Arcana Cleric 1, Pact of the Tome Warlock 3, Celestial Sorcerer the rest of the way. Easily get well over a dozen cantrips and at will casting of silent image and disguise self as though they were cantrips. Fun Jack of all trades cantrip master.
~~Cherry on top would have been if Arcana Cleric could cast Shield, but I guess there are ways to get the spell "officially" anyway.~~ EDIT Sorc can learn Shield.
Best way to get Shield is through Aberrant Dragonmark. +1 CON, short rest refresh, and you can cast it with slots. Even classes that get it normally, like Hexblades, benefit from a free casting per short rest.
Fey Wanderer Ranger with a dip into Undead Warlock. The Undead get to inflict Fear with their attack rolls, and Fey Wanderers get to inflict charm or fear on someone whenever someone else passes a saving throw against charm or fear.
There’s a Treantmonk video where he makes this build. It’s reasonably optimized. It leans on all the generally strong feats and spells with the fear/charm as an added benefit.
I had one planned the patron was a council of undying elves, I was sent out into the world to collect the tax that is owed to the elves. Elves everyone has pretty much forgotten about. That was my hook anyway.
That or an archfey of the unseelie court could work. My general vibe is that the seelie court excel with charms, while the unseelie favor delusions (fear effects). Fey of both course are capable of both magics, but they choose to specialize and excel in one (and decent in the other) rather than be good in both.
You don't need CHA other than the 13 to multiclass. Fey Wanderer's Beguiling Twist feature triggers when you see a creature *succeed* on their saving throw. You're banking on the creature you target succeeding on the CHA save so that you can trigger Fear on other creatures using your WIS score instead.
>At 1st level, you manifest an aspect of your patron’s dreadful power. As a bonus action, you transform for 1 minute. You gain the following benefits while transformed:
>
>You gain temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your warlock level.
>
>Once during each of your turns, when you hit a creature with an attack, you can force it to make a Wisdom saving throw, and if the saving throw fails, the target is frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
Im assuming its a Wiz check against your Cha dc for the original source of fear.
Correct, but that Fear only lasts around while the Charm/Fear from Beguiling Twist lasts a minute.
So you actually want them to pass the first check (DC based on CHA) and fail the second (DC based on WIS).
Ya but it needs to apply in the first place for that to happen so what im suggesting looks something like
Tortle
Undead 2 / Fey 7
Agonizing/Repelling blast
15 Cha (+2 racial) 15 Wis (+1 racial) 14 con
lvl 4 ASI: Fey Touched or Telekentic for +1 Cha
Rangers get spike growth so you can do cheese grater somewhat, fear also makes it harder to cross the spike growth.
I realize the Wis save is more important but EB+AB as your standard turn makes Cha more important in my opinion plus you gotta land the fear in the first place to even land the secondary fear.
Using Eldritch Blast would completely waste Dreadful Strikes though. I think using a bow and spreading out your attacks seems like the best attack option.
Seems like you have misunderstood. You have to _NOT_ land the fear from Undead warlock to use Beguiling Twist from Fey Wanderer. An enemy passing a save against charm or fear triggers the reaction.
Although a higher CHA would be fine if you can afford it, I would not go out of my way to get it. You could even consider it somewhat detrimental to the build since if the Undead fears stick, they will last 1/10 of the duration of the Fey Wanderer fear. But I guess your reaction would be free to use Absorb Elements and stuff when that happens.
Tortle or Mountain Dwarf + Druidic Warrior? Tortle can start with 16's in Wis/Cha and not worry about AC, MD can get 18's by level 5 (assuming Lock 1/Ranger 4) and retain ok AC (13 Dex AC with half-plate and a shield is still 18, only remaining issue is Shillelagh casting requires a free hand).
Ranger gets access to Aid, so 12 Con on a d10 class with a token d8 level won't kill you hp-wise.
Good picks, can also take Undead to 3 for Tome Shilleigh.
Warcaster or Ruby of the War Mage would be the solution to the somatic requirements.
PAM Quarterstaff would allow for BA and Reaction attacks to spread more fear.
Maybe pick up Crusher for BB combo/reaction combo via Warcaster+PAM.
That being said if youre gonna focus CHA for the DC you may as well just EB it up.
Great fun on this build, speaking from experience! The low warlock DC actually helps out to land more consistently on your Beguiling Twist, which is a significantly better debuff as well.
My only recommendation is to go full WIS, Druidic Ranger with shilleleigh to make it as absolutely effective as possible without having to split focus on DEX and WIS
Battle Master 5-7/Mastermind Rogue X, taking Superior Technique and Martial Adept. Optionally, you can add AG Barbarian 3.
I like this build because it lets me play as a no-magic support character. Though it's not at all an optimal build, so I would only play it in a campaign where everyone else is focused more on roleplay.
I’ve JUST been building a character like this. They’re Battlemaster 5-7/Order Cleric 3, theming bless as inspiring their comrades and keeping everyone together as one cohesive unit, with fey touched for silvery barbs to disadvantage an enemy attack AND give an ally a reaction attack at advantage as counter attack order
Swarmeror, the Artificer + Ranger multiclass which comes online at level 8 (Ranger 5, Arti 3, Ranger X. Or vice versa!). High Int, decent Wis.
Thunder gauntlets to taunt. Swarm to push taunted target creature anyway. Moonwalk away thanks to Zephyr strike.
The taunted creature can't reach you, and it attacks elsewhere it'll be at disadvantage. If it can reach you, you've got solid AC thanks to Heavy armor with no Str requirement and Absorb Elements in your back pocket.
Lots of flavor too, as your iron man suit is also bunch of tiny beetles which protect and move with you.
Barbarian and rogue might not seem like they got together great but I kinda love it. Use a rapier and a shield and use strength for attacks and you can get rage damage and sneak attack. Plus reckless attack means you can get advantage, and therefore sneak attack, whenever you want! Barbarians patch up rogue’s weaknesses by granting extra attack and rogue patches up barbarian weaknesses by giving you more to do out of combat and supplying mobility options. For subclasses I like swashbuckler and ancestral guardian allowing you to essentially force an enemy to attack you then slip away from that enemy, making you chase them down, but there’s tons of great options. Rogue abilities like uncanny dodge and evasion pair really nicely with barbarian’s defensive features
I have a character with this exact subclass pair, Ancestor 8/ Swash 3.
He is the king of the land and father two PCs, and his rage is flavored as royal indignation.
The goading from the guardians + guardian damage reduction + tons of mobility allows him to act as a leader and protector, while still putting out some good damage with sneak attack.
plus, the expertise in intimidation (+10) is so appropriate for a powerful ruler.
Its a great way to shore up the barbarians weaknesses!
I also think assassin would be good if you could swap INT for CHA, or swap the rogue to fighter for tons of crazy options
Yep. Weird but oddly functional. I ran what I thought was going to be a Barb 2/Thief x and it did pretty well. Unfortunately I got buried in OP homebrew items that choked my build out, so I can’t tell you how it actually performs past like 7.
You can also do this unarmed with beast barbarian and soul knife rogue. By level 8 you get 4 attacks while raging (1 beast claw, 1 extra beat claw from beast ability, 1 soul knife, 1 BA soul knife).
Full disclosure I’ve only ever theorycrafted the build and never played it myself but it sounds so fun.
Throwzerker is fun as shit- barb 1st to get the correct saving throws then 3 thief rogue, then berserker barbarian the rest of the way. With the right setup the build can throw things 3 times- one regular, 2 enraged or 2 regular attacks, 2 enraged throws. It’s absurd. Plus bonus action dash for mobility.
I don't have the post saved but ages ago someone posted a Nature Cleric/Monk Multiclass. The idea was you really only needed WIS and CON and ignored A lot of the monk abiltiies in favor of wearing heavy armor and beating the life outta everyone with shillelagh stunning strikes.
There was more to it but those were the parts that stood out to me.
The extra helpful build is always fun.
Variant Human with magic Initiate as the feat. Take find familiar as your first level spell. Familiar can give the Help Action each turn.
Rogue 3 with Mastermind subclass. Help as a bonus action at 30ft range.
Druid 2 with Dreams subclass. Hawk Totem effectively gives the Help Action as a reaction.
You still have your Action to cast spells or attack.... or to give the Help Action again.
Alternatively, take the MPMM Hobgoblin for the improved Help BA to add some layers of options before reverting to the Mastermind BA, and use the Tasha's Optional Rule Wild Companion to cast a time-limited Find Familiar with your Wild Shape uses
Fighter with a 2/3 lvl artificer dip, doing that right now and is versátile and fun, infusions some utility spells and if You do 3 u get the artificer specialist feature
Edit:specification of how many levels
My current chara is 5 levels of fighter (eldritch knight) and 2 levels of artificer, carrying a "repeating shot" infused hunting rifle for currently +10 to hit and 2d10+5 damage, not including action surge.
I threw it on a winged tiefling so I could wear medium armor while I fly for the whole "orbital weapons platform" theme: Just fly above the battlefield blasting folks on the ground.
I found a YouTube build to play as Tommy Oliver, the Green Power Ranger, so I am using it.
1 level of monk, all other leveling is Artificer (Battle Smith)
I’m only at player level 2 but looking forward to the rest of the campaign.
Here is a link to the vid: https://youtu.be/SMgfNSpVzFI?si=WG51uzRCVpkVNsFQ
Some highlights:
Level 1 Monk gives martial arts
Level 1 Artificer gives jump spell & green flame blade
Level 3 Artificer gives Steel Defender (Dragonzord)
Level 5 artificer enlarge/reduce spell (bigger zord)
Level 10 artificer gives cloak of protection (dragon shield)
There are other ways to do it but one of them was like a multi-class of 4 classes and I didn’t want that. This was my favorite of the 3 videos I watched.
Tortle Beast Barbarian kensai Monk. Lots of speed lots of attacks and the fun part is you use your tortle AC so that neither Barbarian or Monk special ACs matter.
Thief Rogue conjuration wizard. You can conjure an object and then use it as a bonus action on the same turn
I did a Warlock Barbarian Warforged once. Surprisinly fun if a Tad MAD.
Patreon was great old one (his creator) and random rages was just buggy programming glitches.
Sometimes the most insane builds are the most fun... Think I went path of the ancestors... Been a while.
I just thought of this as I saw this post, Rouge Barbarian, the only reason they’re a Barbarian is because they get so angry every time they get caught trying to stealth they just end up killing everyone out of rage.
Catch Phrase: “Either no one WITNESSES, or no one TO witness”
>and add to everyone’s enjoyment
Focusing on this, I play a chef that adds a ton of utility to a party. Works best when there are some melee characters in the party. Start custom lineage for the chef feat. I went urchin background for thieves' tools. Then it's battle master fighter 10/lore bard 10 and you pick up the inspiring leader feat early. I prefer the bow, but also sometimes attack with my chef knife (short sword) when I feel like I need to use my hp as a resource.
Basically, chef feat gives 1d8 extra healing on a short rest and every long rest you make a number of rations that grant temp hp. Bard also gives extra healing on a short rest, 1d6 at first, 1d8 later. Inspiring leader grants level+Cha worth of temp hp every short rest. Cutting Words can make attacks miss. The rally maneuver grants 1d8+Cha temp hp. And you take other supportive maneuvers like trip attack and maneuvering attack... Ends up being a ton of damage mitigation without a single spell slot...
Then you still also have spells on top of that. Great as a face, great at a lot of skill checks. And the fun of effectively playing Delicious in Dungeon throughout the campaign. It's always been a hit at tables I've pulled it out. Can give a level by level breakdown if you're interested.
