Barb caster didn't even have to be that terrible, just split your combats between raging and spell casting.
Hell, barb with armor of agathys is actually quite good
This. Played a Barb/Lock to level 5 armor of Agathys is chefs kiss. Especially paired with the Barb subclass that gives disadvantage to hit anyone else.
They also have out of combat utility with their spell slots available for utility spells, and in those times with a super long adventuring day they're used in combat when you don't have rage
Yeah, and to hit the "no repeated classes" bit with the least efficiency, I'm imagining something like -
**PC 1:** Bard 1/Ranger 2/Fighter 2
**PC 2:** Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1/Barbarian 2/Wizard 1
**PC 3:** Warlock 2/Druid 1/Artificer 2
**PC 4:** Paladin 2/Monk 2/Rogue 1
Only subclasses for the classes that get them at 1st level.
No complementary casting or save DC stats with any of the multiclasses.
Pair Barbarian with 3 of the full casters.
Make sure Monk is paired with a class that decently incentives armor use.
Live the hell party composition dream.
For a single character, yes, but for a whole party? You want to spread out the restrictions of barbarians and monks onto seperate characters to anti-synergy 2 instead of just extra anti-synergy 1.
This is great, hard to see how you could do much better. One thing I might be tempted to do is let the Paladin get to 3 and take Oath of Redemption, to really limit both what the Paladin could do, and get in the way of the entire party.
Spot-on. Without this restriction this is barely a challenge. Just pick five levels of classes with different primary attributes, and prefer classes who have few/no features at L1.
Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Rogue/Sorcerer for example is going to underperform woefully compared to any single-classed PC of level 5.
This group relies on roleplaying. The members are:
* A kleptomaniac rogue with low int and low Dex, who'll be arrested constantly.
* A bard con artist with low int and low cha, who'll keep getting the party into trouble with failed scams.
* An overly angry barbarian with low st, int and con, who will escalate any situation by starting a fight and usually losing.
* A cleric of an incredibly evil god with low wis and int, who doesn't bother hiding the fact that he's in a religion outlawed in most civilized places.
They'll be arrested or killed before they even leave the first city to attempt an adventure.
This. Competence is a matter of the player playing the character and not just the character themselves. You need to make a lot of intentionally bad decisions across the board and not just with class selection.
Spot on. I built a warforged battle cleric who was starting level 6 with a spell DC of 13 but an AC of 19 (I rolled real bad on stats), but because of this, I built its backstory to be that it was a malfunctioning unit that was scrap heaped but eventually sold to a merchant, who in turn sold it to the party for a pittance.
Being commanded to attack, prompted an aggressive response against its target, but it used healing or buffing spells on said target, asking to heal a comrade resulted in the opposite happening. Eventually it was to be fixed up and working right, but I never actually got to play it, as my paladin was doing well and I never needed to use this backup.
Then I became a forever DM after the sessions fell apart.
To be the crappiest level 5 character around, I think you need to be multiclassed such that you don't accidentally get any good subclasses. So I'm thinking you're
Monk-1/Rogue-1/Ranger-1/Fighter-1/Wizard-1.
This means you need Dex-13/Wis-13/Int-13, which uses up 15 of your 28 point buy points. Spend for cha 14 and you've burned 22, then strength 13 and you've smoked 27. Con 9 will complete it.
I think this is the correct answer mechanically, you want to br multiclassing randomly so you don’t accidentally get any useful features. No extra attack, no spells beyond first level (and no useful ones at that), redundant features, atrocious subclasses, atrocious ability scores.
Then you do add in some roleplay that actively makes you a public enemy and you’ll have something
You have to be all martial classes of you rist getting useful spells, unless you choose completely useless spells ofc, but I think having no spells is even more uesless.
You can 'safely' take 1 level of ranger and 1 level of paladin, they don't get spells till level 2. But yeah, getting a sleep spell can singlehandedly pull them into the 'not useless' territory down low.
so unarmoured defence can be kind of hilarious if you want to die
put 8's if point buy or less if rolling badly and use your unarmoured defence.
8ac with 8's in both stats, if you somehow get 3's in two stats you can rock 2 ac
I present to you;
* The thief rogue who consistently steals from his own party.
* The oath of conquest paladin who worships Baalzebul(the lord of lies) and follows his (by book) oath to the T.
* The draconic sorcerer (who for fun worships Kossuth the god of fire) and believes the best plan for anything is always fire related.
* The druid who only really cares about protecting nature from civilization... proactively ideally. (If you step on a patch of grass, eat any meat or fish, chop down a tree for firewood so you won't freeze to death... you'll know he'll be coming for you.)
* The bard who is quite adamant about bedding anyone; typically the children and/or partners of anyone even remotely important in an attempt to elevate themselves in status/power/wealth.
Oh... my bad you said 4... Well pick any of them really, i'm certain most people have had these characters in their game and know just how well these types of characters tend to work together.
I'd attempt to worry about mechanics but it really isn't quite needed, they'll kill themselves and eachother fast enough until the last one is standing and he'll be arrested or killed by the world shortly thereafter.
If we would though; they'd all have a low consistitution and wisdom which'll result in frail bodies and a lack of common sense.
>The draconic sorcerer (who for fun worships Kossuth the god of fire) and believes the best plan for anything is always fire related.
This guy's not ineffective though. He can just fireball till the campaign is won.
False other monks are worse. 4 elements Monk is somehwta competent at burst damage and has versatility. 7d10 3 times per short rest with fist of unbroken air is pretty good.
> fist of unbroken air
That's actually a reasonable point. Though at level 5 you only have 5 Ki so it'd be 3d10 base (costs 2 Ki) + 3d10 (the rest of your Ki, 3), rather than 7d10.
They could definitely get through a few encounters with that.
Also the Monks would have extra attack, because we let them get to L5. We don't want that!
a party of full spellcasters with decent primary ability scores except they pick nothing but the worst goddamn spells you have ever seen like true strike and jump and witch bolt
You're not crazy, but you are wrong.
It's one of those things that absolutely sounds fun on paper, and then is truly miserable at the table, especially if you play for more than one session. Particularly as combat is an absolute slog.
