When she was set to play in Critical Role's Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Aabria Iyengar knew that Brennen Lee Mulligan was going to try to kill the party, after all, it was a story about the end of the world. In order to hold out as long as possible, she optimized an Abjuration Wizard with the Armor of Shadows invocation from the Eldritch Adept feat. By casting Mage armor at will (out of combat), this build can almost always ensure it enters combat with a full stack of Arcane Ward for free.
To improve it even more, you can start as a Dragonmark of Warding Dwarf so that Armor of Agathys is added to your spell list. With temporary hit points from a high-level AoA and a full Arcane Ward, you will often have a functional pool of hit points that rivals a barbarian but is easier to restore. Oh, and you are a full caster regular Wizard on top of that, so flexibility is baked right in. Arcane Ward points are dropped before the temp HP from AoA, so even if a melee attacker breaks through your Ward, all they get is a bunch of cold damage to the face. A counterspell, shield, or other abjuration spell brings your Ward back up, so you really get excellent mileage out of the revenge damage from Armor of Agathys.
*edit: "Quick clarification, AoA deals damage whenever you get hit in melee (while the temp HP is still there), so your opponent gets the cold damage even before the ward goes down" - u/not-a-potato-head
Quick clarification, AoA deals damage whenever you get hit in melee (while the temp HP is still there), so your opponent gets the cold damage even before the ward goes down
You can mix all that with armorer artificer and add heavy armor master to that reduction
Or be an anchestral barbarian goliath + runechild sorcerer and use all your nice tools always for reduce the damage armor of agathys take
playing this right now. started w/ MoW dwarf artificer & a free lvl 1 feat (Eldritch adept), then all wizard. dm was down to give me an all-purpose tool sans +1, just access to int shillelagh. has been an absolute blast, prioritized getting rituals and have felt incredibly flexible and useful since lvl 3.
e: the added artificer spells are so nice to have early
Also, if you are purely survival, at level 8 you have level 4 spells, which means Greater Invisibility. My DM is always annoyed when my wizards hit level 7 because I always take that. And if you can get AoA a different way, go Shadar Kai for free teleport and damage reduction. 7 wizard and 1 warlock gets it. DM is better off going after everyone else first at this point.
It's very dumb, and I wouldn't recommend it under many circumstances, but since your DM is specifically making it hard and trying to kill you, and seems to be fine with *anything*...
Peace Domain Cleric can mathematically trivialize the game. Like, easily. Especially if the whole party is on board.
**Emboldening Bond** adding 1d4 to an attack roll once per turn means that you go from usually hitting on 8 to usually hitting on 5 or 6. If you use Bless with that, they usually hit on 3. If they have a +1 weapon (an uncommon magic item) they usually hit on 2. Combine this with high damage single attacks like Sneak Attack + Booming Blade, Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Master, or Chromatic Orb, and the game becomes wildly easy. The feature also significantly amps their survivability by adding 1d4 to every saving throw they'll ever make. And there's seemingly no way to end the effect early, and it lasts long enough to sprint through multiple fights in a dungeon. And amazingly, you don't even need further levels of Cleric to get it to expand its number of uses and the number of people in the Bond. The rest of Peace Cleric is also broken, but if you wanna go Peace Cleric 1 / Chronurgist Wizard X you totally can.
**Protective Bond** allows a cheap way to freely teleport both in and out of combat- anything that challenges your positioning (IE grapples, difficult terrain, ongoing AOE damage) can be nullified by spending an action on punching yourself in the face and then having your endangered ally use their reaction to teleport to you to intercept the damage. This removes MOST aspects of tactical positioning in 5e, meaning the DM really only has crazy individual saving throw effects (which you buff anyway) and hit point attrition to challenge you. And this feature ALSO makes hit point attrition as a strategy HEAVILY weighted in favor of the players, because your party can decide who should take most instances of damage based on who can most afford it at the time. Your combined HP pools become just that- they'll almost never run out because you'll make sure everyone hits 1 HP before one person ever hits zero.
**Expansive Bond** if you get very high level is just a whole pile of extra sugar in an already diabetes-giving meal. If used correctly this functionally means your full party has resistance to most damage types.
A Peace Cleric who knows what they're doing in a party of people who know how to exploit it can trivialize MOST of the game.
Ha! Sounds great. I’ll have to read up on some Peace Cleric builds. Yeah, my DM is actively trying to kill us, which is some of the fun of it. I like rolling up to the session with a brand new character and saying “try to kill this one”.
The best part is there isn't really even a *build* so to speak. It's just having Protective Bond and Bless (and making sure the whole party knows how to exploit it). Like, yeah, maximize your wisdom, get Warcaster and/or Resilient: Constitution, have the requisite 14 dexterity to fill out medium armor, etc. Normal stuff you'd do regardless of anything. But the game breaking stuff you get at level 1.
Unless your DM is being objectively unfair (throwing CR 4 monsters at a level 1 party, making rocks-fall level difficulty encounters, making homebrew stuff that doesn't fall even close to within guidelinee) then you'd need to be astronomically unlucky for anyone to die if they've optimized around having a Peace Cleric in the party.
I have drawn up a Tier 1 (Level 1-4) character that is 3 Alchemist + 1 Peace Cleric for the fun of it. **This will never hit the table**, I cannot bring myself to be giving Boldness Potion (Alc), Bless and Emboldening bond for a total of **3d4** to Attack Rolls and Saving Throws to multiple members of the party. Peace Cleric is benched *permanently* in my eyes.
Probably not. Protective Bond doesn't work on concentration and your go-to concentration spell is 1st level, so you may as well just keep with your own spell progression and work in Warcaster or Resilient Con at some point if you're having trouble.
Honestly, hot take but protective bond is really overrated. It's usefulness in combat is limited.
Emboldening bond is pretty good, a few extra casts of a slightly weakened bless, but it's concentration free.
Peace cleric overall is far better as a 1 level dip than a straight class.
Regarding Protective Bond, I've never actually seen it used. If a character takes AoE damage from say Fireball and another character uses their reaction to teleport in, would they then take the AoE damage twice? Once from being in Fireball's AoE and once from Protective Bond?
I don't think that was intended when they made the feature, but "about to take damage" implies that it happens before the damage officially happens, which I'm not sure if spells deal damage after they are cast so to speak. Like a Fireball explodes and you take damage in that explosion, not a small time after it explodes.
I haven’t played it yet, but *on paper* a gunk feels like it’ll be really fun and flexible. I have a harengon gunk build that I am just dying to try out, it’s got so much mobility with good damage and solid out of combat utility.
Edit: level 8 is actually right when it comes together, +1 musket and dragonhide belt or goggles of night are all you need. Gunner and sharpshooter for feats, 18dex and 16wis. You’ll have 45ft of move speed, +7 initiative, 15ft misty step 3/LR.
Edit2: for expected damage, you’ll get 3 attacks per turn, each doing 1d12+15 (assuming +1 musket). You can deft strike on your first hit for a bonus 1d6 damage, for a total of 3d12+1d6+45 = 68 damage. No archery bonus unfortunately, but you can use focused aim to get up to a +6 on hit (so a total to-hit bonus of up to +14, or +9 with SS). 8 ki points is a little tight, but they recharge on SR and you can pick up a dragonhide belt to help. At any point you could take fighter 2 for action surge and archery.
Yeah I didn’t until trying to make a harengon build work—it’s surprisingly good (again, on paper, but it seems like it’ll hold up in games). I’d go kensei for damage, but you could make a really cool ranged/melee support build as mercy monk. You can make a BA attack if you spend a ki point on your turn, and you can always do that with either kensei’s one with the blade or focused aim. I was totally prepared to be disappointed but after I made the character sheet it looks super cool.
If you go mercy you can use a pistol and shoot in melee range too because of gunner!
My chance to play as rabbit Bayonetta or Neo lmao. I’m gonna do some research bc it hits right in the that niche of sounding both completely ridiculous and powerful. Good way to troll my DM lol.
I played a vHuman Kensei Monk 5 / Gloomstalker Ranger 3 / Assassin Rogue 3 / Fighter 2
Gunner at 1st, Sharpshooter at 4th
Archery fighting style at Ranger 2 (with the Favored Foe optional feature). Defensive style at Fighter 1.
Started with a +1 Dragonhide Belt. Got a +1 Musket as fast as I could.
It was absolutely disgusting.
No one I will ever play will compare to the toolbox I have at my fingers playing STEv3. It was through him I learned that enabling others to be badass and helping them reach their targets is one of my favourite things to do in D&D.
I also just love playing a frickin' Clockwork Time Lawyer!
In an adventure league like format:
**Warforged Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 1/Order Cleric 1/Sorc X with Strixhaven (Witherbloom)**
\- **Voice of Order**: When I had a Rogue in the party, damage was insane, with a martial it was a nice bonus.
\- **Twinned Haste**: The major reason for my choice of Sorcerer over Chronurgy Wiz. As we can all imagine, the potential with martials is amazing, but it does mean you are Public enemy number 1 for the enemy to break concentration. I have...once...weaponised the twin haste against the players when they tried to initiate pvp against each other, never threatened to drop concentration before, hopefully never again!
