AL Character Help

[Nicodiemus]

So, we're about to wrap up Rise of Tiamat, and I need an idea for a new character starting at level one. What I'm looking for is a character that can literally do a bit of everything, but as efficiently as possible. Something like a Paladin/Arcane Trickster build, but better, if possible. That way I can fill whatever gap there may be in the party week to week. Thanks for the help!

[Gastronomie]

Multiclassing Paladin and Rogue in Adventurer's League requires heavy investment in STR, DEX and CHA, which can be quite taxing in point-buy. It also takes some time before it can become "versatile".

Bards are good at everything. Lore Bards if you wanna be best Caster, Valor Bards if you wanna be a good gish. Works well at all levels, which is important since AL starts at level 1.

I do have some other ideas like Fighter+Warlock and Paladin+Sorcerer, but these require lots of optimization and a preferably high level, which may make them unsuitable for AL.

[Specter]

Valor Bard, I'd say. Between skills, spells and attacks, you got it all.

[DivisibleByZero]

Half elf
Criminal/Urchin/Urban Bounty Hunter background
Paladin 2 / Draconic Sorcerer X
Cha and Dex
You have plenty of skills, you can be the party face if you want, you can melee (SCAG cantrips, smite), you can deal with traps, you can heal, you can buff, you are primarily an arcane caster, you have metamagic.... The list goes on and on.
It's the Swiss Army Knife of 5e, and all it takes is a two level dip and a little planning.
Even standard array works: str13, dex15+1, con12+1 with Resilient Con later, int8, wis10, cha14+2
Or use point buy, raise con to 13+1, and drop Wis to compensate and create the point needed.

Works even better with favored soul, but you said AL.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Valor Bard, I'd say. Between skills, spells and attacks, you got it all.
Thirded, though a Lore Bard can take a pretty good stab at it if you take Booming or Green Flame Blade with one of your magical secrets. Start as a vHuman for added early-game power/flexiblity- Mobile works great on a lighter melee type, you could prep Polearm Master or GWM early, go Magical Initiate to snag a familiar, or Sharpshooter- Valor Bards make great archers.

[RulesJD]

Most Versatile + Useful Build throughout the level ranges:

1. Tempest Cleric + Draconic Sorc (or Wild Magic if you want to have fun)

Sorc first (Con proficiency) then Cleric up to 6 (7 overall). After that, levels of Sorcerer for Meta-magic + Resistance to Lightning via Draconic Sorc eventually.

It offers the best Single Target damage (Chromatic Orb + Upcast + twice per short rest Max lightning/Thunder damage), best AoE damage (Shatter + Upcast + twice per short rest Max Thunder damage), and best Utility + Damage spells (Spirit Guardians + Guidance).

You can heal, you wear heavy armor + shield (great AC) have d8 hit die the whole way (Draconic Sorc is d6+1 = d8), remove effects, and decent control spells (no WoF sadly). Your Con and Wisdom saves will be great and Dex saves are only damage so who cares.

You get access to Counterspell eventually, which is crucial at higher levels, as well as certain ritual spells that greatly help like Detect Magic for finding those insta-killing magical traps.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Actually, on slightly more thought, Lore Bard might be even better. Specifically, a vHuman Urchin or Criminal Lore Bard 18/Life Cleric 1.

For your feat, take Magic Initiate for Wizard, taking Booming Blade, Find Familiar, and another cantrip of your choice (be careful; your spellcasting modifier won't be good-- I'd look at utility stuff like Friends and Meding). Cleric cantrips should include Guidance, obviously. You'll want Charisma and Strength, mostly-- with point buy, you can get 14 Str and Con, 16 Cha and your requisite 13 Wis, which you might as well bump up to 14 because Wis is really useful. Start Bard, bounce to Cleric, then back to Bard. At Bard 6, pick up Goodberry for that cheese fun, and consider nabbing Mobility to soup up Booming Blade.


Booming Blade makes for solid melee all by itself. Add in the platemail, shield, and Cutting Words and you'll be fantastically tanky, especially since...
Life Cleric makes you a great healer, especially once you get Goodberry (at a high enough level that it shouldn't bother people too much, I might add).
You'll be, just, the best support, from a very low level-- Bless, Bardic Inspiration, Song of Rest...
All the skills. You'll get nine proficient, the remainder at half, Guidance, Inspiration, Expertise, a familiar... "one man party" doesn't begin to cover it. Drop a Magical Secrets on Pass Without Trace and you can be the stealthiest mofo in existence.
Bards are naturally great utility casters, especially since you can depend on a Bless-augmented Booming Blade for most of your damage. The Cleric levels give you even more space for low-level effects.



