Multiclass with monk. It takes a lot of work for it to be good, but if you can do it these builds can be really fun and surprisingly effective. I really like monk/rogue for sneak attack, monk/fighter you can end up with tons of attacks that do great damage or monk / wizard is a fun one too.
Can confirm monk/wizard is very fun. Cool Jedi vibes. I went war wizard. You can get the +2 to AC consistently because we don't cast spells a whole lot anyways. Shield if it's a bigger hit. No attack or save spells because INT is low
I play a Kensei monk (7) Bladesinger wizard (2) and between bonus action bladesong, reaction shield, and unarmored defense, I get to add the ability score modifiers of 3 stats and a +5 to my AC. That gets me to 27 AC most of the time. And then as a gnome, I have advantage on all INT/WIS/CHA saves against magical effects. Plus as a monk I’m already proficient in Dex saves. Basically the only dangers to this build are Cold and Necrotic damage, and to a lesser extent Poison.
This is what I'm playing right now, different subclasses though. also been a fun build but haven't moved up the levels yet. Eldritch blast adds a nice ranged option when you need one.
I did that once in a 14th level one shot. A Githyanki Shadow Monk 11/ Soul-knife Rogue 3 and it meshed really nicely.
I'd like to try that combo again one day.
I like shadow monk with war cleric dip.
Take GWM and Eldritch Initiate (for Devil's Sight to see in magic derkness), cast Darkness on yourself and teleport around killing people like a horror movie slasher.
Works fine with heavy armor and a two-handed weapon.
If you want to flurry take a race with natural weapons.
In a rare case of actually recommending a mix that requires asking for DM approval, letting a celestial warlock's Radiant Soul power up the Sun Soul's radiant sun bolt is a really easy ask; it's a spell attack, and it has a reputation for being weak and needing a buff.
And being a strong sun soul monk in service to a celestial is a stupidly good flavor win.
One of my characters is a Way of the open hand monk/ Shadow sorcerer for story reasons. It's a weird ass build but it's interesting and that character has WAY more AC than a typical sorcerer.
Stunning Strike into attacking with advantage on stunned enemy for Sneak Attack is surprisingly effective, especially when you play with a group that is too afraid to frontline.
My first character was a Rogue 2 Shadow Monk 6. Not a great damage dealer, but basically invincible in combat with all the running and hiding you can do.
I've played around with the idea with a wizard monk, but I figure wizards are so overpowered that I might as well get some higher level spells that completely replace the monk features I would have gotten.
I was tempted to multi my monk with rogue, but I have such a problem with holding back levels with the main class. Less ki points, cool major abilities are pushed further down the line, screwing up asi gains. So I'm just an extremely sneaky scout/spy, rather than assassin. Got the skill expert feat so I have expertise in stealth and have the Ioun stone of mastery and shadow monks can cast pass without trace. I rolled a damn 42 on a stealth check at level 8. Lol
The Owlbear that Taliesin Jaffe used in an One Shot of Critical Role is pretty neat.
5 levels Barbarian, 5 levels Rogue, use a weapon (rapier is probably your best bet) with Finesse, but use your Strength modifier for the attack you can get Rage Bonus and 3d6 Sneak Attack. You get two attacks, attack recklessly granting yourself advantage so you can always give yourself Sneak Attack.
You now have more uses for Bonus Action because of Cunning Action, Rage then Hit and Run.
weren't they doing one-vs-one showmatches starting at a distance only a monk can easily close on the first turn? I do remember she was sweeping the floor with all of them LOL
I was very new to the game and had made a Tabaxi Monk. When it was time to pick my discipline I started researching and got very bummed because so much of what I saw was bashing monks. I felt horrible, like I was going to let my party down and be dead weight. Another party member, who was more experienced, pointed me to a Critical Role battle royal. I watched Marisha play a monk and take out everyone.
I am still playing that Monk and kicking all the ass in Curse of Strahd. And next level I will be able to walk on walls!
Douse your handwraps/gloves in blessed anointment and set them on fire, Strahd will be reeling from the holy hellfire you can rain down with a few Ki points.
Yesssss. I'm a DM and I love inspiring players to conspire against the DM, my favorite part, tell your DM that you and your party have taken 1 hour to do a thing. Write the thing down and hand it to them and tell them you will reveal this totally reasonable request, in this case the handwraps/rags soaking in holy water stored away in a wineskin, at a later date. The DM still gets the surprise of the reveal which is fun for them, but also fun for everyone at the table in on it or not, and it's just narratively fun. They can still rule as they like, the only better thing might be to finagle some radiant handwraps, or a weapon that monks can use I forget which ones exactly, but mutlihit+radiant bonus per hit+vulnerability makes for an insane combo.
I don't actually have handwraps, but I think I can buy a pair easy enough. The Fire Genasi is a Wizard who loves to blow stuff up ... and works with me to go zoom zoom! My base speed is currently 45, plus I have the feline agility. I can go in, bitch slap Strahd, disengage and run back all before the blood gimp knows what's happening!
I come from a video game background so it took watching Critical Roll for a season to understand the point of the game: break your DM. (In a good way, of course. I love it when our DM can't stop laughing.)
There was an incident of me trying to distract the guards from our NOT STEALTHY Cleric and Pally, so I zoomed back and started shrieking about a tiger on the loose. But I have terrible charisma and failed to convince them enough to ignore the party leaving. So I started jumping up and down when one of my fellow party members points out that I mostly just wore a vest for a top (per my character picture on Roll 20) and being a female cat I have at least 6 nipples. Which quickly devolved into "six floppy titties" as the entire party started gleefully joining in on describing the scene. RIP DM.
I don't care what anybody says about monks with all their min max bullshit. Monks are fun as hell. They're one of the most flavorful classes and they just get some really damn neat abilities. I'm currently playing a Shadow Monk and having a blast. And the more levels you get, the more ki points you get, so the less their arguments mean anything. And you can totally use magic weapons, even if your weapons proficiencies are limited (but can be increased with race choice if you need it). AND magic +1, +2, +3 unarmed upgrades exist. Your DM is doing you a major disservice if they don't give you one. And they can throw magic item effects on them too if they're at all creative. Or just snag one off an existing sword stat sheet and put it on some gloves or gauntlets.
Good to know. I am the party note-taker and was trying to keep up with updates. We got the fancy sword in Curse of Strahd. Next thing I know the multiclass rogue/wizard snags it. I go back and check it out to realize I could totally use it. I would do sooooo much more damage with it.
But the other wizard is gonna give me the Guthias Staff to play with.
Yeah, as long as you have proficiency with it, it's a monk weapon or can be with the Dedicated Weapon feature as long as it's not "heavy" or "special". And stunning strike can be done with a weapon (took me a while to realize that).
Well I hope you land on a cool ass weapon that works well for you. And I pray that you will get one of those unarmed upgrades, because my DM dropped one of those into our loot and it's been a game changer. I think his original idea was to have to druid use it because it effects wild shape beast attacks, but it just works so much better for a monk. Besides, our druid is circle of stars. He doesn't use wild shape in combat. He's got better uses for it.
The beastbarian 5/ soul knife rogue 5 is a legitimately good variation of this multiclass. 4 attacks at level 10 while using claws, two with psychic damage that can be thrown and get sneak attack. Or two thrown psychic attacks and a tail attack with 10 feet reach and choice of uncanny dodge or tail reaction block. You’ll need no armor nor weapons to shred enemies.
The big drawback is you’ll want to invest in STR, DEX, and CON. You don’t really need any feats, which is good, because you’ll probably want to use ASIs to up your three physical stats. If you get possessed by a ghost or dominated by a wizard, that’s your party’s problem, not yours, right?
True, but I think the point they were making about the extra attack, is that with reckless, you roll 2 d20 taking the higher twice, rather than just straight rogue that would typically get you on most turns without burning a resource a single d20 roll. So you're more likely to get sneak attack on each of your turns rather than if you were straight rogue. You get 2x the chance to hit with extra attack, and then a compounded 2x the chance to hit with advantage.
D4 on YouTube has a great video about a druid/paladin/fighter... I've been playing it for a few months now and it's really strong.
2 levels of paladin for smites, 3 levels of fighter for action surge and battlemaster manuvers, the rest moon druid. Setup whatever concentration spell you want, wildshape into a bear, smite your enemies as a bear, using hou battlemaster manuvers as necessary... as a bear, and of course, action surge... yiu can nuke the most dangerous enemy in an encounter in 1 round.
So the beast forms don't really matter, what your after is just multi attack, what you lack in + to hit, you make up for in precise attack manuver if you do miss, plus the saving throw dc is based on your forms str, so you can actually get good saves from yiu manuvers.
My go to is to trip them, get advantage on attacks, and then start pummeling and smiting and action surge.
You get a decent pool of hp to tank with, and even if you get knocked out of beast form, it's just a bonus action to do it again. Throw in fire shield at higher levels to punish enemies for hitting you.
When your out of both wildshapes, you just fall back to being a caster... holding concentration on bless and dodging is a fantastic use of your time.
Not directly related to the build, but it's nice hearing d4 get mentioned. I love watching his videos, but sadly I don't get the chance to try a lot of his builds. I got an Adventurer's League character at level 4 who's going down the route of his battlefield commander build though.
Eldritch Knight/Celestial Tomelock. I played this build for five years, from EK 5/Warlock 3 all the way to EK 8/Warlock 10. The only problem is that it doesn't really work if you start before level 8 (when you have extra attack and Pact of the Tome so you can fight with Charisma) so a game where you start at high level is ideal.
If you want to check him out, here's his final sheet. He's built as an investigation specialist. [https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/70244933/hmpu9X](https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/70244933/hmpu9X)
This is a build that has versatility as the main strength, and is a bit like playing a half caster martial that has a ton of extra utility in exchange for raw combat prowess. You can fight in melee with Shillelagh. You can fight at range with Eldritch Blast. You can heal at range a bit, and learn actual healing spells. You've got rituals from every class with Pact of the Tome, and/or another valuable utility invocation like at will Detect Magic. You've got low level slots from EK to use things like Shield, Hex and Hellish Rebuke efficiently. You've got all sorts of utility cantrips.
There are a couple of different level breakdowns I would consider -
EK 7/Warlock 3 - This gets you the EK ability that lets you Cantrip + Attack in the same turn, which is cool. You still get two ability score increases despite multiclassing. Your spell slots are 4 1st level and 2 2nd level long rest slots, and then 2 2nd level short rest slots.
EK 5/Warlock 5 - Still getting two ability score increases, but you've got 3rd level spell slots at the cost of having any 2nd level slots. Your melee ability is worse, but you've also got another Invocation to play around with.
EK 3/Warlock 7 - Not a fan of this personally, you're giving up extra attack and limiting your long rest slots to 2 but you've got 4th level slots and there are some exciting options at that level to combine with Action Surge.(I've got some stories about what you can do when you can Dimension Door twice in the same turn) This split would work better with Hexblade I guess, so you could use Charisma to attack and be Pact of the Blade for extra attack but you're giving up a ton of utility which is kinda the point of the build. No healing, no rituals, not as many cantrips. Going Pact of the Blade also means you're at the same number of invocations that can be whatever you like as the 5/5 build despite having more of them.
Pact of the Tome lets you pick 3 cantrips from any class, and it turns it into a Warlock cantrip that is based off of your Charisma. Shillelagh is a Druid cantrip that enchants a club or staff so that you can fight with your casting stat - typically wisdom, but with Pact of the Tome it's Charisma. There are cleric builds that pick this cantrip up to fight in melee with Wisdom - its actually pretty bad for Druids but exciting if you can get it on other classes.
This is oldschool pre-Hexblade stuff. Back when if you wanted to be Pact of the Blade you went Fighter 1/Fiend Warlock X.
How did you dimension door twice in one turn? I get action surge giving you another action but you can’t normally expend two spell slots on the same turn (the exception being a reaction like counterspell or feather fall). Same reason that a sorcerer can cast fireball as an action but can’t quicken another casting of it even though it would now be a bonus action to do so (found this out after making my wild magic sorcerer with this exact idea in mind lol)
The thing that causes issues is casting a spells a bonus action - then your other spell needs to be a cantrip. Two standard action spells is kosher if you've got action surge. Theres actually an option on the Wild Magic Surge table that is one of the only other ways I know of to do this, since it gives you another action.
One of the annoying things about this build is that when you set up Shillelagh you can't cast any of your normal spells! It'd be great if you could buff yourself and then set up your ability to attack in melee but alas, you can't.
It’s a confusing rule, but RAW you can can cast two spells requiring an Action to cast in one turn provided you have some way to give yourself that extra action. This is pretty much only possible via Action Surge.
The only time you can’t cast two leveled spells in a turn is if one of them is a bonus action, which then limits your Action to a cantrip if you intend to spellcast.
I call this the "Who you callin' tiny?"
Race: Fairy
Rune Knight Fighter
Feats: Giant weapon master, mobile, sentinel, the usual martial feats :)
Round 1, use the Giant Might feature of Rune Knight to make yourself Large, then use your action to cast Enlarge/Reduce from your race and become huge.
Because you're no longer small, you can use heavy weapons (1d12 greataxe), oversized weapons mean you deal 2d12 at large, and 3d12 at huge. That's 6d12 per turn (12d12 with action surge).
The best part is when your "small" fairy grapples and suplexes a gargantuan Purple Worm.
If you want to multiclass, you can go into barbarian after you get your fighter subclass. This will get you unarmored defense (fairies can fly if they are not wearing medium or heavy armor), and rage. You can't rage and use Enlarge/Reduce, but you can only cast that once a day so it's not a bad thing to have in your back pocket for following combats (and being a large, flying fairy with a 2d12 greataxe and the mobile feat to avoid opportunity attacks is insanely strong)
The damage bonuses listed in the Enlarge spell and the Giant Might feature are meant to reflect any increased damage from being bigger - engaging the oversized weapons rules like you described is at the best a contentious bit of rules interpretation.
Being a big fairy is fun though, you don't need a busted ruling to make the build a blast to play.
You can also do this with Path of the Giant- plus your weapon gets elemental damage every rage and can be thrown, plus your reach increased by 5ft. AND at tenth level you can toss enemies (or allies) around the battlefield!
Fighter(Samurai) 3
Monk(Long Death) 7
Fighting style: unarmed
Feat: Eldritch Adept - Fiendish Vigor
You should be just fine... temporarily... perpetually.
Edited the Feat to reflect input. It was dumb.
The posts so far have all been combat heavy. Which is nice.
How about a human variant barbarian scout. You'd want to have 6 levels of barbarian (totem warrior) for the second Aspect of the Beast ("You gain the eyesight of an eagle. You can see up to 1 mile away with no difficulty, able to discern even fine details as though looking at something no more than 100 feet away from you. Additionally, dim light doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks.").
Combine with the feats linguist (learn three more languages) and observant ("if you can see a creatures mouth, you can read lips") and some "two language" background (Acolyte and Sage from players handbook) and you can eavesdrop on many races from a mile away in dim light.
Add 4 more levels in another class that helps. Fighter, for more feats, or rogue for more scouting.
Drunken Master 9 Barbarian 1. Choose your favorite WWE wrestler and have fun being the cream of the crop / beating their candy ass / letting your hulkamania run wild/ etc!
Barb 5, Bard 5. Either Bear Totem Barb or Wild Magic Barb will work wonders with this build, with Bear being the "You can't hurt me" option vs the "You can't predict me" randomness option (probably what you might want to go for, in all honesty). But you want College of the Sword for Bard, to get the Blade Flourish shenanigans. Add on Sentinal and Polearm Master feats, weild a Glaive/Halbred (or a Quarterstaff if you are a Small/Tiny sized race), and become unstoppable, unreachable, and impossibly trolly~ Sure, you need to max out CHA and STR, but you are already dumping WIS and INT, and then balance out between DEX and CON.
Best part, you can pick *ANY* race, and this build will make it chaotic and fun~
Downsides: "you can't cast spells while Raging!" Then don't worry about it, use spells outside combat!
"But what if I want to be lvl 6 in either class instead?" Thats going to mess up the build then. You need lvl 5 Barb to get the +10movement speed and the second attack option, and you need the lvl 5 Bard to get all your Bardic Inspiration dice back after a short rest. Besides, why would you want lvl 6 in either class? CoS Bard just offers a second attack option, which you should already have with Barb without the +10 movement, and both Totem and Wild Barbs don't really provide anything that might help during a 1 shot.
3 levels of grasslands druid on a rogue will send your stealth and infiltration skills to the moon.
You get all the first and second level druid spells, a couple cantrips, and always prepared invisibility and pass without trace. Plus wildshape twice a day.
Only downside is your wildshapes are useless for combat and don't get sneak attack raw since wolf fangs aren't finesse weapons.
Probably best for the rogue to be a thief or assassin.
