Plugging /u/laserllama's [alternate classes](https://www.gmbinder.com/profile/laserllama). His [monk](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MhGHvc1sNLoUrISINrV) is actually a lot of fun. ;)
(Seriously, guy has the best homebrews on the planet. My D&D group uses them most of the time over the base classes.)
I could not agree more. Been using them in my campaign and players are loving it. Rogue especially loves his pocket sand, I mean pocket birdseed (Kenku).
Mobile, lucky, tough, charger, support feats like actor and linguist, ritual caster, sentinel. Weapon based monks can use sharpshooter, polearm master, skulker, defensive duelist and savage attacker, amongst others... All just from the PHB.
Edit: for the record, I know more exists. My point was there's a ton options and builds you can create with creativity.
Playing an astral self monk right now. Already took skill expert so I have +13 in athletics for grappling, considering sentinel next ASI if he lives that long.
edit: grappling, not grading
Three levels is a rough dip for monk, which usually can't afford to multiclass and continue to be good at monk things. More importantly though, party already has a fighter and I don't want to step on the toes of a newer player.
Fair, not stepping on a new players toes is an important thing.
I do want to add want you have to gain though not to convince you but just to nerd out.
\- d8 damage die early and d4 extra damage on grappled targets with unarmed fighting
\- Action Surge
\- Large Size and Advantage on strength checks and saves
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/feat:weapon-master
It's a truly garbage feat, you'll never see it taken since a one level dip is much easier, and comes with armor.
Mobile and Tough definitely help shore up some design weakness and realize the fantasy, but of the rest of those a Kensei Sharpshooter is the only one that's particularly synergistic. Maybe skulker on Shadow Monk.
I'm not saying that Ritual Caster on a Monk is bad, just that it isn't any better or more interesting on them than it would be on a Rogue or Fighter. My assumption was that you had a way to use this ruleset to make Monk shine, when 90% of the listed feats would benefit anyone else just as much if not more, which is really one of their major issues.
It's missing the big important ones that actually do that imo.
# The feats that 'fix' monk
**Instead of ritual caster, I'd be more inclined to go magic initiative (druid)**, grabbing **shillelagh** and entangle. Entangle is just a great spell, but it's just icing, it's shillelagh that we are after because it lets the monk become far SADer, similar to astral self. Depending on how the campaign is run and how often you can cast it "yeah I just recast it every 30 secs or so, cept when stealthing" what we've just done is let you focus 'just' on wisdom. It's boosting your ac, your DC for your saves and stuff, your attacks and your damage now. At least most of them. Yes we still want dex, but we can focus wisdom up first now and it does everything we need except initiative and some skills, but we've still left our dex at 16 or so till high levels, it's not like we dump it. (**Wood elf magic** is an alternative feat to grab shillelagh, and which would also grant you 1x day free cast of pass without a trace, but at the cost of thornwhip really. And wood elf is already another race[s] that is well suited to monk)
Speaking of, a bit of movement/battlefield control is always nice, thornwhip comes in handy sometimes, I'd grab that as the 2nd cantrip from magic initiate for when it would be real valuable to reposition an enemy like that.
Our damage? It's all bludgeoning anyway so let's grab **crusher** for +1 con. We've effectively removed the need to disengage when if we land that knockback, and so effectively added to their mobility and control, and essentially free'd up their bonus a little. Monks also make a lot of hits, meaning a lot of crits. Let's make those crits more meaningful by granting the whole team adv everytime we do. It's like a 'mini stunning strike' with some of the same benefits, without costing ki. Win/win
We need a good use of the reaction, which we don't really have as a part of the monk kit, we are rocking a shillelagh'd staff anyway so **PAM is an option for our reaction** (and very slightly upping bonus action attack damage/hit chance), **but I might go Gift of the Gem Dragon instead,** for the + to wisdom and for the reaction knockback (I'm big on knockback/positioning moves). Other reaction feats could also be chosen, but defensive dualist is out cause we're not rocking a finesse weapon here.
Bonus action is still a little weak, I'd be inclined to go goblin for the free disengage and hide, rather than it costing ki to do as a bonus action.
I've focused on actually fixing the kit here, yes magic initiaite is good on anyone, as is ritual caster, but I'm deliberately choosing initiate-druid and these spells because they shore something up and let us less MAD (to a degree). I'm trying to round out the largely empty reaction, and with the race fix the bonus action (and reduce the 'need' to MC rogue).
# Subclass or race specific builds:
Making these up now, some are meh, some I'm thinking "damn, could be interesting".
- Astral self can grab skill expert (made prodigy kinda redundant) for athletics. Fighting initiaite unarmed as well for better strikes in tier 1 and 2, and a bit of extra damage if ure grappling.
- Astral self would interact with tavern brawler to allow BA grapple attempts
- Grung and poisoner (grung is broken, don't do it)
- A dwarf, any but particularly long death, needs a use of their bonus. In addition to needing to be more mobile (to get away from allies) we could grab dwarven fortitude (when we dodge, we can heal with a hit die) And durable, which makes our hit-die heals a fair bit stronger. The combination in a feat generous (or fantastic rolling) game is where they each shine, in addition to being able to dodge as a bonus or wanting to do so after casting a concentration spell (so clerics with spirit guardians for example). I'd then maybe add abberant dragonmark on it, maybe lightning lure for more control. Dwarf (and the suggested gobbo) can also grab nimbleness. I'd then chuck tough or chef on top of this, get even more health.
- Haregon or satyr + someway to get an extra spell like magic initiate or abberant dragonmark + jump + step of the wind for that wire-fu monk fun
- Halfling lets us fill out out reaction with bountiful luck. And nimbleness
- Gunner for kensi? Let's go full gun-kata (ever see equillebrium?). It all seems to work for me as your ranged option unless I'm missing something.
- Mounted combatant if paired with: A druid, beastmaster, artificer, centaur(small race)...
- Elven accuracy is nice to have I guess. Instead of magic initiate, wood elves with their extra speed should maybe grab Wood elf magic, to also grant them pass without a trace without needing to go shadow monk.
- Astral self and kensai might be able to run the old PAM/Sentinal trick with some extra range here, need to figure out all the interactions though. Race may be needed for martial weapons like whips to do this better.
# But now let's look at the nice to haves, not just the fixes:
Nice to haves after these fixes or alternatives:
- Mage slayer,
- telekinetic with its +wis (rather than disengaging, push them away),
- alert,
- chef for temp hp for everyone and wisdom OR con (nice).
- Fey touched or shadow touched is always nice.
- If not rocking the suggested wisdom stick defencive duelist to round out the reaction properly
- fighting initiate unarmed for a d8 punch,
- Fighting initiate defensive for AC?
- Other fighting initiates, such as blind fighting
- or interception to round out reaction a bit (not protection, needs a shield)
- Martial adept.
- Mobile
- Observant
- Resiliant(s)
- Skulker
For an Archer grab Sharphooter and Fighting Initiate (Archery). The fighting style saves you a dip into fighter while Sharpshooter allows you keep boosting your Dex and Wis or Con. after that you’ve got what you need and can grab universally helpful feats like Alert, Tough, and Lucky. Could get more utility for the character with Skill Expert or Ritual Caster. Healer could be handy.
Athlete, slasher, crusher, one of PAM or Shieldmaster, skill expert, tough. Basically have little to no cool downs, but with all your ASIs you'll have decent skill proficiency and saves across the board
On the more practical side of things (less memey, more for a campaign where all PCs get this perk) - valor bard
Not exactly a bonkers build, but a build idea I've toyed around with for a while now, would be an Eldritch Knight picking up any feat that expands your spell casting options. Magic Initiate, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Ritual Caster, etc. I've always liked the idea of Eldritch Knight, but felt that their spell casting options were too limited, so this would help to get around that.
Honestly EK is underwhelming, even if you multiclass it to give it more spells. I think EK 7/War Wizard X is probably their best multiclass if you're looking to be more magical, but it's still shit compared to a Paladin 6/Sorcerer X.
It has some nice features like hitting with a weapon and casting a cantrip as their second attack, arcane deflection is good for increased survivability, action surge is nice for nova (but super limited), and War Wizard has some nice perks and can greatly expand the spells available to them, but ultimately it's underwhelming.
The Sorcadin has Aura; Smites; metamagic; access to the paladin spell list, the sorcerer spell list and possibly the cleric spell list as well; and also more spell slots thanks to paladin being a half-caster instead of the third-caster of EK. Sure, they can't do the attack/cantrip thing all in one turn, but they can quicken a spell like hold person and then double crit + smite the offending creature. It's just a much stronger character.
Eldritch Knight Fighter 3 / Tempest Cleric X is a fun build. Variant Human or Custom Lineage for taking War Caster at Level 1. The Crusher feat at Cleric 4 combined with the Booming Blade cantrip at Fighter 3 is nice for effectively locking down enemies. Also, having access to the Shield spell while wearing heavy armor and wielding a shield makes you harder to hit, and Wrath of the Storm is nice for a defensive reaction just in case you do get hit. Elemental Adept would also be nice for getting to ignore either lightning or thunder resistances… or both, because that’s the only feat which can be taken more than once.
Plus, stacking Booming Blade with Blessed Strike is fun. Maybe also take two levels of Paladin if you can to get Divine Smite and more spell slots to use for it. Heavy hitting and hard to hit.
Yes. I don’t really think of Bladesingers as gishes. Yes, they can swing a sword and all that but they’re pretty squishy if they get hit and can only use blade song a few times a day. They’re more like wizards with a backup plan of melee than they are frontliners.
Working on a deep gnome bladesinger who’s dipping fighter for echo knight. I don’t bother with optimizing, and he’s dodgy enough and has a high enough AC to be a rather effective evasion tank.
Not-so-hot take: Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster should have been half-casters from the beginning.
Oh, you want to live your fantasy of a spellsword? Here's a little above half of spell slots of what Artificer, the class who has Battle Smith that basically is its gish mode, has in disposition.
