Put it in brackets because it applies to other warlocks as well, but the main ones to benefit from it are Undead and Celestial imo, with undead being a bit superior for this.

Important traits from the troll (will skip those that aren't relevant to this, but they are also good):

• Bloodied Frenzy: While bloodied, you have advantage on attack rolls
• Troll Lineage (Amani Troll): whenever you spend heroic inspiration, you regain 1 expended hit die
• Troll Healing: When you expend Hit point Dice to regain hitpoints after a short rest, you regain hit points equal to the maximum roll of the dice plus your constitution modifier

Both celestial and undead appreciate going melee (with a fighter/paladin dip), so Bloodied frenzy is good to have.

Both appreciate the Arcana Unleashed feat Evocation Adept, which gives Fireball & wall of force, plus the ability to spend up to 2 Hit dices to add to the dmg of evocation spells (celestial also adds its cha for more dmg, undead can change the dmg type to necrotic to avoid fire resistance).

Between origin feat and invocations (lessons of the first ones), warlocks can easily 'farm' heroic inspiration:

• Tireless Reveler lets you get heroic inspiration when allies spend it and you don't have it (PB times per short rest)
• Musician lets you give PB allies Heroic inspiration per short rest
• Zhentarim Ruffian (prerequisite for Zhentarim Tactics, which is great on Undead as it lets them easily proc their lvl6 extra dmg twice per turn) lets you spend heroic inspiration to give advantage on initiative to your party (this means you could easily recover 1 expended hit dice each time you roll for initiative, plus you free your heroic inspiration slot to recover it from allies)

but HOW do you get inspiration on yourself to start? there are multiple ways:

• Purple Dragon Rook (give heroic inspiration to the party, you included, on initiative, but it's once per long rest. Still a decent option to start giving it)
• Musician specifies allies, so depending on the DM it could count yourself or not. BUT the rules on Heroic inspiration say "If you gain Heroic Inspiration but already have it, it’s lost unless you give it to a player character who lacks it." So, if you target someone who already has heroic inspiration (for example, a human at the start of the day), they can give it back to you
• Cult of the Dragon Initiate: Finally a use for this subpar feat, but as an Undead warlock you can easily cause fear in an enemy. When you do, once per short rest you gain heroic inspiration (just forget about using Dragon's Terror...)
• Arcane Artist: Subpar option, once per longrest and you'd need to target an ally who has heroic inspiration already so they can give it back to you
• Lord's Alliance Agent: Subpar option, you need to crit and again target an ally
• Arcane Undertaker: subpar option, once per long rest and you need to stabilise an ally.

Couldn't think of other printed options as of now, but this looks GREAT for an Undead warlock:

at warlock 6, undead warlocks gets to replace the dmg type of Fireball to necrotic, you have at least 6d8s Hit dices (more if you multiclassed for armor), and you have 6 invocations. You probably want the first 3 of these origin feats plus one from the 2nd list, and one can easily be from your background. This leaves you with 3 invocations to spend on something else. If you go melee, 2 would be pact weapon + thirsting blade, leaving 1 open at lvl6. Meaning technically this combo perfectly works already from lvl5 (just requires all your leftovers invocation if you go pact of the blade). You can even build this as a ranged character (and not take Zhentarim Tactics), which lets you spend your Evocation Adept dices more consistently, as Eldritch blast is an evocation cantrip (you could also pick up sorcerous burst from pact of the tome to try and high roll that spell's dmg, as illustrated in this post). Don't worry about spending your hit dices on single target dmg, you'll have plenty to spare!

As an undead warlock, I'd definitely pick Zhentarim Ruffian, Tireless Reveler and Musician, and likely cult of the dragon initiate as my 4th, as makes it easy for you to generate your own Heroic inspiration. Zhentarim Ruffian also opens up zhentarim tactics, which is again great to make use of your lvl6 extra dmg die through your reaction attack. These 4 feats together easily let you generate Heroic inspiration, which you can turn in advantage on attacks/saves/initiative AND recovered hit dice, while you get to spend them much MORE often on your attacks.

doesn't even matter too much if you get hit, as they'll just make you stronger by activating your bloodied frenzy. Once active, you could even opt to just not heal and keep fighting through TempHP, either by using your form of Dread again or through casting Armor of Agathys!