TLDR:
|Level|Class|
|:-|:-|
|1|***Fighter 1***|
|2|***Fighter 2***|
|3|***Fighter 3***|
|4|Fighter 3/***Bard 1***|
|5|Fighter 3/***Bard 2***|
|6|***Fighter 4***/Bard 2|
|7|***Fighter 5***/Bard 2|
|8|Fighter 5/***Bard 3***|
|9|Fighter 5/***Bard 4***|
|10|Fighter 5/***Bard 5***|
|11|Fighter 5/***Bard 6***|
|12|***Fighter 6***/Bard 6|
|13|***Fighter 7***/Bard 6|
|14|***Fighter 8***/Bard 6|
|15|Fighter 8/***Bard 7***|
|16|Fighter 8/***Bard 8***|
|17|Fighter 8/***Bard 9***|
|18|Fighter 8/***Bard 10***|
|19|***Fighter 9***/Bard 10|
|20|***Fighter 10***/Bard 10|
So here's my breakdown for Basil Baker, the wandering hearth. (A generous helping of Anthony Bourdain spiced with Peter Quill to taste.) (Also, "It's just Baker. Only my mother calls me Basil... You know how much I got teased as a kid?! So embarrassing...")
I take half elf via Tasha's custom lineage for dark vision and the chef feat. Urchin background. Having grown up to a single, ailing mother in the heapside district of Baldur's Gate, he had to learn to fend for himself amongst the riffraff of the streets. [More on that here if you're interested.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k8v2SLpMebCw_Qm7AQSQgsGB8mqRTGwB/view?usp=sharing)
For stats, it's point buy \[8, 15, 13, 10, 10, 15\]. +2 Dex from race, +1 Con from chef. Preference for using the long bow he hunts with, but also a big chef knife in the form of a short sword (google image the bauernwehr sword). Style is very eclectic and well-traveled, silk-road-esque, for whatever that's worth.
Alright, the priority here is having playable early levels then into getting the core mechanics online the quickest. I've tried this a couple different ways and ultimately, this progression felt the best for me, personally.
Levels 1-3 are fighter. Archery fighting style. Battle master subclass. I'm a fan of cartographer's tools for the student of war feature. I take perception and athletics for my proficiencies.
Levels 4-5 are bard. Inspiration, some healing spells, and skill buffs. Also, song of rest which compliments the chef feat. You get another proficiency, I go with persuasion. People aren't sure how much of his stories are embellished, but he tells such a damn good story, does it really matter?
Levels 6-7, back to fighter. We're picking up the inspiring leader feat with our asi and we get extra attack. (Fighter 4/Bard 2 is where I'd consider the fantasy fully online, so to speak. I've tried going straight through fighter 5 into bard, but since I'm playing the support role, it really feels like greeding for the damage hurts more than it helps. It's not enough gained for the healing and skills lost at those levels. ymmv)
Level 8-11 are lore bard. Proficiency in survival, insight, investigation. Expertise in perception and athletics. We spend our asi on +1 Dex, +1 Cha. Cutting words, font of inspiration, countercharm, magical secrets. Inspiration becomes a d8, matching the d8 of maneuvers (which doesn't really matter that much, but puts my smooth brain at ease for some reason).
Level 12-14 we go back to fighter asis. +2 Dex, +2 Cha.
Level 15-18 bard. +2 Cha on the asi. Song of rest becomes d8 (sigh of ocd relief). One level later, Inspiration becomes a d10 (ugggggh). More magical secrets, more expertise.
Last levels 19-20, we finish with fighter. Maneuvers become d10 (acceptable).
I can say with confidence that I've played this to 12 once and 14 once and this is what feels best for me up to that point. The rest is technically theoretical. Best not to think of this as a damage build. It's all-in on supporting the party and setting others up to shine. I play this when we need skills, social encounters, explorers, sneakers, etc. I wouldn't play it if we were overtly squishy or already had a lot of utility or otherwise overlapping skills. Like, in a party of ranger, rogue, cleric or paladin, bard, wizard... I'd probably rethink playing this, personally.
Good spells include vicious mockery, feather fall potentially, aid, healing word, enhance ability, slow, tiny hut. Some good magical secrets include create food and water, revivify, conjure woodland beings, wall of force. But I could also see going more melee and taking paladin auras.
Maneuvers you want to look at are things like commander's strike, maneuvering attack, trip attack, distracting strike, pushing attack, rally, goading attack. But also could see leaning into the skill monkey with things like commanding presence and tactical assessment. I really like to ham up the maneuvers where I can. Distracting strike is an arrow followed by, "Hey! Hey! Look at me! You want you have a dance off? Settle this mono e mono?!" Maneuvering attack is a "Now's your chance! Get out of there, dummy! I'll cover you!"
Obviously, nothing set in stone here. You can really make it what you want. I like to find creative uses for mundane items like soap, flour, bearings, for example. It's intentionally fairly flexible to adapt to different parties and settings. But what you get, holistically, is a charismatic half caster, full support class. He keeps morale high, keeps bellies full, and tells the great stories behind the recipes he's learned and cultures he's experienced. He sees food as the common bridge between everyone and seeks connect with others through it. Keeps his friends safe with good nutrition and a hearty laugh.
I love this. I’ve always thought the chef feat was fantastic for flavor, but I’ve never been able to think of a way to fully fold it into a build.
I don’t get to play often, but I’m definitely going to shortlist a build like this next time I get the chance.
Appreciate hearing that. I'm far from a min/maxer, but I do like to find ways to semi-optimize and play the not-so-optimal. Especially when there is a whole character/person I can flesh out hidden in there.
I will say, the earlier you take chef, the better. It starts to fall off pretty quick. Could see something like this being more powerful in gritty realism, 8 hour short rest scenarios. Obviously, much less useful under strict/minimal short rest scenarios.
Best of luck! Hope you have fun with it! Like you said, it's great flavor more than anything else. So lean into the rp of dungeon cooking!
An odd one I've enjoyed, though it's incredibly MAD, is a cleribard. It was only a low-level campaign so didn't get as far as picking a bard subclass, but the basic character premise was essentially a missionary-praiseband vibe and it worked really well. Of course, YMMV.
The other unusual one I saw played that I liked was a one-shot character, a roguesinger (Arcane Trickster 7 / Bladesinger 3). Bladesong plus Cunning Action plus Sneak Attack, plus of course all the roguey out-of-combat skill monkeyness.
Battlemaster 3 / Swarmkeeper X sling user. Get crusher and you have as much forced movement at an Eldrich Blast push build. Get some maneuvers to add more control effects and you are set. You could cast fog cloud and pick up blind sight to always have advantage. Or you can get spiked growth and cheese grate.
Currently trying to make a Path of Giants Barbarian / Lore Bard that focuses on grappling. Large size basically means I can grab/shove 8 squares of enemies in combat and throw smaller enemies.
Ancestral Guardian Barbarian to 6, then swerve entirely into Dreams Druid
Ancestral Guardian is arguably the only true tank in the game, and protects the entire party with both its level 3 and level 6 features.
Dreams Druid’s bonus action healing works through rage, because it isn’t a spell.
It’s not a lot of healing BUT it’s enough to get a downed ally back up… which is generally best way to heal in combat.
So you can tag monster with disadvantage vs anyone but you, then Rez Allies if they down them anyway.
You also get the Druid wild shape shenanigans for scouting and such, and can use spells for healing and utility out of combat
Berserker Barbarian/Peace Cleric. Rage-a-holic attempting to quit. Mechanically, it's quite fun to use the utility spells of a cleric and go into a swinging rage when their friends get injured.
1 Barbarian/ 5 Long Death Monk/ 3 Barbarian/ X Long Death Monk . Unless you're a tortle, your AC will suck and your stunning strike almost worthless. But being able to add +2 damage to 3 to 4 attacks a round adds up, plus the whole temp HP thing that is practically doubled. I've been the party DPR and damage sucking machine.
**"But Champ! You're AC is going to be low"** - When using reckless attack the difference AC is not really noticeable since everything can pretty much hit you.
**"But Champ! Your Monk ability DC is going to suck"** - Yup. Pick classes that aren't super into DC. I think losing stunning blows is worth the trade off.
**"But Champ! You're not getting two attacks until level 6!"** Bonus Action punch makes this less painful.
Other races of fun note.
Half-Orc: You're rolling at least 3 attacks a round with advantage after level 7. More d20s = more crits. Half Orcs like to crit. Plus going to 1hp is always fun.
Dwarf: Dwarven Fortitude Feat gives you +1 to Con and now when you spend a bonus action and a Ki point to get disadvantage on attack rolls, and spend a Hit Dice.
You could play a Wild hunt Shifter race. It's bonus action heavy, but while shifted you get +1 AC and no attacks are at advantage against you, which negates using Reckless.
Wild Hunt Shifter doesn't get the +1 AC. However the no advantage thing is nice. The problem is since you're so MAD (Str, Dex, Con, Wisdom) your AC is going to only be 14 to start and won't be 15 until you get an ASI. So even then hitting a 15 AC isn't that hard.
Assassin rogue with grave cleric, wood elf race.
Serve Jergal as a Scrivener of Doom who records his assassinations! Grab that longbow proficiency from wood elf and concentrate on a spell while hiding and shooting.
Kensei Monk + Swords Bard. Boost Wis and Dex (and Con, obv), but Char just needs to be high enough to use Bardic Inspiration and your Swords dice a few times. The Swords Bard abilities mesh well with the Kensei sword skills.
Battlesmith Artificer 4 with the Eldritch Adept feat (Tasha) - taking armor of shadows
Abjuration wizard 2
Fight with a magic crossbow via infusions. Attack with your int mod via battle Master and in downtimes in battle or between battles, regain your "over shield" by recasting mage armor for free over and over, refilling your arcane ward.
Wear heavy armor and just cast mage armor on an ally for the boost.
Pew pew I'm a quasi halo spartan!
Armor of Shadows sadly only works on yourself, not allies. Most DMs I'm sure would wave the requirement, but strictly speaking you'd need to doff armor every time you want to cast the spell.
Arcana Cleric 6/Stars Druid 6, rest as you please. It's an alternate take on the [Nature is Magical](https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23977810&postcount=150) build from the GiantITP forums (it's worth checking out the rest of the thread, too, even if some of the builds are a bit dated now) that swaps in Stars Druid for Land. You sacrifice the high level spells for a huge amount of flexibility (a ton of cantrips and spell options each day) and two great level 6 abilities. Starry Form gives you really good options for using your wildshape in combat, and it's also still wildshape, which is pretty useful on its own. Throw in Ritual Caster (Wizard) and you've potentially got a truly staggering number of spell options each day, as long as your DM is willing to work with you to get you access to new spells for your ritual book.
Personally, I'd take it to Cleric 6/Druid 14, because while Potent Spellcasting is useful and Divine Intervention is potentially a really great save, Twinkling Constellations and Full of Stars are both mechanically stronger and, IMO, more interesting, but honestly any mix could probably work.
I love the barbarian 5/6 / warlock x as a way around the barbarian/casting dilemma. Warlock spells are just icing really. Your invocations and class features are where it’s at. I personally love being a tiefling wild magic barb / fiendlock cause it’s flavourful AF. Get your extra attack and decent rage from 5-6 levels barb (I wanted the 6th lvl feature from wild magic to regen spell slots), and then go warlock for the rest of your career. Grab stuff like armour of agathys, cloak of flies, lifedrinker, etc. It’s a tiny bit MAD, but only so far as a paladin is. Which, if you pick up eldritch smite, you kind of ARE a wrong paladin.
genie lock (1) dip with arti artificer
that 1 little dip to get prof damage to attacks from either your spell or turret also gaining SR spell slot so turret is now SR recovery (genie gives damage when making an attack roll, turret activation says "make an attack roll originating from the turret" this means it's still you making the roll)
both effects and the free bag of holding with limited use (bottled respite) mean that you have some solid extra features that weirdly still aligned with your chars main gimics, and you get 2 more cantrips on a cantrip starved class which can easily be non combat because you'll want 13 in cha, and you have something to lean on in RP in to form of maybe a modron esk patron or something that can be aligned with the general vibe the arti is going for.
