High-Level D&D: How and Why to Play at Level 20 | w/ B. Dave Walters | D&D Beyond

[Music] so [Music] [Music] welcome back to d and d beyond i'm amy dallin and i am very excited because today we are going to talk about how many levels not one level not a couple of levels all of the levels we are going to talk level 20 d d with i feel like the person on this earth who maybe loves it the most uh b dave walters friend of the channel minor deity at this point major deity i don't know you choose your own uh cl if anyone wants to start making warlock packs or cleric uh dedications i'm just saying b dave might be available welcome back to the channel b dave walters hello yes thank you for having me back the fact that i have been um ordained by internet pioneer amy dallin as as major did he said miner didi but i heard major deity also i'm gonna hook onto that part you know what it is remember in the old days uh gods were major gods of some things and minor gods of other things that's it this this is my my primary uh you know thing that that i rule over is is that which is funny i will tell you real quick it very much was intentional when i first got into this commun community i i mean i obviously i enjoyed high level play just on my own but one of the first things i learned was fewer than five percent of games had level 20 characters in them i learned that because of the dnd beyond that data that we had access to and that wasn't even campaigns that went to level 20 that just even had level 20 characters so i was very intentional about this is going to be my niche because that's this is the part of the game that i like to play in the part of the game that almost no one gets to do and apparently it worked so yes here we are because at this point when i think level 20 i think about b dave and i'm going to be thinking about it a lot in the next couple of days because depending on when you're watching this on monday july what is it the 12th i believe uh i am going to be playing in a level 21 shot um what uh is that a head playing raider can people see us or said hey there yes hey all right i will be playing with probably dark mode but uh on monday july 12th i will be playing in a level 20 one shot for an amazing cause run by b dave walters so i thought i would bring you in here to tell me all about how and why to play at those highest levels and what you love so much about it and video would you tell us a little more about this incredible table i'm about to sit at i will uh the game's being run by me not not the cause run by me uh for benefiting uh hueva rape crisis centers which is a charity uh i apologize i don't mean to say any of the things uh wrong um but they just support people that are going through the most difficult and tragic times in their lives they do things like organize trips to and from charity uh or to and from therapy uh trips to and from uh medical help uh resources where if you don't know who to call or who to talk to about it to put things like that in place um to just uh support people that are going through these difficulties and a little bit of money goes a long way like just five dollars get somebody there and back again i believe it's like 35 dollars pays for a group session it's like it is not um very expensive uh but it is something that is often overlooked and so we're gonna get together with a group of titans of role-playing uh and hopefully raise a couple dollars to help some people this monday peter walters is going to be running that table uh with charlene who is from the organization uh playing with us and of course abria summer of abria eingar uh travis mcelroy tanya aka cypher of tear sateen phoenix and i will also be getting to sit in uh for this wonderful cause on monday it's gonna be on d d i hope you will all support it uh because i think we we may already be hitting some of these goals but they have a crisis line hotline and you can sort of see how much of it can be funded uh in terms of goals on that okay so that's really important to me and i'm so glad for this chance to share it and i'm so glad i get to play in this game but also level 20 d and d b dave walters i have slayed it with you briefly before but i have not been in one of your patented level 21 shots so fun fact here uh helene my main character for dungeons and dragons of dark and wish who wait hang on she was she was on my desktop over here i don't know how will cropped it you may or may not be able to see her on my on my back on my other screen over here when it comes on but uh amy dolan was the first person ever to technically play helene she was when we were at d d in a castle she jumped in uh and she was helene and rick budd uh underground king rick budd played xander there she is she's back there she's always with me um hang on i almost left the zoom meeting that would have been bad please don't leave the zoom meeting please don't leave this new me there she is slings with me and you know what i went through all of that and there's a real chance you can't even see that screen but amy was the first person to ever play her that is true uh and there was in a level 20 game with dean dean and castle yes i i shan't forget um yeah again i a part of this is i mean i've been playing d d since dinosaurs rule the earth um where un high level play was very uncommon because quite frankly the game was very difficult very easy to die but it was like every day was hard if you were a wizard and then you hit level nine and then you were like oh actually i'm god now like look at my face look at my face i'm the dungeon master now um and then i i think it was it was informed by all the years i spent as a heavy mmo player because you know like world of warcraft landed like right on my face from vanilla in in in everquest and things