character build: charisma, the super stat

[Vhaluus]

to explain this build a bit I was having a conversation with a friend who claimed charisma was the worst stat in this edition except when used to cast spells. Leaving aside the rp necessity argument I disagreed and said if anything it is probably the strongest stat and I would put together a build that exploits it to it's utmost to prove it.

Stats were rolled, and I rolled extremely well with him as a witness and he said it was fine for the challenge.

Now I'll note that this build is intended to be RAW, if you don't think the build makes sense RP wise that is fine but tbh it's not relevant to this exercise. Where RAW is ambiguous I will be using the ruling my DM gives me on the matter, you may disagree but again it won't be relevant to this exercise.

Now on to the build:

Name: Charismo the Charismatic
Race: Human (alternate rule variant)
Starting class: Bard
Starting stats:
STR: 11
DEX: 17 (+1 from human to 18)
CON: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 8
CHA:18 (+1 from feat, +1 from human to 20)
Skills: athletics(bard), persuasion(bard), perception(bard), deception(criminal), stealth(criminal), insight(human)
Feats: Actor (CHA+1, advantage on charisma(deception), can mimic speech

Total level spread: 9 Bard/6 Paladin/5 Warlock

Features:

Bard (Lore College):
Bardic inspiration
Jack of all trades
song of rest
expertise(deception, persuasion)
Cutting words
Additional magical secrets (shillelagh, something else)
9 caster levels

Paladin(devotion):
Lay on hands
great weapon fighting
3 caster levels
extra attack
aura of protection (cha to all save)
sacred weapon (cha to attack roll for 1 minute)

Warlock(old one blade pact):
Lifedrinker (RAW has been interpreted as using character level)
mask of many faces
agonizing blast (can instead be devils sight if you wish to use darkness spell to good effect or repelling blast for more crowd control in combat)

Feats:
+2 dex
polearm master
sentinel
mage slayer

features:
1:Combination of disguise self unlimited times per day and double proficiency deception at advantage rolls make this the ultimate spy. Use friend cantrip to add to this when suited.
2:All attacks made using charisma for attack and damage, charisma added a second time to damage, for 1 minute per short rest charisma added a second time to attack roll
3:charisma added to all saves
4: charisma added to eldritch blast to give a ranged attack
5: mage armor, armor of agathys, and polearm master + sentinel + mage slayer makes for extremely tanky front line fighter despite no armor

Any advice on how to improve this build, in particular it's use of charisma, even further?

[Caelic]

Concerns:

1. The build lacks the necessary stats for multiclassing. To multiclass into Paladin requires a Strength of 13.
2. The build's going to cap out at 12th level spell slots--not necessarily a deal-breaker, if you're not looking to be primarily a spellcaster, but something to consider.
3. A little bit of a nitpick, since it's not a huge part of the build, but Friends seems extremely counterproductive to your "ultimate spy" setup, since after a minute the target will automatically become hostile. Given how unlikely it is that you're ever going to blow a Deception check, using a spell which bypasses your Deception and goes straight to "hostile" doesn't make much sense from my perspective.
4. In which order will you take levels to get the maximum overall benefit over the course of the character's lifespan? There are a lot of things in here that you want as early as possible--those great Paladin saves aren't of much benefit if they don't show up until after you've already blown a life or death save! Given that you can't get Lifedrinker until 12th level, it probably makes sense to hold off on Warlock until later in the build...so maybe Bard 4/Paladin 6/Warlock 2 as your first 12 levels?


Suggestions:
1. Make sure Enhance Ability is on your spell list; advantage to ALL Charisma checks is a nice complement to the build.


I've been working on a similar build, but I think yours is overall mechanically smoother and more efficient at this point; I hadn't considered the use of a quarterstaff with Polearm Master. Good catch.

[Giant2005]

There isn't really much point in putting so much effort into making your melee attacks competent when they still don't match up to your Eldritch Blast and you can't combine the two actions.
It might be worth dropping your Bard levels to 2 and taking 7 levels of Eldritch Knight so you can get War Magic and actually have a purpose to the dual combat styles.

Actually you might be better off just ditching Bard completely in favour of Sorcerer. You don't actually need Shillelagh as you have a Dex of 20 anyway and Mage Armor (I assume that is the second spell from Additional Magic Secrets, otherwise you don't have access to it) can be made permanent by A Draconic Bloodline. The Metamagic and superior spell list is more beneficial than what Bard brings to the table and that Draconic Bloodline will make your smite of choice more powerful assuming you are using Smites.

