So, I rolled cool stats. How to make use of them?

[Likantropos]

After we got TPKed, our DM allowed a reroll with actual rolling (it was point-buy only before). It's a combat-heavy, low-to-mid level campaign. I rolled this: 17, 17, 15, 13, 13, 9. The array definetely calls to be human... But what next? I'm kinda lost here. What build could make use of a high secondary and decent tertiary stat? I definetely want to be a caster. As full as possible. Definetely leaning towards something gishy. 100% not monk. 50% not bard since the bards body is still warm somewhere in the dungeon (and it would be way to many "hide behind the pile of dead bards" jokes). Our party already has a fighter and a paladin.
Dear forum hivemind, please suggest a nice build for this situation.

[EugeneVoid]

There's a thing about knocking people into the sky on the forums right now that requires a bunch of MAD. might be interesting

[Finieous]

Obvious answer, but "full caster" and "something gishy" says war cleric. I'm going to say variant human for a low- mid-level campaign, despite the obvious stat setup for standard human. 18 Str, 18 Wis, 15 Con, the rest arrange to suit. I'd take GWM at 1st level and Resilient (Con 16) at 4th. You'll get four bonus action attacks at +6 to hit and 2d6+4 damage right from the get-go, and you can keep bless up to offset your power attacks from GWM. Guidance and your awesome ability scores will make you competent at most any skill check.

[AgentPaper]

Really, with those stats, you can do anything you want. One option for a nifty Gish might be a Paladin/Cleric Pick up at least 2-5 levels of Paladin to start to get Smite, then start going cleric. Level 2 gets you Divine Smite and all the weapon and armor proficiencies, level 3 gets you your path which has some good benefits, and level 5 gets you an extra attack, which will make you much better at dishing out damage in melee.

Put your 17s into Strength and Wisdom, to maximize your attack stat and cleric spellcasting, 15 in Constitution for good saves and health, and 13 into Dexterity and Charisma for the saves and to allow Paladin multiclassing.

The main downside, is that if you go for the full 5 levels of paladin, you won't get level 9 spells (only 8). You'll have the level 9 slot, but you won't be able to add any level 9 spells to your list due to the way multiclassing works. You could potentially decide to only go for 2-3 levels of paladin, which would let you use level 9 spells, but if you don't expect the campaign to go that long, it's probably not a big deal, and having an extra attack will probably serve you much better if you're trying to be a Gish anyways.

Edit: Almost forgot. For a weapon, you should go for the Great Weapon fighting style, and then pick up either a Greatsword/Maul or even better a Glaive/Halberd with the Polearm Master feat. This will get you amazing damage, and depending on how your DM rules it you can re-roll 1s and 2s of your paladin smite. By RAW this works, but by RAI the devs have said they didn't mean it to apply there, so you'll have to ask your DM which way he wants to rule. Either way, you'll be doing great damage and with a Polearm, you'll have good control over the battlefield to boot.

[Gurka]

..."full caster" and "something gishy" says war cleric...

I've got to agree with this one. And really there's not much point in multiclassing, since you lose a lot and don't gain much with paladin.

Those stats give you the tools to be great at whatever class you choose, but for gishy full-caster it's pretty much war cleric or bard. Only other options I see are Blade Warlocks, which are only sort of casters, and EK's, which are definitely not full.

I'm not seeing a lot of other viable options out of the box, but good luck!

[AgentPaper]

I've got to agree with this one. And really there's not much point in multiclassing, since you lose a lot and don't gain much with paladin.

Those stats give you the tools to be great at whatever class you choose, but for gishy full-caster it's pretty much war cleric or bard. Only other options I see are Blade Warlocks, which are only sort of casters, and EK's, which are definitely not full.

I'm not seeing a lot of other viable options out of the box, but good luck!

Paladin gives you Divine Smite, letting you turn spell slots into damage very efficiently, especially if you go up to 5 and get two attacks. It also lets you wear heavy armor and use a Polearm, which combined with Polearm Master, gets you 3 attacks per round to use Divine Smite with. 3 hits for 1d12+5+5d8 damage is no joke. That's ~101 average damage if all three hit, or ~113 if your DM allows GWF to apply to smite damage. Granted, that's using up three of your level 4 or higher spell slots, but if you want burst damage, it's hard to get much better at that (outside of high level spells, but you get those, too).