This won't win you any DPR awards, but Nature Cleric 1 / Four Elements Monk 9.
The purpose of this build is borderline psychotic but you're going with an armored monk prioritizing wisdom. While Nature Cleric can get you plate for 20, half plate + 14 dex + shield gets you 19, which is good enough to beat a normal monk AC and doesn't make you invest in strength. Additionally we're going to be picking up Shillelagh to make us almost entirely Wisdom based.
At Nature Cleric 1 / Four Elements 4, pick up PAM which will get you the 2 attacks per turn as a normal class and 1 level later, get you a base-line 3 attacks per turn. Ki-focused attack will also mean you can follow up one of your disciplines with another attack.
For the Four Elements, you'd be looking at picking up
* Water Whip
* Fist of Unbroken Air
* Four Thunders / Cinder Sweep
In the same vein as a Warlock, you're a short-rest caster with a few good single-target or group damage abilities. This still includes Stunning Strike, which should have a better chance to hit since you're only needing to focus on wisdom for your ASIs. When you've used up your ki, you're still going to have access to PAM for 3 shillelagh attacks each turn, while also being more tanky than a normal monk.
My personal favorite is the Anime Kobold.
It uses strictly the PHB Beast Master and the Volo's Guide Kobold. If you chose a Vulture for your Beast Companion (not a listed option, but it's considerably weaker than the given options), you can ride your Vulture as a mount.
Now that you have a flying mount with Pack Tactics, you pick up 2 Lances and the Dual Weilder feat.
While mounted, Lances are one handed weapons, and they lack the Heavy property. So while mounted, you can weld 2 Lances. Lances have the unfortunate property of granting you disadvantage on attacking enemies within 5ft. Fortunately, you're a Kobold with Pack Tactics and you have a friend also within 5ft of those enemies (your Vulture). Because those cancel each other out (and stacking advantage and disadvantage isn't a thing), you are immune to any effect that would give you disadvantage.
Because your mount is a Medium creature, you can take it indoors and into dungeons while riding it.
So because you never *need* to dismount, you can go around as a flying Kobold wielding two giant anime swords.
Harengon, 5 levels of ranger (gloom stalker), Dueling fighting style, and 5 levels of rogue (swashbuckler).
Important ability scores are Dex, Charisma, and Wisdom, and I recommend using either ability score upgrade on Eldritch Initiate for Armor of Shadows (free Mage Armor at will, better than most light armors, even magical ones).
You go first, you have two shots at hitting your target with sneak attack, and you can backpedal without provoking attacks. Also, it's almost impossible for you not to get sneak attack.
Knock yourself out. Or better yet, knock someone else out.
If you can, make sure your weapon is a rapier of Warning, so you get advantage on initiative rolls. And if you get to level 16, keep going as rogue, and you double your proficiency bonus on initiative, too...
This is a stupid interaction that my DM showed me
GWM requires a melee attack with a heavy weapon
Sharpshooter requires an attack with a ranged weapon
Those are not mutually exclusive
If you take both feats, you can take a -10 to hit and smack someone with a longbow, adding 20 damage to each attack
If you max strength, take archery as your fighting style, and go battle master for precision, you should be able to hit with decent frequency, too
Monkbarian. Don't bother getting your wisdom very high, you won't need it. Boost strength, con and dex in that order.
Beast barbarian gets an extra attack, so by the time you get multiattack, you'll be making 5 attacks/round.
Grab the unarmed fighting style feat after you get your strength to 18.
I recommend open hand monk. Your DC won't be good but it's free attempts at tripping the enemy or shoving them around.
You'll be doing a potential of 1d8 (unarmed strike) + 4 (str) + 2 (rage) for 5 attacks/round. Your movement speed will be very high, and you can use a ki point if needed. Your AC likely won't be high, but your health should be good, and with your average damage output per attack most things won't out live you for long. Plus your skills are left flexible to find out of combat use.
I recommend the eldritch claw tattoo for an extra +1 to unarmed strikes (won't help the bonus natural attack) and it'll give you an extra d6/attack, giving you a potential extra 5d6. And/or the insignia of claws gives a +1 bonus to unarmed strikes and natural attacks, stacking to give you a +2 bonus to attack and damage.
Autognome sorcerer, especially divine soul because how do you have a bloodline trait and how do you have a celestial bloodline link? lol. I would say start with one level in Twilight cleric for the dark vision, ability to share it, an advantage on initiative... Plus you can use heavy armor at martial weapons. And autonomes have some great racial abilities. When I did something like this, I wrote it up as The gnome that made me couldn't get me to work but his wife was a cleric who used divine intervention which actually worked and the symbol of mistra appeared on the autognome and he was born.... In that way with a link to mystra.
You could also do something like that with celestial warlock where an image of a unicorn appears and then the creation wakes up .... But if you're doing this as warlock I would start with one level in paladin instead. If you go hexblade, you're going to need to change the Divine link is with probably.
Cheese Grater build: three levels of Scout rogue, 7 levels of Moon Druid. Cast Spike Growth, Transform into a bear, Grapple enemy (Rogue Expertise in Athletics) and drag them along the edge of Spike Growth for crazy damage (Spike Growth works with forced movement) using Cunning Action Dash and Skirmish feature to move half your speed as a reaction when an enemy ends it’s turn within 5 feet of you (which is always since you have them grappled).
They say you can't multiclass druid.
TortleArtillerist 3/ ShepardX is fantastic, And Goliath or tortle BeastBarb5/SporesX are 2 druid multiclass that work really well.
Key points:
Artillerist give THP to all your summons and allies while your unicorn totem heals everything that gets through the THP. Mind sharpener means you don't drop concentration on your summons. Protector cannon lasts an hour meaning you start most fights with max THP, and aren't using actions during the fight to get it going. Same with your conjuring spells, 1h duration. You have really good saving throws and perception skills, which is nice.
Beast barbarian/ Spores druid is just a better barbarian.
Polarm master or even just double bladed scimitar means 4 attacks in a round with the beast claw(attack,extra attack, beast claw, bonus action attack). 18 or 20 strenght plus rage damage(+6/+7)+ Spores +1d6 on every attack. Resistance to damage makes the Spores THP last longer. Your spores reaction is adding even more damage that a barbarian usually wouldn't be doing.
Pass without trace->activate your Spores whenever possible before combat starts. The real downside to this is you are limited to 4 rage/day.
Other multiclass that people say can't work.
Paladin2/warwizardX works surprisingly well. Bonus point if you show up as a Basic human for +1to all stats.
Gloomstalker3/shadowMonkX between dread ambusher, hunter's mark, and flurry of blows, you can pump out some serious damage. Also you are invisible all the time to everything by being in darkness and being able to see through it=advantage on all attacks, everytimg else cant target you and have disadvantage on attacks. Might as well be shadar-kai and take elven accuracy. Ruined background for alertnesss feat.
Go herengon and take 7 levels of warlock (hex blade) so you can take the invocation that gives you the jump spell at will. You can now jump 90 feet as a bonus action. Take 3 levels of swashbuckler rogue so you can jump without taking opportunity attacks.
Edit: at a lower level I tried to combine with a little bit of monk to use step of the wind, which doubles your jump distance. Problem there is that both SotW and the herengon ability require a bonus action.
Now it's not "can summon a nuke" build, but I have always loved the GOO warlock & Battle Master Fighter combo. Almost everything comes back on a short rest, so you can use resources pretty liberally.
Get spells that don't really need attack roll or save like Hex. Be human variant to get crossbow expert using 2 hand crossbows so you can hex and attack and then attack and attack eqch turn wven low level adding an extra 1d6 on each hit from hex.
Loxodon, with 3 levels in Barb and 7 levels in warlock. You're abusing Armor of Agathis and Rage. 16 strength, 16 con, 14 Charisma.
For Barb subclasses, none are needed, but if I were to give a top 3, it would be Ancients (the soft taunt envourages enemies to attack you and take Armor of Agathis damage), Bear Totem (to preserve the temp HP longer vs magical damage), then Zealot (more damage).
For Warlock, subclass doesn't really matter either. The top choice is Genie, and just don't take Dao (for bonus damage, a bonus resistance, and flight). At level 3, take pact of the blade. For invocations, get improved pact weapon and Thirsting Blade. For a feat, take Great weapon Master, and bring your favorite heavy weapon (I love the maul).
The first turn is a setup turn. Just cast Armor, then Rage. If you can, cast armor before combat as it lets you skip setup. Then, grapple an enemy with your trunk, then start hitting things recklessly. Every time an enemy hits you, they take 20 cold damage, and your Armor benefits from rage's resistances, allowing to last twice as long.
Super fun and super tanky, while also functioning as a damn good tank for your team. Definitely give it a try!
The only DM buy in require is grappling with Thristing Balde, as RAW, thirsting blade only let's you attack twice with a pact weapon. Most DMs will hand wave this, though.
Druid with a level of monk. Pump wis for normal druid reasons then add your wis mod to your AC (from monks unarmored defense) in animal forms for extra tankiness.
Armorer Artificer 3 / Abjuration Wizard 7. You get the 4th level spells known and a 5th level slot as well as crazy survivability from high AC and the Abjuration ward. Since Artificer rounds up for multiclass spell slots, you are only 1 level behind in spell slots. You also get some cool extra spells wizards don't usually get.
The big downside is you have a 5th level slot but no 5th level spells known.
This one's so unusual I've literally never seen one played.
Fighter 1/Gloomstalker 5/Battle Master 3/War Cleric 2. This is a dart-throwing build that combines the Thrown Weapon and Archery fighting styles for +2 to every attack and damage roll. Take Sharpshooter, using Precision Attack, Guided Strike, and Bless to hit your power attacks. You can only throw one Net per action regardless of multi-attack, so Quick Toss and War Magic allow you to restrain an enemy with your bonus action while keeping your action open for proper attacks. Ranger 5 lets you grab Spike Growth to grate enemies against with Pushing Attack.
A fun and unique build with high damage, strong survivability, and a surprising amount of utility.
Fighter 1 / drac Sorc X and played as a martial.
Vhuman or CL for Dueling, Focus Dex then Con. You will need 13 Char to multiclass.
Haste is your pseudo extra attack, misty step for mobility, shield spells for AC and elements for AoE reactions.
Other spells: ashardolon’s stride (upcasts well when two attacks are not as good), Fire Shield, Tasha’s otherworldly guise. Get counterspells and dispel magic to save other caster’s slots.
Twin your hastes so another martial can join the fun. You can also quicken green flame blade if you are in a group and need a nova.
When you can, grab Warcaster.
Rogue/Barb is solid. I’d go Rogue 1 / Barb 6 / Rogue 4 to start at level 10. After that keep going rogue.
The damage is not as good as GWM at lower levels but by about Rogue 6 is close and surpasses it in T4.
Subclass is open for each (special shout-out to Beast/Soul Knife) but here is my favorite:
Shardar-Kai
Rogue 1 / AG Barb 6 / Scout Rogue 4
Focus Str then Con, cap Dex at 14 for medium armor.
Pick up Reverent Blade for 2d4 finesse weapon, +1 AC, and bonus action attack at Barb 4 and rock DSS.
You have the stellar skills of a rogue, can grapple with the best if needed, very solid and consistent attack damage, AG’s taunt becomes a skirmisher’s delight with reaction moves. Can teleport around for mobility even while raging. Pairs well with a dedicated front liner that can punish via reaction attacks. Another rogue/barb or fighter works well.
Gnome arcane trickster rogue / battle smith artificer. (My build of this was 3 levels rogue, rest artificer but I used a homebrew subclass inspired by battle smith but with more of a fey flavor as I was a forest gnome. But the build isn’t by any means optimal but it is very fun. Between racial spells, arcane trickster and artificer you have a lot of cantrips, artificers get a really fun spell list (and you can choose from the whole list when you prepare spells each day) you get to make your own magic items.
Armorer subclass might be better as you could sneak attack with the infiltrator armor weapons and advantage on stealth checks is nice.
You do often end up with lots of options for your bonus actions but have lots of utility outside of combat while having great combat potential as well.
(Any artificer subclass could be fun for this build) being a rogue and having sneak attacks and your cunning actions give you a lot you can do when low on spell slots. And this build lets you more easily have a wider range of cantrips than a typical artificer does. At higher levels another level of rogue may be tempting for the ASI or a feat (perhaps to get even more spell options)
I made a 5 Barbarian/ 4 Bard (10th level would be even better for the Font of Inspiration). A lot of the abilities don't have great synergy, but you can focus your spells on Utility, Healing, other Out of Combat. You can also
1. Have the best chance of Grappling using Expertise and the normal Rage Advantage on Strength checks.
2. Can cast Mirror Image before combat (if you know in advance) as it doesn't require Concentration.
3. Can use Cutting Words (as Lore Bard) to turn a hit into a miss. I was a Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, so I would make the enemies want to focus on me as opposed to any other targets, and then I would just insult them so that they missed anyway.
A Tabaxi Bladesinger 5 / Monk 2 / Fighter 2 / Rogue 2 can use Ashardalon's Stride to move hundreds of feet per round and solo a dungeon 1d6 fire damage at a time.
I love my Human 5 War Cleric 5 Battle Master Fighter (mine is actually Champion, but do yourself a favor go BM).
Mostly melee I have Devotee's Censor, full armor, and shield. Mostly cast divine favor or crusader's mantle and swing. spiritual weapon if you don't want to use your war cleric BA every time.
Rogue/fighter bugbear.
Alert to boost your initiative and ensure you go first. Bugbear gets something similar to sneak attack if they enemy hasn't gone yet, and doesn't specify 1/round or anything. That 2d6 extra per attack, and stacks with sneak attack.
Dual wielding is paramount.
Probably go champion for improved critical, but I could see an advantage to echo knight.
Monk pairs well with Warlock. Hex plus Flurry of Blows, with other defensive spells to make melee more viable (Mirror Image, Armour of Agathys, etc)
I also created a build once inspired by Vi from League of Legends/Arcane, a Champion Archetype fighter with Unarmed Fighting style paired with Monk. D8 unarmed strikes, Flurry of Blows plus Action Surge.
Sun Soul Monk/Wildfire Druid with even split. Focus on Wis and Agl give you potent spells and good AC. A pretty versatile mix of spells that you aren't locked into, excellent mobility, healing, radiant damage, and the ability to have nine summons on the field while you also hit things, for at least 11 attacks per turn. Depending what you summon, that is also at least five chances to incapacitate a medium size target per turn, with at least 3 of those attacks at advantage. And that is just one of the DM frustrating things you can do with it.
Birdbardbarian!
An aarakoa Lore Bard 3/Elk Barbarian 5. The idea is to be the best damn grappler you can be. Then fly straight up and either let them go or keep going up until they break free….
Rage gives you advantage on athletics checks.
Lore bard gives you expertise in athletics checks. So with 20 str, that’s like +13 to your roll and you make it with advantage. As well as cutting words to -1d6 from their check. Theoretically you could roll a 2 and your opponent 19 and you could end up with a 15 to your opponents 13!
Elk barbs move 55 feet per turn, so that’s 27 feet of dragging, which an aarakoa can do straight up. The fall damage is maxed from 200 feet, so you can take your opponent out of the fight for 8 turns of combat, then let go for 20d6 worth of damage.
Paladin 2 / Arcane Trickster X.
Smite and Sneak attack while using a rapier and shield. Find familiar for BA advantage on Booming blades. Strength or Dex but Dex gives you more skills and initiative.
6 levels bladesinger, 4 levels moon druid. Bladesing while a brown bear, grapple stuff and they cannot escape.
Also be a Giff for advantage on Strength checks
I made a long death monk bladesinger multiclass for one of our campaigns that absolutely clapped. Crazy mobility, crazy utility, impressive damage and I was a tanky mother fucker. Almost never got hit and had a very reliable source of temp hp from long death.
Main barbarian and take two lvl in fighter. Get action surge and fighting style. As fighting style take unarmed. You now have d8/d10 damage dice on your unarmed, which works with savage attacks and ragging. You are now a better monk. Congratulations!
You can also do it with monk/fighter, it just make the stat selection a bit different. But you with be a monk with action surge and damage dice you would first normally see at very high levels.
Real silly fun, which I tried in a mini campaign. I made a lvl 6 monk/4bar/2fighter. Was dwarf with the dwarf dodge feat and had the phail of health and that other hit dice improving common magic item. Basically each hit dice I spent would always roll max and I would regain twice its amount. And as monk I could take dodge action as a bonus action, and each time I took dodge action I could spent a hit dice and regain its health. So have fun fighting this raging dwarf who was smacking you silly with d10 attacks dice unarmed, resistance to all damage, and could constantly dodge on bonus action and regained 20-24 hp each time. He was soo fun and silly. Still same weakness to cc spells and abilities as any other which weak saving throws. All stats was on str, con, and can’t remember is it was dex or wis as last ability. But int and cha was both 8 or something. But damn fun never the less.