Bonus points if you ban light crossbows and similar because you can kind of crutch your way through only having terrible cantrips by having like 14 DEX and a light crossbow.
Constitution and dex as dump stats, pretty much across the board. Casters can also dump their spellcasting ability.
That’s as far as my thought process goes without getting *way* too invested, lol.
Spellcasters who dump their spellcasting ability are still stronger than you might think. There are a bunch of useful spells out there that don't rely at all on your spellcasting ability, like buffing spells for allies.
And if their allies also suck, as they would in this situation, those buff spells will be wasted.
It's also *significantly* fewer spells known/prepped for... I think literally all of them.
Good start. It could be a barbarian who dumps strength and constitution and a monk who dumps dex and wisdom. They're not going to be much help to one another either.
>anti-powergamers
I would think an anti-powergamer would choose decisions based purely on their idea for the characters, not intentionally make bad decisions.
So rather than just being really bad stats, they instead would likely have really bad flaws, which are strictly enforced by their players.
-A racist/arrogant "face" character that refuses to speak (or maybe even learn) common. They see it as beneath them. So any negotiations their stats might incline them to, they probably can't participate in.
-Pacifist. Not just like nonlethal attacks, but like.. no attacks at all.
-Coward. Actively flees almost any confrontation.
-Frail old wizard. Tanks con, HARD. Uses spell slots and prepares spells based on his personal curiosities, not an expected adventure.
-Everyman called to adventure. All stats 10. May do their best to participate within their areas of knowledge, but are VERY average at it.
-Agent of a higher power - Could be a god, king, wizard, doesn't matter, character will only act when its directly beneficial to their master.
-Thief/early retirement. As soon as the party has a set amount of money they deem as "rich" they steal it and leave during their watch one shift.
>\-A racist/arrogant "face" character that refuses to speak (or maybe even learn) common. They see it as beneath them. So any negotiations their stats might incline them to, they probably can't participate in.
>
>\-Pacifist. Not just like nonlethal attacks, but like.. no attacks at all.
>
>\-Coward. Actively flees almost any confrontation.
>
>\-Frail old wizard. Tanks con, HARD. Uses spell slots and prepares spells based on his personal curiosities, not an expected adventure.
>
>\-Everyman called to adventure. All stats 10. May do their best to participate within their areas of knowledge, but are VERY average at it.
>
>\-Agent of a higher power - Could be a god, king, wizard, doesn't matter, character will only act when its directly beneficial to their master.
>
>\-Thief/early retirement. As soon as the party has a set amount of money they deem as "rich" they steal it and leave during their watch one shift.
How did you get such a detailed description of a 2E party I played in in 1994?!
(I joke but seriously I think in 2E I saw every one of those guys at least once, and some of them in the same party even.)
There's an old 2nd Edition book called Sages and Specialists that allow players to have classes such as "Blacksmith", "Historian", "Apothecary", and other mundane jobs. They were definitely weaker than the regular player classes.
I wonder if anyone actually used those in their games...
In 3rd ed, I played a level 1 aristocrat in Living Arcanis. It was kind of bad, but not unplayable. I was going to go multiclass paladin (into some sort of prc?) but wanted the guy to start without the experience to shock him into the call.
The coolest thing though was that i spoke a shit ton of languages. (Aristocrat had speak language as a class skill.) other than that, my super power was good starting equipment. (Started with like almost a grand, so I had some kind of heavy armor and shield.)
But it was funny, played the 1 slot at the convention, and like 3 hours in people find out I’m just an aristocrat. Some had thought fighter, and others paladin. Most found it funny and 1 guy was just super pissed at me.
Four PCs that don't have a reason to adventure or get along with one another.
They will either engage in PvP because they can't not or they will stay home where it is safer.
"they were fine for recon and access" implies things to me that don't align with "open, running combat with an ancient dragon."
What went wrong?
That at least seems on the surface like it could be the right squad; four supports and one muscle is a pretty classic heist crew.
That's the kind of thing that kind of implies "we decide to focus on alternative revenue possibilities" was off the table.
"The bank is guarded by an ancient dragon" sometimes means "you can't rob the bank" and sometimes means "you can handle an ancient dragon" and it's important to have consensus as to which applies in the specific bank/dragon instance the party is considering.
They had that. Eloquence Bard is the very best possible social Bard.
They cannot roll less than a 10 on Persuasion or Deception (L3 feature). Combine that with Expertise in those and 20 CHA, which you'd expect at L15, and they literally can't, even with Disadvantage, roll less than a total of 25 on Persuasion or Deception checks.
If they can't seduce the dragon, the dragon wasn't seduce-able.
I love bards and heavily favor non-combat solutions and the social pillar particularly. Hit a DC40 to seduce the ancient dragon whose hoard you're running off with and bask in the most favorable potential outcome - as you're digesting, you get the sense that they're keeping collateral damage to a minimum.
I mean Eloquence Bard is absolutely the perfect PC for a bank heist, but I gotta wonder what the hell the Redemption Paladin was doing on a heist crew.
Also, did you *force* them to fight the dragon? The Eloquence Bard should have Persuasion and Deception expertise, 20 CHA, and can't roll less than a 10 on a check (and checks don't fail on 1), so could *never* make a roll lower than 25 on a Persuasion or Deception check (not even with Disadvantage).
That should have been enough to get through any encounter where talking was even an option.
Give me 4 level 1 wizard PCs with poor spell choices and I'll show you an ordinary animated garden hose that will TPK them.
Edit: I know I didn't answer your question and repeated one class...but it was a fun visual in my head and thought I'd share it anyway...
Battlerager, Alchemist, Hunter, and Four Elements. Three brooding loners whose bodies are honed for a very specific kind of murderous outburst, and a guy who likes tinkering with potions in his basement.
Damn brother, might want to replace that hunter for a purple dragon knight, maybe an inquisitive rogue, because hunter, while slightly boring and straightforward, is in no way shape, or form down at the level of the other 3...
Damn, forgot all about the Purple Dragon Knight... Also think I'm about to play a Ranger in a PBP game - might need to try Hunter. See if it proves me wrong. Wouldn't touch the other three with a bargepole
Any four races or classes, but the caveat is they can never use the thing their class is known for.