that even even before that where a lot of times the end game is where the game actually started that it's like well you were done leveling but now is when you get to do the stuff that's really fun i think it also was informed by my uh by my martial arts background a lot of people think earning a black belt means you're finished just like no earning a black belt is when you started so i kind of had these two other things in my head that people again so few games get to 20 and there was this idea that it's like oh well we're done now you know we let's let's let's re-roll new characters and climb this mountain again and i was like no no no there's so much fun to be had at the top of the mountain um which my very first stream uh theogony of kairos i did with the whole principle of that was they were level zero humans who were gifted by the gods with their powers and given level 20 powers uh so that was the first thing we we we ever did and then uh since then every time i run a charity game for sure that's always my thing because i just love seeing the luck in people's eyes that i saw in amy's eyes when they're like level 20 and i'm like yes level 20. yeah so i love that and it absolutely tracks because i also in mmos tend to be the i have started a million characters and none of them quite make it to the end game which i've also been playing d since some minor dinosaurs were wandering the earth with second edition but i start a lot more characters than i get to play long term so i am very excited what are the things to consider if you are say jumping in if you are like do you recommend this for new players experienced players or both uh i mean even though i've very much had people that the first time they ever played with level 21 shots with me uh all things being equal i don't you know if you've never played like if you're watching hello friend if you're watching this on dnd beyond but have never rolled the shiny math click clicks on your own maybe don't do your very first one at level 20. for anybody else if you've done it like two or three times jump on in because the concept is the same uh i will tell you there are two very different things where um as you know i've spent a number of time on this delightful channel uh talking about builds and min maxing and stuff because you know that's what i love that's how my head works um there are some bills that would be wholly impractical trying to grow up playing this character session after session week after week it just wouldn't be fun because you need certain synergies that don't click in for a while you know um those kinds of builds are ideal for things where you just jump right into 20 where you can like this would have been terrible and awkward growing up but we skipped our braces and acne face and now we're a supermodel yeah ugly duckling situation yeah exactly um i didn't get to skip our braces phase uh so you know more wish fulfillment in d there it is there it is right your character can have an easier life than some of us had you know uh that's something to be mindful of the other thing is i know a lot of times people um look at it as just doing a single class but you really do get some truly fantastic synergies that come together with other classes things like um if your level three barbarian uh level 17 moon druid like you're basically unkillable um yeah i said what i said amy darling you know um uh things like uh sorkadin you know sorcerer paladin is probably the strongest character in in the game is a sorcerer palette where would you put the mix there so barbarian druid that's pretty pretty much fixed to the barbarian 3 druid 17 you still get your level 9 spells uh with the circuit and it really depends it depends on how fighty you want to get um i i still i don't think you need more than three two possibly six levels of paladin but it really just depends it's like if you want to be a paladin that can also throw fireballs or do you want to you know throw a meteor swarm but be able to smite you know and then that sort of different characters will show up on the field based on that but but the synergy between those two is very strong um uh anything with ranger about five levels of ranger is a good [ __ ] three to five levels of ranger is a good chassis for almost anything else i hate to say it because i know some people love rangers with their whole whole heart there's not much reason to stay as a ranger more than five levels because you kind of gotten the juice out of that class but things like gloom stalker assassin rogue especially if you want to go if you want to go crazy here this is one of my my favorite things you need five levels of gloom stalker three levels of assassin rogue three level or two levels of grave cleric in the rest in fighter uh you can attack i think nine times and make them like susceptible to your damage so you mark them path of the grave assassin rogue yak you can backstab for literally like 200 points of damage then axe and surge and do it all over again it's beautiful it's wonderful it's butter i love it i need to stop just for a moment on this one if you are that combination uh assassin fighter cleric uh stranger ranger gloom stalker uh what's your story how did this happen like what tell me who this person is so i i i can give it to you very specifically uh if any of you saw um pirates of leviathan on dimension 20 my character marcied the typhoon who was a ranger uh if we were ever blessed to revisit those characters and if they went on long enough this is what is going to happen to marseille this is the plan um because and again friends you don't have to be like me you don't have to play the game like me there's no wrong way to play d d as long as you're having a good time and the game you're playing is the game everybody