Leased optimized character

[Eko]

Ok, so this forum really likes finding cheesy builds that optimize damage, spell slots, etc.

But can we design a level 5 character who, at the hands of a perfectly rules-knowledgable player, would have the most difficult time defeating simple enemies? The player would make optimal decisions as necessary, i.e. melee attack instead of magic if their spellcasting ability is low, etc.

We can pick this characters spells, fighting styles, everything. We simply cannot dictate what actions they will take in the gladiatorial fight we're setting them up for.

Assume starting gear for the selected lvl 1 class.

So, how low can we go?

[The_Jette]

MC character of the following classes:
Human Variant with Warcrafter to gain Produce Flame (Druid)
1st lvl Wizard (Mage Hand, Prest, Firebolt cantrips; identify, and chromatic orb)
1st lvl Sorcerer (Draconic, Blue)(Acid Splash, blade ward, Control Flames, shocking grasp; Sleep and Witch bolt)
1st lvl Warlock (Infernal)(Booming blade; Eldritch Blast; Armor of Agathys and Hellish Rebuke)
2nd lvl Wizard (Charm Person and Sleep)
1st lvl Cleric (healer)(Mending, Sacred Flame; Healing Word and Inflict Wounds)

Wears heavy armor, and fights with a quarterstaff, when needed. Stats are:
Str 10
Dex 8
Con 12
Int 13+1
Wis 14
Cha 15+1

Uses a variety of Cantrips to get throughout the day. But, without lacks anything that really increases his damage beyond the base damage. However, he has variety. He'll never be the main damage dealer, and has trouble keeping up with the enemy's hit points. But, he'll never find a situation that he can't at least do SOMETHING.

[Aett_Thorn]

I would think that you could probably build a character that is a caster, but still focuses on melee attacks despite their weakness. Make them a Halfling or a Gnome and have them use a heavy weapon for disadvantage on the attack rolls, too. All spells chosen are buffs that require a teammate and can't be cast on self, or are solely utility.

Let's make this guy a Wizard, Level 5:

Cantrips: Prestidigitation, Friends, Light

Level 1: Alarm, Detect Magic, Comprehend Languages, Tenser's Floating Disk

Level 2: Arcane Lock, Magic Mouth, Nystul's Magic Aura

Level 3: Life Transference, Sending, Tongues

[Deophaun]

You should just buy your optimized characters. Leasing only costs you more in the long run.

[The_Jette]

I would think that you could probably build a character that is a caster, but still focuses on melee attacks despite their weakness. Make them a Halfling or a Gnome and have them use a heavy weapon for disadvantage on the attack rolls, too. All spells chosen are buffs that require a teammate and can't be cast on self, or are solely utility.

Let's make this guy a Wizard, Level 5:

Cantrips: Prestidigitation, Friends, Light

Level 1: Alarm, Detect Magic, Comprehend Languages, Tenser's Floating Disk

Level 2: Arcane Lock, Magic Mouth, Nystul's Magic Aura

Level 3: Life Transference, Sending, Tongues

Wizards get an extra Cantrip at level 4.

[Aett_Thorn]

Wizards get an extra Cantrip at level 4.

Message it is, then!

[The_Jette]

Message it is, then!

Oh, no! Not message, the most powerful spell ever created in the history of EVER!!!

Seriously, though, outside of combat this guy would actually be pretty useful.

[DivisibleByZero]

You should just buy your optimized characters. Leasing only costs you more in the long run.

I came here to say this, too.

[opaopajr]

You should just buy your optimized characters. Leasing only costs you more in the long run.

I came here to say this, too.

Me three. Unless you expense it as part of a business. Perhaps someone's "D&D 5e Builds 'R' Us" limited liability corporation.

[Theodoxus]

I really wish GitP had a Like or +1 or thumbs up or something, because yeah... me four!

I don't have anything else witty to say regarding leasing characters though... though I do wonder if they're more or less reliable than a hireling.

[Jerrykhor]

As an accountant, I only have one question: Operating lease or finance lease?

[Hyde]

As an accountant, I only have one question: Operating lease or finance lease?

My question is, are you leasing the character, or just the optimization, via some sort of retained consultant?

[toapat]

Least useful character possible at lvl 5:

Race: Teifling, Attributes after racial modifiers: 13/13/13/13/13/13

Monk 1/Paladin 1/Artificer 1*/Ranger 1/Fighter 1

you are proficient in all weapons, light and medium armor, have an unarmored defense that is useless.

you are extremely far away from anything meaningful in terms of incombat.

you do have 6 skills to work with between monk, background, and the 1 each from artificer and ranger.