On the other hand, if you go full cleric, you get level 9 spells (or rather, one spell level higher than normal across your career), which is certainly nice, but that's about it. You lose out on one ABI (but with your scores you don't need many), a use of Channel Divinity, and Divine Intervention, which is useless anyways.

[Finieous]

Agree with your points, but he did say it's a low- to mid-level campaign. I feel like it takes a while for the paladin to come into his own; the war cleric is going to wreck stuff from level 1. It's true the cleric doesn't get Extra Attack at 5th level, but he does get war priest at 1st level and spiritual weapon at 3rd level. With GWM, he'll be getting the most out of his action resources pretty much every round. And that's just melee capability -- he'll also be a full caster with a very high spellcasting ability modifier.

[AgentPaper]

Agree with your points, but he did say it's a low- to mid-level campaign. I feel like it takes a while for the paladin to come into his own; the war cleric is going to wreck stuff from level 1. It's true the cleric doesn't get Extra Attack at 5th level, but he does get war priest at 1st level and spiritual weapon at 3rd level. With GWM, he'll be getting the most out of his action resources pretty much every round. And that's just melee capability -- he'll also be a full caster with a very high spellcasting ability modifier.

I assumed low to mid-level meant starting above level 1. If you are starting at 1, then you'd probably want to go Variant human to pick up Polearm Master from the start, and only take 2 levels of Paladin before switching to Cleric. That gets you just short of full spellcasting (1-2 levels behind), and in return nets you divine smite and weapon and armor proficiencies, so you can pick something like Tempest domain that gives you more goodies, rather than needing War domain just to get proficiency.

Ultimately it's up to the OP which one he wants. War Cleric is certainly a fine way to go, if you want to be a full caster who can mix it up in melee sometimes, but Paladin/Cleric is more of a gish, with divine smite and the extra attack if you go the full 5 levels, while still being able to cast very relevant spells throughout the game.

[Easy_Lee]

For a low-level campaign, gishy full-caster, I would suggest blade-pact warlock. You get a pact weapon (ask your DM for two if you want to DW), get extra attack at 5 via invocation, and have full warlock casting. Your stats will let you have +4 to both DEX and CHA from 1, which is fantastic. Warlocks have fewer spell options than a sorcerer or wizard, particularly at high levels. But you can potentially cast more spells per day with short-rests. And a blade-pact warlock who invests in the EB cantrips can hit literally any target your DM will ever throw at you, unless he homebrews something resistant to both force damage and magical weapons (the two least common resistances in the MM).

One notable variant on the above build is to go with a hand crossbow and crossbow expert. By declaring hand crossbow as your pact weapon, you can make three magical attacks with your pact weapon crossbow at 5. Each one adds DEX to damage. At 12, you can make three attacks per round that add both DEX and CHA to damage. You don't get archery unless you multiclass, unfortunately, but it's still a potent build.

[Mechaviking]

Human Fighter 1-2/Wizard rest.

Protection style and heavy armor mastery at lvl 1

Get your extra attack via haste at lvl 6

you have 18 str, int and 16 con with slight resistance to non magical weapons.

or go the Davion dragonknight build I saw here on the forum Paladin, sorcerer, dex cha build

[odigity]

Been thinking that Monk/Warlock would make an effective combo if you had great rolls to make up for MADness, and if the DM lets you declare your Pact weapon to be your mind. That way you could add Cha dmg to your unarmed strikes, and if you ever get lobotomized, you can will your brain back into place as a standard action.

[Easy_Lee]

Been thinking that Monk/Warlock would make an effective combo if you had great rolls to make up for MADness, and if the DM lets you declare your Pact weapon to be your mind. That way you could add Cha dmg to your unarmed strikes, and if you ever get lobotomized, you can will your brain back into place as a standard action.

It would be more like pact weapon: body, IMO. But, regardless, warlock-monk combo is not necessarily more MAD than a regular monk. You dumpstat WIS and take the warlock invocation shadow armor. That gives you AC 13+Dex, which is perfectly acceptable. Shadow monk is probably ideal for the build, since it's not too reliant on wisdom.

But OP said he wanted a gishy caster, and pure warlock has better casting, particularly for a low-level campaign.

