Summary
No matter what class you select inDungeons & Dragons, by the time you reach level 20, you’ll get what’s called a capstone ability, or a level 20 ability. This ability is the most powerful feature you’ll get for your class throughout your campaign. Some of these can be absolutely game-changing, and can send even the toughest monsters running for cover.
But, if you’re about to pick a class for a long-running D&D campaign, you might be wondering which level 20 abilities are the best. For this list, we’ve ranked every single capstone ability available in the 2024 Player’s Handbook so that you can choose which class is best for you.
Key Feature
Ranger
The damage of your Hunter’s Mark is a d10 rather than a d6.
As per usual in Dungeons & Dragons, the ranger gets the short end of the stick when it comes to level 20 abilities. Of course, your Hunter’s Mark ability is a great feature of rangers that allows you to do extra damage against your foes. However, when it comes to flare, skill ceiling, and more, this capstone ability pales in comparison to others.
Ultimately, a ranger’s job is putting out high damage numbers for their team, which checks that box. But, for a class that so often gets left behind, this feature leaves something to be desired. Hopefully, this will change the next time ranger is revamped as a class.
Barbarian
Strength and Constitution scores increase by four, to a max of 25.
The capstone ability for barbarians is nothing to sneeze at, particularly if you’ve already maxed out your Strength and Constitution scores through other means. Because these stats will affect everything in your kit from damage output, saving throws, attack rolls, and overall health pool, boosting these up beyond 20 will undoubtedly prove to be a great boonfor your barbarian build.
However, ultimately, once you’ve made these adjustments to your character sheet, it’s easy to be left feeling a little hollow from this capstone feature. This also reveals a deeper truth about barbarians as a class, namely, that unless you want to play a primarily melee combatant who hacks and slashes their way through everything, there’s not much more to maxing out this class.
Monk
Dexterity and Wisdom scores increase by four, to a max of 25.
Body And Mind is the monk equivalent of the same barbarian capstone ability. Your primary stats, namely your Dex and Wis, are pushed beyond their normal limit to a maximum of 25. This is, of course, fantastic for all of your attacks, your monk abilities that require wisdom, armor class, and more. And yet, for such a high-skill ceiling class like monk, this can feel a little underwhelming.
Monks are so much fun to play because you can get so creative with all of their abilities, both in the main class progression and their subclass progression. For this to be the capstone ability, which is ultimately nothing more than a simple stat boost, can feel a little disappointing.
Fighter
you’re able to attack four times instead of once whenever you take the attack action.
For fighters, your main action during combat is always going to be attacking. Of course, as you progress and level up your fighter, you gain access to multiattack, gaining one extra attack at level five and then two extra attacks at level 11. This paves the way for a third extra attack at level 20.
While this is, once again, a great capstone, like the other lower-tier abilities on this list, this feature just feels a little underwhelming in a way. However, if you combine this ability with Action Surge, you might find yourself attacking eight times in one turn, which is pretty fantastic.
Wizard
Always have certain spells prepared.
For wizards, having a varied spell list with lots of different options prepared is their bread and butter. So, at level 20, it makes sense that their capstone ability would allow them to choose two level three spells and always have them prepared. you may also take these signature spells and cast them without having to expend a spell slot.
This is really helpful if you want to make sure you always have certain utility spells prepared, but don’t want to waste slots on them in the heat of combat. Or, if you want to just play a high-damage-output wizard, there’s no harm in always having a Fireball prepared.
Druid
Extra wild shapes, extra spell slots, and longevity.
At level 20, druids gain access to an entire suite of new abilities that can prove supremely helpful during high-level combat encounters. First, they can gain an extra use of Wild Shape when they roll initiative, as long as they have no uses of it remaining. Second, they can also convert uses of Wild Shape into spell slots without having to take an action.
Finally, they gain Longevity, which is a feature that allows your character to age more slowly. For every ten years that pass, your body ages only one year. This offers some fun flare and roleplay opportunities for adruid in the partywho will likely outlive their entire group.
Paladin
Improvements to auras and other boons to stats.
Paladins are the only class in the 2024 Player’s Handbook that gain their capstone ability through their subclass feature. While each one of these is technically different, they all offer buffs to either the paladin’s holy aura, or their primary stat of choice. For example, devotion paladins gain extra radiant damage for their holy aura, while oath of vengeance paladins can impose the frightened condition thanks to their aura.
Overall, all of these subclass features are squarely in the middle of the pack, and more depend on your playstyle. An improvement to your holy aura is helpful, and some additional oaths allow abilities like flight or higher charisma rolls, but ultimately, these aren’t game-breaking abilities by any stretch of the imagination.
Rogue
Reroll d20 tests.
This capstone ability is relatively straightforward, but ultimately highly helpful in a pinch. Once you reach level 20 as a rogue, you can reroll a d20 test you fail and turn the roll into a 20. This is immensely helpful for two reasons.
One, of course, it’s great to get a natural 20 on a roll. More importantly though, you get to make this decision after you fail the roll, meaning you get to hear the result of your initial roll first. Plus, it resets on a short rest, which is great.
Warlock
When you use Magical Cunning, you regain all Pact Magic slots.
This ability is incredibly simple, but also an incredibly broken feature for warlocks at level 20. Anytime you use your Magical Cunning (which you get at level two), you may regain all of your Pact Magic spell slots. If you play your cards right, this means you will rarely run out of slots, since you can still regain slots as well on short rests.
This means, in theory, you can go into a climactic battle with a foe, burn all five of your slots, and then instantly regain them all without having to worry about solely relying on cantrips. Burning ten fifth-level spells all back to back is no joke either for a DM, even in a difficult encounter.
Sorcerer
Use Metamagic without expending sorcery points.
For level 20 sorcerers, wherever you use your Innate Sorcery feature (which you get at level one), you may subsequentlyuse one Metamagic optionon each of your turns without spending sorcery points on it. This ability is highly broken, as Innate Sorcery lasts for one minute.
This means that, in ten rounds of combat, you can essentially use at least one of your Metamagic features for free every single round, potentially buying back spell slots or increasing damage for every hit. This one is a DM’s nightmare quite frankly, and can turn combat encounters on their head quickly.