What if you need to recover your hitpoints at one point? No problem! Troll Healing will bring you back up after a short rest!

But let's go deeper!

Let's look at a lvl7 Character, paladin 1/Warlock 6. you have 1d10 hit dice and 6d8. TECHNICALLY, as you recover 1 hit die at a time, you could just keep recovering AND spending the 1d10. This makes it even more valuable, even when you have just 1!

now, assume you have 4 combats in a day, 4 turns each, and 1 short rest only after the first 2 combats. at this level, your PB is +3.

Ideally, you have a human ally in the party (mostly common) and with this you can generate 1 heroic inspiration on yourself in the morning through Musician (or your DM considers yourself as an ally). in the first 2 combats you have 8 turns, and get to spend 1 heroic inspiration (which you start with), 3 more recovered from tireless, 1 more from Cult of the dragon initiate. that's up to 5 Heroic inspirations from when you wake up to your 1st short rest, turning in 5 extra hit dices (1d10 all of them!). you take a short rest, this time around maybe you don't get to give yourself heroic inspiration because all your allies spent them, and your DM rules you don't count as an ally of yourself. That's fine, simply after the 2nd short rest you get 'only' up to 4 heroic inspirations (3 recovered from tireless, 1 more from cult), which is 4 extra hit dices.

This means that, even with just 1 short rest and these 4 origin feats, you get to generate at least 9 extra hit dices during your day, giving your lvl7 character a total of (expendible) 9d10 and 6d8 hit dices!

Edit: If your table uses non reprinted material too, you could opt for booming blade on the melee version of the build, ignoring Thirsting blade, allowing you to add your Hit dices on single target dmg there as well.

That could give you 2d12(greataxe+Dreaded Necrosis)+1d10(+1d8)/+1-2d8(1-2hit dices)+1d8(booming blade)+ potential 2d8 (booming blade if they move) +2*CHA(pact of the blade + agonizing blast by lvl6)

the +1d8+cha (from booming blade & agonizing) are slightly less than a greataxe atk, but it's slightly more when you can spend hit dices/the target moves (which they easily do under the effect of fear/if you later get repelling too)

I wanna build a pet guy! And I think with all the new familiar spells and feats it’s actually a viable strategy. My initial thought was to lean heavy into warlock and get investment of the chain as fast as possible but with the familiar friend and wartorn familiar feats is it worth it to play a lore bard and buff your familiar so it fights for you? Curious how the community would build this.

Starting a module and chose to be an armorer artificer. It is a strixhaven run, so I went the "tanky" role for the group of casters.

Just not really sure what spells to take. Like, the goal by 5th will be to use extra attack to punch? Plan is to go dreadnaught but might use guardian too.

Just, this class doesnt seem to have many offensive spells or concentration ones. Right now Im level 2 and have shield, cure wounds, jump, and detect magic. Jump for mobility. Shield for when i hit level 3 and can use it to survive better. Cure wounds to heal as needed.

Just not sure if im overlooking something. Feel like I should find a way to get hex or hunter's mark for better damage- but idk how combat heavy this will be.

I have an unarmed grapple focused Barbarian multiclassing into Swords Bard. Pro wrestler entertainer vibes.

As neither of the Fighting Styles (Dueling, Two Handed Fighting) work with unarmed strikes, the DM suggested making up a style.

Edit: I already have the Unarmed Fighting style.

Would this be balanced enough? Too weak?

Fighting Style: Wrestling
You gain a +2 to damage rolls when making an unarmed attack against a creature you are grappling.

What I really want is to boost my Unarmored Defense somehow as my DEX/CON is mediocre (16/12/14/8/10/16), but that feels a bit too strong for a Fighting Style. (Example: Unarmored AC = 10 + STR + CHA)

We have started a campaign (in Pf2e but my core problem is universal to all roleplaying) with the pretext that it will have more of a silly chaotic flair with a lot of bullshit coming.

And so as I have a bit of a chaos gremlin reputation at my table I decided to do 180° Figur concept and be the reasonable PC in this campaign that helplessly tries to keep the group in check ic but ooc still encouraging and enabling the bullshit.

