D&D: Five Tricky Ways to Boost Your Damage
Off-turn sneak attacks, shoves through friendly AoEs. Here are five tricksy ways to boost your damage in D&D.
Doing big damage numbers is only one aspect of D&D, sure. There are plenty of other things to do—you could roleplay your character, focus on healing or defense, or be good at skills. But. We all know that dealing damage feels so good.
Especially when you pull off some of the more elaborate maneuvers to deal extra damage. Elaborate here meaning more involved than “I take the attack action”. It is still 5.5E, where crunch is only there if you go looking for it.
But if you want to boost your D&D damage, here are five tricky tips to do even more.
Attacking When It’s Not Your Turn
This one is an especially good tip for Rogues, who benefit massively from the ability to attack off their turn, doing Sneak Attack damage multiple times per round. Remember, Sneak Attack only triggers once per turn, but every round is made up of multiple turns. But even if you’re not doing extra d6s with an attack, characters who hit hard with their attacks will still enjoy getting to attack when it’s not their turn.
There are many ways to grant yourself a Reaction attack. Options include a Battlemaster’s Riposte or Commander’s Strike. Rogues can often find a way to attack as a Bonus Action and then use their Action to ready an attack. A Thief might use a scroll of True Strike (as a Bonus Action), or might pick up a level of War Cleric for a guaranteed Bonus Action Attack, leaving the Action free.
Monks can deflect attacks, turning a hit into an attack against another target, blending offense and defense in one.
Pushing Enemies Into AoEs
Area of Effect spells have by and large become a little more powerful in 5.5E. This is because they can now trigger multiple times per Round. Again, it’s kind of like the Sneak Attack thing. But you have to be cognizant of what the effects are. The best spells you’ll want to look for include the phrase “the creature takes the same damage when it enters the [area of effect] for the first time on a turn.
Spells like Wall of Fire are a great set up, especially since you can make one side of it undamaging, giving you a soft barrier to fight against. But other “hazard” spells like Evard’s Black Tentacles or Spike Growth (especially Spike Growth) are fantastic as well.
Simply combine a damaging area with the ability to push foes around. Lots of characters have these options. A Warlock‘s Repelling Blast. A Fighter’s Push Weapon Mastery. But one of the underrated options is grappling. While grappling a creature you could potentially drag them into multiple AoEs, or at least ensure that you trigger the same AoE whenever you have a chance. A party could potentially have two or three party members grapple a hapless foe and drag them into a Wall of Fire, or worse, through Spike Growth, dealing massive damage from a single spell slot.
Pushing AoEs Into Enemies
Subtly different—but important enough—is the ability to push an AoE onto a creature when it’s not your turn. This distinction is academic from a distance. But up close, is the key to scads of damage. Consider a Cleric with Spirit Guardians. Every time the Emanation of Spirit Guardians enters a creature’s space (or whenever a creature enters its space or ends its turn there) they can potentially take 3d8 Radiant Damage once per turn.
Combine that with something that allows the Cleric to move when it’s not their turn – maybe they’re a Rogue with enough levels to use the Withdrawal as part of a Sneak Attack and ready an action (as above). Or have a few friends grapple the Cleric and move them around the battlefield like a damaging aura. Conjure Animals has similar language, but works whenever a creature moves within its area. So you can potentially hit creatures even easier with it.
Stacking Extra Attacks
Of course, some of the best characters just hit a lot. And making multiple attacks is a potent way to up your damage. But it’s not enough to just take advantage of the Extra Attack feature. As we mentioned above, attacking off turn is a great option. But so are abilities that give you attacks outside of or in addition to the Attack Action.
Things like Two Weapon Fighting can increase your damage output by giving you one or potentially two extra attacks. But so can Great Weapon Mastery, which can give you a Bonus Action attack whenever your Critically hit or drop a creature to 0 hit points. There are even more reliable ways to gain a Bonus Action attack, including spells like Crown of Stars that let you zap someone as a Bonus Action.
But there’s another way to make multiple attacks on “your turn”—and that’s by summoning allies. Spells like Animate Objects or Summon Celestial are also great ways to increase the extra damage your character/party is outputting every round.
Trigger(ing Boosts) Happy
Finally there are a number of conditional damage boosts that you can draw on. Things like an Elemental Adept or Draconic Sorcerer’s Elemental Affinity. Or a Warlock of a Celestial Patron’s Radiant Soul. These let you deal additional damage when dealing certain kinds of damage (usually elemental damage).
You can stack a lot of these together to make each instance of the corresponding damage hit even harder. A Celestial Warlock/Paladin can site with the power a thousand suns with the right combo of abilities.
How do you boost your damage in D&D?