I doubt I would build a character like this one in an actual campaign as the leveling is weird and it requires two magic items (common and uncommon), where I think one of them is from a homebrew. But not sure.
This one is a favourite of mine L3 Beast Barbarian/the rest Paladin (doesn't matter too much on subclass).
The secret to this build is understanding that Paladin smites don't count as casting a spell, they just expend the spell slot.
Bonus action rage and go for the claws, allowing you to do an additional attack so you get 3 attacks including extra attacks (grab a race that uses a bonus action attacks for more fun). Those claws count as simple melee weapons, so they trigger both rage and smite RAW. Because you can't cast spells, you'll want to be smiting at every chance you get.
My favourite thing here in particular is realising how scary a barbarian can be when its backed with Aura of Protection, making saving throws a lot easier for the barbarian.
Now this screams MAD, as you want a high STR, CON, CHA and, if you wanna have high AC, DEX (as you will be wearing medium armour at best). However you can actually get away with only like a 14 in CHA because you're already limited with your spell choices, mainly out of combat ones. RAW you can also wear a shield, because the claws feature doesn't require both hands to be free for the additional attack, so that can also help with the AC problem.
You could also go the reverse and go more levels in barbarian, but I do think Paladin offers a lot more utility. But that's just my opinion
Barbarian/Monk. So much fun.
Bonus to pick Shifter Race and Beast Barbarian.
You get rage, you get ki, you get good movement speed, and it can offer plenty of fun roleplay opportunities.
1 level gets you hexblade's curse, the other 9 get you 5th level slots in any fullcaster class that gets magic missile. If your GM/master torturer lets you pick magic items you can stack on the pain with certain wands(?) that give a bonus to a damage roll of a spell you cast.
Definitely on the sillier side and certainly not as good as casting a high level crowd controlling magick, but you do get to stare your DM in the eyes and say "the monster takes 63 damage, no save"
**BarbaRogue 5/5**, extreme synergy between all of both classes. Pick whatever archetypes you like (except Arcane Trickster), I'm fond of Bear Barbarian / Thief Rogue for extreme Shoveness and resistance + ability to use items as a bonus action.
**BarbaMonk 3/7**: pick whatever archetypes you want except Astral Self (antisynergy since reliant on WIS), my favorite is Ancestral Guardian and Kensei (non-heavy weapon) or Bear & Long Death (heavy weapon). First one is a hell of a tank (attack others? Barb feature. Attack me? Rage + Patient Defense). Second one is deadly chaos (Step of the Wind, draw greatsword, smash, get THP).
**Shepherd Druid 5 / Astral Self Monk 5**: depending on how DM rules Wild Shape interaction, ranges from great to hilarious. On "great" range, you shore up core weakness of Druid (having crappy sustained damage) while also vastly enhancing beast form AC if need be, and being entirely WIS dependant. On hilarious range you have Astral Arms coming out of beats and ability to use Extra Attack (including Grapple) with them. xd
**Eldricht Knight 5 / Draconic|Divine Soul Sorcerer 5**: lots of ways to make it powerful and fun, the main idea is to pick Subtle and either Quicken, Empower, Extend or Twin depending on your choice of spells. Draconic is nice for a DEX based kiter and AOE if you can get to 11th level at some point, otherwise Divine Soul for Spirit Guardians to be "an Arcane based Crown Paladin", minus smites plus shield. :)
**Tempest Cleric 2 / Stars Druid 2 / Draconic Sorcerer 6** with Transmuted and Quicken metamagics: a powerful Sorcerer shoring its usual drawback by getting lot of interchangeable utility AND deadly AOE AND (mostly) unbreakable concentration once per short rest.
**Barbarian 3 / Fiend Blade Warlock 7**: Ice & Fire Warrior setting Armor of Agathys + Fire Shield before a big fight and stacking rage on top, or if out of rage / rage not needed setting a Sickening Radiance and trying to Shove enemies back inside them normally. xd
**Astral Self Monk 6 / Shadow Sorcerer 4**: pick Skill Expert Athletics, learn any mix among Longstrider, Jump, Enlarge/Reduce and Enhance Ability with Extend metamagic and Subtle, become the unstoppable Grappler that can either drag enemies into a Web or buff itself to Grapple Huge creatures to the ground. Use Patient Defense to resist the fury of the creature forced into submission, while enjoying seeing everyone else strike it without risk.
Here are a few ideas atop off my head.
I'm currently doing a fighter bard, more specifically a swords bard and a battle master fighter. Haven't fully tested it as we are only 4 lvls into a darksun campaign.
But it's looking extremely fun, especially once you hit both subclasses and you can push enemies upwards of 25ft (not very powerful but very fun to keep pushing enemies)
A 5/5 split works super well but if you want that extra ASI, I recommend going 6 lvls into fighter.
Okay so this is my current lvl 4 gnome artificer and the plan I'm going to take him on.
Level 10.
Artificer battlesmith 5
Fighter champion 4
Cleric of Forge 1
Infusions:
repeating shot crossbow.
+1AC armour.
Forge cleric infusion: +1AC to steel defender.
Feats: sharpshooter + Sentinel.
Fighting style: Archery.
Primary weapon:
+1 repeating heavy crossbow
+7 to hit (+12 without sharpshooter)
+16 to damage (6 without sharpshooter)
1st round action -Fairie fire (DC 17). Bonus to move within 5ft of ally.
2nd round action - Multi attack + action surge for 4 total attacks. (Possible additional attack due to sentinel)
Average attack roll with advantage = 13.8
Average D10 roll = 5.5
Each successful attack average damage = 21.5
4 successful hits = 86 damage
Assuming sentinel reaction = 107.5 damage.
Fighter champion odds of landing crit at 19-20 = 9.5%
Crit chance with advantage = 19%
Total damage assuming 1 crit in a nova round = 129 damage.
The cleric dip isn't crucial to the build but I wanted to bolster my spells at lvl 4, and the bonus infusion is quite nice
Been working on this for a while now.
Vine leshy, Herbalist Archetype Alchemist 7, Herbalism Bond Druid 3.
Take the Spell Knowledge discovery once reaching Alchemist 7. You'll have to use the Feat Extra Discovery for this. Since it's not an even level for the Alchemist.
The spell knowledge discovery makes the Alchemist count as a full Arcane Spellcasting Class, which qualifies him for prestige classes.
Further levels can go into Mystic Theurge. The developer of the SK discovery confirmed that prestige classes that advance Arcane spellcasting will advance extracts with this discovery.
The Herbalist Archetype switches your spellcasting modifier to wisdom, so you only have to invest in that rather than splitting with Intelligence. You'll be able to make free wisdom modifier potions per day, and if the group makes it to level 20, you have 17 Extract levels and 13 Druid spell levels to work with.
Mass produce potions, dole out infused extracts, Entangle enemies with your seed pods, summon nature's ally and assault them with woodland creatures. With a high wisdom modifier, your save dcs for spellcasting and seed pods should be pretty high. Full on crowd control support with practically endless healing and buffing.
If the rest of your party is going op broken things, go full support so they can shine.
5 bear totem barbarian / 5 circle of spores Druid. Fungal form then rage, if you’re using melee weapons you add a d6 of necrotic to each attack. Take the background “planar philosopher” to resist Psychic damage and be resistant to all damage types while raging. Dual wielding allows you to BA stab so (assuming you hit and using shortswords cuz it makes my math easy), you can be doing 6d6 + damage mod x2 per round. Being in fungal mode before combat is kinda integral to the build though, since rage drops if you don’t attack and don’t take damage
Shadow Monk / Swashbuckling Rouge is pretty damn evil.
Swashbuckler get sneak attack if they are fighting a target alone, disintegrate for free after an attack.
Shadow Monk lets you just pummel them with your fist (or other monk weapons), and drop a Darkness spell. (Take a feat to get devil site)
Soulknife Rogue X Grassland Druid
7 levels of rogue and 3 Druid
You can cast psyonic whispers to communicate telepathically, wild shape into a small animal like a rat or spider, infiltrate with stealth and pass without trace, all while maintaining your psyonic whispers as it is not magic.
AND you can infiltrate without weapons since you can create psychic blades.
Unbelievably broken for stealth and scouting.
Edit for added clarity
Totem Warrior Barb(pick Bear) 3/Oathbreaker Paladin 7. Bear Barbarian's resistance to all damage except psychic works even when you are wearing heavy armor, so you can take your first level in paladin, dump DEX and get Aura of Hate to replace rage damage with CHA to damage. Smite also works while raging, so you can have your heavy armor AC, resistance to everything AND 4/2 smite slots.
Circle of moon druid level 2, 8 levels of rogue, turn into ape throw rock proc sneak attack from rock, return to monkey
Also the rock does bludgeoning damage which lets you get ranged crusher procs along with sharpshooter
Champion fighter 3, Rogue 7 (you can do a 6,4). Take elven accuracy, remember that rogues can stand still on their turn for advantage. Get triple advantage. Take mastermind Rogue for using your BA to help allies for fun.
Build is super simple: roll 3 dice, crit 27% of the time, roll lots of dice. It's not super broken, but it is fun.
Artillerist artificer barbarian multiclass. Use your spell slots on out of combat utility stuff and the occasional long range attack.. Take the protector to give yourself bonus hp every turn. Take medium armor and use infusions to be a killer tank.
I've been playing a Mutant Blood Hunter 11 / Alchemist Artificer 4 and it's a really great combo. take sharpshooter and get a heavy crossbow with repeating shot and you hit like a truck
I played a character with this build once and it's fun, but kinda janky.
Race: Variant Human
Classes: Fighter 2/ Hexblade Bladelock 5/ Divine Soul Sorcerer 3
Feats: War Caster, Polearm Master
Subtle Counterspell. Bless. Agonizing Blast. Booming Blade.
Use a quarterstaff one handed with plate mail and a shield. Anyone entering your threatened area lets you cast booming blade as a reaction.
There's plenty of customization you can put in however you want. Darkness and Devil's Sight. Hex. Spiritual Weapon. Whatever.
You can rely on a short rest to put you back to like 90% power.
Action Surge. Hexblade's Curse. An intelligent magic weapon. This build is fun.
Rogue Mastermind 3/ Order Cleric 7 will make you a support character that will enable the other PCs to do more damage and endure more damage. Helping as a bonus action from 30 ft away is paired with extra ally attacks can really swing an encounter.
I leave Heavy Armor Monk, just to Strength and Wisdom and wear full plate and use a shield and take defensive
Fantastic to be a Monk with a armored knight/captain America vibe
2 fighter, 5 Gloomstalker, 3 Assassin? Dex build, Studded Leather Armor, Bugbear race.
2 short swords at 10 reach, high initiative, action surge 6 attacks on first turn boosted by racial feat, sneak attack, and advantage if they are in the dark.
If he's allowing UA, a fun build to me is a Single Ability Score smiting character. Dhampir for the CON bite obviously, along with 8 levels in Stone Sorcerer and 2 in Paladin makes for a nice no-attack-spells melee caster build.
With 20 CON, you should have a 21 AC at highest with no armor (SS 1st level AC ability + Shield + Paladin Defense style, shield counts as armor), a +10 to attacks (with the Insignia of Claws item, and if you can haggle with your dm you can get more similar stuff), and loads of spell slots to smite everything to death with. Also about 106 HP when taking it average.
If you wanna go real nuts, take the Giant Foundling background and get the stone giant branching feat at 4th level. Activate the "Lock, Toss, Lunch" method.
First turn, cast Haste on yourself. Bonus Action use the stone giant 4th level feat's ability and your giant foundling feat, making them make 2 STR checks against your CON (should be DC 17), or they get knocked back 10 feet/knocked prone. Use your Haste attack to bite them and smite.
Second turn, use Booming Blade as your regular Action to attack, at this level dealing an additional 1d8 thunder with everything else from smite, etc. Metamagic Quickened Spell Booming Blade. Haste Attack. Be sure to use your giant foundling feat ability again at some point. Repeat until out of metamagic to quickened spell. Also you might get an extra attack in with your 6th level SS reaction attack ability with the d10 bonus dmg. All of these attacks are constant smites too thanks to your boatload of spell slots from being mostly full caster.
Sorc 9/Warlock 1
Disclaimer: This is NOT a coffee lock build
There is one rule from onednd that is needed for this idea to work out and a bit of UA so your mileage may very.
If you take stone sorcery (UA) and hexblade warlock this creates the basis for a really potent gish build.
Stone sorcery enables you to boost Charisma and Constitution as stone sorcery sets your AC to run of con (you can keep pace hp wise with paladins and some barbarians if you manage to cap con), hexblade enables all offensive abilities to run through charisma. The heart of this build lays in quicken spell however. One dnd's two weapon fighting moving the extra hit to part of the attack action gives a light version of extra attack and quicken spell let's you use your casting arsenal to buff yourself to dumb levels, a personal favorite is fire shield since its non concentration.
Stone sorcery also gives you plenty of smiles to burn your slots on. There is a version that is Sorc 7/paladin 2/lwarlock 1 to get divine smite but I personally value higher spell slots.
Bro what did you guys do to get demoted to game testers??? That is so funny to me, especially since you seem so fine with it.. I bet you deserved it lmao
Brass Dragonborn for Lightning Breath Weapon and the other good metallic db breath weapons. 2 levels of Tempest Cleric for the Channel Divinity that lets you max damage on lightning or thunder. 8 levels of Monk, drunken master.
Stunning strike or the stunned condition makes people auto fail Dex saves, which is what the DB lightning breath weapon is. Stun, then do max damage on them with the breath weapon.
I statted out a BBEG that was a mix of Paladin and Sorcerer. 5 levels sorcerer, at least 5 Paladin. This gets you bonus action haste and more higher level spell slots to smite with, granting you some insane DPS for your early round attacks, perfect for cutting through big bags of HP. The tradeoff is, you burn through 4 spell slots in the first turn, assuming you hit all your attacks and smite on them, so you will run out of gas FAST.
5 or 9 levels of Cleric with like anything, especially sorcerer. Apart from Twilight Cleric where the term Cleric level calibrates its features, Clerics gain rather little from the class after 5th level and even less at class levels 10 to 16. You get Spirit Guardians at 5 and Summon Celestial at 9 and you can power those with spell slots from any normal caster. Clockwork Sorcerer 1 / Forge Cleric 9 gets you shield, (dm dependent) armor of agathys, con proficiency and probably war caster, heavy armor and animate objects or SG to concentrate on. Clockwork 3/Forge 7 gets Vortex Warp.
Pick Custom Lineage or Variant Human for Cartomancer and you get Summon Draconic Spirit or Bigby’s Hand regardless of the setup. Sorcerer is especially rich in cantrip choice too, a cleric weakness.
Wildfire druid/gloomstalker ranger 5/5
Extra attack, bonus action teleport (kinda) every turn with Wildfire spirit. 3rd level spells from druid and 4th level slots.
Plus, the wildfire spirit doesn't (raw) emit light, so it doesn't even break your gloomstalker invisibility!
1 level hexblade warlock, 2 levels scribe wizard, 7 levels draconic sorcerer.
Magic missile is interesting as you roll the damage die once regardless of how many hit a creature or how many creatures are hit. So with hexblade curse, you add your proficiency bonus in damage to the cursed target, with scribe wizard you can turn the force damage into fire damage to synergize with draconic sorcerer's elemental affinity to add charisma damage to one damage roll of that spell, and since you only roll once for magic missile, it applies to each missile.
So if you cast magic missile on a target you have hexblade cursed, you do (1d4+1+cha+proficiency mod) x however many missiles you fire. At lvl 10 you should have a 5th level spell slot, so you can hit your target with 7 missiles. Pretty decent for guaranteed damage, until someone casts shield.
Monk and Paladin. Having the divine smite on a monk weapon, followed through by flurry of blows is a devastating combo. The main problem of this multi-class comes with what you want to main more in and the stats that come with it. If you want to deal more with the Paladin side and use their spells, then you need to focus some of your stats on charisma. If monk is the main focus, then ignoring charisma to focus more on wisdom is ideal. No matter what though, start with monk so that you can dump strength for dexterity as monk can use dexterity for their attack rolls instead of strength, that way there’s more to play with. Theoretically you could make a dex and wis focused build with charisma as third so that it’s more balanced for both.
How many feats can you get away with? Polearm Master + Sentinel with any class that can use astral guardians is just a "you can't approach, and if you try, you die"
A simple go to is Storm Sorcerer (lv1, 4+) Tempest Cleric (lv2&3). Absolut blaster. Clerics Chanel divinity deals max. Damage for all lightning and thunder spells. And sorcery points can turn everything into lightning. And it comes with a Backstory:
Since a child you have been fascinated with thunder and lightning. Whenever there was a storm you were sitting on the wind watching the lightning and lightning the rain. One day the bolts were violet and your curiosity drove you to the fields even though your parents forbid it. You got hit by purple lightning and got magic abilities. Since than you have a disregard for rules. To control this gift of Kord, you have been send to a monastary of said god to become a cleric of Kord. Now you're of a pilgrimage to discover your potential.
