High Elf Fighter... Sounds stupid right?

[Doomchild]

Cantrip: Blade Ward
Fighting Style: Duelist. Use a shield for 17+ AC and a Rapier to deal at least 1d8+5 damage.
Action Surge: Blade Ward.

That combined with Second Wind for 1d10+2 health every encounter or so... is there a better tank at 2nd level (To confess, I'm a total newb, so there probably is)? And you're well-positioned to head into Eldritch Knight at 3rd level. At 4th level pick up Sentinel or Shield Master.

[randomodo]

Pretty similar to what I did for what ended up being a one-shot rather than the start of a campaign. It worked quite well for the first part of HotDQ, and had the campaign continued, I would have looked forward to using him as a battlemaster

(I picked prestigitation for the cantrip rather than blade ward, but that was for RP reasons. Blade Ward has utility, but this guy was a noble, and used prestigitation to keep himself and his gear clean and shiny)

[Totema]

You're overlooking the fact that, for most of your career, you'll only have your action surge and second wind once each per short rest. I'd imagine the vast majority of DMs won't let you take a short rest after every single encounter, so you're probably looking at using this trick once or twice every session. Cute, but not too great. If you want better access to blade ward and still fight, it's probably better to try the eldritch knight subclass.

[Doomchild]

It's too bad there's no way to give him the Compelled Duel spell. He'd be really impressive, then.


I'd imagine the vast majority of DMs won't let you take a short rest after every single encounter, so you're probably looking at using this trick once or twice every session.

I thought the PHB mentioned that you should basically get at least three short rests a day, one for each meal (granted, one is for breakfast, and you probably haven't gotten into a fight before breakfast). So that's usually going to be a minimum of twice per day. It is a shame though that they decided to go with a full hour required for a short rest. Very stifling.

[hymer]

A high elf fighter may not be optimal, but there's certainly nothing wrong with it, especially if you intend to multiclass to wizard and/or take Eldritch Knight as your archetype.
As for a better tank, well... A barbarian with the same 20 dex and a shield would have a similar AC, better hit points, and while raging would likewise take half damage from weapon attacks. And he could spend his actions attacking.
And then there's the moon druid, but that's a whole different thing.

[Marcelinari]

High Elf makes for a pretty decent entry into Eldrich Knight, but your plan has a couple of holes in it. First, action surge is 1/Long Rest, second, you need at least 1 free hand to cast somatic components.

You can choose to ditch the shield and focus on dex for AC and damage with the rapier, and at level 7 you get to spam that blade ward whenever you're not double-attacking. You can also bring dex low, pump strength and go for a long sword, dropping to one hand to cast and swinging with 2 for a 1d10 damage die and wearing heavier armor.

[Doomchild]

High Elf makes for a pretty decent entry into Eldrich Knight, but your plan has a couple of holes in it. First, action surge is 1/Long Rest, second, you need at least 1 free hand to cast somatic components.

It's 1/short rest, but that is a good point about the free hand. Though you could of course draw your weapon as part of your attack (this doesn't use an action or a bonus action).

As for the Barbarian comparison, the Fighter deals more damage, more consistently (Barbarians only get the Rage damage bonus on Strength attacks), and the whole point is that with action surge you still get to use your actions to attack. Of course, the Barbarian does get his resistance a bit more consistently, but the Fighter has an effective 2d10+2 additional hit points at 1st level (and they only increase from there), so in most cases I'd argue that the Fighter probably has more hit points than the Barbarian.

[andhaira]

I had thought the High Elf would make for a great fighter/mage too, until I looked at the variant human and the magic initiate feat.

There is absolutely no reason mechanically to go for an elf when you can go with a variant human, take Magic Initiate and get 2 cantrips instead of 1, and a 1st level spell to boot. Your +1 to two attributes can go towards STR and INT.

This is really annoying. I wish they had kept the Eladrin, or at least given the High Elf Feystep or something as well.

[hymer]

It's 1/short rest, but that is a good point about the free hand. Though you could of course draw your weapon as part of your attack (this doesn't use an action or a bonus action).

Short rests are really only short in name. They take an hour. I haven't seen one in a game yet. :smallannoyed:


As for the Barbarian comparison, the Fighter deals more damage, more consistently

The fighter you showed us doesn't. The only time he deals more damage than the non-raging barbarian is if he uses Action Surge to attack twice in a round.


the Fighter has an effective 2d10+2 additional hit points at 1st level (and they only increase from there), so in most cases I'd argue that the Fighter probably has more hit points than the Barbarian.

You mean from Second Wind? That's 1d10+fighter level.


