Easy_Lee
2015-04-12, 08:54 PM
The Whirling Shillelagh
The point of this build is to make a Single-Attribute-Dependent (SAD) ranger who is still capable of excelling at a role. The chosen role is a character whose combat function is to do two things: kill pesky hordes of weak mobs, such as summoned creatures, and hold opponents in place. Those are really the only two things this build excels at, but it's pretty damn good at them, while also having all of the other benefits associated with being a melee ranger.
Before I start, a little bit about the ranger and why I felt it important to create a SAD variant:
The ranger, like a monk or blade-pact warlock, has two different attributes it depends on. In the ranger's case, those attributes are dexterity and wisdom, much like a monk. Unlike a monk or warlock, though, the ranger's class features leave one wanting.
A monk's class features work together very well, producing a character who's fast, hard to kill, good at locking targets down, and excels against targets who attack with save-or-suck effects. A blade-pact warlock has to work very hard to make the blade better than eldritch blast, but has a wide variety of spells and invocations to choose from. Further, he gets roughly full-casting progression. Warlocks can be built to suit a particular style.
The ranger's features are a weird mix of exploration, offensive, and defensive features that don't really seem to work together. The class peaks early for damage but gains no additional features that actually increase its damage as it levels, except arguably from the archetype, until the extremely weak capstone. Further, the druid spells the ranger may select are not as useful as those gained by a warlock. It's difficult to build a cohesive ranger that actually feels right.
For all of the above reasons, I feel that rangers need a healthy selection of feats in order to truly shine. In order to facilitate this, being SAD or close to it is necessary for the sake of optimization.
For all of the above reasons, I came up with a way to be SAD on a ranger while also filling a role cohesively. This build will work well in a balanced party, and will want party members to cover the arcane casting, skills, and single-target damage, the three major areas where this character will be lacking. Here's the build.
Race:
Variant human is mandatory for the feat, as you'll otherwise have to wait until 12 to be effective at what this build should do. The only alternative would be convincing your DM to allow a wood elf variant which trades some of its features for some druid cantrips and a spell in the same way as high elves do for wizards.
Stats:
The following statistics are possible using the standard array proposed in the PHB. If rolling or using point buy, you should be able to do even better than this.
16 Wisdom, 14 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 12 Strength, 10 Charisma, 8 Intellect
I bolded wisdom and dexterity because wisdom is our main stat and dexterity must be 14 or higher for the sake of AC and decent dexterity saves.
Skills:
You want insight, medicine, perception, and survival for sure. Via natural explorer, you'll double your proficiency bonus to all four of these skills when in one of your favored terrains. That means you'll crap on even the rogues and bards trying to step to your wisdom skills, because they won't have your wisdom score. When not in one of your favored terrains and needing a high skill roll, try to fake it via the plant growth spell, which can effectively turn any terrain with plants into a forest-like area.
Armor and Weapon:
Wear half plate, use a shield, and wield a club or quarterstaff (one-handed) so that you can cast Shillelagh on it.
Feats:
1 – Magic Initiate: Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, Entangle
4 – War Caster
8 – Mobile
12 – ASI (WIS+2)
16 – ASI (WIS+2)
19 – Your choice (sentinel would be useful for extra reactions)
Note: Notice I did not include polearm mastery, in spite of the dueling and bonus action trick. The reason for this is that, between casting shillelagh, grasping vine, ensnaring strike, hunter's mark, and so on, you'll have plenty of uses for your bonus action already and won't need the bonus attack. Also, some DM's don't like it, so that's a thing.
Archetype / Chosen Features:
For favored terrain, choose forest and grassland among those selected. You'll be spending a lot of time among plants, and your DM may allow certain benefits from natural explorer.
Choose the dueling fighting style. We'll be swinging our 1d8 Shillelagh, which counts as a one-handed weapon for the purpose of the dueling style.
See if your DM lets you use Natural Explorer and Land's Stride together to ignore difficult terrain created by your own spells (try to get this for your party as well via natural explorer - the RAW says you only get this benefit when traveling for more than an hour, but it could be argued). These features need to be at least somewhat useful, after all.
Choose the Hunter Archetype. Take Horde Breaker at 3, Multiattack Defense at 7, Whirlwind at 11, Stand Against the Tide at 15
Some Suggested Spells:
Bonus action: Ensnaring Strike, Hunter’s Mark, Grasping Vine, ask your DM for a melee version of Lightning Arrow since this will be useful against more difficult hordes
No Concentration: Freedom of Movement, Plant Growth, Longstrider
Normal: Conjure Barrage, Tree Stride, Silence
Playstyle:
Keep shillelagh up at all times. Keep a ten-sided die turned to the current remaining duration (lasts ten rounds) and recast it as a bonus when it starts to drop.
Use your immobilizing and plant-based spells to keep your foes from moving. Concentrate on a target or group of targets to hold them in place. Use spike growth to create a hazardous terrain for enemies to move through. Combine both with plant growth, which can even be cast on your own conjured plants with DM permission to funnel your foes into tight groups. Cast spike growth into the funnel to really cause some problems, and ask your DM for permission to ignore your own hazardous terrain via Land's Stride.