Role play wise you're in for every physical competition. Since Kord is the god of thunder, war and athletes you bank the dm's time for duels, arena fights, arm wrestling and so on. Your disregard for rules gonna make superiors and city guards love you. You'll be the DMs best friend /s
Oh and you electrocute everyone with shocking grasp when shaking hands. But if someone does that to you it gets personal
Moon druid + monk.
Bonus points if You shapeshift into panda or other furious five and Yell names of Your attacks out loud.
Plain moon druid works better probably but still this multiclass is fun and can work resonably well.
Paladin+bard member of of order of knights who say "Niiiiii" ;-) you can viscous mockery people saying "niiii" or yell "niii each time You use divine smite ;-)
Obligatory on the never ending quest for holy grail.
multiclass paladin, collage of whispers bard, hexblade warlock. trust me, you wont regret it. paladin smites, extra radiant dmg. college of whispers bard, psychic dmg. hexblade curse, more dmg pact of the blade warlock, improved pact weapon (more too hit), eldritch smite (another more dmg) thirsting blade (atk twice). tell me how this works (5 warlock 3 bard 2 paladin) highest stats should be wisdom, charisma, and constitution, ranked from most too least needed. you now, because of hexblade, use charisma as your too hit. use pact weapon for atking only. insane dmg, i hope this is what ur looking for.
5 levels of Gunslinger fighter, 5 levels of Order domain cleric. You are a gunslingin' sheriff. Level 3 cleric spells, multi attack from fighter, 2 ASIs, Channel Divinity: Order's Demand to make people drop what they're holding and reach for the sky, and casting spells on your buddies still lets them attack. It's a great mix of "I'm a support but I can also shoot a bitch if needs-must." It really comes into its own at level 11, with the level 6 order domain feature. If you wanted to lean more caster, you could also do fighter 4/cleric 6 to pick up the order domain feature and lose the fighter's extra attack.
**The Iron Phantom**
inspiration: a mini steampunk ghostrider 2099
**Race**: autognome, +1 to 3 (say you look like a mechanical gnome skeleton for flavor)
**Abilities**: 8/16/16/16/8/8 (min/max)
**Background**: astral drifter grants magic initiate:
mind sliver, boomin or green flame blade.
find familiar (owl, flyby help action for adv to set up sneak), or shield for more ac (+5)
**LVL 10 Iron Phantom**
**Class:** lvl 5 artificer battlesmith , lvl 5phantom rogue
**Abilities: (a)** 8/16/16/20/8/8 or **(b)** 8/20/16/16/8/8 for more AC and rapier green flame blade build.
**Skills:** Perception, Nature (to find animals for poison), Investigation, Stealth
**Tools:** Thieves, Tinkers, Smiths, Alchemist's Supplies, Poisoner's Kit
**Saving Throws**: Con, Int
**AC: (a)**19 \[13 + 3(dex) + 2(shield) + 1(defense infusion)\] (24 with shield spell) or **(b)** 21 (26 with shield spell)
**Weapons**: **(a)** shield + lance, while mounted on steel defender or **(b)** shield + rapier
**Artificer BS.**
extra attack, 2 infusions: weapon +1 (lance, uses int mod instead of str.) and def for +1 AC.
youre small and a construct, your steel defender is a medium construct that you can use as a mount.
**Spells**:
Cantrips guidance, mending (to heal yourself and the steel defender, which can also heal you and itself)
lvl1: absorb elements, feather fall (both reactions)
lvl 2 spell: invis (sets up sneak), spider climb for shenanigans or enlarge/reduce to make enemies small.
**ASI:** +2 int
**Rogue Phantom.**
whispers of the dead: poisoner's kit for damage or poison condition that grants adv. (DMG pg 256 for poisons)
**Bonus Actions:** Steady Aim, Disengage after attacks if not attacking with steel defender
**ASI:**+2 int
**Sneak Attack:** 3d6 + 3d6/2 wails from the grave to second target
**Set Up:** familiar flyby help or invis for sneak attack
**Combat:** magic lance attack x 2, sneak attack, steel defender bonus action attack, wails from grave
1d12+5+1, 1d12+5+1, 3d6, 1d8+3, 3d6/2 to other target (add poison damage/effect if you crafted one)
Min Damage: 19.5-22
Avg Damage: 45.5-46.75
Max Damage: 64-73
Max Crit: 115-132 (wftg)
\[this is without poison damage, you can also replicate magic item (alchemy jug for basic poison)\]
I had fun in a one-shot with a Rock Gnome Artificer 2/Path of Ancestral Guardians Barbarian 12 (I know it's not 10 lvls but this still applies)
The primary purpose wasn't to do damage but be an off-skirmisher tank. Strapped on a shield and opened combat with javelin (returning infusion). Used one handed hammers as the primary weapon in melee.
The Gnome has advantage on charisma, intelligence, & wisdom saves against magical effects, which I think shores up the weakness of the barbarian. The major downside is not getting that strength score boost & not being able to use heavy weapons effectively. If you want the traditional great weapon fighter instead, choose a medium sized creature and go to town.
At 14th level (barb 12), I took mobile to become thar off-skirmisher mentioned earlier. That's primarily because Ancestral Guardians is kind of redundant with Sentinel. So I felt mobile would be nice & give the gnome a boost in speed.
For the two spells (only a 13 in intelligence), I took Longstrider & Cure Wounds since they would be nice to haves if not in a rage.
an interesting build is kensei monk6 and ranger hunter4 whit a long sword. using the lv 2 optional feature of the monk to attack using dexterity whit your sword. whem you hit use deft strike to put an exra d6 of damage and then you can bonus action for another swimg whit the lv4 optional feature ki fuled attacks. whit rangerhunter afther the first hit they take an aditional d8 of damage and you cam use the tasha version to add another d4.
it somthi like
1ts attack: 1d10+dex+1d6(deft strike)+1d4(favored foe)
2dn attack1d10+dex+1d8(colosus slayer)
3d bonus attack 1d10+dex
Fighter/Warlock 2/8
Focus Stats into Cha and Con
Pact of the Blade
Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast
Wear Heavy Armor
This part may be niche, but: grab Polearm Mastery and wield a Polearm with reach.
You could also grab Sentinel to stop mobs movement when you hit them with Polearm Mastery.
Dwarf storm sorcerer 1, heavy armor cleric 9. Max wisdom, high constitution, 13 charisma and dump the other stats. You get heavy armor proficiency from your cleric subclass and you don't need to meet the strength requirement because you're a dwarf. The 10 feet sorcerer movement compensates your 25 feet movement as a dwarf. You can fly in and out of melee range to cast cure wounds or other touch spells like inflict wounds. Flavor the flying ability as angel wings. This gives you CON save proficiency, shield and absorb elements. Very useful as a supportive tank. Also things like prestidigitation don't require a high charisma to be useful.
Barbarian/rogue. Sneak attack says you need to use a finesse weapon to be able to use sneak attack, it does not say you need to use DEX for your weapon. So you can use reckless attack for advantage so you can basically always use sneak attack. Your character will recklessly keep going for critical points in the enemies body, which explains the extra damage in flavor.
1 level Life Cleric, 1 level monk, 8 levels of wild shape druid makes you pretty fantastic.
* Your good berries heal for 40 total per level 1 cast (and you can upcast them if you're a weirdo.)
* You add your wis to your AC, which you will always be pumping. Many of your wild shapes will have better AC using dex + wis than "natural armor". Some of them will be outright tanky.
* Bracers of Defense are magic items and probably magically resize. But if they don't, they still fit on a lot of critters. Having 22 AC (assuming 20 Dex, 20 Wis) with no armor on is pretty slick.
* Using shillelagh, you can hold your own in melee "human" form with just a staff.
* Druidic Monks are flavor wise really cool.
* Pick up healing word and all the cool edge case level 1 spells from Cleric.
* Get an extra bonus action attack from martial arts when you're in base.
Only downside is, if 10 is your cap, multiclassing keeps you from hitting that cap stone of Elemental Wild Shape.
2 levels in Paladin + the rest any casting class makes you a melee beast as long as you work out some way to hit (Shillelagh with druid/cleric, Pact of the tome + shillelagh or hex warrior for warlocks, battle smith for artificers, suck it up and pump dex or str for your wizards and sorcerers.
Get heavy armor, shield proficiency, and you can focus on any spells you want, don't have to combat optimize your spells much other than like, always take fireball, because they're just gas for your smites if you like.
Sorcadin can quicken spells and cast booming blade + smite. Shield + Mirror Image makes you unhittable, damn near.
Lockadin can smite + Eldritch smite in the same hit, but even if they don't, using short rest slots for smites is pretty baller.
Druid can smite while being a crag cat, lol. "Your spells bounce off me, but mine channel through my claws."
Clerics are just scarier paladins at this point, nothing wrong with that. Forge domain is pretty good for this, +1 AC in heavy armor, literally anything you want to use is a +1 weapon or a +1 armor. Free fire resistance.
Wizards are wizards, so wizards in heavy armor with a greatsword smiting you is kinda terrifying, because that was like... Your only avenue to deal with a wizard was send in a fighter. What, the wizard prefers melee? ..
Fuck.
Battlesmith is just hilarious with smites added in.
Never underestimate the Thorns Wizard; 2 levels warlock, 8 Abj. Wizard. Feat: Gunner. (Human variant makes this easiest)
Eldritch invocation: armor of shadows, agonizing blast
Armor of Agathys up with your highest spell slot, armor of shadows up, your Arcane Ward gonna give you about 20 "temp" HP before attacks start eating into your Armor of Agathys' temp HP. Meaning you can get hit for way more than Agathys' temp HP and still auto-damage your attackers.
Gunner lets you bring eldritch blast to a melee fight, which is going to keep you relevant the entire game just off that cantrip scaling and agonizing blast.
So run in there and get hit, son! Make them take 15 auto-damage for doing zero damage to you. That'll teach em.
Between battles, just recharge your ward with armor of shadows.
Bonus points if you can convince the cleric to cast warding bond on you; ward and Agathys last twice as long. Also for the first "40" damage, you won't actually take damage so neither will the cleric.
Oh. You're also a wizard. So. Have fun.
Alchemist 4 ancestral guardian 6 artificer-barbarian.
Support your party to the max by giving opponents disadvantage on attack rolls, reduce the damage an ally takes and use your spell slots to make potions.
L1 Order Domain Cleric dip with a full caster class like College of Swords Bard gives you some neat combo potential with Voice of Authority. Especially in conjunction with spells like Silvery Barbs or Healing Word when you have a Longbow user in your party.
L2 Bladesinger Wizard dip + Armorer Artificer multiclass sounds really odd, but the bladesinging dances are compatible with the Lightning Launcher weapon that the Infiltrator armor model provides, and it's also compatible with a Psi Warrior dip.
Any Cleric 5 with Monk Way of the Astral Self 5
- 4x Wisdom Melee Strikes at 10 ft reach plus Spirit Shroud
Alchemist Artificer 4 with Wild Magic Barbarian 6
- Boldness Elixir (+d4) and Bolstering Magic (+d3) do wonders to accuracy with Great Weapon Master
Draconic Sorcerer 5 with Fathomless Warlock 5
- Ice and Slow themed spells and abilities, plus Sorlock base for Sorcery point shenanigans
Swashbuckler 4 with College of Whispers 6
- Psychic Blades plus Sneak Attack, plus just all around amazing skill monkey and party face
An attack focused lvl6 shadow monk lvl 4 gloomstalker is great. You could even drop 1 lvl of gloomstalker for a single level of rogue. Pretty much guaranteed to get sneak attack.
Rogue/Druid.
With enough Stealth, you can steal anything using Wild Shape, and at level 6 you can deal an average of 140 damage pretty early in combatfor a single Wild Shape use
Barbarian/Bard/Monk bugbear. We call him Kung fu panda lol.
First 4 levels in barbarian for rage bonus, unarmored defense, ability score, and subclass. I recommend bear totem and boost str. 4 levels in monk, way of the open hand. Then two levels in bard for Jack of all trades. If you're rolling for stats, this is great. If doing standard array then it hurts but doable.
Swashbuckler Rogue, Gloomstalker Ranger, alert feat, Harengon if it’s allowed and put all stats into dex, wisdom, and charisma. So level 7 swashbuckler level 3 Gloomstalker. Str 8 Dex 16 Con 8 Int 8 Wis 16 Chr 8. +9 from mods and +5 from alert is 14. Harengon add proficiency to initiative so +4 for a whopping +18 initiative. If your allowed to expertise your initiative that would be +22
It’s damage output isn’t as impressive I like to think of it as like a QuickDraw cowboy
A concept that I find interesting that would be the product of a weird multiclass would be a strengh based dart thrower.
2 levels in artificer for the infusion with which the Darts comes back to you
3 levels in rogue to gain advantage and sneak attack
5 levels of fighter for the archery fighting style and multi attack
4 levels of Artilerist Artificer and 6 levels of barbarian. The arcane cannon doesn't count as casting a spell and therefore can be used in rage. Use the shield emitter to gain temp how every turn for a bonus action. The barbarian can be whatever you want. I'm currently playing this with a 40k orc flavored character.
So, I haven't played these but I've seen them played and they seem fun.
First one is a gunslinger fighter/assassin rogue if your DM allows guns. So you pop out of cover, take your shots, and use your cunning action hide to take cover. Also your sneak attack on targets that haven't taken an action yet is like beating them in a quickdraw which is dope as hell.
Another is a College of Swords bard with a few levels of paladin. Maybe not something that doesn't work on the surface, but it looks fun. Getting to smite and flourish on the same attack is fucking cool. And you'll have your bard spell slots for smites.
I forget the exact build, but there are a number of fun builds that only use classes as a means to an end. For example, instead of trying to be a Warlock/Paladin, try to build a character with the highest possible AC so that nothing your DM throws at you lands. Or the highest possible movement speed paired with things like the Mobile feat and Rogue's Disengage, so you can literally be anywhere on the map whenever you want. Obviously there's the highest damage builds, but those aren't really any fun. Personally I'd figure out an AC build. Should be plenty of online tutorials for those.
God damn getting demoted from player to campaign tester is funny as hell
They couldn't stop scamming peasants at the bar
I really want to know what OP's table did that ended up getting them demoted.
We just, somehow, turned every session into an archer episode. Even when we didn't want to.
Are we not saying phrasing anymore?
I'm watching season 4 as I'm reading this
Right? Like the fact this was not elaborated on. What did y'all do
Right?
Multiclass with monk. It takes a lot of work for it to be good, but if you can do it these builds can be really fun and surprisingly effective. I really like monk/rogue for sneak attack, monk/fighter you can end up with tons of attacks that do great damage or monk / wizard is a fun one too.
Can confirm monk/wizard is very fun. Cool Jedi vibes. I went war wizard. You can get the +2 to AC consistently because we don't cast spells a whole lot anyways. Shield if it's a bigger hit. No attack or save spells because INT is low
I play a Kensei monk (7) Bladesinger wizard (2) and between bonus action bladesong, reaction shield, and unarmored defense, I get to add the ability score modifiers of 3 stats and a +5 to my AC. That gets me to 27 AC most of the time. And then as a gnome, I have advantage on all INT/WIS/CHA saves against magical effects. Plus as a monk I’m already proficient in Dex saves. Basically the only dangers to this build are Cold and Necrotic damage, and to a lesser extent Poison.
But Durable Magic doesn't come online until 10 so not valid for this post. I do love those war wizard perks, though.
At level 2 you get arcane deflection which provides the +2 ac
Oh that one, yeah.
Monklock. Hexblade+kensei. All of your resources reset with a short rest as well.
This is what I'm playing right now, different subclasses though. also been a fun build but haven't moved up the levels yet. Eldritch blast adds a nice ranged option when you need one.
Rogue/Shadow monk is fantastic
I did that once in a 14th level one shot. A Githyanki Shadow Monk 11/ Soul-knife Rogue 3 and it meshed really nicely. I'd like to try that combo again one day.
This was my build! So much fun.
I like shadow monk with war cleric dip. Take GWM and Eldritch Initiate (for Devil's Sight to see in magic derkness), cast Darkness on yourself and teleport around killing people like a horror movie slasher. Works fine with heavy armor and a two-handed weapon. If you want to flurry take a race with natural weapons.