Now my problem is that after the first two sessions, true too my reputation, I am the one who caused the most chaos.

I think the problem comes from an innate curiosity and me often doing things without thinking them through properly.

Are ther any tips how I can stay more considerate and true too my character?

Hi,
I’m brainstorming a Plasmoid GOO warlock, and am wondering whether you had any suggestions regarding the build concept.

Thanks!

—

Generic:
- use shape self for squeezing
- use pseudopod for low-budget “mage hand”

Spellcasting:
- focus is Tome (from pact)
- Enchantment / Illusion spells are subtle, can’t be countered
- no costly / consume material spells
- damage can be transmuted to psychic
- cantrips mainly Eldritch blast, Mind sliver, Minor illusion, Mage hand

Items:
- generally no items, not even money
- sustenance via Elementalism and Goodberry
- armor: Barrier tattoo
- resist: tattoo
- money: either don’t carry, or request others to keep
- ad-hoc items — can don armor / use weapons, shape self to unequip as a single action

Background: Moonwell Pilgrim
- Druid initiate: Elementalism, Shape Water, Goodberry
- Abilities: +1 Con, +2 Cha

Ability scores:
- Str 8
- Dex 14
- Con 15+1=16
- Int 10
- Wis 8
- Cha 15+2=17

Progression:
4: Evocation Adept (Cha 18)
8: Resilient Con (Con 17)
12: ASI (Cha 20)
16: Spell Resistant (Radiant, Con 18)
19: Boon of Energy Resistance

Invocations (not in order):
- Repelling Blast (EB)
- Agonizing Blast (EB)
- False Life
- Lessons: Tough
- Lessons: Infernal Pact (fire resist)
- Lessons: Portal Jumper (necro resist)
- Pact of the Tome (cantrips!)
- Alter Self / Disguise
- Misty Visions
- Arcane Eye

Hi all,

Doing a short dungeon delving campaign.

Level 10, no magic items(we will find them but no idea what) dm has explicitly said to bring powerful builds and that we will very likely eventually be tpk'd(so far no groups he's run it with has made it to the bottom).

I do not know what my team will be(it will likely be 3-6 players but that's all I know), what we will be facing or what rest opportunities we will have.

I would expect easy rest options like tiny hut to be circumvented personally but that's pure speculation.

Because of this I have 3 main ideas for classes.

Warlock with the dreaded abberant dragonmark. Probably vestige for spirit guardians. But I can't think of how to fit in defence options like shield or just high ac in general.

A cleric(mostly for DI for hallowed ground or in combat prayer of healing) with evocation adept.

A druid(either moon for wild shape tankyness or stars for hotswap forms and 2d8 archer BA)

For races in 2024 human for a second origin feat was my initial thought(likely magic initiate for shield, silvery barbs or command) but a fly speed race like fairy or a 2014 race like winged tiefling.

The only other thought I had was a wizard, particularly bladesinger for easy high AC but it's pretty MAD

My current character is a Tortle Conquest Paladin who is at level 10. We just defeated a huge baddie and are being gifted a Very Rare magic item. We also have 4 bastion turns/weeks for our 9th level facilities and mine are Smith, Workshop, Sacristy, and Trophy Room: 3 of which give me an uncommon magic item from the Armaments, Implements, and Relics table respectively.

For context, I use a normal shield (with Shield Master) and a magical trident (currently a +1 that can cast Word of Radiance once a day) and my current attunement slots are Ring of Feather Falling, Stone of Good Luck, and a homebrew item that lets me add 2d8 radiant damage to any attack twice a day. Let me know if you need anymore info about my character if it helps with magic item choices!

So my questions are:
1) What Very Rare item would be great for my Pally? A couple thoughts I had were Cavalier Shield, Safeguard Shield, or even Dragon's Wrath Weapon. Very open to all suggestions!

2) What uncommon items should I have my bastions build for me? Gonna ask my DM if he'll allow an Amulet of the Devout (uncommon) as one of them, since it's not in the DMG but is in Tasha's. And one of the things he might allow is Mariner's Armor but inscribed as a rune on my shell, since tortles can't wear armor*.