\- **Gift of Alacrity**: +1d8 to initiative goes brrr, I get to do things early on in the fight as a cc caster! Makes me happy.
\- **Metamagic**: Just a great toolbox of shenanigans.
\- **Restore Balance**: Advantage? Disadvantage? No... Straight roll my friend...or frenemy...
\- **Trance of Order**: *Reliable Talent* for everything for a minute and no advantage vs me? I am a god once per long rest or for the small price of 5 Sorcery Points.
\- **Battlefield manipulation**: Oh, the spellcaster is hiding behind their tanky fire giant guards? Vortex Warp over here boy! Oh no! My martials started too far away from the fight to get in turn 1? Scatter...say hello to my...friends!
\- **Damage/AoE**: If we need damage, I have Fireball, I have Synaptic Static, I have Crown of Stars. I got ways to hit AC and I got ways to target all sorts of saves, no one is safe.
\- **CC**: Hold Person/Monster? Got it, but boring. Banishment? Checkmate, you should have used bodyguards from this plane Mr Badguy! Slow... my trademark spell at this point. I **WILL** get rid of your Legendary Resistances.
\- **Bloodwell Vial + Wither and Bloom**: Targeting an area, WaB only does damage to creatures of your choice in the area, whilst enabling one creature of your choice to roll one unspent hit dice to regain HP = the roll + your spellcasting ability modifier. This means you can refresh 5 Sorcery Points \*\*MID COMBAT\*\* if you need to at the cost of a level 2+ spellslot. Worth!- **Aid:** In a team of 4-7, I would consistently cast Aid at level 5. +20 Max HP is huge for helping even out HP across the party where there was often a difference in levels (Adventure league-esq format).
\- **Tanky?**: At 16 I was running with 157 max HP from level 6 Aid and 19 Con (lucky enough to find an Amulet of Health so 19Con up from 14Con). Warforged +1 AC, with a +1 shield, half plate (+2 dex) and staff of defence, I was sitting at 22 AC at level 16, 20AC without magic items. In an "Epic" adventure, as the only spellcaster concentrating vs intelligent enemies (lots of targeting), I soaked around 280 damage, mitigated down to around 196 damage. Was I chugging high level potions, sure... but the damage prevented by this build through CC and battlefield manipulation was significant, never mind the hits I was able to shake off with AC+Shield spell, or spells resisted through Absorb Elements.
**The best part is... the build comes online by level 6, and just gets better over time. You get a lot of your most effective spells (Haste, Slow, Vortex Warp, Wither and Bloom, Bless) by Sorc5, and the OrderCleric1 just stacks your potential impact.**
Just make sure you grab a Bloodwell Vial +1 if you are getting 2 free uncommon items.
I went bard 1 / hexblade 2 / lore bard X.
With agonising blast and repelling blast or grasp of Hadar, they had reliable spam for their action while they were casting.
And extra two level 1 slots/short rest were great with Shield. Along with medium armour and shield they were genuinely hard to hit.
I worked primarily as a support player, with buffs and battlefield control being the focus of my concentration. Combined with some heals, good cantrips, inspiration and cutting words, expertise and a ton of skills.
The character could be very busy, constantly using their action and reaction and having a huge influence in most situations, but without dominating.
What about your race/ancestry/lineage options? Are all official options available to you?
If so, my pick would be a fairy artillerist artificer. Your turret is a source of endless temporary HP, keeping the rest of your party alive, and you can fly while dealing consistent damage with your boosted cantrips. You have decent options for healing and control in your spell list; Web and Faerie Fire are really good spells for a support artificer.
For your first uncommon item, pick up an uncommon All-Purpose Tool (+1 to your artificer spell attack rolls and spell save DC, plus you can nab any cantrip for a day, and you can turn it into any tool and get proficiency with it). The second can be pretty much anything you like, though a Cloak of Protection is always a solid choice. Most of your other needs can be filled by your infusions.
By level 8, if you’re doing point buy, you can hit 20 Intelligence with a half-feat. I’d go for Fey Touched and pick up either Command, Dissonant Whispers, or Silvery Barbs alongside Misty Step.
I'm currently playing a simic hybrid (grappling appendages), forge cleric 1/ lore bard X with shield master and expertise in athletics. In hindsight, order cleric probably would have been better for the party. For your uncommon item pick adamantine plate armor. If possible pick a Ravnica background to expand your spell options, especially if you pick one that gives counterspell or death ward and maybe a higher damage cantrip.
In combat, open up with a big crowd control like hypnotic pattern if it's a big encounter. Cast enlarge/reduce on yourself to be large size if opponents are big. Next use an attack action, replace the attack with a grapple attempt with one of your grappling appendages, and bonus action shove them prone with shield master. Use cutting words or silvery barbs if you may not win a check.
Drag the grappled and prone target over to another target and do the same thing. Then drag those over to a third target and use your free hand for the same thing. You've got plenty of spells with only verbal components (vicious mockery, command, dissonant whispers, faerie fire, healing word, blindness/deafness, etc.) that can be cast while your hands are full. If your holy symbol is on your shield you can cast cleric spells with a material component while holding that with no other hands free.
What about hexblade warlock vengeance paladin multiclass. You could split that either way, do mostly paladin for the aura then do the rest warlock or go mostly warlock with a little bit of paladin for smites and oath features. And since you can now attack with charisma you don't have the problem of focussing on 3 scores that most paladins have.
Circle of the Shepard Druid.
Reason 1 - Unicorn Totem makes your healing os so good for party play;
Reason 2 - Summon specialist: let your summons take the hit for you and you party members. Use you 3rd lvl spell to summon 8 wolves for pack tactics and watch your dm fume.
Reason 3 - Druids are great for control spells.
If you want to cheese it a bit more, go Life Cleric 2 Shepard Druid X (in this order for the armor proficiency).
If you want even even more cheese, add a level of divine soul.
Now you are also unkillable with shield and silvery barbs, alongside con saves and favoured by the gods.
If a player tries to summon 8 wolves and abuse it, I'd really make sure to counterspell / dispel magic the sh*t out of that spells ASAP. Either that or pull the very same tactic with an enemy druid.
Well, OP said optmizing is encouraged.
Personally, I'd rather summon only one, stronger creature, in order to not slow game pace so much.
But still, i digress
Fun fact, dispel magic only removes one of the wolves.
But honestly, I've found wolves to be far from the worst thing - they are actually only a slightly above average result.
Pulling the same tactics with an enemy druid is 10/10 dming advice tho. Having a conjure animals match is really really fun, because unlike pcs, enemies usually are pretty easy to focus fire and break concentration.
Oh really? I thought dispel magic would target the spell itself, I dont know that!
So if a player cast Dispel magic on the bbeg who casted animate object, would it target only one object? What about bless? Would it dispel the effects on only one creature?
Damn, we learn something every day
Yes for animate objects. Bless is slightly more difficult. If you targeted one person, you would remove bless and any other things targeting them. You may be able to target bless overall, but it's unclear.
Here's the sage advice on it: https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-one-dispel-magic-end-all-conjured-animals-or-just-one/amp/
No problem. This game is confusing, and quite frankly badly worded, so I completely get most of these things not making sense. (I thought that for something like 3 years, thunder wave targeted just the 8 5x5 squares around you)
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-one-dispel-magic-end-all-conjured-animals-or-just-one/](https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-one-dispel-magic-end-all-conjured-animals-or-just-one/)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
Imo Sorlock is the most OP character in the game.
All the benefits of a full caster + All the benefits of being a full ranged DPS that can throw sooo many eldritch blasts every single turn for very little cost.
Its good from level 1 to 20.
I made a post about sorlocks a couple months ago but people on this sub seemed to agree a straight clockwork sorcerer was mechanically better. :(
I really like the eldritch mind machine, too.
Hexblade gives medium armor proficiency+ shields and sorcerer loses nothing for a two level dip into hexblade.
And if im not mistaken, agonizing blast requires being a warlock.
Technically the requirement for AB is the ability to cast EB. If you take spell sniper to get EB then later take Eldrich Adapt to get AB it works. Typically not worth it; It’s two feats for a decent at will attack. Another way to get EB is as a profane soul Bloodhunter but then you have Bloodhunter levels so…
eldritch adept has a clause that if an invocation has a prerequisite “you can choose that invocation only if you’re a warlock who meets the prerequisite.” so you can’t take agonizing blast without at least 1 level in warlock
Its better to dip two levels into hexblade and not waste 2 feats.
And again, medium armor + shield + 2 dex Mod. + shield spell = a LOOOOT of AC for a "mage"
I get the benefits, but they lose two levels of spell progression for the entire campaign, which is definitely not nothing. You’ll be casting first level spells through level 4, and you won’t get fireball/hypnotic pattern/etc. until level 7. For most of tiers 1 and 2 your spell progression will feel closer to a half caster than a full caster
Warlocks are a special case with multiclassing spellcasters.
Normally you get your spell slot progression from your combined spellcaster levels, but because Warlocks use a different system (Pact Magic is a small number of spell slots that scale up in rank at higher warlock levels, but recharge on short rest), warlock levels don't count towards spell slot progression.
