After suffering a few near TPKs through HotDQ, we are about to continue our adventures from there with mostly new party. Our DM likes to buff the monster's proficiency bonus a bit or add an enemy spellcaster here and there, so fights are pretty brutal. To compensate for that we play with 30 point buy and a bonus feat, but well... it does not compensate all too well, so I figured that some party OP is in order.
So have in mind the following quircks of our games:
Our DM likes hitting. Winning or doing a lot of damage is not really vital for him to have fun, but he dislikes missing.
Our DM likes spellcasters. Mind you - his spellcasters are mostly irritating (they have low hp and use low level spells) rather than dangerous, but they can still prove sufficient to turn a hard encounter into a TPK.
We are under the rulling that invocation requirements are total character level.
Please let me know what do you think about the following party:
TIefling Infernal Warlock 2/Red Draconic Sorcerer 10
Quickened, Twinned, Careful metamagics
Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast invocations
Notable feats: Elemental Adept: Fire, Warcaster.
Scorching Ray and Quickened Agonizing Blast is great single target damage in conjunction with Hex, Fireball takes care of AOE, Wall of Fire is nasty in conjunction with Repelling Blast, Windwall gives us protection from archers. As an Infernal Draconic Sorcerer - he has surprising resilience for an arcane spellcaster.
Human Life Cleric 4/Paladin of Vengeance 8
Notable feats: Magic Initiate (Guidance, Shillelagh, Faerie Fire), Polearm Master, Sentinel
Keeps warding bond of the fighter/warlock. Smacks face with a quarterstaff. Heals when needed. Gives everyone nearby a huge bonus to saves.
Human Fey Bladepact Warlock 9/Battlemaster Fighter 3
Thirsting Blade, Lifedrinker invocations
Parry, Pushing Attack, Disarming Attack maneuvers.
Notable feats: Polearm Master, Sentinel, Heavy Armor Master.
Smacks faces. Disarms enemies, and keeps them into a wall of fire. Has resistance to damage, 3 DR to normal weapons and 25 temporary hit points that deal 25 cold damage each time he is hit.
Half Elf Lore Bard 6/Abjurer Wizard 6
Notable feats: Magic Initiate (Eldritch Blast, Chill Touch, Hex)
Mostly deals with utility spells and skills. Counterspells dispells. Uses the arcane ward to keep reduce the tiny damage the warlock is taking even more. Removes key enemies from the field.
Book Warlock with 20 Cha, Modertly Armoed and Warcaster.
Warcaster for OA's.
Dissonant whispers to grant OA's to himself and the rogue.
Darkness + devils sight to get advantage.
Evards black tenticals for control.
Wizard Rituals for utility.
Valor Bard with resilence Con, warcaster, inspiring leader, 20 Cha.
Insperation to add to peoples saving throws.
Greater invisiblity on the rogue.
Dissonant whispers to provoke OA's.
Silence to shutdown casters.
Hypnotic Pattern to shut down others.
Stands in the back and shoots arrows otherwise.
Backup healer.
Fighter 2/Assassin, 20 Dex and Wis, mage slayer, expertise stealth and perception.
Scouts ahead.
Uses with greater invisiblity, uses action surge to lay out serious surprise. Then hides.
Get's OA's from mage slayer, disonant whispers, or simply people walking past him.
Monk 1/Moon Druid. Transforms and Tanks as needed, fills Str rolls.
Primary healer, but adds blasts when needed.
Cleverly avoids answering the actual question to post his own optimized party.
As for the OP's party: Dude, MAD much? You've got character concepts with multiple primary statistics. Stick to single-primary builds when you can.
I think that your party is screwed, and will be screwed no matter the configuration you might devise, until you get your DM running the game differently (or a different DM entirely).
Cranking up the bad-guys and then also cranking up the party is a warning sign that the DM isn't actually thinking through the changes they are making because adjusting both sides of an equation is the same net effect as only changing one side by the difference in the level of changes, but shockingly less effecient and accurate.
If he wants the monsters to be more powerful than the party, he should make the monsters as much more powerful as he wants without fiddling with the party.
If he wants the party to be capable of facing more powerul foes, he should make the party more powerful and use foes that are more powerful (without then adding more power to them).
If he just wants to be using bigger numbers for the sake of liking bigger numbers... just add a zero to the end of everything's hit points and the damage they deal.
Rancid_Rogue wrote:
Paladin or Barbarian could be pretty nice. High HP and some damage healing/mitigating abilities. Plus, can be anti-spellcaster.
If everyone else is going frontline, you can do more things, since they can soak up the damage while you pray the DM doesn't focus fire you as a Sorcerer, Warlock, or Monk (since AC is basically meaningless). But from the look of things, there aren't very many High Health characters to act as sponges...
Actually, now that I think of it, don't be afraid to straight-up dump Dexterity for some builds, since he "hates missing" so much that AC doesn't matter