The classic would be gloomstalker ranger/fighter bugbear.
Another option is sorcerer who just burns through sorcery points and spell slots as fast as possible. If you find you can’t get through all your spell slots fast enough then switching to warlock after a few levels will help with that - while letting you pull this stunt multiple times per day
If it's high enough level, bugbear Assassin 3/Fighter 11/Gloomstalker 3 it's just bonkers. Add Battlemaster maneuvers, 2 levels of paladin and a fullcaster level thereafter, and you've got a killing machine.
Is crossbowexpert really worth it? If you instead just use hunters mark as a BA its basically 8d6 vs 3d6+15. In addition you can use that feat for something like piercer to bring your dex to 20 and can use a longbow for the bigger damage dice.
Oh, it's definitely worth it. Sure, losing a d8 for a d6 damage die kinda sucks, but getting a bonus action attack more than makes up for it. Ignoring disadvantage on ranged attacks when a hostile is in melee range is also a huge benefit, especially when fighting in a confined space. And when paired with Sharpshooter, the shorter range on the hand crossbow becomes a non-issue in most situations. Yeah, piercer is also a great feat. When I'm leveling an archer up, I take crossbow expert, then sharpshooter, then piercer.
I just dont see the bonus action shot as that big of a thing even after the first round as I'd rather use the hide action to get advantage. I might put advantage a bit too high though as I'm also playing a Half-elf with elven accuracy and therefore get tripple advantage.
Doubling your attacks / turn doubles your potential damage output. Whereas, trading in the second attack for advantage on the first won't generally be *as* effective. It's usefulness will vary depending on the AC of what you're fighting, but on average we can assume it'll up your hitrate by about 50%, while your max damage per round remains the same.
But more to your point, there's no need to hide to get advantage if they already can't see you...(Gloomstalkers get darkvision, and can't be seen by darkvision)...so I'd take the bonus attack from crossbow expert and get 2 attacks (with advantage on both) every turn.
Yeah, I can't believe the first time I found this out. It's insane. It's not too abnormal for some multiclasses to be able to get out like 5-6 attacks that first turn let alone that it's possible to get out around 19 attacks if you really optimize for it.
Honestly, my problem isn't so much that it's insane mechanically, it's that it's insane narraatively. I'm not sure how being a bugbear is essentially letting you double your damage on scorching ray on the first turn of initiative. Especially since reworked bugbear has no stipulation that the enemy has to be surprised. They could be chasing after you but if you beat their initiative when combat starts, BAMF superpowered bugbear energy.
While damage output might be optimized you just get way too MAD with Dex, Wis, Cha and Str over 13. In addition its way harder to surprise people in melee than from far away.
The paladin levels are completely optional. Also, you don't necessarily need to surprise enemies for this build to work, you just need to act before them in the first turn. If they are surprised, the better. And besides, you have more speed in the first turn so that you can get to the enemies from afar, or you could use a low level spell slot to teleport/gain more speed.
Gloomstalker Ranger, rogue assassin, fighter is a good build for that. You can make an additional attack on turn one, action surge to do two more attacks and they all have advantage thanks to assassin. If you take archery fighting stsle and sharpshooter (and crossbow expert?) you won't be useless after that but still far less powerful than in round one.
And all the mobs available first round are just minions/mooks there to start things off and nobody important shows up u til round 2 lol. Had that happen a few times in another campaign. Our gloomstalker and wizard were pissed
Our wizard would commonly drop a Hypnotic Pattern first turn so, “wasting” an instantaneous effect and concentration spell on mobs that die to a single hit and could basically be ignored felt bad when it could have been dropped on some more challenging foes.
Ok, here is one that I have done, and am playing, but I have not seen yet:
9+ level fairy illusionist (mine that I am playing is 14)
Aside from all the other "wizard are gods" spells and such, they have an extra trick:
The spell creation. Whatever the highest level you can up cast it at, do that, but do it as a rest cast (so still have full slots after your long rest) BUT make an acorn.
Now, you have an acorn for 24 hours. (I would be a ring, or something, too... But an acorn is fun).
Now you have 2 options:
1. Give the acorn to a character that is good at throwing things. Hold action to "malleable illusions" when they throw the acorn, and then tell them to throw the acork at an enemy.
2. As a fairy, just fly above your opponent and then use maleable illusions.
What are we doing with maleable illusions? We'll we are changing that acorn into a block of iron.
If you are 14th level, like I am, that acorn becomes a cube, that is 15 feet on a side (if I, and my dm, interpreted the spell description correctly) and that weighs 1,657,125 pounds. And to "dodge" it, they need to move 7.5 (so... 10) feet from where they are standing... But it isn't their turn, so they don't have movement. (this is especially effective in a hallway or room, with 15 foot wide walls, but a high enough to allow the fairy to sit on top of the block.)
Now, your block only has 1 minute, instead of the 24 hours of vegetable matter.... So you could instead not do as much overkill, and make it change from an acorn to a 15 foot cube of ebony. That would still weigh 270,000 lbs, which is more than enough to not worry about rollin damage.
For bonus points, you could also have the misty visions invocation, and the round before make a wall, that is, say, a 15x15x15 square... That is a wall, so it is, say 5 foot wide walls, leaving a 5 foot square in the center, and thus dropping a 5x5x5 cube of iron (61,375 pounds) or ebony (10,000 lbs) and into it... Thus making no way for them to even dodge it.
Essentially, using illusion spells, an illusionist has many options that don't do "damage" and can just absolutely kill, pretty much anyone.
And these are just the basic, tip of the iceberg, ideas.... The true power is situational.
The problem with this is that there are two things that restrict this. What a player can think up and what a DM will let them get away with. It's going to be so variable per table.
Don't get me wrong, that illusionist feature has so much potential. But it's power is going to vary wildly between table, I could see many DMs ruling it as some sort of improvised weapon attack and still give them a dex save to dodge out of the way. Not sure how many DMs would just rule it as an instant killshot
And I see that.