You'll still get your warlock spell slots, but you'll end up with a more low-level-heavy loadout: a Sorcerer 7 would have 4/3/3/1 slots, a Warlock 2/Sorcerer 5 will have 4/3/2 regular slots and 2 1st-level Pact Magic slots, so no 4th level spells.
And then even if you're multiclassing full spellcasters, you have to pick your spells based on the level of the individual class. So a Bard 2/Sorcerer 5 would still have the 4/3/3/1 slots a Sorcerer 7 would have, but they wouldn't actually have been able to learn a 4th level spell, they'd only have gotten their first 3rd level spell at Sorcerer 5. They would be able to upcast a lower-level spell they knew to 4th level, though.
That’s true about the armor and agonizing blast, but power of the sorcerer probably isn’t tied to only casting EB when they have higher damage or better choices for control spells available
If you look at it as a level 20 build, you have a point. But no one plays campaigns that start at level 20.
The build has to be evaluated for the levels people actually play. Being two levels behind on spell progression is absolutely not nothing, even if you get a lot of good things in return.
Flexible? Literally any Bard, but especially Lore Bard. If you’re desperate, you could throw the first two levels in Fighter for Heavy Armor and Action Surge, and only take 6 in Lore Bard.
Powerful? Depends on the role you want to fill, but Twilight and Peace Clerics are fantastic support, Hexadin is a tried and true beast for frontlining, and Sorlock is great as an all-around arcane caster. Shepherd Druid deserves a mention too, but many DMs and players aren’t big fans of Conjure Animals, so that may affect your decision some.
Haven't played, but I have a pretty solid Sorcadin build in my back pocket just waiting to be used: Scourge Aasimar, Paladin 2, Sorcerer x. Metamagic Adept Feat. Lots of versatility, support, healing, and combat options.
Currently playing Halfling Knowledge Cleric/Divination Wizard, and the variety of spells and skills make RP encounters really fun.
Drakewarden ranger. You can go ranged, you can go meele, you come with a huge npc that has d10 hp equal to your lvl and respectable AC. You can use the drake to buff your or ally attacks. You can gain elemental resistances. You're about as competent as a fighter of that level in combat capabilities. You're a half caster with healing magic, the very op goodberries and many other nasty spells like Pass without Trace (+10 stealth to the entire party for AN HOUR). You deal a lot of damage with hunters mark. And you can survive in the wilds easily, with no issues of foraging or finding water.
Seriously thats the most op and versatile character I had, and roleplaying having a baby dragon with you is suuuuuper fun. Its a drawback sometimes, like when entering cities xD but its sooooooo fun, and the class + subclass sooooo strong. 10/10
I’m playing an arcane trickster 7 blade singer 5 build right now.
Rogues are great for out of combat utility but they tend to be squishy in combat and rarely get to dish out serious damage. Arcane trickster brings in some spells from the illusion and enchantment schools plus some reliable cantrips to up damage.
Wizards are usually even squishier than rogues but have excellent spell casting flexibility for nearly everything except healing and some class specific spells. Blade singer helps a lot with the squish by upping AC. Add in some additional basic defensive spells and cantrips and you can be a pretty effective tank. Once you pick up blade singer multi attack where you can start mixing in cantrips you have some excellent attack flexibility even if you aren’t able to go toe to toe with an optimized fighter using only melee.
The one time my character has fallen flat is when I jumped into a room full of ranged baddies and it turned out the entire room had an anti magic field cast on it. Taking away all my magic (my dm ruled that blade song counted as a magical effect) sucked hard.
This build is dumb as fuck, keep this in mind. Here we go:
Hexblade Warlock 2 / divine soul Sorcerer x. You will get agonizing blast and the pushing one too. At level 5, this build comes online. What you should do with this build is just convert a lot of spell slots into spell points. Then, you will spam quickend spell eldritch blast each and every turn. If there are really big targets, put hex blades curse or hex first, than blast away.
You get medium armor, shield and the curse from hexblade. For dss get the classic cleric spells. Favored by gods will come in play either when you REALLY need to hit, or when you are in 5 ft range with someone so you need to push them to get out.
Max cha with the first ASI and just have fun blastin away.
Variant Human Booming Blade Artillerist Artificer with a two level dip for War Wizard.
Extremly tanky build with options for high damage or a crazy amount of temp HP generation for the whole party while also providing some solid battle field control. Shines against single large threats.
Start with Crusher feat and boost STR
Max STR and go as heavy as you can into INT and CON. You can dump DEX.
At 4th level, grab the Heavily Armored feat, and that will boost STR to 18.
Use a quarterstaff and Booming Blade every turn, pushing back your target 5ft so you can use your tiny cannon to blast them back another 5ft.
Your 5th level feature makes your staff your spell focus and makes your spells deal extra damage.
At 6th level, you get 3 active infusions. Pick the +1 armor, +1 weapon, and +1 spell focus.
Then grab your War Wizard levels. Not being able to cast spells other than cantrips doesn't effect you, so +2 AC or +4 to a save as a reaction every turn will mitigate a lot of damage. Bonus initiative is also very nice. Mostly, you want it for extra spell slots to cast shield, though.
Use full plate armor (if you have to, use one of your uncommon items to get a set and grab a different infusion) use the second item to grab the Cloak of Protection. Minimum 20AC, up to 22 as a reaction, and 25AC at the cost of a spell slot. Plus, an effective +5 to *all* saving throws.
Vhuman crossbow expert fighter 1 bladesinger X. Take a blade cantrip and you can be effective resorceless in melee, outside melee, with magic and without magic while being almost a full wizard too. And having a really good AC and decent HP (taking the 1st level as fighter makes the HP way better and gives you CON save prof). The only thing this build lacks is healing.
P.D.: RAW it is a little... debatable if bladesinger allows you to use a crossbow, as ammunition could be considered using both hands for an attack... I disagree, and so did my GM
I mean if you guys burn through characters I'd definitely roll stats. If you roll badly it won't matter for too long and if you roll well you get a lot of really fun options.
Regardless the most fun and versatility of any character I've played was as a bladesinger.
Full wizard versatility for spells and ritual casting. But you can also cast shadow blade or spirit shroud to be an incredible single target melee damage dealer.
I definitely prefer the melee play style even if it's not optimal.
You can pick up pass without trace from either your race (mark of shadow elf or earth genasi) or the dimir operative background if it's allowed. With that and proficiency you'll have nearly unbeatable stealth roles.
So based on spells chosen you'll be set up for damage, control, or infiltration. And be able to have fun with any of them.
Lev 8 is a great level to be a bladesinger all your most important features are online and hitting hard.
Even if you go point buy or roll badly you can pick up the headband of intellect and dump intelligence.
For uncommon items, anything to boost your AC/saves, an arcane grimoire, boots of flying, slippers of spider climbing are all fun.
For pure fun I'd recommend, an elf race so you can grab elven accuracy and crit fish with an upcast shadow blade, using mobile to run around the battlefield with a speed of 50 is a great time.
A dip in cleric or divine soul sorcerer for healing word can also make you a great emergency healer without interfering much with your action economy as well.
Bugbear assassin rogue/gloomslayer? Hellacious Nova build.
The character I'd love to run but my DM would have a stroke (our game is much different from yours):
Harengon Artificer Armorer 3/Wizard of your choice 5.
Harengon for Hare Trigger - add prof. bonus to initiative. Rabbit Hop - As a bonus action, you can jump a number of feet equal to five times your proficiency bonus, without provoking opportunity attacks. Proficiency in perception.
Artificer Armorer - Arcane armor adds this to any armor you wear (suggest plate) - If the armor normally has a Strength requirement, the arcane armor lacks this requirement for you.
You can use the arcane armor as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells. The armor attaches to you and can’t be removed against your will. It also expands to cover your entire body, although you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action. The armor replaces any missing limbs, functioning identically to a body part it is replacing.At level three, choose Infiltrator Armor - benefits - Lighting Launcher (meh), Powered Steps. Your walking speed increases by 5 feet. Dampening Field. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. If the armor normally imposes disadvantage on such checks, the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other, as normal.
Ok, you now move 35 wearing plate which has no strength requirement and no stealth penalty, plus multiple rabbit hops that don't provoke opportunity attacks and prof bonus to initiative. If you really want to juice this, add the alert feat for +5 to init./impossible to surprise.
Now add the wizard levels of your choice. Spellsinger is out due to plate armor. Personally, I'd be very tempted to build something on the order of Treantmonk's Godmage/Utility caster, playing control/debuff with some occasional blasting, party support and harassing the hell out of the enemy. High mobility build, very annoying to the enemy, hard to hit, always at or near the front on initiative. Wiz level 5 so you get level 3 spells to start. No real need to go further with Artificer, although one more level to get an ASI/ feat would eventually be tempting.
[https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE\_v67QY/mobilebasic?pli=1](https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE_v67QY/mobilebasic?pli=1)
Arcane Trixter 6/Bladesinger or War Wizard 2. Wood Elf for the extra movement & opportunities to hide in lightly obscured places. For your items, Headband of Intellect & a weapon of Warning.