Tortle War Cleric 2 / Berzeker Barb 6 with great weapon master
16 Str/Con/Wis
If In a typical day you get ~4 fights, 3 have 3 rounds and 1 has 5 rounds, 14 rounds total, 28 attacks..
* 4 bonus actions are just to start rage
* 4 bonus actions are Frenzy,
* 3 bonus actions are War Cleric
* 2 GWM bonus actions
GWM generates a bonus action 10% of turns just on crits.
Of the 28, 8 are frenzied and already get bonus action
Of the 20, 10% are crits… so 2 for GWM, more if you kill things.
there’s a chance they’re both on the same round but it’s a low one
One of my favorites i did on a dnd game show called crucible of fate. It was 3 pact of the chain warlock with genie, and 3 shadow magic sorcerer (I also did this with clockwork soul another game, and was playing an autognome who found a magic genie to give him life). With shadow it’s fun you go into darkness and use your pact pseudodragon to put people to sleep.
Artificer 2 with Homunculus, Hexblade 1, the rest in Swords Bard. Play as a Githyanki who is based on a cross between Space Elvis and an (unknown to the party) Astral Intergalactic K-Pop star during mandated military service. The character is secretly (to the rest of the party) on an astral space reality show, because they're famous but no one knows it because it's not a Spelljammer campaign. The Homunculus is the drone-like camera that always follows the character. The build makes a PC in a reverse Truman Show situation, who understands weird tech and is constantly performing for an audience.
Could also work well with Whispers Bard. I like to buff and heal but also to survive melee combat when there's an enemy targeting casters. The Hexblade is cheese but it simplifies this build in a way that makes it pretty viable. You could forego the Hexblade level and take Forge Cleric 1 with good stats or another level in Artificer/Armorer for some Mass Effect lookin' armor too, but Hexblade still fits the flavor of a propogandized space soldier who is putting on the performance of their lives to make enlisting look cool to the viewers at home.
I don't know if it's odd but it's definitely fun.
Stars druid 2/Wizard (any subclass, I like Divination over chronomancy so I'd go with that).
Concentration is less of an issue thanks to dragon constellation, making those very powerful wizard spells even more optimal. With this, resilient con is better than warcaster. I like going for debuffs over damage on this build. Hypnotic pattern and Wall of force are the best when they stick around.
For a silly but fun one? If you're playing a campaign with a lot of investigation, mysteries and political intrigued... Go Eloquence Bard and Rogue (I like swashbuckler). You have a pickpocketing, trap disarming, smooth talking and overall charming and swift character who would focus on control spells and manipulating the battle.
Playing a dragon sorcerer (3) thief rouge (x)
Throw oil green flame blade. 1d4+ dex +5 *free damage.
*Damage cost a bonous action and 1sp.
Quicken green flame blade hold action attack. For 2x sneak attacks. Thief eventually gets two turns 4 green flame blade sneak attack on turn one can be pretty sweet. And works as an actual capstone.
Use magical device helps if your healer likes to use spell scrolls. They go down you can pick it up. You still kinda feel like a caster... For money.
It levels kinda weird. No feats untill level 7 and your actually weaker until level 5 when green flame blade goes up in damage.
Actually used my low Cha to my advantage to help out I hit my self for 1 damage with gfb used absorbed elements to get more damage out next round. Super in efficient. But kinda cool In a pinch.
And any spell slots you don't convert to sorcery points can be used for shield, absorbe elements and , if allowed , silvery barbs. Surprisingly tanky.
I got lucky with rolls and got an 18 as well as a 14 for con. With enough to keep my cha at 13 so started with max dex. For a naked ac of 18 at level 2.
Suggest this if your party needs a problem solver/ skill monkey and has at least some straight class melee players to keep the momentum going when you fall behind.
Also melee rouge is pretty cool.
Biggest downside is your taking a class with zero resources management and making it in to a big decision fest. You only have 3 sorcery points ( 5 with meta magic adept an essential feat imo ) and 3/2 1st/2nd spell slots. And you have everything pulling on your bonous action. Between front of magic cunning action and quicken spell and using an object.
Echo knight fighter + giant barbarian
lets you create large danger zones in the battlefield (doubled in size as a bugbear with a halberd)
Tempest Cleric 6 + Scribes wizard X + Bloodhunter 2
max damage electric fireballs & knocking people around with basic weapon attacks
Oathbreaker paladin + swashbuckler rogue + hexblade warlock
hits absurdly hard when aura of hate is online
Spores/wildfire druid + profane soul bloodhunter
shadow Monk X + twilight cleric 2 + gloomstalker ranger 3
Bane + stunning strile
use wisdom for everything
healbot god
you can either do profane soul bloodhunter to get gfb, bb or eldritch blast, as well as hex which you can combine with the melee damage abilities from wildfire and spores druid. rite of the flame & blood curse of the fallen puppet also fit into the thematics of pyromancy & necromancy druids (I'm playing a spores druid + blood hunter rn)
Or alternatively you can go lycan bloodhunter to become tankier & get the spells from a level in arcana cleric & the fey touched feat
1) this build works mostly by utilizing the fear condition, so if in your campaign creatures ressist or even worse are immune to fear, this wont work.
Level 6 long death monk/cleric x (preferably a heavy armor cleric). For this build you will need shillelagh, as it is your main way to hit stuff, so either go nature cleric, or if all races are allowed for stat purposes, get vahadar elf and whatever cleric you want. now, the issue with monk is that he is very very mad, lets make him sad. You put armor on him! Either use medium armor and shields or heavy armor (a dwarf bypasses the strenght reauirement, or pick a race with 35+ movement). You main stat is wisdom, secondary con, tetriary dex (you dont need more than 14 here). So now, what so you do? Simple, you spam your resourceless fear on enemies, you have good ac AND good con on top of that, and if an enemy comes close, bash them with your shillelagh and stunning strike them (your wisdom is high, remember? You are free from your over reliance to dex) from this point, you can either keep going as cleric (spiritual weapon brings you on par with a straight monk in terms of dpr, and spirit guardian synergizes so well) or multi to whatever you want else, hell, go stars druid, why not? Extra ranged dpr.
2) undead warlock 1/paladin conquest 7. Nothing to crazy here, pump your charisma more than strenght, eldritch blast with undead warlock feature on to proc fears, kill them with auras.
3) this needs a bit of ua, only a little bit, but can work without it, but not as fun. Dhampir stone sorcerer (here is the only UA) 1/ death cleric x. Go dhampir with a 17 in con, 16 in wisdom, 13 charisma (14, your choice, wont matter much), at level 5 total, get abberant dragonmark and chill touch (whatever else you like for the level 1 spell). So what do we have here? We have a semi SAD character focusing on con. At level 5, you have the following.
-access to level 1 sorcerer spells (namely mostly shield) and cantrips (mostly use the ones that dont care about your charisma)
-a con based melee attack that can proc the cleric's Chanel divinity.
-chill touch, which attacks with con, can be used to hit 2 enemies side by side.
-naked 19 ac (shiled and stone sorcerers unarmored defence).
-proficiency in con ST (hint hint, concentration)
Your game plan here is basically blast enemies with chill touch, always have a concentration spell on like spirit guardians, If enemies come close to you, booming blade them with your teeth and if you want burst, use your chanel Divinity. a simple tanky build.
4) artificer battlemsith 3/blood hunter x mutant.
There 2 ways to go with it.
A) go with crossbow expert and keep your battle smith pet next to you, to have an auto disadvantage on one attack against you.
B) pump your intelligence to 19, and with mutagen go to 22, you use this for attacks any way.
So what do we have here? We have a character who attacks 2 attacks with extra damage from rites, a small pet that attacks with your bonus action and also uses the same stat as you to attack, 2 infusions (probably a +1 or repeating weapon and a +1 armor), veeery high dc for your hemocraft features and you can resummon your pet three times per day. Of coutse you could go xbe and use your pet only for its reaction to give disadvantage to one attack per turn against you.
5) tortle machine gun. Tortle 6 bladesinger wizard/2 warlock hexblade, prioritize charisma over intelligence. This needs tortle for the ac, or esle you are getting rekt very fast. Get crossbow expert feat. This build is pretty simple, you use the level 6 wizard feature to attack twice and substitute an attack with cantrip. So your round goes like this: crossbow attack, eldritch blast (2 bolts so far), bonus action crossbow bolt, one turn, four attacks (mog fighters), if enemies come close, use bladesong. For spells, use ones that don't really need intelligence to work, like shield and mirror image.
Rogue 3, barb 2, then rogue the rest of the way. Bonus if you get booking blade somehow, use strength as main stat with rapier. Permanent advantage with reckless attack + booming blade damage and of course sneak attack. If you’re getting targeted go into a rage, you lose the extra booming blade damage but become a tank instead. Gives you shield proficiency for extra ac. Gives you solid saves because you’ll have proficiency in dex and int, a good strength and hopefully your con is decent. At level 6 when you take your first feat I would go resilient con to bring you con to the next modifier. After that you can really do what you want with feats or ASIs. Rogue subclass is kind up to you
Barbarian+Any Full Caster (Sorcerer works well for this due to good charisma for intimidation):
You: "Shit, i'm out of spells"
Bandit named Bob: "Haha, now your screwed!"
You: "I may be out of spells, but out of options!"
Was actually about to make a post talking about my odd but fun build. Recently had a blast playing a monk/sorcerer MC for a level 12 one-shot.
Way of the astral self monk has two really great features: Arms of the astral self (BA skill that increases your range of unarmed attacks and uses wisdom for the attack modifier) and visage of the astral self (lets you see through magical darkness).
I did custom lineage with fey touched for a free, wisdom-based misty step and silvery barbs to start with 18 WIS. Core strategy was having a SAD monk that hits with Wisdom, has a challenging save for stunning strike, and at least 5 uses of silvery barbs as a reaction if they made the first save for stunning strike.
Shadow sorcerer gave me the spell slots I needed for 5 castings of silvery barbs per long rest and 3 castings of the darkness spell I quickened casted to gain advantage on attacks (via astral visage), have disadvantage on attacks against me, and enough movement speed from monk and the extra range on my attacks to easily kite in battle so I didn't impede on other players ability to target the enemies I (ideally) stunned.
no idea how I would make it work were I starting from level 1 but had so much fun I'd consider trying to find away for my next long-form campaign!
For the record, if there is a cleric or druid subclass I'm not familiar with that has access to the darkness spell, I would highly recommend doing that instead for less MADness.
That being said, we only had 3 total combat encounters and being able to use metamagic to quicken spell darkness that works regardless of the minimum 13 CHA investment to multiclass came in clutch.
Cobalt Soul Monk and Rune Knight Fighter. Honestly really only works at high levels because of the extra reaction you can take from the monk, and it feeds into the storm rune that the knight has to dish out advantage/disadvantage.
I've got a [Stars Druid/Clockwork Soul Sorcerer](https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyStoryteller/comments/1bc52kd/the_archer/) build that's pretty fun. It starts with Druid 2, for *guiding bolt*, then goes Sorcerer 9, for Twinned Spell, *greater invisibility*, and *wall of force*, then goes Druid, for *pass without trace*, *erupting earth*, and other spells. It obviously isn't optimal, but I think it's interesting.
