Keeping things Cool (build advice)

[JellyPooga]

So I'm considering a character for an upcoming game. All I know about the game is that it will be starting at level 1 with no indicated level cap and that it will take place primarily in the Underdark. You now know as much about the game as I do.

I figured I'd play outside of my comfort zone and go for a Dragonborn Warlock with a cold theme; doing the whole Fey Pact "Jack Frost/King of Winter" thing. Unfortunately, Warlock doesn't have a great deal of flexibility on icy options, so I've decided to take level 1 as Sorcerer and go from there.

Here's what I've got...
Name: "Magdalein" Drexaalor Vosi
Race: Dragonborn (White)
Class: Sorcerer (Dragonblood - White)

Ability Scores (not sure which will be used)
St.Arr - Str:14, Dex:13, Con:14, Int:8, Wis:10, Cha:16
Pt.Buy - Str:14, Dex:14, Con:14, Int:8, Wis:12, Cha:14

Skills: Deception, Intimidation, Persuasion, Survival

Cantrips: Frostbite, Ray of Frost, Shape Water, Light
1st Level: Ice Knife, Fog Cloud
Now, I primarily want this to be a Warlock, using Sorcerer to pick up a couple of thematic spells. As such, I'm looking at a "final build" of Warlock 17/Sorcerer 3. I'd be a fool to miss out on Metamagic, but I don't want to miss 9th level spells in the long run, or delay my spell progression any more than I have to.

So, my questions are these;
- What order would you recommend taking levels?
- What Pact Boon would you suggest? Blade makes for an impressive visual impact and gets the best use out of spells like Armour of Agathys, but Tome gives much greater flexibility.
- What other Cantrips and/or Spells would you recommend; I've 2 Sorcerer spells to choose (both of which can technically be 2nd level), 4 Warlock Cantrips (plus an optional 3 from anywhere if I go Tome) and 14 Warlock Spells to choose.
- Do you have any other suggestions/recommendations/criticism for me?

When considering the above, please bear in mind the theme (cold), her homeland (a frozen northern wilderness) and background (a Chaotic Evil Barbarian tribe). She, herself, is Chaotic Neutral (going for the whole "fighting against her natural/nurtured instincts to be CE, sprinkled with a dash of Fey capriciousness" gig).

Thanks

[RagnaroksChosen]

So first and for most you have a cool Warlock idea. I would ask your GM if you can change the warlock spells to Cold. All or nothing type deal. My GM for one of the games I am in had me make a pact with a lighting fay and all my warlock spells are lighting typed now.

Barring that.



- What order would you recommend taking levels?

So when I multiclass I prefer to have all my different classes upfront (even though it may not be optimal). So I would do Sorc /Warlock/Sorc 2/Warlock 16

For more optimized approach. I would either go Sorc 2 / Warlock 1/ Sorc / warlock 16 or Sorc 3/Warlock 17.
The reason for the first one is because the ability to get the sorcery points on a short rest will make your life as an early sorc a lot easier untill you kick into warlock.
I think the 2nd one is probably more optimal. Get your sorcerer levels out of the way and then kick into warlock.



- What Pact Boon would you suggest? Blade makes for an impressive visual impact and gets the best use out of spells like Armour of Agathys, but Tome gives much greater flexibility.

This build screens Tome. Not only for rituals but I think it fits with the Fey theme. Keeping all your fey "stories" in it.



- What other Cantrips and/or Spells would you recommend; I've 2 Sorcerer spells to choose (both of which can technically be 2nd level), 4 Warlock Cantrips (plus an optional 3 from anywhere if I go Tome) and 14 Warlock Spells to choose.





- Do you have any other suggestions/recommendations/criticism for me?