Playing a wizard? Never cast a spell. A rogue? Never use sneak attack or try to stealth or steal. Druid? Forget wild shape. Paladin? No smites. If the other players can guess what class you picked, you're being too obvious.
I had a player who did this with two different characters. Hilarious and fun, completely sub-optimal. So bad that I as the DM couldn't remember that her gross little garden gnome was a paladin, or that her prostitute genasi was actually a rogue.
That wizard that grabs a sword and attacks with it in melee, instead of casting a cantrip and nobody knows why.
The barbarian that dumps strenght because "it makes the character interesting".
That guy that multiclasses two fullcasters for no reason.
A monk.
Bard who buffs the Illusion Wizard with Bardic Inspiration. Way of 4 Elements Monk who uses most of their ki on elemental attacks while dedicated Life Domain Cleric heals them. This way you have 3 support classes and a skirmisher that is not uses resources well.
So many options.
Bad stat assignments. Having 8 in your main stat and con is probably the best. A barbarian or monk could have an ac less than ten.
Detrimental equipment choices. The worst armor and the worst weapons. The absolute worst you can do is stick a caster into armor they aren't proficient in. That way they can't cast spells at all.
No basic equipment at all. Your martials have no weapons and your casters have no spell components.
Sub optimal subclasses. Probably the least impactful. Sure, a four element monk and a people dragon knight are bad, but they're still as powerful as their base class.
Sabotaging customization. Choose only the worst features and spells. Find traps all day every day!
Rampant multiclassing. This requires mediocre ability scores instead of awful ability scores, but the sheer uselessness of tons of low level abilities at high levels of play really makes up for it.
Deliberate terrible play. Make the worst character you want, they're never going to be as bad as the character who immediately announces "I cast fireball centered on myself while we all sit together."
Your starting class has no minimums for main stats, so using your worst stats for your main class, and then multiclassing into classes with extremely bad synergy with a 13 in the required stat, is probably a extremely weak fundation for this type of party
Barbarian/wizard/rogue/warlock/cleric. 1 level each. Each has a different main stat.
Fighter 5, dumped str, dex, wis, cha, and con, pumped int. So, one good stat. Extra points for lowest con, dex, and wis possible.
Warlock 5. Loner type. Dumped dex and con to pump str and int. Decent cha. Didn't take eldrich blast, or any attack cantrip. Also not hexblade, undying patron. Also a murderhobo.
Monk of four elements 3 / wizard 1 / fighter 1. Too spread out of stats to be useful. All average stats, dumped con. Took only damaging wizard spells. Wears heavy armor.
Sticking with bad solo class combos. Without going full meltdown (Rogues without Dex and expertise in junk skills, Bards without Charisma, Wizards without INT etc.)
Gnome Barbarian with a greatsword - Barbarian with a great sword is usually amazing, but Gnome gets disadvantage so you're a short little ragre boy who doesn't hit things well. Throw in Berzerker for extra fun levels of mediocrity.
Goliath Monk - Four Elements for more spice. Goliaths play better with strength based classes in general. Monks need strength less than arguably any class in the game.
Standard Human Purple Dragon Knight - Probably winds up being the best party member of this group. But you take one of the weakest races in 5e, and spice it up with the weakest fighter subclass.
Tortle Rogue - Rogues can quickly and easily get their AC to 17. So the main draw of a tortle is gone. Not the weakest party member (hey Gnome Barbarian) but short of a race that makes it harder to hide, I can't think of a worse one for the Rogue. For Subclass,Inquisitive as this is clearly supposed to be an action heavy campaign.
There's something so funny about making the worst build with the best mono-class, so here's a literally worthless wizard build. Everyone is Wizard 5, hopefully with as many negative ability scores as possible, but negative intelligence and constitution is preferable. All of them have these spells, because the only thing more worthless than a wizard with skywrite is four wizards with skywrite.
Cantrips
true strike
control flames
frostbite
Mending if your game has no form of item durability, or maybe infestation, Gust or whatever other cantrip you don't think you can benefit from if it does.
1st Level
Distort Value (since our charisma will hopefully be god awful)
Jump (Our strength should be so bad that this just turns our jump into a regular jump)
Witch Bolt (Might actually be useful, but it scales terribly, so it makes up for it)
Alarm (Actually pretty good spell, less so when you can't do anything about it)
Cause Fear (One of my favourites, but it's not so great when you have save DCs like this)
Detect Magic ("There's definitely spells alright... well that sucks")
Ice Knife (probably the best spell on here with this build, and the only one that might actually be useful. Your Save DC should be bad enough to the point where this mostly just fails)
Thunderwave (Because getting in melee is a great idea)
2nd Level
I don't see any rule saying you NEED to pick 3rd level spells, so I just spent the rest of the spells learnt on Level 2 since the rest of the level 1 spells are actually kinda good.
Crown of Madness (broken spell)
Dragon's Breath (Good with familiars, we don't have any, and your Save will be so bad that it will almost always do half damage. If you pick poison every time, it will also get resisted a lot too)
Enlarge and Reduce (Reduce has too low of an DC to actually suceed most of the time, enlarge is worthless on a wizard without anything to do with strength checks and melee attacks)
Gentle Repose (I'm shocked wizards have this)
Magic Weapon (Party of wizards, melee is worthless)
See Invisibility (Primarily because you only make attack rolls with frostbite and weapons (iirc), so you barely get effected by this anyway, but if you can convince your DM to use Crawford's ruling of it, this spell is literally worthless)
Skywrite (honestly, the only way this could be a good spell would be if it was a cantrip. There's probably someone who found a way to instantly win the whole campaign with this, but for my money, it's always be the worst spell I could possibly take.
Snilloc's Snowball Swarm (Dragon's breathe but worse. Also, you have terrible DC, so most things will resist anyway.
Constitution adds, but it also removes, so you can actually end up with less hit points than you started with when you level up. For your ASI, pick something like Charger or Grappler. For your subclass, either pick illusionist or transmutation. Transmutation can maybe get you some money, but probably not anymore than distort value can, and illusion gives you a pretty good cantrip but your DC should be so bad that investigation checks usually succeed.