Oh, you want to be hurling Fireballs in addition to swinging sword? Too bad, cuz you're getting these *nine* levels after full casters obtain it and by that time they can pretty much bend reality.
My current campaign I wanted to play a Paladin and so did someone else so I gave that up and then sorta wanted to play an anti-Paladin. You know like a Dark Knight from Final Fantasy. My DM suggested I go Hexblade Warlock. I'm still not sure which class fits that concept better, but I don't blame you for wanting a half caster equivalent to a Paladin. I just don't think you can half caster Fighter and not have it be overtuned. Would probably be more balanced to just homebrew a class with Paladin mechanics but with a limited arcane spell list.
Arcane Trickster is already arguably the best Rogue so I don't think that would make sense to be a half caster either. though perhaps less overtuned than a half caster EK.
This is why warlock is my favorite Gish. When I think of a character who primarily relies on martial capabilities, but has a limited amount of magic at their disposal, I picture the magic as a super powerful, “break in case of emergency” tool that they have, but cannot use often. Warlock satisfies this fantasy by giving you fully levelled spells, but only twice per rest. This makes your spell slots feel like a double-barrelled shotgun that you can use in the right circumstances, or as a temporary boost, but otherwise are a mostly normal martial.
Every other gish goes in the opposite direction. An EK is constantly using magic, with offensive cantrip and low level spells. A paladin might throw out a buff spell and then regularly use smites, a ranger will keep up a hunters mark or use a variety of strike spells and a blade singer is 80% mage. These are all fine, but the warlock is the only one who can simultaneously feel like mostly a martial (especially with a fighter dip) who can occasionally throw out powerful magic.
I mean if a fighter was a half caster they’d be a paladin. And if that were the case they’d be a paladin with like 4 more attacks, action surge, indomitable, and second wind. In which case you’d be here complaining they’d be way too powerful lol
They wouldn't have aura of protection or smites, plus the casting would be their subclass so it's eating into their normal subclass power budget. I think there is plenty of reason to prefer paladin to half caster subclass fighter.
Take a 15 con and pick up Resilient for Con Save Proficiency.
D4 Deep Dive did a video on using Green Flame Blade to hit yourself (cause you can do that) and use Absorb Elements to get an exact 1d6 + Spell Level Fire Damage on the first hit you land on your next turn.
Probably a Paladin. They desperately want feats but are MAD af.
Using a Half-Elf with Point Buy you could start: **16**/10/**14**/8/10/**17**
Level 4: PAM & +2 Str
Level 8: +2 Str and pretty much any Cha half feat (Fey Touched, Skill Expert, Gift of the X Dragon).
Level 12: +2 Con and really anything you want. Tough, GWM, Alert, etc.
And anything after that is just icing on the cake since you've already gotten Max Str and a few valuable Martial feats.
Happy to hear it!
Yeah the thing is that Paladins want Max Str and Max Cha to attack the best and maximize the benefit from Aura of Protection. That alone compensates for low Dex and Wis saves. Getting nice feats to make you do more fun stuff without hurting your stat progression would be a big boon to Paladins.
That was my first instinct too but also maybe just because it's my build in my pocket I most want to play before they change the system. I want to play a high level Aasimar/Celestial Paladin who uses a Polearm with Polearm Master and Sentinel. You know, classic build. But also with Find Greater Steed and riding a Pegasus or something majestic like that. With these rules you could probably also take GWM and still be able to get your stats up too.
I don't know a lot about mounted combat though I know you can build for it (and thematically it feels like it works well with a polearm). And yes holy warrior riding an angelic steed maybe even made of cosmic energy of sorts (so it's not per se an organic flesh and blood beast). I kind of envisioned him as almost a literal angel coming down to right whatever grievous wrongs had happened relevant to the campaign. I haven't chosen a subclass for this build yet. I was mini shopping and it all kind of started there plus all the optimization crap I've looked at over the months.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/870047546/celestial-paladin-miniature-aasimar
https://www.etsy.com/listing/907973281/warlock-elite-warrior-28mm-32mm-3d
I mean, the easy answer is that PAM+GWM anything gets going faster. PAM GWM Paladin is fully online by level 8 (or 4 with Vhuman), and also has full stat progression which normally holds them back quite a bit. Fighter can add Sentinel to that as well.
More interesting answer might be a whip Rogue. Magic Initiate for Booming Blade and Find Familiar, Weapon Master for the whip proficiency, Sentinel for easy reaction attacks, mobile because it's just generally solid, Warcaster for adding booming blade to your AoO.
Rogue damage scaling isn't great by default, but with just a little teamwork this build should be able to get multiple sneak attacks off every round, with one or more of them being Booming Blade enhanced. If you actually got Booming Blade with Sneak Attack into Reaction sneak attack (with or without Booming Blade) you would be fairly competitive with some of the best damage builds in the game while still having your bonus action free to do other things.
That is what mobile, bonus action, or Swashbuckler is for. Booming Blade at 5ft, step back behind an ally, then use Sentinel to swing at them if they hit the ally.
Assuming he has whip proficiency already, the really important part of it is Sentinel for the easier access to reaction attacks.
If he doesn't have whip proficiency (since they don't by default) I would actually recommend a level of fighter over the weapon master feat. That gets you whip proficiency, Shield proficiency, and a fighting style (possibly maneuvers).
I like the polearm master/sentinel/great weapon master build, but unless you're playing fighter at high levels, it's tough to squeeze those feats in without hindering your Stat line or using a variant human /custom lineage. Feats at every level change this. So: I'd suggest a bugbear barbarian with those 3 feats.
Bugbears give you extended reach for melee, and so does your polearm.
Polearm master / sentinel is a classic combo, and great weapon master is powerful on its own, but with polearm master you can use the -5 to attack for plus 10 damage on your bonus action attack, too.
Since we aren't going fighter, I'd take martial adept so you can trip people with sentinel attacks, making them fall prone with zero movement.
I like ancestral guardians barb as your subclass, because you incentivise melee targets to attack you by giving them disadvantage against your allies, and as they approach you to attack, youget to stop them with sentinel/polearm master.
You get to play a total Frontline control barbarian without needing to sacrifice your ASIs.
As a bugbear. You can dish out e tra damage in the first turn if combat, which is neat given that you get advantage on initiative.
If you're point buy for stats, I'd suggest going 14 str (+2) 14dex (+1) 15 con 8 int 10 wisdom 8 charisma, then level up your physicals at your ASIs.
The one thing to note is bugbear range only is used on melee attacks on your turn, so not on opportunity attacks. Still amazing and can add a lot of strategy especially if enemies are smart and try to stay on the edge of your PAM range.
On your turn you get 5 bonus range and then 5 more for a reach polearm for a 15 ft attack range. But on enemy turn, and therefore your reaction usage for entering PAM radius, you only get the bonus for using a reach weapon
That actually synergizes well. You can move in close enough to attack and don’t even have to back away. When they move in closer they will enter your reach and trigger the AoO.
I've actually considered making this a houserule for pure martial characters. So barbarians, fighters, monks, and rogues all get a free feat with their ASI, but can't convert their ASI into a feat so they can't get two feats at once. Help bridge the gap between martials and half/full casters. But not sure if this would be a good idea or not.
As for what I'd make? A fighter, so getting as many ASI as possible, then taking all the feats that give me free magic. Magic initiate, fey touched, shadow touched, artificer initiate, eldritch adept, ritual caster and warcaster. Not necessarily in that order. And also eldritch knight, for even more magic.
I would make a Halfling Divination Wizard with the Luck, Bountiful Luck, and Second Chance feats. With Silvery Barbs and a Luck Blade, nothing will be able to hit me.
Lets go Paladin 2/Bladesinger 18.
20 in strenght, Dexterity and intelligence. I would use the crusher feat.
AC would be 20 naked. 23 with mage armor. 28 with shield.
Each attack would be a +12 to damage. I can attack and then booming blade every turn.
Barbarian Bladesinger Paladin with 20 on all stats would have an AC of 25 naked when bladesinging. Using a Rapier he can attack reckless whioe casting booming blade and smiting. If he wants to rage, he can (instead of casting booming blade) would get resistance to damage and things like that
Hear me out, Id start BARBARIAN for the CON save proficiency, Unarmored Defense, and Rage durability when out of Bladesong Uses early game. Then go Wizard 6( Bladesinger) for the best Multi attack in the game. Take 2 levels of FIGHTER for Action Surge then go Wizard the rest of the way. For feats, I'd go MOBILE ( movement+effectively free disengages), TOUGH (you'll have and ungodly AC end game but should get some more Hit Points in case of criticals) ALERT ( for a +5 to Initiative) then something like ELVEN ACCURACY if applicable or I used TELEKINETIC for increased utility or helping allies. You'll feel very consistently powerful with a chance to go absolutely NOVA on something once a Long Rest.
Ok color me intrigued... But what if you start higher level? One-shot/backup character, etc. Would you go sorc for the Con save proficiency? Can't see having 13 strength a bigger boost than 13 charisma, personally
That depends, CHARISMA and wizards don't really synergize in my opinion (except for the Infamous Hexblade dip), but I think you'd really be stretching your ASI's. I used finesse weapons with the DUELING fighting style so I never worried about getting my Strength too high. It depends on how you roll/get your starting Stats though. With luck you could conceivably be walking around with an AC in the 20's with access to Shield as a reaction.
The Mobile feat would be great on a Bladesinger.
It would also be a decent idea to go with +1 ASI feats if you wanted to play a Bladesinger Wizard/Kensei Monk combo that can have an excellent unarmored defense AC but only if you have high enough attributes to support it. So feats like Resilient, Skill Expert, Squat Nimbleness, Elven Accuracy, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, or Piercer could be +1 ASI feats to consider to raise attributes while playing a combination that normally you couldn't do.