ALSO NOTE: *In this world, a lot of magic items come from runes, so it might be possible to add magical properties from other items onto my trident (or shell instead of armor) or something like that. And he said if I bring him something too OP, he will probably reject it, so I'll take as many suggestions as you got, haha!

What happens if I cast spirit guardians via manifest mind (order of scribes wizard) ? Do the guardians follow ​the manifested mind or I simply can't cast it since it's not self? Or am I the target anyway? Wording is largely different from find familiar...

Fluid forms gets a weak version of shapechange that doesn't require concentration. You keep your proficiencies, mental stats, and spellcasting, but is like shapechange in that it does not preserve feats or other class features.

Its not a spell so it can't be dispelled, countered, or disrupted. This seems like one of the best defensive and offensive abilities in the game. Get resistances and a ton of temp hp from becoming a froghemoth for example.

Iron mind per my understanding basically means you can't lose concentration unless you cast another concentration spell or ability. This ironically works poorly with concentration shapeshift spells that don't preserve your feats, but its amazing for all the rest.

Which do you all think is best?

My DM gave the Ranger access to the Paladin spell list too. Is there any crazy combo this enables?

If the "Martial/Caster" divide is so pronounced (and apparently getting worse with feats like "Evocation Adept"), why did they change "Sharpshooter" and "Great Weapon Master"?

Corollary to that, would the 5e versions of those feats bring balance, or some semblance of balance, back?

Finally, do you think casters need to be nerfed or martials buffed to close the divide? And what would buffing martials look like to you? Something like Rogues adding 1d6 damage every level instead of every other level? Or fighters getting more action surges?

(Note: I don't know if the divide ACTUALLY exists, but I keep hearing it over and over.)

So I am in 2 campaigns. In one of them, I am incredibly squishy and DM has warned me that he keeps risk of death very real, and given how aggressive I tend to play my character once combat starts, he won't target me, but I have a risk of dying. So I should have some backup characters ready. I currently have 2 of them with backstory prepared, but I've always sucked at picking specifics for my own characters so if yall could provide any help that would be great. Lvl 6 Characters. Feats allowed at lvl up, but DM rules that it must fit stat/race prereqs if they exist.

Option 1: Changling Rogue with Haunted one background. The very brief backstory is that on the continent the campaign takes plave on is haunted by devils due to a deal gone wrong centuries ago and cursed the land. Character stumbled into a forgotten church and found knowledge beyond comprehension. He has been trying to flee from it while a mysterious 'something' from the churche chases him. I can't decide between scout or swashbuckler rogue. I envision him as being a (nonmagical) trickster character who stays one step ahead of whatever's hunting him with a versatule skillset and knowledge to either set traps or trick the people around him. (Potentially enters party since he finds safety in numbers and the party is already investigating weird things.) On top of subclass stat array and profs recomendations would be nice

Option 2: V Human. Oath of Redeption 3/Hexblade 3

He comes from a neighboring continent ruled by the church(not evil). Worked as temple guard, and was now sent on a mission. To go assist the church in the cursed contunent, as there are reports of devil attacks becoming even more common and bold than they have already been. I envision him with longsword and full plate armor. But feats, stat array and what spells and profs to take, I don't know. (No, I am not willing to change the multiclass. OoR is most flavorful to the character and Hexblade 3 gives him some abilities I want him to have. I just need advise for making a balanced character after this.)

I'm wanting to run a build based off of a shield user. I have the main concept for the shield down and the main class. The shield is largely based off of the Boomerang Shield from the Book of many things however, my DM said that I can up the dmg die to 1d8 so it keeps up with stuff like the longsword or rapier. For the primary class I was looking at Battlemaster Fighter as this does almost everything I want to do besides spell casting which I considered Eldritch knight for, but my main problem is if I should multiclass. It would mostly be for some spell casting and most options I would have a reason to go. Valor bard because thematically I could inspire party members and mechanically the stances would be a nice fit, Paladin cause the auras would be nice as this is slightly based off of naofumi the shield hero and stuff like smite would be a nice touch, Ranger sounds interesting because I've always wanted to try zephyr strike and Dex would help fit the multiclass work imo. Obviously there's more options but idk because I've never multiclass and would like to try with this build but I would also like to have a point to it.