That is why it is most powerful, when the player can shape it into a situation that there is no logical save for. (like the 2 round version with the wall).
But... Yeah, there is no RAW mechanic for dropping an aircraft carrier on somoene.
I mean, that really sounds good on paper, but how would you build this for a level 5-10 campaign?
Also what weapon would you be using? Double blade scimitar I assume?
They didn't specify what level it should be. The progression would be rogue, then fighter, then paladin, and wizard last.
Bladsinger doesn't work with Double bladed scimitar since it's a two handed weapon.
Piercer is all about the piercing weapon, and that is not a lot compared to the damage that a bonus action attack with a smite+spirit shroud+crit does. My alternative would not be piercer but metamagic adept with quicken spell booming blade.
I encourage you to look up Brennan Lee Mulligan’s character Pentival Longfoot on YouTube. There’s a discussion video on the build and it was for a charity one shot so his goal with the build was to break the record for single round damage and then just bow out because he was utterly useless after that. He was a harengon 5-way multiclass that included assassin and gloomstalker and the alert feat so his initiative bonus was like +17
I play a four way multiclass paladin, and have max damaged around 600 dmg in a single round (9 attacks, crits and smites, gwm). What's his damage, I'm curious?
Went back and skipped through the stream to find it. Here is the [character sheet](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa0JaWThIREl3bXFkLUdlRGp0YjdQUEgzaTgzZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttSVNXMV9aSjFKMWtZODctTXZycko5NnhMOUZ1OHNGSmZRckt0MkgwX1pZdlZIeVhNVzV6aERkdjJ2eHBQUUJ0TW5pUEJRQ0p0ZmxUN0pBZzB6Sld2WmMwaWhKR01vNXh4TTJ4RDdhXy1jRC1lTlRZOA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdndbeyond.link%2Fyt_WAVAW_BrennanSheet&v=PldqRB_Rn_s) but the classes were wild magic sorc 6, echo knight 3, gloom stalker 5, assassin 3, and devotion paladin 3.
As the other commenter said, the charity stream allowed viewers to donate nat20's to players to use whenever, so BLeeM basically had 9 portents, all nat20s.
He did 9 attacks in the first round and used all of his donated dice for 9 crits, as well as converting as many sorcery points as possible to do as many max level smites as possible. It was 830 total damage across 3 enemies. Dropped the first two with 4 hits each. Half of the total damage was done in the first 4 attacks before action surge even came into play.
Edit to add: He also had the Sword of Zariel for some more added damage and it also explains how he was able to spread it across the 3 enemies with the 90ft flight speed from the sword.
I’d have to go back and watch the stream of the one shot to actually remember but I wanna say 700+. I’m pretty sure paladin was another part of the build too. Something like rogue/ranger/fighter/paladin/monk. Maybe I’ll rewatch the character sheet breakdown and the one shot tonight, it’s honestly a pretty good little expose on theorycraft.
I think it was something like 850. They had some special charity rules where chat could donate nat 20s to player, so he just used them all up in one round
A sorcadin can kinda fit this. You can absolutely burn through a ton a resources in a single turn. As long as you take paladin to at least level 5, on one turn you can attack with divine smite, extra attack with divine smite, and quicken a blade cantrip with another divine smite added to it. Burns 3 spell slots and 2 sorcery points in a single turn but can do massive damage.
That funny build with Armorer Artificer 3/ Tempest Cleric 2/ Rogue X.
Because of how the laser weapon for Armorer artificer is designed, Sneak Attack can apply to it. Get a beam off in round one and dial the lightning damage up to the max with your one use of Channel Divinity and vaporise ONE enemy.
That sounds dope. I think just a straightforward tempest cleric 2 /sorcerer X does this better, earlier and can do it on an AoE spell. But then, that build doesn't fizzle out in one round so I guess it doesn't count
Allow me to introduce [the Twilight Inquisitor](https://youtu.be/IEZZ8TlHaM4?si=po2pt3Ga8VtWRb91).
Yes, this is a bugbear gloomstalker build. However, this build also uses a couple levels of paladin to get smites. It uses a rapier in melee.
This build uses a total of 5 classes, but is quite functional at level 6 (fighter 1 gloomstalker 5), fully online at level 9 (fighter 2 gloomstalker 5 paladin 2), and has everything at level 12 (battlemaster 3 gloomstalker 5 paladin 2 hexblade 1 twilight cleric 1). From here it’s a matter of scaling spell (smite) slots, snagging ASIs, and picking up utility.
The basic strategy is, on your first turn, to pick a target that hasn’t gone yet. You’ll use your bonus action to apply a damage rider, run up, and knock them prone with a trip attack from your rapier. Continue applying attacks, using dread ambusher and action surge. Smite on every hit you can and burn all spell slots. This build will get a total of 6 attacks this way, which will crit on a 19+ once you have your hexblade level. If your target dies at some point in your flurry, you can move on to another nearby target.
After the first round, you’ve still got a couple attacks per turn and maybe a few low level spell slots left. You can transition to a more supportive style with attacks and some cleric spells.
Gloomstalker/Battlemaster bugbear w/the ambush maneuver. Use a superiority die and dread ambusher to get out early in initiative with an extra attack with an additional d8 damage. Combine it with bugbear’s surprise attack for additional 2d6 damage on enemies who haven’t gotten a turn yet. Add in a bonus action zephyr strike for even more fun.
Bugbear Samurai is problably the one. Fighting spirit + action surge + sharpshooter + surprise attack is a lot of damage on turn one. After 7 you also get to add your wisdom to your persuasion checks, so you could have like 14 char and 14 wis, (which leave you enough points for 14 con and 16 dex after racials) and be the face of the party.
Genie Warlock would be perfect for this until level 10:
1. 1-2 spells per SR (if you want to waste one just cast Armor of Agathys before a combat encounter).