In a rare case of actually recommending a mix that requires asking for DM approval, letting a celestial warlock's Radiant Soul power up the Sun Soul's radiant sun bolt is a really easy ask; it's a spell attack, and it has a reputation for being weak and needing a buff. And being a strong sun soul monk in service to a celestial is a stupidly good flavor win.
A kensei/ranger multiclass is another good one, I used swarmkeeper once myself to create the best archery build I've seen.
One of my characters is a Way of the open hand monk/ Shadow sorcerer for story reasons. It's a weird ass build but it's interesting and that character has WAY more AC than a typical sorcerer.
Stunning Strike into attacking with advantage on stunned enemy for Sneak Attack is surprisingly effective, especially when you play with a group that is too afraid to frontline.
Human Monk Way of Sun 7/8 + Cleric Peace Domain 3/2. Use a spear as your monk weapon and take the piercer and athlete feats and boost your dex.
My first character was a Rogue 2 Shadow Monk 6. Not a great damage dealer, but basically invincible in combat with all the running and hiding you can do. I've played around with the idea with a wizard monk, but I figure wizards are so overpowered that I might as well get some higher level spells that completely replace the monk features I would have gotten.
Got a player doing monk/cleric and it is working quite nice even at low levels
I was tempted to multi my monk with rogue, but I have such a problem with holding back levels with the main class. Less ki points, cool major abilities are pushed further down the line, screwing up asi gains. So I'm just an extremely sneaky scout/spy, rather than assassin. Got the skill expert feat so I have expertise in stealth and have the Ioun stone of mastery and shadow monks can cast pass without trace. I rolled a damn 42 on a stealth check at level 8. Lol
The Owlbear that Taliesin Jaffe used in an One Shot of Critical Role is pretty neat. 5 levels Barbarian, 5 levels Rogue, use a weapon (rapier is probably your best bet) with Finesse, but use your Strength modifier for the attack you can get Rage Bonus and 3d6 Sneak Attack. You get two attacks, attack recklessly granting yourself advantage so you can always give yourself Sneak Attack. You now have more uses for Bonus Action because of Cunning Action, Rage then Hit and Run.
All I can think of when I remember that character is how he got completely bodied by a monk.
weren't they doing one-vs-one showmatches starting at a distance only a monk can easily close on the first turn? I do remember she was sweeping the floor with all of them LOL
Yeah he pretty much lost because Laura beat him in initiative
I was very new to the game and had made a Tabaxi Monk. When it was time to pick my discipline I started researching and got very bummed because so much of what I saw was bashing monks. I felt horrible, like I was going to let my party down and be dead weight. Another party member, who was more experienced, pointed me to a Critical Role battle royal. I watched Marisha play a monk and take out everyone. I am still playing that Monk and kicking all the ass in Curse of Strahd. And next level I will be able to walk on walls!
Douse your handwraps/gloves in blessed anointment and set them on fire, Strahd will be reeling from the holy hellfire you can rain down with a few Ki points.
Well now. We have a Fire Genasi, plus the ranger can make Holy water. I will start conspiring.
Yesssss. I'm a DM and I love inspiring players to conspire against the DM, my favorite part, tell your DM that you and your party have taken 1 hour to do a thing. Write the thing down and hand it to them and tell them you will reveal this totally reasonable request, in this case the handwraps/rags soaking in holy water stored away in a wineskin, at a later date. The DM still gets the surprise of the reveal which is fun for them, but also fun for everyone at the table in on it or not, and it's just narratively fun. They can still rule as they like, the only better thing might be to finagle some radiant handwraps, or a weapon that monks can use I forget which ones exactly, but mutlihit+radiant bonus per hit+vulnerability makes for an insane combo.
I don't actually have handwraps, but I think I can buy a pair easy enough. The Fire Genasi is a Wizard who loves to blow stuff up ... and works with me to go zoom zoom! My base speed is currently 45, plus I have the feline agility. I can go in, bitch slap Strahd, disengage and run back all before the blood gimp knows what's happening! I come from a video game background so it took watching Critical Roll for a season to understand the point of the game: break your DM. (In a good way, of course. I love it when our DM can't stop laughing.)
Yes! This is the true win condition of D&D! Make the DM break character and everybody wins that session! It's like The Game but in reverse.
There was an incident of me trying to distract the guards from our NOT STEALTHY Cleric and Pally, so I zoomed back and started shrieking about a tiger on the loose. But I have terrible charisma and failed to convince them enough to ignore the party leaving. So I started jumping up and down when one of my fellow party members points out that I mostly just wore a vest for a top (per my character picture on Roll 20) and being a female cat I have at least 6 nipples. Which quickly devolved into "six floppy titties" as the entire party started gleefully joining in on describing the scene. RIP DM.
I don't care what anybody says about monks with all their min max bullshit. Monks are fun as hell. They're one of the most flavorful classes and they just get some really damn neat abilities. I'm currently playing a Shadow Monk and having a blast. And the more levels you get, the more ki points you get, so the less their arguments mean anything. And you can totally use magic weapons, even if your weapons proficiencies are limited (but can be increased with race choice if you need it). AND magic +1, +2, +3 unarmed upgrades exist. Your DM is doing you a major disservice if they don't give you one. And they can throw magic item effects on them too if they're at all creative. Or just snag one off an existing sword stat sheet and put it on some gloves or gauntlets.
Good to know. I am the party note-taker and was trying to keep up with updates. We got the fancy sword in Curse of Strahd. Next thing I know the multiclass rogue/wizard snags it. I go back and check it out to realize I could totally use it. I would do sooooo much more damage with it. But the other wizard is gonna give me the Guthias Staff to play with.
Yeah, as long as you have proficiency with it, it's a monk weapon or can be with the Dedicated Weapon feature as long as it's not "heavy" or "special". And stunning strike can be done with a weapon (took me a while to realize that). Well I hope you land on a cool ass weapon that works well for you. And I pray that you will get one of those unarmed upgrades, because my DM dropped one of those into our loot and it's been a game changer. I think his original idea was to have to druid use it because it effects wild shape beast attacks, but it just works so much better for a monk. Besides, our druid is circle of stars. He doesn't use wild shape in combat. He's got better uses for it.
Make it a swashbuckler rogue for the ability to trigger sneak attack without reckless
And for the free Disengage when you attack someone.
The beastbarian 5/ soul knife rogue 5 is a legitimately good variation of this multiclass. 4 attacks at level 10 while using claws, two with psychic damage that can be thrown and get sneak attack. Or two thrown psychic attacks and a tail attack with 10 feet reach and choice of uncanny dodge or tail reaction block. You’ll need no armor nor weapons to shred enemies. The big drawback is you’ll want to invest in STR, DEX, and CON. You don’t really need any feats, which is good, because you’ll probably want to use ASIs to up your three physical stats. If you get possessed by a ghost or dominated by a wizard, that’s your party’s problem, not yours, right?
RAW sneak attack applies once per turn so you could apply it to only one of your attacks.
True, but I think the point they were making about the extra attack, is that with reckless, you roll 2 d20 taking the higher twice, rather than just straight rogue that would typically get you on most turns without burning a resource a single d20 roll. So you're more likely to get sneak attack on each of your turns rather than if you were straight rogue. You get 2x the chance to hit with extra attack, and then a compounded 2x the chance to hit with advantage.
The comment on sneak attack was because you can ensure you have advantage by reckless. Not that you get sneak attack every attack.
Owlbearman is just a myth
Eshteross was 100% Owlbearman in my head cannon.
Rogue/Barbarian is a very underrated MC because of the Rogue's BA options at Lvl 2
This is a very common multiclass
I mean RAW that's perfectly reasonable but I feel the RAI on sneak attack was actually using the Finesse part of the finesse weapon :D
D4 on YouTube has a great video about a druid/paladin/fighter... I've been playing it for a few months now and it's really strong. 2 levels of paladin for smites, 3 levels of fighter for action surge and battlemaster manuvers, the rest moon druid. Setup whatever concentration spell you want, wildshape into a bear, smite your enemies as a bear, using hou battlemaster manuvers as necessary... as a bear, and of course, action surge... yiu can nuke the most dangerous enemy in an encounter in 1 round.
Which build is that ??
https://youtu.be/f5dUuTwcJ0o?si=XPkedt9CXZWgH-e5
Ah amazing, thank you
your beast forms will be too weak for this to be effective, there is a reason elemental form comes online at level 10.
So the beast forms don't really matter, what your after is just multi attack, what you lack in + to hit, you make up for in precise attack manuver if you do miss, plus the saving throw dc is based on your forms str, so you can actually get good saves from yiu manuvers. My go to is to trip them, get advantage on attacks, and then start pummeling and smiting and action surge. You get a decent pool of hp to tank with, and even if you get knocked out of beast form, it's just a bonus action to do it again. Throw in fire shield at higher levels to punish enemies for hitting you. When your out of both wildshapes, you just fall back to being a caster... holding concentration on bless and dodging is a fantastic use of your time.
Not directly related to the build, but it's nice hearing d4 get mentioned. I love watching his videos, but sadly I don't get the chance to try a lot of his builds. I got an Adventurer's League character at level 4 who's going down the route of his battlefield commander build though.
Eldritch Knight/Celestial Tomelock. I played this build for five years, from EK 5/Warlock 3 all the way to EK 8/Warlock 10. The only problem is that it doesn't really work if you start before level 8 (when you have extra attack and Pact of the Tome so you can fight with Charisma) so a game where you start at high level is ideal. If you want to check him out, here's his final sheet. He's built as an investigation specialist. [https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/70244933/hmpu9X](https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/70244933/hmpu9X) This is a build that has versatility as the main strength, and is a bit like playing a half caster martial that has a ton of extra utility in exchange for raw combat prowess. You can fight in melee with Shillelagh. You can fight at range with Eldritch Blast. You can heal at range a bit, and learn actual healing spells. You've got rituals from every class with Pact of the Tome, and/or another valuable utility invocation like at will Detect Magic. You've got low level slots from EK to use things like Shield, Hex and Hellish Rebuke efficiently. You've got all sorts of utility cantrips. There are a couple of different level breakdowns I would consider - EK 7/Warlock 3 - This gets you the EK ability that lets you Cantrip + Attack in the same turn, which is cool. You still get two ability score increases despite multiclassing. Your spell slots are 4 1st level and 2 2nd level long rest slots, and then 2 2nd level short rest slots. EK 5/Warlock 5 - Still getting two ability score increases, but you've got 3rd level spell slots at the cost of having any 2nd level slots. Your melee ability is worse, but you've also got another Invocation to play around with. EK 3/Warlock 7 - Not a fan of this personally, you're giving up extra attack and limiting your long rest slots to 2 but you've got 4th level slots and there are some exciting options at that level to combine with Action Surge.(I've got some stories about what you can do when you can Dimension Door twice in the same turn) This split would work better with Hexblade I guess, so you could use Charisma to attack and be Pact of the Blade for extra attack but you're giving up a ton of utility which is kinda the point of the build. No healing, no rituals, not as many cantrips. Going Pact of the Blade also means you're at the same number of invocations that can be whatever you like as the 5/5 build despite having more of them.
How are you making weapon attacks with Charisma? Pact of the Tome doesn’t do it, only Hexblade does
Shillelagh.
Pact of the Tome lets you pick 3 cantrips from any class, and it turns it into a Warlock cantrip that is based off of your Charisma. Shillelagh is a Druid cantrip that enchants a club or staff so that you can fight with your casting stat - typically wisdom, but with Pact of the Tome it's Charisma. There are cleric builds that pick this cantrip up to fight in melee with Wisdom - its actually pretty bad for Druids but exciting if you can get it on other classes. This is oldschool pre-Hexblade stuff. Back when if you wanted to be Pact of the Blade you went Fighter 1/Fiend Warlock X.
What's the big draw for Celestial? The healing?
How did you dimension door twice in one turn? I get action surge giving you another action but you can’t normally expend two spell slots on the same turn (the exception being a reaction like counterspell or feather fall). Same reason that a sorcerer can cast fireball as an action but can’t quicken another casting of it even though it would now be a bonus action to do so (found this out after making my wild magic sorcerer with this exact idea in mind lol)
The thing that causes issues is casting a spells a bonus action - then your other spell needs to be a cantrip. Two standard action spells is kosher if you've got action surge. Theres actually an option on the Wild Magic Surge table that is one of the only other ways I know of to do this, since it gives you another action. One of the annoying things about this build is that when you set up Shillelagh you can't cast any of your normal spells! It'd be great if you could buff yourself and then set up your ability to attack in melee but alas, you can't.
It’s a confusing rule, but RAW you can can cast two spells requiring an Action to cast in one turn provided you have some way to give yourself that extra action. This is pretty much only possible via Action Surge. The only time you can’t cast two leveled spells in a turn is if one of them is a bonus action, which then limits your Action to a cantrip if you intend to spellcast.
5 levels in echo knight+5 in arcane trickster= my tiefling is a very witchy boi, and really fun to play.
I call this the "Who you callin' tiny?" Race: Fairy Rune Knight Fighter Feats: Giant weapon master, mobile, sentinel, the usual martial feats :) Round 1, use the Giant Might feature of Rune Knight to make yourself Large, then use your action to cast Enlarge/Reduce from your race and become huge. Because you're no longer small, you can use heavy weapons (1d12 greataxe), oversized weapons mean you deal 2d12 at large, and 3d12 at huge. That's 6d12 per turn (12d12 with action surge). The best part is when your "small" fairy grapples and suplexes a gargantuan Purple Worm. If you want to multiclass, you can go into barbarian after you get your fighter subclass. This will get you unarmored defense (fairies can fly if they are not wearing medium or heavy armor), and rage. You can't rage and use Enlarge/Reduce, but you can only cast that once a day so it's not a bad thing to have in your back pocket for following combats (and being a large, flying fairy with a 2d12 greataxe and the mobile feat to avoid opportunity attacks is insanely strong)
The damage bonuses listed in the Enlarge spell and the Giant Might feature are meant to reflect any increased damage from being bigger - engaging the oversized weapons rules like you described is at the best a contentious bit of rules interpretation. Being a big fairy is fun though, you don't need a busted ruling to make the build a blast to play.
Exactly, this is a rule interpretation that doesn’t work by RAW
You can also do this with Path of the Giant- plus your weapon gets elemental damage every rage and can be thrown, plus your reach increased by 5ft. AND at tenth level you can toss enemies (or allies) around the battlefield!
the reason I don't recommend Path of the Giant is that you can only become large if you rage, which prevents you from using Enlarge/Reduce
Yep came for this.
10 lvl 1 rogues multiclass
Nah wait let him cook. That’s 20 expertises
🤝
Fighter(Samurai) 3 Monk(Long Death) 7 Fighting style: unarmed Feat: Eldritch Adept - Fiendish Vigor You should be just fine... temporarily... perpetually. Edited the Feat to reflect input. It was dumb.
You could replace Shadow Touched with the feat that grants an Invocation and then take Fiendish Vigor
Is both functional or redundant?
It's better because Shadow Touched gives you a single use of it
Most excellent
The posts so far have all been combat heavy. Which is nice. How about a human variant barbarian scout. You'd want to have 6 levels of barbarian (totem warrior) for the second Aspect of the Beast ("You gain the eyesight of an eagle. You can see up to 1 mile away with no difficulty, able to discern even fine details as though looking at something no more than 100 feet away from you. Additionally, dim light doesn’t impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks."). Combine with the feats linguist (learn three more languages) and observant ("if you can see a creatures mouth, you can read lips") and some "two language" background (Acolyte and Sage from players handbook) and you can eavesdrop on many races from a mile away in dim light. Add 4 more levels in another class that helps. Fighter, for more feats, or rogue for more scouting.
That's hot.
Drunken Master 9 Barbarian 1. Choose your favorite WWE wrestler and have fun being the cream of the crop / beating their candy ass / letting your hulkamania run wild/ etc!
Barb 5, Bard 5. Either Bear Totem Barb or Wild Magic Barb will work wonders with this build, with Bear being the "You can't hurt me" option vs the "You can't predict me" randomness option (probably what you might want to go for, in all honesty). But you want College of the Sword for Bard, to get the Blade Flourish shenanigans. Add on Sentinal and Polearm Master feats, weild a Glaive/Halbred (or a Quarterstaff if you are a Small/Tiny sized race), and become unstoppable, unreachable, and impossibly trolly~ Sure, you need to max out CHA and STR, but you are already dumping WIS and INT, and then balance out between DEX and CON. Best part, you can pick *ANY* race, and this build will make it chaotic and fun~ Downsides: "you can't cast spells while Raging!" Then don't worry about it, use spells outside combat! "But what if I want to be lvl 6 in either class instead?" Thats going to mess up the build then. You need lvl 5 Barb to get the +10movement speed and the second attack option, and you need the lvl 5 Bard to get all your Bardic Inspiration dice back after a short rest. Besides, why would you want lvl 6 in either class? CoS Bard just offers a second attack option, which you should already have with Barb without the +10 movement, and both Totem and Wild Barbs don't really provide anything that might help during a 1 shot.