Once we hit level 11, things get fun. Whirlwind attack allows you to strike all foes within 5' of yourself, using a separate attack roll for each. You can move during this whirlwind attack for a few reasons:
PHB 194: "If there's ever any question whether something you're doing counts as an attack, the rule is simple: if you're making an attack roll, you're making an attack."
PHB 190: "If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks."
Due to the above, you can absolutely move during whirlwind attack as per RAW. The only question is whether or not this extends its effective range, which is something to clear with your DM. My thoughts: since you can make an attack roll against creatures with 5' of you, since the ability does not specify that they have to be within 5' of you when you use the action, since you can move during it as per above, and since volley has a larger area and longer range (which is imbalanced and unfair), movement during whirlwind attack should be allowed.
Use tree stride when you get it to allow you to pop in and out of trees during a whirlwind attack, hitting everything that's near a tree and popping back in to move on to the next tree. This should work for all of the above reasons.
Since we took the mobile feat, not only is our ranger moving faster, he also doesn't provoke an opportunity attack from anyone while using whirlwind attack. Making an attack roll against a foe prevents that foe from getting an opportunity attack against you that turn, even if you miss. Add concentration-less longstrider and jump, if desired, to further extend range and make it more difficult to stop you.
Use conjure barrage, freedom of movement, and silence as needed. These are just really useful spells to have, and silence is your best defense against casters. Use grasping vine to pull foes away from your allies and into the middle of difficult terrain created by concentration-less plant growth. Use hunter's mark for better single-target DPR, though you won't be competing with rogues, fighters, paladins, or barbarians in this department at later levels (you'll do fine for the first ten).
Other Ranger Perks:
Try to come up with reasons to track people down, since rangers are quite good at tracking. You'll have to roleplay and be creative to make it work, but many of a ranger's features are quite good for this. One thing of note: hunter's mark can help you track an enemy, and they won't necessarily know that it's on them. You can also use this to help you find friendly allies.
Final Notes:
I've included a lot of areas which depend on roleplaying and DM interpretation / fiat. This is unfortunate, but a necessary limitation of a ranger build since many of its spells and features are vague or weak. For example: under plant growth, what does "normal plants" actually mean? If it meant non-magical plants, it should have said so like the Land's Stride ranger feature. And why does land's stride not work on one's own conjured plants, anyway? But I digress. I think that this build, with a friendly DM, will do just fine and be very useful to the party, particularly in campaigns with lots of enemy hordes and outdoor areas.
The point of this build is to make a Single-Attribute-Dependent (SAD) ranger who is still capable of excelling at a role. The chosen role is a character whose combat function is to do two things: kill pesky hordes of weak mobs, such as summoned creatures, and hold opponents in place. Those are really the only two things this build excels at, but it's pretty damn good at them, while also having all of the other benefits associated with being a melee ranger.
Before I start, a little bit about the ranger and why I felt it important to create a SAD variant:
The ranger, like a monk or blade-pact warlock, has two different attributes it depends on. In the ranger's case, those attributes are dexterity and wisdom, much like a monk. Unlike a monk or warlock, though, the ranger's class features leave one wanting.
A monk's class features work together very well, producing a character who's fast, hard to kill, good at locking targets down, and excels against targets who attack with save-or-suck effects. A blade-pact warlock has to work very hard to make the blade better than eldritch blast, but has a wide variety of spells and invocations to choose from. Further, he gets roughly full-casting progression. Warlocks can be built to suit a particular style.
The ranger's features are a weird mix of exploration, offensive, and defensive features that don't really seem to work together. The class peaks early for damage but gains no additional features that actually increase its damage as it levels, except arguably from the archetype, until the extremely weak capstone. Further, the druid spells the ranger may select are not as useful as those gained by a warlock. It's difficult to build a cohesive ranger that actually feels right.
For all of the above reasons, I feel that rangers need a healthy selection of feats in order to truly shine. In order to facilitate this, being SAD or close to it is necessary for the sake of optimization.
For all of the above reasons, I came up with a way to be SAD on a ranger while also filling a role cohesively. This build will work well in a balanced party, and will want party members to cover the arcane casting, skills, and single-target damage, the three major areas where this character will be lacking. Here's the build.
Race:
Variant human is mandatory for the feat, as you'll otherwise have to wait until 12 to be effective at what this build should do. The only alternative would be convincing your DM to allow a wood elf variant which trades some of its features for some druid cantrips and a spell in the same way as high elves do for wizards.
Stats:
The following statistics are possible using the standard array proposed in the PHB. If rolling or using point buy, you should be able to do even better than this.
16 Wisdom, 14 Dexterity, 14 Constitution, 12 Strength, 10 Charisma, 8 Intellect
I bolded wisdom and dexterity because wisdom is our main stat and dexterity must be 14 or higher for the sake of AC and decent dexterity saves.