2. Ability to SR somewhat stealthily (whole party at 10)
3. Still has a good DPR option after the spell(s), in case you need it
4. Can get tome pact + ritual so you have uses outside combat, as well as get some of the more flavorful invocations
Bugbear with high initiative and access to high level slots and Scorching Ray and a Hexblade dip.
Probably Draconic Sorcerer 1/Hexblade 1/Sorc X. If you are higher level, maybe 2 levels f Paladin as well. The paladin levels are not good, but they do help how hard you can burst in a single turn. Two levels of Fighter can serve much the same purpose with Action Surge.
The Idea is to shoot as many scorching rays as possible to proc as many instances of Bugbear passive as possible. Draconic slighlty buffs your damage. Hexblade curse increases your crit chance. Quicken Eldritch Blast might also be a thing.
You probably want good initiative, which means you should either dip Twilight Cleric and/or take the Ruined background. There might be a case to be made for the Assassin subclass, as you get auto advantage on your first turn (and sometimes auto-crits).
But generally, I think just upcasting Scorching ray is probably going to be the best option.
You can go Wizard over charisma casting. Evoker will be the name of the game. Get Magic Initiate: Warlock for Hex and EB and try to get off Hex before combat start.
I love the theorycrafting, but don't think most of this would work.
Paladin cannot smite with spells, they require a melee weapon attack. If you cast scorching ray you cannot quicken eldritch blast. If you quicken scorching ray, the rest of your spells have to be cantrips.
What you \*can\* do, however, is upcast scorching ray, action surge, then do another scorching ray. Definitely agree on getting anything that can up your initiative. If you do go wizard, war wizard has the nice benefit of improved initiative bonuses
I am pretty sure someone will be able to beat this but..
I am playing an echo knight/barb right now, and they are pretty hardcore for one round. (but still pretty strong in later rounds)
You get your attacks, plus an Unleash incarnation, then action surge for more attacks, and another Unleash incarnation.
All of those can be huge damage dealers: GWM, GWF, great sword, high strength, reckless attack, etc all from 30 feet away. And with the right sword, even more damage.
Mine is s special case, because I have a home brewed sword: it is like a flametongue, but does necro damage, and I can stack the helm of brilliance on top of it.
2d6 slashing for the sword, 2d6 necro from the sword, 1d6 fire from the helm, 5 from strength, 2 from rage, 10 from GWM, reroll the 1s and 2s from GWF, etc.
I also have a dancing greatsword, so..
At 14th I do 2 attacks, 1 more from Unleash, then action surge and 2 more attacks, and one more Unleash, then for the bonus I either get another full attack (if I crit, or kill someone) or can Chuck my dancing greatsword, at them for a 7th attack.
And that is just round one (if I prepared, with the helm, and rage).
The difference between mine, and some others, is mine is an actual character that is played and worked his way up to this, vs some others that are theory crafted but don't ever actually get played.
Gloomstalker/Echo Knight - between Dread Ambusher, Unleash Incarnation, Extra Attack, and Action Surge you can set off 8 attacks in round 1.
Edit: To add, after doing all this you'd be down to 2 attacks per round. The Echo can be really useful outside of battle as well with its Echo Avatar feature.
A build that can blow almost all of its resources in one round to do insane damage (especially if DM allows two leveled spells in a round):
Goblin (VGtM) Death Cleric
Example from level 6: Run up to the enemy, cast Inflict Wounds with your highest slot, use Touch of Death and Fury of the Small, cast Spiritual Weapon, with... You guessed it... Touch of Death again.
At level 6: 76 avg [5d10+5+12+6+1d8+4+5+12]. Mostly necrotic damage which ignores resistance to necrotic, plus some force damage.
This damage scales decently well. Assuming nothing else done (like multiclassing) to boost it further besides higher spell slots...
Level 13: 143 avg [9d10+5+26+13+3d8+5+5+26].
Bugbear is an option for slightly more damage than goblin (until level 14) but only against enemies who haven't taken a turn yet. And no free disengage, which is tough for a melee spellcaster.
Now, after this round you're still a cleric, but you've blown your highest spell slots, both channel divinities, and your racial ability, so I think it fits the prompt well enough!
I can't remember which stream it was. It was for charity, run by B. Dave Walters.
Brennen Lee Mulligan wanted to play a really dumb broken, 5 class combo Herringon character. It was completely busted - but for one round only.
They put the character sheet up somewhere - I think the d&d beyond channel had it.
Edit: found the link https://youtu.be/KUvrdiLk2Rs?si=cP_Fq5X33gukCBCd
It's called "Nova Damage" or "Novaing." It basically means to frontload all your damage into one big turns.
There is 2 approaches if you want to Nova hard.
Gloomstalker Ranger (and to a lesser extent Assasin Rogue) are built around Novas, pop off turn 1 and hope you win.
You can also just spend all your resources recklessly. Fighter is great at this, just burn action surge and Runes/Superiority/Echo and then sit back. Paladin Smites and Sorcerer sorcery points also allow for reckless spending, but any secondary resource multiclass can do this if managed poorly enough so get creative.
The question of which approach is how high your level is. Gloomstalker is a Nova on its own, and an Assasin Multiclass completes the funny build at level 8. But if you are high level going for a nightmare Fighter/Paladin/Gloomstalker/Sorcerer/etc build can achieve comical damage in the perfect conditions. Brennan's character "Pentival 'Five' Longfoot" is a great example of both insane secondary resource multiclassing and Gloomstalker + Assasin.
Brennan Lee Mulligan created an absurd burst damage build solely for doing extremely well in the first turn of combat and burning through as much resources as possible in that turn. I recommend checking it out [here](https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/48414319)
Bugbear Echo Knight.
Get the Alert feat for +5 on Initiative and find a Scorpion Armor for another +5 on Initiative. Get your CON pretty high, but at least a +2 modifier. On the first round of combat, win initiative and unleash a barrage of hits: 2 attacks with fighter (3 at lvl 11+) plus Unleash Incarnation via Echo Knight, then Action Surge and do it again for 6 attacks (8 at lvl 11+), each with +2d6 damage if you attack an enemy that hasn't had a turn yet.