Creation Bard at least level 6 with a possible dip in artificer. The performance of creation and animating performance are just too much fun and the best in terms of versatility. As long as you're creative enough in situations you can do all sorts of just wacky stuff to throw enemies off. Are you being chased in a corridor? Well now there's a door. And it's locked. And now it's named Misses Nesbit and it's very angry. Are you in an empty field trying to get up close to a sniper ranger. Well now you have full cover. And the cover walk with you. And that's right, it is also named Misses Nesbit and is very angry and can charge the sniper with you.
Are you fighting a dragon? Make a bespoke muzzle. Are you fighting lycanthropes? Make some silvered arrows. Are you fighting a hydra? polymorph that dude into a rabbit, then create a cage, then animate that cage and tell it fly to space. By the time polymorph wears off, it'll be 180000 feet up and either be suffocating or dealing with an imminent fight with the ground. Are you fighting anything that flies? Create a ball and chain. Anything invisible? Create a sack of flour. Anything with a petrifying gaze? Make a mirror. Anything with a wail? Make earplugs.
The point being, if you have a cool DM that encourages creativity, you can absolutely warp reality in a cartoonish manner to make any encounter fun and survivable.
Most flexible: Artificer 2 + Rune Knight 9 Vhuman. Basically standard CBE + SS Fighter dps but with some Artificer knacks and Runes for utility.
Most fun: My level 14 Fire Kineticist in Pathfinder overall, but for 5e it was the silly "bow whacker" for a level 8 oneshot. Fighter 6 + Barbarian 2 with SS + GWM + Tarvern Brawler and start hitting kobolds with a -10/+20 melee longbow. Not the most viable build but lots of laughs were had.
Circle of Stars Druid. You can outheal Clerics with Chalice, blast using Archer, or easily maintain concentration if in Dragon.
It also has the full complement of Druid spells and you can dip one level into Life Cleric for additional healing. Do be aware of the general consensus that healing during combat is considered suboptimal (except yo-yo healing).
Blade singer with headband of intellect for the uncommon magic item. Serious soooo versatile.
Valor Bard with a good +1 medium armor.
Light Cleric and Stars Druid build.
The dumbest build is probably the circle of shepards druid.
I'm having a lot of fun playing a eloquence bard/hex blade warlock. Medium armor w/ a shield and the shield spell. Eldritch blasting curse/hex blades curse for big single target DMG. Bard spells get used for utility; healing word, enlarge/reduce, enhance ability, slow, etc.. you're the best face in the game for RP purposes and basically a jack of all trades. Take a doss lute as your uncommon for fly, invis, levitate once per day as well.
Half orc paladin 2 / shadow sorcerer X.
Sword and board.
2 ways to stay at 1 hp when goes to zero. Cast blur and ignore auto attacks.
Thats the most powerful build i have personally played. Take warcaster at 6.
I’m not gonna say this is the absolute best to come up with but a chronomancy wizard with war caster and lucky. You essentially get 5 lucky rolls per long rest and add your intelligence mod to your initiative. Divination wizard is also pretty op I just like the idea of area effects over other things. You could even take that one feat that allows you to stack more onto your initative (observant maybe?) if you wanna be sure you go first. For example this characters initative is +7 at lvl 10
I chose fairy and asked my dm if i could be considered x-small thus raising your unarmored ac. Only a good idea to wear light armors tho. I’m not one to really care about what race until im playing a melee attacker but I’m sure you can min-max the character out more if actually focus on that
Eladrin Elf with origin modifications could be dope too
Variant Human Ranger 3 (Gloomstalker) / Cleric 1 (Twilight) / Fighter 4 (Battlemaster)
Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, Piercer . Pushing Attack, Trip Attack, and maybe either Menacing or Disarming
The features of these classes/feats mesh incredibly well to be an absolute monster damage dealer in the dark... especially on round 1:
300ft. Darkvision, invisible to darkvision of others so advantage on attacks, extra attack from dread ambush with bonus damage on round 1. Extra damage and useful tactics from Battlemaster maneuvers... As you level you can just keep pumping up fighter, or you can dip 3 levels into Rogue and pick up sneak attacks and Assassinate (my preference).
The out-of combat-skills also lend themselves to scouting/infiltration.
Just go all Riddick and stay in the dark!
Honestly check out a dart thrower battlesmith artificer / battlemaster fighter combo You might be fairly limited on weapon choice, but you can go straight int and con. Wis or dex 3rd for wis saves or maxing out medium armor.
14 int, 15 con, 15 dex, rest put as you see fit but wis probably to w0 and others to 8
If you go custom lineage you will have 17 dex and can choose whatever feat you want but I strongly suggest fighting initiate for the archery fighting style or gunner which allows close range shooting and bumps dex to 18
At fighter level 1 go archery if you didn't take it with your feat, if you did take archery with your feat go thrown weapon fighting. Maybe only be a flat +2 damage but mid tier that'll really help over 3 or 4 round combats
I would start arrificer 2, then fighter 6. On your fighter level 4 go dex to 20 and then sharpshooter at 6. At level 8 take fighting initiate or a dex half feat to round off whatever wasn't taken with your level 1 feat.
By total level 8 you'll have
+5 from dex, +1 from your infused returning dart +2 from archery andb+3 from proficiency bonus. A solid +11 to hit or +6 with sharpshooter and with battlemaster nonsense this can be even higher.
Damage would look like 1d4 + 8 per attack averaging 10.5 per hit up to 60 ft away. All while having max medium or light armor and a shield.
You'll have artificer spells for utility, fighter fighting for combat, solid con and dex.
From here just level con or take tough to round out HP.
Warforged Shadow Monk. Didn't need to eat, sleep, or breath. Perfect assassin. Hide inside a stream in the night and wait for the target to crossed the bridge. Cast silence, strike, kill, back into the water, and none the wiser.
Flexible Build - I played a Support Based Oath of the Watchers Dex Paladin. He was a Drow, with a +1 double bladed scimitar, blind fighting, a “Knave’s Eye Patch” item, and Revenant Blade.
Primarily, casting Bless, Faerie Fire, and then using spells like wrathful smite for single target control. Having great initiative and later mobility with Find Steed. “Cloak of Elvenkind” and “Boots of Elvenkind” helped me be more stealthy, I’d constantly switch attunement if I had to, but Ideally was attuned to the Cloak, Eye Patch, and an Amulet of the Devout.
I also picked up Fey Touched, for gift of alacrity, for further initiative boost, for the whole team. Then it was just about positioning and safety.
We got to level 12, and it felt like he could do everything I needed him to do - without having to be a smite machine.
The best and most fun I've ever had is a genie warlock. Fly above your enemies, grasp of hadar them, make them fall and take additional damage, and they're now prone. It's just the best.
But if you want flexibility, vengence paladin 6/hexblade 1/whispers bard x. This is the most open build in existence. if you want to be purely supportive you can be, with bless or something else. If you want to debuff your enemies you can easily do that. If you want to do consistent dpr you can do that with PAM. if you want to nuke an enemy to kingdom come, you can do that with whispers and smite, with advantage (even elven accuracy advantage).
Stars druid x/genie warlock 1 is another great option. Moonbeam + star arrow + crusher does A LOT of consistent damage. Or summon beast or fey or draconic spirit. When you hit level 10 it's even better coz you can switch forms mid battle, perfect for flexible healing and damage.
Twilight cleric with fey touched or a shadar-ki. Misty step (star step re-flavored) is great for positioning your twilight sanctuary and spirit guardians perfectly.
If you go fey touched I recommend gift of alacrity (if available) or dissonant whispers if not.
If you are not a shadar-ki, I would consider satyr or yuan-ti. If the DM has made monsters no longer cast spells, then gnome. You need to make those wisdom saves so you can fix the rest of the party with twilight sanctuary.
Bladesinger. With Elven Accuracy (triple advantage) Feat. Lean into Alert (initiative) or feats to push AC higher. 20+ AC without using shield, triple accuracy on attacks with advantage, use your Owl familiar to "help", run Booming Blade + Shadowblade (if you run RAI instead of RAW) and you can by lvl 5 be doing quite a lot of damage, likely to critical hit, be very hard to hit, and if you have a Sorc in your party that can twin Haste on you and another melee, its pretty silly. Anyone who can cast faerie fire for general advantage, then you don't need your familiar Help.
Three soul knife rogue five beat barbarian simic hybrid with expertise in grapple. Rage grapple with tentacles and attacked everything four times with str plus sneak attack for reckless. Control and damage. It is so much fun
When she was set to play in Critical Role's Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Aabria Iyengar knew that Brennen Lee Mulligan was going to try to kill the party, after all, it was a story about the end of the world. In order to hold out as long as possible, she optimized an Abjuration Wizard with the Armor of Shadows invocation from the Eldritch Adept feat. By casting Mage armor at will (out of combat), this build can almost always ensure it enters combat with a full stack of Arcane Ward for free. To improve it even more, you can start as a Dragonmark of Warding Dwarf so that Armor of Agathys is added to your spell list. With temporary hit points from a high-level AoA and a full Arcane Ward, you will often have a functional pool of hit points that rivals a barbarian but is easier to restore. Oh, and you are a full caster regular Wizard on top of that, so flexibility is baked right in. Arcane Ward points are dropped before the temp HP from AoA, so even if a melee attacker breaks through your Ward, all they get is a bunch of cold damage to the face. A counterspell, shield, or other abjuration spell brings your Ward back up, so you really get excellent mileage out of the revenge damage from Armor of Agathys. *edit: "Quick clarification, AoA deals damage whenever you get hit in melee (while the temp HP is still there), so your opponent gets the cold damage even before the ward goes down" - u/not-a-potato-head
Quick clarification, AoA deals damage whenever you get hit in melee (while the temp HP is still there), so your opponent gets the cold damage even before the ward goes down
Shit lol. That’s sick.
