What is the Most OP Class at 20th

[Ivor_The_Mad]

So i'm wondering once you reach 20th what is the best class not including multiclass if any. My guess would be a monk though its a pretty debatable topic.

[Foxydono]

My vote goes for the druid, with the wizard as a close second.

[KorvinStarmast]

So i'm wondering once you reach 20th what is the best class not including multiclass if any. My guess would be a monk though its a pretty debatable topic. It is debatable whether or not any class in 5e is OP, due to bounded accuracy. There are two classes that have significant capstone or spell capabilities: Druid wild shape at 20th is a never ending source of HP, and there has been extended discussion on Wizards working the Wish/Simulacrum cheese to create a whole bundle of spell casting allies ...

[DarkKnightJin]

Literally strongest would probly be Barbarian, with a possible 24 in Str and Con.
Druids never have to be a human if they don't want to be, making them great scouts or meatshields. If they don't get Disintegrated, that is.
I hear the Paladin capstone can be pretty damn sweet for most oaths.

Honestly, I don't think there is a single 1 class that's the most OP @20th level.
Multiclasses are a whole different beast, though I expect Ancients Sorcadin to be pretty up there in staying and smiting power.

[Foxydono]

It is debatable whether or not any class in 5e is OP, due to bounded accuracy. There are two classes that have significant capstone or spell capabilities: Druid wild shape at 20th is a never ending source of HP, and there has been extended discussion on Wizards working the Wish/Simulacrum cheese to create a whole bundle of spell casting allies ...
My thoughts exactly, but was too lazy to type a proper explanation :p

[mephnick]

Probably Moon Druid, because WotC couldn't be smart for once and remove Beast Spells from the game. They lose a lot of their list because no material components, but they still have enough to basically be a full caster with unlimited HP that the DM has to specifically choose to kill via Disintegrate or some other "**** you specifically" ability that the player will cry about.

[Biggstick]

There isn't a Most OP Class at 20th level. What would make a Class OP at 20th level is a paranoid Player who has taken every precautionary measure they could to make sure they never enter a situation without a serious advantage. This means the Player will most likely be a full spellcaster; Bard, Cleric, Druid, and Wizard. I've listed these classes specifically, because they have Ritual Casting. Given enough time and a paranoid or contingency-planning Player will have developed enough magical and mundane power to be considered the Most OP Class at 20th level.

The most OP Class at 20th level is a paranoid full spellcaster with Ritual Casting.

[dejarnjc]

Too close to call. All depends on magic items, what creatures they face, environment etc etc etc. It's all too DM dependent to say.

[UrielAwakened]

The best build at 20th is probably a Sorcadin.

Moon Druid is close though.

Loremaster Bard is also up there in terms of benefits to have around.

[Sans.]

Full casters inherently have an advantage, I'd say, because magic can solve almost anything. In second place would be the faces; paladins and anyone else who took a high Cha score.

[hymer]

Probably Moon Druid, because WotC couldn't be smart for once and remove Beast Spells from the game. They lose a lot of their list because no material components, but they still have enough to basically be a full caster with unlimited HP that the DM has to specifically choose to kill via Disintegrate or some other "**** you specifically" ability that the player will cry about.

Beast Spells at level 17 allows casting in wild shape, albeit without M components. But Archdruid at level 20 removes the need for V and S components alltogether, and most M. The exceptions are the Ms that consume a material component with a gp price. This goes both for wild shape and caster form.
The text continues on p. 68 and includes this tuff. I didn't realize either until someone pointed it out to me.

[jas61292]

The most OP Class at 20th level is a paranoid full spellcaster with Ritual Casting.

In theory, sure.

In practice, a character so paranoid will never be in enough dangerous situations to get the necessary experience to make it to level 20 in the first place.

[Biggstick]

In theory, sure.

In practice, a character so paranoid will never be in enough dangerous situations to get the necessary experience to make it to level 20 in the first place.

Says who? Just because you're worried about being killed doesn't mean that you're not being called on to adventure or save someone you care about. You can be an absolute coward and have been called on enough times into dangerous situations to have reached 20th level.