As a variant, you could add a level of Sorcerer or Warlock in there at the beginning to nab you Booming Blade and/or Green Flame Blade, and take Mobility as your starting feat instead. It'll delay your progression a bit, but your low-level survivability should go up from the feat, while Warlock can net you telepathy or temp HP, along with the raw power of things like Armor of Agathys and the ability to cast Goodberry out of short-rest slots, and Sorcerers can get some solid offensive spells like Magic Missile and Burning Hands to upcast. Of the two, Warlock is certainly superior, but much more overused.

[busterswd]

Bard/Moon Druid


A Lore Bard is almost perfect, but he's not a frontliner, and he really doesn't have a reliable source of at will damage. A warlock dip will fix the latter. To fix the former, you need to become more MAD and dip into a martial class, which may not be worth it. Lore Bards are probably THE best support in the game, though; there's a lot of tricks you have to help your party. Cutting Words alone is incredibly versatile (you can debuff iniatives, for example, or cut the damage on a Fireball that's going to hit your party), and Magical Secrets comes at just the right time for you to shore up your party's weaknesses. For maximum versatility, something like Conjure Animals (8 large flying creatures that don't provoke OP attacks? 2 Brown B a,tear friends? Giant Constrictor Snake to inflict restrain at will?) is unbeatable, though you can literally pick whatever you want.


Valor Bards have the great array of bardic support spells on top of being able to melee a bit. My beef with them is that while they can do a little bit of everything, they're not really GREAT at anything. They're also in competition with the Lore college (which I'm obviously a bit biased toward).


Moon Druids are another favorite class of mine. Level 2-5, you can literally do anything, and generally better than most other classes. You can swap out your spells between sessions (unlike bards), and the Druid spell list is among the best in the game. (Goodberry, Conjure Animals, Entangle, Polymorph, all the utility spells like Healing Word, Dispel Magic, Detect Magic, etc.) The big drawback is that Wildshape management can be a pain in the butt (not as bad in AL, as you'll rarely fight more than 2-3 encounters per long rest, especially for expeditions), and past level 6, you become more of a full caster with a melee panic button (though to be fair, Brown Bear is brokenly good when you get it). You are still able to contribute to literally any situation your party requires.

[Klorox]

If you're trying to optimize a point buy character, your best bet is to look for a character that is both versatile and largely SAD.

A vhuman or hill dwarf nature cleric is a great example. WIS is the most important stat here, since you'll be using shillelagh a lot. You'll want the polearm master feat and to handle that heavy armor, so balance each race: the hill dwarf doesn't need STR to walk around in heavy armor, while the human needs a 15, but the human can start with polearm master while the dwarf waits until level 4.

Druids are similar as well, and you don't even need to worry about armor (or any stats, really).

If you thought moon druids were hard to drop in combat, try a bear totem barbarian/ moon druid. A raging bear should survive any combats AL throws at you.

A cleric is also great at healing, which makes party members want to be your friend. That helps in AL where, week to week, you might never see the same players again.

I'm curious about this paladin/arcane trickster the OP mentioned.

[GorogIrongut]

Lore bard gives you access to all kinds of skills and skill buffs. It gives you magic and lots of reactions. It's charisma based.

Warlock can be taken down so many paths that it's versatility is insane. From which pact you want... to which entity you owe your fealty too. I personally prefer tomelock... but you could go bladelock. With a bit of armor of agathys loving you could be an acceptable frontliner while still having full casting abilities... Is obviously charisma based.


If you don't want to go with a warlock, then I would suggest you go down the path of the paladin. Sure it's a limited caster, but it can cover so many other aspects... from it's aura to it's healing. You get to be a frontliner with familiars and a mount. This one's a little more MAD. Charisma, con and strength build.


If you weren't playing in AL, I would recommend you go for something fun to roleplay. Swashbuckling Lore Bard. Mine is good at everything and SO much fun.

[DivisibleByZero]

If you weren't playing in AL, I would recommend you go for something fun to roleplay. Swashbuckling Lore Bard. Mine is good at everything and SO much fun.
He can play that in an AL game, as swashbuckler is in SCAG now.