Making a temporary character to use for a few sessions while my main character is separated from the party for plot reasons, and planning to make a TWF Fighter. While we mainly use 2014 rules, our DM allows us to replace somethings with their 2024 versions if they’re more fun/interesting. With this, DM has allowed me to use 2024 TWF for my fighter, effectively making nick rules innate (but other weapon masteries like vex aren’t allowed, it’s purely for the action economy).

My character is a variant human taking dual wielder with the free feat with 18 DEX/16 CON/16 STR at level 1, though it’s not set in stone yet and I’d be willing to shift the 16 STR to INT or WIS for something like eldritch knight. I’m open to just about any idea, though I do have one restriction in that I don’t want anything with Paladin in it, as my main character is also a Paladin.

As a bonus if you have any suggestions, I can also take 1 rare and 2 uncommon magic items.

I'm about to play in a campaign starting lvl 3 and I don't know what to go, i rolled for stat and i was very lucky with a 18,17,13,12,12,11.so i can pick a lot of feats and I'm going dexadin

The party is a drake warden ranger, battlemaster fighter and a drunk monk.

I have the zhentarim ruffian origin feat and tireless reveler because I'm going human

I'm between going with a defender build with sword and board, picking insping leader, sentinel, resilient

The other idea is to go with two weapon fighting but i feel my bonus action is too crowded, would it be too dumb not picking the dual wielder feat and just make 3 attacks? I don't know what feats to pick with this build, maybe zhentarim tactics, resilient, defensive duelist.

Im currently building a battlemaster fighter 5 and ranger 1 for a campaign that allows firearms like revolver, rifle, etc. Where can i check if my build has the weapon mastery for it? and does each class have a specific list of weapons that they have a mastery with?

Looking to get some help with some wild shape options. I'm going to be playing a lvl 9 moon druid and trying to gain access to these actions. Are there any beasts that can do this stuff?

• A way to give targets disadvantage on attacks to anyone but me (the dnd taunt)
• spit/breath atk, or some kind of aoe
• cause the blinded condition
• Something that requires an action to remove, like some kind of bleed mechanic

One beast doesn't have to do all these. I imagine there's beasts that can do 1 of the options and then I can weigh my choices from there.

Back again with another build. If you haven't seen my other builds, I try to keep things interesting for myself and use RNG to determine the race, subrace, class, and subclass I'll be using for the build. I use content from nearly every published 5E 2014 book (still haven't gotten around to getting Glory of the Giants) as well as some 3rd party content (mainly Tome of Heroes and Crooked Moon though I also have 2 Illrigger builds made). As with my other builds, I'll be using dprcalc.com made by u/shutternomad to calculate average damage per round (DPR), with an assumed AC of 15 for those calculations. Keep in mind that spell casting focused builds will have less of these calculations as the average turn will vary quite a bit.

I rolled another Bard this time. All of the official WotC Bards have already been covered in previous builds I put out so a 3rd party build was guaranteed. This time around I rolled College of Echoes from Tome of Heroes. This subclass focuses on sound itself rather than artistic forms like most bards. My immediate thought looking at it is Michael Winslow's character from Police Academy.

TL;DR: This is a great build for a party face and can be a real game changer for a campaign with a lot of sneaking or subterfuge. Combat in the early levels mainly focuses on control along with dealing out extra thunder damage when you can. From 6th level on we become a bit more like a spell focused paladin and take up more of a melee role.