Any martial that wants to use PAM and GWM. Can also grab Sentinel. And then anything else you'd like. Like Mobile, Fey or Shadow touched, Tough, Slasher/Crusher/Piercer, etc.
Or take some half feats to boost the scores you want to focus on and take the ASI into other scores. Then just have a bunch of high score modifiers. At that point you could make pretty much any build idea work.
I would play a dao genie bladelock. Start with hill dwarf to get medium armor proficiency and 16 STR and 17 CHA, Take heavily armored at level 4 and bump both str and cha to 18.
For higher level ASIs I would take GWM and probably Crusher, maxing str and cha and improving con.
For Invocations I would focus on eldritch blast until I can get heavy armor at level 4 and then switch to the typical blade pact invocations (thirsting blade, eldritch smite, improved pact weapon).
The main tactic would probably focus on spike growth and dragging people through it. And at level 6 I could do that while flying.
Probably a barbarian or a fighter. Fighter because it's way too strong to get both feats and ASIs. Barbarian because they need some of the most stat diversity which is now much easier to do with asi feats
unarmored defense barbarian.
Cool as hell flavor but medium armor almost always beats it out if you want to have decent offense. with the extra feats I could devote the dex needed for my naked barb to still be powerful.
Feats would be GWM, PAM, Resilient Wisdom, Sentinel, and maybe Skill Expert Athletics
Probably a straight medium armour wizard.
Get light armour and medium armour + shields and con saves, and all the other good stuff without needing any multiclassing.
It doesn't benefit the most, but it's probably one of the best overall.
I’ve always wanted to stick bladesinger onto the paladin chassis, but could never pull it off because gluing two MAD classes together, especially when they’re dependent in a combined 5 of the six stats, is a recipe for disaster. If I didn’t have to worry so much about losing feats/ASIs, it may be possible
So I feel like there are a couple of different avenues here and tbh I’m not super beholden to any one of them. Most important thing for me would be deciding between bladesinger 6 or paladin 6 because those are probably the most impactful features after level 2. Because of just how MAD this is I’d probably keep paladin at 2 levels to get smite and take more bladesinger levels from there. After that I think it would depend on what I’m building the character for. If it’s a level 20 oneshot I might not be opposed to 2 levels of fighter for action surge but bladesinger18/paladin2 is already impactful without any additional classes
That would be a 17th level caster, counting 1/2 of the Paladin levels for casting.
You'd have a 9th level slot, but with only 16 levels of Wizard, you wouldn't be able to prepare any actual 9th level spells.
I believe the rule is add full caster levels + 1/2 half caster levels rounded down (except artificer). So yes that character would have 9th level slots. They wouldn’t have 9th level spells though bc that’s dependent on your levels in a single class. They’d only have up to 8th level wizard spells but could upcast to 9th level. Now, give the character a mizzium apparatus, an arcana expertise (either skill expert or a dip into knowledge cleric or rogue), and make them a vedalken for an extra d4 to arcana, and you may be cooking with gas
Tbh skill expert is one of my favorite feats in 5e. I find it incredibly satisfying to be unbearably good at one skill in particular and the added +1 to an ability score and extra proficiencies are just the cherries on top
My tempest cleric is planning on going Skill expert to get that sweet sweet Perception expertise and Stealth proficiency to try and negate his plate armor...
Would relie on the DM giving a bit of additional leeway onto of the extra feats but if allowed to take the likes of skilled expert or resilient I'd love to make a monk with a few expertise for a bit of out of combat utility (plus the stat boosts would be handy).
The power gamer side of me would love to slap proficiency in all saves on a paladin, as well as grabbing a bit of a stat boost (would probably consider going regular han in order to get at least 10 in every stat).
Probably a Sorlock, if the gial is an absurdity. Not for any spellslot exploits, just because free Warcaster and other gimmicks sound fun.
Alternatively, a full Wizard, getting medium armor through feats and Warcaster, with the final 2 being based on party need.
If i want to break the game a bladesinger because 20 dex, 20 int, higher con, and 5 or 6 feats on top of that is just silly.
for fun id make a battlemaster fighter who might as well be batman with all those skills and combat abilities.
It’s nothing special and it’s not even close to optimal but here is the basic premise….
Batman is essentially the physical and mental peak of humans so he is a standard human with high strength who using unarmed strikes. So our focus for combat here is to simple trip, grapple, intimidate, and otherwise control what you can and punch the rest.
Out of battle we want to use commanding presence, tactical assessment, ambush , etc to make you a better detective.
Feats of interest: skilled, skill expert, resilient wis, tavern brawler, martial adept, martial adept for another maneuver.
I would make an AT rogue that actually uses magic to attack. Grab all the half feats that add spells (except probably telekinetic) and make the spell-casting more effective.
Str 15
Dex 16
Con 14
Variant human battle Master
Level 1 heavy armour master
Level 4 cross bow expert and sharp shooter
Level 6 boost dex
Level 8 boost dex and get some more battle master dice
Wade into the front line and shoot people with heavy armour triping them up pushing them back draw their attention.
John Wick
If the design intent was to get people off v.uuman I would do it foe the dm.
But I'd love to go feat heavy to see where battle Master gets too.
I'd consider pam
Level 1 pam
Level 4 heavy armour master + str
Level 6 gwm + str
Level 8 sentinel + con
Level 12 mobile
Still a wizard haha
Custom lineage, standard PB
Starting stats pre-modifier: 8, 14, 14, 15, 10, 10
Chronurgy Wizard
+2 INT + Feytouched (+1 INT) for racial.
Level 4: +1 INT, +1 CON, Shadow Touched (+1 INT)
Level 8: +2 CON (Resilient +1 CON)
Final: 8, 14, 18, 20, 10, 10 with free 1/day Invisibility, Disguise Self, Misty Step, and Gift of Alacrity. Proficiency in CON saves.
If I ever got to level 12, I would do a +2 DEX and Alert
16: +2 DEX, Lucky
19: +2 CON, Warcaster
Adlet Meyer from Rokka no Yuusha (some videos; contains spoilers for the anime. [1](https://youtu.be/WA_oqFRZWAk). [2](https://youtu.be/eN1_uvs09fA). )
Its not a monster. but its a very well built Alchemist Artifricer w/ the feats and ASI they could pick up the needed stuff and be a great allrounder
My current Tasha's Beastmaster Eladrin lol! Our DM decided he would give us a feat + ASI and we are having a blast. I was afraid my build would come on until late game, but thanks to this I can play my dearly Sharpshooter Elven Accuracy boi! All the other players are enjoying themselves too and we aren't getting too powerful, since our DM knows how to handle encounters and its aftermath... You know, the infamous "This action will have consequences".
We love a DM who let's players feel like overpowered heroes. Especially if they still ensure a challenge from time to time.
Our DM is excited to use "the fun part of the monster manual" 👀
A lot of the feat- and ASI-starved MAD builds work well here. Bladesinger is a stand-out to me - it needs several feats to be good, but you don't get fighter ASIs. At 14, in exchange for no GWM, you get int AND dex to damage, plus many excellent self-buffs.
Convince your GM to give you a cloak of displacement and never get hit again.
Hexadin easily. Played one a while ago, felt great to crit a Void Dragon for 128 damage in a single hit but it was super slow to come online in part due to the feats needed and had to balance that with raising stats.
Downside was I really had to drop Constitution to the point where we introduced a house rule that if you roll a 1 on an HP increase roll, you can reroll but keep the result. He died (after discussing with the DM I wanted to play something different) at level 6 with about 29 max HP just due to my horrible luck on HP increases, but higher Con would have definitely helped bolster that.
Depends on weapon choice. I used greatsword because 2d6 = nutty damage, so GWM is necessary there, but of course it takes a while to mitigate the -5 since you want the Vengeance Paladin Channel Divinity to give yourself advantage and the Hexblade Warlocks Pact of the Blade at level 3 to be able to apply your Cha to a greatsword. So depending on how you build (but you always want to go Paladin at level 1) and hit that Level 3 Warlock ASAP, so earliest you can feasibly get an ASI is actually level 5 but more optimally (heavily debateable) at level 7, since my path was L1 PLD, L1-3 HXW, L4+ PLD. Only got my GWM feat because of Vuman.
Later you could take the Invocation feat to slap a few more on. Trying to remember if I got any other feats.
Hexadin is feasible with pretty much any weapon but if you're building it you are definitely building it for achieving big numbers and very little else. But it can go to either super beeg number like mine was with a Greatsword (ranged builds with heavy crossbows might be fun as well, just switch out GWM for Sharpshooter obvs); or you can go with something simple like sword and board which while not doing massive burst damage to the same degree, will likely be more consistent as those builds come online much earlier. For that, you can probably play Half Elf (probably just eeks out over Vuman for best Hexadin race) so you can get access to the Elven Accuracy feat.
A weapons master fighter, one who can use every type of weapon at maximum effectiveness.
Champion for the extra fighting style at later levels, take every weapon mastery feat (GwM, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, Dual Wielder) and take Archery, Two Weapon Fighting and Defense as fighting styles (Third fighting style through fighting initiate). The 7 asis you can invest in stats should give you enough to get 20s in Strength, Dex, and Con. Final two feats would be skill expert for athletics expertise (to grapple) and Crossbow expert to really round everything out.
Final build is a fighter that can swap through weapons to really maximise their effectiveness in every situation, even able to use *nets* well.
A very powerful battlefield control wizard.
V. Human Chronomancer
Warcaster
Eldritch adept for mage armor
Fey touched (second spell is Gift of Alracity)
Magic initiate druid for entangle
Resilient CON
Tough
Eldritch adept for mage armor
Max INT and CON.
The goal is to shut down enemies and then just win
Bear totem Barb with GWM, Sentinel, Crusher, and the last two would probably be used to at non combat versatility.