3 levels of grasslands druid on a rogue will send your stealth and infiltration skills to the moon. You get all the first and second level druid spells, a couple cantrips, and always prepared invisibility and pass without trace. Plus wildshape twice a day. Only downside is your wildshapes are useless for combat and don't get sneak attack raw since wolf fangs aren't finesse weapons. Probably best for the rogue to be a thief or assassin.
This won't win you any DPR awards, but Nature Cleric 1 / Four Elements Monk 9. The purpose of this build is borderline psychotic but you're going with an armored monk prioritizing wisdom. While Nature Cleric can get you plate for 20, half plate + 14 dex + shield gets you 19, which is good enough to beat a normal monk AC and doesn't make you invest in strength. Additionally we're going to be picking up Shillelagh to make us almost entirely Wisdom based. At Nature Cleric 1 / Four Elements 4, pick up PAM which will get you the 2 attacks per turn as a normal class and 1 level later, get you a base-line 3 attacks per turn. Ki-focused attack will also mean you can follow up one of your disciplines with another attack. For the Four Elements, you'd be looking at picking up * Water Whip * Fist of Unbroken Air * Four Thunders / Cinder Sweep In the same vein as a Warlock, you're a short-rest caster with a few good single-target or group damage abilities. This still includes Stunning Strike, which should have a better chance to hit since you're only needing to focus on wisdom for your ASIs. When you've used up your ki, you're still going to have access to PAM for 3 shillelagh attacks each turn, while also being more tanky than a normal monk.
My personal favorite is the Anime Kobold. It uses strictly the PHB Beast Master and the Volo's Guide Kobold. If you chose a Vulture for your Beast Companion (not a listed option, but it's considerably weaker than the given options), you can ride your Vulture as a mount. Now that you have a flying mount with Pack Tactics, you pick up 2 Lances and the Dual Weilder feat. While mounted, Lances are one handed weapons, and they lack the Heavy property. So while mounted, you can weld 2 Lances. Lances have the unfortunate property of granting you disadvantage on attacking enemies within 5ft. Fortunately, you're a Kobold with Pack Tactics and you have a friend also within 5ft of those enemies (your Vulture). Because those cancel each other out (and stacking advantage and disadvantage isn't a thing), you are immune to any effect that would give you disadvantage. Because your mount is a Medium creature, you can take it indoors and into dungeons while riding it. So because you never *need* to dismount, you can go around as a flying Kobold wielding two giant anime swords.
Harengon, 5 levels of ranger (gloom stalker), Dueling fighting style, and 5 levels of rogue (swashbuckler). Important ability scores are Dex, Charisma, and Wisdom, and I recommend using either ability score upgrade on Eldritch Initiate for Armor of Shadows (free Mage Armor at will, better than most light armors, even magical ones). You go first, you have two shots at hitting your target with sneak attack, and you can backpedal without provoking attacks. Also, it's almost impossible for you not to get sneak attack. Knock yourself out. Or better yet, knock someone else out. If you can, make sure your weapon is a rapier of Warning, so you get advantage on initiative rolls. And if you get to level 16, keep going as rogue, and you double your proficiency bonus on initiative, too...
This is a stupid interaction that my DM showed me GWM requires a melee attack with a heavy weapon Sharpshooter requires an attack with a ranged weapon Those are not mutually exclusive If you take both feats, you can take a -10 to hit and smack someone with a longbow, adding 20 damage to each attack If you max strength, take archery as your fighting style, and go battle master for precision, you should be able to hit with decent frequency, too
Monkbarian. Don't bother getting your wisdom very high, you won't need it. Boost strength, con and dex in that order. Beast barbarian gets an extra attack, so by the time you get multiattack, you'll be making 5 attacks/round. Grab the unarmed fighting style feat after you get your strength to 18. I recommend open hand monk. Your DC won't be good but it's free attempts at tripping the enemy or shoving them around. You'll be doing a potential of 1d8 (unarmed strike) + 4 (str) + 2 (rage) for 5 attacks/round. Your movement speed will be very high, and you can use a ki point if needed. Your AC likely won't be high, but your health should be good, and with your average damage output per attack most things won't out live you for long. Plus your skills are left flexible to find out of combat use. I recommend the eldritch claw tattoo for an extra +1 to unarmed strikes (won't help the bonus natural attack) and it'll give you an extra d6/attack, giving you a potential extra 5d6. And/or the insignia of claws gives a +1 bonus to unarmed strikes and natural attacks, stacking to give you a +2 bonus to attack and damage.
Autognome sorcerer, especially divine soul because how do you have a bloodline trait and how do you have a celestial bloodline link? lol. I would say start with one level in Twilight cleric for the dark vision, ability to share it, an advantage on initiative... Plus you can use heavy armor at martial weapons. And autonomes have some great racial abilities. When I did something like this, I wrote it up as The gnome that made me couldn't get me to work but his wife was a cleric who used divine intervention which actually worked and the symbol of mistra appeared on the autognome and he was born.... In that way with a link to mystra. You could also do something like that with celestial warlock where an image of a unicorn appears and then the creation wakes up .... But if you're doing this as warlock I would start with one level in paladin instead. If you go hexblade, you're going to need to change the Divine link is with probably.
Cheese Grater build: three levels of Scout rogue, 7 levels of Moon Druid. Cast Spike Growth, Transform into a bear, Grapple enemy (Rogue Expertise in Athletics) and drag them along the edge of Spike Growth for crazy damage (Spike Growth works with forced movement) using Cunning Action Dash and Skirmish feature to move half your speed as a reaction when an enemy ends it’s turn within 5 feet of you (which is always since you have them grappled).
Havent had a chance go test it at the table yet but i'm excited for one of my players to run Barb Sorcerer
Currently playing one. I adore it!
They say you can't multiclass druid. TortleArtillerist 3/ ShepardX is fantastic, And Goliath or tortle BeastBarb5/SporesX are 2 druid multiclass that work really well. Key points: Artillerist give THP to all your summons and allies while your unicorn totem heals everything that gets through the THP. Mind sharpener means you don't drop concentration on your summons. Protector cannon lasts an hour meaning you start most fights with max THP, and aren't using actions during the fight to get it going. Same with your conjuring spells, 1h duration. You have really good saving throws and perception skills, which is nice. Beast barbarian/ Spores druid is just a better barbarian. Polarm master or even just double bladed scimitar means 4 attacks in a round with the beast claw(attack,extra attack, beast claw, bonus action attack). 18 or 20 strenght plus rage damage(+6/+7)+ Spores +1d6 on every attack. Resistance to damage makes the Spores THP last longer. Your spores reaction is adding even more damage that a barbarian usually wouldn't be doing. Pass without trace->activate your Spores whenever possible before combat starts. The real downside to this is you are limited to 4 rage/day. Other multiclass that people say can't work. Paladin2/warwizardX works surprisingly well. Bonus point if you show up as a Basic human for +1to all stats. Gloomstalker3/shadowMonkX between dread ambusher, hunter's mark, and flurry of blows, you can pump out some serious damage. Also you are invisible all the time to everything by being in darkness and being able to see through it=advantage on all attacks, everytimg else cant target you and have disadvantage on attacks. Might as well be shadar-kai and take elven accuracy. Ruined background for alertnesss feat.
Go herengon and take 7 levels of warlock (hex blade) so you can take the invocation that gives you the jump spell at will. You can now jump 90 feet as a bonus action. Take 3 levels of swashbuckler rogue so you can jump without taking opportunity attacks. Edit: at a lower level I tried to combine with a little bit of monk to use step of the wind, which doubles your jump distance. Problem there is that both SotW and the herengon ability require a bonus action.
Now it's not "can summon a nuke" build, but I have always loved the GOO warlock & Battle Master Fighter combo. Almost everything comes back on a short rest, so you can use resources pretty liberally. Get spells that don't really need attack roll or save like Hex. Be human variant to get crossbow expert using 2 hand crossbows so you can hex and attack and then attack and attack eqch turn wven low level adding an extra 1d6 on each hit from hex.
Loxodon, with 3 levels in Barb and 7 levels in warlock. You're abusing Armor of Agathis and Rage. 16 strength, 16 con, 14 Charisma. For Barb subclasses, none are needed, but if I were to give a top 3, it would be Ancients (the soft taunt envourages enemies to attack you and take Armor of Agathis damage), Bear Totem (to preserve the temp HP longer vs magical damage), then Zealot (more damage). For Warlock, subclass doesn't really matter either. The top choice is Genie, and just don't take Dao (for bonus damage, a bonus resistance, and flight). At level 3, take pact of the blade. For invocations, get improved pact weapon and Thirsting Blade. For a feat, take Great weapon Master, and bring your favorite heavy weapon (I love the maul). The first turn is a setup turn. Just cast Armor, then Rage. If you can, cast armor before combat as it lets you skip setup. Then, grapple an enemy with your trunk, then start hitting things recklessly. Every time an enemy hits you, they take 20 cold damage, and your Armor benefits from rage's resistances, allowing to last twice as long. Super fun and super tanky, while also functioning as a damn good tank for your team. Definitely give it a try! The only DM buy in require is grappling with Thristing Balde, as RAW, thirsting blade only let's you attack twice with a pact weapon. Most DMs will hand wave this, though.
Druid with a level of monk. Pump wis for normal druid reasons then add your wis mod to your AC (from monks unarmored defense) in animal forms for extra tankiness.
Armorer Artificer 3 / Abjuration Wizard 7. You get the 4th level spells known and a 5th level slot as well as crazy survivability from high AC and the Abjuration ward. Since Artificer rounds up for multiclass spell slots, you are only 1 level behind in spell slots. You also get some cool extra spells wizards don't usually get. The big downside is you have a 5th level slot but no 5th level spells known.
This one's so unusual I've literally never seen one played. Fighter 1/Gloomstalker 5/Battle Master 3/War Cleric 2. This is a dart-throwing build that combines the Thrown Weapon and Archery fighting styles for +2 to every attack and damage roll. Take Sharpshooter, using Precision Attack, Guided Strike, and Bless to hit your power attacks. You can only throw one Net per action regardless of multi-attack, so Quick Toss and War Magic allow you to restrain an enemy with your bonus action while keeping your action open for proper attacks. Ranger 5 lets you grab Spike Growth to grate enemies against with Pushing Attack. A fun and unique build with high damage, strong survivability, and a surprising amount of utility.
Fighter 1 / drac Sorc X and played as a martial. Vhuman or CL for Dueling, Focus Dex then Con. You will need 13 Char to multiclass. Haste is your pseudo extra attack, misty step for mobility, shield spells for AC and elements for AoE reactions. Other spells: ashardolon’s stride (upcasts well when two attacks are not as good), Fire Shield, Tasha’s otherworldly guise. Get counterspells and dispel magic to save other caster’s slots. Twin your hastes so another martial can join the fun. You can also quicken green flame blade if you are in a group and need a nova. When you can, grab Warcaster. Rogue/Barb is solid. I’d go Rogue 1 / Barb 6 / Rogue 4 to start at level 10. After that keep going rogue. The damage is not as good as GWM at lower levels but by about Rogue 6 is close and surpasses it in T4. Subclass is open for each (special shout-out to Beast/Soul Knife) but here is my favorite: Shardar-Kai Rogue 1 / AG Barb 6 / Scout Rogue 4 Focus Str then Con, cap Dex at 14 for medium armor. Pick up Reverent Blade for 2d4 finesse weapon, +1 AC, and bonus action attack at Barb 4 and rock DSS. You have the stellar skills of a rogue, can grapple with the best if needed, very solid and consistent attack damage, AG’s taunt becomes a skirmisher’s delight with reaction moves. Can teleport around for mobility even while raging. Pairs well with a dedicated front liner that can punish via reaction attacks. Another rogue/barb or fighter works well.
Gnome arcane trickster rogue / battle smith artificer. (My build of this was 3 levels rogue, rest artificer but I used a homebrew subclass inspired by battle smith but with more of a fey flavor as I was a forest gnome. But the build isn’t by any means optimal but it is very fun. Between racial spells, arcane trickster and artificer you have a lot of cantrips, artificers get a really fun spell list (and you can choose from the whole list when you prepare spells each day) you get to make your own magic items. Armorer subclass might be better as you could sneak attack with the infiltrator armor weapons and advantage on stealth checks is nice. You do often end up with lots of options for your bonus actions but have lots of utility outside of combat while having great combat potential as well. (Any artificer subclass could be fun for this build) being a rogue and having sneak attacks and your cunning actions give you a lot you can do when low on spell slots. And this build lets you more easily have a wider range of cantrips than a typical artificer does. At higher levels another level of rogue may be tempting for the ASI or a feat (perhaps to get even more spell options)
I made a 5 Barbarian/ 4 Bard (10th level would be even better for the Font of Inspiration). A lot of the abilities don't have great synergy, but you can focus your spells on Utility, Healing, other Out of Combat. You can also 1. Have the best chance of Grappling using Expertise and the normal Rage Advantage on Strength checks. 2. Can cast Mirror Image before combat (if you know in advance) as it doesn't require Concentration. 3. Can use Cutting Words (as Lore Bard) to turn a hit into a miss. I was a Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, so I would make the enemies want to focus on me as opposed to any other targets, and then I would just insult them so that they missed anyway.
I feel like Bladesinger/Echo Knight could be cool if you had the stats for it.
Swashbuckler rogue with 1-2 lvls in hexblade. These flow so well together.
A Tabaxi Bladesinger 5 / Monk 2 / Fighter 2 / Rogue 2 can use Ashardalon's Stride to move hundreds of feet per round and solo a dungeon 1d6 fire damage at a time.
I'll be honest, my sorcarian.. barborcerer? Idfk is surprisingly good. Mostly because I have silvery barbs
I love my Human 5 War Cleric 5 Battle Master Fighter (mine is actually Champion, but do yourself a favor go BM). Mostly melee I have Devotee's Censor, full armor, and shield. Mostly cast divine favor or crusader's mantle and swing. spiritual weapon if you don't want to use your war cleric BA every time.
Rogue/fighter bugbear. Alert to boost your initiative and ensure you go first. Bugbear gets something similar to sneak attack if they enemy hasn't gone yet, and doesn't specify 1/round or anything. That 2d6 extra per attack, and stacks with sneak attack. Dual wielding is paramount. Probably go champion for improved critical, but I could see an advantage to echo knight.
Monk pairs well with Warlock. Hex plus Flurry of Blows, with other defensive spells to make melee more viable (Mirror Image, Armour of Agathys, etc) I also created a build once inspired by Vi from League of Legends/Arcane, a Champion Archetype fighter with Unarmed Fighting style paired with Monk. D8 unarmed strikes, Flurry of Blows plus Action Surge.
Sun Soul Monk/Wildfire Druid with even split. Focus on Wis and Agl give you potent spells and good AC. A pretty versatile mix of spells that you aren't locked into, excellent mobility, healing, radiant damage, and the ability to have nine summons on the field while you also hit things, for at least 11 attacks per turn. Depending what you summon, that is also at least five chances to incapacitate a medium size target per turn, with at least 3 of those attacks at advantage. And that is just one of the DM frustrating things you can do with it.
Birdbardbarian! An aarakoa Lore Bard 3/Elk Barbarian 5. The idea is to be the best damn grappler you can be. Then fly straight up and either let them go or keep going up until they break free…. Rage gives you advantage on athletics checks. Lore bard gives you expertise in athletics checks. So with 20 str, that’s like +13 to your roll and you make it with advantage. As well as cutting words to -1d6 from their check. Theoretically you could roll a 2 and your opponent 19 and you could end up with a 15 to your opponents 13! Elk barbs move 55 feet per turn, so that’s 27 feet of dragging, which an aarakoa can do straight up. The fall damage is maxed from 200 feet, so you can take your opponent out of the fight for 8 turns of combat, then let go for 20d6 worth of damage.
Horizon Walker Ranger 3 / Arcana Domain Cleric X Pick up booming blade from Arcana Domain Cleric Flavor the entire thing as a wizard
Paladin 2 / Arcane Trickster X. Smite and Sneak attack while using a rapier and shield. Find familiar for BA advantage on Booming blades. Strength or Dex but Dex gives you more skills and initiative.
Druid/Rogue, focused on shapeshifting
6 levels bladesinger, 4 levels moon druid. Bladesing while a brown bear, grapple stuff and they cannot escape. Also be a Giff for advantage on Strength checks
I made a long death monk bladesinger multiclass for one of our campaigns that absolutely clapped. Crazy mobility, crazy utility, impressive damage and I was a tanky mother fucker. Almost never got hit and had a very reliable source of temp hp from long death.