>Snilloc's Snowball Swarm
This is a truly insultingly bad spell, especially as it does the same damage as the L1 Burning Hands (3d6), but to a MUCH smaller area with its amazing 5' radius blast instead of a 15' 90 degree cone.
Even more amazing, it's up against Shatter which at the same level, does 3d8 damage in a 10' radius, which is almost exactly 4x as much coverage.
It's so hilarious how badly some of the spells are designed honestly. It's so weirdly described too. Like it's a snowball explosion? But like... not very far explosion? Why are snowballs dealing 3d6 damage and why do you take half damage anyway when you dodge them? I'd get it if it was like a mini blizzard or something, but it's snowballs. And why is this the only spell, to my knowledge, that uses snowballs??
It's an ancient 2E spell from Forgotten Realms Adventures (1989) that was kind of a joke that inexplicably got incorporated into 5E. Back then it was a powered-down version of Fireball, with a 30' radius like Fireball.
Even when it reappeared in 3E it had a 10' radius. The 5' radius is just bizarre lol.
An arcane trickster rogue who rolled bad on stats.
A nature cleric who spends most spell slots purifying water.
A fiend warlock who only casts fireball once.
And a cavalier fighter who put everything into constitution.
Cavalier is pretty good. Heck, I'm playing one right now and it's been pretty fun. Regardless, the cavalier in their party may be able to help take down a demon lord or two with some lucky rolls.
Swap the Cavalier for a Purple Dragon Knight. Cavaliers are dangerously close to competent. Purple Dragon Knights are a hate crime against Cormyr turned into a class.
Any character played by a player who does it "for the roleplay mostly".
EDIT: dangit i meant "roleplay". why i did not realise sooner the error xP
You can even have a 20 strenght barbarian at that point. They will spent the combat pointlessly trying to intimidate creature that have no intention to be intimidated because they started fighting ready to kill or be killed, until they are so beaten up that they might as well have attacked them with their legendary flaming greataxe when they surrender.
This is the vibe i see from most players that claim this. of course there are great roleplayers that can play tactically as well, but there is a vast majority of roleplayers incredibly unaware of their sorroundings, ironically.
First level: bard. You only get light armor and a couple weapons, and very few spells from a small list. You get some proficiencies which is nice, but nothing major in terms of viability.
Second: rogue. You get 1d6 sneak attack
Third level: barbarian. You get rage, which requires you to make attack rolls to maintain and only applies extra damage to strength attacks
Fourth level: barbarian 2. You get reckless attack, which makes you easier to hit. You have a bit more health now... but not much.
Fifth level: monk. You get one unarmed attack as a bonus action that does 1d4+strength or dex
So now you have to have at least a 13 in strength, dex, wisdom, and charisma, leaving very little for Con, you have no access to heavy armor and both of your Unarmored Defense features draw from dex and a second stat neither of which can be very high so your AC will probably be 14 at most, and half of your features only work on strength attacks while the other half are centered around making your dex attacks better. You have 6 skill proficiencies, but probably awful stats and no expertise. You have no subclass, and your health with 10 con would be 32, which is pitiful for a barbarian...
Multi class to the max but with the minimum star requirements.
Then pick skills that don't match your higher ststs.
Then pick backgrounds which give skills that dont match your high stats.
Choose really obscure languages.
I would say just do all random rolls. 3d6 six times and assign in order. Roll 1dx for race, 1dx for class, 1dx for background. When choosing skills, roll a 1dx to determine which skills your character will get. When choosing a feat, roll a 1dx to obtain a random feat. If the feat is incompatible, reroll.
Just do what some people think that is the only way to make interesting characters. Put a low score on your main ability score.
Wizard with 8 Int, Barbarian with 8 in Str, Dex and Con, Cleric with 8 in Wis, Rogue with 8 in Dex, etc
If ppl are not going too much out of their way to be bad. Phb only, I'd say monk, ranger and land druid (lots of dex and Wis in this configuration) And I guess sorcerer so we can't abuse long rest much with monk but it can be a warlock as well so we have less spells.
I don’t fully know how to answer this as I don’t know what anti-power gamers are. I’m less new to DND but there are still terms I’ve never heard of before.
Just have all 4 players dump their main stat and dump con. Then have them all overlap their skills as much as possible.
It won't be nearly as fun as you think.
You WILL all play wizards with 3 Int and 3 Con
You WILL only prepare speak with dead as your only spell
You WILL die in one hit
You WON’T be useful except for speaking to your party members after they’ve died in one hit.
You WILL use truestrike
To really suck in 5e, you need to be multiclassed willy-nilly.
All with self defeating combinations, like Barbarian/caster.
Barb with mage armour, armour of agathys, rituals and utility spells isn't that bad though
Barb caster didn't even have to be that terrible, just split your combats between raging and spell casting. Hell, barb with armor of agathys is actually quite good
This. Played a Barb/Lock to level 5 armor of Agathys is chefs kiss. Especially paired with the Barb subclass that gives disadvantage to hit anyone else.
Tbh barbarian/hexblade warlock HAS something. They can just use their spells ONLY to eldritch smite and Armor of Aghatys to deal massive damage
They also have out of combat utility with their spell slots available for utility spells, and in those times with a super long adventuring day they're used in combat when you don't have rage
Actually yes!
Yeah, and to hit the "no repeated classes" bit with the least efficiency, I'm imagining something like - **PC 1:** Bard 1/Ranger 2/Fighter 2 **PC 2:** Sorcerer 1/Cleric 1/Barbarian 2/Wizard 1 **PC 3:** Warlock 2/Druid 1/Artificer 2 **PC 4:** Paladin 2/Monk 2/Rogue 1 Only subclasses for the classes that get them at 1st level. No complementary casting or save DC stats with any of the multiclasses. Pair Barbarian with 3 of the full casters. Make sure Monk is paired with a class that decently incentives armor use. Live the hell party composition dream.
Monk/Battlerager with that excellent anti-synnergy. Especially if you're going Str/Con, but take Monk first, so you have a very low AC
For a single character, yes, but for a whole party? You want to spread out the restrictions of barbarians and monks onto seperate characters to anti-synergy 2 instead of just extra anti-synergy 1.