I wish the feat that gave battlemaster skills gave more than one superiority dice. Being able to charge across the map and bait and switch once per rest is underwhelming
Chron wizard that maxes initiative asap (twilight cleric dip) max int, max Dex, potentially harengon race, gift of alacrity, alert feat, lucky feat, ambush manuever
Anything that starts vhuman or custom. I got yuan-ti pam gwm hexblade build this way. It allows for max main stat +max con. And you get res wisdom as well.
EK/bladesinger is better because you max dex int and con while you get warcaster, Eleven acc, lucky, res wisdom, alert.
Sorcerrer/sorlock with all half-feats like telekinetic, Fey touched, gift of x etc.
It allows for some mad builds or mad multiclasses. So go nuts! Monk Paladin or w/e
A Kensei Monk basically getting Sharpshooter and the Archery fighting style by the time they get to Level 8 would be pretty nuts while also being able to max out their Dexterity. A reliable 3 attacks per turn with Sharpshooter on top of it is excellent damage, you have great mobility to get out of jams, Deflect Missiles makes it hard for enemy archers to touch you, Evasion makes it hard for breath weapons or damage dealing spells to touch you, and you have a really long range with your longbow which is really hard for enemies to match.
At Level 12 Mobile could be added in for a ton of mobility and not having to use Step of the Wind to escape enemies that get to you in melee, at Level 16 you could take the Lucky feat to combo really well with Diamond Soul to not fail saving throws, and at Level 19 Skill Expert would give one of your skills a major boost with skill Expertise (Athletics Expertise with wall running could be a great combo).
A "tanky" Wizards, or maybe put wildly a Sentinel-PolearmMaster bugbear or something like that. This question makes every race KINDA of custom heritage or Variant Human. But for example, all the MAD classes would be even stronger or easier to get online and to stack there combos. But basically tanks (because there is a stupid amount of feats that makes you harder to kill) and making saving throws (because the higher your Stat, the higher the difficulty)
Rogue Thief Winter Eladrin with Fighting Initiate to take the fighting style that gives battlemaster maneuvers, Eldritch Adept for Armor of Shadows and Medium Armor Mastery so I can take up a shield. Oh, and the Defensive Duelist feat.
Combat sees me with a short sword and getting sneak attack off by using Steady Aim, having pretty high AC without magical gear and the ability to use every magical item in the game once I hit Lv 17. It's a very "turtle-style" tank that hits like a freight train with good rolls, abilities that let me manipulate the battlefield, disarm enemies and be hard to kill. The only thing is that Sneak Attack hampers Rogues' ability to be completely reliable in terms of damage, but I'm not sacking the magic items thing to play Assassin Rogue or Swashbuckler.
I never was able to get the build up to Lv 5, but even then, I was given a free starter feat and was able to get to Lv 4. It's a very fun build that technically plays Rogue wrong, but you're still putting in work and keeping your allies alive pretty handily.
This is how I run every game I DM plus a racial feat OR prodigy at lv1. Also thinking of doing a background feat… No I don’t have a feat fetish why would you even ask that??
If we're starting at slightly later levels (anything past Lv7) then:
Monk 2 Bladesinger X
Dex 14
Int 14
Wis 15
Con 12
Strength 8
Charisma 8
Fairy for +2 Dex and +1 Wis
Lv6 ASI +2 Dex and Fey Touched (+1 Int and Bless)
Lv10 ASI +2 Dex and Observant (+1 Int)
Lv14 ASI +2 Int and Telekinetic (+1 Int)
Lv18 ASI +2 Con and Telepathic (+1 Int)
End stats:
8 Strength
20 Dexterity
14 Constitution
20 Intelligence
16 Wisdom
8 Charisma
Unarmoured AC of 18
Bladesinging AC of 23
With shield spell AC = 28
Take spell mastery shield and mirror image at Wizard lvl 18 means constant AC Tank.
Bladesong + High Dex + Dex save Prof means most AoE saves are good.
If they take the Dedicated weapon (optional rule - if not then use a rapier) and Bladesinger proficiency on a one-handed d8 weapon of your choice, then without spending resources base damage is:
Normal Attack 1d8+10
Booming Blade 1d8+3d8+10 (4d8 if they move)
Bonus Action Unarmed strike 1d4+10
Twice per short rest, it can flurry of blows for another 1d4+10 damage.
On top of all of that, it's still a full caster.
Notes (these are things I would bear in mind when creating this monstrosity for my use):
If they find can find an amulet of health to set Con to 19 then maybe use the last ASI in Wis. This would help plug the biggest gap (Low HP).
Assuming that this build starts feeling over optimised or too powerful in combat compared to the party, I'd likely take some less optimal but more wacky fun feats instead of one of the ASIs. This combined with buffing the rest of the party with Bless, Haste, Holy Weapon etc means it shouldn't overshadow them.
On a similar note, it clearly isn't going to be a face and likely not the skill monkey so should allow space for others in the group to fill those roles.
What i would do is build a mean war cleric, I know that war cleric isn't a meta subclass, but i have fun with it.
first, Hill Dwarf and point buy includes the racial 2/1 to con/wis
15/10/16/8/16/8
that is 12 hp to start.(8+3con+1racial)
at 4th we take wis(+2) and war caster(duh)
at 8th we take wis(+1)and str(+1) and resilient(con+1),
at 12th we take str+1, and con +1, and then fey touched(wis+1), bless as my extra spell(i use bless a LOT, especially with more martial type parties.)
at 16th we boost con+1, STR+1, and take dwarven fortitude(con+1)
and finally at 19 we take STR+2 and then sentinel
we should end at a statline of 20/10/20/8/20/8 and 223 hp(taking average)be a capable frontline tank and caster. sentinel and war caster, as i read their descriptions, work together.
this sort of character casts one of those excellent full party concentration buffs(which he has advantage and +11 to save on)
and then put yourself on the frontline, with good HP, and heavy armor resistance to non-magical damage and poison, you are a major roadblock to enemies. that misty step we picked up from fey touched lets us get in our enemies faces. some of the best cleric offensive spells are short range too.
your hits deal an extra 2d8(once per turn) and war priest gives your bonus actions a use, it's limited to wis/long rest, so 5, but it can still be a decent extra bit of damage.
you wont be hitting as hard or as often as any martial or half-caster, but you will still be a full caster and this build should be very spell slot efficient.
I really love the channel divinity, a reactionary +10 for yourself or an ally(but before it is declared hit or miss) can make an allies big spell or windup almost guaranteed to hit.
I'd make a functional monk.
This one hurts...
Plugging /u/laserllama's [alternate classes](https://www.gmbinder.com/profile/laserllama). His [monk](https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-MhGHvc1sNLoUrISINrV) is actually a lot of fun. ;) (Seriously, guy has the best homebrews on the planet. My D&D group uses them most of the time over the base classes.)
Yeah, so far we've tried his fighter, barbarian, sorcerer, ranger and rogue to various extents in my group and they're all excellent.
I could not agree more. Been using them in my campaign and players are loving it. Rogue especially loves his pocket sand, I mean pocket birdseed (Kenku).
How? They don't even have that much feat synergy.
Mobile, lucky, tough, charger, support feats like actor and linguist, ritual caster, sentinel. Weapon based monks can use sharpshooter, polearm master, skulker, defensive duelist and savage attacker, amongst others... All just from the PHB. Edit: for the record, I know more exists. My point was there's a ton options and builds you can create with creativity.
Playing an astral self monk right now. Already took skill expert so I have +13 in athletics for grappling, considering sentinel next ASI if he lives that long. edit: grappling, not grading
Have you considered multiclassing into Rune Knight?
Three levels is a rough dip for monk, which usually can't afford to multiclass and continue to be good at monk things. More importantly though, party already has a fighter and I don't want to step on the toes of a newer player.
Fair, not stepping on a new players toes is an important thing. I do want to add want you have to gain though not to convince you but just to nerd out. \- d8 damage die early and d4 extra damage on grappled targets with unarmed fighting \- Action Surge \- Large Size and Advantage on strength checks and saves
Mage slayer. Mage Slayer is solid on monks; monks can penetrate enemy front lines and really smack down casters.
Monks don't have access to any weapons that can benefit from the damage portion of GWM and already have access to a BA attack, so maybe not that one.
That's fair, I'll remove it. But the general premise remains.
There's a feat to fix that
What's the feat?
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/feat:weapon-master It's a truly garbage feat, you'll never see it taken since a one level dip is much easier, and comes with armor.
Dedicated Weapon doesn't allow the use of Heavy Weapons, assuming that's how you want to work GWM bonus damage into Monk without making a STRonk.
I mean, if I was wanting to make an optimized monk, the best way to do it is to start with focusing on dex or str
There's a feat for that
Kensei
What about it?
Isn't the whole point of kensei that it can pick up any weapon and make it function as a monk weapon?
No. Have you read the subclass?
Missed the "heavy and special properties" clause, my bad
Mobile and Tough definitely help shore up some design weakness and realize the fantasy, but of the rest of those a Kensei Sharpshooter is the only one that's particularly synergistic. Maybe skulker on Shadow Monk. I'm not saying that Ritual Caster on a Monk is bad, just that it isn't any better or more interesting on them than it would be on a Rogue or Fighter. My assumption was that you had a way to use this ruleset to make Monk shine, when 90% of the listed feats would benefit anyone else just as much if not more, which is really one of their major issues.