*Assumption: multiclassing for Artificer will require Int and Dex 13 and provide light armor proficiency and a skill,

You are not terrible at anything, but you have literally no strengths to work with at all.

[thoroughlyS]

Euslace Wayst
Variant Human Sage
Sun Soul Monk 5

• STR 9 (8 + 1)
• DEX 8
• CON 15
• INT 15
• WIS 9 (8 + 1)
• CHA 15

Languages: Common, Aarakocra, Dwarvish, Elvish
Skills: Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Insight, Religion
Feats: Crossbow Expert, Savage Attacker

You cannot meet the multiclass requirements to get out of monk, and start the game with penalties to both Dexterity and Wisdom, so your AC is 9. You have a +2 to hit at level 5, and deal 1d6 - 1 damage on a hit. Your Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma are fair, but you lack any way to capitalize. Your decent hp is mitigated by the fact that you will get hit A LOT. You are decently knowledgeable, but I guess it's impossible to be bad at EVERYTHING.

EDIT: Changed skills to pigeon-hole Euslace even further into only being able to make knowledge checks. Changed feat choice to remove ability score increase.

[toapat]

You cannot meet the multiclass requirements to get out of monk, and start the game with penalties to both Dexterity and Wisdom, so your AC is 9. You have a +2 to hit at level 5, and deal 1d6 - 1 damage on a hit. Your Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma are fair, but you lack any way to capitalize. Your decent hp is mitigated by the fact that you will get hit A LOT, and the only face skill you have is perform. You are decently knowledgeable, but I guess it's impossible to be bad at EVERYTHING.

the trick isnt to be Bad at your core class things, because that typically comes at the cost of being useful at SOMETHING.

you have to be only at best competent at everything with no mechanisms by which to progress the character. For how much your dude sucks at being a monk, hes decent at least with the knowledge checks and perform.

not useful directly, but in a campaign where we need a good character for crowd distraction, that character gets to shine.

[Potato_Priest]

I would think that you could probably build a character that is a caster, but still focuses on melee attacks despite their weakness.

This would work wonders, but the OP specified that you don't get do decide the actions the character takes (and they would be strategic) just their build. So this caster would sit back, buff, and be obnoxiously effective, failing the challenge.

You are not terrible at anything, but you have literally no strengths to work with at all.

This is pretty good. It's pretty bad, and jack-of-all tradesing is a decent way to end up with a useless character. You have to be careful though, since if the party all dumped cha or int they might come to rely on you for your (best in the party) +something to relevant skills

Euslace Wayst
Sage Variant Human Sun Soul Monk 5

I think this is simply wonderful. While it may have some out of combat utility due to the skill check capabilities, it is so completely and utterly useless in combat that it has merit as the worst build here. The character can't get a decent AC without giving up their monk features (and some move speed), and would be so useless at everything else anyways that they might as well use the monk stuff. Basically this is a higher-hp peasant that is ok at face skills.

Edit: To the OP:
I'm at college currently, so my old gaming group doesn't get together often enough to run a campaign. The next time we meet, I think I'm going to offer them this challenge, give them an hour to make the characters, and then switch who plays what and declare the person who built the most useless character and the person who played most effectively the winners.

[toapat]

This is pretty good. It's pretty bad, and jack-of-all tradesing is a decent way to end up with a useless character. You have to be careful though, since if the party all dumped cha or int they might come to rely on you for your (best in the party) +something to relevant skills

well, the most useless skills are Athletics, Acrobatics, Animal Handling, stealth, medicine, and intimidate, if you can figure out how to get those between background, monk, and 1 each of ranger + artificer skills, you have an almost universal brick because:

Athletics/Acrobatics are mobility skills, almost wholly personal.

Animal Handling is only useful vs beasts and monstrosities, and the DCs that matter require dedicated skillmasters.

Stealth is broken in the boring way and difficult to carry to the rest of your party.

Medicine doesnt have any functions at all

Intimidate can only get you fear responses

[Demonslayer666]

well, the most useless skills are Athletics, Acrobatics, Animal Handling, stealth, medicine, and intimidate, if you can figure out how to get those between background, monk, and 1 each of ranger + artificer skills, you have an almost universal brick because:

Athletics/Acrobatics are mobility skills, almost wholly personal.

Animal Handling is only useful vs beasts and monstrosities, and the DCs that matter require dedicated skillmasters.