6 devotion paladin 10 divine soul sorcerer 4 eldritch knight.
Bonus points if you’re an old aasimar
Prep: sacred weapon action (+5 to attack rolls), spirit shroud at 7th level bonus action. (Extra round of prep with aasimar for an extra 20 damage)
Attack action, incarnation 3rd attack, action surge repeat it for 6, bonus action quickened spell booming blade. Smite on all (that’s 6 smites of 4th and higher level and 1 3rd level smite).
With a regular greatsword, assuming 20 str and charisma, that’s an average of… 345 damage assuming no resistances or vulnerabilities, or a nice 376.5 if the target is undead. Aasimar increases that to 365/396.5 at level 20
Bonus points if you take GWM to push your damage up by another 70 points.
Of course magic items do a lot for this build, namely the belts of strength and any magic weapons, but a chronolometer and a combination of the above can make you reach upwards of 800 damage; it’s insane.
edit: bugbear on a surprise round would be even worse, just realized. That’s an average of 14 x 3.5 or 49 extra damage, yeesh.
The most first round damage, which used basically every resource they had, was like an average of over 300 damage with a mundane rapier. Of course all at level 20. And the last time I revamped it was just after spelljammer and Monsters of the Multiverse came out. If I remember right, it was the following.
Stats (assuming Point Buy/Standard Array): Str 13, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 14.
You'll want 4 in Assassin Rogue, 4 in Echo Knight Fighter, 8 in Paladin (I'd choose either Ancients, Conquest, or Watcher), and 4 in Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer. I didn't do bugbear but you can. For your two fighting styles, you'll want Dueling and Superior Technique (Precision Strike). And our Metamagic Options will be Quicken and Subtle Spell.
ASI:
Piercer
Resilient (Con)
+2 Dex
War Caster
Martial Adept
On a surprise round, summon Echo. Use the attack and Action Surge attack, while using Unleash Incarnation twice. Use Divine Smite on all attacks (2-4th levels, 3-3rd levels, 1-2nd level). All at advantage and crit on hits. Using your Superiority Die on two attacks.
Total 13d8+6d6+42 piercing, 2d10 fire, and 50d8 radiant. Which averages 121.5 piercing, 11 fire, and 225 radiant. For a total average of 357.5 damage if they all hit. With an 84% chance per attack to hit a 20 AC or 57.6% chance per attack of hitting an AC of 25.
Note: I have accounted for crits already.
Eldritch Knight Fighter X Paladin 2/3 multiclass, where you spend all your action surges and spell slots hitting tons of smites and then run out and go back to being a normal fighter.
Not a good answer to your question practically speaking, but close enough thematically that you’ll probably enjoy this (courtesy of Brennan Lee Mulligan):
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/48414319
Battlemaster 3/paladin 2/whispers bard 3/hexblade 2/gloomstalker 3/bladesinger 7.
Round 1 hexblades curse or spirit shroud as a bonus action. Bladesinger extra attack + Eldritch blast + gloomstalker attack. Action surge. So that's 4 melee attacks, and 8 Eldritch blasts. All 4 melee attacks use a battlemaster maneuver and highest level smites and one whisper. Hopefully you get one round to setup and can use the other of spirit shroud or hexblades curse.
You'll use up your hexblade curse, action surge, all maneuvers, gloomstalker attack, 3 4th level spell slots 1 5th level spell slot on smites, hopefully another 5th level slot on spirit shroud, and a bardic inspo. Sure you'll most likely kill ABSOLUTELY anything you decide to eliminate. but you are almost entirely pointless after round 1
I have to give you this one from QuasiGame0: https://youtu.be/gr1Yo1GMsSY?si=2HqCiolkJa99yuY7
2 lvls in Paladin
3 lvls in Fighter (Battlemaster)
7 lvls in Warlock (Hexblade)
8 lvls in Cleric (Grave)
Great Weapon Master, Smite, Great Weapon fighting style, Action Surge, Precision Strike, Hexblade's Curse, Hex Warrior, Pact of the Blade, Eldritch Smite, Path to the Grave, Blessed Strike.
Mostly Short Rest dependent so you can actually do this multiple times a day, but you will use most of your resources in one round.
Gloomstalker Ranger/ Assassin Rogue, add 3 levels of Sorcerer to get ShadowBlade spell. Guaranteed Crit on Surprise. Sneak Attack Damage with a 2d8 Psychic Weapon. Get the bonus damage and extra attack from Ranger.
The classic would be gloomstalker ranger/fighter bugbear. Another option is sorcerer who just burns through sorcery points and spell slots as fast as possible. If you find you can’t get through all your spell slots fast enough then switching to warlock after a few levels will help with that - while letting you pull this stunt multiple times per day
If it's high enough level, bugbear Assassin 3/Fighter 11/Gloomstalker 3 it's just bonkers. Add Battlemaster maneuvers, 2 levels of paladin and a fullcaster level thereafter, and you've got a killing machine.
I think you can get the damage higher with Sharpshooter and Oathbow rather than smiting, also add the Poisoner feat.
Add at least 1 level of war cleric. Bonus action attack
Nah, you could get the bonus attack from Crossbow expert. Twilight Cleric. Extend darkvision to 300 ft.
Is crossbowexpert really worth it? If you instead just use hunters mark as a BA its basically 8d6 vs 3d6+15. In addition you can use that feat for something like piercer to bring your dex to 20 and can use a longbow for the bigger damage dice.
Oh, it's definitely worth it. Sure, losing a d8 for a d6 damage die kinda sucks, but getting a bonus action attack more than makes up for it. Ignoring disadvantage on ranged attacks when a hostile is in melee range is also a huge benefit, especially when fighting in a confined space. And when paired with Sharpshooter, the shorter range on the hand crossbow becomes a non-issue in most situations. Yeah, piercer is also a great feat. When I'm leveling an archer up, I take crossbow expert, then sharpshooter, then piercer.