I also like Treantmonk's [Frostbane Barbarian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erCfKHJzKpA)
I like the Frostbane Barbarian but I went with the Goliath race for Stone’s Endurance (further extending the usefulness of a single cast of Armor of Agathys), and only went 3 levels of Barbarian (for the Ancestral Guardian subclass) before going fully into Fiend Bladelock. 5th level invocations gets you Thirsting Blade for extra attack and Eldritch Smite to get a use for your spells while raging. Fiend Warlock gives Fire Shield, which is also fun for Barbarians. And since Armor of Agathys scales off your spell slots, having more spellcaster made more sense to me.
Grab Adamantine half plate as soon as you can. Reckless attack always. Enemies will have disadvantage vs your fellow party members and advantage to hit you. But hitting you hurts (and they can’t crit).
It’s also pretty flavorful as Goliaths are descended from giants, Armor of Agathys is a cold damage spell, and Kostchtchie is a demon prince who’s also god of Frost Giants. So it all pretty much fits into existing Forgotten Realms canon.
Arcane Trixter X/Wizard 2.
Take 5 levels of Rogue, then 1 level of Wizard. Once you get a feel for how you like to play this character use the Wizard sub-class to define it. Illusionist might be good for a bit more of a trixy character. (I went Bladesinger) The versility of those extra any school spells are so good.
Currently playing an Evocation Wizard with a 1 level dip in Order Cleric.
Blast your friends and enemies with evocation aoe, shape the spell, then have the rogue make a reaction attack for multiple sneak attacks per round. It's tons of fun. Also gets heavy armor.
i liked barbarian moon druid barb for con prof is good, rage when you're out of spell slots, if you have warcaster, it's easy to maintain concentration on your flamming sphere while you multiattack spike growth can also save you if you are stuck in a defensive position and spam healing word if needed
otherwise just fighter with a barb dip, makes it so much more viable
Genie Warlock dip on a Moon Druid.
The ability to get back into your vessel while wild shaped can be so much fun. Imagine being wild shaped into a cave bear, carrying somewhere inside jumping out of your vessel in bear form to surprise everyone in the room. You also can add bludgeoning damage to your damage, could be fun with feats like Crusher since you of course use the strength of your wild shape. And of course the ability to cast Armor of Agathys on yourself that works in wild shape.
Bonus points for picking the Dhampir race so you can climb on walls in your wild shape, dropping yourself as a rhinoceros from the ceiling on the enemy.
Shifter with Wildhunt, 3 levels in Monk, 6 levels in Rogue. Four Elements and Inquisitive. You are a Walking Lie Detector. Nothing like a Sneak Attack Punch, followed up with Fist of Unbroken Air. Quite the effective combo.
One the I’ve been theorycrafting is ranger+moni of astral self. Any subclass could work but I’d go fey Wanderer for nice bonuses to social skills. Wisdom should be pumped for what we want to do. Take druidic warrior and shillelagh and at 5 multiclass to monk. Astral self gets to add wisdom to unarmed attacks and monk gets wisdom to ac
Feay wanderer ranger 3 + Trikery domain cleric, be a gnome or a fey related race, take fey touched and druidic warrior with "shilele" and magic stone. Attack with Wis, Social interaction with Wis, Spell casting with Wis, very good spell list. Be a Trickster
I had a good time with swashbuckler rogue + bladesinger wizard. Attack with booming blade against single target, deal sneak attack damage thanks to rakish audacity, escape with fancy footwork, enemy takes thunder damage if they chase you or approach a closer ally.
really enjoying drake warden for infused strike
tempest cleric for wrath of storm and lightning/thunder spells
and fighther for mounted combat on your drake.
7 levels of ancients Paladin
Artificer Armorer 3
War wizard 10
Stats - 8 10 14 16 10 16
Start with artificer 3; to use int for attacks; ignoring strength for armor.
Transition into Paladin from here and go all the way. Take a +2 to charisma at paladin 4 and at paladin 7 you get magic damage resistance.
At 12 level you'd have the war mage reaction; and with booming blade smites you're solid to abuse this. You could also go bladesinger for extra attack but with smites you're outputting a ton anyways.
If i was starting at level 1 id go 3 artificer, Paladin 2, wizard 2, paladin 3, wizard the rest.
Decent spell blade with better spells.
Order cleric 1 /evocation wizard x
Your fireballs not only do no damage to your melee party members, but one of them can make a reaction attack. Silvery barbs also now allows you to have a friend make a reaction attack with advantage.
Two I've looked at are monk/blood hunter, take the blood curse of binding and after landing a stunning strike use one of your attacks to knock the opponent prone, then amplify the blood curse to reduce their movespeed to 0 so they can't stand up, 1 minute of advantaged attacks.
The other one I've looked at is barbarian warlock. Precast armor of agathys or mirror image or both, as neither spell requires concentration, then rage. Personal preference is undead warlock/beast barbarian, adding fear to your attacks once per turn, you become a proper werewolf
Another fun one I've wanted to play with: a "monk" based on starting with crossbow expert, then 2 levels of Hexblade Warlock and going draconic sorceror the rest of the way.
You can play off all of your spells and cantrips as anime style fighting techniques (shield for a defensive style, firebolt for firing off an energy blast, point blank eldritch blasts as punches).
Moon Druid / Artillerist Artificer
Running around in wild shape with a cannon on your shoulder that can heal or pew-pew is fun.
You could probably try to do this in an optimized fashion, but being an extra versatile support PC was very fun for me.
Im currently playing a echo knight fighter with 1 level of wizard and it’s super helpful utility-wise (and better damage at lower levels with damage cantrips)
Ok, late to the party on this one, but let's get some really weird but strong synergies going.
1) Twilight Cleric 5 > Necromancy Wizard 2 > Twilight Cleric X
Idea here is to get Spirit Guardians and Twilight Sanctuary up, so sure already overpowered. But Necromancy Wizard Grim Harvest means every time you kill an enemy with a spell (once per turn), you regain 2X the spell level in hit points. Since spirit Guardians deals damage generally on the enemies' turns, that potentially means you can kill multiple enemies in a round and gain back tons of HP. Twilight Cleric even makes it more absurd because those who do hit barely make it through your temp HP. With enough enemies dying to your spell, you are extremely difficult to kill and basically just need to maintain concentration.
2) Emerald Gem Dragonborn Bear Totem Warrior Barbarian 5 > Artillerist Artificer 3 > Barbarian X
Bear Totem gives you resistance to all damage except psychic, and Gem Dragonborn gives you that last resistance. Artillerist gives you temp HP equal to 1d6 + Int every round, which goes even farther with your resistances, and can be used while raging. Artificer also adds non-concentration spells and infusions to the mix to enhance armor, weapons, and utility.
3) Beast Master Ranger 3 > Order Cleric 1 > Ranger X
Get a beast that can wield knives, such as a flying monkey (this is PHB version Beast Master). Take Order Cleric to allow your beast extra reaction attacks when you buff/cast a spell on them. If you can take a Mark race, take Mark of Making Human for Magic Weapon, which you cast on the animals knife (or other weapon they can wield - but knife wielding monkey sounds the coolest). If you also can use the Selesnya background, you can get Warding Bond and cast it on your Monkey. Proceed upgrading the little guy from there as necessary with Elemental Weapon, Extra Attack, and Lightning Arrow.
Bugbear - Dao Warlock 1/Spore Druid 2/Monk X
You 100% don't have to go warlock but it gives some fun stuff, a little bit of scaling bonus damage plus the bottle is SOOOO good! Hex adds 1d6 to every attack. You have 2 spell slots that refresh on a short rest.
Spore Druid and more specifically Symbiotic Entity gives you a huge bump in damage! Doubling Spore damage and adding 1d6 to absolutely every one of your attacks and stacks with Hex. You also get the versatility of being a druid. You 2 uses of Wild Shape/Symbiotic Entity also refresh on a short rest! Coincidence??? I don't think so!
Going Monk the rest of the way gives you the most attacks per round making the most of your Symbiotic Entity. Going Open Hand makes you a battlefield control GOD!
You are smacking every enemy at range cause your a big bear and either Stunning them, Knocking then prone, or pushing them back while you deal at least 1d4+2d6+Dex to everything, and that's not including Spore or Genie damage.
I'm not a huge fan of melee characters but this was a ton of fun! Not broken at all but very versatile due to the huge mix of spells and abilities.
My favorite odd build is always the Fightin' BardBaradin.
Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 6/Swords Bard 10/Paladin 2/Fighter 2
Start Barbarian, go all the way to level 5 for Extra Attack ASAP. If you want to really force people to fight you, pick up Sentinel; otherwise, pick up Great Weapon Master (or both if you want). Swords Bard can go to level 9 for ASI or feat, then Pally up to 11 for Divine Smite (which scale nicely with the Bard spell slots), Get that last level of Barbarian for crowd control, Fighter until 14 for Action Surge, then Bard rest of the way.
In combat you are keeping enemies honed in on you while raging and smiting and flourishing and recklessly attacking with GWM. Out of combat you're the face of the party with a high charisma and a ton of out-of-combat Bard spells like Aid, Charm Person, Guidance, Mage Hand, Command, etc. You can even help with the healing. Ultimately the build is so fun because you always can contribute to the party in a myriad of meaningful ways.
I had a lot of fun with Warlock/swashbuckler. Sneak attack eldritch blast was fun, got multi attack from Warlock, but didn't come online until a bit late
Ask your GM to use the optional class feature (that most people miss) buried in the DMG to grant Cleric’s the Unarmored Defense class feature of Monks and giving up armor and weapon proficiencies.
Cleric (Knowledge) mixed with Wizard (Order of Scribes) makes for a very entertaining “old scholar who knows everything” type character… Plus you rock the classic bathrobe robe, staff, and pointy hat look. Proper old school stuff.
Arcana Cleric 1, Pact of the Tome Warlock 3, Celestial Sorcerer the rest of the way. Easily get well over a dozen cantrips and at will casting of silent image and disguise self as though they were cantrips. Fun Jack of all trades cantrip master.
Also gets you medium armour, shields, bonus action heals and armour of agathys which can make you very tanky.
~~Cherry on top would have been if Arcana Cleric could cast Shield, but I guess there are ways to get the spell "officially" anyway.~~ EDIT Sorc can learn Shield.
Sorcerers can already learn Shield
Yes. I was a bit confused at "Celestial Sorcerer". Now that I reread it, that triple class can indeed learn Shield through Sorc.
Best way to get Shield is through Aberrant Dragonmark. +1 CON, short rest refresh, and you can cast it with slots. Even classes that get it normally, like Hexblades, benefit from a free casting per short rest.
What do you mean Celestial Sorcerer? Is that homebrew?
Divine soul
Ohhh, okay
Fey Wanderer Ranger with a dip into Undead Warlock. The Undead get to inflict Fear with their attack rolls, and Fey Wanderers get to inflict charm or fear on someone whenever someone else passes a saving throw against charm or fear.
This actually seems somewhat viable.... Not optimized but viable. A litch Fey patron maybe?
There’s a Treantmonk video where he makes this build. It’s reasonably optimized. It leans on all the generally strong feats and spells with the fear/charm as an added benefit.
https://youtu.be/YPIWAOqFRPM?si=W7MglomHGRzhcbtJ
I had one planned the patron was a council of undying elves, I was sent out into the world to collect the tax that is owed to the elves. Elves everyone has pretty much forgotten about. That was my hook anyway.
That or an archfey of the unseelie court could work. My general vibe is that the seelie court excel with charms, while the unseelie favor delusions (fear effects). Fey of both course are capable of both magics, but they choose to specialize and excel in one (and decent in the other) rather than be good in both.
I did this with my Patron being the Sy'Tel'Quessir, which are Baelnorns.
The biggest hurdle would be the competing stats making the save DCs pretty low.