Stealth is broken in the boring way and difficult to carry to the rest of your party.

Medicine doesnt have any functions at all

Intimidate can only get you fear responses

Wow, except for animal handling, that's very far off from what I have experienced. All the rest are quite common in our games.

[Potato_Priest]

Wow, except for animal handling, that's very far off from what I have experienced. All the rest are quite common in our games.

Really? Medicine? Do you not have healer's kits?

[smcmike]

Not sure how much worse you can get than the following:

Variant Human Wild Sorcerer
13 Str, 11 Dex, 8 Con, 15 Wis, 15 Int, 13 Cha

Feats: Grappler, Great Weapon Master
Background: Entertainer
Skills: Intimidate, Religion, Performance, Acrobatics, Animal Handling
Metamagic: Careful Spell, Empowered Spell
Cantrips: Blade Ward, True Strike, Mending, Prestidigitation, Message
Spells: Jump, Feather Fall, Expiditious Retreat, Comprehend Languages, Spider Climb.


No offensive magic. +0 ranged attacks, +1 melee attacks, terrible defense and hit points, minimal options for other actions in combat, other than running away. He’s decent at running away.

[The_Jette]

Really? Medicine? Do you not have healer's kits?

My team never gets healer's kits. We buy healing potions and keep on going. When we run out, and someone drops (which has happened a few times recently, between opportunities to resupply), we regret not having anyone with proficiency in Medicine, and only a Paladin for healing. We're pretty low level right now, though.

[Potato_Priest]

My team never gets healer's kits. We buy healing potions and keep on going. When we run out, and someone drops (which has happened a few times recently, between opportunities to resupply), we regret not having anyone with proficiency in Medicine, and only a Paladin for healing. We're pretty low level right now, though.

If you can buy one, I highly recommend doing so. They're 5sp/use novelties that completely eliminate the need for medicine checks.

[toapat]

Wow, except for animal handling, that's very far off from what I have experienced. All the rest are quite common in our games.

the point isnt that these are bad skills, they are TERRIBLE skills for making a character independently useful.

Medicine: Aka the skill that shouldnt exist, since you cant even make checks with it without a healer's kit, which you can also use proficiency in

Acrobatics/Athletics: Help? whats that?

Stealth: about the only thing i can think of that doesnt give access to knowledge checks, since for how useless those are, they still help other people.

Intimidate is the least useful of the 3 main charisma skills. Persuasion/Deception can do many things, Intimidate intimidates. for manipulating people i can certainly say which is the least useful of those 3

Animal Handling: entirely campaign dependent. most useful for mounted combat builds which the character i submitted isnt doing atm.

[Demonslayer666]

Really? Medicine? Do you not have healer's kits?

Healer's kits don't allow you to diagnose an illness.

the point isnt that these are bad skills, they are TERRIBLE skills for making a character independently useful.

Medicine: Aka the skill that shouldnt exist, since you cant even make checks with it without a healer's kit, which you can also use proficiency in

Acrobatics/Athletics: Help? whats that?

Stealth: about the only thing i can think of that doesnt give access to knowledge checks, since for how useless those are, they still help other people.

Intimidate is the least useful of the 3 main charisma skills. Persuasion/Deception can do many things, Intimidate intimidates. for manipulating people i can certainly say which is the least useful of those 3

Animal Handling: entirely campaign dependent. most useful for mounted combat builds which the character i submitted isnt doing atm.

You specifically said they were useless. And yes, my games have lots of climbing, jumping, swimming, forcing opening doors, balancing acts, and the need to go unnoticed.

Stealth is absolutely awesome at making an individual useful, simply by having them scout ahead.

[Zonugal]

I present to you the champion of the southern gladiator pits, Summer Wind, the silent monk who refuses to fight his foes till they give up & quit.