When you get your first feat I would take the one that is the elemental one (I am away from my books) but it ignores resistance to chosen element and either gives a +1 or counts 1's as 2's for damage rolls. I would still ask your GM to re fluff the warlock spells as cold spells.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I don't know whether homebrew is allowed in your campaign, but if it is, you might want to take a look at this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480638-The-Witch-of-Winter-(for-RavenJovan)), especially the spells. :smallsmile:

[Grod_The_Giant]

- What Pact Boon would you suggest? Blade makes for an impressive visual impact and gets the best use out of spells like Armour of Agathys, but Tome gives much greater flexibility.
I think I'd definitely go Tome. If you want to mix it up in melee (at low levels, at least) you can always grab Shillelagh and flavor it as wielding an ice weapon. You'll never get Thirsting Blade, but with those Sorcerer levels you're already delaying it so much I don't know if you'd care. You can add in one of the SCAG melee cantrips and probably make up for the lost attack regardless.


- What other Cantrips and/or Spells would you recommend; I've 2 Sorcerer spells to choose (both of which can technically be 2nd level), 4 Warlock Cantrips (plus an optional 3 from anywhere if I go Tome) and 14 Warlock Spells to choose.
- Do you have any other suggestions/recommendations/criticism for me?
Cantrips: Frostbite, Friends, Guidance, Minor Illusion, Eldritch Blast, Booming Blade
Sorcerer Spells: Ice Knife, Snowball Swarm, Fog Cloud, and Warding Wind all seem to fit the cold fluff; Alter Self, Invisibility, Detect Thoughts, Mirror Image, Charm Person, and Silent Image all fit with the fey bit. I'd probably take Snowball Swarm and Alter Self.
Warlock Spells: Hunger of Hadar, Elemental Bane, and Investiture of Ice seem like your main cold Warlock spells. Hold Person/Monster and Flesh to Stone could easily be refluffed as encroaching ice.

[JellyPooga]

So first and for most you have a cool Warlock idea. I would ask your GM if you can change the warlock spells to Cold.
Thanks! I'll ask about re-skinning, but I doubt it will fly. GM is pretty "by-the-book".

So when I multiclass I prefer to have all my different classes upfront (even though it may not be optimal). So I would do Sorc /Warlock/Sorc 2/Warlock 16
My first instinct was to go Sorc 1/Warlock 5/Sorc 2/Warlock 12, primarily to pick up the Devil's Sight Invocation as quickly as possible (we're delving the Underdark) and not to slow my ASI acquisition too much.

I think I may go with your suggestion of Sorc 3/Warlock 17 though. It gets me using 2nd level spells, Font of Magic and Metamagic right off the bat, as well as time to grow into the Pact as play progresses.


This build screens Tome. Not only for rituals but I think it fits with the Fey theme. Keeping all your fey "stories" in it.
I think I'd definitely go Tome. If you want to mix it up in melee (at low levels, at least) you can always grab Shillelagh and flavor it as wielding an ice weapon. You'll never get Thirsting Blade, but with those Sorcerer levels you're already delaying it so much I don't know if you'd care. You can add in one of the SCAG melee cantrips and probably make up for the lost attack regardless.
I'd been leaning toward Tome, but this confirms it. Tome it is then.

I doubt I'll bother with Shillelagh; it's a nice spell, but I'm not certain my Charisma is ever going to be significantly higher than my Strength during the course of the campaign to make it worthwhile. If I stumble on a Charisma-enhancing magic item before picking up my Book of Secrets, that may change, of course...


When you get your first feat I would take the one that is the elemental one.
Elemental Adept? Yeah, it's first on my list!


I don't know whether homebrew is allowed in your campaign, but if it is, you might want to take a look at this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480638-The-Witch-of-Winter-(for-RavenJovan)), especially the spells. :smallsmile:
As I mention above, the GM is pretty by-the-book, but this stuff looks pretty...cool :smallcool:


Cantrips: Frostbite, Friends, Guidance, Minor Illusion, Eldritch Blast, Booming Blade
Sorcerer Spells: Ice Knife, Snowball Swarm, Fog Cloud, and Warding Wind all seem to fit the cold fluff; Alter Self, Invisibility, Detect Thoughts, Mirror Image, Charm Person, and Silent Image all fit with the fey bit. I'd probably take Snowball Swarm and Alter Self.
Warlock Spells: Hunger of Hadar, Elemental Bane, and Investiture of Ice seem like your main cold Warlock spells. Hold Person/Monster and Flesh to Stone could easily be refluffed as encroaching ice.