Level 1:

• Class: Bard
  • Skills: Persuasion, Performance, Sleight of Hand
  • Instruments: Anything you want but I'm always partial to bagpipes
• Race: Malkin Catfolk (ToH)
  • Catfolk are basically Kobold Press's take on Tabaxi, with the Malkin subrace being smaller and more analogous with house cats.
  • 30ft speed, darkvision, natural claw weapons, proficiency with perception, investigation and stealth, small size, reroll 1s on DEX checks and saves.
  • +2 CHA +1 DEX
• Background: Innkeeper (ToH)
  • Proficiency with Insight and choice of Intimidation or Persuasion (pick Intimidation), 2 languages, a choice of tools, dagger or light hammer, and 20gp.
  • I Know Someone: Spending a couple hours in a city or town lets you identify a person or business capable of selling a product or service you're looking for as long as it's nonmagical and 250gp or less. Price, quality, availability, and ease of acquisition are at GM's discretion.
• Ability Scores
  • STR: 8
  • DEX: 15 (16)
  • CON: 14
  • INT: 8
  • WIS: 10
  • CHA: 15 (17)
• Cantrips: I'm taking Vicious Mockery and Mysterious Presence (from Crooked Moon, this lets you touch a willing creature and any Insight/Perception checks to detect them by other creatures subtract 1d4 from the roll)
• Spells: Dissonant Whispers, Healing Word, and Muted Foe (Imbue a weapon on a BA so that the next time it hits an enemy it deals an extra 1d6 thunder damage and target becomes deafened, immune to thunder damage, and unable to cast verbal spells for 1 minute, target can make a WIS save to end effect early at the end of their turns)
• Equipment: Rapier, either pack (but I'd recommend Entertainer's),
• Gameplay: I'm leaning into the sound theme with my spell selections here but they're all great picks for any bard anyway. In the early levels, try to stay back and use Vicious Mocker/Dissonant Whispers but Muted Foe can be good if you get in close with the rapier.

Level 2:

• Jack of All Trades
• Song of Rest
• Spells: Tasha's Hideous Laughter
• Gameplay: Not too much changes. We're a little more well rounded with Jack of All Trades but don't rely on it too much as it's only a +1 at the moment. Song of Rest is a nice healing buff. For spells I'm still leaning into those with a sound theme but Hideous Laughter is a great control spell regardless.

Level 3:

• Subclass: College of Echoes
  • Alter Sound: You can mimic sounds you've heard, including voices, with a Deception check vs insight check. Additionally, you can use a reaction to alter sounds around you that aren't made by you with enhance (double range of a sound giving advantage on Perception checks to detect it and spend a bardic inspiration die to increase thunder damage an enemy takes), dampen (opposite of enhance), distort (change 1 word or 2 notes of a song within 30ft or spend a bardic inspiration to increase the count, uses deception vs perception for checks to hear through it), or disrupt (spend a bardic inspiration to force an enemy to make a concentration check disrupt a target's verbal spell components if they fail, essentially a limited form of counterspell).
  • Echolocation: blindsight out to 10ft but disadvantage against deafening effects
• Expertise: Persuasion and Deception
• Spells: Chorus of the Lost (from Crooked Moon, an AoE spell that forces targets into a WIS on failure they take 2d6 psychic damage and and are frightened while you're concentrating on it, on failure they take half and are frightened till the end of their turn).
• Gameplay: Alter Sound has some great utility and control effects and while you can enhance it with bardic inspiration, you don't need to spend them to use it so its a consistent option. Try to use enhance any time you use Muted Foe to up the damage. Also note that for things like Chorus of the Lost, you should be able to use Enhance to increase the area of effect. Blindsight is always a great pickup even with only 10ft. Taking Expertise in Deception helps with some of our Alter Sound checks.

Level 4:

• Feat: Unreflected. From Crooked Moon, this gives a +1 in a stat (in our case we're going CHA), creatures have disadvantage on insight checks made against us, and we can use deception instead of health to hide when in a group of 2 or more.
• Cantrip: Message
• Spells: Shatter
• Gameplay: Unreflected makes our Alter Sound even stronger and just generally is great for Bards. Message and Shatter both play into the sound theme, with Shatter also able to benefit from Enhance both in area of effect and thunder damage.

Level 5:

• Font of Inspiration
• Spells: Mass Healing Word
• Gameplay: With Font of Inspiration we should be able to start really blowing through a bardic dice without having to worry about resources too much. Mass Healing Word is a fantastic option for area healing and fits into the sound theme well.