Main barbarian and take two lvl in fighter. Get action surge and fighting style. As fighting style take unarmed. You now have d8/d10 damage dice on your unarmed, which works with savage attacks and ragging. You are now a better monk. Congratulations! You can also do it with monk/fighter, it just make the stat selection a bit different. But you with be a monk with action surge and damage dice you would first normally see at very high levels. Real silly fun, which I tried in a mini campaign. I made a lvl 6 monk/4bar/2fighter. Was dwarf with the dwarf dodge feat and had the phail of health and that other hit dice improving common magic item. Basically each hit dice I spent would always roll max and I would regain twice its amount. And as monk I could take dodge action as a bonus action, and each time I took dodge action I could spent a hit dice and regain its health. So have fun fighting this raging dwarf who was smacking you silly with d10 attacks dice unarmed, resistance to all damage, and could constantly dodge on bonus action and regained 20-24 hp each time. He was soo fun and silly. Still same weakness to cc spells and abilities as any other which weak saving throws. All stats was on str, con, and can’t remember is it was dex or wis as last ability. But int and cha was both 8 or something. But damn fun never the less. I doubt I would build a character like this one in an actual campaign as the leveling is weird and it requires two magic items (common and uncommon), where I think one of them is from a homebrew. But not sure.
This one is a favourite of mine L3 Beast Barbarian/the rest Paladin (doesn't matter too much on subclass). The secret to this build is understanding that Paladin smites don't count as casting a spell, they just expend the spell slot. Bonus action rage and go for the claws, allowing you to do an additional attack so you get 3 attacks including extra attacks (grab a race that uses a bonus action attacks for more fun). Those claws count as simple melee weapons, so they trigger both rage and smite RAW. Because you can't cast spells, you'll want to be smiting at every chance you get. My favourite thing here in particular is realising how scary a barbarian can be when its backed with Aura of Protection, making saving throws a lot easier for the barbarian. Now this screams MAD, as you want a high STR, CON, CHA and, if you wanna have high AC, DEX (as you will be wearing medium armour at best). However you can actually get away with only like a 14 in CHA because you're already limited with your spell choices, mainly out of combat ones. RAW you can also wear a shield, because the claws feature doesn't require both hands to be free for the additional attack, so that can also help with the AC problem. You could also go the reverse and go more levels in barbarian, but I do think Paladin offers a lot more utility. But that's just my opinion
Barbarian/Monk. So much fun. Bonus to pick Shifter Race and Beast Barbarian. You get rage, you get ki, you get good movement speed, and it can offer plenty of fun roleplay opportunities.
1 level gets you hexblade's curse, the other 9 get you 5th level slots in any fullcaster class that gets magic missile. If your GM/master torturer lets you pick magic items you can stack on the pain with certain wands(?) that give a bonus to a damage roll of a spell you cast. Definitely on the sillier side and certainly not as good as casting a high level crowd controlling magick, but you do get to stare your DM in the eyes and say "the monster takes 63 damage, no save"
**BarbaRogue 5/5**, extreme synergy between all of both classes. Pick whatever archetypes you like (except Arcane Trickster), I'm fond of Bear Barbarian / Thief Rogue for extreme Shoveness and resistance + ability to use items as a bonus action. **BarbaMonk 3/7**: pick whatever archetypes you want except Astral Self (antisynergy since reliant on WIS), my favorite is Ancestral Guardian and Kensei (non-heavy weapon) or Bear & Long Death (heavy weapon). First one is a hell of a tank (attack others? Barb feature. Attack me? Rage + Patient Defense). Second one is deadly chaos (Step of the Wind, draw greatsword, smash, get THP). **Shepherd Druid 5 / Astral Self Monk 5**: depending on how DM rules Wild Shape interaction, ranges from great to hilarious. On "great" range, you shore up core weakness of Druid (having crappy sustained damage) while also vastly enhancing beast form AC if need be, and being entirely WIS dependant. On hilarious range you have Astral Arms coming out of beats and ability to use Extra Attack (including Grapple) with them. xd **Eldricht Knight 5 / Draconic|Divine Soul Sorcerer 5**: lots of ways to make it powerful and fun, the main idea is to pick Subtle and either Quicken, Empower, Extend or Twin depending on your choice of spells. Draconic is nice for a DEX based kiter and AOE if you can get to 11th level at some point, otherwise Divine Soul for Spirit Guardians to be "an Arcane based Crown Paladin", minus smites plus shield. :) **Tempest Cleric 2 / Stars Druid 2 / Draconic Sorcerer 6** with Transmuted and Quicken metamagics: a powerful Sorcerer shoring its usual drawback by getting lot of interchangeable utility AND deadly AOE AND (mostly) unbreakable concentration once per short rest. **Barbarian 3 / Fiend Blade Warlock 7**: Ice & Fire Warrior setting Armor of Agathys + Fire Shield before a big fight and stacking rage on top, or if out of rage / rage not needed setting a Sickening Radiance and trying to Shove enemies back inside them normally. xd **Astral Self Monk 6 / Shadow Sorcerer 4**: pick Skill Expert Athletics, learn any mix among Longstrider, Jump, Enlarge/Reduce and Enhance Ability with Extend metamagic and Subtle, become the unstoppable Grappler that can either drag enemies into a Web or buff itself to Grapple Huge creatures to the ground. Use Patient Defense to resist the fury of the creature forced into submission, while enjoying seeing everyone else strike it without risk. Here are a few ideas atop off my head.
I'm currently doing a fighter bard, more specifically a swords bard and a battle master fighter. Haven't fully tested it as we are only 4 lvls into a darksun campaign. But it's looking extremely fun, especially once you hit both subclasses and you can push enemies upwards of 25ft (not very powerful but very fun to keep pushing enemies) A 5/5 split works super well but if you want that extra ASI, I recommend going 6 lvls into fighter.
Okay so this is my current lvl 4 gnome artificer and the plan I'm going to take him on. Level 10. Artificer battlesmith 5 Fighter champion 4 Cleric of Forge 1 Infusions: repeating shot crossbow. +1AC armour. Forge cleric infusion: +1AC to steel defender. Feats: sharpshooter + Sentinel. Fighting style: Archery. Primary weapon: +1 repeating heavy crossbow +7 to hit (+12 without sharpshooter) +16 to damage (6 without sharpshooter) 1st round action -Fairie fire (DC 17). Bonus to move within 5ft of ally. 2nd round action - Multi attack + action surge for 4 total attacks. (Possible additional attack due to sentinel) Average attack roll with advantage = 13.8 Average D10 roll = 5.5 Each successful attack average damage = 21.5 4 successful hits = 86 damage Assuming sentinel reaction = 107.5 damage. Fighter champion odds of landing crit at 19-20 = 9.5% Crit chance with advantage = 19% Total damage assuming 1 crit in a nova round = 129 damage. The cleric dip isn't crucial to the build but I wanted to bolster my spells at lvl 4, and the bonus infusion is quite nice
Been working on this for a while now. Vine leshy, Herbalist Archetype Alchemist 7, Herbalism Bond Druid 3. Take the Spell Knowledge discovery once reaching Alchemist 7. You'll have to use the Feat Extra Discovery for this. Since it's not an even level for the Alchemist. The spell knowledge discovery makes the Alchemist count as a full Arcane Spellcasting Class, which qualifies him for prestige classes. Further levels can go into Mystic Theurge. The developer of the SK discovery confirmed that prestige classes that advance Arcane spellcasting will advance extracts with this discovery. The Herbalist Archetype switches your spellcasting modifier to wisdom, so you only have to invest in that rather than splitting with Intelligence. You'll be able to make free wisdom modifier potions per day, and if the group makes it to level 20, you have 17 Extract levels and 13 Druid spell levels to work with. Mass produce potions, dole out infused extracts, Entangle enemies with your seed pods, summon nature's ally and assault them with woodland creatures. With a high wisdom modifier, your save dcs for spellcasting and seed pods should be pretty high. Full on crowd control support with practically endless healing and buffing. If the rest of your party is going op broken things, go full support so they can shine.
5 bear totem barbarian / 5 circle of spores Druid. Fungal form then rage, if you’re using melee weapons you add a d6 of necrotic to each attack. Take the background “planar philosopher” to resist Psychic damage and be resistant to all damage types while raging. Dual wielding allows you to BA stab so (assuming you hit and using shortswords cuz it makes my math easy), you can be doing 6d6 + damage mod x2 per round. Being in fungal mode before combat is kinda integral to the build though, since rage drops if you don’t attack and don’t take damage
Shadow Monk / Swashbuckling Rouge is pretty damn evil. Swashbuckler get sneak attack if they are fighting a target alone, disintegrate for free after an attack. Shadow Monk lets you just pummel them with your fist (or other monk weapons), and drop a Darkness spell. (Take a feat to get devil site)
Soulknife Rogue X Grassland Druid 7 levels of rogue and 3 Druid You can cast psyonic whispers to communicate telepathically, wild shape into a small animal like a rat or spider, infiltrate with stealth and pass without trace, all while maintaining your psyonic whispers as it is not magic. AND you can infiltrate without weapons since you can create psychic blades. Unbelievably broken for stealth and scouting. Edit for added clarity
I like Half-Elf Ranger/Bard. First edition rules Ranger, Second edition rules Bard. Insane versatility.
Totem Warrior Barb(pick Bear) 3/Oathbreaker Paladin 7. Bear Barbarian's resistance to all damage except psychic works even when you are wearing heavy armor, so you can take your first level in paladin, dump DEX and get Aura of Hate to replace rage damage with CHA to damage. Smite also works while raging, so you can have your heavy armor AC, resistance to everything AND 4/2 smite slots.
Circle of moon druid level 2, 8 levels of rogue, turn into ape throw rock proc sneak attack from rock, return to monkey Also the rock does bludgeoning damage which lets you get ranged crusher procs along with sharpshooter
Hex blade sword bard. Bugbear monk of astral self with three levels of circle of spoors druid.
Champion fighter 3, Rogue 7 (you can do a 6,4). Take elven accuracy, remember that rogues can stand still on their turn for advantage. Get triple advantage. Take mastermind Rogue for using your BA to help allies for fun. Build is super simple: roll 3 dice, crit 27% of the time, roll lots of dice. It's not super broken, but it is fun.
Artillerist artificer barbarian multiclass. Use your spell slots on out of combat utility stuff and the occasional long range attack.. Take the protector to give yourself bonus hp every turn. Take medium armor and use infusions to be a killer tank.
I've been playing a Mutant Blood Hunter 11 / Alchemist Artificer 4 and it's a really great combo. take sharpshooter and get a heavy crossbow with repeating shot and you hit like a truck
I played a character with this build once and it's fun, but kinda janky. Race: Variant Human Classes: Fighter 2/ Hexblade Bladelock 5/ Divine Soul Sorcerer 3 Feats: War Caster, Polearm Master Subtle Counterspell. Bless. Agonizing Blast. Booming Blade. Use a quarterstaff one handed with plate mail and a shield. Anyone entering your threatened area lets you cast booming blade as a reaction. There's plenty of customization you can put in however you want. Darkness and Devil's Sight. Hex. Spiritual Weapon. Whatever. You can rely on a short rest to put you back to like 90% power. Action Surge. Hexblade's Curse. An intelligent magic weapon. This build is fun.
Rogue Mastermind 3/ Order Cleric 7 will make you a support character that will enable the other PCs to do more damage and endure more damage. Helping as a bonus action from 30 ft away is paired with extra ally attacks can really swing an encounter.
kensai Monk, cleric, gith. you are a jedi with mind powers
Gunslinger fighter 3. Assassin rogue x
I leave Heavy Armor Monk, just to Strength and Wisdom and wear full plate and use a shield and take defensive Fantastic to be a Monk with a armored knight/captain America vibe
2 fighter, 5 Gloomstalker, 3 Assassin? Dex build, Studded Leather Armor, Bugbear race. 2 short swords at 10 reach, high initiative, action surge 6 attacks on first turn boosted by racial feat, sneak attack, and advantage if they are in the dark.
If he's allowing UA, a fun build to me is a Single Ability Score smiting character. Dhampir for the CON bite obviously, along with 8 levels in Stone Sorcerer and 2 in Paladin makes for a nice no-attack-spells melee caster build. With 20 CON, you should have a 21 AC at highest with no armor (SS 1st level AC ability + Shield + Paladin Defense style, shield counts as armor), a +10 to attacks (with the Insignia of Claws item, and if you can haggle with your dm you can get more similar stuff), and loads of spell slots to smite everything to death with. Also about 106 HP when taking it average. If you wanna go real nuts, take the Giant Foundling background and get the stone giant branching feat at 4th level. Activate the "Lock, Toss, Lunch" method. First turn, cast Haste on yourself. Bonus Action use the stone giant 4th level feat's ability and your giant foundling feat, making them make 2 STR checks against your CON (should be DC 17), or they get knocked back 10 feet/knocked prone. Use your Haste attack to bite them and smite. Second turn, use Booming Blade as your regular Action to attack, at this level dealing an additional 1d8 thunder with everything else from smite, etc. Metamagic Quickened Spell Booming Blade. Haste Attack. Be sure to use your giant foundling feat ability again at some point. Repeat until out of metamagic to quickened spell. Also you might get an extra attack in with your 6th level SS reaction attack ability with the d10 bonus dmg. All of these attacks are constant smites too thanks to your boatload of spell slots from being mostly full caster.
Sorc 9/Warlock 1 Disclaimer: This is NOT a coffee lock build There is one rule from onednd that is needed for this idea to work out and a bit of UA so your mileage may very. If you take stone sorcery (UA) and hexblade warlock this creates the basis for a really potent gish build. Stone sorcery enables you to boost Charisma and Constitution as stone sorcery sets your AC to run of con (you can keep pace hp wise with paladins and some barbarians if you manage to cap con), hexblade enables all offensive abilities to run through charisma. The heart of this build lays in quicken spell however. One dnd's two weapon fighting moving the extra hit to part of the attack action gives a light version of extra attack and quicken spell let's you use your casting arsenal to buff yourself to dumb levels, a personal favorite is fire shield since its non concentration. Stone sorcery also gives you plenty of smiles to burn your slots on. There is a version that is Sorc 7/paladin 2/lwarlock 1 to get divine smite but I personally value higher spell slots.
Bro what did you guys do to get demoted to game testers??? That is so funny to me, especially since you seem so fine with it.. I bet you deserved it lmao
Runeknight fighter 3 Armorer Artificer 7 Bonus points if you use Duergar to become Huge instead of large
Brass Dragonborn for Lightning Breath Weapon and the other good metallic db breath weapons. 2 levels of Tempest Cleric for the Channel Divinity that lets you max damage on lightning or thunder. 8 levels of Monk, drunken master. Stunning strike or the stunned condition makes people auto fail Dex saves, which is what the DB lightning breath weapon is. Stun, then do max damage on them with the breath weapon.
I statted out a BBEG that was a mix of Paladin and Sorcerer. 5 levels sorcerer, at least 5 Paladin. This gets you bonus action haste and more higher level spell slots to smite with, granting you some insane DPS for your early round attacks, perfect for cutting through big bags of HP. The tradeoff is, you burn through 4 spell slots in the first turn, assuming you hit all your attacks and smite on them, so you will run out of gas FAST.
Artificer cleric is super unique, comes online at character level 4 depending on the subclass choices.
5 or 9 levels of Cleric with like anything, especially sorcerer. Apart from Twilight Cleric where the term Cleric level calibrates its features, Clerics gain rather little from the class after 5th level and even less at class levels 10 to 16. You get Spirit Guardians at 5 and Summon Celestial at 9 and you can power those with spell slots from any normal caster. Clockwork Sorcerer 1 / Forge Cleric 9 gets you shield, (dm dependent) armor of agathys, con proficiency and probably war caster, heavy armor and animate objects or SG to concentrate on. Clockwork 3/Forge 7 gets Vortex Warp. Pick Custom Lineage or Variant Human for Cartomancer and you get Summon Draconic Spirit or Bigby’s Hand regardless of the setup. Sorcerer is especially rich in cantrip choice too, a cleric weakness.
Barbarian + spellcaster. Set up some non-concentration support spells like mirror image and go raging with a good martial foundation
for story reasons, i had my warlock subclass into druid. it's really unusual but it's very fun. hexblade warlock / moon druid.
Not sure if this is allowed at your table but I’ve never heard anyone mention using a Bloodhunter/Artificer build. They’re both INT based classes.
Level 7 echo Knight, level 3 Gloomstalker... All the alpha strike...
Wildfire druid/gloomstalker ranger 5/5 Extra attack, bonus action teleport (kinda) every turn with Wildfire spirit. 3rd level spells from druid and 4th level slots. Plus, the wildfire spirit doesn't (raw) emit light, so it doesn't even break your gloomstalker invisibility!