else is playing at the table we've discussed that everybody's got to be on the same page and what this is if one person thinks this is going to be you know the the dungeon meet grinder murder hobo and the other one thinks this is going to be like high drama uh you know waifu fanfic you know you're you're in for you're in for a bad time as long as everybody's showing up to play the same game do you i do this thing where i plan my characters out because it is a holdover from the 3.0 and 3.5 times when you had prerequisites for things where you're like you can only do this higher level thing if you've made this previous choice way at the beginning and if you made the wrong choice early it very much locked you in um fifth edition is far more far more forgiving in that respect but i never outgrew the trauma so every character you've ever seen me play and i do mean ever whatever level i was i knew their level all the way to 20. for freely i've got a spreadsheet a spreadsheet uh hang on wait you guys won't believe this i'm gonna i am gonna show amy right now my friendly spreadsheet so that she knows this this is true very excited yeah uh where i've mapped out um everything that i would do and at what level and everything because for this very reason i'm just i'm still a child of that era right um there you go that's it that's that's that's that is literally my freely map uh because he's four classes he is a barred paladin warlock sorcerer um i like that you've you've marked out uh highlights along the way uh landmarks on this this journey uh i feel like and just to at a personal challenge moment i feel like the next thing you have to do then is make a character either with no path or who gets wrenched violently off their path midway through i mean i could you know to to your point to your point about the story believe it or not i in in because i'm gonna answer both of these questions to me the story in the character are not synonymous you know if if you left your village to go adventuring because you know your your mother died as a general in the wars and you want to find out you know where and what happened and pay respects at her grave that could be anything that could be a barbarian that could be a bar they could be a warlock you know i mean i if if you get into the nuances of well i made a bad deal in my warlock pact i'm like well maybe but even even so why'd you make the pact you know so the the story part of it can be a fairly universal adapter um i i do think of course if you're like i i decided i was gonna go fight for the glory of my god yeah okay you would think well that's a paladin or cleric but again it doesn't have to be yeah you know you could be a really religious fighter exactly yeah like yay verily action surge yeah so uh this is what the the story can come with freely his thing with with those four classes his premise is he's just lucky and he was born special if you notice none of those classes are things that you'd be formally trained in so he literally doesn't know why he can do what he does he just does things like he hits people with his sword and divine light goes off like okay i'm i was born to fight bad guys and that's that is the extent of his worldview but that's a beautifully revealing detail in terms of character building uh and folks watching this like b dave has done this many many times so he makes it look effortless but the way that he just slipped in there that you that you chose a bunch of classes that all lent themselves to similar origins for the character you were building because it wouldn't fit that person to be like and then i spent 15 years at wizard school you know right yeah it wouldn't fit absolutely and not mechanically all four of those classes are charisma based you know so that was also part of that there uh so there's layers to this thing uh now as for a character with no path that got violently rent or finally bridged off of it i think i could only do that personally if it was a single class character and again fifth edition is far more forgiving about that you know again in previous editions the especially three and 3.5 there was just no reason to stay in any one class like some some classes were better than others but is the game actively rewarded multi-classing um you know and i know what i say rangers barbarians uh there's not a lot of reason to go the whole way but you absolutely can you know like you won't sit down at the table and somebody's like why would you ever do this you know which is one of the beauties of fifth edition um yeah uh uh let's talk a little bit about those classes because i do make some notes if you're going all the way in one class to level 20. uh so i i just browsing along shopping for the high level features that maybe somebody watching at home like maybe you haven't read all the way to the end of your class description i would love to hear uh favorites obviously no judgment every class is fun to play in my opinion but the i've noticed that like that the top level features group into a couple of categories there are the like level 20 is where you get free refills um there are several classes that fall into this where it's sort of like you're never going to go into battle without your key or your sorcery points um because we're going to kind of give you free refills there but there are also some really interesting other options like the paladin i think i had never noticed has a very wide variation at level 20 because level 20 is going to give you a different oath feature a different sacred oath feature including the avenging angel for oath of vengeance literally grow wings uh as a level 20 paladin that's just very cool um so dave would you want to talk about them in groups or can i just hit you with them one by one and be like quick