[Zanthy1]

So i'm wondering once you reach 20th what is the best class not including multiclass if any. My guess would be a monk though its a pretty debatable topic.

Monk may have some cool abilities at 20th level, but nothing about them is OP. In fact, flavor aside in a fight they are considerably weaker than the previously mentioned moon druid, wizard, or barbarian.

[Doug Lampert]

So i'm wondering once you reach 20th what is the best class not including multiclass if any. My guess would be a monk though its a pretty debatable topic.

What does your GM allow? If he allows Wish+Simulacrum then any class that gets that combo beats any class that doesn't hands down.

If he sensibly doesn't allow chains, then Wish+Simulacrum still wins, as it means a level 20 caster has himself minus one level 9 slot PLUS your monk at half HP.

A lot is going to depend on party composition and what you're trying to do. If we're talking the ability to solo adventures under time pressure and with multiple encounters, then classes with healing abilities get a big boost. This is where the Moon Druid capstone really shines. Infinite HP >>> level 20 monk HP (to take your example), and if something does get through unlimited wild-shape HP then the Moon Druid can still heal himself otherwise.

If we're talking a more conventional group, there's a lot to be said for including a Paladin, Fifth edition control effects get better with level, while saves usually get HARDER with level! A disaster which is solved by having a Paladin in the area.

[Foxhound438]

as others said, depends on the task.

For assassination/single target removal, I have to agree with your assessment of monk being it, specifically shadow. You get free invisibility almost all the time and 4 ki for invisibility the rest, something like a +21 to stealth with no help from anyone (nat 1 beats passive on any PC build that doesn't take alert or expertice perception), and most of all stunning strike to make the thing you're hitting unable to react once you start. Add in wyvern poison or even purple worm poison to make your initial burst a lot better. Open hand also gets good single target removal with quivering palm, but it's harder to set up that kind of encounter without the insane stealth bonuses.

For a big battle/town defense or something like that, it's probably druid, and no, it's not because of archdruid. The ultimate "army killer" spell is storm of vengeance, which deals a total of 11d6 to everything in it's massive radius, and another 10d6 to anything that's a "general" or something which might have more HP. You can argue meteor swarm can clear out a lot of stuff as well, and it can, but it's a much smaller area. Any force that's sufficiently spread out will suffer only minor losses by comparison.

I'm honestly not sure what would be best for a "hunt down the BBEG and his motley crew of powerful minions" kind of adventure, but honestly you can expect a series of varied encounters and almost anything can find a time to shine.

[90sMusic]

Putting time pressure on players prevents people from wasting an hour before every encounter casting rituals.

But anyway...

Druid is an obvious go-to because they're full casters who at level 20 have pseudo-unlimited hit points. With spells like Shapechange, they can turn into say, an ancient brass dragon, and have the fire breath, fire immunity, mountain of hitpoints, 3 powerful melee attacks that have as much +hit and +damage as a 20 strength martial using a +3 greatsword, can fly and is big enough to let your entire party ride you while flying, blindsight, and so on. All while still being able to cast spells in this form.

About the only thing a druid can't do is get access to the wish spell. And while you could argue that a 2 level dip in something like sorcerer could give you the wish spell, it would cost you the unlimited wild shape to get it.

For typical rock-em-sock-em adventures, druid is my choice.

But if you have more time and aren't under as much pressure to get things done (for instance, say you had a few months you took off adventuring to do whatever you wanted) then something like a sorcerer or sorlock is a lot worse. They can attain actual immortality by making wish clones of themselves during all that time, so even if they die, they just pop right back up and can make enough clones of themselves to die once per day without consequence, they'd just have to replace a clone for every clone they expend. They can store them all in a demiplane they have created specifically to hold these clones so they will remain undisturbed forever. If that isn't secure enough for you, you can do the ol Mirror of Life Trapping trick and put the mirror in the demi-plane, then trap yourself inside the mirror, placing all your clones in there. Then they will truly be untouchable by anyone or anything unless something were to find out you put them in such a mirror and also found out you hid it on a demiplane and the DM said that was enough to open a door there, but finding out that information would be next to impossible.