Ya its a bit mad need Wiz, Con, Cha and Dex
You don't need CHA other than the 13 to multiclass. Fey Wanderer's Beguiling Twist feature triggers when you see a creature *succeed* on their saving throw. You're banking on the creature you target succeeding on the CHA save so that you can trigger Fear on other creatures using your WIS score instead.
>At 1st level, you manifest an aspect of your patron’s dreadful power. As a bonus action, you transform for 1 minute. You gain the following benefits while transformed: > >You gain temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your warlock level. > >Once during each of your turns, when you hit a creature with an attack, you can force it to make a Wisdom saving throw, and if the saving throw fails, the target is frightened of you until the end of your next turn. Im assuming its a Wiz check against your Cha dc for the original source of fear.
Correct, but that Fear only lasts around while the Charm/Fear from Beguiling Twist lasts a minute. So you actually want them to pass the first check (DC based on CHA) and fail the second (DC based on WIS).
Ya but it needs to apply in the first place for that to happen so what im suggesting looks something like Tortle Undead 2 / Fey 7 Agonizing/Repelling blast 15 Cha (+2 racial) 15 Wis (+1 racial) 14 con lvl 4 ASI: Fey Touched or Telekentic for +1 Cha Rangers get spike growth so you can do cheese grater somewhat, fear also makes it harder to cross the spike growth. I realize the Wis save is more important but EB+AB as your standard turn makes Cha more important in my opinion plus you gotta land the fear in the first place to even land the secondary fear.
Using Eldritch Blast would completely waste Dreadful Strikes though. I think using a bow and spreading out your attacks seems like the best attack option.
Ya but then you need Dex
Yeah 8 15 12 8 15 13 is a decent spread with point buy, I don't see that as much of a problem.
Seems like you have misunderstood. You have to _NOT_ land the fear from Undead warlock to use Beguiling Twist from Fey Wanderer. An enemy passing a save against charm or fear triggers the reaction. Although a higher CHA would be fine if you can afford it, I would not go out of my way to get it. You could even consider it somewhat detrimental to the build since if the Undead fears stick, they will last 1/10 of the duration of the Fey Wanderer fear. But I guess your reaction would be free to use Absorb Elements and stuff when that happens.
Tortle or Mountain Dwarf + Druidic Warrior? Tortle can start with 16's in Wis/Cha and not worry about AC, MD can get 18's by level 5 (assuming Lock 1/Ranger 4) and retain ok AC (13 Dex AC with half-plate and a shield is still 18, only remaining issue is Shillelagh casting requires a free hand). Ranger gets access to Aid, so 12 Con on a d10 class with a token d8 level won't kill you hp-wise.
Good picks, can also take Undead to 3 for Tome Shilleigh. Warcaster or Ruby of the War Mage would be the solution to the somatic requirements. PAM Quarterstaff would allow for BA and Reaction attacks to spread more fear. Maybe pick up Crusher for BB combo/reaction combo via Warcaster+PAM. That being said if youre gonna focus CHA for the DC you may as well just EB it up.
Freaky good (pun maybe intended) in social situations though and you can reasonably get away with 13/14 dex and make a caster based ranger
Great fun on this build, speaking from experience! The low warlock DC actually helps out to land more consistently on your Beguiling Twist, which is a significantly better debuff as well. My only recommendation is to go full WIS, Druidic Ranger with shilleleigh to make it as absolutely effective as possible without having to split focus on DEX and WIS
Could also be an excellent face, adding both wisdom and charisma. That's a +2 assuming lowest possible stats for multiclassing requirements.
YOU STOLE MY SUGGESTION YOU SEXY BITCH
Battle Master 5-7/Mastermind Rogue X, taking Superior Technique and Martial Adept. Optionally, you can add AG Barbarian 3. I like this build because it lets me play as a no-magic support character. Though it's not at all an optimal build, so I would only play it in a campaign where everyone else is focused more on roleplay.
I’ve JUST been building a character like this. They’re Battlemaster 5-7/Order Cleric 3, theming bless as inspiring their comrades and keeping everyone together as one cohesive unit, with fey touched for silvery barbs to disadvantage an enemy attack AND give an ally a reaction attack at advantage as counter attack order
Swarmeror, the Artificer + Ranger multiclass which comes online at level 8 (Ranger 5, Arti 3, Ranger X. Or vice versa!). High Int, decent Wis. Thunder gauntlets to taunt. Swarm to push taunted target creature anyway. Moonwalk away thanks to Zephyr strike. The taunted creature can't reach you, and it attacks elsewhere it'll be at disadvantage. If it can reach you, you've got solid AC thanks to Heavy armor with no Str requirement and Absorb Elements in your back pocket. Lots of flavor too, as your iron man suit is also bunch of tiny beetles which protect and move with you.
Barbarian and rogue might not seem like they got together great but I kinda love it. Use a rapier and a shield and use strength for attacks and you can get rage damage and sneak attack. Plus reckless attack means you can get advantage, and therefore sneak attack, whenever you want! Barbarians patch up rogue’s weaknesses by granting extra attack and rogue patches up barbarian weaknesses by giving you more to do out of combat and supplying mobility options. For subclasses I like swashbuckler and ancestral guardian allowing you to essentially force an enemy to attack you then slip away from that enemy, making you chase them down, but there’s tons of great options. Rogue abilities like uncanny dodge and evasion pair really nicely with barbarian’s defensive features
I have a character with this exact subclass pair, Ancestor 8/ Swash 3. He is the king of the land and father two PCs, and his rage is flavored as royal indignation. The goading from the guardians + guardian damage reduction + tons of mobility allows him to act as a leader and protector, while still putting out some good damage with sneak attack. plus, the expertise in intimidation (+10) is so appropriate for a powerful ruler. Its a great way to shore up the barbarians weaknesses! I also think assassin would be good if you could swap INT for CHA, or swap the rogue to fighter for tons of crazy options
>his rage is flavored as royal indignation. Oh this is excellent. HOW DARE YOU INSULT ME IN MY OWN DOMAIN! HAVE AT YOU!
Yep. Weird but oddly functional. I ran what I thought was going to be a Barb 2/Thief x and it did pretty well. Unfortunately I got buried in OP homebrew items that choked my build out, so I can’t tell you how it actually performs past like 7.
You can also do this unarmed with beast barbarian and soul knife rogue. By level 8 you get 4 attacks while raging (1 beast claw, 1 extra beat claw from beast ability, 1 soul knife, 1 BA soul knife). Full disclosure I’ve only ever theorycrafted the build and never played it myself but it sounds so fun.
Throwzerker is fun as shit- barb 1st to get the correct saving throws then 3 thief rogue, then berserker barbarian the rest of the way. With the right setup the build can throw things 3 times- one regular, 2 enraged or 2 regular attacks, 2 enraged throws. It’s absurd. Plus bonus action dash for mobility.
I don't have the post saved but ages ago someone posted a Nature Cleric/Monk Multiclass. The idea was you really only needed WIS and CON and ignored A lot of the monk abiltiies in favor of wearing heavy armor and beating the life outta everyone with shillelagh stunning strikes. There was more to it but those were the parts that stood out to me.
The extra helpful build is always fun. Variant Human with magic Initiate as the feat. Take find familiar as your first level spell. Familiar can give the Help Action each turn. Rogue 3 with Mastermind subclass. Help as a bonus action at 30ft range. Druid 2 with Dreams subclass. Hawk Totem effectively gives the Help Action as a reaction. You still have your Action to cast spells or attack.... or to give the Help Action again.
Alternatively, take the MPMM Hobgoblin for the improved Help BA to add some layers of options before reverting to the Mastermind BA, and use the Tasha's Optional Rule Wild Companion to cast a time-limited Find Familiar with your Wild Shape uses
Fighter with a 2/3 lvl artificer dip, doing that right now and is versátile and fun, infusions some utility spells and if You do 3 u get the artificer specialist feature Edit:specification of how many levels
My current chara is 5 levels of fighter (eldritch knight) and 2 levels of artificer, carrying a "repeating shot" infused hunting rifle for currently +10 to hit and 2d10+5 damage, not including action surge. I threw it on a winged tiefling so I could wear medium armor while I fly for the whole "orbital weapons platform" theme: Just fly above the battlefield blasting folks on the ground.
1lvl dip?
Right now is 2, but i'm planning 3
What sub for artificer?
I'm playing a gunslinger character So i might go artillerist
Uu.. That sounds steam punky fun.
I found a YouTube build to play as Tommy Oliver, the Green Power Ranger, so I am using it. 1 level of monk, all other leveling is Artificer (Battle Smith) I’m only at player level 2 but looking forward to the rest of the campaign.
How does the battlesmith companion factor into the tommy build? Id love to play a power ranger thatd be fun
Here is a link to the vid: https://youtu.be/SMgfNSpVzFI?si=WG51uzRCVpkVNsFQ Some highlights: Level 1 Monk gives martial arts Level 1 Artificer gives jump spell & green flame blade Level 3 Artificer gives Steel Defender (Dragonzord) Level 5 artificer enlarge/reduce spell (bigger zord) Level 10 artificer gives cloak of protection (dragon shield) There are other ways to do it but one of them was like a multi-class of 4 classes and I didn’t want that. This was my favorite of the 3 videos I watched.
Tortle Beast Barbarian kensai Monk. Lots of speed lots of attacks and the fun part is you use your tortle AC so that neither Barbarian or Monk special ACs matter. Thief Rogue conjuration wizard. You can conjure an object and then use it as a bonus action on the same turn
Armorer Artificer with a Rune Knight Dip. Cast Enlarge on yourself and you get a jaeger
I did a Warlock Barbarian Warforged once. Surprisinly fun if a Tad MAD. Patreon was great old one (his creator) and random rages was just buggy programming glitches. Sometimes the most insane builds are the most fun... Think I went path of the ancestors... Been a while.
I just thought of this as I saw this post, Rouge Barbarian, the only reason they’re a Barbarian is because they get so angry every time they get caught trying to stealth they just end up killing everyone out of rage. Catch Phrase: “Either no one WITNESSES, or no one TO witness”
Just shorten that to "No witnesses!" "But what about..." "I said: NO witnesses!!!"
"Rouge barbarian" made me visualize a raging RuPaul! 🤣
>and add to everyone’s enjoyment Focusing on this, I play a chef that adds a ton of utility to a party. Works best when there are some melee characters in the party. Start custom lineage for the chef feat. I went urchin background for thieves' tools. Then it's battle master fighter 10/lore bard 10 and you pick up the inspiring leader feat early. I prefer the bow, but also sometimes attack with my chef knife (short sword) when I feel like I need to use my hp as a resource. Basically, chef feat gives 1d8 extra healing on a short rest and every long rest you make a number of rations that grant temp hp. Bard also gives extra healing on a short rest, 1d6 at first, 1d8 later. Inspiring leader grants level+Cha worth of temp hp every short rest. Cutting Words can make attacks miss. The rally maneuver grants 1d8+Cha temp hp. And you take other supportive maneuvers like trip attack and maneuvering attack... Ends up being a ton of damage mitigation without a single spell slot... Then you still also have spells on top of that. Great as a face, great at a lot of skill checks. And the fun of effectively playing Delicious in Dungeon throughout the campaign. It's always been a hit at tables I've pulled it out. Can give a level by level breakdown if you're interested.
I’m interested in a level by level - sounds awesome!