takes you can hit me with them one by one with the quick takes i will say but but again see this this is this is where this is where uh i'm a monster you all um i i i'm i'm so happy that the paladin's like yay i get wings i'm like everybody else had wings 15 levels ago you know it's about personal bests me dave if you didn't have wings yet now you do that's true you know it's the uh you've made it through 19 levels of not wings have wings yeah okay yes please no give them to me but my body's ready okay artificer gets soul of artifice which is your not quite dead thing um have you run any level 20 artificers are relatively newer i have not run any level two artificer is a weird thing uh i i i go all the way back to eberron with those um it's it's tough i mean it's great that you've like have built like your mechagodzilla thing by then which i think is really great uh um now so they get some of their bonuses based on all the things that they're attuned to they um and they can attune to more things which is interesting um you know if they get dropped to zero hit points they can go to one instead of zero the problem is death ward's a thing so yeah we've already had access to that for a while i find a lot of the capstone abilities the level 20 abilities very rarely are game changing and the best one is barbarian by the way even though i've said multiple times you shouldn't play barbarian but i guess we're going to get to that here in a second listen not barbarian just period of 20. but yes yes yes let's talk barbarians because primal champion is like oh you made it to level 20 have four extra points of strength and constitution uh unlimited rage at this point and your caps for those abilities go to 24. yep why wouldn't you want to go all the way on barbarian you can become ultra strong at level 20. um it's because everything from about 15 to 20 was kind of the same [Music] that's why you know and if that's your thing that's cool but it's like for for the most part you rage and you hit things and then also you rage and you can hit something and then every once in a while you signed up to be a barbarian that is true that is true but you could there there's many shades and flavors of synergistically raging and hitting things where is that because i mean i i've i've played barbarians uh forever for quite a ways um and then you get your primal path thing depending which primal path you take you know things like the bear totem you just get better at getting hit so if that is the gameplay experience that you want that is fine and you of course can do that and eventually you can become very strong as we have seen um but i i feel like eventually you're going to be you're going to maybe want something different than i rage and i hit it you know um which barbarian i mean some of the paths are a little different but uh for the most part that's the gameplay experience of being a barbarian and then you can become ultra strong the fact that they can become the strongest and most durable is really great though by the way um that that i do i do shout out to my barbarian homies you will have earned it by the way if you get to level 20 as a barbarian i do love the idea that you just like you level up and you're just literally up plus four in each of those like you woke up that day being like woo ate my wheaties let's go you've done a lot of reps on the path up the mountain there yeah bard gets superior inspiration which i would say is the first of the free refills one you get a free you always have inspiration at initiative if you've run out and it's a d12 by then um so just generally kind of get some stuff out of the way of using your bird abilities which by that time should be pretty good yeah i mean i mean that's the thing it's you theoretically i'm like i i it gives you the opportunity that you have to be less stingy with your abilities if you're not familiar with bards they um they can either give a bonus to friends most of the sub classes have something where they can use their bardic inspiration dice for themselves so you every every round you get to do your thing at least once which i think is great but i mean by then you can already do your thing a lot of times in a day uh i i don't even know how many uses of bardic inspiration you you have uh at 20 your inspiration does go to i don't know how many uses you've got at 20. it's several though many also but but but at level but there is um nope i was gonna say yeah but you get your level nine spells but you already got that at 17. it's yeah i will say this the um the top okay bard is probably my favorite class which like you know 1996 me would never ever imagine me saying out loud but it's true bards are incredible uh bards bards are almost multi-classed is just a single individual anyway they get a little bit of everything especially pending which college you take swords bards and valley bars and lore bars they're all i think a level 20 loribard is probably the most powerful and diverse character in the game probably um if we're talking single class um but you know at 18 you get you get magical secrets which is where you get spells from another class's uh spell list which is incredible uh especially because you can get other people's high level spells you're like i'm a bard who can cast meteor swarm get out of my face um you know and then one more feat and then superior inspiration so i again i think the the path up the mountain and the things you get as a bard is what makes that class worth playing not the capstone i can't think of any of these classes that i'm like the capstone is why you do it you know but they're more like icing on the cake but okay yes uh let's take the next three are cleric your divine intervention will auto succeed uh you're druid i'll give you a sec