Support Caster Build Optimization

[CrusaderJoe]

V. Human Rogue Thief 3/Tome Warlock 3/???Caster???

Idea
Feat: Healer Kit Feat (name?)

Cunning Action: Use Item Healer Kit has been OKed by Crawford.

Gain devil sight and at-will darkness. PC gets hurt? Darkness them (hard to hit) go in and heal them up. Throw darkness around the battle field.

Get find familiar ritual. Help action is what the familiar is all about.

Outside of combat you will be able to grab rituals that help heal different afflictions.

I think some more multiclassing will be needed for more in battle support. Bard may be best for this.

I still get EB and some good spells to throw around. I like my spellcaster to be a spell caster so this isn't a problem. If I need to up my damage I'll use Hex (concentration) but if not I'll use bard spells.

++++
I'm away from books and my actual notes on this character but this is what I got so far. I would like to be primarily support but not be to horrible in a pinch.

I posted this in another thread but I would really like to see the potential of such a build could have at level 10 and 20 so I made this thread as not to potentially hyjack anything.

The ingredients that must stay is Vhuman Rogue/Warlock but numbers of levels are flexible.


Thanks in advance :)

[Daehron]

rogue 3 / warlock 3 / <other caster that screams bard>

That sounds like a lot of waiting to get to your 'main' class. You loose out on two ASI's and level 15+ class / subclass options. Seems like a lot to pay for what could be done with a wand of darkness and goggles of night.

[CrusaderJoe]

rogue 3 / warlock 3 / <other caster that screams bard>

That sounds like a lot of waiting to get to your 'main' class. You loose out on two ASI's and level 15+ class / subclass options. Seems like a lot to pay for what could be done with a wand of darkness and goggles of night.

Magic Items are not automatic in 5e. Also Christmas trees make horrible characters.

Losimg two ASI and level 15+ options are fine if what I'm getting back fill the support caster roll.

This will be played at level 10-12 but I wanted to the full level 20 potential this could have at level 20 since I play in level 20 one shots.

[MarkTriumphant]

Gain devil sight and at-will darkness. PC gets hurt? Darkness them (hard to hit) go in and heal them up. Throw darkness around the battle field.


Where do you get At-Will Darkness - I need this for my Warlock!

[Yorrin]

Where do you get At-Will Darkness - I need this for my Warlock!

I'm suspecting he's getting confused with 3.5, where this was a thing. There is no more at-will Darkness.

[charlesk]

This thread appears to have spun off mine where I lamented my own issues with being a support caster. So I am no expert but will offer a few thoughts.

1. As others have said there is no more at-will Darkness. Even if there were, it would not be as great as you imagine. I have it as a spell and a familiar that has Devil's Sight and thought there would be all sorts of cool things I could do with it, but there are some serious limitations. The main one is that nobody else in your party can see in it either, making it of little value in ordinary combat. It's also a relatively small area of effect and bad guys can still guess where you are based on its range and try to hit you. It is also a concentration spell, you can't have multiple of them going and you can't keep it up while keeping any other buffs/debuffs/utils going.

2. Your plan expends a ton of resources (invocation slots, feat etc.) on finding ways to heal people when there are easier ways such as Healing Word.

3. If you want your familiar to play around in melee range and you are going Warlock 3 anyway, take Pact of the Chain so you at least have a familiar that won't die on the first round. The rituals aren't really that big of a deal assuming you have a true arcane in your party.

4. You are multiclassing so much that you will be gimped at higher levels. IMO the rogue levels do not bring much to the party for a support caster, especially if you are going to have Bard levels, which allow you most of the same skillmonkey capabilities (and arguably more) along with abilities like Bardic Inspiration (which I have seen have a big impact on battles) and access to healing spells.

5. I took Repelling Blast as a way to help my Eldritch Blast also do some crowd control. So far I haven't put it to a lot of use but it depends on the nature of the fight. I'm just waiting for the first time we are ambushed by archers standing up on a tower...

6. Beware the "concentration wall" as mentioned in my own thread. The very first thing I noticed with this is that I could not effectively keep Hex going and also provide much general combat support. Remember that as powerful as Hex is, it only applies to your damage, not anyone else's. For combat support a different spell will usually be more useful.

[Garimeth]

In Charles' other thread I made this post:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18652568&postcount=32

Which lists most of the spells without concentration. That's going to be you main barrier, also some people mentioned using items and stuff, this may have a great deal of merit, as there are way less spells available at any given time in this edition.

I also agree with Charles, that's alot of effort to basically wind up being a mediocre bard with the warlock book of shadows. I'd just go full bard you get 6 spells from any other class, if you do lore bard you get all kinds of bonus skills and 2 more bonus spells from other classes and can use BI to debuff enemies, and if you do skald you can get a second attack or the ability to cast AND attack and the use BI as a party buff.

If I was going to mutliclass bard and warlock, I'd go skald, grab 3 levels of warlock grab the tome of shadows (if I'm the only arcane) or pact blade (just cause it sounds cool even if its kind of weak) then get the invocation for agonizing blast and the tome of ancients or w/e its called, all the other levels in bard. Now you get almost all the bard stuff, can be decent in melee, have a strong at-will ranged option, are awesome at skills, and can know all rituals.

Rogue isn't doing you much in this build.

[SharkForce]

tome of shadows with 3 warlock levels is actually not that great because the maximum level of ritual is based on your warlock spells known.

now, any ritual of 2nd level or lower is certainly not nothing... but it's also not what i think most people are imagining when they talk about a tome warlock splash, either :P

[Garimeth]

tome of shadows with 3 warlock levels is actually not that great because the maximum level of ritual is based on your warlock spells known.

now, any ritual of 2nd level or lower is certainly not nothing... but it's also not what i think most people are imagining when they talk about a tome warlock splash, either :P

Noted!

In that case I'd definitely just say play pure bard, its a pretty strong class in 5e.