Build Idea: Fang of Lolth (Stealthy Drow Cleric or Paladin)

[ES Curse]

Greetings GitP! I've been thinking recently about how to build one of Lolth's elite champions. Knowing that Lolth is a goddess of spiders, I imagine her champions would be closer to rouges than traditional clerics or paladins. Champions also need several features to really feel like servants of a spider goddess:
-Proficiency with Stealth and Acrobatics, preferably Religion and/or a Poisoner's Kit too
-Way to consistently deal poison damage (spiders don't shoot radiant lasers, after all)
-Uses weapons favored by the Drow (rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows)

Two options really stand out for making this build feel right: Trickery clerics can make duplicates of themselves and turn invisible, both of which would be really interesting when paired with the darkness spell from the Drow Magic feature. In addition, they get extra poison damage on weapon attacks at 8th level, which sounds perfect for the character. Vengeance Paladins also stick out, the spells bane, hunter's mark, and hold person are great features for a divine spider-assassin freak.

One thing I want to do as early as possible within the Paladin/Cleric class is grant penalties/disadvantage to Constitution saves, so my poisons become super effective. Do those classes have a good way of applying that effect?

[TundraBuccaneer]

I think bestow curse is what your looking for its a lvl3 spell. before that you might be able to do it with bane but thats just a 1time thing.
I really like the stealthy roguish cleric. I myself am planing a death cleric who assassinates by inflict wounds and other touch necrotic spells.

[Karion]

I'd at the very least consider Land Druid of the Underdark - it has some spider-themed spells, and you can literally shapeshift into a spider (possibly poisonous? I don't have the MM handy currently).
I can imagine fluffing it as believing that the balance between the Underdark and the surface world has been shifted way too much towards the latter and you, as part of the drow society, believing that Lolth can bring it back.

[Oblivious]

Bane has the advantage that you can cast it on multiple enemies, so it's likely that at least one will fail. It's questionable whether Bane or Bestow Curse be worth the action and Concentration for this purpose, though. Your best bet might be to Curse the target, then have party members poison them (and hit the save with other methods).

The Lucky feat and Portent wizard ability could also work.

Aside from that, the only method I can see is to somehow inflict Exhaustion, and I don't see a way to do that (no Waves of Exhaustion in this edition).

[Sir cryosin]

I think bestow curse is what your looking for its a lvl3 spell. before that you might be able to do it with bane but thats just a 1time thing.
I really like the stealthy roguish cleric. I myself am planing a death cleric who assassinates by inflict wounds and other touch necrotic spells.

I been looking for the best way to do that what I came up with take 3 lvs of assassin to get the surprise auto crit. And get my hands on the find familiar got get a owl then on a surprise round cast inflict wounds as high as I can and using my owl to deliver it then it can just use it fly by ability to get out of there. At a lv1 slot that's 6d10

[Blue Wizrobe]

Bane has the advantage that you can cast it on multiple enemies, so it's likely that at least one will fail. It's questionable whether Bane or Bestow Curse be worth the action and Concentration for this purpose, though. Your best bet might be to Curse the target, then have party members poison them (and hit the save with other methods).


Just to second the vote for Bane here (You merely adopted the Demonweb Pits... I was born in them! ...sorry.)
Remember it also targets CHA and scales up +1 target per spell slot level. Depending on the target, *most* monsters dump CHA harder than 2nd ed. Fighters for the most part, as do a lot of the sample NPC-type enemies found in the MM too. My BFC cleric uses it a lot to set up Blindness/Deafness, but it would have the same effect setting up a strike from a poisoned weapon, which makes the Poisoner's Kit an ideal addition to this kit. Especially if you could find a way to spread poison to multiple targets at once, like an airborne fungal cloud or a gas grenade-weapon or something along those lines. Also, once you can cast Bestow Curse as a 5th-level Spell, the Concentration requirement goes away.

[djreynolds]

Greetings GitP! I've been thinking recently about how to build one of Lolth's elite champions. Knowing that Lolth is a goddess of spiders, I imagine her champions would be closer to rouges than traditional clerics or paladins. Champions also need several features to really feel like servants of a spider goddess:
-Proficiency with Stealth and Acrobatics, preferably Religion and/or a Poisoner's Kit too
-Way to consistently deal poison damage (spiders don't shoot radiant lasers, after all)
-Uses weapons favored by the Drow (rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows)

Two options really stand out for making this build feel right: Trickery clerics can make duplicates of themselves and turn invisible, both of which would be really interesting when paired with the darkness spell from the Drow Magic feature. In addition, they get extra poison damage on weapon attacks at 8th level, which sounds perfect for the character. Vengeance Paladins also stick out, the spells bane, hunter's mark, and hold person are great features for a divine spider-assassin freak.

One thing I want to do as early as possible within the Paladin/Cleric class is grant penalties/disadvantage to Constitution saves, so my poisons become super effective. Do those classes have a good way of applying that effect?

Well I think trickery cleric is the key, their divine smite at 8th and 14th with poison is just awesome. And I do not see why evil paladins cannot select devotion. I like that sacred weapon. Instead of find steed, you could substitute find a giant spider say if you cast find steed as in a 4th or 5th level spell slot, or just bought one.

I like the idea of rapiers and crossbows, but with sleep poison.

For real poison, I think a flail, mace, and especially a dagger would be better.

Trickery cleric 14/ Assassin 6 could be cool and thematic. Wisdom and dex based in a chain shirt

And what about a paladin (vengeance or devotion) say level 13 and beastmaster 7. That could be an interesting combo, or even cleric/beastmaster with a poisonous snake

[Arkhios]

Whip might work quite nicely for a Lolth's servant. I'm AFB but it was finesse weapon, right? While it's not perhaps very fang-y, it's pretty nasty, and might work well with rogue/trickery cleric combo. IIRC, rogues had proficiency with it too.

[djreynolds]

Whip might work quite nicely for a Lolth's servant. I'm AFB but it was finesse weapon, right? While it's not perhaps very fang-y, it's pretty nasty, and might work well with rogue/trickery cleric combo. IIRC, rogues had proficiency with it too.

Yes a whip, not a flail, but a whip. EVIL. I like it.

[Arkhios]

Yes a whip, not a flail, but a whip. EVIL. I like it.

Also, consider this: Crossbow Master with Whip and hand crossbow!

[djreynolds]

Also, consider this: Crossbow Master with Whip and hand crossbow!

Yes sleep poison and venom.

The OP should just pull out some drow cleric builds from the novels.

But cleric?/rogue 6, have persuasion and deception and insight as expertise, maybe nature as well.. for poison and torture and anatomy purposes.