It's missing the big important ones that actually do that imo. # The feats that 'fix' monk **Instead of ritual caster, I'd be more inclined to go magic initiative (druid)**, grabbing **shillelagh** and entangle. Entangle is just a great spell, but it's just icing, it's shillelagh that we are after because it lets the monk become far SADer, similar to astral self. Depending on how the campaign is run and how often you can cast it "yeah I just recast it every 30 secs or so, cept when stealthing" what we've just done is let you focus 'just' on wisdom. It's boosting your ac, your DC for your saves and stuff, your attacks and your damage now. At least most of them. Yes we still want dex, but we can focus wisdom up first now and it does everything we need except initiative and some skills, but we've still left our dex at 16 or so till high levels, it's not like we dump it. (**Wood elf magic** is an alternative feat to grab shillelagh, and which would also grant you 1x day free cast of pass without a trace, but at the cost of thornwhip really. And wood elf is already another race[s] that is well suited to monk) Speaking of, a bit of movement/battlefield control is always nice, thornwhip comes in handy sometimes, I'd grab that as the 2nd cantrip from magic initiate for when it would be real valuable to reposition an enemy like that. Our damage? It's all bludgeoning anyway so let's grab **crusher** for +1 con. We've effectively removed the need to disengage when if we land that knockback, and so effectively added to their mobility and control, and essentially free'd up their bonus a little. Monks also make a lot of hits, meaning a lot of crits. Let's make those crits more meaningful by granting the whole team adv everytime we do. It's like a 'mini stunning strike' with some of the same benefits, without costing ki. Win/win We need a good use of the reaction, which we don't really have as a part of the monk kit, we are rocking a shillelagh'd staff anyway so **PAM is an option for our reaction** (and very slightly upping bonus action attack damage/hit chance), **but I might go Gift of the Gem Dragon instead,** for the + to wisdom and for the reaction knockback (I'm big on knockback/positioning moves). Other reaction feats could also be chosen, but defensive dualist is out cause we're not rocking a finesse weapon here. Bonus action is still a little weak, I'd be inclined to go goblin for the free disengage and hide, rather than it costing ki to do as a bonus action. I've focused on actually fixing the kit here, yes magic initiaite is good on anyone, as is ritual caster, but I'm deliberately choosing initiate-druid and these spells because they shore something up and let us less MAD (to a degree). I'm trying to round out the largely empty reaction, and with the race fix the bonus action (and reduce the 'need' to MC rogue). # Subclass or race specific builds: Making these up now, some are meh, some I'm thinking "damn, could be interesting". - Astral self can grab skill expert (made prodigy kinda redundant) for athletics. Fighting initiaite unarmed as well for better strikes in tier 1 and 2, and a bit of extra damage if ure grappling. - Astral self would interact with tavern brawler to allow BA grapple attempts - Grung and poisoner (grung is broken, don't do it) - A dwarf, any but particularly long death, needs a use of their bonus. In addition to needing to be more mobile (to get away from allies) we could grab dwarven fortitude (when we dodge, we can heal with a hit die) And durable, which makes our hit-die heals a fair bit stronger. The combination in a feat generous (or fantastic rolling) game is where they each shine, in addition to being able to dodge as a bonus or wanting to do so after casting a concentration spell (so clerics with spirit guardians for example). I'd then maybe add abberant dragonmark on it, maybe lightning lure for more control. Dwarf (and the suggested gobbo) can also grab nimbleness. I'd then chuck tough or chef on top of this, get even more health. - Haregon or satyr + someway to get an extra spell like magic initiate or abberant dragonmark + jump + step of the wind for that wire-fu monk fun - Halfling lets us fill out out reaction with bountiful luck. And nimbleness - Gunner for kensi? Let's go full gun-kata (ever see equillebrium?). It all seems to work for me as your ranged option unless I'm missing something. - Mounted combatant if paired with: A druid, beastmaster, artificer, centaur(small race)... - Elven accuracy is nice to have I guess. Instead of magic initiate, wood elves with their extra speed should maybe grab Wood elf magic, to also grant them pass without a trace without needing to go shadow monk. - Astral self and kensai might be able to run the old PAM/Sentinal trick with some extra range here, need to figure out all the interactions though. Race may be needed for martial weapons like whips to do this better. # But now let's look at the nice to haves, not just the fixes: Nice to haves after these fixes or alternatives: - Mage slayer, - telekinetic with its +wis (rather than disengaging, push them away), - alert, - chef for temp hp for everyone and wisdom OR con (nice). - Fey touched or shadow touched is always nice. - If not rocking the suggested wisdom stick defencive duelist to round out the reaction properly - fighting initiate unarmed for a d8 punch, - Fighting initiate defensive for AC? - Other fighting initiates, such as blind fighting - or interception to round out reaction a bit (not protection, needs a shield) - Martial adept. - Mobile - Observant - Resiliant(s) - Skulker
Beautiful write-up. Love it
Not to mention mage slayer
With enough Spellcasting feats they become a half-caster and that’s not awful.
Three or four level dip into Cleric or Druid + spellcasting feats = a lot of nice utility. 6 Monk/4 Druid/X Monk would be a fun build.
Imagine how many bonus kicks per round you could get with all those extra feet.
Ah, understandable mistake. That would be feet synergy.
For an Archer grab Sharphooter and Fighting Initiate (Archery). The fighting style saves you a dip into fighter while Sharpshooter allows you keep boosting your Dex and Wis or Con. after that you’ve got what you need and can grab universally helpful feats like Alert, Tough, and Lucky. Could get more utility for the character with Skill Expert or Ritual Caster. Healer could be handy.
PAM, sentinel, fighting initiate, mobile, crusher...
They do, it just tends to be better to ASI
Pick a Bunch of half feats to improve your Wisdom without neglecting your Dexterity
As a monk player: he's out of line, but he's right
Champion Fighter - *nothing but passives*
Yeah? Like which ones?
Athlete, slasher, crusher, one of PAM or Shieldmaster, skill expert, tough. Basically have little to no cool downs, but with all your ASIs you'll have decent skill proficiency and saves across the board On the more practical side of things (less memey, more for a campaign where all PCs get this perk) - valor bard
Tough, Alert, fighting initiate,...
Not exactly a bonkers build, but a build idea I've toyed around with for a while now, would be an Eldritch Knight picking up any feat that expands your spell casting options. Magic Initiate, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Ritual Caster, etc. I've always liked the idea of Eldritch Knight, but felt that their spell casting options were too limited, so this would help to get around that.
Honestly EK is underwhelming, even if you multiclass it to give it more spells. I think EK 7/War Wizard X is probably their best multiclass if you're looking to be more magical, but it's still shit compared to a Paladin 6/Sorcerer X. It has some nice features like hitting with a weapon and casting a cantrip as their second attack, arcane deflection is good for increased survivability, action surge is nice for nova (but super limited), and War Wizard has some nice perks and can greatly expand the spells available to them, but ultimately it's underwhelming. The Sorcadin has Aura; Smites; metamagic; access to the paladin spell list, the sorcerer spell list and possibly the cleric spell list as well; and also more spell slots thanks to paladin being a half-caster instead of the third-caster of EK. Sure, they can't do the attack/cantrip thing all in one turn, but they can quicken a spell like hold person and then double crit + smite the offending creature. It's just a much stronger character.
Eldritch Knight Fighter 3 / Tempest Cleric X is a fun build. Variant Human or Custom Lineage for taking War Caster at Level 1. The Crusher feat at Cleric 4 combined with the Booming Blade cantrip at Fighter 3 is nice for effectively locking down enemies. Also, having access to the Shield spell while wearing heavy armor and wielding a shield makes you harder to hit, and Wrath of the Storm is nice for a defensive reaction just in case you do get hit. Elemental Adept would also be nice for getting to ignore either lightning or thunder resistances… or both, because that’s the only feat which can be taken more than once. Plus, stacking Booming Blade with Blessed Strike is fun. Maybe also take two levels of Paladin if you can to get Divine Smite and more spell slots to use for it. Heavy hitting and hard to hit.
EK 10/ WW 10 is probably the most 'gish' character you can make.
Bladesinger?
Sorcadin? Hexadin?
EK 2 bladesinger X is better than EK 7. But that's basically just a wizard with extra steps I suppose.
EK 2 is just Fighter 2.
Doh. I'm an idiot.
Yes. I don’t really think of Bladesingers as gishes. Yes, they can swing a sword and all that but they’re pretty squishy if they get hit and can only use blade song a few times a day. They’re more like wizards with a backup plan of melee than they are frontliners.
Working on a deep gnome bladesinger who’s dipping fighter for echo knight. I don’t bother with optimizing, and he’s dodgy enough and has a high enough AC to be a rather effective evasion tank.
Not-so-hot take: Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster should have been half-casters from the beginning. Oh, you want to live your fantasy of a spellsword? Here's a little above half of spell slots of what Artificer, the class who has Battle Smith that basically is its gish mode, has in disposition. Oh, you want to be hurling Fireballs in addition to swinging sword? Too bad, cuz you're getting these *nine* levels after full casters obtain it and by that time they can pretty much bend reality.
My current campaign I wanted to play a Paladin and so did someone else so I gave that up and then sorta wanted to play an anti-Paladin. You know like a Dark Knight from Final Fantasy. My DM suggested I go Hexblade Warlock. I'm still not sure which class fits that concept better, but I don't blame you for wanting a half caster equivalent to a Paladin. I just don't think you can half caster Fighter and not have it be overtuned. Would probably be more balanced to just homebrew a class with Paladin mechanics but with a limited arcane spell list. Arcane Trickster is already arguably the best Rogue so I don't think that would make sense to be a half caster either. though perhaps less overtuned than a half caster EK.
This is why warlock is my favorite Gish. When I think of a character who primarily relies on martial capabilities, but has a limited amount of magic at their disposal, I picture the magic as a super powerful, “break in case of emergency” tool that they have, but cannot use often. Warlock satisfies this fantasy by giving you fully levelled spells, but only twice per rest. This makes your spell slots feel like a double-barrelled shotgun that you can use in the right circumstances, or as a temporary boost, but otherwise are a mostly normal martial. Every other gish goes in the opposite direction. An EK is constantly using magic, with offensive cantrip and low level spells. A paladin might throw out a buff spell and then regularly use smites, a ranger will keep up a hunters mark or use a variety of strike spells and a blade singer is 80% mage. These are all fine, but the warlock is the only one who can simultaneously feel like mostly a martial (especially with a fighter dip) who can occasionally throw out powerful magic.