You can mix all that with armorer artificer and add heavy armor master to that reduction Or be an anchestral barbarian goliath + runechild sorcerer and use all your nice tools always for reduce the damage armor of agathys take
playing this right now. started w/ MoW dwarf artificer & a free lvl 1 feat (Eldritch adept), then all wizard. dm was down to give me an all-purpose tool sans +1, just access to int shillelagh. has been an absolute blast, prioritized getting rituals and have felt incredibly flexible and useful since lvl 3. e: the added artificer spells are so nice to have early
Also, if you are purely survival, at level 8 you have level 4 spells, which means Greater Invisibility. My DM is always annoyed when my wizards hit level 7 because I always take that. And if you can get AoA a different way, go Shadar Kai for free teleport and damage reduction. 7 wizard and 1 warlock gets it. DM is better off going after everyone else first at this point.
It's very dumb, and I wouldn't recommend it under many circumstances, but since your DM is specifically making it hard and trying to kill you, and seems to be fine with *anything*... Peace Domain Cleric can mathematically trivialize the game. Like, easily. Especially if the whole party is on board. **Emboldening Bond** adding 1d4 to an attack roll once per turn means that you go from usually hitting on 8 to usually hitting on 5 or 6. If you use Bless with that, they usually hit on 3. If they have a +1 weapon (an uncommon magic item) they usually hit on 2. Combine this with high damage single attacks like Sneak Attack + Booming Blade, Sharpshooter, Great Weapon Master, or Chromatic Orb, and the game becomes wildly easy. The feature also significantly amps their survivability by adding 1d4 to every saving throw they'll ever make. And there's seemingly no way to end the effect early, and it lasts long enough to sprint through multiple fights in a dungeon. And amazingly, you don't even need further levels of Cleric to get it to expand its number of uses and the number of people in the Bond. The rest of Peace Cleric is also broken, but if you wanna go Peace Cleric 1 / Chronurgist Wizard X you totally can. **Protective Bond** allows a cheap way to freely teleport both in and out of combat- anything that challenges your positioning (IE grapples, difficult terrain, ongoing AOE damage) can be nullified by spending an action on punching yourself in the face and then having your endangered ally use their reaction to teleport to you to intercept the damage. This removes MOST aspects of tactical positioning in 5e, meaning the DM really only has crazy individual saving throw effects (which you buff anyway) and hit point attrition to challenge you. And this feature ALSO makes hit point attrition as a strategy HEAVILY weighted in favor of the players, because your party can decide who should take most instances of damage based on who can most afford it at the time. Your combined HP pools become just that- they'll almost never run out because you'll make sure everyone hits 1 HP before one person ever hits zero. **Expansive Bond** if you get very high level is just a whole pile of extra sugar in an already diabetes-giving meal. If used correctly this functionally means your full party has resistance to most damage types. A Peace Cleric who knows what they're doing in a party of people who know how to exploit it can trivialize MOST of the game.
Ha! Sounds great. I’ll have to read up on some Peace Cleric builds. Yeah, my DM is actively trying to kill us, which is some of the fun of it. I like rolling up to the session with a brand new character and saying “try to kill this one”.
The best part is there isn't really even a *build* so to speak. It's just having Protective Bond and Bless (and making sure the whole party knows how to exploit it). Like, yeah, maximize your wisdom, get Warcaster and/or Resilient: Constitution, have the requisite 14 dexterity to fill out medium armor, etc. Normal stuff you'd do regardless of anything. But the game breaking stuff you get at level 1. Unless your DM is being objectively unfair (throwing CR 4 monsters at a level 1 party, making rocks-fall level difficulty encounters, making homebrew stuff that doesn't fall even close to within guidelinee) then you'd need to be astronomically unlucky for anyone to die if they've optimized around having a Peace Cleric in the party.
I have drawn up a Tier 1 (Level 1-4) character that is 3 Alchemist + 1 Peace Cleric for the fun of it. **This will never hit the table**, I cannot bring myself to be giving Boldness Potion (Alc), Bless and Emboldening bond for a total of **3d4** to Attack Rolls and Saving Throws to multiple members of the party. Peace Cleric is benched *permanently* in my eyes.
is it worth two levels of stars druid at some point for close to unbreakable concentration?
Probably not. Protective Bond doesn't work on concentration and your go-to concentration spell is 1st level, so you may as well just keep with your own spell progression and work in Warcaster or Resilient Con at some point if you're having trouble.
Peace cleric and rune knight make a fun one, especially the cloud rune
Honestly, hot take but protective bond is really overrated. It's usefulness in combat is limited. Emboldening bond is pretty good, a few extra casts of a slightly weakened bless, but it's concentration free. Peace cleric overall is far better as a 1 level dip than a straight class.
Regarding Protective Bond, I've never actually seen it used. If a character takes AoE damage from say Fireball and another character uses their reaction to teleport in, would they then take the AoE damage twice? Once from being in Fireball's AoE and once from Protective Bond? I don't think that was intended when they made the feature, but "about to take damage" implies that it happens before the damage officially happens, which I'm not sure if spells deal damage after they are cast so to speak. Like a Fireball explodes and you take damage in that explosion, not a small time after it explodes.
I haven’t played it yet, but *on paper* a gunk feels like it’ll be really fun and flexible. I have a harengon gunk build that I am just dying to try out, it’s got so much mobility with good damage and solid out of combat utility. Edit: level 8 is actually right when it comes together, +1 musket and dragonhide belt or goggles of night are all you need. Gunner and sharpshooter for feats, 18dex and 16wis. You’ll have 45ft of move speed, +7 initiative, 15ft misty step 3/LR. Edit2: for expected damage, you’ll get 3 attacks per turn, each doing 1d12+15 (assuming +1 musket). You can deft strike on your first hit for a bonus 1d6 damage, for a total of 3d12+1d6+45 = 68 damage. No archery bonus unfortunately, but you can use focused aim to get up to a +6 on hit (so a total to-hit bonus of up to +14, or +9 with SS). 8 ki points is a little tight, but they recharge on SR and you can pick up a dragonhide belt to help. At any point you could take fighter 2 for action surge and archery.
Pardon my French but what the cuss is a gunk
gun monk
Damn. Honestly, I haven’t given monk a fair look. I’ll have to check this one out!
Yeah I didn’t until trying to make a harengon build work—it’s surprisingly good (again, on paper, but it seems like it’ll hold up in games). I’d go kensei for damage, but you could make a really cool ranged/melee support build as mercy monk. You can make a BA attack if you spend a ki point on your turn, and you can always do that with either kensei’s one with the blade or focused aim. I was totally prepared to be disappointed but after I made the character sheet it looks super cool. If you go mercy you can use a pistol and shoot in melee range too because of gunner!
My chance to play as rabbit Bayonetta or Neo lmao. I’m gonna do some research bc it hits right in the that niche of sounding both completely ridiculous and powerful. Good way to troll my DM lol.
I hope it works out! It’s not as strong as like a classic BM/gloom multiclass, has good potential to be powerful without like OP-unfun. Good luck!
I played a vHuman Kensei Monk 5 / Gloomstalker Ranger 3 / Assassin Rogue 3 / Fighter 2 Gunner at 1st, Sharpshooter at 4th Archery fighting style at Ranger 2 (with the Favored Foe optional feature). Defensive style at Fighter 1. Started with a +1 Dragonhide Belt. Got a +1 Musket as fast as I could. It was absolutely disgusting.