[GorogIrongut]

He can play that in an AL game, as swashbuckler is in SCAG now.

You sir are correct. Then by all that is holy, that suggestion of mine takes precedence. You get two separate lots of expertise to make you good at anything and everything. You just need charisma and dexterity, so you're not stat mad. The Rogue chassis gives you access to a whole host of options. Lore Bards are the most multivariate of the spellcasters. Combine that with the fun that swashbuckler gives... You've got a multi skilled build that, although it may not be a tank, can definitely be on the frontline. Even better, it hits their frontliners with a booming blade and then moves out of their reach to go after their casters, doing so without retaliation.

[Dalebert]

I agree that a valor bard has probably the most built-in versatility to fill any role without multi-classing. I also agree that swashbuckler would work great with it. You'd get medium armor and a shield when you want to tank or you could switch the shield out for an off-hand weapon to help with sneak attack and have the built-in mobility of swashbuckler if you don't need to tank. Meanwhile, you also gain extra attack from valor bard. I'd make a beeline for 3rd level bard for the armor and shield and then probably to 5 as well for the extra attack and then go to at least 3rd in rogue.

[GorogIrongut]

If you go with the swashbuckling lore bard, you'll almost always be going first. Swashbucklers get to add their charisma to their initiative. Bards also get to add a little something to their initiative. It's patently ridiculous how high it will be.

I personally wouldn't go with a valor bard if you're going to use a swashbuckler. That extra attack will be wasted. You'll want to do booming blade, so that you control where your opponent move, or more specifically don't. You move up to them, booming blade them and then leave the combat and finish your move towards the next target. They can't move without triggering the secondary effects of the booming blade.
Having that 2nd attack seems like a good idea, but if you look below the surface, it may not mesh well with the swashbuckling side of things.

[Dalebert]

I personally wouldn't go with a valor bard if you're going to use a swashbuckler.

Couldn't disagree more. If you're doing a lot of combat, valor bard gets medium armor, shield if you want it, and a second attack. It's hardly wasted. It's a 2nd chance to land sneak attack if you miss the first time and a third chance if you're doing twf. BB is a nice cantrip for swashbucklers but it's not always what you want to do. My swashbuckler uses twf for an extra chance to land sneak attack and you don't get the bonus attack if you don't take the attack action which BB is not. With BB, you're putting all your eggs in one basket and could just miss and do nothing that round. Not landing your sneak attack is a waste of your sneak attack. A second attack is insurance to keep it from being wasted.

Once you hit 5th in bard, you'll be able to get three attacks and three chances to land sneak attack. Save BB for when you want it for the crowd control aspect, i.e. to hold something in place. Alternatively, hold it for when you already have plans for your bonus action other than off-hand attack. You're trading three chances to land sneak attack for one.

OP wanted advice for the most versatile character. That's valor bard. It can grab a shield and tank or DPS in melee with TWF or cast really useful spells and be support.

[DivisibleByZero]

Not to mention that neither swashbuckler nor bard gets BB, meaning bed either need to be vhuman, SCAG vhelf, or wait for an ASI to get BB.
Waiting for an ASI on a multiclass character in AL play is basically accepting that you may never get the feat.

I still stand by the p2/sorc criminal build. Comes online faster (as in, playable immediately) and *requires* no feats.

[GorogIrongut]

Again I think this comes down to personal preference.

Lore bard gives you 3 extra skills. By combining the thief and the bard chassis you become the ultimate skill monkey and face. Especially when you get the two expertise from bard and the two from rogue. It literally makes you capable of doing anything. My swashbard was lucky enough to find gauntlets of ogre strength. Before that he was a good grappler. After that he was an insane grappler.

I also find the extra magical secrets to be so useful... At 6th level, the lore bard can take spirit guardians and then use his swashbuckling ability to dance around his enemies... There are multiple other spells that can be just as vicious. This magical diversity in my opinion makes the character more versatile than having m armour and an extra attack.

I also find cutting words to be more versatile than the valor bard variant. It has more uses... especially when grappling or inflicting an ability check.

There's no doubt that a valor bard has more of a chance of being a frontliner... but for me that pigeonholes him more than making him versatile.




And for clarification, mine is a SCAG VHElf.

[Dalebert]

That way I can fill whatever gap there may be in the party week to week.