Skills:
You want insight, medicine, perception, and survival for sure. Via natural explorer, you'll double your proficiency bonus to all four of these skills when in one of your favored terrains. That means you'll crap on even the rogues and bards trying to step to your wisdom skills, because they won't have your wisdom score. When not in one of your favored terrains and needing a high skill roll, try to fake it via the plant growth spell, which can effectively turn any terrain with plants into a forest-like area.
Armor and Weapon:
Wear half plate, use a shield, and wield a club or quarterstaff (one-handed) so that you can cast Shillelagh on it.
Feats:
1 – Magic Initiate: Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, Entangle
4 – War Caster
8 – Mobile
12 – ASI (WIS+2)
16 – ASI (WIS+2)
19 – Your choice (sentinel would be useful for extra reactions)
Note: Notice I did not include polearm mastery, in spite of the dueling and bonus action trick. The reason for this is that, between casting shillelagh, grasping vine, ensnaring strike, hunter's mark, and so on, you'll have plenty of uses for your bonus action already and won't need the bonus attack. Also, some DM's don't like it, so that's a thing.
Archetype / Chosen Features:
For favored terrain, choose forest and grassland among those selected. You'll be spending a lot of time among plants, and your DM may allow certain benefits from natural explorer.
Choose the dueling fighting style. We'll be swinging our 1d8 Shillelagh, which counts as a one-handed weapon for the purpose of the dueling style.
See if your DM lets you use Natural Explorer and Land's Stride together to ignore difficult terrain created by your own spells (try to get this for your party as well via natural explorer - the RAW says you only get this benefit when traveling for more than an hour, but it could be argued). These features need to be at least somewhat useful, after all.
Choose the Hunter Archetype. Take Horde Breaker at 3, Multiattack Defense at 7, Whirlwind at 11, Stand Against the Tide at 15
Some Suggested Spells:
Bonus action: Ensnaring Strike, Hunter’s Mark, Grasping Vine, ask your DM for a melee version of Lightning Arrow since this will be useful against more difficult hordes
No Concentration: Freedom of Movement, Plant Growth, Longstrider
Normal: Conjure Barrage, Tree Stride, Silence
Playstyle:
Keep shillelagh up at all times. Keep a ten-sided die turned to the current remaining duration (lasts ten rounds) and recast it as a bonus when it starts to drop.
Use your immobilizing and plant-based spells to keep your foes from moving. Concentrate on a target or group of targets to hold them in place. Use spike growth to create a hazardous terrain for enemies to move through. Combine both with plant growth, which can even be cast on your own conjured plants with DM permission to funnel your foes into tight groups. Cast spike growth into the funnel to really cause some problems, and ask your DM for permission to ignore your own hazardous terrain via Land's Stride.
Once we hit level 11, things get fun. Whirlwind attack allows you to strike all foes within 5' of yourself, using a separate attack roll for each. You can move during this whirlwind attack for a few reasons:
PHB 194: "If there's ever any question whether something you're doing counts as an attack, the rule is simple: if you're making an attack roll, you're making an attack."
PHB 190: "If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks."
Due to the above, you can absolutely move during whirlwind attack as per RAW. The only question is whether or not this extends its effective range, which is something to clear with your DM. My thoughts: since you can make an attack roll against creatures with 5' of you, since the ability does not specify that they have to be within 5' of you when you use the action, since you can move during it as per above, and since volley has a larger area and longer range (which is imbalanced and unfair), movement during whirlwind attack should be allowed.
Use tree stride when you get it to allow you to pop in and out of trees during a whirlwind attack, hitting everything that's near a tree and popping back in to move on to the next tree. This should work for all of the above reasons.
Since we took the mobile feat, not only is our ranger moving faster, he also doesn't provoke an opportunity attack from anyone while using whirlwind attack. Making an attack roll against a foe prevents that foe from getting an opportunity attack against you that turn, even if you miss. Add concentration-less longstrider and jump, if desired, to further extend range and make it more difficult to stop you.
Use conjure barrage, freedom of movement, and silence as needed. These are just really useful spells to have, and silence is your best defense against casters. Use grasping vine to pull foes away from your allies and into the middle of difficult terrain created by concentration-less plant growth. Use hunter's mark for better single-target DPR, though you won't be competing with rogues, fighters, paladins, or barbarians in this department at later levels (you'll do fine for the first ten).
Other Ranger Perks:
Try to come up with reasons to track people down, since rangers are quite good at tracking. You'll have to roleplay and be creative to make it work, but many of a ranger's features are quite good for this. One thing of note: hunter's mark can help you track an enemy, and they won't necessarily know that it's on them. You can also use this to help you find friendly allies.
Final Notes:
I've included a lot of areas which depend on roleplaying and DM interpretation / fiat. This is unfortunate, but a necessary limitation of a ranger build since many of its spells and features are vague or weak. For example: under plant growth, what does "normal plants" actually mean? If it meant non-magical plants, it should have said so like the Land's Stride ranger feature. And why does land's stride not work on one's own conjured plants, anyway? But I digress. I think that this build, with a friendly DM, will do just fine and be very useful to the party, particularly in campaigns with lots of enemy hordes and outdoor areas.