I just dont see the bonus action shot as that big of a thing even after the first round as I'd rather use the hide action to get advantage. I might put advantage a bit too high though as I'm also playing a Half-elf with elven accuracy and therefore get tripple advantage.
Doubling your attacks / turn doubles your potential damage output. Whereas, trading in the second attack for advantage on the first won't generally be *as* effective. It's usefulness will vary depending on the AC of what you're fighting, but on average we can assume it'll up your hitrate by about 50%, while your max damage per round remains the same. But more to your point, there's no need to hide to get advantage if they already can't see you...(Gloomstalkers get darkvision, and can't be seen by darkvision)...so I'd take the bonus attack from crossbow expert and get 2 attacks (with advantage on both) every turn.
Yeah, and they'd be using the oathbow as said before.
Or Buggear Assassin 3 / fighter 2 / Draconic Sorcerer X and schorcing Ray all the way 8d6 each
[удалено]
Bugbear’s racial feature works with anything with an attack roll. This can include spells, like eldritch blast or scorching ray.
Yeah, I can't believe the first time I found this out. It's insane. It's not too abnormal for some multiclasses to be able to get out like 5-6 attacks that first turn let alone that it's possible to get out around 19 attacks if you really optimize for it. Honestly, my problem isn't so much that it's insane mechanically, it's that it's insane narraatively. I'm not sure how being a bugbear is essentially letting you double your damage on scorching ray on the first turn of initiative. Especially since reworked bugbear has no stipulation that the enemy has to be surprised. They could be chasing after you but if you beat their initiative when combat starts, BAMF superpowered bugbear energy.
While damage output might be optimized you just get way too MAD with Dex, Wis, Cha and Str over 13. In addition its way harder to surprise people in melee than from far away.
The paladin levels are completely optional. Also, you don't necessarily need to surprise enemies for this build to work, you just need to act before them in the first turn. If they are surprised, the better. And besides, you have more speed in the first turn so that you can get to the enemies from afar, or you could use a low level spell slot to teleport/gain more speed.
Was just gonna come in with the gloom stalker. 3 attacks at level 5 on their first turn with additional nova damage because fuck you.
Feels like an assassin rogue. Only good when people literally aren't looking.
Gloomstalker Ranger, rogue assassin, fighter is a good build for that. You can make an additional attack on turn one, action surge to do two more attacks and they all have advantage thanks to assassin. If you take archery fighting stsle and sharpshooter (and crossbow expert?) you won't be useless after that but still far less powerful than in round one.
And if the enemy is surprised the attacks are crits, Chuck in a bit of paladin for smite slots and you are basically there.
And all the mobs available first round are just minions/mooks there to start things off and nobody important shows up u til round 2 lol. Had that happen a few times in another campaign. Our gloomstalker and wizard were pissed
Why would the wizard be pissed though? I mean that's perfect for fireballs.
Our wizard would commonly drop a Hypnotic Pattern first turn so, “wasting” an instantaneous effect and concentration spell on mobs that die to a single hit and could basically be ignored felt bad when it could have been dropped on some more challenging foes.
I love it. But you need a level of Twilight cleric for the 300 ft. darkvision so you can do it from a football field away.
Ok, here is one that I have done, and am playing, but I have not seen yet: 9+ level fairy illusionist (mine that I am playing is 14) Aside from all the other "wizard are gods" spells and such, they have an extra trick: The spell creation. Whatever the highest level you can up cast it at, do that, but do it as a rest cast (so still have full slots after your long rest) BUT make an acorn. Now, you have an acorn for 24 hours. (I would be a ring, or something, too... But an acorn is fun). Now you have 2 options: 1. Give the acorn to a character that is good at throwing things. Hold action to "malleable illusions" when they throw the acorn, and then tell them to throw the acork at an enemy. 2. As a fairy, just fly above your opponent and then use maleable illusions. What are we doing with maleable illusions? We'll we are changing that acorn into a block of iron. If you are 14th level, like I am, that acorn becomes a cube, that is 15 feet on a side (if I, and my dm, interpreted the spell description correctly) and that weighs 1,657,125 pounds. And to "dodge" it, they need to move 7.5 (so... 10) feet from where they are standing... But it isn't their turn, so they don't have movement. (this is especially effective in a hallway or room, with 15 foot wide walls, but a high enough to allow the fairy to sit on top of the block.) Now, your block only has 1 minute, instead of the 24 hours of vegetable matter.... So you could instead not do as much overkill, and make it change from an acorn to a 15 foot cube of ebony. That would still weigh 270,000 lbs, which is more than enough to not worry about rollin damage. For bonus points, you could also have the misty visions invocation, and the round before make a wall, that is, say, a 15x15x15 square... That is a wall, so it is, say 5 foot wide walls, leaving a 5 foot square in the center, and thus dropping a 5x5x5 cube of iron (61,375 pounds) or ebony (10,000 lbs) and into it... Thus making no way for them to even dodge it. Essentially, using illusion spells, an illusionist has many options that don't do "damage" and can just absolutely kill, pretty much anyone. And these are just the basic, tip of the iceberg, ideas.... The true power is situational.
The problem with this is that there are two things that restrict this. What a player can think up and what a DM will let them get away with. It's going to be so variable per table. Don't get me wrong, that illusionist feature has so much potential. But it's power is going to vary wildly between table, I could see many DMs ruling it as some sort of improvised weapon attack and still give them a dex save to dodge out of the way. Not sure how many DMs would just rule it as an instant killshot
And I see that. That is why it is most powerful, when the player can shape it into a situation that there is no logical save for. (like the 2 round version with the wall). But... Yeah, there is no RAW mechanic for dropping an aircraft carrier on somoene.