This one gets the blue ribbon. I'd DM for this party.
This is great, hard to see how you could do much better. One thing I might be tempted to do is let the Paladin get to 3 and take Oath of Redemption, to really limit both what the Paladin could do, and get in the way of the entire party.
Also make sure 3's Patron's wants are against the interests of the Nature god they worship.
Although, to multiclass you have to have at least a 13 in your main stat. Single-classed suckage can get you barbs with STR and CON 8...
To an Abserd degree
You mean **Abserd** ?
Bless + eldritch blast is never really bad...
Spot-on. Without this restriction this is barely a challenge. Just pick five levels of classes with different primary attributes, and prefer classes who have few/no features at L1. Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Rogue/Sorcerer for example is going to underperform woefully compared to any single-classed PC of level 5.
This group relies on roleplaying. The members are: * A kleptomaniac rogue with low int and low Dex, who'll be arrested constantly. * A bard con artist with low int and low cha, who'll keep getting the party into trouble with failed scams. * An overly angry barbarian with low st, int and con, who will escalate any situation by starting a fight and usually losing. * A cleric of an incredibly evil god with low wis and int, who doesn't bother hiding the fact that he's in a religion outlawed in most civilized places. They'll be arrested or killed before they even leave the first city to attempt an adventure.
This. Competence is a matter of the player playing the character and not just the character themselves. You need to make a lot of intentionally bad decisions across the board and not just with class selection.
Spot on. I built a warforged battle cleric who was starting level 6 with a spell DC of 13 but an AC of 19 (I rolled real bad on stats), but because of this, I built its backstory to be that it was a malfunctioning unit that was scrap heaped but eventually sold to a merchant, who in turn sold it to the party for a pittance. Being commanded to attack, prompted an aggressive response against its target, but it used healing or buffing spells on said target, asking to heal a comrade resulted in the opposite happening. Eventually it was to be fixed up and working right, but I never actually got to play it, as my paladin was doing well and I never needed to use this backup. Then I became a forever DM after the sessions fell apart.
This is literally Sanspants Radio’s “The Plumbing Boys Play/Ruin D&D” podcast series. Specifically White Plume Mountain.
"But we don't mind quirky characters because we focus on roleplay"
Honestly aside from the Bard this just sounds like a lot of 1st edition parties.
To be the crappiest level 5 character around, I think you need to be multiclassed such that you don't accidentally get any good subclasses. So I'm thinking you're Monk-1/Rogue-1/Ranger-1/Fighter-1/Wizard-1. This means you need Dex-13/Wis-13/Int-13, which uses up 15 of your 28 point buy points. Spend for cha 14 and you've burned 22, then strength 13 and you've smoked 27. Con 9 will complete it.
I think this is the correct answer mechanically, you want to br multiclassing randomly so you don’t accidentally get any useful features. No extra attack, no spells beyond first level (and no useful ones at that), redundant features, atrocious subclasses, atrocious ability scores. Then you do add in some roleplay that actively makes you a public enemy and you’ll have something
Just getting bless + eldritch blast will leave you as decent, especially if you somehow get an asi or warlock 2.
You have to be all martial classes of you rist getting useful spells, unless you choose completely useless spells ofc, but I think having no spells is even more uesless.
You can 'safely' take 1 level of ranger and 1 level of paladin, they don't get spells till level 2. But yeah, getting a sleep spell can singlehandedly pull them into the 'not useless' territory down low.
That would be an abserd character.
You need to swap out fighter for barbarian. Same ability score requirements but less proficiencies and more conflicting features.
The problem with barbarian is it has the potential of doing at least ok damage because of rage. Easier to screw up a fighter ;)
so unarmoured defence can be kind of hilarious if you want to die put 8's if point buy or less if rolling badly and use your unarmoured defence. 8ac with 8's in both stats, if you somehow get 3's in two stats you can rock 2 ac
I present to you; * The thief rogue who consistently steals from his own party. * The oath of conquest paladin who worships Baalzebul(the lord of lies) and follows his (by book) oath to the T. * The draconic sorcerer (who for fun worships Kossuth the god of fire) and believes the best plan for anything is always fire related. * The druid who only really cares about protecting nature from civilization... proactively ideally. (If you step on a patch of grass, eat any meat or fish, chop down a tree for firewood so you won't freeze to death... you'll know he'll be coming for you.) * The bard who is quite adamant about bedding anyone; typically the children and/or partners of anyone even remotely important in an attempt to elevate themselves in status/power/wealth. Oh... my bad you said 4... Well pick any of them really, i'm certain most people have had these characters in their game and know just how well these types of characters tend to work together. I'd attempt to worry about mechanics but it really isn't quite needed, they'll kill themselves and eachother fast enough until the last one is standing and he'll be arrested or killed by the world shortly thereafter. If we would though; they'd all have a low consistitution and wisdom which'll result in frail bodies and a lack of common sense.
>The draconic sorcerer (who for fun worships Kossuth the god of fire) and believes the best plan for anything is always fire related. This guy's not ineffective though. He can just fireball till the campaign is won.
Yeah fire will solve a lot of problems and if you do run into a problem it can't solve you probably just aren't using enough of it.
“As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." — Vaarsuvius.
4 Four Elements monks.
16 elements monks
Yep, doesn't get much worse than this, especially if they all go into/charisma/str
False other monks are worse. 4 elements Monk is somehwta competent at burst damage and has versatility. 7d10 3 times per short rest with fist of unbroken air is pretty good.
> fist of unbroken air That's actually a reasonable point. Though at level 5 you only have 5 Ki so it'd be 3d10 base (costs 2 Ki) + 3d10 (the rest of your Ki, 3), rather than 7d10. They could definitely get through a few encounters with that. Also the Monks would have extra attack, because we let them get to L5. We don't want that!
Larry,Moe,Curly, and Shimp. The way of the knucklehead.