Summer Wind
Ghostwise Halfling Monk 5 with the Hermit background
Small humanoid (halfling), Lawful Neutral
Armor class 17 (unarmored defense)
Hit points 33 (5d8+5)
Speed 35 ft.
---
Str 8, Dex 16, Con 13, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 12
---
Saving Throws Strength +2 and Dexterity +6
Skills Acrobatics +6, Artisan's Tools (Brewer's Supplies) +3, Herbalism Kit +3, Insight +, Medicine +7, and Religion +3
Feats --
Senses passive Perception 12
Languages Common, Halfling, and Sylvan
Challenge 5
---
Special Abilities
Racial Abilities: Brave, Lucky, and Silent Speech
Background Abilities: Discovery
Class Abilities: Martial Arts, Unarmored Defense, Ki (5), Unarmored Movement, Monastic Tradition (Way of Tranquility), Path of Tranquility (DC 15), Healing Hands (50 hp), Deflect Missiles, Slow Fall (25 ft.), Extra Attack, and Stunning Strike
---
Actions
Unarmed Strike. Melee weapon attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., range 20 ft/60 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) bludgeoning damage; finesse
---
Equipment: a set of common clothes, an explorer's pack, a herbalism kit, a sack (5 gp), a scroll case stuffed full of notes from your studies or prayers, and a winter blanket

[Mister_Squinty]

Ok, so this forum really likes finding cheesy builds that optimize damage, spell slots, etc.

But can we design a level 5 character who, at the hands of a perfectly rules-knowledgable player, would have the most difficult time defeating simple enemies? The player would make optimal decisions as necessary, i.e. melee attack instead of magic if their spellcasting ability is low, etc.

We can pick this characters spells, fighting styles, everything. We simply cannot dictate what actions they will take in the gladiatorial fight we're setting them up for.

Assume starting gear for the selected lvl 1 class.

So, how low can we go?

For a gladiator fight, this was what I came up with.

Deep Gnome Barbarian 5 w. Acolyte Background

ST: 8
DX: 9 (8,+1 from Gnome)
CN: 8
IN: 18 (15, +2 from Gnome, +1 from Linguist)
WS: 15
CH: 15

AC: 9
HP: 35 (took the average after level 1)
Skills: Animal Handling, Insight, Religion, Nature
Feats: Linguist
Languages: Common, Gnomish, Undercommon, Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnoll, Giant

Greataxe: +2 to hit, disadvantage, 1d12-1 dmg
Handaxe (2): +2 to hit, 1d6-1 dmg
Javelin (4): +2 to hit, 1d6-1, thrown

Armor: None (per standard lvl 1 Barbarian equipment)

Two attacks, but even if he recklessly attacks, the disadvantage on the Greataxe cancels the advantage benefit. I realize he's a fantastic fount of knowledge, but for a gladiator fight, I don't think that's going to help him much. I was hoping his AC would be 8, due to Unarmored Defense adding/subtracting the CN bonus, but my calculator didn't deduct that.

[thoroughlyS]

Euslace Wayst
Sage Variant Human Sun Soul Monk 5

• STR 9 (8 + 1)
• DEX 8
• CON 15
• INT 15
• WIS 9 (8 + 1)
• CHA 15

Feats: Crossbow Expert, Savage Attacker
Skills: Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Insight, Religion
Languages: Common, Aarakocra, Dwarvish, Elvish

Deep Gnome Barbarian 5 w. Acolyte Background

ST: 8
DX: 9 (8,+1 from Gnome)
CN: 8
IN: 18 (15, +2 from Gnome, +1 from Linguist)
WS: 15
CH: 15

AC: 9
HP: 35 (took the average after level 1)
Skills: Animal Handling, Insight, Religion, Nature
Feats: Linguist
Languages: Common, Gnomish, Undercommon, Elvish, Dwarvish, Gnoll, Giant

Greataxe: +2 to hit, disadvantage, 1d12-1 dmg
Handaxe (2): +2 to hit, 1d6-1 dmg
Javelin (4): +2 to hit, 1d6-1, thrown

Armor: None (per standard lvl 1 Barbarian equipment)

You. Me. Swapped characters. Winner proves whose build is worse/who's the superior tactician. We fight at dawn. Deal?

[clem]

You should just buy your optimized characters. Leasing only costs you more in the long run.

Unless you only plan to adventure with the character for 3-5 years. Then you can just return your beast master ranger without having to put an ad on the Used Adventurer section of Craigslist.

[Potato_Priest]

Healer's kits don't allow you to diagnose an illness.

Unless you're adventuring in plagueville it still doesn't seem like that would be a "frequently useful skill".

[toapat]

You specifically said they were useless. And yes, my games have lots of climbing, jumping, swimming, forcing opening doors, balancing acts, and the need to go unnoticed.

Stealth is absolutely awesome at making an individual useful, simply by having them scout ahead.

yes, Athletics, Acrobatics, stealth are useful for personal checks. the point is the character is for all intents and purposes useless to the party, especially since while i didnt dictate what their expertise instances are, which with a tiny bit of logic, clearly becomes the Medicine skill since the medicine skill is literally useless.