Chronos
2015-03-18, 06:27 PM
OK, now you stand right THERE, and you come over HERE, just like that... No, no, not NEXT to the fire, IN the fire! Here, do I have to do everything myself?
So, I've got a rough idea of a concept, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it work best. The basic idea is to combine the druid cantrips Create Bonfire and Thorn Whip: You cast the bonfire the first round of combat, and continue to concentrate on it, while using the Thorn Whip to repeatedly pull enemies into the fire, thus doing two cantrips worth of damage per round.
Now, the obvious class to use with this is druid, since they are after all druid spells. But both of them are cantrips, which raises the possibility of using the Magic Initiate feat. And this character would probably want good mobility, which would mean a monk, especially a shadow monk (shadow jumping would also give advantage on the Thorn Whip attack roll). And a monk wouldn't mind the cantrips being Wis-based.
For a character that wants mobility, the obvious race choice would be Wood Elf. Alternately, you could go with Aarakrocka, for even more mobility outdoors, and the possibility of whipping someone 10 feet straight up, to add a bit of falling damage. Both races also have good stats for a monk and/or druid, at +2 Dex, +1 Wis. The downsides of the Aarakrocka are, first, that it's likely to be banned at many tables, and second, their mobility goes way down if they can't fly. Alternately, if we're going to be depending on one or more feats, human has potential.
Another problem that comes up: Most enemies can move further in a round than you can whip them, meaning you wouldn't be able to bring them all the way back to the bonfire. The obvious solution to this is difficult terrain... but we're already using our concentration on the fire, so we can't concentrate on, say, an Entangle as well. Mold Earth can create difficult terrain without concentration, but it can only do it on two 5' squares at once. Plus, even with difficult terrain, a move speed of 30 is still enough to get out of whipping range of the fire. Plant Growth also produces no-concentration difficult terrain, at a penalty of x4 instead of the usual x2 (meaning you'd need 60' speed to escape), but now we're bringing in a higher-level spell, and I'd really like this trick to be spammable every fight, and at low level. Going back to Mold Earth, instead of creating difficult terrain, we could use the Excavate option to cover the battlefield with 5' pits and piles of dirt, but that takes time to set up.
It'd also be nice to be able to push enemies in addition to pulling them. Gust could do this, but now we're looking at four different cantrips we'd like-- Maybe go back to straight druid, or a one-level druid dip? Alternately, perhaps Open Hand monk instead of Shadow, to push whenever we make a flurry of blows. Or, of course, Repelling Blast is the king of at-will pushing: We could take Eldritch Blast and Create Bonfire as a warlock, and then pick up Thorn Whip and Mold Earth via Tome Pact. But warlocks don't have the mobility we'd like, and the high-mobility races don't give a bonus to Cha.
Of course, we could also rely on teammates for some elements of the combo: Perhaps a Sentinel fighter, or a ranger casting Ensnaring Strike. But this might require planning out builds as a team, which doesn't always happen.
So, what's the best way to pull this off? Druid, monk, or warlock, or a combination of them? Wood elf, aarakockra, human, or some other race? Any other tricks I'm missing?
So, I've got a rough idea of a concept, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it work best. The basic idea is to combine the druid cantrips Create Bonfire and Thorn Whip: You cast the bonfire the first round of combat, and continue to concentrate on it, while using the Thorn Whip to repeatedly pull enemies into the fire, thus doing two cantrips worth of damage per round.
Now, the obvious class to use with this is druid, since they are after all druid spells. But both of them are cantrips, which raises the possibility of using the Magic Initiate feat. And this character would probably want good mobility, which would mean a monk, especially a shadow monk (shadow jumping would also give advantage on the Thorn Whip attack roll). And a monk wouldn't mind the cantrips being Wis-based.
For a character that wants mobility, the obvious race choice would be Wood Elf. Alternately, you could go with Aarakrocka, for even more mobility outdoors, and the possibility of whipping someone 10 feet straight up, to add a bit of falling damage. Both races also have good stats for a monk and/or druid, at +2 Dex, +1 Wis. The downsides of the Aarakrocka are, first, that it's likely to be banned at many tables, and second, their mobility goes way down if they can't fly. Alternately, if we're going to be depending on one or more feats, human has potential.
Another problem that comes up: Most enemies can move further in a round than you can whip them, meaning you wouldn't be able to bring them all the way back to the bonfire. The obvious solution to this is difficult terrain... but we're already using our concentration on the fire, so we can't concentrate on, say, an Entangle as well. Mold Earth can create difficult terrain without concentration, but it can only do it on two 5' squares at once. Plus, even with difficult terrain, a move speed of 30 is still enough to get out of whipping range of the fire. Plant Growth also produces no-concentration difficult terrain, at a penalty of x4 instead of the usual x2 (meaning you'd need 60' speed to escape), but now we're bringing in a higher-level spell, and I'd really like this trick to be spammable every fight, and at low level. Going back to Mold Earth, instead of creating difficult terrain, we could use the Excavate option to cover the battlefield with 5' pits and piles of dirt, but that takes time to set up.
It'd also be nice to be able to push enemies in addition to pulling them. Gust could do this, but now we're looking at four different cantrips we'd like-- Maybe go back to straight druid, or a one-level druid dip? Alternately, perhaps Open Hand monk instead of Shadow, to push whenever we make a flurry of blows. Or, of course, Repelling Blast is the king of at-will pushing: We could take Eldritch Blast and Create Bonfire as a warlock, and then pick up Thorn Whip and Mold Earth via Tome Pact. But warlocks don't have the mobility we'd like, and the high-mobility races don't give a bonus to Cha.
Of course, we could also rely on teammates for some elements of the combo: Perhaps a Sentinel fighter, or a ranger casting Ensnaring Strike. But this might require planning out builds as a team, which doesn't always happen.
So, what's the best way to pull this off? Druid, monk, or warlock, or a combination of them? Wood elf, aarakockra, human, or some other race? Any other tricks I'm missing?