Wish can do crazy stuff. Making a simulacrum is amazing because it doubles all your spell slots, despite the fact you'd have to make a new one to refresh them, but it's still crazy good short term. A Sorlock with a simulacrum and both of them using eldritch blast and quickened eldritch blast every round is 16d10 + 16d6 + 80. Every single round until you run out of sorcery points and spell slots you cannibalize for more sorcery points. I don't think anything else comes close to that level of damage output for single target.

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Any spellcaster with access to 9th level spells, specially to Wish, Shapechange, Simulacrum, True Polimorph, Contingency and Foresight. The power level of this spells is absurd and silly. And within this, the Wizard with infinite casting of Shield and Misty Step as his mastery spells and the most powerful Ritual Casting. Also a druid.

Although I think nobody plays campaigns at this high levels as for just "imaginary duels" between PCs and/or monsters and theorycrafting. DMing at this level is nigh impossible as this spells just break your campaigns. Well, DMing past 11th level is already too difficult (and that's why the vast majority of official adventures stop at that level or nearby).

[Zanthy1]

Any spellcaster with access to 9th level spells, specially to Wish, Shapechange, Simulacrum, True Polimorph, Contingency and Foresight. The power level of this spells is absurd and silly. And within this, the Wizard with infinite casting of Shield and Misty Step as his mastery spells and the most powerful Ritual Casting. Also a druid.

Although I think nobody plays campaigns at this high levels as for just "imaginary duels" between PCs and/or monsters and theorycrafting. DMing at this level is nigh impossible as this spells just break your campaigns. Well, DMing past 11th level is already too difficult (and that's why the vast majority of official adventures stop at that level or nearby).

Have to agree with you unfortunately. I really wish I could DM a high level campaign, but the one time I did the party got all the way u to level 18, but anything I threw at them from the MM was either powder on the breeze or unthinkably overwhelming. They shut down a black dragon in under 3 rounds. And solved the greatest mystery of the campaign, while also defeating the BBEG with a scroll of Legend Lore they had crafted.

[Ivor_The_Mad]

Have to agree with you unfortunately. I really wish I could DM a high level campaign, but the one time I did the party got all the way u to level 18, but anything I threw at them from the MM was either powder on the breeze or unthinkably overwhelming. They shut down a black dragon in under 3 rounds. And solved the greatest mystery of the campaign, while also defeating the BBEG with a scroll of Legend Lore they had crafted.


If a party is crushing the enemies i would advise maybe buffing the monsters to make it harder and/or home-brew some powerful npcs. I've had some problems like that too and i just made my party fight a cult of high level wizards and sorcerers.

[Zanthy1]

If a party is crushing the enemies i would advise maybe buffing the monsters to make it harder and/or home-brew some powerful npcs. I've had some problems like that too and i just made my party fight a cult of high level wizards and sorcerers.

My personal issue is that the one time I did that I almost killed the whole party

[Xrposiedon]

It really depends. If you are trying to fight charcter vs another character....Monk's just are too good 1v1. Initiative rolls are high...stunning fist, silence if you are shadow monk....it just ends up being....Monk goes....you don't get a turn, monk goes again, you dont get a turn...eventually you get a turn...but by that time, the monk has probably beat you into a pulp.

The thing about monk that ends up being stupid, isnt really their lvl 20. Its the fact that along the way, they just keep getting passive badassness.....Oh, you are imune to poison and disease...cool. Oh you run faster ? Nice....oh you can stun.....wow...you run run up the wall? you can run across the ocean instead of take a boat?....you can just stop being mind controlled on a whim because of purity of mind? ...You get proficiency in all saves? Yep....


Now if you are talking pure power later in the game....PvE...grouping etc....Wizards hands down. Wish....disables....what do you want to do...because you can.