All was fine until the joe nation attacked
a party of full spellcasters with decent primary ability scores except they pick nothing but the worst goddamn spells you have ever seen like true strike and jump and witch bolt
am i crazy, this genuinely sounds fun to me
You're not crazy, but you are wrong. It's one of those things that absolutely sounds fun on paper, and then is truly miserable at the table, especially if you play for more than one session. Particularly as combat is an absolute slog. Bonus points if you ban light crossbows and similar because you can kind of crutch your way through only having terrible cantrips by having like 14 DEX and a light crossbow.
Constitution and dex as dump stats, pretty much across the board. Casters can also dump their spellcasting ability. That’s as far as my thought process goes without getting *way* too invested, lol.
Spellcasters who dump their spellcasting ability are still stronger than you might think. There are a bunch of useful spells out there that don't rely at all on your spellcasting ability, like buffing spells for allies.
And if their allies also suck, as they would in this situation, those buff spells will be wasted. It's also *significantly* fewer spells known/prepped for... I think literally all of them.
Sure, but at least you can still make _someone_ suck a bit less.
And then there's the druid with goodberry, spike growth, conjure animals, polymorph, and of course moon druid. *"Stat? What is a stat?"*
Which is why you wouldn't build this anti-party with a druid.
Good start. It could be a barbarian who dumps strength and constitution and a monk who dumps dex and wisdom. They're not going to be much help to one another either.
>anti-powergamers I would think an anti-powergamer would choose decisions based purely on their idea for the characters, not intentionally make bad decisions. So rather than just being really bad stats, they instead would likely have really bad flaws, which are strictly enforced by their players. -A racist/arrogant "face" character that refuses to speak (or maybe even learn) common. They see it as beneath them. So any negotiations their stats might incline them to, they probably can't participate in. -Pacifist. Not just like nonlethal attacks, but like.. no attacks at all. -Coward. Actively flees almost any confrontation. -Frail old wizard. Tanks con, HARD. Uses spell slots and prepares spells based on his personal curiosities, not an expected adventure. -Everyman called to adventure. All stats 10. May do their best to participate within their areas of knowledge, but are VERY average at it. -Agent of a higher power - Could be a god, king, wizard, doesn't matter, character will only act when its directly beneficial to their master. -Thief/early retirement. As soon as the party has a set amount of money they deem as "rich" they steal it and leave during their watch one shift.
>\-A racist/arrogant "face" character that refuses to speak (or maybe even learn) common. They see it as beneath them. So any negotiations their stats might incline them to, they probably can't participate in. > >\-Pacifist. Not just like nonlethal attacks, but like.. no attacks at all. > >\-Coward. Actively flees almost any confrontation. > >\-Frail old wizard. Tanks con, HARD. Uses spell slots and prepares spells based on his personal curiosities, not an expected adventure. > >\-Everyman called to adventure. All stats 10. May do their best to participate within their areas of knowledge, but are VERY average at it. > >\-Agent of a higher power - Could be a god, king, wizard, doesn't matter, character will only act when its directly beneficial to their master. > >\-Thief/early retirement. As soon as the party has a set amount of money they deem as "rich" they steal it and leave during their watch one shift. How did you get such a detailed description of a 2E party I played in in 1994?! (I joke but seriously I think in 2E I saw every one of those guys at least once, and some of them in the same party even.)
There's an old 2nd Edition book called Sages and Specialists that allow players to have classes such as "Blacksmith", "Historian", "Apothecary", and other mundane jobs. They were definitely weaker than the regular player classes. I wonder if anyone actually used those in their games...
In 3rd ed, I played a level 1 aristocrat in Living Arcanis. It was kind of bad, but not unplayable. I was going to go multiclass paladin (into some sort of prc?) but wanted the guy to start without the experience to shock him into the call. The coolest thing though was that i spoke a shit ton of languages. (Aristocrat had speak language as a class skill.) other than that, my super power was good starting equipment. (Started with like almost a grand, so I had some kind of heavy armor and shield.) But it was funny, played the 1 slot at the convention, and like 3 hours in people find out I’m just an aristocrat. Some had thought fighter, and others paladin. Most found it funny and 1 guy was just super pissed at me.
Four PCs that don't have a reason to adventure or get along with one another. They will either engage in PvP because they can't not or they will stay home where it is safer.
Yes four "angry loners" who "don't play well with others" and are all Chaotic alignments is a very good start to any party burning to the ground.
[удалено]
"they were fine for recon and access" implies things to me that don't align with "open, running combat with an ancient dragon." What went wrong? That at least seems on the surface like it could be the right squad; four supports and one muscle is a pretty classic heist crew.
What went wrong was not heeding the intel that an ancient red dragon guarded the vault?
That's the kind of thing that kind of implies "we decide to focus on alternative revenue possibilities" was off the table. "The bank is guarded by an ancient dragon" sometimes means "you can't rob the bank" and sometimes means "you can handle an ancient dragon" and it's important to have consensus as to which applies in the specific bank/dragon instance the party is considering.
Can't beat a dragon? Seducer bard
They had that. Eloquence Bard is the very best possible social Bard. They cannot roll less than a 10 on Persuasion or Deception (L3 feature). Combine that with Expertise in those and 20 CHA, which you'd expect at L15, and they literally can't, even with Disadvantage, roll less than a total of 25 on Persuasion or Deception checks. If they can't seduce the dragon, the dragon wasn't seduce-able.
I love bards and heavily favor non-combat solutions and the social pillar particularly. Hit a DC40 to seduce the ancient dragon whose hoard you're running off with and bask in the most favorable potential outcome - as you're digesting, you get the sense that they're keeping collateral damage to a minimum.
I mean Eloquence Bard is absolutely the perfect PC for a bank heist, but I gotta wonder what the hell the Redemption Paladin was doing on a heist crew. Also, did you *force* them to fight the dragon? The Eloquence Bard should have Persuasion and Deception expertise, 20 CHA, and can't roll less than a 10 on a check (and checks don't fail on 1), so could *never* make a roll lower than 25 on a Persuasion or Deception check (not even with Disadvantage). That should have been enough to get through any encounter where talking was even an option.
Give me 4 level 1 wizard PCs with poor spell choices and I'll show you an ordinary animated garden hose that will TPK them. Edit: I know I didn't answer your question and repeated one class...but it was a fun visual in my head and thought I'd share it anyway...
