2015 14:21:12

Leugren wrote:

(Reply to #35)

jaappleton

BoldItalic wrote:

#37

Yunru

Jul 17, 2015 14:50:26

My group tried to one-up each other in how supportive and/or lazy we could be :P

#38

Macv12

Jul 17, 2015 17:12:09

The other thing about exp: you get it for surpassing challenges, not killing a thing. The challenge is the entire combat. Each party member that did something to get everyone past that challenge should be getting rewarded for it. As they should be getting rewarded if they surpassed a challenge without combat. Those are the reason why things like the Friends cantrip, the Suggestion spell, the rogue's Expertise, the ranger's Natural Explorer, and so on, all exist, despite lack of Killing Blow utility.

#39

CorporalSmall

Jul 17, 2015 19:39:40

I'd like to thank you all for your suggestions and help. We only have until the end of the summer to play as we all go to different colleges, and our schedules make getting the group of us together a bit of a pain. We have recently been doing 1 session every 2 weeks, which needless to say isn't enough to satisfy the new player DnD craving (at least for me)

I'm sure our game will improve as a result of what's being written here, and I can say for sure that our mistakes now are only more encouragement to play more and play better in the future. Though i may take a d4 from stubbing my toe on the 4th wall, I'd like to say: may your rolls favor your victory!

#40

Nevvur

Jul 18, 2015 1:25:02

re: going down early in the fight when you tried to do tanky stuff

You did exactly what tanks are supposed to do. Imagine all those hits which barely missed because you had one or two higher AC than the attack roll and compare that to your allies lower AC. Then account for all the hits which did land on you, and apply those to your allies as well. 1 KO could've turned into a TPK.

In any case, your group is new to the game, but hopefully the DM will find ways to make at least some of your combats more than a battle of HP attrition. When summer is over and you guys head separate ways, you might consider keeping the game going on roll20.net or another digital table top.

(Reply to #39)

Radaceus

ChaosTheory416 wrote:

#42

shintashi

Jul 18, 2015 9:00:12

CorporalSmall wrote:

#43

Jared711

Jul 18, 2015 23:05:25

1. Get your GM to start using the rules for the game. XP is given to the party. No twinned fireballs, etc.

2. Each person should be stripped of magic items. Give one or two uncommon magic items to each player max.

3. Know that there is more to winning a fight than doing damage. That sorcerer would be dead if it wasn't for you to take all the damage. If you want to stay conscious longer, you can use the dodge action. I believe, the Eldritch knight option can allow you to cast shield which is a huge boon to survivability. Everyone has a job in a fight and you might not be to do damage but you can shine in other ways. Use a shield and one handed weapon can be another good option too in a difficult fight.