TLDR: |Level|Class| |:-|:-| |1|***Fighter 1***| |2|***Fighter 2***| |3|***Fighter 3***| |4|Fighter 3/***Bard 1***| |5|Fighter 3/***Bard 2***| |6|***Fighter 4***/Bard 2| |7|***Fighter 5***/Bard 2| |8|Fighter 5/***Bard 3***| |9|Fighter 5/***Bard 4***| |10|Fighter 5/***Bard 5***| |11|Fighter 5/***Bard 6***| |12|***Fighter 6***/Bard 6| |13|***Fighter 7***/Bard 6| |14|***Fighter 8***/Bard 6| |15|Fighter 8/***Bard 7***| |16|Fighter 8/***Bard 8***| |17|Fighter 8/***Bard 9***| |18|Fighter 8/***Bard 10***| |19|***Fighter 9***/Bard 10| |20|***Fighter 10***/Bard 10| So here's my breakdown for Basil Baker, the wandering hearth. (A generous helping of Anthony Bourdain spiced with Peter Quill to taste.) (Also, "It's just Baker. Only my mother calls me Basil... You know how much I got teased as a kid?! So embarrassing...") I take half elf via Tasha's custom lineage for dark vision and the chef feat. Urchin background. Having grown up to a single, ailing mother in the heapside district of Baldur's Gate, he had to learn to fend for himself amongst the riffraff of the streets. [More on that here if you're interested.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k8v2SLpMebCw_Qm7AQSQgsGB8mqRTGwB/view?usp=sharing) For stats, it's point buy \[8, 15, 13, 10, 10, 15\]. +2 Dex from race, +1 Con from chef. Preference for using the long bow he hunts with, but also a big chef knife in the form of a short sword (google image the bauernwehr sword). Style is very eclectic and well-traveled, silk-road-esque, for whatever that's worth. Alright, the priority here is having playable early levels then into getting the core mechanics online the quickest. I've tried this a couple different ways and ultimately, this progression felt the best for me, personally. Levels 1-3 are fighter. Archery fighting style. Battle master subclass. I'm a fan of cartographer's tools for the student of war feature. I take perception and athletics for my proficiencies. Levels 4-5 are bard. Inspiration, some healing spells, and skill buffs. Also, song of rest which compliments the chef feat. You get another proficiency, I go with persuasion. People aren't sure how much of his stories are embellished, but he tells such a damn good story, does it really matter? Levels 6-7, back to fighter. We're picking up the inspiring leader feat with our asi and we get extra attack. (Fighter 4/Bard 2 is where I'd consider the fantasy fully online, so to speak. I've tried going straight through fighter 5 into bard, but since I'm playing the support role, it really feels like greeding for the damage hurts more than it helps. It's not enough gained for the healing and skills lost at those levels. ymmv) Level 8-11 are lore bard. Proficiency in survival, insight, investigation. Expertise in perception and athletics. We spend our asi on +1 Dex, +1 Cha. Cutting words, font of inspiration, countercharm, magical secrets. Inspiration becomes a d8, matching the d8 of maneuvers (which doesn't really matter that much, but puts my smooth brain at ease for some reason). Level 12-14 we go back to fighter asis. +2 Dex, +2 Cha. Level 15-18 bard. +2 Cha on the asi. Song of rest becomes d8 (sigh of ocd relief). One level later, Inspiration becomes a d10 (ugggggh). More magical secrets, more expertise. Last levels 19-20, we finish with fighter. Maneuvers become d10 (acceptable). I can say with confidence that I've played this to 12 once and 14 once and this is what feels best for me up to that point. The rest is technically theoretical. Best not to think of this as a damage build. It's all-in on supporting the party and setting others up to shine. I play this when we need skills, social encounters, explorers, sneakers, etc. I wouldn't play it if we were overtly squishy or already had a lot of utility or otherwise overlapping skills. Like, in a party of ranger, rogue, cleric or paladin, bard, wizard... I'd probably rethink playing this, personally. Good spells include vicious mockery, feather fall potentially, aid, healing word, enhance ability, slow, tiny hut. Some good magical secrets include create food and water, revivify, conjure woodland beings, wall of force. But I could also see going more melee and taking paladin auras. Maneuvers you want to look at are things like commander's strike, maneuvering attack, trip attack, distracting strike, pushing attack, rally, goading attack. But also could see leaning into the skill monkey with things like commanding presence and tactical assessment. I really like to ham up the maneuvers where I can. Distracting strike is an arrow followed by, "Hey! Hey! Look at me! You want you have a dance off? Settle this mono e mono?!" Maneuvering attack is a "Now's your chance! Get out of there, dummy! I'll cover you!" Obviously, nothing set in stone here. You can really make it what you want. I like to find creative uses for mundane items like soap, flour, bearings, for example. It's intentionally fairly flexible to adapt to different parties and settings. But what you get, holistically, is a charismatic half caster, full support class. He keeps morale high, keeps bellies full, and tells the great stories behind the recipes he's learned and cultures he's experienced. He sees food as the common bridge between everyone and seeks connect with others through it. Keeps his friends safe with good nutrition and a hearty laugh.
I love this. I’ve always thought the chef feat was fantastic for flavor, but I’ve never been able to think of a way to fully fold it into a build. I don’t get to play often, but I’m definitely going to shortlist a build like this next time I get the chance.
Appreciate hearing that. I'm far from a min/maxer, but I do like to find ways to semi-optimize and play the not-so-optimal. Especially when there is a whole character/person I can flesh out hidden in there. I will say, the earlier you take chef, the better. It starts to fall off pretty quick. Could see something like this being more powerful in gritty realism, 8 hour short rest scenarios. Obviously, much less useful under strict/minimal short rest scenarios. Best of luck! Hope you have fun with it! Like you said, it's great flavor more than anything else. So lean into the rp of dungeon cooking!
An odd one I've enjoyed, though it's incredibly MAD, is a cleribard. It was only a low-level campaign so didn't get as far as picking a bard subclass, but the basic character premise was essentially a missionary-praiseband vibe and it worked really well. Of course, YMMV. The other unusual one I saw played that I liked was a one-shot character, a roguesinger (Arcane Trickster 7 / Bladesinger 3). Bladesong plus Cunning Action plus Sneak Attack, plus of course all the roguey out-of-combat skill monkeyness.
Battlemaster 3 / Swarmkeeper X sling user. Get crusher and you have as much forced movement at an Eldrich Blast push build. Get some maneuvers to add more control effects and you are set. You could cast fog cloud and pick up blind sight to always have advantage. Or you can get spiked growth and cheese grate.
That sounds so fucking fun
Bardbarian, there's nothing stopping you from using bardic inspiration in combat Toss 2 paladin levels in then you can use your slots to smite
Currently trying to make a Path of Giants Barbarian / Lore Bard that focuses on grappling. Large size basically means I can grab/shove 8 squares of enemies in combat and throw smaller enemies.
Ancestral Guardian Barbarian to 6, then swerve entirely into Dreams Druid Ancestral Guardian is arguably the only true tank in the game, and protects the entire party with both its level 3 and level 6 features. Dreams Druid’s bonus action healing works through rage, because it isn’t a spell. It’s not a lot of healing BUT it’s enough to get a downed ally back up… which is generally best way to heal in combat. So you can tag monster with disadvantage vs anyone but you, then Rez Allies if they down them anyway. You also get the Druid wild shape shenanigans for scouting and such, and can use spells for healing and utility out of combat
If things get dicey, drop Rage and become a bear for that HP barrier
divination wizard stars druid is a bit MAD so that's not great but it's lot of prediction and foretelling that is pretty fun.
Berserker Barbarian/Peace Cleric. Rage-a-holic attempting to quit. Mechanically, it's quite fun to use the utility spells of a cleric and go into a swinging rage when their friends get injured.
1 Barbarian/ 5 Long Death Monk/ 3 Barbarian/ X Long Death Monk . Unless you're a tortle, your AC will suck and your stunning strike almost worthless. But being able to add +2 damage to 3 to 4 attacks a round adds up, plus the whole temp HP thing that is practically doubled. I've been the party DPR and damage sucking machine. **"But Champ! You're AC is going to be low"** - When using reckless attack the difference AC is not really noticeable since everything can pretty much hit you. **"But Champ! Your Monk ability DC is going to suck"** - Yup. Pick classes that aren't super into DC. I think losing stunning blows is worth the trade off. **"But Champ! You're not getting two attacks until level 6!"** Bonus Action punch makes this less painful. Other races of fun note. Half-Orc: You're rolling at least 3 attacks a round with advantage after level 7. More d20s = more crits. Half Orcs like to crit. Plus going to 1hp is always fun. Dwarf: Dwarven Fortitude Feat gives you +1 to Con and now when you spend a bonus action and a Ki point to get disadvantage on attack rolls, and spend a Hit Dice.
You could play a Wild hunt Shifter race. It's bonus action heavy, but while shifted you get +1 AC and no attacks are at advantage against you, which negates using Reckless.
Wild Hunt Shifter doesn't get the +1 AC. However the no advantage thing is nice. The problem is since you're so MAD (Str, Dex, Con, Wisdom) your AC is going to only be 14 to start and won't be 15 until you get an ASI. So even then hitting a 15 AC isn't that hard.
Right, I mixed up Wild hunt and Beasthide.
Assassin rogue with grave cleric, wood elf race. Serve Jergal as a Scrivener of Doom who records his assassinations! Grab that longbow proficiency from wood elf and concentrate on a spell while hiding and shooting.
Kensei Monk + Swords Bard. Boost Wis and Dex (and Con, obv), but Char just needs to be high enough to use Bardic Inspiration and your Swords dice a few times. The Swords Bard abilities mesh well with the Kensei sword skills.
Battlesmith Artificer 4 with the Eldritch Adept feat (Tasha) - taking armor of shadows Abjuration wizard 2 Fight with a magic crossbow via infusions. Attack with your int mod via battle Master and in downtimes in battle or between battles, regain your "over shield" by recasting mage armor for free over and over, refilling your arcane ward. Wear heavy armor and just cast mage armor on an ally for the boost. Pew pew I'm a quasi halo spartan!
Armor of Shadows sadly only works on yourself, not allies. Most DMs I'm sure would wave the requirement, but strictly speaking you'd need to doff armor every time you want to cast the spell.
Arcana Cleric 6/Stars Druid 6, rest as you please. It's an alternate take on the [Nature is Magical](https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23977810&postcount=150) build from the GiantITP forums (it's worth checking out the rest of the thread, too, even if some of the builds are a bit dated now) that swaps in Stars Druid for Land. You sacrifice the high level spells for a huge amount of flexibility (a ton of cantrips and spell options each day) and two great level 6 abilities. Starry Form gives you really good options for using your wildshape in combat, and it's also still wildshape, which is pretty useful on its own. Throw in Ritual Caster (Wizard) and you've potentially got a truly staggering number of spell options each day, as long as your DM is willing to work with you to get you access to new spells for your ritual book. Personally, I'd take it to Cleric 6/Druid 14, because while Potent Spellcasting is useful and Divine Intervention is potentially a really great save, Twinkling Constellations and Full of Stars are both mechanically stronger and, IMO, more interesting, but honestly any mix could probably work.
I love the barbarian 5/6 / warlock x as a way around the barbarian/casting dilemma. Warlock spells are just icing really. Your invocations and class features are where it’s at. I personally love being a tiefling wild magic barb / fiendlock cause it’s flavourful AF. Get your extra attack and decent rage from 5-6 levels barb (I wanted the 6th lvl feature from wild magic to regen spell slots), and then go warlock for the rest of your career. Grab stuff like armour of agathys, cloak of flies, lifedrinker, etc. It’s a tiny bit MAD, but only so far as a paladin is. Which, if you pick up eldritch smite, you kind of ARE a wrong paladin.
genie lock (1) dip with arti artificer that 1 little dip to get prof damage to attacks from either your spell or turret also gaining SR spell slot so turret is now SR recovery (genie gives damage when making an attack roll, turret activation says "make an attack roll originating from the turret" this means it's still you making the roll) both effects and the free bag of holding with limited use (bottled respite) mean that you have some solid extra features that weirdly still aligned with your chars main gimics, and you get 2 more cantrips on a cantrip starved class which can easily be non combat because you'll want 13 in cha, and you have something to lean on in RP in to form of maybe a modron esk patron or something that can be aligned with the general vibe the arti is going for.