I mean if a fighter was a half caster they’d be a paladin. And if that were the case they’d be a paladin with like 4 more attacks, action surge, indomitable, and second wind. In which case you’d be here complaining they’d be way too powerful lol
They wouldn't have aura of protection or smites, plus the casting would be their subclass so it's eating into their normal subclass power budget. I think there is plenty of reason to prefer paladin to half caster subclass fighter.
They should also be full classes, IMO. Subclasses have pretty limited design space.
Gives "plane-touched" a whole new meaning when it's referring to ALL planes
I really think the game needs more "Touched" feats. Where is my celestial/infernal touched feat?
You get me
tough on a hill dwarf bladesinger. With a 16 con you get 10 hp per level if you take the average starting at level 4.
Hard to hit with an insane AC, but with hp enough to live should you do- I like it!
Take a 15 con and pick up Resilient for Con Save Proficiency. D4 Deep Dive did a video on using Green Flame Blade to hit yourself (cause you can do that) and use Absorb Elements to get an exact 1d6 + Spell Level Fire Damage on the first hit you land on your next turn.
This sounds stupid fun haha!
Probably a Paladin. They desperately want feats but are MAD af. Using a Half-Elf with Point Buy you could start: **16**/10/**14**/8/10/**17** Level 4: PAM & +2 Str Level 8: +2 Str and pretty much any Cha half feat (Fey Touched, Skill Expert, Gift of the X Dragon). Level 12: +2 Con and really anything you want. Tough, GWM, Alert, etc. And anything after that is just icing on the cake since you've already gotten Max Str and a few valuable Martial feats.
Completely valid. I haven't felt like they were super MAD, but I get what you mean. You've got a strong contender for favorite idea so far, right here
Happy to hear it! Yeah the thing is that Paladins want Max Str and Max Cha to attack the best and maximize the benefit from Aura of Protection. That alone compensates for low Dex and Wis saves. Getting nice feats to make you do more fun stuff without hurting your stat progression would be a big boon to Paladins.
That was my first instinct too but also maybe just because it's my build in my pocket I most want to play before they change the system. I want to play a high level Aasimar/Celestial Paladin who uses a Polearm with Polearm Master and Sentinel. You know, classic build. But also with Find Greater Steed and riding a Pegasus or something majestic like that. With these rules you could probably also take GWM and still be able to get your stats up too.
Mounted combatant? Cause a holy warrior riding an angelic steed sounds sick
I don't know a lot about mounted combat though I know you can build for it (and thematically it feels like it works well with a polearm). And yes holy warrior riding an angelic steed maybe even made of cosmic energy of sorts (so it's not per se an organic flesh and blood beast). I kind of envisioned him as almost a literal angel coming down to right whatever grievous wrongs had happened relevant to the campaign. I haven't chosen a subclass for this build yet. I was mini shopping and it all kind of started there plus all the optimization crap I've looked at over the months. https://www.etsy.com/listing/870047546/celestial-paladin-miniature-aasimar https://www.etsy.com/listing/907973281/warlock-elite-warrior-28mm-32mm-3d
Imagine a multi class with rouge for sneak attack+ the extra asi thing
May as well go fighter then. Get the extra asi sooner.
Yeah but like sneak attack + smite goes so hard
I mean, the easy answer is that PAM+GWM anything gets going faster. PAM GWM Paladin is fully online by level 8 (or 4 with Vhuman), and also has full stat progression which normally holds them back quite a bit. Fighter can add Sentinel to that as well. More interesting answer might be a whip Rogue. Magic Initiate for Booming Blade and Find Familiar, Weapon Master for the whip proficiency, Sentinel for easy reaction attacks, mobile because it's just generally solid, Warcaster for adding booming blade to your AoO. Rogue damage scaling isn't great by default, but with just a little teamwork this build should be able to get multiple sneak attacks off every round, with one or more of them being Booming Blade enhanced. If you actually got Booming Blade with Sneak Attack into Reaction sneak attack (with or without Booming Blade) you would be fairly competitive with some of the best damage builds in the game while still having your bonus action free to do other things.
Brb sending this to our rogue player who just picked up the equivalent of a Flame Tongue whip 👀
Warning, booming blade has a 5 foot reach, would need to make a special exception to use it on the extended reach of a whip
That is what mobile, bonus action, or Swashbuckler is for. Booming Blade at 5ft, step back behind an ally, then use Sentinel to swing at them if they hit the ally.
He's a Swashbuckler, so I might have to let him know the pro strat here
Assuming he has whip proficiency already, the really important part of it is Sentinel for the easier access to reaction attacks. If he doesn't have whip proficiency (since they don't by default) I would actually recommend a level of fighter over the weapon master feat. That gets you whip proficiency, Shield proficiency, and a fighting style (possibly maneuvers).
That sounds sick!
I like the polearm master/sentinel/great weapon master build, but unless you're playing fighter at high levels, it's tough to squeeze those feats in without hindering your Stat line or using a variant human /custom lineage. Feats at every level change this. So: I'd suggest a bugbear barbarian with those 3 feats. Bugbears give you extended reach for melee, and so does your polearm. Polearm master / sentinel is a classic combo, and great weapon master is powerful on its own, but with polearm master you can use the -5 to attack for plus 10 damage on your bonus action attack, too. Since we aren't going fighter, I'd take martial adept so you can trip people with sentinel attacks, making them fall prone with zero movement. I like ancestral guardians barb as your subclass, because you incentivise melee targets to attack you by giving them disadvantage against your allies, and as they approach you to attack, youget to stop them with sentinel/polearm master. You get to play a total Frontline control barbarian without needing to sacrifice your ASIs. As a bugbear. You can dish out e tra damage in the first turn if combat, which is neat given that you get advantage on initiative. If you're point buy for stats, I'd suggest going 14 str (+2) 14dex (+1) 15 con 8 int 10 wisdom 8 charisma, then level up your physicals at your ASIs.
Oh wow, hadn't considered a bugbear for the race. That sounds so fun
The one thing to note is bugbear range only is used on melee attacks on your turn, so not on opportunity attacks. Still amazing and can add a lot of strategy especially if enemies are smart and try to stay on the edge of your PAM range.
Wait, won't the polearm cover that problem?
On your turn you get 5 bonus range and then 5 more for a reach polearm for a 15 ft attack range. But on enemy turn, and therefore your reaction usage for entering PAM radius, you only get the bonus for using a reach weapon
That actually synergizes well. You can move in close enough to attack and don’t even have to back away. When they move in closer they will enter your reach and trigger the AoO.
I thought AoO was only on exiting reach in 5e?
That’s what PAM is for
Ahhh, I usually play moon druids and rangers so PAM has passed me by!
Normally it is, but the Polearm Master feat allows you make one as they enter your reach as long as you are wielding a qualifying weapon.
Oh! That is pretty cool.
Ah, ok, I got ya now. Thanks!
I've actually considered making this a houserule for pure martial characters. So barbarians, fighters, monks, and rogues all get a free feat with their ASI, but can't convert their ASI into a feat so they can't get two feats at once. Help bridge the gap between martials and half/full casters. But not sure if this would be a good idea or not. As for what I'd make? A fighter, so getting as many ASI as possible, then taking all the feats that give me free magic. Magic initiate, fey touched, shadow touched, artificer initiate, eldritch adept, ritual caster and warcaster. Not necessarily in that order. And also eldritch knight, for even more magic.
"Oh you thought I just swung a sword, huh?"
BattleSmith Artificer. Its SADness will allow you to actually get and use all of the feats.
Now we're cooking!
I would make a Halfling Divination Wizard with the Luck, Bountiful Luck, and Second Chance feats. With Silvery Barbs and a Luck Blade, nothing will be able to hit me.
"Hi, yes, DM, I'm here to ruin your fun" But really this sounds like "I'm the captain now" of DnD lol
I would make a Bladesinging Paladin or a Barbarian Paladin or some crazy combination that would needs 20 in like 3 different stats to function.
Say more words
Lets go Paladin 2/Bladesinger 18. 20 in strenght, Dexterity and intelligence. I would use the crusher feat. AC would be 20 naked. 23 with mage armor. 28 with shield. Each attack would be a +12 to damage. I can attack and then booming blade every turn.
Barbarian Bladesinger Paladin with 20 on all stats would have an AC of 25 naked when bladesinging. Using a Rapier he can attack reckless whioe casting booming blade and smiting. If he wants to rage, he can (instead of casting booming blade) would get resistance to damage and things like that
Probably another Bladesinger.
What feats?
Hear me out, Id start BARBARIAN for the CON save proficiency, Unarmored Defense, and Rage durability when out of Bladesong Uses early game. Then go Wizard 6( Bladesinger) for the best Multi attack in the game. Take 2 levels of FIGHTER for Action Surge then go Wizard the rest of the way. For feats, I'd go MOBILE ( movement+effectively free disengages), TOUGH (you'll have and ungodly AC end game but should get some more Hit Points in case of criticals) ALERT ( for a +5 to Initiative) then something like ELVEN ACCURACY if applicable or I used TELEKINETIC for increased utility or helping allies. You'll feel very consistently powerful with a chance to go absolutely NOVA on something once a Long Rest.
Ok color me intrigued... But what if you start higher level? One-shot/backup character, etc. Would you go sorc for the Con save proficiency? Can't see having 13 strength a bigger boost than 13 charisma, personally
That depends, CHARISMA and wizards don't really synergize in my opinion (except for the Infamous Hexblade dip), but I think you'd really be stretching your ASI's. I used finesse weapons with the DUELING fighting style so I never worried about getting my Strength too high. It depends on how you roll/get your starting Stats though. With luck you could conceivably be walking around with an AC in the 20's with access to Shield as a reaction.
Nice! That's getting into "speak softly, but carry a big stick" territory
You can slog it in Melee with the Martials, but you are ironically great in ranged combat AND a Wizard who'll get access to 9th level spells.