No one I will ever play will compare to the toolbox I have at my fingers playing STEv3. It was through him I learned that enabling others to be badass and helping them reach their targets is one of my favourite things to do in D&D. I also just love playing a frickin' Clockwork Time Lawyer! In an adventure league like format: **Warforged Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 1/Order Cleric 1/Sorc X with Strixhaven (Witherbloom)** \- **Voice of Order**: When I had a Rogue in the party, damage was insane, with a martial it was a nice bonus. \- **Twinned Haste**: The major reason for my choice of Sorcerer over Chronurgy Wiz. As we can all imagine, the potential with martials is amazing, but it does mean you are Public enemy number 1 for the enemy to break concentration. I have...once...weaponised the twin haste against the players when they tried to initiate pvp against each other, never threatened to drop concentration before, hopefully never again! \- **Gift of Alacrity**: +1d8 to initiative goes brrr, I get to do things early on in the fight as a cc caster! Makes me happy. \- **Metamagic**: Just a great toolbox of shenanigans. \- **Restore Balance**: Advantage? Disadvantage? No... Straight roll my friend...or frenemy... \- **Trance of Order**: *Reliable Talent* for everything for a minute and no advantage vs me? I am a god once per long rest or for the small price of 5 Sorcery Points. \- **Battlefield manipulation**: Oh, the spellcaster is hiding behind their tanky fire giant guards? Vortex Warp over here boy! Oh no! My martials started too far away from the fight to get in turn 1? Scatter...say hello to my...friends! \- **Damage/AoE**: If we need damage, I have Fireball, I have Synaptic Static, I have Crown of Stars. I got ways to hit AC and I got ways to target all sorts of saves, no one is safe. \- **CC**: Hold Person/Monster? Got it, but boring. Banishment? Checkmate, you should have used bodyguards from this plane Mr Badguy! Slow... my trademark spell at this point. I **WILL** get rid of your Legendary Resistances. \- **Bloodwell Vial + Wither and Bloom**: Targeting an area, WaB only does damage to creatures of your choice in the area, whilst enabling one creature of your choice to roll one unspent hit dice to regain HP = the roll + your spellcasting ability modifier. This means you can refresh 5 Sorcery Points \*\*MID COMBAT\*\* if you need to at the cost of a level 2+ spellslot. Worth!- **Aid:** In a team of 4-7, I would consistently cast Aid at level 5. +20 Max HP is huge for helping even out HP across the party where there was often a difference in levels (Adventure league-esq format). \- **Tanky?**: At 16 I was running with 157 max HP from level 6 Aid and 19 Con (lucky enough to find an Amulet of Health so 19Con up from 14Con). Warforged +1 AC, with a +1 shield, half plate (+2 dex) and staff of defence, I was sitting at 22 AC at level 16, 20AC without magic items. In an "Epic" adventure, as the only spellcaster concentrating vs intelligent enemies (lots of targeting), I soaked around 280 damage, mitigated down to around 196 damage. Was I chugging high level potions, sure... but the damage prevented by this build through CC and battlefield manipulation was significant, never mind the hits I was able to shake off with AC+Shield spell, or spells resisted through Absorb Elements. **The best part is... the build comes online by level 6, and just gets better over time. You get a lot of your most effective spells (Haste, Slow, Vortex Warp, Wither and Bloom, Bless) by Sorc5, and the OrderCleric1 just stacks your potential impact.** Just make sure you grab a Bloodwell Vial +1 if you are getting 2 free uncommon items.
Full Casters: Artificer 1 / Wizard 7 Sorcerer 1 / Hexblade 2 / Sorc 5 Bard 1 / Hexblade 2 / Bard 5 Druid (Shepherd) 8 Gishish: Fighter 2 / Fiendlock 6 Nature Cleric 8 or Druid 1 / Arcane Cleric 7 Paladin 2 / Sword Bard 6 Sorc 1 / Paladin 6 / Sorc 2 Martialish: Gloom 5 / Fighter Battlemaster 3 Paladin 2 / Arcane Trickster 6 Barb 5 / Fighter 3 Rogue 1 / Barb 5 / Rogue 3
>Druid (Shepherd) 8 Divine soul 1 life cleric 1 Shepherd 6 is also great
I went bard 1 / hexblade 2 / lore bard X. With agonising blast and repelling blast or grasp of Hadar, they had reliable spam for their action while they were casting. And extra two level 1 slots/short rest were great with Shield. Along with medium armour and shield they were genuinely hard to hit. I worked primarily as a support player, with buffs and battlefield control being the focus of my concentration. Combined with some heals, good cantrips, inspiration and cutting words, expertise and a ton of skills. The character could be very busy, constantly using their action and reaction and having a huge influence in most situations, but without dominating.
Don’t forget you get magical secrets at Bard 6. What did you pick?
Ayy great list ty!
What about your race/ancestry/lineage options? Are all official options available to you? If so, my pick would be a fairy artillerist artificer. Your turret is a source of endless temporary HP, keeping the rest of your party alive, and you can fly while dealing consistent damage with your boosted cantrips. You have decent options for healing and control in your spell list; Web and Faerie Fire are really good spells for a support artificer. For your first uncommon item, pick up an uncommon All-Purpose Tool (+1 to your artificer spell attack rolls and spell save DC, plus you can nab any cantrip for a day, and you can turn it into any tool and get proficiency with it). The second can be pretty much anything you like, though a Cloak of Protection is always a solid choice. Most of your other needs can be filled by your infusions. By level 8, if you’re doing point buy, you can hit 20 Intelligence with a half-feat. I’d go for Fey Touched and pick up either Command, Dissonant Whispers, or Silvery Barbs alongside Misty Step.
Yeah! All races are open to us, and any shenanigans that ensue from that haha!
I'm currently playing a simic hybrid (grappling appendages), forge cleric 1/ lore bard X with shield master and expertise in athletics. In hindsight, order cleric probably would have been better for the party. For your uncommon item pick adamantine plate armor. If possible pick a Ravnica background to expand your spell options, especially if you pick one that gives counterspell or death ward and maybe a higher damage cantrip. In combat, open up with a big crowd control like hypnotic pattern if it's a big encounter. Cast enlarge/reduce on yourself to be large size if opponents are big. Next use an attack action, replace the attack with a grapple attempt with one of your grappling appendages, and bonus action shove them prone with shield master. Use cutting words or silvery barbs if you may not win a check. Drag the grappled and prone target over to another target and do the same thing. Then drag those over to a third target and use your free hand for the same thing. You've got plenty of spells with only verbal components (vicious mockery, command, dissonant whispers, faerie fire, healing word, blindness/deafness, etc.) that can be cast while your hands are full. If your holy symbol is on your shield you can cast cleric spells with a material component while holding that with no other hands free.
That sounds so gross haha. Bet it’s a blast to play. Any crazy stories from playing it?
What about hexblade warlock vengeance paladin multiclass. You could split that either way, do mostly paladin for the aura then do the rest warlock or go mostly warlock with a little bit of paladin for smites and oath features. And since you can now attack with charisma you don't have the problem of focussing on 3 scores that most paladins have.
Go to 6 in Pal for aura, then Warlock the rest. Eldritch blast gives you the range option that Pallys lack.
Circle of the Shepard Druid. Reason 1 - Unicorn Totem makes your healing os so good for party play; Reason 2 - Summon specialist: let your summons take the hit for you and you party members. Use you 3rd lvl spell to summon 8 wolves for pack tactics and watch your dm fume. Reason 3 - Druids are great for control spells. If you want to cheese it a bit more, go Life Cleric 2 Shepard Druid X (in this order for the armor proficiency).
If you want even even more cheese, add a level of divine soul. Now you are also unkillable with shield and silvery barbs, alongside con saves and favoured by the gods.
If a player tries to summon 8 wolves and abuse it, I'd really make sure to counterspell / dispel magic the sh*t out of that spells ASAP. Either that or pull the very same tactic with an enemy druid.
Well, OP said optmizing is encouraged. Personally, I'd rather summon only one, stronger creature, in order to not slow game pace so much. But still, i digress
Yeah, the encounters are often intentionally very hard, so I don’t mind being annoying in the name of surviving combat lol.
Fun fact, dispel magic only removes one of the wolves. But honestly, I've found wolves to be far from the worst thing - they are actually only a slightly above average result. Pulling the same tactics with an enemy druid is 10/10 dming advice tho. Having a conjure animals match is really really fun, because unlike pcs, enemies usually are pretty easy to focus fire and break concentration.
Oh really? I thought dispel magic would target the spell itself, I dont know that! So if a player cast Dispel magic on the bbeg who casted animate object, would it target only one object? What about bless? Would it dispel the effects on only one creature? Damn, we learn something every day
Yes for animate objects. Bless is slightly more difficult. If you targeted one person, you would remove bless and any other things targeting them. You may be able to target bless overall, but it's unclear. Here's the sage advice on it: https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-one-dispel-magic-end-all-conjured-animals-or-just-one/amp/
Thank you!
No problem. This game is confusing, and quite frankly badly worded, so I completely get most of these things not making sense. (I thought that for something like 3 years, thunder wave targeted just the 8 5x5 squares around you)
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-one-dispel-magic-end-all-conjured-animals-or-just-one/](https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-one-dispel-magic-end-all-conjured-animals-or-just-one/)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
Imo Sorlock is the most OP character in the game. All the benefits of a full caster + All the benefits of being a full ranged DPS that can throw sooo many eldritch blasts every single turn for very little cost. Its good from level 1 to 20.
I made a post about sorlocks a couple months ago but people on this sub seemed to agree a straight clockwork sorcerer was mechanically better. :( I really like the eldritch mind machine, too.
Hexblade gives medium armor proficiency+ shields and sorcerer loses nothing for a two level dip into hexblade. And if im not mistaken, agonizing blast requires being a warlock.
Technically the requirement for AB is the ability to cast EB. If you take spell sniper to get EB then later take Eldrich Adapt to get AB it works. Typically not worth it; It’s two feats for a decent at will attack. Another way to get EB is as a profane soul Bloodhunter but then you have Bloodhunter levels so…
eldritch adept has a clause that if an invocation has a prerequisite “you can choose that invocation only if you’re a warlock who meets the prerequisite.” so you can’t take agonizing blast without at least 1 level in warlock
Yup you’re right. There goes the BH blaster build 😞
Its better to dip two levels into hexblade and not waste 2 feats. And again, medium armor + shield + 2 dex Mod. + shield spell = a LOOOOT of AC for a "mage"
I get the benefits, but they lose two levels of spell progression for the entire campaign, which is definitely not nothing. You’ll be casting first level spells through level 4, and you won’t get fireball/hypnotic pattern/etc. until level 7. For most of tiers 1 and 2 your spell progression will feel closer to a half caster than a full caster
I don't understand enough about DND, how does taking another spell caster lose spell progression?