There is absolutely no reason mechanically to go for an elf when you can go with a variant human, take Magic Initiate and get 2 cantrips instead of 1, and a 1st level spell to boot. Your +1 to two attributes can go towards STR and INT.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, but 'absolutely no reason' to pick high elf is just wrong. Their +2 dex, +1 int is at least as good as +1 str, +1 int. Proficiency in Perception is as good a choice as any the human could make for their free skill prof, and lack of Darkvision is something you'll feel. Depending on the DM and the campaign, immunity to sleep and resistance to charm can be a huge deal. Being able to be fully conscious for half of any long rest is nice, particularly if there are two of you who have it like that.

[Sartharina]

You mean from Second Wind? That's 1d10+fighter level.Per Short Rest.

[Doomchild]

The fighter you showed us doesn't. The only time he deals more damage than the non-raging barbarian is if he uses Action Surge to attack twice in a round.

Barbarians only get bonus Rage damage when making a Strength attack. If you're a Dex-barian with Dex 17, then you've got 17+ AC and you're dealing 1d8+3 damage, even if you're raging. Though you do have the resistance when Raging (which is goddamm amazing). The Fighter has the same AC, but deals 1d8+5 damage on each attack and he also has Second Wind that he should be getting roughly two three times per day at least (I forgot you can use it before your first short rest, duh), for an extra 2d10+2 3d10+3 health at first level. At first level it's kind of a wash, the Fighter has to use an action to gain Resistances, but the Barbarian just uses Rage. Which is why I asked it there was a better tank at 2nd level, because that's when he's got Action Surge and can Blade Ward and attack in the same round. He'll always be dealing more damage than the Dex-barian tank, Rage or not, he'll always (or should always) have more hit points, and sometimes he'll be dealing more damage, have more hit points, and have the same resistances.

Though I guess it is somewhat a moot point since you can just pick up Blade Ward at 3rd level anyway, I like having the option to use it from 1st level that High Elf provides.

[hymer]

He'll always be dealing more damage than the Dex-barian tank, Rage or not

What? How? You gave the fighter 20 dex, why wouldn't the barbaran have the same?
Edit: Sorry, I was seeing Defensive Duelist the feat, not Dueling as the fighting style. I get it now.


Per Short Rest.

How many of those have you had so far?

[Doomchild]

What? How? You gave the fighter 20 dex, why wouldn't the barbaran have the same?

No, I gave the Fighter 17 Dex and the Duelist Fighting Style, which the Barbarian doesn't have. It allows him to benefit from a shield and get an always-on +2 bonus to damage, which the Barbarian also doesn't have, because his Rage doesn't increase his damage if he's using his Dexterity for attack and damage rolls.

EDIT: Ah, my bad. Dueling style, not Duelist.


How many of those have you had so far?

Zero, but that's because I've only played one game so far, and it's just begun the first combat. Also, I'm the DM. But I'm going to allow my players to short rest whenever the want to and have the time to do so. Because why wouldn't you?

[Sartharina]

How many of those have you had so far?

3-4 per day in my campaigns, usually.

[hymer]

No, I gave the Fighter 17 Dex and the Duelist Fighting Style, which the Barbarian doesn't have. It allows him to benefit from a shield and get an always-on +2 bonus to damage, which the Barbarian also doesn't have, because his Rage doesn't increase his damage if he's using his Dexterity for attack and damage rolls.

Sorry, I was tripped up by duelist vs. dueling. I had the feat in my head. I understand what you were saying now.


Zero, but that's because I've only played one game so far, and it's just begun the first combat. Also, I'm the DM. But I'm going to allow my players to short rest whenever the want to and have the time to do so. Because why wouldn't you?

It's not whether the DM is evil and won't permit it, it's whether it makes narrative sense for the PCs to take a one-hour break. My players have resisted it strenuously so far, but maybe they'd be more yearning for short breaks if there was, say, a warlock in the party. OTOH, there's often a certain sense of urgency in adventures. Taking a short rest might well mar more than it made.


3-4 per day in my campaigns, usually.

Impressive! Care to share the secret?

[Marcelinari]

Ah, action surge is per short rest. I'm AFB, sorry. Still, one round of bladeward for every full hour of rest? It's not a winning combination, though it might let you tank something really nasty for 6 seconds. Short rests are not something that will be taken between each fight, I think, and even if they are you'll be limited to once per combat. Not a tactic you can rely on.

Variant humans can do anything well - that doesn't mean that the other races can't fill certain niches themselves. High elves make perfectly effective Eldritch Knights, especially going the rapier bladesinger route.

I enjoy the image of a heavily armed and armored elf swordmage, personally. I decided there would be a small mercenary company comprised of them in my own campaign world.