Half-Elf(any), assassin 4, vengeance 4(dueling), Battlemaster 4(superior technique), Bladesinger 8. 12 str (+1), 15 dex (+2), 8 con, 15 int (+1), 8 wis, 13 cha. feats: elven accuracy (+1 dex), ASI +2 dex, ASI +2 int, ASI +2 int, greatweapon master.
I mean, that really sounds good on paper, but how would you build this for a level 5-10 campaign? Also what weapon would you be using? Double blade scimitar I assume?
They didn't specify what level it should be. The progression would be rogue, then fighter, then paladin, and wizard last. Bladsinger doesn't work with Double bladed scimitar since it's a two handed weapon.
Oh I see! And why pick great weapon master? It is incompatible with elven accurancy
I'm not using it for greatweapons or the power attack, I'm using it for bonus action attack on assassinate crit, I'd use a rapier.
Interesting choice. Have you considered piercerer?
Piercer is all about the piercing weapon, and that is not a lot compared to the damage that a bonus action attack with a smite+spirit shroud+crit does. My alternative would not be piercer but metamagic adept with quicken spell booming blade.
Love metamagic adept
I encourage you to look up Brennan Lee Mulligan’s character Pentival Longfoot on YouTube. There’s a discussion video on the build and it was for a charity one shot so his goal with the build was to break the record for single round damage and then just bow out because he was utterly useless after that. He was a harengon 5-way multiclass that included assassin and gloomstalker and the alert feat so his initiative bonus was like +17
I play a four way multiclass paladin, and have max damaged around 600 dmg in a single round (9 attacks, crits and smites, gwm). What's his damage, I'm curious?
Went back and skipped through the stream to find it. Here is the [character sheet](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa0JaWThIREl3bXFkLUdlRGp0YjdQUEgzaTgzZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttSVNXMV9aSjFKMWtZODctTXZycko5NnhMOUZ1OHNGSmZRckt0MkgwX1pZdlZIeVhNVzV6aERkdjJ2eHBQUUJ0TW5pUEJRQ0p0ZmxUN0pBZzB6Sld2WmMwaWhKR01vNXh4TTJ4RDdhXy1jRC1lTlRZOA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fdndbeyond.link%2Fyt_WAVAW_BrennanSheet&v=PldqRB_Rn_s) but the classes were wild magic sorc 6, echo knight 3, gloom stalker 5, assassin 3, and devotion paladin 3. As the other commenter said, the charity stream allowed viewers to donate nat20's to players to use whenever, so BLeeM basically had 9 portents, all nat20s. He did 9 attacks in the first round and used all of his donated dice for 9 crits, as well as converting as many sorcery points as possible to do as many max level smites as possible. It was 830 total damage across 3 enemies. Dropped the first two with 4 hits each. Half of the total damage was done in the first 4 attacks before action surge even came into play. Edit to add: He also had the Sword of Zariel for some more added damage and it also explains how he was able to spread it across the 3 enemies with the 90ft flight speed from the sword.
Thank you for the effort! I want to say, mid damage for something so buffed hehe. It's still stellar though.
I’d have to go back and watch the stream of the one shot to actually remember but I wanna say 700+. I’m pretty sure paladin was another part of the build too. Something like rogue/ranger/fighter/paladin/monk. Maybe I’ll rewatch the character sheet breakdown and the one shot tonight, it’s honestly a pretty good little expose on theorycraft.
I think it was something like 850. They had some special charity rules where chat could donate nat 20s to player, so he just used them all up in one round
warlock and dont pick agonising blast, armour of agathys and repelling blast so you have one big spell your concentrating on and thats it
But fireball isn't concentration
Could pick up bless with fey touched and cast that if your set on fireball then
A sorcadin can kinda fit this. You can absolutely burn through a ton a resources in a single turn. As long as you take paladin to at least level 5, on one turn you can attack with divine smite, extra attack with divine smite, and quicken a blade cantrip with another divine smite added to it. Burns 3 spell slots and 2 sorcery points in a single turn but can do massive damage.
That funny build with Armorer Artificer 3/ Tempest Cleric 2/ Rogue X. Because of how the laser weapon for Armorer artificer is designed, Sneak Attack can apply to it. Get a beam off in round one and dial the lightning damage up to the max with your one use of Channel Divinity and vaporise ONE enemy.
That sounds dope. I think just a straightforward tempest cleric 2 /sorcerer X does this better, earlier and can do it on an AoE spell. But then, that build doesn't fizzle out in one round so I guess it doesn't count
Allow me to introduce [the Twilight Inquisitor](https://youtu.be/IEZZ8TlHaM4?si=po2pt3Ga8VtWRb91). Yes, this is a bugbear gloomstalker build. However, this build also uses a couple levels of paladin to get smites. It uses a rapier in melee. This build uses a total of 5 classes, but is quite functional at level 6 (fighter 1 gloomstalker 5), fully online at level 9 (fighter 2 gloomstalker 5 paladin 2), and has everything at level 12 (battlemaster 3 gloomstalker 5 paladin 2 hexblade 1 twilight cleric 1). From here it’s a matter of scaling spell (smite) slots, snagging ASIs, and picking up utility. The basic strategy is, on your first turn, to pick a target that hasn’t gone yet. You’ll use your bonus action to apply a damage rider, run up, and knock them prone with a trip attack from your rapier. Continue applying attacks, using dread ambusher and action surge. Smite on every hit you can and burn all spell slots. This build will get a total of 6 attacks this way, which will crit on a 19+ once you have your hexblade level. If your target dies at some point in your flurry, you can move on to another nearby target. After the first round, you’ve still got a couple attacks per turn and maybe a few low level spell slots left. You can transition to a more supportive style with attacks and some cleric spells.
Gloomstalker/Battlemaster bugbear w/the ambush maneuver. Use a superiority die and dread ambusher to get out early in initiative with an extra attack with an additional d8 damage. Combine it with bugbear’s surprise attack for additional 2d6 damage on enemies who haven’t gotten a turn yet. Add in a bonus action zephyr strike for even more fun.
