Building Loki

[clash]

I have a player that wants to make Loki from the Marvel movies as a character and he wants to know the best way to achieve this. Does Trickery Cleric or Bard work better for this? Or some mc combination of both classes?

[Specter]

I made a Loki build in my Social God guide, but it's more mythology than Marvel, and not very optimized. But Trickery Cleric, for sure, along with maybe Illusionist.

[Joe the Rat]

Trickery Cleric has a lot of your needed goodies (two places at once? Oh yes), but a Bard (Lore Bard for cutting words seems very appropriate) can get you a lot of what you need.

But what really would make movie Loki is adding at-will disguise and illusion capabilities... A Bardlock keeps everything on Charisma. A Trickery Cleric / Warlock takes a bit more stat finesse, but you would want a decent charisma for the social manipulation side of things for any build.
It's the cold resistance/immunity that takes the most fiddling...

[clash]

Trickery Cleric has a lot of your needed goodies (two places at once? Oh yes), but a Bard (Lore Bard for cutting words seems very appropriate) can get you a lot of what you need.

But what really would make movie Loki is adding at-will disguise and illusion capabilities... A Bardlock keeps everything on Charisma. A Trickery Cleric / Warlock takes a bit more stat finesse, but you would want a decent charisma for the social manipulation side of things for any build.
It's the cold resistance/immunity that takes the most fiddling...

Warlock certainly does bring a bunch of goodies to the table. For cold resistance/immunity Dragonborn would work as race and refluff the appearance or keep disguise self active as it doesnt require concentration.

[Socratov]

I'm going to come with a different build: Moon Druid 2/Lorebard X

This way you have the guile and charisma of Loki from Marvel, but will add in the shapechanging refenreces of Loki from mythology

[Marethyu]

I think is much better to just use Rogue-Arcane Trickster and use primarily illusion spells

[Specter]

The biggest problem of building fictional characters in D&D, especially superheroes/villains, is that the stats are never enough. Loki is dexterous, intelligent, wise and charismatic, and obviously you can't cover all these bases. What you have to do is focus on what you really want, and adapt from there.

[SunderedWorldDM]

Well, let's see. I like the Moon Druid angle, Trickery Cleric is a must, Whisper or Lore Bard seems to be requested, and Arcane Trickster is my personal favorite. So here's a proposed idea:

Moon Druid 2 (for Wild Shape)
Trickery Cleric 6 (for the invisibility and Invoke Duplicity)
Whisper Bard 6 (for Mantle of Shadows, considered going to 10, but I wouldn't have room for other stuff)
ArTrick Rogue 6 (just to be a rogue)

Disagree with me. I'm bad at this.

[Nifft]

.

Lair Effect: When Sigyn empties her bowl, the serpent's venom strikes the bound godling, and in his agony his struggles shake the earth. Everyone in the lair who isn't flying must make a Strength save (DC 19) or fall prone.

[Zanthy1]

At least 2 levels of warlock for the invocations that give him at will Silent Image and Disguise Self. 1 level of trickery cleric. From there progress in either plan, possibly added Lore Bard, though that may be too much of a split. Personally I would do Cleric up to level 8 then back to warlock the rest of the way, or more cleric whichever feels more appropriate.

[Vogie]

Loki is literally a god, so trying to mortal-ize him seems like a terrible idea.

However, there could be a litany of deity-adjacent classes you could use:

A Champion of Loki would be a Treachery Paladin, with a dip in warlock
A Cleric of Loki would be a Trickery Cleric
A Thaumaturge or Adept of Loki could be a Wizard, probably Conjuration or Illusion, but Transmutation could also work
A Herald, Speaker, or Envoy of Loki would be a Bard, Probably Glamour or Whispers, but Lore could also work, with a dip in warlock
A Disciple or Initiate of Loki could either be a Arcane Trickster Rogue, or an Inquisitive Rogue with a Trickery Cleric dip.

[Zonugal]

I'd probably just do something like:

Glasya Tiefling Rogue 2/GOOlock 3/'Arcane Trickster' Rogue 15
Str 8, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 16

[wilhelmdubdub]

eladrin for fey step once per short/long rest, Arcane trickster to about 5, with illusionist wizard to about 15. You can bamf around using fey step, have really good illusions, and for damage combo: shadow blade, green flame blade and sneak attack

[GlenSmash!]

Changling race for the MCUs Loki's penchant for impersonating people.

Giant Soul Sorcerer to represent his magic, and Giant heritage. Cloud Giant will get you illusion spells, and Teleports.

[Mimersbrønd]

A warlock with the Mask of Many Faces and the Actor feat was the first thing that came to my mind, Since loki uses his shapeshift so often and so good to manipulate people the way he wants. The rest is just a lot of manipulation spells like suggestion ect.

[ToastyTobasco]

Loki is literally a god, so trying to mortal-ize him seems like a terrible idea.

However, there could be a litany of deity-adjacent classes you could use:

A Champion of Loki would be a Treachery Paladin, with a dip in warlock
A Cleric of Loki would be a Trickery Cleric
A Thaumaturge or Adept of Loki could be a Wizard, probably Conjuration or Illusion, but Transmutation could also work
A Herald, Speaker, or Envoy of Loki would be a Bard, Probably Glamour or Whispers, but Lore could also work, with a dip in warlock
A Disciple or Initiate of Loki could either be a Arcane Trickster Rogue, or an Inquisitive Rogue with a Trickery Cleric dip.


Treachery Paladin?

[Vogie]

Treachery Paladin?

Yeah, the UA that came out a while back. Here (https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UAPaladin_SO_20161219_1.pdf).