[Doomchild]

Impressive! Care to share the secret?

Most, if not all, of the published humanoids need to eat a certain amount of food and drink a certain amount of water each day to avoid exhaustion, at the very least (though I would have made it a bit more extreme how rapid exhaustion sets in due to not eating or drinking). If you're not stopping the action to eat and drink, at minimum, your PCs will begin to grow weary and eventually die.


Still, one round of bladeward for every full hour of rest?

Hrm, yes, it is still basically only one round... I was thinking of it as two rounds since you cast it and act in the same round, but it's not quite so good as that since realistically you're only tanking attacks on the enemies' turns and the fact that it lasts until the end of your next turn doesn't matter quite so much except against opportunity attacks. I suppose it's not quite what I was initially imagining.

[hymer]

Most, if not all, of the published humanoids need to eat a certain amount of food and drink a certain amount of water each day to avoid exhaustion, at the very least (though I would have made it a bit more extreme how rapid exhaustion sets in due to not eating or drinking). If you're not stopping the action to eat and drink, at minimum, your PCs will begin to grow weary and eventually die.

Is it just me, or are you being condescending now? They have to take an hour to eat and drink three times a day? And they shouldn't expect to have, say, four encounters of one or two minutes each between lunch and dinner?

[Ramshack]

Cantrip: Blade Ward
Fighting Style: Duelist. Use a shield for 17+ AC and a Rapier to deal at least 1d8+5 damage.
Action Surge: Blade Ward.

That combined with Second Wind for 1d10+2 health every encounter or so... is there a better tank at 2nd level (To confess, I'm a total newb, so there probably is)? And you're well-positioned to head into Eldritch Knight at 3rd level. At 4th level pick up Sentinel or Shield Master.

Eldricht Knight so you can cast and attack in the same round every round might be put to better use. Especially since you can then use action surge to attack 2 more times.

Or 3 levels of Barbarian for damage resistance to everything while raging.

[Doomchild]

Is it just me, or are you being condescending now? They have to take an hour to eat and drink three times a day? And they shouldn't expect to have, say, four encounters of one or two minutes each between lunch and dinner?

I wasn't being condescending, I was merely mentioning a very easy way to justify giving your players short rests every damn day.

Page 185 of the Player's Handbook states:


A character needs one pound of food per day and can make food last longer by subsisting on half rations. Eating half a pound of food in a day counts as half a day without food. A character can go without food for a number of days equal to 3 + his or her Constitution modifier (minimum 1). At the end of each day beyond that limit, a character automatically suffers one level of exhaustion. A normal day of eating resets the count of days without food to zero.

A character needs one gallon of water per day, or two gallons per day if the weather is hot. A character who drinks only half that much water must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion at the end of the day. A character with access to even less water automatically suffers one level of exhaustion at the end of the day. If the character already has one or more levels of exhaustion, the character takes two levels in either case.

Appendix A has this to say of Exhaustion:


Some special abilities and environmental hazards, such as starvation and the long-term effects of freezing or scorching temperatures, can lead to a special condition called exhaustion. Exhaustion is measured in six levels. An effect can give a creature one or more levels of exhaustion, as specified in the effect’s description.

1 level - Disadvantage on ability checks
2 levels - Speed halved
3 levels - Disadvantage on attack rolls and saving throws
4 levels - Hit point maximum halved
5 levels - Speed reduced to 0
6 levels - Death

If an already exhausted creature suffers another effect that causes exhaustion, its current level of exhaustion increases by the amount specified in the effect’s description. A creature suffers the effect of its current level of exhaustion as well as all lower levels. For example, a creature suffering level 2 exhaustion has its speed halved and has disadvantage on ability checks. An effect that removes exhaustion reduces its level as specified in the effect’s description, with all exhaustion effects ending if a creature’s exhaustion level is reduced below 1. Finishing a long rest reduces a creature's exhaustion level by 1, provided that the creature has also ingested some food and drink.

It's true, you can eat a pound of food (a laughably small portion, to be honest, that in most cases, aside from eating a pound of cheese, is only a fraction of the USDA recommended caloric intake) in like 10 minutes or at most a half hour. You could just eat handfuls of trail mix while adventuring over the course of the day and hit your pound of food without ever stopping at all if you wished. And while a gallon of water per day is a lot (it's double the USDA daily recommended intake), you could still swig down a 4oz portion of water in 10 seconds once every 20 minutes or so and you'd hit it by the end of the day, but if the PCs are involved in 4 encounters per day (which I imagine will be the recommendation of the DMG), that's maybe 24 seconds of the day a minute and a half of the day. A minute 4 minutes at the most. People are usually awake for a minimum of 12 hours per day. I'm just not understanding how you feel that you can't fit three hours of rest in that schedule, especially given the super convenient excuse of stopping to prepare and eat meals three times a day.