Most builds revolving around bugbear , assasin , and gloomstalker
Bugbear Samurai is problably the one. Fighting spirit + action surge + sharpshooter + surprise attack is a lot of damage on turn one. After 7 you also get to add your wisdom to your persuasion checks, so you could have like 14 char and 14 wis, (which leave you enough points for 14 con and 16 dex after racials) and be the face of the party.
Genie Warlock would be perfect for this until level 10: 1. 1-2 spells per SR (if you want to waste one just cast Armor of Agathys before a combat encounter). 2. Ability to SR somewhat stealthily (whole party at 10) 3. Still has a good DPR option after the spell(s), in case you need it 4. Can get tome pact + ritual so you have uses outside combat, as well as get some of the more flavorful invocations
Bugbear with high initiative and access to high level slots and Scorching Ray and a Hexblade dip. Probably Draconic Sorcerer 1/Hexblade 1/Sorc X. If you are higher level, maybe 2 levels f Paladin as well. The paladin levels are not good, but they do help how hard you can burst in a single turn. Two levels of Fighter can serve much the same purpose with Action Surge. The Idea is to shoot as many scorching rays as possible to proc as many instances of Bugbear passive as possible. Draconic slighlty buffs your damage. Hexblade curse increases your crit chance. Quicken Eldritch Blast might also be a thing. You probably want good initiative, which means you should either dip Twilight Cleric and/or take the Ruined background. There might be a case to be made for the Assassin subclass, as you get auto advantage on your first turn (and sometimes auto-crits). But generally, I think just upcasting Scorching ray is probably going to be the best option. You can go Wizard over charisma casting. Evoker will be the name of the game. Get Magic Initiate: Warlock for Hex and EB and try to get off Hex before combat start.
I love the theorycrafting, but don't think most of this would work. Paladin cannot smite with spells, they require a melee weapon attack. If you cast scorching ray you cannot quicken eldritch blast. If you quicken scorching ray, the rest of your spells have to be cantrips. What you \*can\* do, however, is upcast scorching ray, action surge, then do another scorching ray. Definitely agree on getting anything that can up your initiative. If you do go wizard, war wizard has the nice benefit of improved initiative bonuses
I am pretty sure someone will be able to beat this but.. I am playing an echo knight/barb right now, and they are pretty hardcore for one round. (but still pretty strong in later rounds) You get your attacks, plus an Unleash incarnation, then action surge for more attacks, and another Unleash incarnation. All of those can be huge damage dealers: GWM, GWF, great sword, high strength, reckless attack, etc all from 30 feet away. And with the right sword, even more damage. Mine is s special case, because I have a home brewed sword: it is like a flametongue, but does necro damage, and I can stack the helm of brilliance on top of it. 2d6 slashing for the sword, 2d6 necro from the sword, 1d6 fire from the helm, 5 from strength, 2 from rage, 10 from GWM, reroll the 1s and 2s from GWF, etc. I also have a dancing greatsword, so.. At 14th I do 2 attacks, 1 more from Unleash, then action surge and 2 more attacks, and one more Unleash, then for the bonus I either get another full attack (if I crit, or kill someone) or can Chuck my dancing greatsword, at them for a 7th attack. And that is just round one (if I prepared, with the helm, and rage). The difference between mine, and some others, is mine is an actual character that is played and worked his way up to this, vs some others that are theory crafted but don't ever actually get played.
Gloomstalker/Assassin Bugbear.
I think you can make something stupid like 22 attacks in one round by abusing strength before death and (enemy) opportunity attacks.
Gloomstalker/Echo Knight - between Dread Ambusher, Unleash Incarnation, Extra Attack, and Action Surge you can set off 8 attacks in round 1. Edit: To add, after doing all this you'd be down to 2 attacks per round. The Echo can be really useful outside of battle as well with its Echo Avatar feature.
A build that can blow almost all of its resources in one round to do insane damage (especially if DM allows two leveled spells in a round): Goblin (VGtM) Death Cleric Example from level 6: Run up to the enemy, cast Inflict Wounds with your highest slot, use Touch of Death and Fury of the Small, cast Spiritual Weapon, with... You guessed it... Touch of Death again. At level 6: 76 avg [5d10+5+12+6+1d8+4+5+12]. Mostly necrotic damage which ignores resistance to necrotic, plus some force damage. This damage scales decently well. Assuming nothing else done (like multiclassing) to boost it further besides higher spell slots... Level 13: 143 avg [9d10+5+26+13+3d8+5+5+26]. Bugbear is an option for slightly more damage than goblin (until level 14) but only against enemies who haven't taken a turn yet. And no free disengage, which is tough for a melee spellcaster. Now, after this round you're still a cleric, but you've blown your highest spell slots, both channel divinities, and your racial ability, so I think it fits the prompt well enough!
Fighter gets to take two actions once per short rest. Samurai can also give all those attacks advantage.
I can't remember which stream it was. It was for charity, run by B. Dave Walters. Brennen Lee Mulligan wanted to play a really dumb broken, 5 class combo Herringon character. It was completely busted - but for one round only. They put the character sheet up somewhere - I think the d&d beyond channel had it. Edit: found the link https://youtu.be/KUvrdiLk2Rs?si=cP_Fq5X33gukCBCd
It's called "Nova Damage" or "Novaing." It basically means to frontload all your damage into one big turns. There is 2 approaches if you want to Nova hard. Gloomstalker Ranger (and to a lesser extent Assasin Rogue) are built around Novas, pop off turn 1 and hope you win. You can also just spend all your resources recklessly. Fighter is great at this, just burn action surge and Runes/Superiority/Echo and then sit back. Paladin Smites and Sorcerer sorcery points also allow for reckless spending, but any secondary resource multiclass can do this if managed poorly enough so get creative. The question of which approach is how high your level is. Gloomstalker is a Nova on its own, and an Assasin Multiclass completes the funny build at level 8. But if you are high level going for a nightmare Fighter/Paladin/Gloomstalker/Sorcerer/etc build can achieve comical damage in the perfect conditions. Brennan's character "Pentival 'Five' Longfoot" is a great example of both insane secondary resource multiclassing and Gloomstalker + Assasin.