Then we have the good ole barbarian....I would rather have a 20 barb in my party than a 20 wizard....but that is just simply because it lets me do more stuff...It is more fun having the barb in the party than the wizard...because the wizard will just ...do his thing, but you still have to be careful while that happens... The barb is gonna run in, be a beast, tank everything thrown at him, and only get more angry.

[Xrposiedon]

Have to agree with you unfortunately. I really wish I could DM a high level campaign, but the one time I did the party got all the way u to level 18, but anything I threw at them from the MM was either powder on the breeze or unthinkably overwhelming. They shut down a black dragon in under 3 rounds. And solved the greatest mystery of the campaign, while also defeating the BBEG with a scroll of Legend Lore they had crafted.


Based on your comment, I am going to try and make one assessment. You are tossing a big baddie at them instead of 8 slightly lower difficulty guys with strategy aren't you?

If your high end party is fighting....I would try to throw some semi difficult things at them along the way to the big baddy, to wear down their resources....2-3 medium difficulty fights, then toss at them a baddy with legendary resistance and a few tricks up your sleeve.

Resource management is something that a lot of time people overlook, and they will always use their biggest and badded spells on anything that seems tough....and that can definitely take down a single creature....but if you wear those resources down by having a few 4-5 monster encounters that pose no real threat, but definitely scare them into using some spells....when they get to the boss ....they wont be fully ready and resourced up....then the fight ends up being a lot more menacing and also challenging for them to find ways to use their lvl 4 spellslots to do what they need instead of using their 7th and 8th level slots.

[Deathtongue]

Astral Projection never comes up in these conversations, which I think is a huge pity. Astral Projection is so OP with such a very small amount of abuse (especially at 20th+ level) that I think it's a conspiracy that it gets overlooked. Astral Projection literally lets you double up on spells and consumables.

So basically, any OP class in my opinion absolutely has to have Wish. And at least one of Astral Projection or Shapechange/True Polymorph. Which basically means the Arcana Cleric, Bard, and Wizard. My money, especially for one-on-one fights, is the Lore Bard what with having a juiced initiative check and the best Counterspell checks in the game, even better than the Abjurer. If you're allowing magical items in the game, the wizard blows away all competition once a Tome of the Stilled Tongue comes into play. Yes, being able, even without Simulacrums, to cast three 9th level spells in a span of little more than 8 hours does completely rock, crucially because being able to cast 2 9th level spells at once allows you to stick awesomeness like Wish and Foresight and True Polymorph into Glyphs of Warding. If you're allowing unlimited Batman-style "prep time", these classes still trump because even if you don't allow Simulacrum loops these three classes get all of the important pieces of the Planar Binding + True Polymorph loops.

Anyway, I don't think this question is particularly interesting. I'd be more interested in determining who's the most OP class at 15th level, though I'd suspect that it'd be Bard and Wizard again. Druid and Sorcerer should also put up a good showing.

[Varlon]

It really depends. If you are trying to fight charcter vs another character....Monk's just are too good 1v1. Initiative rolls are high...stunning fist, silence if you are shadow monk....it just ends up being....Monk goes....you don't get a turn, monk goes again, you dont get a turn...eventually you get a turn...but by that time, the monk has probably beat you into a pulp.
I just realized a shadow monk can cast Silence, get on top of a spellcaster, bonus action Dodge for good measure, then when the enemy tries to run (because they can't Misty Step) make an opportunity attack and attempt Stunning Strike if they hit...

[TheTeaMustFlow]

I just realized a shadow monk can cast Silence, get on top of a spellcaster, bonus action Dodge for good measure, then when the enemy tries to run (because they can't Misty Step) make an opportunity attack and attempt Stunning Strike if they hit...

A high level Wizard is likely to have Resilient (Constitution), which combined with AC (likely fairly low without magic items or preparation, but still notable) gives this tactic a fairly high failure chance. Assuming a 20th level Wizard with 18 Dex and 14 Con, against a 20th level Monk with 20 Dex and Wis, for example, there is a less than 40% chance of getting the stunning strike off.