[hymer]

3. A little bit of a nitpick, since it's not a huge part of the build, but Friends seems extremely counterproductive to your "ultimate spy" setup, since after a minute the target will automatically become hostile. Given how unlikely it is that you're ever going to blow a Deception check, using a spell which bypasses your Deception and goes straight to "hostile" doesn't make much sense from my perspective.

The concept is to use Disguise Self to appear as someone else, and then cause the subject of your Friends to become hostile towards the person you're pretending to be.
And you can recast Friends a few times if you need more than a minute.

[Caelic]

And you can recast Friends a few times if you need more than a minute.


I don't think that would really work. The second you cast a new Friends spell, the old one ends. The second the old one ends, the creature becomes hostile. Once the creature's hostile, advantage on Charisma checks is going to be of limited utility, depending on the circumstances.

As I said, though, really a minor nitpick.

My own build focuses more on Eldritch Blast, and I agree with Giant that it might be more efficient to do this; after all, Eldritch Blast automatically scales to the point where you effectively get four attacks with it. On the other hand, I don't see any way to double or triple-dip Charisma damage on it (I was hoping for an Energy Substitution metamagic, so I could use it with a Draconic sorcerer, but no joy.)

[MadBear]

Just a friendly warning. As an exercise, you're kinda helping prove your friends point. If you take out the RP aspect, you've then removed all the associated skills (deception, persuasion). Now, of what's left, much of it comes directly from spells.

Shillelagh- a spell
mask of many faces- a spell like ability coming from a magic using class
eldritch blast- a spell
mage armor- spell
armor of agathys- spell

Now bonuses, you've gotten that don't come from spells:
- charisma to saves

Now none of this isn't to say that charisma isn't good and useful, but if you're making this character to disprove his "charisma is only good for spellcasters" you've kinda proven his point. Almost all of the utility you have there is coming from spells.

Now, with that said, a Paladin/Rogue inquisitor type character could probably make great use of charisma (skills, saves, paladin abilities), while being mostly non-magical.

As to the actual character. Looks solid. I don't think he's tanky enough to be a front line guy (17AC + 5 temporary hitpoints + medium constitution won't compare to a normal martial tank).

[hymer]

I don't think that would really work. The second you cast a new Friends spell, the old one ends. The second the old one ends, the creature becomes hostile. Once the creature's hostile, advantage on Charisma checks is going to be of limited utility, depending on the circumstances.

I guess you're right. Makes me think Friends might actually do well for Intimidate uses (which is sorta weird, but hey). If someone really hates your guts anyway, there's no downside to Friends or Intimidate.

[Vhaluus]

There isn't really much point in putting so much effort into making your melee attacks competent when they still don't match up to your Eldritch Blast and you can't combine the two actions.
It might be worth dropping your Bard levels to 2 and taking 7 levels of Eldritch Knight so you can get War Magic and actually have a purpose to the dual combat styles.

Actually you might be better off just ditching Bard completely in favour of Sorcerer. You don't actually need Shillelagh as you have a Dex of 20 anyway and Mage Armor (I assume that is the second spell from Additional Magic Secrets, otherwise you don't have access to it) can be made permanent by A Draconic Bloodline. The Metamagic and superior spell list is more beneficial than what Bard brings to the table and that Draconic Bloodline will make your smite of choice more powerful assuming you are using Smites.

Well the Eldritch blast does slightly less damage at 20 on average and you can't get your attack bonus nearly as high.

As for your point about shillelagh it is well taken. The other option is to take paladin as level 1, wear full plate, switch my dex score into con, my con score into str (to fulfill the requirement it was pointed out I missed) and have a low dex.

I did consider the draconic bloodline and had it in some versions of the build. However I missed mage armor not being on the spell lists for bard or warlock, that is annoying.

[Vhaluus]

Just a friendly warning. As an exercise, you're kinda helping prove your friends point. If you take out the RP aspect, you've then removed all the associated skills (deception, persuasion). Now, of what's left, much of it comes directly from spells.

Shillelagh- a spell
mask of many faces- a spell like ability coming from a magic using class
eldritch blast- a spell
mage armor- spell
armor of agathys- spell

Now bonuses, you've gotten that don't come from spells:
- charisma to saves

Now none of this isn't to say that charisma isn't good and useful, but if you're making this character to disprove his "charisma is only good for spellcasters" you've kinda proven his point. Almost all of the utility you have there is coming from spells.