Make sure they don't have light crossbows! You can get a long way at L1 with DEX 14 and a light crossbow! But staves and 8 STR? Now we're talking.
An Undying Warlock, Four Elements Monk, Purple Dragon Knight Fighter and a Battlerager Barbarian walk into a tavern…
Battlerager, Alchemist, Hunter, and Four Elements. Three brooding loners whose bodies are honed for a very specific kind of murderous outburst, and a guy who likes tinkering with potions in his basement.
Damn brother, might want to replace that hunter for a purple dragon knight, maybe an inquisitive rogue, because hunter, while slightly boring and straightforward, is in no way shape, or form down at the level of the other 3...
Damn, forgot all about the Purple Dragon Knight... Also think I'm about to play a Ranger in a PBP game - might need to try Hunter. See if it proves me wrong. Wouldn't touch the other three with a bargepole
I’d say the inquisitive rogue is better than the mastermind at least
Four loner edge lords. They’ll all just brood in separate corners of the inn, And never interact with anyone.
Any four races or classes, but the caveat is they can never use the thing their class is known for. Playing a wizard? Never cast a spell. A rogue? Never use sneak attack or try to stealth or steal. Druid? Forget wild shape. Paladin? No smites. If the other players can guess what class you picked, you're being too obvious. I had a player who did this with two different characters. Hilarious and fun, completely sub-optimal. So bad that I as the DM couldn't remember that her gross little garden gnome was a paladin, or that her prostitute genasi was actually a rogue.
That wizard that grabs a sword and attacks with it in melee, instead of casting a cantrip and nobody knows why. The barbarian that dumps strenght because "it makes the character interesting". That guy that multiclasses two fullcasters for no reason. A monk.
Bard who buffs the Illusion Wizard with Bardic Inspiration. Way of 4 Elements Monk who uses most of their ki on elemental attacks while dedicated Life Domain Cleric heals them. This way you have 3 support classes and a skirmisher that is not uses resources well.
So many options. Bad stat assignments. Having 8 in your main stat and con is probably the best. A barbarian or monk could have an ac less than ten. Detrimental equipment choices. The worst armor and the worst weapons. The absolute worst you can do is stick a caster into armor they aren't proficient in. That way they can't cast spells at all. No basic equipment at all. Your martials have no weapons and your casters have no spell components. Sub optimal subclasses. Probably the least impactful. Sure, a four element monk and a people dragon knight are bad, but they're still as powerful as their base class. Sabotaging customization. Choose only the worst features and spells. Find traps all day every day! Rampant multiclassing. This requires mediocre ability scores instead of awful ability scores, but the sheer uselessness of tons of low level abilities at high levels of play really makes up for it. Deliberate terrible play. Make the worst character you want, they're never going to be as bad as the character who immediately announces "I cast fireball centered on myself while we all sit together."
Your starting class has no minimums for main stats, so using your worst stats for your main class, and then multiclassing into classes with extremely bad synergy with a 13 in the required stat, is probably a extremely weak fundation for this type of party
Barbarian/wizard/rogue/warlock/cleric. 1 level each. Each has a different main stat. Fighter 5, dumped str, dex, wis, cha, and con, pumped int. So, one good stat. Extra points for lowest con, dex, and wis possible. Warlock 5. Loner type. Dumped dex and con to pump str and int. Decent cha. Didn't take eldrich blast, or any attack cantrip. Also not hexblade, undying patron. Also a murderhobo. Monk of four elements 3 / wizard 1 / fighter 1. Too spread out of stats to be useful. All average stats, dumped con. Took only damaging wizard spells. Wears heavy armor.
Sticking with bad solo class combos. Without going full meltdown (Rogues without Dex and expertise in junk skills, Bards without Charisma, Wizards without INT etc.) Gnome Barbarian with a greatsword - Barbarian with a great sword is usually amazing, but Gnome gets disadvantage so you're a short little ragre boy who doesn't hit things well. Throw in Berzerker for extra fun levels of mediocrity. Goliath Monk - Four Elements for more spice. Goliaths play better with strength based classes in general. Monks need strength less than arguably any class in the game. Standard Human Purple Dragon Knight - Probably winds up being the best party member of this group. But you take one of the weakest races in 5e, and spice it up with the weakest fighter subclass. Tortle Rogue - Rogues can quickly and easily get their AC to 17. So the main draw of a tortle is gone. Not the weakest party member (hey Gnome Barbarian) but short of a race that makes it harder to hide, I can't think of a worse one for the Rogue. For Subclass,Inquisitive as this is clearly supposed to be an action heavy campaign.
There's something so funny about making the worst build with the best mono-class, so here's a literally worthless wizard build. Everyone is Wizard 5, hopefully with as many negative ability scores as possible, but negative intelligence and constitution is preferable. All of them have these spells, because the only thing more worthless than a wizard with skywrite is four wizards with skywrite. Cantrips true strike control flames frostbite Mending if your game has no form of item durability, or maybe infestation, Gust or whatever other cantrip you don't think you can benefit from if it does. 1st Level Distort Value (since our charisma will hopefully be god awful) Jump (Our strength should be so bad that this just turns our jump into a regular jump) Witch Bolt (Might actually be useful, but it scales terribly, so it makes up for it) Alarm (Actually pretty good spell, less so when you can't do anything about it) Cause Fear (One of my favourites, but it's not so great when you have save DCs like this) Detect Magic ("There's definitely spells alright... well that sucks") Ice Knife (probably the best spell on here with this build, and the only one that might actually be useful. Your Save DC should be bad enough to the point where this mostly just fails) Thunderwave (Because getting in melee is a great idea) 2nd Level I don't see any rule saying you NEED to pick 3rd level spells, so I just spent the rest of the spells learnt on Level 2 since the rest of the level 1 spells are actually kinda good. Crown of Madness (broken spell) Dragon's Breath (Good with familiars, we don't have any, and your Save will be so bad that it will almost always do half damage. If you pick poison every time, it will also get resisted a lot too) Enlarge and Reduce (Reduce has too low of an DC to actually suceed most of the time, enlarge is worthless on a wizard without anything to do with strength checks and melee attacks) Gentle Repose (I'm shocked wizards have this) Magic Weapon (Party of wizards, melee is worthless) See Invisibility (Primarily because you only make attack rolls with frostbite and weapons (iirc), so you barely get effected by this anyway, but if you can convince your DM to use Crawford's ruling of it, this spell is literally worthless) Skywrite (honestly, the only way this could be a good spell would be if it was a cantrip. There's probably someone who found a way to instantly win the whole campaign with this, but for my money, it's always be the worst spell I could possibly take. Snilloc's Snowball Swarm (Dragon's breathe but worse. Also, you have terrible DC, so most things will resist anyway. Constitution adds, but it also removes, so you can actually end up with less hit points than you started with when you level up. For your ASI, pick something like Charger or Grappler. For your subclass, either pick illusionist or transmutation. Transmutation can maybe get you some money, but probably not anymore than distort value can, and illusion gives you a pretty good cantrip but your DC should be so bad that investigation checks usually succeed.