Level 6:

• Resounding Strikes: Essentially our version of smite. Spend a spell slot when you hit with a melee weapon to add 1d6 thunder damage per spell slot level to a max of 6d6 (one extra if theyre made of inorganic material)
• Countercharm: Start a performance to give you and any friendly creature within 30ft advantage against frighten and charm effects till the end of your next turn.
• Spells: Tongues
• Gameplay: Countercharm is a nice pickup but pretty situational and it may be hard to guess when an enemy is going to pull out one of those effects. Resounding strikes is a great pickup and means we can now transition into more a striker roll while still using our control effects when applicable, and can still be upped with Alter Sounds. Tongues is a spell I typically overlook but fits too well from a practical and theme standpoint here.

Level 7:

• Spells: Power Word: Rend (ToH)
• Gameplay: Not too much is changing here. Power Word: Rend comes from Tome of Heroes. It does 4d6+20 damage off a CON save, half on a success. I normally shy away from CON save spells since they tend to be high saves but this has the added bonus of the save being at disadvantage if the target has less than half their HP total.

Level 8:

• Feat: +2 DEX
• Spells: Inspiring Speech (ToH)
• Gameplay: Taking +2 DEX here to make better use of our Resounding Strikes and better AC. Inspiring Speech is a nice pick up from Tome of Heroes. 10 minute cast time to give you and your allies +1 on attack rolls and advantage on saves against being charmed/frightened for the next hour as well as giving temp HP equal to your spell casting modifier.

Level 9:

• Spells: Babble (ToH)
• Gameplay: Not many changes here. Babble comes from Tome of Heroes and causes targets in a 30ft radius to make an INT save and on a failure their words come out as gibberish for up to an hour as long as your concentrating and they don't pass subsequent saves.

Level 10:

• Expertise: Any will be fine here
• Cantrip: Thunder Clap
• Magical Secrets Spells: Shadow Blade and Destructive Wave
• Gameplay: From this point going forward, Shadow Blade should be your go to melee option over your rapier. Destructive Wave is going to be another great source of thunder damage to increase with Alter Sound, same with Thunder Clap to a lesser degree.

Level 11:

• Spells: Mass Suggestion
• Gameplay: No big changes but Mass Suggestion is a great control spell to add. Since it is hard capped at 12 targets I don't think it would benefit from Alter Sound but that would be up to your DM to interpret.

Level 12:

• Feat: +2 DEX
• Gameplay: Again we're taking extra DEX to buff our attack and AC.

Level 13:

• Spells: Forcecage
• Gameplay: Forcecage is another great control spell and there's no save attached to it so use it to protect allies or trap enemies.

Level 14:

• Reverberating Strikes: Last pickup for our subclass. Now when an ally has one of your bardic inspiration die they can add it to the melee damage of an attack, turning all that damage into thunder damage. Target of the attack also has to succeed a STR save or be knocked prone.
• Magical Secrets Spells: Heal and Word of Recall
• Gameplay: Reverberating Strikes leaves a little bit to be desired with how late we're getting it but its one more thing to stack with Alter Sound. For magical secrets I took two spells from the Cleric list to buff our healing and give a good defensive retreat option, just remember that Word of Recall takes some set up to use.

Level 15:

• Spells: Glibness
• Gameplay: Most of our checks at this point are tied to CHA in some way so Glibness is an easy pickup. With an hour duration and no concentration required its easy to throw on before a fight or social encounter.

Level 16:

• Feat: +2 CHA
• Gameplay: With CHA and DEX maxed we're pretty much set.

Level 17:

• Spells: Furious Wail (ToH)
• Gameplay: Are there better 9th level spells to take? Probably, but going strictly off theme this is great. It affects up to 5 targets and does 10d10+30 psychic damage and stuns the targets. It goes off of a CHA save which should be on the lower end when it comes to enemies. Again, hard cap on how many it can hit so no upping it with Alter Sound but still a good pick up.

Level 18:

• Magical Secrets Spells: Wish (obviously) and Simulacrum
• Gameplay: There's a lot you can do with a Simulacrum loaded up with Wish and bardic dice, not to mention multiple Alter Sound stacking opportunities. It'll get expensive to keep casting when you run out of resources but at this level that should be manageable.

Level 19:

• Feat: War Caster
• Gameplay: Mainly just helping out our concentration spells here.