Now, with that said, a Paladin/Rogue inquisitor type character could probably make great use of charisma (skills, saves, paladin abilities), while being mostly non-magical.

As to the actual character. Looks solid. I don't think he's tanky enough to be a front line guy (17AC + 5 temporary hitpoints + medium constitution won't compare to a normal martial tank).

you have some valid points, however the nature of the conversation was more about charisma being used as the caster stat itself, wheras at least most of what you listed is using charisma in other ways.

Armor of Agathys can be cast at higher levels to be much more effective and as I said in another post I am considering taking paladin as the first level and going full plate instead to fix the armor, which then allows my constitution to be 18

[Vhaluus]

incidentally if you did want to focus on Eldritch blast the most powerful way I've found so far (and credit to a reddit thread for the initial idea) is basically this:

3 assassin/2 fighter/2 warlock/ 3 sorc (these are your minimums, haven't worked out the full build)

get a surprise round to take advantage of assassin.

Cast 1 Eldritch blast
Cast 2nd Eldritch blast with surge
Cast 3rd Eldritch Blast with Quicken using bonus action
Controversial but depending on DM ruling cast 1 and 2 can be twincast to cast again at another target.

Since you have assassin in that surprise round all those automatically crit and all are cast at advantage.

You could implement a lot of the other features my build had ontop of this if you wanted to.

This is probably mechanically stronger, but I do like the idea of a bladelock better conceptually myself which may be why I tried so hard to make it good.

[Vhaluus]

I've been working on a similar build, but I think yours is overall mechanically smoother and more efficient at this point; I hadn't considered the use of a quarterstaff with Polearm Master. Good catch.

Polearm master + war caster is another possibility that allows you to respond to anyone getting close to you with an Eldritch blast to the face, though I didn't include it in this build.

[HorridElemental]

Polearm master + war caster is another possibility that allows you to respond to anyone getting close to you with an Eldritch blast to the face, though I didn't include it in this build.

Hmmm I wonder if friends works for this combo Lol.

Does warcaster mention an attack roll? Friends with this combo would be hilarious messed up.

If it does say attack roll... I bet eventually there will be a way to make save spells become attack rolls....

[SSGW Priest]

Okay, I get we're talking optimization and RAW, but how from a story perspective does a Paladin who then makes a pact with an Old One maintain his status as a Paladin? Would not the oath to the Old One abrogate the oath taken as a Paladin? Like wise, how could you--from a story perspective--transition from a Warlock with a pact with an Old One to a Paladin without abrogating the pact with the Old One? Unless you're playing the Paladin as a servant of the Old One, but that raises more questions than it answers...

[HorridElemental]

Okay, I get we're talking optimization and RAW, but how from a story perspective does a Paladin who then makes a pact with an Old One maintain his status as a Paladin? Would not the oath to the Old One abrogate the oath taken as a Paladin? Like wise, how could you--from a story perspective--transition from a Warlock with a pact with an Old One to a Paladin without abrogating the pact with the Old One? Unless you're playing the Paladin as a servant of the Old One, but that raises more questions than it answers...

We have religious presidents here in the united states. The most famous being Kennedy who was a Catholic. Neither being president or catholic stopped him from being the other.

[SSGW Priest]

We have religious presidents here in the united states. The most famous being Kennedy who was a Catholic. Neither being president or catholic stopped him from being the other.

Okay, you are correct on the facts, but it's a bad analogy. President is a secular job ala a fighter, were as a warlock involves a pact with a higher/lower power. A better analogy would be a Knight Templar who becomes an animist shaman, is he still a Knight Templar or did becoming an animist shaman--and swearing fealty to another deity--abrogate the Knight's oaths to the Yahweh, or visa versa? To me there is an inherent conflict of interest that would require some serious explaining. I doubt any deity willing to imbue a Paladin with a portion of its power is willing to share said Paladin with an Old One.

[Vhaluus]

honestly I don't know how you justify it, nor do I particularly care to as this was more an exercise in mathematics than it was in RP.

However some ideas that could work:

The one you are bound to is actually an ancient primordial source of good (I know most of the ones written are evil but it makes sense to me there'd be some ancient force of good but you just probably don't hear from them as much)

Alternatively you could go oath of the ancients and an archfey patron quite easily I would think.

[Alefiend]

Speaking of mathematics, you might want to be careful about applying the same stat to damage more than once per attack. There's no specific rule that I can find so far about that, so it should work for now by RAW. But since you only get to add Proficiency once, it brings RAI for stats into question.