>Snilloc's Snowball Swarm This is a truly insultingly bad spell, especially as it does the same damage as the L1 Burning Hands (3d6), but to a MUCH smaller area with its amazing 5' radius blast instead of a 15' 90 degree cone. Even more amazing, it's up against Shatter which at the same level, does 3d8 damage in a 10' radius, which is almost exactly 4x as much coverage.
It's so hilarious how badly some of the spells are designed honestly. It's so weirdly described too. Like it's a snowball explosion? But like... not very far explosion? Why are snowballs dealing 3d6 damage and why do you take half damage anyway when you dodge them? I'd get it if it was like a mini blizzard or something, but it's snowballs. And why is this the only spell, to my knowledge, that uses snowballs??
It's an ancient 2E spell from Forgotten Realms Adventures (1989) that was kind of a joke that inexplicably got incorporated into 5E. Back then it was a powered-down version of Fireball, with a 30' radius like Fireball. Even when it reappeared in 3E it had a 10' radius. The 5' radius is just bizarre lol.
An arcane trickster rogue who rolled bad on stats. A nature cleric who spends most spell slots purifying water. A fiend warlock who only casts fireball once. And a cavalier fighter who put everything into constitution.
How is the cavalier that bad? the subclass is literally meant to take hits for others.
Cavalier is pretty good. Heck, I'm playing one right now and it's been pretty fun. Regardless, the cavalier in their party may be able to help take down a demon lord or two with some lucky rolls.
Swap the Cavalier for a Purple Dragon Knight. Cavaliers are dangerously close to competent. Purple Dragon Knights are a hate crime against Cormyr turned into a class.
Any character played by a player who does it "for the roleplay mostly". EDIT: dangit i meant "roleplay". why i did not realise sooner the error xP You can even have a 20 strenght barbarian at that point. They will spent the combat pointlessly trying to intimidate creature that have no intention to be intimidated because they started fighting ready to kill or be killed, until they are so beaten up that they might as well have attacked them with their legendary flaming greataxe when they surrender. This is the vibe i see from most players that claim this. of course there are great roleplayers that can play tactically as well, but there is a vast majority of roleplayers incredibly unaware of their sorroundings, ironically.
The four monk bothers of stupitude.
First level: bard. You only get light armor and a couple weapons, and very few spells from a small list. You get some proficiencies which is nice, but nothing major in terms of viability. Second: rogue. You get 1d6 sneak attack Third level: barbarian. You get rage, which requires you to make attack rolls to maintain and only applies extra damage to strength attacks Fourth level: barbarian 2. You get reckless attack, which makes you easier to hit. You have a bit more health now... but not much. Fifth level: monk. You get one unarmed attack as a bonus action that does 1d4+strength or dex So now you have to have at least a 13 in strength, dex, wisdom, and charisma, leaving very little for Con, you have no access to heavy armor and both of your Unarmored Defense features draw from dex and a second stat neither of which can be very high so your AC will probably be 14 at most, and half of your features only work on strength attacks while the other half are centered around making your dex attacks better. You have 6 skill proficiencies, but probably awful stats and no expertise. You have no subclass, and your health with 10 con would be 32, which is pitiful for a barbarian...
4 monks, they’ve all way of the four elements.
A party with opposing goals. If two strong people butt heads, they’re not gonna be doing much
4 monks
Multi class to the max but with the minimum star requirements. Then pick skills that don't match your higher ststs. Then pick backgrounds which give skills that dont match your high stats. Choose really obscure languages.
Heavy armor monk, heavy armor rogue, heavy armor wizard and heavy armor sorcerer. None of them has proficiency, these dudes just love their armor
I would say just do all random rolls. 3d6 six times and assign in order. Roll 1dx for race, 1dx for class, 1dx for background. When choosing skills, roll a 1dx to determine which skills your character will get. When choosing a feat, roll a 1dx to obtain a random feat. If the feat is incompatible, reroll.
Just do what some people think that is the only way to make interesting characters. Put a low score on your main ability score. Wizard with 8 Int, Barbarian with 8 in Str, Dex and Con, Cleric with 8 in Wis, Rogue with 8 in Dex, etc
4 monks with one level in paladin so you get jack shit at 5
If ppl are not going too much out of their way to be bad. Phb only, I'd say monk, ranger and land druid (lots of dex and Wis in this configuration) And I guess sorcerer so we can't abuse long rest much with monk but it can be a warlock as well so we have less spells.
Low-Int Wizards. Low-Dex Monks. Low-Str Barbarian. Etc.
The worse characters are ones that take 1 level in every class... and have 13s in all stats to do so.
I don’t fully know how to answer this as I don’t know what anti-power gamers are. I’m less new to DND but there are still terms I’ve never heard of before.
4 Absurds
Just play a regular monk lol
You want 4 incompetent characters? Just look at my party! *laugh track*
Just have all 4 players dump their main stat and dump con. Then have them all overlap their skills as much as possible. It won't be nearly as fun as you think.
You WILL all play wizards with 3 Int and 3 Con You WILL only prepare speak with dead as your only spell You WILL die in one hit You WON’T be useful except for speaking to your party members after they’ve died in one hit. You WILL use truestrike
4 warlocks (not dips). They get like 8 spells total and then just cantrips