hold on we're gonna do three to time cleric divine intervention auto success druid archdruid it's the whole thing it's pretty amazing unlimited wild shapes no components ever that's not exactly true but you know mostly no components ever fighters get four attacks by this time just as their regular thing all right cleric turret fighter but i know i just said none of them were worth it i completely rescind my statement it depends the cleric divine intervention automatically working is incredible that kind of depends on how your dm is um if you're not familiar with cleric you have a certain percentage chance to call your god and ask for help i think they get it at like level three or four and it's basically however many percent you are in the class is your chance so if you're a level 10 cleric you have a 10 chance for your level 15 claire give a 15 chance your level 19 claire give a 19 chance at 20 you have a hundred percent chance to be uh as chris perkins says i'm a level 20 cleric i don't work for my god my god works for me so you know pending how your dm interprets that that is an absolutely fantastic power where you're like we've got a problem tyr could you do something about this you know and he will you know um that's really great the archdruid one is kind of a snore fest i think um because by then you you by then you're already used to you know dealing with your wild shapes and in timing that stuff out in in you know unlimited wild shapes is fine i guess but you've already got like four or five but by then if you're gonna because most sessions you only fight once or twice anyway you know like it's rare to have like four to five combats in a session where i would need to while shaping unwell shape you know the fighter thing being able to attack four times is great uh especially uh with your action surge uh action surges means you can take the uh attack action again by the way um so you can attack multiple times you got your offhand attack by then you've probably picked up a bunch of feats that might give you an extra attack under certain circumstances so you're laying out you know 10 or so attacks in a game but this is one of those times too that group synergies end up being really important because uh at d and d in a castle with that group you played with we had one character who was a samurai uh so she was attacking you know eight to nine times around the wizard put foresight on her which gave her advantage and somebody else put holy weapon on her which every time you've got advantage it's automatically a critter something like that there was this unique synergy of the fact that because she had advantage she hit like a truck and then did it like nine times so they super kept and planeted her not even knowing that they'd done it and then you know we went into this last fight and she was just like a meat grinder that is another level of this especially if you play with people that you know and enjoy is you can also customize your characters to support each other um where times like that where back to my aforementioned thing about the uh uh assassin rogue in the grave cleric uh the assassin rogue and the grave clear can be two different characters where it's like i mark them with path of the grave and then gank you know so uh yeah and that's you know a big part of the fun of these games obviously to state the obvious is uh the fact that when that teamwork is working you're like we literally couldn't do this by ourselves but we are actu absolutely exponentially more powerful because we have grown together and learned together and chosen these paths and woven people whose destinies if this is the way you want to go it is this beautiful the idea of we should be close and a good team put into practice in this undeniable way which uh it's just real fun all right next three uh monk perfect self never had a key points paladin sacred oath feature i mean who doesn't like having key points uh synchronous feature tons of variations there for some sort of like last minute icing on your paladin add your wisdom modifier to attack or damage of favored enemies once per turn um monk palette arrange your thoughts uh monk i mean okay i guess again you know you never run out of gas but by this is one of those things it's like all of these refill ones are great in the sense that you never run out of the thing you do but you've already had 19 levels to get used to budgeting the thing you do so i mean it's okay i guess you know uh the faux slayer thing uh is potentially really great um uh in in the sense that you're guaranteed to hit and by then you have racked up a lot of sub class features that when you hit this thing happens uh so it's like the ranger is guaranteed to have a chance to to apply their stuff uh which is which is cool again you've chosen a hard road if you go to level 20 as a ranger so i salute you you've earned it i'm serious lord coyote in the chat said how would you improve the ranger 20th level capstone but it sounds like you already pretty much like it because it works nicely with the other ranger stuff you've got going on by then yeah it is very flavorful for the ranger and and i'm i'm not the only one that's knocking ranger you know the the improved ranger was an unarthur arcana a little while back so was the improved rogue for similar reasons so if if you feel like uh underwhelmed by your ranger or rogue you got some some uh other opportunities that exist and you know recently they rolled out a lot of the optional class features too so you can kind of uh greek her [ __ ] a lot of these things uh to fit a little better your vision for the character all right next up rogue gets stroke of luck which is an auto hit or auto 20 once per short rest uh and that's 20 on a skill check just because i don't want to