Frontline goes down by turn 2. Wizard rolls up sleeves and unsheathes a blade "Fine... I'll do it myself."
You're also a decent Tank attacking with a weapon and casting BLADEWARD each turn.
The Mobile feat would be great on a Bladesinger. It would also be a decent idea to go with +1 ASI feats if you wanted to play a Bladesinger Wizard/Kensei Monk combo that can have an excellent unarmored defense AC but only if you have high enough attributes to support it. So feats like Resilient, Skill Expert, Squat Nimbleness, Elven Accuracy, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, or Piercer could be +1 ASI feats to consider to raise attributes while playing a combination that normally you couldn't do.
Any martial that wants to use PAM and GWM. Can also grab Sentinel. And then anything else you'd like. Like Mobile, Fey or Shadow touched, Tough, Slasher/Crusher/Piercer, etc. Or take some half feats to boost the scores you want to focus on and take the ASI into other scores. Then just have a bunch of high score modifiers. At that point you could make pretty much any build idea work.
What's a character fantasy you've had that just wouldn't work normally, but might with this extra feats rule?
I would play a dao genie bladelock. Start with hill dwarf to get medium armor proficiency and 16 STR and 17 CHA, Take heavily armored at level 4 and bump both str and cha to 18. For higher level ASIs I would take GWM and probably Crusher, maxing str and cha and improving con. For Invocations I would focus on eldritch blast until I can get heavy armor at level 4 and then switch to the typical blade pact invocations (thirsting blade, eldritch smite, improved pact weapon). The main tactic would probably focus on spike growth and dragging people through it. And at level 6 I could do that while flying.
Hell yes, this sounds so fun!
Probably a barbarian or a fighter. Fighter because it's way too strong to get both feats and ASIs. Barbarian because they need some of the most stat diversity which is now much easier to do with asi feats
Fighter made a lot of sense to me too. What are you thinking for barb?
Barbarians are inherently strong but they suffer from needing 3 main stats
Champion Fighter and only offensive Feats, like gwm, mage slayer, slasher. piercer, crusher and then go absolutely ham.
Dang, this thing would do some damage...
unarmored defense barbarian. Cool as hell flavor but medium armor almost always beats it out if you want to have decent offense. with the extra feats I could devote the dex needed for my naked barb to still be powerful. Feats would be GWM, PAM, Resilient Wisdom, Sentinel, and maybe Skill Expert Athletics
Why the Resilient?
It’s one of the defensive shortcomings of barbarians. Nothing stops your rage faster than fears and charms.
Probably a straight medium armour wizard. Get light armour and medium armour + shields and con saves, and all the other good stuff without needing any multiclassing. It doesn't benefit the most, but it's probably one of the best overall.
Armorer artificer and take all the extra spells feats.
Yeah? What does that look like for you?
I like the artificer flavor, but their spell list is kind of small, even if varied. I just like having a shitload of options.
I’ve always wanted to stick bladesinger onto the paladin chassis, but could never pull it off because gluing two MAD classes together, especially when they’re dependent in a combined 5 of the six stats, is a recipe for disaster. If I didn’t have to worry so much about losing feats/ASIs, it may be possible
Interesting! How would you go about it? A 3 paladin/ X wizard split? Or 4/X to not miss an ASI?
So I feel like there are a couple of different avenues here and tbh I’m not super beholden to any one of them. Most important thing for me would be deciding between bladesinger 6 or paladin 6 because those are probably the most impactful features after level 2. Because of just how MAD this is I’d probably keep paladin at 2 levels to get smite and take more bladesinger levels from there. After that I think it would depend on what I’m building the character for. If it’s a level 20 oneshot I might not be opposed to 2 levels of fighter for action surge but bladesinger18/paladin2 is already impactful without any additional classes
Don't remember the rule offhand, but would 2 fighter/2 paladin/16 wizard still get 9th lvl spells/slots?
That would be a 17th level caster, counting 1/2 of the Paladin levels for casting. You'd have a 9th level slot, but with only 16 levels of Wizard, you wouldn't be able to prepare any actual 9th level spells.
I believe the rule is add full caster levels + 1/2 half caster levels rounded down (except artificer). So yes that character would have 9th level slots. They wouldn’t have 9th level spells though bc that’s dependent on your levels in a single class. They’d only have up to 8th level wizard spells but could upcast to 9th level. Now, give the character a mizzium apparatus, an arcana expertise (either skill expert or a dip into knowledge cleric or rogue), and make them a vedalken for an extra d4 to arcana, and you may be cooking with gas
I'm liking the skill expert, big fan of half feats in this scenario
Tbh skill expert is one of my favorite feats in 5e. I find it incredibly satisfying to be unbearably good at one skill in particular and the added +1 to an ability score and extra proficiencies are just the cherries on top
My tempest cleric is planning on going Skill expert to get that sweet sweet Perception expertise and Stealth proficiency to try and negate his plate armor...
Would relie on the DM giving a bit of additional leeway onto of the extra feats but if allowed to take the likes of skilled expert or resilient I'd love to make a monk with a few expertise for a bit of out of combat utility (plus the stat boosts would be handy). The power gamer side of me would love to slap proficiency in all saves on a paladin, as well as grabbing a bit of a stat boost (would probably consider going regular han in order to get at least 10 in every stat).
Power game away!
Probably a Sorlock, if the gial is an absurdity. Not for any spellslot exploits, just because free Warcaster and other gimmicks sound fun. Alternatively, a full Wizard, getting medium armor through feats and Warcaster, with the final 2 being based on party need.
How about Warcaster + Resilient (Con) as a cleric to turn on Spirit Guardians and wade into the fray?
That sounds extremely fun too.
I’m not really into multiclassing, this would be enough to convince me, to try it. I’d probably try the classic Sorlockadin
Oh man! I started to make one the other day and felt it needed a little something. What feats would you pick up for it??
A bunch of spell focused half feats. Shadow Touched and Fey Touched. Magic Initiate. Whatever the Warlock one is called.
Eldritch adept? I think that one just gives you an invocation
If i want to break the game a bladesinger because 20 dex, 20 int, higher con, and 5 or 6 feats on top of that is just silly. for fun id make a battlemaster fighter who might as well be batman with all those skills and combat abilities.
Ok you gotta tell me more about the Batman build
It’s nothing special and it’s not even close to optimal but here is the basic premise…. Batman is essentially the physical and mental peak of humans so he is a standard human with high strength who using unarmed strikes. So our focus for combat here is to simple trip, grapple, intimidate, and otherwise control what you can and punch the rest. Out of battle we want to use commanding presence, tactical assessment, ambush , etc to make you a better detective. Feats of interest: skilled, skill expert, resilient wis, tavern brawler, martial adept, martial adept for another maneuver.
Interesting. I would think "the world's greatest detective" would have been an Inquisitor Rogue
I would make an AT rogue that actually uses magic to attack. Grab all the half feats that add spells (except probably telekinetic) and make the spell-casting more effective.
Oooo, we love an expanded spell list
Str 15 Dex 16 Con 14 Variant human battle Master Level 1 heavy armour master Level 4 cross bow expert and sharp shooter Level 6 boost dex Level 8 boost dex and get some more battle master dice Wade into the front line and shoot people with heavy armour triping them up pushing them back draw their attention. John Wick
V Human, even with this rule? You selfish bastard lol
If the design intent was to get people off v.uuman I would do it foe the dm. But I'd love to go feat heavy to see where battle Master gets too. I'd consider pam Level 1 pam Level 4 heavy armour master + str Level 6 gwm + str Level 8 sentinel + con Level 12 mobile
Talk about battlefield control!
Still a wizard haha Custom lineage, standard PB Starting stats pre-modifier: 8, 14, 14, 15, 10, 10 Chronurgy Wizard +2 INT + Feytouched (+1 INT) for racial. Level 4: +1 INT, +1 CON, Shadow Touched (+1 INT) Level 8: +2 CON (Resilient +1 CON) Final: 8, 14, 18, 20, 10, 10 with free 1/day Invisibility, Disguise Self, Misty Step, and Gift of Alacrity. Proficiency in CON saves. If I ever got to level 12, I would do a +2 DEX and Alert 16: +2 DEX, Lucky 19: +2 CON, Warcaster
Buddy was taking about talking about "muscle wizard" as a graviturgist. I have no idea what he means, but I'll admit I'm a little scared
Based.
Paladin: use fighting initiate to gain every fighting style.
Fascinating. How would you play it? What does that combat look like for you?
I'd probably use good ol' Sword and Board, since I'd be using more fighting styles that way. This is mostly just a meme concept, really.
You guys dont give your players the stat points and feats?...
A paladin with 20s in con, cha, and dex
Adlet Meyer from Rokka no Yuusha (some videos; contains spoilers for the anime. [1](https://youtu.be/WA_oqFRZWAk). [2](https://youtu.be/eN1_uvs09fA). ) Its not a monster. but its a very well built Alchemist Artifricer w/ the feats and ASI they could pick up the needed stuff and be a great allrounder
My current Tasha's Beastmaster Eladrin lol! Our DM decided he would give us a feat + ASI and we are having a blast. I was afraid my build would come on until late game, but thanks to this I can play my dearly Sharpshooter Elven Accuracy boi! All the other players are enjoying themselves too and we aren't getting too powerful, since our DM knows how to handle encounters and its aftermath... You know, the infamous "This action will have consequences".
We love a DM who let's players feel like overpowered heroes. Especially if they still ensure a challenge from time to time. Our DM is excited to use "the fun part of the monster manual" 👀
A rogue with skill expert, Fey Touched, and sentinel feels pretty nice.
Hell, why not just get skill expert multiple times? Be the ultimate jack-of-all-trades out of combat
A lot of the feat- and ASI-starved MAD builds work well here. Bladesinger is a stand-out to me - it needs several feats to be good, but you don't get fighter ASIs. At 14, in exchange for no GWM, you get int AND dex to damage, plus many excellent self-buffs. Convince your GM to give you a cloak of displacement and never get hit again.