This is very useful, thanks.
A couple of questions, though;
- I'm looking at Snowball Swarm...is there something I'm missing about this spell? It looks pretty lacklustre with its tiny AoE and low damage. Heck, if I'm reading it right Ice Knife has better AoE and does the same damage when cast from higher level slots than 1st; better if you count the 1d10 piercing. The only things Snowball has is a slightly longer range and "save for half" instead of "save for nothing". Is that a big enough of a deal to be worth taking it?
- Investure of Ice; again is it worth it? I like the thematic aspect of it, but it's also a 6th level spell, so it's going to be a Mystic Arcanum and thus will compete with the likes of Conjure Fey and Flesh to StoneIce. The effects of it are nice, especially for the up-front style I intend taking for her, but do they compete with other spells of that level?

[Corran]

- Do you have any other suggestions/recommendations/criticism for me?

Sorry that I dont have to offer much, other than saying that it looks like a very interesting character idea.
I do have one question though, perhaps extended to criticism. Why such a high str score? Why not just leave it at 8, which will raise to 10 due to you being a dragonborn? Letting the +2 put your str to 14 from 12 feels like you are ''winning'' 1 point (due to the raise cost from 13 to 14), but in fact you are making an investment (athletics, str save and carrying capacity) that is not worth it, as far as I can see.

Why not just use 15 +1 = 16 cha, 14 con, 13 dex, 12 wis, 10 +2 = 12 str, 8 int (or reverse str with int for a more balanced approach), if point buy.

Or 15+1 = 16 cha, 8 +2 = 10 str, 8 int, 10 wis, 14 dex, 14 con, if point buy, with 2 points remaining that you can invest either in wis (putting your wis at 12), or at con (if you start as a warlock for wisdom saves and 1 more hp, planning to take resilient con eventually).

I would probably start as a warlock, for the reasons I mentioned (I value wis saves a lot), planning on taking resilience con some way along the way, and thus planning my ability scores for this, hence stating with 10 str, 14 dex, 15 con, 8 int, 10 wis, 16 cha.

[JellyPooga]

Sorry that I dont have to offer much, other than saying that it looks like a very interesting character idea.
I do have one question though, perhaps extended to criticism. Why such a high str score?

The criticism is welcome. Thanks! :smallbiggrin:

In answer to your question; it's largely because I have a hard time divorcing "Dragonborn" from "physically adept". The fact that she's from a barbarian-esque background as well, also has a lot to do with it. Given that I'll be putting literally nothing else into Strength over the course of her career (or Con for that matter and likely not Dex either), I wanted her to be a prime physical specimen; I even considered swapping one of her social Skills for Athletics (from Background, of course).

So, the lowest I'd really want Str is a 12, which only gives me 2pts of pt-buy to play with, which is good for putting either my Int or Wis up by 2 I guess, but those are my dump stats for this character.

It would probably be optimal to get that Charisma to 16, but the opportunity cost of it seems high; I'd be lowering two other stat modifiers by 1 (or one stat by 2) to put my Charisma mod up by 1. Also; I kinda like having well-rounded characters. Having +2 on all my physicals is...satisfying. It could also be unexpected;

Drow: "Heh...target the Sorcerer with that Web; she's puny."
Me: "Raargh! Mags shrug off puny web! Smash with club now!"
Drow: "Wait, what? Aaargh! My poor defenceless face!"

Although, perhaps with a little less Hulk-smash-talk...

On the subject of Saving Throw proficiencies; I personally prefer to have Con from the get-go and to pick up Resilient (Wis) later on. More things target Con at lower level, I've found and Wis saves don't really start getting lethal until higher levels when you're encountering more spellslinging foes. This build will likely be starved for ASI's, due to the multiclass, so I doubt I'll be able to squeeze Resilient in there anyway.