say auto success because yes um sorcerer gets sorcerer's restoration free refills plus four sorcery points on short rest uh warlock gets eldritch master you can get all your pack spell slots back once per long rest uh in wizard we'll get two signature spells that are just kind of freebies i'm oversimplifying but uh two third level spells you always have prep don't count against your prep limit uh and don't require a spell slot to cast once per short or long rest so out of rogue sorcerer warlock and wizard any faves for level 20 uh the warlock eldritch master cause you can get all your spells back in one minute but you can only do it once till you get the long rest uh because warlocks are perpetually very spell slot starved um especially if you're doing things like if you're a hex blade and you're using eldritch smite so you're getting in there and actually like fighting hand to hand you can exhaust your spell slots super quickly so the fact that one being able to get a refill uh is really dope uh the wizard thing i mean again it's fine but you got so many spells by that point um that you're like i'm i'm i'm i guess i don't know it's like becoming wealthy when you've been on a fixed income for 20 years i mean the money's fine the money's fine but you're like i already can pay for everything in this house you know so the extra 50 bucks not really making a big difference in your mansion exactly exactly you know like i guess you can order some extra cheese on the pizza i suppose but uh the but the warlock one is really great i imagine also could be different depending on your play style if you're doing a lot of sort of one and dones then this is not going to come up as much but if you are playing a campaign where for instance your play style is to pay a lot of attention like really stressing those limits like one day could last multiple sessions you're playing with encumbrance you're counting on components and materials like um in a game like that these limits could be a really fun sort of we battled our way all the way to 20 and now we get to shopping spree essentially yeah and and you know to to my previous point about this is when the game really starts is if you've really played these characters this long you've gotten to this point and then you are continuing playing this just not having to worry about some of the old things you used to worry about is of use you know um so yeah that's i i guess it's um what what so many of these come back to if you think about it is you always have the ability to do your defining thing you know which is which is really great because i think all of us have experienced being in a situation where you're completely out of spell slots you're completely out of range you're completely out of wild shapes and it can be it can be a hard go with things especially depending where you are so if you're like oh i'm never gonna have that problem again yes uh but i think if i had to pick one winner it is divine intervention though getting getting getting the gods to literally do a thing for you on command uh is astonishing and i've um when i did i did a level 20 game with chris perkins and he used divine intervention uh because they were fighting the terrasque because of course they were and uh the the drastic was attacking a city actually they were trying to stop it um when he used divine intervention i had um the i i had his god send reinforcements uh which sent like uh solars and planetarys to like help them fight the tarasque was the way the god reacted just because that's incredible to tell you the truth um so yeah i think because if you think about it you're like well a rogue can always pass a skill check that's cool druid can always wow shape all right uh tiamat will come in person every day you know there's so much flavor there yeah i will say also like that the wizard's signature spells i just love as an idea that you're like just the the name chosen for that one is so beautifully flavorful where by the time you're level 20 you're like this is the one i can do without looking uh i just you know behind the back fancy sports move blah blah blah spell yep you're like also it's fireball we have a fantastic question here from a cup of squids 20th level characters have a ton of abilities any advice on how to organize all of that information so that it's all in one place and easily scannable so you don't forget things in the midst of combat i do use dnd beyond it arranges all of this magnificently for you that that really is some advice does set it all up very easily um it is rough it is rough um if you've ever watched any of my streams inevitably people are like and i'm like take your time it's cool level 20 is a lot you got you got you got a lot of options especially because quite often you have multiple things that can all work at once like um you know when i play freely he's a swords bard which means he can do things like his bard defensive slash but if he hits with his bar defensive slash he can still smite you know any time the blade touches can still smite so um stuff like that it's you you just gotta uh my advice is read through it in advance in worst case just make a note of the things that it's like well i can only do this or these things i can do all of these things like if you guys ever watch me play um the main thing i'll do all the time is his shadow blade into the green flame blade with smite but if i do that he can only attack once he can't attack twice so i'll have to consciously decide if you can watch in the games you'll know what's going through my noodle is it worth landing one big hit on this thing which usually if it is difficult to hit that's what i do or is it worth hitting it twice and smiting twice which if it's fairly easy to hit or if i've got to chop it down