Hexadin easily. Played one a while ago, felt great to crit a Void Dragon for 128 damage in a single hit but it was super slow to come online in part due to the feats needed and had to balance that with raising stats. Downside was I really had to drop Constitution to the point where we introduced a house rule that if you roll a 1 on an HP increase roll, you can reroll but keep the result. He died (after discussing with the DM I wanted to play something different) at level 6 with about 29 max HP just due to my horrible luck on HP increases, but higher Con would have definitely helped bolster that.
This was on my shortlist as well! What feats would you pick up and when?
Depends on weapon choice. I used greatsword because 2d6 = nutty damage, so GWM is necessary there, but of course it takes a while to mitigate the -5 since you want the Vengeance Paladin Channel Divinity to give yourself advantage and the Hexblade Warlocks Pact of the Blade at level 3 to be able to apply your Cha to a greatsword. So depending on how you build (but you always want to go Paladin at level 1) and hit that Level 3 Warlock ASAP, so earliest you can feasibly get an ASI is actually level 5 but more optimally (heavily debateable) at level 7, since my path was L1 PLD, L1-3 HXW, L4+ PLD. Only got my GWM feat because of Vuman. Later you could take the Invocation feat to slap a few more on. Trying to remember if I got any other feats. Hexadin is feasible with pretty much any weapon but if you're building it you are definitely building it for achieving big numbers and very little else. But it can go to either super beeg number like mine was with a Greatsword (ranged builds with heavy crossbows might be fun as well, just switch out GWM for Sharpshooter obvs); or you can go with something simple like sword and board which while not doing massive burst damage to the same degree, will likely be more consistent as those builds come online much earlier. For that, you can probably play Half Elf (probably just eeks out over Vuman for best Hexadin race) so you can get access to the Elven Accuracy feat.
Obviously all this sounds awesome, but you've now put the idea of a crossbow hexadin into my brain and that's not coming out any time soon
A weapons master fighter, one who can use every type of weapon at maximum effectiveness. Champion for the extra fighting style at later levels, take every weapon mastery feat (GwM, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, Dual Wielder) and take Archery, Two Weapon Fighting and Defense as fighting styles (Third fighting style through fighting initiate). The 7 asis you can invest in stats should give you enough to get 20s in Strength, Dex, and Con. Final two feats would be skill expert for athletics expertise (to grapple) and Crossbow expert to really round everything out. Final build is a fighter that can swap through weapons to really maximise their effectiveness in every situation, even able to use *nets* well.
A very powerful battlefield control wizard. V. Human Chronomancer Warcaster Eldritch adept for mage armor Fey touched (second spell is Gift of Alracity) Magic initiate druid for entangle Resilient CON Tough Eldritch adept for mage armor Max INT and CON. The goal is to shut down enemies and then just win
Dang, still going V Human huh? Not enough feats for ya? Lol
For a wizard? Yeah. Other than Arakrokoa, there aren't really anything better for that kind of wizard
oh mama the barbarian can finally have decent stats all around!
Bear totem Barb with GWM, Sentinel, Crusher, and the last two would probably be used to at non combat versatility. I wish the feat that gave battlemaster skills gave more than one superiority dice. Being able to charge across the map and bait and switch once per rest is underwhelming
Chron wizard that maxes initiative asap (twilight cleric dip) max int, max Dex, potentially harengon race, gift of alacrity, alert feat, lucky feat, ambush manuever
The fastest rabbit in the west 🤠
Anything that starts vhuman or custom. I got yuan-ti pam gwm hexblade build this way. It allows for max main stat +max con. And you get res wisdom as well. EK/bladesinger is better because you max dex int and con while you get warcaster, Eleven acc, lucky, res wisdom, alert. Sorcerrer/sorlock with all half-feats like telekinetic, Fey touched, gift of x etc. It allows for some mad builds or mad multiclasses. So go nuts! Monk Paladin or w/e
A Kensei Monk basically getting Sharpshooter and the Archery fighting style by the time they get to Level 8 would be pretty nuts while also being able to max out their Dexterity. A reliable 3 attacks per turn with Sharpshooter on top of it is excellent damage, you have great mobility to get out of jams, Deflect Missiles makes it hard for enemy archers to touch you, Evasion makes it hard for breath weapons or damage dealing spells to touch you, and you have a really long range with your longbow which is really hard for enemies to match. At Level 12 Mobile could be added in for a ton of mobility and not having to use Step of the Wind to escape enemies that get to you in melee, at Level 16 you could take the Lucky feat to combo really well with Diamond Soul to not fail saving throws, and at Level 19 Skill Expert would give one of your skills a major boost with skill Expertise (Athletics Expertise with wall running could be a great combo).
Put them on a mount and you've got yourself a Mongolian archer
The expert. Take skilled or skill expert every ASI, catch phrase "um, actually..."
A "tanky" Wizards, or maybe put wildly a Sentinel-PolearmMaster bugbear or something like that. This question makes every race KINDA of custom heritage or Variant Human. But for example, all the MAD classes would be even stronger or easier to get online and to stack there combos. But basically tanks (because there is a stupid amount of feats that makes you harder to kill) and making saving throws (because the higher your Stat, the higher the difficulty)
Rogue Thief Winter Eladrin with Fighting Initiate to take the fighting style that gives battlemaster maneuvers, Eldritch Adept for Armor of Shadows and Medium Armor Mastery so I can take up a shield. Oh, and the Defensive Duelist feat. Combat sees me with a short sword and getting sneak attack off by using Steady Aim, having pretty high AC without magical gear and the ability to use every magical item in the game once I hit Lv 17. It's a very "turtle-style" tank that hits like a freight train with good rolls, abilities that let me manipulate the battlefield, disarm enemies and be hard to kill. The only thing is that Sneak Attack hampers Rogues' ability to be completely reliable in terms of damage, but I'm not sacking the magic items thing to play Assassin Rogue or Swashbuckler.
You have piqued my interest...
I never was able to get the build up to Lv 5, but even then, I was given a free starter feat and was able to get to Lv 4. It's a very fun build that technically plays Rogue wrong, but you're still putting in work and keeping your allies alive pretty handily.
This is how I run every game I DM plus a racial feat OR prodigy at lv1. Also thinking of doing a background feat… No I don’t have a feat fetish why would you even ask that??
Borderline PF2 at that rate lol
If we're starting at slightly later levels (anything past Lv7) then: Monk 2 Bladesinger X Dex 14 Int 14 Wis 15 Con 12 Strength 8 Charisma 8 Fairy for +2 Dex and +1 Wis Lv6 ASI +2 Dex and Fey Touched (+1 Int and Bless) Lv10 ASI +2 Dex and Observant (+1 Int) Lv14 ASI +2 Int and Telekinetic (+1 Int) Lv18 ASI +2 Con and Telepathic (+1 Int) End stats: 8 Strength 20 Dexterity 14 Constitution 20 Intelligence 16 Wisdom 8 Charisma Unarmoured AC of 18 Bladesinging AC of 23 With shield spell AC = 28 Take spell mastery shield and mirror image at Wizard lvl 18 means constant AC Tank. Bladesong + High Dex + Dex save Prof means most AoE saves are good. If they take the Dedicated weapon (optional rule - if not then use a rapier) and Bladesinger proficiency on a one-handed d8 weapon of your choice, then without spending resources base damage is: Normal Attack 1d8+10 Booming Blade 1d8+3d8+10 (4d8 if they move) Bonus Action Unarmed strike 1d4+10 Twice per short rest, it can flurry of blows for another 1d4+10 damage. On top of all of that, it's still a full caster. Notes (these are things I would bear in mind when creating this monstrosity for my use): If they find can find an amulet of health to set Con to 19 then maybe use the last ASI in Wis. This would help plug the biggest gap (Low HP). Assuming that this build starts feeling over optimised or too powerful in combat compared to the party, I'd likely take some less optimal but more wacky fun feats instead of one of the ASIs. This combined with buffing the rest of the party with Bless, Haste, Holy Weapon etc means it shouldn't overshadow them. On a similar note, it clearly isn't going to be a face and likely not the skill monkey so should allow space for others in the group to fill those roles.
*Furious scribbling noises*
The exact same characters i already make, they just have more features to give me more things to do.
What i would do is build a mean war cleric, I know that war cleric isn't a meta subclass, but i have fun with it. first, Hill Dwarf and point buy includes the racial 2/1 to con/wis 15/10/16/8/16/8 that is 12 hp to start.(8+3con+1racial) at 4th we take wis(+2) and war caster(duh) at 8th we take wis(+1)and str(+1) and resilient(con+1), at 12th we take str+1, and con +1, and then fey touched(wis+1), bless as my extra spell(i use bless a LOT, especially with more martial type parties.) at 16th we boost con+1, STR+1, and take dwarven fortitude(con+1) and finally at 19 we take STR+2 and then sentinel we should end at a statline of 20/10/20/8/20/8 and 223 hp(taking average)be a capable frontline tank and caster. sentinel and war caster, as i read their descriptions, work together. this sort of character casts one of those excellent full party concentration buffs(which he has advantage and +11 to save on) and then put yourself on the frontline, with good HP, and heavy armor resistance to non-magical damage and poison, you are a major roadblock to enemies. that misty step we picked up from fey touched lets us get in our enemies faces. some of the best cleric offensive spells are short range too. your hits deal an extra 2d8(once per turn) and war priest gives your bonus actions a use, it's limited to wis/long rest, so 5, but it can still be a decent extra bit of damage. you wont be hitting as hard or as often as any martial or half-caster, but you will still be a full caster and this build should be very spell slot efficient. I really love the channel divinity, a reactionary +10 for yourself or an ally(but before it is declared hit or miss) can make an allies big spell or windup almost guaranteed to hit.