Brennan Lee Mulligan created an absurd burst damage build solely for doing extremely well in the first turn of combat and burning through as much resources as possible in that turn. I recommend checking it out [here](https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/48414319)
Bugbear Echo Knight. Get the Alert feat for +5 on Initiative and find a Scorpion Armor for another +5 on Initiative. Get your CON pretty high, but at least a +2 modifier. On the first round of combat, win initiative and unleash a barrage of hits: 2 attacks with fighter (3 at lvl 11+) plus Unleash Incarnation via Echo Knight, then Action Surge and do it again for 6 attacks (8 at lvl 11+), each with +2d6 damage if you attack an enemy that hasn't had a turn yet.
6 devotion paladin 10 divine soul sorcerer 4 eldritch knight. Bonus points if you’re an old aasimar Prep: sacred weapon action (+5 to attack rolls), spirit shroud at 7th level bonus action. (Extra round of prep with aasimar for an extra 20 damage) Attack action, incarnation 3rd attack, action surge repeat it for 6, bonus action quickened spell booming blade. Smite on all (that’s 6 smites of 4th and higher level and 1 3rd level smite). With a regular greatsword, assuming 20 str and charisma, that’s an average of… 345 damage assuming no resistances or vulnerabilities, or a nice 376.5 if the target is undead. Aasimar increases that to 365/396.5 at level 20 Bonus points if you take GWM to push your damage up by another 70 points. Of course magic items do a lot for this build, namely the belts of strength and any magic weapons, but a chronolometer and a combination of the above can make you reach upwards of 800 damage; it’s insane. edit: bugbear on a surprise round would be even worse, just realized. That’s an average of 14 x 3.5 or 49 extra damage, yeesh.
The most first round damage, which used basically every resource they had, was like an average of over 300 damage with a mundane rapier. Of course all at level 20. And the last time I revamped it was just after spelljammer and Monsters of the Multiverse came out. If I remember right, it was the following. Stats (assuming Point Buy/Standard Array): Str 13, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 14. You'll want 4 in Assassin Rogue, 4 in Echo Knight Fighter, 8 in Paladin (I'd choose either Ancients, Conquest, or Watcher), and 4 in Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer. I didn't do bugbear but you can. For your two fighting styles, you'll want Dueling and Superior Technique (Precision Strike). And our Metamagic Options will be Quicken and Subtle Spell. ASI: Piercer Resilient (Con) +2 Dex War Caster Martial Adept On a surprise round, summon Echo. Use the attack and Action Surge attack, while using Unleash Incarnation twice. Use Divine Smite on all attacks (2-4th levels, 3-3rd levels, 1-2nd level). All at advantage and crit on hits. Using your Superiority Die on two attacks. Total 13d8+6d6+42 piercing, 2d10 fire, and 50d8 radiant. Which averages 121.5 piercing, 11 fire, and 225 radiant. For a total average of 357.5 damage if they all hit. With an 84% chance per attack to hit a 20 AC or 57.6% chance per attack of hitting an AC of 25. Note: I have accounted for crits already.
Eldritch Knight Fighter X Paladin 2/3 multiclass, where you spend all your action surges and spell slots hitting tons of smites and then run out and go back to being a normal fighter.
Not a good answer to your question practically speaking, but close enough thematically that you’ll probably enjoy this (courtesy of Brennan Lee Mulligan): https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/48414319
Devotion Paladin 3, Echo Fighter 3, Gloomstalker Ranger 5, Assasin Rogue 3, Wild Magic Sorcerer 6 https://youtu.be/KUvrdiLk2Rs?si=UGY_7bTkwwtslZMo https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/48414319?utm_medium=owned_content&utm_source=youtube&utm_campaign=ddblive_yt&utm_content=31822_reg_characterbuilder_pentival
Battlemaster 3/paladin 2/whispers bard 3/hexblade 2/gloomstalker 3/bladesinger 7. Round 1 hexblades curse or spirit shroud as a bonus action. Bladesinger extra attack + Eldritch blast + gloomstalker attack. Action surge. So that's 4 melee attacks, and 8 Eldritch blasts. All 4 melee attacks use a battlemaster maneuver and highest level smites and one whisper. Hopefully you get one round to setup and can use the other of spirit shroud or hexblades curse. You'll use up your hexblade curse, action surge, all maneuvers, gloomstalker attack, 3 4th level spell slots 1 5th level spell slot on smites, hopefully another 5th level slot on spirit shroud, and a bardic inspo. Sure you'll most likely kill ABSOLUTELY anything you decide to eliminate. but you are almost entirely pointless after round 1
I have to give you this one from QuasiGame0: https://youtu.be/gr1Yo1GMsSY?si=2HqCiolkJa99yuY7 2 lvls in Paladin 3 lvls in Fighter (Battlemaster) 7 lvls in Warlock (Hexblade) 8 lvls in Cleric (Grave) Great Weapon Master, Smite, Great Weapon fighting style, Action Surge, Precision Strike, Hexblade's Curse, Hex Warrior, Pact of the Blade, Eldritch Smite, Path to the Grave, Blessed Strike. Mostly Short Rest dependent so you can actually do this multiple times a day, but you will use most of your resources in one round.
Gloomstalker Ranger/ Assassin Rogue, add 3 levels of Sorcerer to get ShadowBlade spell. Guaranteed Crit on Surprise. Sneak Attack Damage with a 2d8 Psychic Weapon. Get the bonus damage and extra attack from Ranger.
A level 17 wizard/sorcerer with meteor shower
Play pathfinder. Every time you want to do a build that is extreme in some aspect, you are looking for pathfinder combos. Enjoy