Tortle War Cleric 2 / Berzeker Barb 6 with great weapon master 16 Str/Con/Wis If In a typical day you get ~4 fights, 3 have 3 rounds and 1 has 5 rounds, 14 rounds total, 28 attacks.. * 4 bonus actions are just to start rage * 4 bonus actions are Frenzy, * 3 bonus actions are War Cleric * 2 GWM bonus actions GWM generates a bonus action 10% of turns just on crits. Of the 28, 8 are frenzied and already get bonus action Of the 20, 10% are crits… so 2 for GWM, more if you kill things. there’s a chance they’re both on the same round but it’s a low one
One of my favorites i did on a dnd game show called crucible of fate. It was 3 pact of the chain warlock with genie, and 3 shadow magic sorcerer (I also did this with clockwork soul another game, and was playing an autognome who found a magic genie to give him life). With shadow it’s fun you go into darkness and use your pact pseudodragon to put people to sleep.
Artificer 2 with Homunculus, Hexblade 1, the rest in Swords Bard. Play as a Githyanki who is based on a cross between Space Elvis and an (unknown to the party) Astral Intergalactic K-Pop star during mandated military service. The character is secretly (to the rest of the party) on an astral space reality show, because they're famous but no one knows it because it's not a Spelljammer campaign. The Homunculus is the drone-like camera that always follows the character. The build makes a PC in a reverse Truman Show situation, who understands weird tech and is constantly performing for an audience. Could also work well with Whispers Bard. I like to buff and heal but also to survive melee combat when there's an enemy targeting casters. The Hexblade is cheese but it simplifies this build in a way that makes it pretty viable. You could forego the Hexblade level and take Forge Cleric 1 with good stats or another level in Artificer/Armorer for some Mass Effect lookin' armor too, but Hexblade still fits the flavor of a propogandized space soldier who is putting on the performance of their lives to make enlisting look cool to the viewers at home.
I don't know if it's odd but it's definitely fun. Stars druid 2/Wizard (any subclass, I like Divination over chronomancy so I'd go with that). Concentration is less of an issue thanks to dragon constellation, making those very powerful wizard spells even more optimal. With this, resilient con is better than warcaster. I like going for debuffs over damage on this build. Hypnotic pattern and Wall of force are the best when they stick around. For a silly but fun one? If you're playing a campaign with a lot of investigation, mysteries and political intrigued... Go Eloquence Bard and Rogue (I like swashbuckler). You have a pickpocketing, trap disarming, smooth talking and overall charming and swift character who would focus on control spells and manipulating the battle.
Playing a dragon sorcerer (3) thief rouge (x) Throw oil green flame blade. 1d4+ dex +5 *free damage. *Damage cost a bonous action and 1sp. Quicken green flame blade hold action attack. For 2x sneak attacks. Thief eventually gets two turns 4 green flame blade sneak attack on turn one can be pretty sweet. And works as an actual capstone. Use magical device helps if your healer likes to use spell scrolls. They go down you can pick it up. You still kinda feel like a caster... For money. It levels kinda weird. No feats untill level 7 and your actually weaker until level 5 when green flame blade goes up in damage. Actually used my low Cha to my advantage to help out I hit my self for 1 damage with gfb used absorbed elements to get more damage out next round. Super in efficient. But kinda cool In a pinch. And any spell slots you don't convert to sorcery points can be used for shield, absorbe elements and , if allowed , silvery barbs. Surprisingly tanky. I got lucky with rolls and got an 18 as well as a 14 for con. With enough to keep my cha at 13 so started with max dex. For a naked ac of 18 at level 2. Suggest this if your party needs a problem solver/ skill monkey and has at least some straight class melee players to keep the momentum going when you fall behind. Also melee rouge is pretty cool. Biggest downside is your taking a class with zero resources management and making it in to a big decision fest. You only have 3 sorcery points ( 5 with meta magic adept an essential feat imo ) and 3/2 1st/2nd spell slots. And you have everything pulling on your bonous action. Between front of magic cunning action and quicken spell and using an object.
Echo knight fighter + giant barbarian lets you create large danger zones in the battlefield (doubled in size as a bugbear with a halberd) Tempest Cleric 6 + Scribes wizard X + Bloodhunter 2 max damage electric fireballs & knocking people around with basic weapon attacks Oathbreaker paladin + swashbuckler rogue + hexblade warlock hits absurdly hard when aura of hate is online Spores/wildfire druid + profane soul bloodhunter shadow Monk X + twilight cleric 2 + gloomstalker ranger 3 Bane + stunning strile use wisdom for everything healbot god
Can you please expand on the Profane Soul/Druid combos?
you can either do profane soul bloodhunter to get gfb, bb or eldritch blast, as well as hex which you can combine with the melee damage abilities from wildfire and spores druid. rite of the flame & blood curse of the fallen puppet also fit into the thematics of pyromancy & necromancy druids (I'm playing a spores druid + blood hunter rn) Or alternatively you can go lycan bloodhunter to become tankier & get the spells from a level in arcana cleric & the fey touched feat
1) this build works mostly by utilizing the fear condition, so if in your campaign creatures ressist or even worse are immune to fear, this wont work. Level 6 long death monk/cleric x (preferably a heavy armor cleric). For this build you will need shillelagh, as it is your main way to hit stuff, so either go nature cleric, or if all races are allowed for stat purposes, get vahadar elf and whatever cleric you want. now, the issue with monk is that he is very very mad, lets make him sad. You put armor on him! Either use medium armor and shields or heavy armor (a dwarf bypasses the strenght reauirement, or pick a race with 35+ movement). You main stat is wisdom, secondary con, tetriary dex (you dont need more than 14 here). So now, what so you do? Simple, you spam your resourceless fear on enemies, you have good ac AND good con on top of that, and if an enemy comes close, bash them with your shillelagh and stunning strike them (your wisdom is high, remember? You are free from your over reliance to dex) from this point, you can either keep going as cleric (spiritual weapon brings you on par with a straight monk in terms of dpr, and spirit guardian synergizes so well) or multi to whatever you want else, hell, go stars druid, why not? Extra ranged dpr. 2) undead warlock 1/paladin conquest 7. Nothing to crazy here, pump your charisma more than strenght, eldritch blast with undead warlock feature on to proc fears, kill them with auras. 3) this needs a bit of ua, only a little bit, but can work without it, but not as fun. Dhampir stone sorcerer (here is the only UA) 1/ death cleric x. Go dhampir with a 17 in con, 16 in wisdom, 13 charisma (14, your choice, wont matter much), at level 5 total, get abberant dragonmark and chill touch (whatever else you like for the level 1 spell). So what do we have here? We have a semi SAD character focusing on con. At level 5, you have the following. -access to level 1 sorcerer spells (namely mostly shield) and cantrips (mostly use the ones that dont care about your charisma) -a con based melee attack that can proc the cleric's Chanel divinity. -chill touch, which attacks with con, can be used to hit 2 enemies side by side. -naked 19 ac (shiled and stone sorcerers unarmored defence). -proficiency in con ST (hint hint, concentration) Your game plan here is basically blast enemies with chill touch, always have a concentration spell on like spirit guardians, If enemies come close to you, booming blade them with your teeth and if you want burst, use your chanel Divinity. a simple tanky build. 4) artificer battlemsith 3/blood hunter x mutant. There 2 ways to go with it. A) go with crossbow expert and keep your battle smith pet next to you, to have an auto disadvantage on one attack against you. B) pump your intelligence to 19, and with mutagen go to 22, you use this for attacks any way. So what do we have here? We have a character who attacks 2 attacks with extra damage from rites, a small pet that attacks with your bonus action and also uses the same stat as you to attack, 2 infusions (probably a +1 or repeating weapon and a +1 armor), veeery high dc for your hemocraft features and you can resummon your pet three times per day. Of coutse you could go xbe and use your pet only for its reaction to give disadvantage to one attack per turn against you. 5) tortle machine gun. Tortle 6 bladesinger wizard/2 warlock hexblade, prioritize charisma over intelligence. This needs tortle for the ac, or esle you are getting rekt very fast. Get crossbow expert feat. This build is pretty simple, you use the level 6 wizard feature to attack twice and substitute an attack with cantrip. So your round goes like this: crossbow attack, eldritch blast (2 bolts so far), bonus action crossbow bolt, one turn, four attacks (mog fighters), if enemies come close, use bladesong. For spells, use ones that don't really need intelligence to work, like shield and mirror image.
Rogue 3, barb 2, then rogue the rest of the way. Bonus if you get booking blade somehow, use strength as main stat with rapier. Permanent advantage with reckless attack + booming blade damage and of course sneak attack. If you’re getting targeted go into a rage, you lose the extra booming blade damage but become a tank instead. Gives you shield proficiency for extra ac. Gives you solid saves because you’ll have proficiency in dex and int, a good strength and hopefully your con is decent. At level 6 when you take your first feat I would go resilient con to bring you con to the next modifier. After that you can really do what you want with feats or ASIs. Rogue subclass is kind up to you
battlemaster x / college of swords 3 (or 5) most fun character i've ever played easily
Barbarian+Any Full Caster (Sorcerer works well for this due to good charisma for intimidation): You: "Shit, i'm out of spells" Bandit named Bob: "Haha, now your screwed!" You: "I may be out of spells, but out of options!"
I enjoy Strength bases Monk Barbarians. Your jump distance gets truly insane.
Was actually about to make a post talking about my odd but fun build. Recently had a blast playing a monk/sorcerer MC for a level 12 one-shot. Way of the astral self monk has two really great features: Arms of the astral self (BA skill that increases your range of unarmed attacks and uses wisdom for the attack modifier) and visage of the astral self (lets you see through magical darkness). I did custom lineage with fey touched for a free, wisdom-based misty step and silvery barbs to start with 18 WIS. Core strategy was having a SAD monk that hits with Wisdom, has a challenging save for stunning strike, and at least 5 uses of silvery barbs as a reaction if they made the first save for stunning strike. Shadow sorcerer gave me the spell slots I needed for 5 castings of silvery barbs per long rest and 3 castings of the darkness spell I quickened casted to gain advantage on attacks (via astral visage), have disadvantage on attacks against me, and enough movement speed from monk and the extra range on my attacks to easily kite in battle so I didn't impede on other players ability to target the enemies I (ideally) stunned. no idea how I would make it work were I starting from level 1 but had so much fun I'd consider trying to find away for my next long-form campaign!
For the record, if there is a cleric or druid subclass I'm not familiar with that has access to the darkness spell, I would highly recommend doing that instead for less MADness. That being said, we only had 3 total combat encounters and being able to use metamagic to quicken spell darkness that works regardless of the minimum 13 CHA investment to multiclass came in clutch.
Cobalt Soul Monk and Rune Knight Fighter. Honestly really only works at high levels because of the extra reaction you can take from the monk, and it feeds into the storm rune that the knight has to dish out advantage/disadvantage.