really quickly that's what i'll do because you start dropping two uh two max level smites on things per round um and then hopefully one of them is going to be a crit especially with the hex blade feature it you you can tear something up pretty fast so um and i will say i learned uh relatively recently that we have a feature on dnd beyond uh where you can customize things to display as attack so a spell that you know you want to use all the time or a feature that you know is going to be one of your go-to's you can make yourself a little table of contents uh by having a display as attack like click into the customize um hit that little check box and now you've got your little in battle shopping list you still have to remember about your spell slots and other stuff but if you just want a what are the five things that i know i can do let's do this um that uh will be right there yeah it it it can it can be a challenge i mean it still it still happens to everybody especially when like something terrible is going on and you're like i got something in here especially a lot of those single shot things that you never use like favored by the gods for a sorcerer where you get an extra 2d4 to your save you're like i haven't needed this in six sessions but boom yeah right i will say also uh uh dean dibian is especially useful for as you get hiring level and your you start up casting spells and the dice pools become unwieldy uh you know down in the lower left corner you can click on the dice you add up your pools over there and that's the fastest way to do it a strange fondness because i i love a lot of games that are sort of classic bucket of dice games uh i know they they are not everybody's favorite but there's just something delightful about being like all the dice at once um but there's also something delightful about the math getting done for you especially when everyone is waiting on you yeah so that's kind of a win-win i have a number a number of the the shiny click clacks right there yeah so believe me i know i know exactly how you feel it's rough as a paladin though there's the the d8s are always in short supply well there's just the extra mental pause where you're like d8 or d10 d8 or d10 like no matter how many years go by i still have to stop uh all right that is about all the time we have for today be they final thoughts on playing level 20 and where can people find you and all of the various great stuff you do do it it's so much fun and it really is not that much more difficult than anything else people think the game is harder at 20. it isn't the game is harder at one you got a lot less options and a goblin on a crit can lay you out you know i mean there is stuff like power word kill but for the most part you're going to survive any single round of almost anything and then you've got a lot more options to to get in there and do it so yeah enjoy it in in in my advice is take this thought exercise take your current character level them up to 20 see what they would look like what would you do with the rest of it what would you outfit them like what would it look like and then you know maybe talk to your dm about running a one shot you'll be glad you did and and you can cast divine intervention and that means you can dm me on twitter and i personally will intervene in your game to say what to do uh follow me on the tweetagrams at b dave walters yes monday playing for waver rape crisis centers with the amy dahlin and a cadre of amazing humans and then next weekend i will be all over dnd live i will be hosting i will be running a game for the cast of ap bio which lamentably will not be level 20 which hurts my heart but i've been forced to adapt due to circumstances you know it's still fun at the other levels i'm just saying you know that's what i've been told i guess well we're gonna have some fun you're gonna see me do that and then uh we will be playing uh i'll be playing in the beatle and grimm's game i will be level one where i will show you demonstrably the game is far more difficult and lethal at level one yeah uh i am so excited for all of that a quick reminder if you're watching this that we are going to have a lot more information about cool stuff that's coming up after next weekend and dnd live so there are a whole lot of reasons to set your dials to those channels next week um but also thank you in advance for showing up for the weibo fundraiser that we get to play in i am so excited to play some level 20 d d with you b dave i will see you next time i know we're signing off i know we're signing off but ambush what are you thinking about playing on monday for your level 20 character this was definitely not me partly doing my homework asking you all your opinions so i'm going to make people tune in and find out which of these versions or what multi-class combo i land on by monday for this game and now you've you've seen my strategies at work uh my synergy effect of dnd beyond and this upcoming game thank you so much uh i'm really glad you asked that because i had planned to tease that and then totally forgot tune in monday find out how this all lands we are gonna hopefully have a great game and raise a lot of money for a really really good cause and thank you for watching dnd beyond [Music] it's tv

Channel: D&D Beyond

Views: 27,997

Keywords: D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon & Dragons, D&D Beyond, DnD, roleplaying games, fifth edition, 5e, Amy Dallen, geek and sundry, B Dave Walters, Level 20 D&D, Level 20 DnD, Dungeons and Dragsons Level 20, Max Level, High Level D&D, Tier 4 D&D, Level 20 One Shot, High-Level D&D, Level 20 Campaign, How and Why to Play at Level 20, B. Dave Walters

Id: _om2BgENAw8

Length: 42min 5sec (2525 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021