1 level hexblade warlock, 2 levels scribe wizard, 7 levels draconic sorcerer. Magic missile is interesting as you roll the damage die once regardless of how many hit a creature or how many creatures are hit. So with hexblade curse, you add your proficiency bonus in damage to the cursed target, with scribe wizard you can turn the force damage into fire damage to synergize with draconic sorcerer's elemental affinity to add charisma damage to one damage roll of that spell, and since you only roll once for magic missile, it applies to each missile. So if you cast magic missile on a target you have hexblade cursed, you do (1d4+1+cha+proficiency mod) x however many missiles you fire. At lvl 10 you should have a 5th level spell slot, so you can hit your target with 7 missiles. Pretty decent for guaranteed damage, until someone casts shield.
5Bear Totem Barbarian, 5 Spores Druid Thank me later
Monk and Paladin. Having the divine smite on a monk weapon, followed through by flurry of blows is a devastating combo. The main problem of this multi-class comes with what you want to main more in and the stats that come with it. If you want to deal more with the Paladin side and use their spells, then you need to focus some of your stats on charisma. If monk is the main focus, then ignoring charisma to focus more on wisdom is ideal. No matter what though, start with monk so that you can dump strength for dexterity as monk can use dexterity for their attack rolls instead of strength, that way there’s more to play with. Theoretically you could make a dex and wis focused build with charisma as third so that it’s more balanced for both.
paladin/warlock is pretty busted
How many feats can you get away with? Polearm Master + Sentinel with any class that can use astral guardians is just a "you can't approach, and if you try, you die"
A simple go to is Storm Sorcerer (lv1, 4+) Tempest Cleric (lv2&3). Absolut blaster. Clerics Chanel divinity deals max. Damage for all lightning and thunder spells. And sorcery points can turn everything into lightning. And it comes with a Backstory: Since a child you have been fascinated with thunder and lightning. Whenever there was a storm you were sitting on the wind watching the lightning and lightning the rain. One day the bolts were violet and your curiosity drove you to the fields even though your parents forbid it. You got hit by purple lightning and got magic abilities. Since than you have a disregard for rules. To control this gift of Kord, you have been send to a monastary of said god to become a cleric of Kord. Now you're of a pilgrimage to discover your potential. Role play wise you're in for every physical competition. Since Kord is the god of thunder, war and athletes you bank the dm's time for duels, arena fights, arm wrestling and so on. Your disregard for rules gonna make superiors and city guards love you. You'll be the DMs best friend /s Oh and you electrocute everyone with shocking grasp when shaking hands. But if someone does that to you it gets personal
Moon druid + monk. Bonus points if You shapeshift into panda or other furious five and Yell names of Your attacks out loud. Plain moon druid works better probably but still this multiclass is fun and can work resonably well. Paladin+bard member of of order of knights who say "Niiiiii" ;-) you can viscous mockery people saying "niiii" or yell "niii each time You use divine smite ;-) Obligatory on the never ending quest for holy grail.
multiclass paladin, collage of whispers bard, hexblade warlock. trust me, you wont regret it. paladin smites, extra radiant dmg. college of whispers bard, psychic dmg. hexblade curse, more dmg pact of the blade warlock, improved pact weapon (more too hit), eldritch smite (another more dmg) thirsting blade (atk twice). tell me how this works (5 warlock 3 bard 2 paladin) highest stats should be wisdom, charisma, and constitution, ranked from most too least needed. you now, because of hexblade, use charisma as your too hit. use pact weapon for atking only. insane dmg, i hope this is what ur looking for.
Battle master fighter works surprisingly well with drunken fist monk. Works especially well with reposte, disarming strike, and evasive footwork.
5 levels of Gunslinger fighter, 5 levels of Order domain cleric. You are a gunslingin' sheriff. Level 3 cleric spells, multi attack from fighter, 2 ASIs, Channel Divinity: Order's Demand to make people drop what they're holding and reach for the sky, and casting spells on your buddies still lets them attack. It's a great mix of "I'm a support but I can also shoot a bitch if needs-must." It really comes into its own at level 11, with the level 6 order domain feature. If you wanted to lean more caster, you could also do fighter 4/cleric 6 to pick up the order domain feature and lose the fighter's extra attack.
I'd go for a rouge-paladin to roll even more dice when I crit my smiting sneak attack.
**The Iron Phantom** inspiration: a mini steampunk ghostrider 2099 **Race**: autognome, +1 to 3 (say you look like a mechanical gnome skeleton for flavor) **Abilities**: 8/16/16/16/8/8 (min/max) **Background**: astral drifter grants magic initiate: mind sliver, boomin or green flame blade. find familiar (owl, flyby help action for adv to set up sneak), or shield for more ac (+5) **LVL 10 Iron Phantom** **Class:** lvl 5 artificer battlesmith , lvl 5phantom rogue **Abilities: (a)** 8/16/16/20/8/8 or **(b)** 8/20/16/16/8/8 for more AC and rapier green flame blade build. **Skills:** Perception, Nature (to find animals for poison), Investigation, Stealth **Tools:** Thieves, Tinkers, Smiths, Alchemist's Supplies, Poisoner's Kit **Saving Throws**: Con, Int **AC: (a)**19 \[13 + 3(dex) + 2(shield) + 1(defense infusion)\] (24 with shield spell) or **(b)** 21 (26 with shield spell) **Weapons**: **(a)** shield + lance, while mounted on steel defender or **(b)** shield + rapier **Artificer BS.** extra attack, 2 infusions: weapon +1 (lance, uses int mod instead of str.) and def for +1 AC. youre small and a construct, your steel defender is a medium construct that you can use as a mount. **Spells**: Cantrips guidance, mending (to heal yourself and the steel defender, which can also heal you and itself) lvl1: absorb elements, feather fall (both reactions) lvl 2 spell: invis (sets up sneak), spider climb for shenanigans or enlarge/reduce to make enemies small. **ASI:** +2 int **Rogue Phantom.** whispers of the dead: poisoner's kit for damage or poison condition that grants adv. (DMG pg 256 for poisons) **Bonus Actions:** Steady Aim, Disengage after attacks if not attacking with steel defender **ASI:**+2 int **Sneak Attack:** 3d6 + 3d6/2 wails from the grave to second target **Set Up:** familiar flyby help or invis for sneak attack **Combat:** magic lance attack x 2, sneak attack, steel defender bonus action attack, wails from grave 1d12+5+1, 1d12+5+1, 3d6, 1d8+3, 3d6/2 to other target (add poison damage/effect if you crafted one) Min Damage: 19.5-22 Avg Damage: 45.5-46.75 Max Damage: 64-73 Max Crit: 115-132 (wftg) \[this is without poison damage, you can also replicate magic item (alchemy jug for basic poison)\]
Barbarian + Rogue is pretty unusual, but doing Reckless sneak attacks every round while raging is pretty ducking awesome!
I had fun in a one-shot with a Rock Gnome Artificer 2/Path of Ancestral Guardians Barbarian 12 (I know it's not 10 lvls but this still applies) The primary purpose wasn't to do damage but be an off-skirmisher tank. Strapped on a shield and opened combat with javelin (returning infusion). Used one handed hammers as the primary weapon in melee. The Gnome has advantage on charisma, intelligence, & wisdom saves against magical effects, which I think shores up the weakness of the barbarian. The major downside is not getting that strength score boost & not being able to use heavy weapons effectively. If you want the traditional great weapon fighter instead, choose a medium sized creature and go to town. At 14th level (barb 12), I took mobile to become thar off-skirmisher mentioned earlier. That's primarily because Ancestral Guardians is kind of redundant with Sentinel. So I felt mobile would be nice & give the gnome a boost in speed. For the two spells (only a 13 in intelligence), I took Longstrider & Cure Wounds since they would be nice to haves if not in a rage.
Lol at least you own that shit
an interesting build is kensei monk6 and ranger hunter4 whit a long sword. using the lv 2 optional feature of the monk to attack using dexterity whit your sword. whem you hit use deft strike to put an exra d6 of damage and then you can bonus action for another swimg whit the lv4 optional feature ki fuled attacks. whit rangerhunter afther the first hit they take an aditional d8 of damage and you cam use the tasha version to add another d4. it somthi like 1ts attack: 1d10+dex+1d6(deft strike)+1d4(favored foe) 2dn attack1d10+dex+1d8(colosus slayer) 3d bonus attack 1d10+dex
Fighter/Warlock 2/8 Focus Stats into Cha and Con Pact of the Blade Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast Wear Heavy Armor This part may be niche, but: grab Polearm Mastery and wield a Polearm with reach. You could also grab Sentinel to stop mobs movement when you hit them with Polearm Mastery.
Dwarf storm sorcerer 1, heavy armor cleric 9. Max wisdom, high constitution, 13 charisma and dump the other stats. You get heavy armor proficiency from your cleric subclass and you don't need to meet the strength requirement because you're a dwarf. The 10 feet sorcerer movement compensates your 25 feet movement as a dwarf. You can fly in and out of melee range to cast cure wounds or other touch spells like inflict wounds. Flavor the flying ability as angel wings. This gives you CON save proficiency, shield and absorb elements. Very useful as a supportive tank. Also things like prestidigitation don't require a high charisma to be useful. Barbarian/rogue. Sneak attack says you need to use a finesse weapon to be able to use sneak attack, it does not say you need to use DEX for your weapon. So you can use reckless attack for advantage so you can basically always use sneak attack. Your character will recklessly keep going for critical points in the enemies body, which explains the extra damage in flavor.
Barbarian/Warlock D4 has a Hellknight video and Treantmonk has one too, the Frostbane Barbarian
1 level Life Cleric, 1 level monk, 8 levels of wild shape druid makes you pretty fantastic. * Your good berries heal for 40 total per level 1 cast (and you can upcast them if you're a weirdo.) * You add your wis to your AC, which you will always be pumping. Many of your wild shapes will have better AC using dex + wis than "natural armor". Some of them will be outright tanky. * Bracers of Defense are magic items and probably magically resize. But if they don't, they still fit on a lot of critters. Having 22 AC (assuming 20 Dex, 20 Wis) with no armor on is pretty slick. * Using shillelagh, you can hold your own in melee "human" form with just a staff. * Druidic Monks are flavor wise really cool. * Pick up healing word and all the cool edge case level 1 spells from Cleric. * Get an extra bonus action attack from martial arts when you're in base. Only downside is, if 10 is your cap, multiclassing keeps you from hitting that cap stone of Elemental Wild Shape.
Battle Smith Artificer and Forge Cleric
2 levels in Paladin + the rest any casting class makes you a melee beast as long as you work out some way to hit (Shillelagh with druid/cleric, Pact of the tome + shillelagh or hex warrior for warlocks, battle smith for artificers, suck it up and pump dex or str for your wizards and sorcerers. Get heavy armor, shield proficiency, and you can focus on any spells you want, don't have to combat optimize your spells much other than like, always take fireball, because they're just gas for your smites if you like. Sorcadin can quicken spells and cast booming blade + smite. Shield + Mirror Image makes you unhittable, damn near. Lockadin can smite + Eldritch smite in the same hit, but even if they don't, using short rest slots for smites is pretty baller. Druid can smite while being a crag cat, lol. "Your spells bounce off me, but mine channel through my claws." Clerics are just scarier paladins at this point, nothing wrong with that. Forge domain is pretty good for this, +1 AC in heavy armor, literally anything you want to use is a +1 weapon or a +1 armor. Free fire resistance. Wizards are wizards, so wizards in heavy armor with a greatsword smiting you is kinda terrifying, because that was like... Your only avenue to deal with a wizard was send in a fighter. What, the wizard prefers melee? .. Fuck. Battlesmith is just hilarious with smites added in.
Never underestimate the Thorns Wizard; 2 levels warlock, 8 Abj. Wizard. Feat: Gunner. (Human variant makes this easiest) Eldritch invocation: armor of shadows, agonizing blast Armor of Agathys up with your highest spell slot, armor of shadows up, your Arcane Ward gonna give you about 20 "temp" HP before attacks start eating into your Armor of Agathys' temp HP. Meaning you can get hit for way more than Agathys' temp HP and still auto-damage your attackers. Gunner lets you bring eldritch blast to a melee fight, which is going to keep you relevant the entire game just off that cantrip scaling and agonizing blast. So run in there and get hit, son! Make them take 15 auto-damage for doing zero damage to you. That'll teach em. Between battles, just recharge your ward with armor of shadows. Bonus points if you can convince the cleric to cast warding bond on you; ward and Agathys last twice as long. Also for the first "40" damage, you won't actually take damage so neither will the cleric. Oh. You're also a wizard. So. Have fun.
I once played a campaign with an orc wrestler. He was so dumb. He was one of the greatest characters in the party though
When players forget that the dm needs to have fun too… you can only be a tester for so long soon to be relegated to not a player at all.
Alchemist 4 ancestral guardian 6 artificer-barbarian. Support your party to the max by giving opponents disadvantage on attack rolls, reduce the damage an ally takes and use your spell slots to make potions.
Paladin Warlock
L1 Order Domain Cleric dip with a full caster class like College of Swords Bard gives you some neat combo potential with Voice of Authority. Especially in conjunction with spells like Silvery Barbs or Healing Word when you have a Longbow user in your party. L2 Bladesinger Wizard dip + Armorer Artificer multiclass sounds really odd, but the bladesinging dances are compatible with the Lightning Launcher weapon that the Infiltrator armor model provides, and it's also compatible with a Psi Warrior dip.
Any Cleric 5 with Monk Way of the Astral Self 5 - 4x Wisdom Melee Strikes at 10 ft reach plus Spirit Shroud Alchemist Artificer 4 with Wild Magic Barbarian 6 - Boldness Elixir (+d4) and Bolstering Magic (+d3) do wonders to accuracy with Great Weapon Master Draconic Sorcerer 5 with Fathomless Warlock 5 - Ice and Slow themed spells and abilities, plus Sorlock base for Sorcery point shenanigans Swashbuckler 4 with College of Whispers 6 - Psychic Blades plus Sneak Attack, plus just all around amazing skill monkey and party face
An attack focused lvl6 shadow monk lvl 4 gloomstalker is great. You could even drop 1 lvl of gloomstalker for a single level of rogue. Pretty much guaranteed to get sneak attack.
Rogue/Druid. With enough Stealth, you can steal anything using Wild Shape, and at level 6 you can deal an average of 140 damage pretty early in combatfor a single Wild Shape use
Barbarian/Bard/Monk bugbear. We call him Kung fu panda lol. First 4 levels in barbarian for rage bonus, unarmored defense, ability score, and subclass. I recommend bear totem and boost str. 4 levels in monk, way of the open hand. Then two levels in bard for Jack of all trades. If you're rolling for stats, this is great. If doing standard array then it hurts but doable.
Swashbuckler Rogue, Gloomstalker Ranger, alert feat, Harengon if it’s allowed and put all stats into dex, wisdom, and charisma. So level 7 swashbuckler level 3 Gloomstalker. Str 8 Dex 16 Con 8 Int 8 Wis 16 Chr 8. +9 from mods and +5 from alert is 14. Harengon add proficiency to initiative so +4 for a whopping +18 initiative. If your allowed to expertise your initiative that would be +22 It’s damage output isn’t as impressive I like to think of it as like a QuickDraw cowboy
Try a life domain cleric/ gloomstaker ranger
A concept that I find interesting that would be the product of a weird multiclass would be a strengh based dart thrower. 2 levels in artificer for the infusion with which the Darts comes back to you 3 levels in rogue to gain advantage and sneak attack 5 levels of fighter for the archery fighting style and multi attack
4 levels of Artilerist Artificer and 6 levels of barbarian. The arcane cannon doesn't count as casting a spell and therefore can be used in rage. Use the shield emitter to gain temp how every turn for a bonus action. The barbarian can be whatever you want. I'm currently playing this with a 40k orc flavored character.
So, I haven't played these but I've seen them played and they seem fun. First one is a gunslinger fighter/assassin rogue if your DM allows guns. So you pop out of cover, take your shots, and use your cunning action hide to take cover. Also your sneak attack on targets that haven't taken an action yet is like beating them in a quickdraw which is dope as hell. Another is a College of Swords bard with a few levels of paladin. Maybe not something that doesn't work on the surface, but it looks fun. Getting to smite and flourish on the same attack is fucking cool. And you'll have your bard spell slots for smites.
I forget the exact build, but there are a number of fun builds that only use classes as a means to an end. For example, instead of trying to be a Warlock/Paladin, try to build a character with the highest possible AC so that nothing your DM throws at you lands. Or the highest possible movement speed paired with things like the Mobile feat and Rogue's Disengage, so you can literally be anywhere on the map whenever you want. Obviously there's the highest damage builds, but those aren't really any fun. Personally I'd figure out an AC build. Should be plenty of online tutorials for those.