And that's assuming the Wizard has no preparations whatsoever beyond casting Mage Armour on himself when he wakes up in the morning. And couldn't counterspell the silence. Really, I think you're just better off trying a full attack and stunning strike routine.

[Beelzebubba]

I just realized a shadow monk can cast Silence, get on top of a spellcaster, bonus action Dodge for good measure, then when the enemy tries to run (because they can't Misty Step) make an opportunity attack and attempt Stunning Strike if they hit...

...and then add Mage Slayer...

[TheTeaMustFlow]

...and then add Mage Slayer...

Doesn't really add anything to that strategy, given that it revolves around stopping the Wizard from casting in the first place. Better to up an attribute, Monks are starved for them anyway.

[Maxilian]

I guess it depends, i mean...

A druid have basically infinite HP (Not like a Wizard or any full caster cannot work around this)

A Wizard have some uber spells (and have Wish)

A Cleric have really nice spells (and can make their God do something for them once per day)

[sithlordnergal]

I'd say Moon Druid is the strongest single class out there. You essentially have Unlimited HP, your natural attacks are considered magical, even with Polymorph, and you can still cast spells without a material component. Sure, you're only able to change into a CR 6 beast, but you can do that an unlimited number of times per day at the cost of a bonus action. And you're a full caster on top of that. The only thing you lack is a decent AC, and that doesn't matter since you basically have unlimited HP. Sure that Wizard may have tons of spells, but unless they manage to insta-kill you with Disintegrate or another instant kill spell, you can easily outlast their spell slots.

Next I'd say Oath of the Ancients Paladin. Their capstone basically makes them a nigh unkillable tank, especially with the Circle of Power spell and the magical resistance at their disposal. Hell, Circle of Power makes the Oath of the Ancients ability worthless, since it negates all damage from spells and magical effects, and gives you advantage on all saves vs magic and magical effects. You gain an HP regen, all Paladin Spells take a bonus action to cast, and all enemies within 10ft of you have disadvantage on their save against you. The only bad thing I can see is the regen, as it is only 10hp at the start of your turn for ten rounds. But even then, you still have your Lay on Hands, cure spells, and as a Paladin you have good AC.

Finally, I'd pick Lore Bard. By the time you're level 20, you get to choose 5 spells from any class you want to be on your spell list, all the way up to 9th level spells. Wanna grab Wish and ircle of Power? Go ahead, do it, you're good to go now. Put that on top of their Expertise, skills, Jack of All Trades, spells naturally available to them, and their Cutting Words, and you have a spell caster with as much flexibility as a Wizard.

[KorvinStarmast]

A Cleric have really nice spells (and can make their God do something for them once per day) Not quite.

If your deity intervenes, you can’t use this feature again for 7 days. Otherwise, you can use it again after you finish a long rest. At 20th level, your call for intervention succeeds automatically, no roll required. Which means that you have to wait 7 days to do it again.

[Gtdead]

I like bladesingers, druids and arcana clerics for lvl 20.

[Zanthy1]

Based on your comment, I am going to try and make one assessment. You are tossing a big baddie at them instead of 8 slightly lower difficulty guys with strategy aren't you?

If your high end party is fighting....I would try to throw some semi difficult things at them along the way to the big baddy, to wear down their resources....2-3 medium difficulty fights, then toss at them a baddy with legendary resistance and a few tricks up your sleeve.

Resource management is something that a lot of time people overlook, and they will always use their biggest and badded spells on anything that seems tough....and that can definitely take down a single creature....but if you wear those resources down by having a few 4-5 monster encounters that pose no real threat, but definitely scare them into using some spells....when they get to the boss ....they wont be fully ready and resourced up....then the fight ends up being a lot more menacing and also challenging for them to find ways to use their lvl 4 spellslots to do what they need instead of using their 7th and 8th level slots.

You're right. I will work on making sessions more attrition based, to wear em down.

[Cl0001]

Druids purely based on the fact that they technically have infinite hp with full spell casting. The only thing that could make them stronger is having access to the wish-simulacrum glitch