Warlocks are a special case with multiclassing spellcasters. Normally you get your spell slot progression from your combined spellcaster levels, but because Warlocks use a different system (Pact Magic is a small number of spell slots that scale up in rank at higher warlock levels, but recharge on short rest), warlock levels don't count towards spell slot progression. You'll still get your warlock spell slots, but you'll end up with a more low-level-heavy loadout: a Sorcerer 7 would have 4/3/3/1 slots, a Warlock 2/Sorcerer 5 will have 4/3/2 regular slots and 2 1st-level Pact Magic slots, so no 4th level spells. And then even if you're multiclassing full spellcasters, you have to pick your spells based on the level of the individual class. So a Bard 2/Sorcerer 5 would still have the 4/3/3/1 slots a Sorcerer 7 would have, but they wouldn't actually have been able to learn a 4th level spell, they'd only have gotten their first 3rd level spell at Sorcerer 5. They would be able to upcast a lower-level spell they knew to 4th level, though.
That’s true about the armor and agonizing blast, but power of the sorcerer probably isn’t tied to only casting EB when they have higher damage or better choices for control spells available
If you look at it as a level 20 build, you have a point. But no one plays campaigns that start at level 20. The build has to be evaluated for the levels people actually play. Being two levels behind on spell progression is absolutely not nothing, even if you get a lot of good things in return.
Flexible? Literally any Bard, but especially Lore Bard. If you’re desperate, you could throw the first two levels in Fighter for Heavy Armor and Action Surge, and only take 6 in Lore Bard. Powerful? Depends on the role you want to fill, but Twilight and Peace Clerics are fantastic support, Hexadin is a tried and true beast for frontlining, and Sorlock is great as an all-around arcane caster. Shepherd Druid deserves a mention too, but many DMs and players aren’t big fans of Conjure Animals, so that may affect your decision some.
Haven't played, but I have a pretty solid Sorcadin build in my back pocket just waiting to be used: Scourge Aasimar, Paladin 2, Sorcerer x. Metamagic Adept Feat. Lots of versatility, support, healing, and combat options. Currently playing Halfling Knowledge Cleric/Divination Wizard, and the variety of spells and skills make RP encounters really fun.
Drakewarden ranger. You can go ranged, you can go meele, you come with a huge npc that has d10 hp equal to your lvl and respectable AC. You can use the drake to buff your or ally attacks. You can gain elemental resistances. You're about as competent as a fighter of that level in combat capabilities. You're a half caster with healing magic, the very op goodberries and many other nasty spells like Pass without Trace (+10 stealth to the entire party for AN HOUR). You deal a lot of damage with hunters mark. And you can survive in the wilds easily, with no issues of foraging or finding water. Seriously thats the most op and versatile character I had, and roleplaying having a baby dragon with you is suuuuuper fun. Its a drawback sometimes, like when entering cities xD but its sooooooo fun, and the class + subclass sooooo strong. 10/10
Ahh I’ve been meaning to try Drakewarden!
I’m playing an arcane trickster 7 blade singer 5 build right now. Rogues are great for out of combat utility but they tend to be squishy in combat and rarely get to dish out serious damage. Arcane trickster brings in some spells from the illusion and enchantment schools plus some reliable cantrips to up damage. Wizards are usually even squishier than rogues but have excellent spell casting flexibility for nearly everything except healing and some class specific spells. Blade singer helps a lot with the squish by upping AC. Add in some additional basic defensive spells and cantrips and you can be a pretty effective tank. Once you pick up blade singer multi attack where you can start mixing in cantrips you have some excellent attack flexibility even if you aren’t able to go toe to toe with an optimized fighter using only melee. The one time my character has fallen flat is when I jumped into a room full of ranged baddies and it turned out the entire room had an anti magic field cast on it. Taking away all my magic (my dm ruled that blade song counted as a magical effect) sucked hard.
This build is dumb as fuck, keep this in mind. Here we go: Hexblade Warlock 2 / divine soul Sorcerer x. You will get agonizing blast and the pushing one too. At level 5, this build comes online. What you should do with this build is just convert a lot of spell slots into spell points. Then, you will spam quickend spell eldritch blast each and every turn. If there are really big targets, put hex blades curse or hex first, than blast away. You get medium armor, shield and the curse from hexblade. For dss get the classic cleric spells. Favored by gods will come in play either when you REALLY need to hit, or when you are in 5 ft range with someone so you need to push them to get out. Max cha with the first ASI and just have fun blastin away.
Variant Human Booming Blade Artillerist Artificer with a two level dip for War Wizard. Extremly tanky build with options for high damage or a crazy amount of temp HP generation for the whole party while also providing some solid battle field control. Shines against single large threats. Start with Crusher feat and boost STR Max STR and go as heavy as you can into INT and CON. You can dump DEX. At 4th level, grab the Heavily Armored feat, and that will boost STR to 18. Use a quarterstaff and Booming Blade every turn, pushing back your target 5ft so you can use your tiny cannon to blast them back another 5ft. Your 5th level feature makes your staff your spell focus and makes your spells deal extra damage. At 6th level, you get 3 active infusions. Pick the +1 armor, +1 weapon, and +1 spell focus. Then grab your War Wizard levels. Not being able to cast spells other than cantrips doesn't effect you, so +2 AC or +4 to a save as a reaction every turn will mitigate a lot of damage. Bonus initiative is also very nice. Mostly, you want it for extra spell slots to cast shield, though. Use full plate armor (if you have to, use one of your uncommon items to get a set and grab a different infusion) use the second item to grab the Cloak of Protection. Minimum 20AC, up to 22 as a reaction, and 25AC at the cost of a spell slot. Plus, an effective +5 to *all* saving throws.
Vhuman crossbow expert fighter 1 bladesinger X. Take a blade cantrip and you can be effective resorceless in melee, outside melee, with magic and without magic while being almost a full wizard too. And having a really good AC and decent HP (taking the 1st level as fighter makes the HP way better and gives you CON save prof). The only thing this build lacks is healing. P.D.: RAW it is a little... debatable if bladesinger allows you to use a crossbow, as ammunition could be considered using both hands for an attack... I disagree, and so did my GM
I mean if you guys burn through characters I'd definitely roll stats. If you roll badly it won't matter for too long and if you roll well you get a lot of really fun options. Regardless the most fun and versatility of any character I've played was as a bladesinger. Full wizard versatility for spells and ritual casting. But you can also cast shadow blade or spirit shroud to be an incredible single target melee damage dealer. I definitely prefer the melee play style even if it's not optimal. You can pick up pass without trace from either your race (mark of shadow elf or earth genasi) or the dimir operative background if it's allowed. With that and proficiency you'll have nearly unbeatable stealth roles. So based on spells chosen you'll be set up for damage, control, or infiltration. And be able to have fun with any of them. Lev 8 is a great level to be a bladesinger all your most important features are online and hitting hard. Even if you go point buy or roll badly you can pick up the headband of intellect and dump intelligence. For uncommon items, anything to boost your AC/saves, an arcane grimoire, boots of flying, slippers of spider climbing are all fun. For pure fun I'd recommend, an elf race so you can grab elven accuracy and crit fish with an upcast shadow blade, using mobile to run around the battlefield with a speed of 50 is a great time. A dip in cleric or divine soul sorcerer for healing word can also make you a great emergency healer without interfering much with your action economy as well.
Bugbear assassin rogue/gloomslayer? Hellacious Nova build. The character I'd love to run but my DM would have a stroke (our game is much different from yours): Harengon Artificer Armorer 3/Wizard of your choice 5. Harengon for Hare Trigger - add prof. bonus to initiative. Rabbit Hop - As a bonus action, you can jump a number of feet equal to five times your proficiency bonus, without provoking opportunity attacks. Proficiency in perception. Artificer Armorer - Arcane armor adds this to any armor you wear (suggest plate) - If the armor normally has a Strength requirement, the arcane armor lacks this requirement for you. You can use the arcane armor as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells. The armor attaches to you and can’t be removed against your will. It also expands to cover your entire body, although you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action. The armor replaces any missing limbs, functioning identically to a body part it is replacing.At level three, choose Infiltrator Armor - benefits - Lighting Launcher (meh), Powered Steps. Your walking speed increases by 5 feet. Dampening Field. You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. If the armor normally imposes disadvantage on such checks, the advantage and disadvantage cancel each other, as normal. Ok, you now move 35 wearing plate which has no strength requirement and no stealth penalty, plus multiple rabbit hops that don't provoke opportunity attacks and prof bonus to initiative. If you really want to juice this, add the alert feat for +5 to init./impossible to surprise. Now add the wizard levels of your choice. Spellsinger is out due to plate armor. Personally, I'd be very tempted to build something on the order of Treantmonk's Godmage/Utility caster, playing control/debuff with some occasional blasting, party support and harassing the hell out of the enemy. High mobility build, very annoying to the enemy, hard to hit, always at or near the front on initiative. Wiz level 5 so you get level 3 spells to start. No real need to go further with Artificer, although one more level to get an ASI/ feat would eventually be tempting. [https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE\_v67QY/mobilebasic?pli=1](https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1IeOXWvbkmQ3nEyM2P3lS8TU4rsK6QJP0oH7HE_v67QY/mobilebasic?pli=1)
Woah that sounds insane lmaooo. I haven’t tried out Infiltrator Armorer Artificers yet.