EDIT: Miscalculated the time of combat.

[Ramshack]

Our groups normally take 2-3 rests per day while traveling, so we can almost always rest between encounters, and sometimes go days without a fight. However if your adventure takes you into a dungeon or stronghold or other complex we often have 5+ encounters consecutively before we can take a rest, normally completing the objective entirely without a rest. If we broke into an orc or goblin fort cleared the first room and then decided to kick our feat up and rest, we'd be ambushed and slaughtered lol.

[Doomchild]

If we broke into an orc or goblin fort cleared the first room and then decided to kick our feat up and rest, we'd be ambushed and slaughtered lol.

While that makes sense, hymer acts like he's breaking into orc forts every adventuring day of his characters' lives. Normally, I would expect that to be a rare activity even for an adventurer.

[MrUberGr]

About the whole casting while holding a shield and a wepon, basically, to egven it out, you could say that you transfer your weapon to your shield hand for a sec and then cast. It's the same with a 2h weapon. A

There's a tweet by Mearls that basically says "if you're not actually carrying or having your hands tied etc, you can cast. I wouldn' fuss it to much" but, it's up to the dm to decide.

P.S. You could go great weapon fighting and use a spear. Pretty cool. Polearm master is an awesome feat as well.

[Strill]

It's too bad there's no way to give him the Compelled Duel spell. He'd be really impressive, then.
Take the Magic Initiate feat.


As for a better tank, well... A barbarian with the same 20 dex and a shield would have a similar AC, better hit points, and while raging would likewise take half damage from weapon attacks. And he could spend his actions attacking.
And then there's the moon druid, but that's a whole different thing.

A multiclass Barbarian Moon Druid is actually a really good combo, because Unarmored Defense applies while in Wild Shape.

[Doomchild]

Take the Magic Initiate feat.

Unfortunately not an option (it's Paladin-only, and Paladin is not one of the spell lists you get to choose from--I was really excited for a minute).

[Sartharina]

Our groups normally take 2-3 rests per day while traveling, so we can almost always rest between encounters, and sometimes go days without a fight. However if your adventure takes you into a dungeon or stronghold or other complex we often have 5+ encounters consecutively before we can take a rest, normally completing the objective entirely without a rest. If we broke into an orc or goblin fort cleared the first room and then decided to kick our feat up and rest, we'd be ambushed and slaughtered lol.

Some people don't realize just how short an hour is.

[Slipperychicken]

Thanks for the meal = short rest idea. I'm going to have to try that with my group. I know my meals IRL can take an hour or more when I'm not in a great hurry, and they'd definitely take an hour if they made my wounds heal faster.


Most, if not all, of the published humanoids need to eat a certain amount of food and drink a certain amount of water each day to avoid exhaustion, at the very least (though I would have made it a bit more extreme how rapid exhaustion sets in due to not eating or drinking). If you're not stopping the action to eat and drink, at minimum, your PCs will begin to grow weary and eventually die.

Yet another reason halflings are OP: They can justify up to 7 meals short rests per day :smalltongue:

[Vemynal]

until I looked at the variant human and the magic initiate feat.

There is absolutely no reason mechanically to go for an elf when you can go with a variant human, take Magic Initiate and get 2 cantrips instead of 1, and a 1st level spell to boot. Your +1 to two attributes can go towards STR and INT.

that's a variant racial feature. I don't know how many DMs will allow this but I feel they are fully within their rights not to allow it.

no other race has access to feats before 4th level (all of which are class dependent). This puts humans at a clear advantage in many ways.

edited because after a 12hour shift I'm cranky >_>

[toapat]

Yet another reason halflings are OP: They can justify up to 7 meals short rests per day :smalltongue:

Elves can justify 9-10 by virtue of only having a 4 hour long rest.

[MrUberGr]

Elves can justify 9-10 by virtue of only having a 4 hour long rest.

Elves need 4 hours sleep. Their long rest still needs to be 8 hours. The rest of the races need 6 hours of sleep not 8, but I guess dinner breakfast and spell preparation is included in that time.

[Sartharina]

Elves need 4 hours sleep. Their long rest still needs to be 8 hours. The rest of the races need 6 hours of sleep not 8, but I guess dinner breakfast and spell preparation is included in that time.The rest of the races need 8 hours of sleep, not 6.

I think the designers didn't bother to make a difference between 'sleep' and 'long rest'.