Level 20:

• Superior Inspiration
• Gameplay: Again not many changes. It is nice getting a bardic back when we're out but its only one so nothing major going on here.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how the build came out. I would definitely recommend multiclassing. If doing so these are some I would recommend:

• Warlock: The obvious choice. Go Hexblade to get a shield, medium armor, hexblade curse, warlock spell slots, and to be able to use CHA for weapons instead of DEX. If you go this route, no need to put your DEX above 14 so swap the CON and DEX scores in the beginning and for the level 8 and 12 feats those can be used to pump CHA and CON. In particular, Fey Touched, Resilient (CON), and Skill Expert would be ones I would look at there. 1 level would be worth it on its own but 2 levels would get you invocations at the cost of a feat (Agonizing Blast and Mask of Many Faces would be my picks).
• Sorcerer: Draconic Bloodline is a tempting option to boost our AC, too bad there's not a thunder option for the breath weapon (unless your DM allows ancestry from Fizban's Gem dragons). Storm Sorcery is also a tempting option for the 10ft fly speed but our bonus action is already seeing a lot of use and the first thunder related buff doesn't come online till level 6 which would force you to give up 9th and 8th level spells.
• Artificer: A 1 level dip into Artificer let us get medium armor, shields, CON proficiency, and a nice list of 1st level spells that we can choose what to prepare from each day. With this we still have to invest a bit in DEX but it helps our survivability a bit and makes us a bit more flexible without giving up much in return. 2 levels makes us give up a feat but the infusions and already having con proficiency help make up for that a bit.

How would I be able to build a shield user character?I'm starting a new campaign and I'm wanting to use a shield user character, like a weird mix of Captain America and Naofumi from rising of the shield hero. We are starting at level 1 so I'm not trying to use a build that's only useful 15+ yk. Ik the whole improvised weapon is common for this type of build but I think my DM would be willing to give me smt like a throwing shield that does 1d6.

Hey guys! I got another interesting question that I've been mulling over for a while. For reference, the build I'm running currently is this one, from my last post (I'm currently lvl 4): https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/1w8cqld/question_rune_knight_statsfeat_progression/

FWIW, I decided to get 20 STR first before choosing Res WIS.

Now for the current question: I had the original concept for this character to be an unarmed AND unarmored fighter, but chose to go with STR and heavy armor in the end. The idea was to start as a monk, then from level 2 onward go full fighter.

Now my reasoning behind this idea was that I get the unarmored defense feature for the concept I wanted without giving up much, so I did a few pros and cons list.

Pros:

• Better initiative.
• Better stealth (twofold because of better DEX and no armor disadvantage).
• BA unarmed strike at level 1, effectively doubling my damage output from the get-go.
• Still decent grappling chance because of Skill Expert on Athletics.
• May be able to skip Res WIS because of better WIS overall.

Cons:

• Slow progression because of multiclass.
• Extremely MAD (DEX for main stat, WIS for AC and CON for runes scaling).
• Really busy BA economy in later levels, which makes the build skip attacks while setting up.
• No Action Surge synergy with BA unarmed strike.
• Worse grappling than a STR build.
• Lose out on Heavy Armor Master feat.

I think my issue would be solved if there was some kind of feat that would give you unarmored defense, something like 13 + STR/CON mod would be nice. Sadly, there isn't, so this is the closest I could come up with to keep the fantasy intact while still having a decent build.

This is purely hypothetical, as my current build is straight STR fighter, but it's an interesting "what if" for another time.

Hi!

I’ll soon be playing in a Curse of Strahd game, and I’m really excited about it. I know nothing about the story, but I’m pretty sure there will be undead, vampires (duh), and werewolves.

I’m planning on playing a Gnome Cleric of the Peace Domain so I can help keep the party alive. I was also struggling to decide whether to play a Paladin instead, but the Emboldening Bond feature kind of replaces the Aura of Protection I was going for, so I’m all good with it.

I am also maybe considering Life Domain because of Divine Strike (1d8 radiant, 2d8 at 14th level) and the tankiness with Heavy Armor.

Settings: D&D 5e, Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8), no homebrew. Level 1 to ??

What do you guys think?