This implies possibly needing to stand in for a missing tank. A lore bard is actually specifically very good at being a skill monger while a valor bard is kind of a skill monger while also being able to be a backup tank. I get that you like lore bards more and that you like the lore bard swashbuckler combo and you gave good reasons for why they're effective but it seems like you're doing a bit of projecting here as opposed to listening to what OP's wants are for this character. But OP, if you don't care about tanking, then it's certainly worth considering.

[GorogIrongut]

This implies possibly needing to stand in for a missing tank. A lore bard is actually specifically very good at being a skill monger while a valor bard is kind of a skill monger while also being able to be a backup tank. I get that you like lore bards more and that you like the lore bard swashbuckler combo and you gave good reasons for why they're effective but it seems like you're doing a bit of projecting here as opposed to listening to what OP's wants are for this character. But OP, if you don't care about tanking, then it's certainly worth considering.

You'll note that I specifically prefaced my comments by saying that it came down to personal preference.

If he's looking to be a reliable tank (amongst other things), then going paladock in my opinion is the obvious option. You can be vicious in combat. You've got aura's. You can get access to find familiar and find mount. You can armor of agathys up using your level 5 warlock slots (which will also make powerful smites), skip the shield so you get hit more easily and take advantage of a great weapon (which simultaneously makes casting easier).

The other one is more of a caster and a lot more of a skill monkey. This one is much harder and definitely more capable of fighting. Just the paladin aura by itself can be a life saver.

They're both capable of a lot of things, but yes, I definitely prefer the swashbuckler. It allows for so much more roleplaying fun. I won't apologize for trying to favour roleplaying fun.

[Klorox]

You'll note that I specifically prefaced my comments by saying that it came down to personal preference.

If he's looking to be a reliable tank (amongst other things), then going paladock in my opinion is the obvious option. You can be vicious in combat. You've got aura's. You can get access to find familiar and find mount. You can armor of agathys up using your level 5 warlock slots (which will also make powerful smites), skip the shield so you get hit more easily and take advantage of a great weapon (which simultaneously makes casting easier).

The other one is more of a caster and a lot more of a skill monkey. This one is much harder and definitely more capable of fighting. Just the paladin aura by itself can be a life saver.

They're both capable of a lot of things, but yes, I definitely prefer the swashbuckler. It allows for so much more roleplaying fun. I won't apologize for trying to favour roleplaying fun.

What do you mean by "more roleplaying fun"?

[GorogIrongut]

What do you mean by "more roleplaying fun"?

Obviously you can roleplay characters however you like. But in strict, trying to emulate in game mechanics, panache... fancy footwork... toujours l'audace...

My character opted to use Monty Python-like insults to emulate his bardic Cutting Words. Yes a paladin could do the same thing... but there would be zero effect after the insult. Either way the orc will be told that his father smelled of elderberries, but one has an actual in game effect and to me is thus more satisfying. Nor does the paladin get to dance around the orc and his buddies, while raining down insults upon them. Instead the paladin stands there (or rides a mount) and hews them down in a typical mighty fashion.

I've yet to go so far as to sing my songs as a bard theoretically does, but even that is an option. The Paladock invokes Cthulhu, which can be impressive but much less fun. Same for the armor of agathys. It's mighty and can have a huge effect in game. But roleplaying it is hard. Same with the paladin's aura. It's just floating around him whether he's fighting a dragon or taking a crap. The actual roleplaying has zero effect on it.

For anyone who's a fan of David Eddings, I would countenance the difference to be between having to spend time with Silk or Barak/Mandorallen. The latter two are great characters and quite characterful. But you'll remember Silk for decades to come.

p.s. for clarification I didn't use Garion as I couldn't countenance Garion being compared to the warlock side of a paladock. That said, even if we did use Garion, you still can't deny that Silk is more 'fun', even if Garion is the titular character of the two series.

[Klorox]

I just don't buy it. Maybe *you* have more roleplaying fun with that type of character, but somebody else might not.

Some people like sneaky characters, some like tanks, some like optimized characters, some prefer weaker characters, and so on and so forth.

You might find more opportunities to get little roleplaying tidbits into a game with mockeries and such, but that's for you. Heck, roleplaying a mute character could be fun as well. I have an idea for a ghostwise halfling monk of the long death who's had his tongue cut out because his order won't speak of certain aspects of death.

I know these characters can still communicate telepathically, but that still limits me to communicating with one character at a time. This might not appeal to you, but if it does to me, then it's more fun to roleplay, isn't it?