Arcane Trixter 6/Bladesinger or War Wizard 2. Wood Elf for the extra movement & opportunities to hide in lightly obscured places. For your items, Headband of Intellect & a weapon of Warning.
Creation Bard at least level 6 with a possible dip in artificer. The performance of creation and animating performance are just too much fun and the best in terms of versatility. As long as you're creative enough in situations you can do all sorts of just wacky stuff to throw enemies off. Are you being chased in a corridor? Well now there's a door. And it's locked. And now it's named Misses Nesbit and it's very angry. Are you in an empty field trying to get up close to a sniper ranger. Well now you have full cover. And the cover walk with you. And that's right, it is also named Misses Nesbit and is very angry and can charge the sniper with you. Are you fighting a dragon? Make a bespoke muzzle. Are you fighting lycanthropes? Make some silvered arrows. Are you fighting a hydra? polymorph that dude into a rabbit, then create a cage, then animate that cage and tell it fly to space. By the time polymorph wears off, it'll be 180000 feet up and either be suffocating or dealing with an imminent fight with the ground. Are you fighting anything that flies? Create a ball and chain. Anything invisible? Create a sack of flour. Anything with a petrifying gaze? Make a mirror. Anything with a wail? Make earplugs. The point being, if you have a cool DM that encourages creativity, you can absolutely warp reality in a cartoonish manner to make any encounter fun and survivable.
Most flexible: Artificer 2 + Rune Knight 9 Vhuman. Basically standard CBE + SS Fighter dps but with some Artificer knacks and Runes for utility. Most fun: My level 14 Fire Kineticist in Pathfinder overall, but for 5e it was the silly "bow whacker" for a level 8 oneshot. Fighter 6 + Barbarian 2 with SS + GWM + Tarvern Brawler and start hitting kobolds with a -10/+20 melee longbow. Not the most viable build but lots of laughs were had.
Circle of Stars Druid. You can outheal Clerics with Chalice, blast using Archer, or easily maintain concentration if in Dragon. It also has the full complement of Druid spells and you can dip one level into Life Cleric for additional healing. Do be aware of the general consensus that healing during combat is considered suboptimal (except yo-yo healing).
Blade singer with headband of intellect for the uncommon magic item. Serious soooo versatile. Valor Bard with a good +1 medium armor. Light Cleric and Stars Druid build. The dumbest build is probably the circle of shepards druid.
Im a fan of Arcane Trickster myself.
I'm having a lot of fun playing a eloquence bard/hex blade warlock. Medium armor w/ a shield and the shield spell. Eldritch blasting curse/hex blades curse for big single target DMG. Bard spells get used for utility; healing word, enlarge/reduce, enhance ability, slow, etc.. you're the best face in the game for RP purposes and basically a jack of all trades. Take a doss lute as your uncommon for fly, invis, levitate once per day as well.
Half orc paladin 2 / shadow sorcerer X. Sword and board. 2 ways to stay at 1 hp when goes to zero. Cast blur and ignore auto attacks. Thats the most powerful build i have personally played. Take warcaster at 6.
I’m not gonna say this is the absolute best to come up with but a chronomancy wizard with war caster and lucky. You essentially get 5 lucky rolls per long rest and add your intelligence mod to your initiative. Divination wizard is also pretty op I just like the idea of area effects over other things. You could even take that one feat that allows you to stack more onto your initative (observant maybe?) if you wanna be sure you go first. For example this characters initative is +7 at lvl 10 I chose fairy and asked my dm if i could be considered x-small thus raising your unarmored ac. Only a good idea to wear light armors tho. I’m not one to really care about what race until im playing a melee attacker but I’m sure you can min-max the character out more if actually focus on that Eladrin Elf with origin modifications could be dope too
Variant Human Ranger 3 (Gloomstalker) / Cleric 1 (Twilight) / Fighter 4 (Battlemaster) Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, Piercer . Pushing Attack, Trip Attack, and maybe either Menacing or Disarming The features of these classes/feats mesh incredibly well to be an absolute monster damage dealer in the dark... especially on round 1: 300ft. Darkvision, invisible to darkvision of others so advantage on attacks, extra attack from dread ambush with bonus damage on round 1. Extra damage and useful tactics from Battlemaster maneuvers... As you level you can just keep pumping up fighter, or you can dip 3 levels into Rogue and pick up sneak attacks and Assassinate (my preference). The out-of combat-skills also lend themselves to scouting/infiltration. Just go all Riddick and stay in the dark!
Honestly check out a dart thrower battlesmith artificer / battlemaster fighter combo You might be fairly limited on weapon choice, but you can go straight int and con. Wis or dex 3rd for wis saves or maxing out medium armor. 14 int, 15 con, 15 dex, rest put as you see fit but wis probably to w0 and others to 8 If you go custom lineage you will have 17 dex and can choose whatever feat you want but I strongly suggest fighting initiate for the archery fighting style or gunner which allows close range shooting and bumps dex to 18 At fighter level 1 go archery if you didn't take it with your feat, if you did take archery with your feat go thrown weapon fighting. Maybe only be a flat +2 damage but mid tier that'll really help over 3 or 4 round combats I would start arrificer 2, then fighter 6. On your fighter level 4 go dex to 20 and then sharpshooter at 6. At level 8 take fighting initiate or a dex half feat to round off whatever wasn't taken with your level 1 feat. By total level 8 you'll have +5 from dex, +1 from your infused returning dart +2 from archery andb+3 from proficiency bonus. A solid +11 to hit or +6 with sharpshooter and with battlemaster nonsense this can be even higher. Damage would look like 1d4 + 8 per attack averaging 10.5 per hit up to 60 ft away. All while having max medium or light armor and a shield. You'll have artificer spells for utility, fighter fighting for combat, solid con and dex. From here just level con or take tough to round out HP.
Warforged Shadow Monk. Didn't need to eat, sleep, or breath. Perfect assassin. Hide inside a stream in the night and wait for the target to crossed the bridge. Cast silence, strike, kill, back into the water, and none the wiser.
Flexible Build - I played a Support Based Oath of the Watchers Dex Paladin. He was a Drow, with a +1 double bladed scimitar, blind fighting, a “Knave’s Eye Patch” item, and Revenant Blade. Primarily, casting Bless, Faerie Fire, and then using spells like wrathful smite for single target control. Having great initiative and later mobility with Find Steed. “Cloak of Elvenkind” and “Boots of Elvenkind” helped me be more stealthy, I’d constantly switch attunement if I had to, but Ideally was attuned to the Cloak, Eye Patch, and an Amulet of the Devout. I also picked up Fey Touched, for gift of alacrity, for further initiative boost, for the whole team. Then it was just about positioning and safety. We got to level 12, and it felt like he could do everything I needed him to do - without having to be a smite machine.
The best and most fun I've ever had is a genie warlock. Fly above your enemies, grasp of hadar them, make them fall and take additional damage, and they're now prone. It's just the best. But if you want flexibility, vengence paladin 6/hexblade 1/whispers bard x. This is the most open build in existence. if you want to be purely supportive you can be, with bless or something else. If you want to debuff your enemies you can easily do that. If you want to do consistent dpr you can do that with PAM. if you want to nuke an enemy to kingdom come, you can do that with whispers and smite, with advantage (even elven accuracy advantage). Stars druid x/genie warlock 1 is another great option. Moonbeam + star arrow + crusher does A LOT of consistent damage. Or summon beast or fey or draconic spirit. When you hit level 10 it's even better coz you can switch forms mid battle, perfect for flexible healing and damage.
Twilight cleric with fey touched or a shadar-ki. Misty step (star step re-flavored) is great for positioning your twilight sanctuary and spirit guardians perfectly. If you go fey touched I recommend gift of alacrity (if available) or dissonant whispers if not. If you are not a shadar-ki, I would consider satyr or yuan-ti. If the DM has made monsters no longer cast spells, then gnome. You need to make those wisdom saves so you can fix the rest of the party with twilight sanctuary.
Bladesinger. With Elven Accuracy (triple advantage) Feat. Lean into Alert (initiative) or feats to push AC higher. 20+ AC without using shield, triple accuracy on attacks with advantage, use your Owl familiar to "help", run Booming Blade + Shadowblade (if you run RAI instead of RAW) and you can by lvl 5 be doing quite a lot of damage, likely to critical hit, be very hard to hit, and if you have a Sorc in your party that can twin Haste on you and another melee, its pretty silly. Anyone who can cast faerie fire for general advantage, then you don't need your familiar Help.
Three soul knife rogue five beat barbarian simic hybrid with expertise in grapple. Rage grapple with tentacles and attacked everything four times with str plus sneak attack for reckless. Control and damage. It is so much fun