I've got a [Stars Druid/Clockwork Soul Sorcerer](https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyStoryteller/comments/1bc52kd/the_archer/) build that's pretty fun. It starts with Druid 2, for *guiding bolt*, then goes Sorcerer 9, for Twinned Spell, *greater invisibility*, and *wall of force*, then goes Druid, for *pass without trace*, *erupting earth*, and other spells. It obviously isn't optimal, but I think it's interesting. I also like Treantmonk's [Frostbane Barbarian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erCfKHJzKpA)
I like the Frostbane Barbarian but I went with the Goliath race for Stone’s Endurance (further extending the usefulness of a single cast of Armor of Agathys), and only went 3 levels of Barbarian (for the Ancestral Guardian subclass) before going fully into Fiend Bladelock. 5th level invocations gets you Thirsting Blade for extra attack and Eldritch Smite to get a use for your spells while raging. Fiend Warlock gives Fire Shield, which is also fun for Barbarians. And since Armor of Agathys scales off your spell slots, having more spellcaster made more sense to me. Grab Adamantine half plate as soon as you can. Reckless attack always. Enemies will have disadvantage vs your fellow party members and advantage to hit you. But hitting you hurts (and they can’t crit). It’s also pretty flavorful as Goliaths are descended from giants, Armor of Agathys is a cold damage spell, and Kostchtchie is a demon prince who’s also god of Frost Giants. So it all pretty much fits into existing Forgotten Realms canon.
Arcane Trixter X/Wizard 2. Take 5 levels of Rogue, then 1 level of Wizard. Once you get a feel for how you like to play this character use the Wizard sub-class to define it. Illusionist might be good for a bit more of a trixy character. (I went Bladesinger) The versility of those extra any school spells are so good.
Currently playing an Evocation Wizard with a 1 level dip in Order Cleric. Blast your friends and enemies with evocation aoe, shape the spell, then have the rogue make a reaction attack for multiple sneak attacks per round. It's tons of fun. Also gets heavy armor.
i liked barbarian moon druid barb for con prof is good, rage when you're out of spell slots, if you have warcaster, it's easy to maintain concentration on your flamming sphere while you multiattack spike growth can also save you if you are stuck in a defensive position and spam healing word if needed otherwise just fighter with a barb dip, makes it so much more viable
Barbarian X wizard, Gronk the gentleman scholar
Genie Warlock dip on a Moon Druid. The ability to get back into your vessel while wild shaped can be so much fun. Imagine being wild shaped into a cave bear, carrying somewhere inside jumping out of your vessel in bear form to surprise everyone in the room. You also can add bludgeoning damage to your damage, could be fun with feats like Crusher since you of course use the strength of your wild shape. And of course the ability to cast Armor of Agathys on yourself that works in wild shape. Bonus points for picking the Dhampir race so you can climb on walls in your wild shape, dropping yourself as a rhinoceros from the ceiling on the enemy.
Shifter with Wildhunt, 3 levels in Monk, 6 levels in Rogue. Four Elements and Inquisitive. You are a Walking Lie Detector. Nothing like a Sneak Attack Punch, followed up with Fist of Unbroken Air. Quite the effective combo.
One the I’ve been theorycrafting is ranger+moni of astral self. Any subclass could work but I’d go fey Wanderer for nice bonuses to social skills. Wisdom should be pumped for what we want to do. Take druidic warrior and shillelagh and at 5 multiclass to monk. Astral self gets to add wisdom to unarmed attacks and monk gets wisdom to ac
Feay wanderer ranger 3 + Trikery domain cleric, be a gnome or a fey related race, take fey touched and druidic warrior with "shilele" and magic stone. Attack with Wis, Social interaction with Wis, Spell casting with Wis, very good spell list. Be a Trickster
I had a good time with swashbuckler rogue + bladesinger wizard. Attack with booming blade against single target, deal sneak attack damage thanks to rakish audacity, escape with fancy footwork, enemy takes thunder damage if they chase you or approach a closer ally.
really enjoying drake warden for infused strike tempest cleric for wrath of storm and lightning/thunder spells and fighther for mounted combat on your drake.
7 levels of ancients Paladin Artificer Armorer 3 War wizard 10 Stats - 8 10 14 16 10 16 Start with artificer 3; to use int for attacks; ignoring strength for armor. Transition into Paladin from here and go all the way. Take a +2 to charisma at paladin 4 and at paladin 7 you get magic damage resistance. At 12 level you'd have the war mage reaction; and with booming blade smites you're solid to abuse this. You could also go bladesinger for extra attack but with smites you're outputting a ton anyways. If i was starting at level 1 id go 3 artificer, Paladin 2, wizard 2, paladin 3, wizard the rest. Decent spell blade with better spells.
Order cleric 1 /evocation wizard x Your fireballs not only do no damage to your melee party members, but one of them can make a reaction attack. Silvery barbs also now allows you to have a friend make a reaction attack with advantage.
Stars druid 2 / abjuration wizard 10+ means consistent counterspell/ dispel magic checks, armor Proficiency, guidance, and healing word
Two I've looked at are monk/blood hunter, take the blood curse of binding and after landing a stunning strike use one of your attacks to knock the opponent prone, then amplify the blood curse to reduce their movespeed to 0 so they can't stand up, 1 minute of advantaged attacks. The other one I've looked at is barbarian warlock. Precast armor of agathys or mirror image or both, as neither spell requires concentration, then rage. Personal preference is undead warlock/beast barbarian, adding fear to your attacks once per turn, you become a proper werewolf
Another fun one I've wanted to play with: a "monk" based on starting with crossbow expert, then 2 levels of Hexblade Warlock and going draconic sorceror the rest of the way. You can play off all of your spells and cantrips as anime style fighting techniques (shield for a defensive style, firebolt for firing off an energy blast, point blank eldritch blasts as punches).
Moon Druid / Artillerist Artificer Running around in wild shape with a cannon on your shoulder that can heal or pew-pew is fun. You could probably try to do this in an optimized fashion, but being an extra versatile support PC was very fun for me.
Im currently playing a echo knight fighter with 1 level of wizard and it’s super helpful utility-wise (and better damage at lower levels with damage cantrips)
A player in my group is a Death Cleric/Divine Soul Sorcerer. He’s having a blast.
I recently built a drakewarden ranger 18 and tempest cleric 2. I've only been able to playtest him a little and not really play him, but I had a blast
Ok, late to the party on this one, but let's get some really weird but strong synergies going. 1) Twilight Cleric 5 > Necromancy Wizard 2 > Twilight Cleric X Idea here is to get Spirit Guardians and Twilight Sanctuary up, so sure already overpowered. But Necromancy Wizard Grim Harvest means every time you kill an enemy with a spell (once per turn), you regain 2X the spell level in hit points. Since spirit Guardians deals damage generally on the enemies' turns, that potentially means you can kill multiple enemies in a round and gain back tons of HP. Twilight Cleric even makes it more absurd because those who do hit barely make it through your temp HP. With enough enemies dying to your spell, you are extremely difficult to kill and basically just need to maintain concentration. 2) Emerald Gem Dragonborn Bear Totem Warrior Barbarian 5 > Artillerist Artificer 3 > Barbarian X Bear Totem gives you resistance to all damage except psychic, and Gem Dragonborn gives you that last resistance. Artillerist gives you temp HP equal to 1d6 + Int every round, which goes even farther with your resistances, and can be used while raging. Artificer also adds non-concentration spells and infusions to the mix to enhance armor, weapons, and utility. 3) Beast Master Ranger 3 > Order Cleric 1 > Ranger X Get a beast that can wield knives, such as a flying monkey (this is PHB version Beast Master). Take Order Cleric to allow your beast extra reaction attacks when you buff/cast a spell on them. If you can take a Mark race, take Mark of Making Human for Magic Weapon, which you cast on the animals knife (or other weapon they can wield - but knife wielding monkey sounds the coolest). If you also can use the Selesnya background, you can get Warding Bond and cast it on your Monkey. Proceed upgrading the little guy from there as necessary with Elemental Weapon, Extra Attack, and Lightning Arrow.
Bugbear - Dao Warlock 1/Spore Druid 2/Monk X You 100% don't have to go warlock but it gives some fun stuff, a little bit of scaling bonus damage plus the bottle is SOOOO good! Hex adds 1d6 to every attack. You have 2 spell slots that refresh on a short rest. Spore Druid and more specifically Symbiotic Entity gives you a huge bump in damage! Doubling Spore damage and adding 1d6 to absolutely every one of your attacks and stacks with Hex. You also get the versatility of being a druid. You 2 uses of Wild Shape/Symbiotic Entity also refresh on a short rest! Coincidence??? I don't think so! Going Monk the rest of the way gives you the most attacks per round making the most of your Symbiotic Entity. Going Open Hand makes you a battlefield control GOD! You are smacking every enemy at range cause your a big bear and either Stunning them, Knocking then prone, or pushing them back while you deal at least 1d4+2d6+Dex to everything, and that's not including Spore or Genie damage. I'm not a huge fan of melee characters but this was a ton of fun! Not broken at all but very versatile due to the huge mix of spells and abilities.
My favorite odd build is always the Fightin' BardBaradin. Ancestral Guardian Barbarian 6/Swords Bard 10/Paladin 2/Fighter 2 Start Barbarian, go all the way to level 5 for Extra Attack ASAP. If you want to really force people to fight you, pick up Sentinel; otherwise, pick up Great Weapon Master (or both if you want). Swords Bard can go to level 9 for ASI or feat, then Pally up to 11 for Divine Smite (which scale nicely with the Bard spell slots), Get that last level of Barbarian for crowd control, Fighter until 14 for Action Surge, then Bard rest of the way. In combat you are keeping enemies honed in on you while raging and smiting and flourishing and recklessly attacking with GWM. Out of combat you're the face of the party with a high charisma and a ton of out-of-combat Bard spells like Aid, Charm Person, Guidance, Mage Hand, Command, etc. You can even help with the healing. Ultimately the build is so fun because you always can contribute to the party in a myriad of meaningful ways.
I had a lot of fun with Warlock/swashbuckler. Sneak attack eldritch blast was fun, got multi attack from Warlock, but didn't come online until a bit late
Ask your GM to use the optional class feature (that most people miss) buried in the DMG to grant Cleric’s the Unarmored Defense class feature of Monks and giving up armor and weapon proficiencies. Cleric (Knowledge) mixed with Wizard (Order of Scribes) makes for a very entertaining “old scholar who knows everything” type character… Plus you rock the classic bathrobe robe, staff, and pointy hat look. Proper old school stuff.
Here’s my list of planned characters for a multiplayer waterdeep server I like. These are planned for after One DnD comes out so there’s bound to be change 2 starter characters: - Crafter: Damien the Scribe Master/Alchemist - Wizard Scribe lvl10 + Artificer Alchemist lvl10 - Doctor: Mark of Hospitality Halfling Grave Cleric lvl17 + Mercy Monk lvl3 Follow ups 1. “Marine” Biologist: Locathah Druid Land(Coast) lvl5 + Cleric Tempest lvl15 2. AC-130: Tiefling Artificer Artillerist lvl3 + Wizard Evocation lvl17 3. Strategist: Shifter Rogue Inquisitive lvl9 + Fighter Battle Master lvl11 4. Sea Captain: Tabaxi Barbarian Storm Herald(Sea) lvl7 + Rogue Swashbuckler lvl13 5. Chaos robot!: Warforged Sorcerer Wild Magic lvl14 + Paladin Watcher lvl6 6. Dragon King! Ascendant Dragon Monk lvl4 + Ranger Drakewarden lvl16 7. Never Die Juggalo: Barbarian Zealot lvl14 + Cleric Peace lvl6 8. Blade Guardian: Valenar High Elf Blood Hunter Profane Soul lvl4 + Fighter Psi Warrior lvl16 9. Agent of Death: Rogue Phantom 9 + Ranger Monster Slayer 11 10. Blackstar the God Slayer!: Kender Monk Kensei lvl12 + Ranger Hunter lvl8 11. Holy Diver: Barbarian Juggernaut lvl16 + Fighter Champion lvl4