[Tenmujiin]

One notable variant on the above build is to go with a hand crossbow and crossbow expert. By declaring hand crossbow as your pact weapon, you can make three magical attacks with your pact weapon crossbow at 5. Each one adds DEX to damage. At 12, you can make three attacks per round that add both DEX and CHA to damage. You don't get archery unless you multiclass, unfortunately, but it's still a potent build.

Isn't blade pact restricted to mele weapons? (unless you are following RAW rather than RAI and find a magic ranged weapon)

To the OP:

With those stats your racial bumps probably won't be terribly important. With a fighter and paladin an arcane caster would probably be your best bet (or some kind of control-y build with a cleric or possibly druid). I would probably go warlock since you are missing a stealthy type (shadow monk would be my first choice with your party comp and those god MAD stats but you said no monk).

[Easy_Lee]

Isn't blade pact restricted to mele weapons? (unless you are following RAW rather than RAI and find a magic ranged weapon)

Unless there's a twitter post I don't know about, then no. The only reason to restrict pact blade to melee weapons is because it has "blade" in the title. Since nobody has suggested pact blade warlocks shouldn't be allowed to use quarterstaves, that just seems silly to me. And it really should go without saying that nobody here is a WoTC writer; we don't know what they intended (RAI).

[Eslin]

Unless there's a twitter post I don't know about, then no. The only reason to restrict pact blade to melee weapons is because it has "blade" in the title. Since nobody has suggested pact blade warlocks shouldn't be allowed to use quarterstaves, that just seems silly to me. And it really should go without saying that nobody here is a WoTC writer; we don't know what they intended (RAI).

It specifically states creates a melee weapon.

[SliceandDiceKid]

Go variant human monk and take observant. 18 dex 18 wis 16 con. Be aware of all things with a passive perception of 21 at lvl 1. 18 AC.

Way of the open hand, put your combatants to shame as a martial arts master. Use lines like, "I see your northern fighting style is inferior to my southern fighting style."

Declare all your unarmed attacks to be with the same limb. Example: fight unarmed. At level 5 attack twice then flurry of blows. Say you kicked your enemy in the stomach with a stunning strike, then 3 times in the head with the same foot. On your 2 flurry strikes, knock them prone, then 15 ft away. (Stunned auto fails str and dex saves) Tada, Kung fu movie!

[Person_Man]

With that array of ability scores you could play any build and you'd be fine.

Monk (Dex/Con/Wis), Paladin (Str/Con/Cha), and Barbarian (Str/Dex/Con) benefit the most from having three high ability scores.

Next comes any full caster build that actually wants to use a weapon (instead of cantrips), which requires Str or Dex, Con, and their primary casting ability score. This typically means Valor Bard or Pact of Blade Warlock, since they get the Extra Attack class feature. But Cleric also gets enough bonus damage to be competitive.

Having said that, I would personally just go with human Cleric, Druid, or Sorcerer. TPK is typically caused by not having a healer, or not having a win or escape button spell available when you absolutely need it. Cleric and Druid are very tanky and can provide healing. (Druid in particular is very hard to kill, thanks to the "onion druid" wildshape hit point mechanic). Sorcerer with metamagic basically always has a win button available, as long as you're smart enough to save your highest level spell slot for when you really need it.

[Rilak]

It specifically states creates a melee weapon.

Yes, but you can bond a non-melee weapon.

[SliceandDiceKid]

Yes, but you can bond a non-melee weapon.

Not this again

[AgentPaper]

You can't form a blade pact on a sentient weapon, so even if you argue that the Monk himself is a magical weapon, he's also sentient and thus a no-go.

[Rezby]

If you can grab a magic crossbow, I'd totally recommend 2 levels of fighter for archery style + action surge + armor, then go straight warlock, blade pact, and declare the magic xbow to be your pact weapon. Human variant with crossbow expertise gets you ridiculous number of attacks.

Or same build but take dueling as your fighting style, that defensive duelist feat, a shield, and make a rapier or a whip your pact blade. Maximize dex and Cha, take agonizing blast invocation for a good solid EB cantrip. The Mage armor cantrip also won't hurt. Get war caster feat and you'll be a proper gish by char level 6.

[MaxWilson]

Human variant with crossbow expertise gets you ridiculous number of attacks.

You might need to expound on that a bit. Most people won't realize at first that you can use the same hand crossbow for regular + bonus attacks.