Make the MOST POWERFUL party in D&D 5e: 10 Steps

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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:20 Background
7:35 The Most Powerful Party
24:08 Wrap up

[Swimavidly]

I agree that scouting is key. The number one thing that stalls the table is a lack of information. If a party has a way to gain information with little to no risk, then they'll use that scouting ability to learn what they need to know, and they'll move on to the next scene much faster.

[CivilWarMan]

The point at the end about not relying too much on magic reminds me of your video about your One D&D playtest where you played a straight-class playtest Monk. Your character's personal non-reliance on magic is what allowed you to get the anti-magic ray pointed away from the characters that do rely on it.

[zaladar]

1: avoid redundancy (some things cant be redundant, such as single target damage, good saving throws, high ac, but CC / Utility / Scouting / etc. can be redundant if more than 1 player can do it)
2: scouting
3: single target damage
4: utility
5: initiative
6: battlefield control
7: crowd control
8: battlefield re-positioning
9: saving throws
10: condition removal and healing

[Doccit]

This is my favourite video of yours - and I feel very vindicated in emphasizing the importance of utility and scouting in a lot of online discussions haha.

[PiroMunkie]

The Telekinetic feat is another good example for Repositioning. It gives you an invisible Mage Hand for free and improves the range of Mage Hand if you already know the spell.

And the bonus action Push/Pull with the ability to willingly fail the save is maybe one of the best bonus actions for classes, like Wizards, that often don't have good bonus action options. It's only 5ft but 5ft is often enough to break grapples, get an ally out of threatened range so they don't need to worry about opportunity attacks, push/pull an enemy off an edge, push/pull an enemy back into a dangerous space or threatened area, deal a little extra damage in a Spike Growth, etc.

I currently have a Divination Wizard whose whole deal is manipulating dice rolls with things like Guidance and Guiding Bolt (Strixhaven Quandrix background), Silvery Barbs, and Portent, as well as battlefield positioning with Telekinetic, Vortex Warp, and Levitate to a lesser extent. It's a lot of fun looking for good moments to use those kinds of features.

[tomgymer]

Avoid reduundancy might be better phrased as cover all bases. Obviously that's likely to avoid a lot of redundancy, but the point is, it doesn't harm a party to have two people good at one skill or one save, but if it's at the cost of covering more skills or saves or whatever, that's a problem. I also think it's good to have someone spare who can do healing, in case the other healer goes down, and again, cover all bases makes that clearer than avoid redundancy.

[thecognitiverambler]

This is an absolutely delightful video. I'm not sure if you've noticed this Chris, but I think the D&D community has kind of overcorrected on their attitudes towards damage. 10 years ago, and your layman thought fireball was the only spell that mattered, and big numbers was everything. But now as the community became more informed (through content exactly like yours), people think about control, with damage as an afterthought. I always detected that bug. Yes, control is AMAZING, but your end goal is to make the enemy "dead", and btw you can only concentrate on one damn spell at a time, so why NOT pack a blast or two in tandem?

And further, damage is the only thing for where redundancy is GOOD. This video was brilliant, and valuable. Thank you for making it!

[fredochs]

A comment on "#2) Scouting": I have found many-many DMs treat scouting as a personal affront, and do everything they can to stymie it. Suddenly there is a feature that prevents scouting. Suddenly there is an enemy with a +16 Perception check. Or - perhaps most annoyingly and sneakily - the PCs are asked to roll stealth every few moments of the scouting run, which means a much greater chance of failure.

[KatieGimple]

I played a Strixhaven game a while back, and definitely learned the power of Vortex Warp. It is probably my favorite spell in all D&D (though mind sliver is also up there)

[rafaelbacelar]

The exact kind of content that I love when you do.
Great tips.

[Gafizal]

Great vid. I think it's worth mentioning that Bless helps the character concentrating on it maintain that concentration, if you lack for heavy hitters, bless yourself as one target!

[horbi]

I'd say this is one of the best Treantmonk videos, great job 👍

[nathanmitchell]

This is a great video. My group always has a majority of heavy hitters. In our latest campaign, I play a Druid with Spike Growth. Throughout tier 2 play, our combats have transformed into me winning initiative (I was a Harengon with Alert) and dropping Spike Growth on as many enemies as I can then my allies will forcibly move them into it, be that by grappling and dragging them or through things like Thunder Wave or even Vortex Warping them straight into the middle of it. It's been great to see them work together for a change.

[jeremyrezek]

18:16 vortex warp! Finished up a campaign last year that went to 14th level where I played a bladesinger. At those high levels you wanna know what my best play was 90% of the time? Vortex warp. I became the magic taxi for the group and I felt great. Just getting allies out of danger or getting them into it.

[ArticleNoun]

This may be your finest work. Very insightful. Well done.

[sesimie]

I asked this a long time ago when this channel was just starting! Since then I've played in only Wizard Parties (From your answer Chris)and it changed my entire perception on Martial Vs Spellcaster view!!

[atingley]

Good afternoon Chris! Just sat down to lunch at work. I've had a busy couple days off, but I think I made some good progress on my mission to watch EVERY video on the build playlists!

I've made it from the Light Cleric to being mid-Arcane Trickster video!

Thanks again for keeping me company at work, much love to you! 💜 You're an amazing person and have built an amazing community!

[Marshbouy]

This vid is the best patreon ad I’ve ever seen!

[blazinlatino]

A video with a few examples of different party makeups that cover this would be fun. Also add one with suboptimal subclasses but that cover the roles to see how it does

[statpaca]

Some of the best scouting comes from voice of the chain master as the risk is minimal, an invisible imp has very decent ability to bypass many obstacles, and it comes online 4 levels before arcane eye and without a duration limit. I once had my familiar track an adversary for half a day to see that enemy meet up with their boss and gain us valuable intel on the nature of the enemies we were facing.