Undying Light Bladelock

[Vaz]

Or maybe Pal-lock, War-adin... Whatever.

Pal 2/UL Lock 5, using Scourge Aasimar and picking up Polearm Mastery.

PB, looking at 15(+1), 10, 14, 8, 8, 15(+1 +ASI).

Obviously picking up Thirsting Blade. Thinking of using Armour of Agathys to offset my poor HP (62 on Average). Going Pal first for obvious reasons, and likely Duellist Q'Staff and Shield.

Thinking of going Darkness/Devils Sight for a "who turned out the lights" vibe, while I Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade to control multiple combatants.

Looking at using my Smites, but what other spells shoukd I consider picking up?

[CaptainSarathai]

Why PAM and QStaff if you're using SCAG cantrips? They aren't an Attack Action, they won't trigger the bonus attack.

Thirsting Blade or Extra Attack is worth a lot less with GFB on offer, so I'd only take Lock to 3, 4 at most for the ASI. Go Tome, grab Find Familiar, and Shillelagh (if you want to use a Shield)

After that, I'd take everything in Dragon Sorc (Fire).
Now you have Charisma as an attack stat (Shillelagh) and get +2xCha to all Fire Damage, and Quicken Metamagic. So GFB looks like
D8 + #D8 + Cha + Cha + Cha
And you can use Metamagic to throw it twice per turn.

For your Feat, instead of PAM, you want:
Elemental Adept (Fire) to overcome a common resistance and boost average damage
Warcaster - now you can GFB as an AO, and also gives Advantage on Concentration

Another worthwhile consideration might be throwing that 13 into STR just to get in/out of Paladin, and starting in Sorcerer for Con proficiency. Use the Sorc's innate AC14+Dex and build for Dex. It's a more useful stat than Str as it affects Initiative, a more common Save, and more Skills.
A Plate Pally with a Shield is Ac17+2 =19, whereas as a Dex build with a shield is 14+5+2=21, and Sorcerers get the Shield Spell.

---


...I suggest:
Fiend/Fey Lock 2
OR
Fiend/Fey BladeLock4

Drac/Storm/FavoredSoul Sorc 4+
OR
Rogue 2

Tempest Cleric 6/8
OR
Crown Pally6, Tempest2
OR
Swash Rogue 3/4

(possibly)
Feat: Mobile
Feat: Warcaster
Feat: MI Druid - Shillelagh, ____, _____
Feat: PAM
Feat: Sentinel
Feat: Spell Sniper

There are several ways to arrive at this build, but the idea is to deliver Booming Blade and then step away so that the enemy has to move to attack you.
This alone is fine, but where the build goes nuts is when you plan to punish the enemy as much as possible for taking any further action.
The easiest way to explain everything above is to just cover the relevant parts of the build:

Getting Booming Blade:
Sorcerer, or Warlock. Also Arcane Trickster Rogue, but that's less useful. There's also Elves racial cantdip, Variant Helf Elves racial cantdip, or Variant Human with the Magic Initiate feat.

Stepping After the Hit:
Rogue 2 gets Cunning Action to Disengage as a Bonus. That's nice, but there are other ways you can potentially use your Bonus, so it's worth looking at Swashbuckler or the Mobility Feat, which both let you step away after hitting an enemy.

Punishment:
If they move, they get bursted. However, you can make it worse.
Warlock gives access to Darkness + Devils, so that they are at Disadvantage while in the cloud. You can also use Hide while in there, potentially as a bonus action via Rogue, and take yourself out of the fight altogether. They can only target what they can locate, meaning they're basically useless while in the cloud.
Warlock3 could also give access to Vicious Mockery, granting Disadvantage on attacks which do not target you.
Paladins also have the Compelled Duel spell, which is like a long-term Vicious Mockery
Swashbucklers get Panache at 9th, which is also like a long term Vicious Mockery.

PoleArms:
If they move to attack you, PAM gives you a Reaction attack as they come into range. PAM+Warcaster+BB is a bit ambiguous and some tables allow it while others don't. If yours does not, then Sentinel is quite fun.
If you're using a PoleArm, then you could also use Spell Sniper to use BB at Reach.

Getting proficiency to a PoleArm would require Paladin, Cleric, Favored Soul, or going BladeLock.
PoleArms cannot use the Rogue's Sneak Attack, and if you use PAM for your reaction, you also cannot benefit from Uncanny Dodge or other "reaction" abilities.

Maximizing Damage:
This build is less about damage and more about control (and getting your DM to say nasty things), and when you start triggering the rider damage on most rounds, you'll see that you keep up just fine. That said, there are ways to boost damage higher, if you have the levels.

Rogue gets Sneak Attack, and this is easy if you're using Darkness or Find Familiar (Help action). It is also easy if you are using a Swashbuckler.

Paladin has Smite, as well as Thunderous Smite. This is special - it is a Bonus Action, adds 2d6 damage to your next weapon attack, and has a chance to knock the enemy away and Prone, basically forcing movement.

Tempest Cleric stacks well with the Paladin, but also just BB in general. Their channel Divinity lets them max out Thunder Damage on one attack roll. That's all the D8s of Booming Blade, and also possibly the D6s from Thunderous Smite. It's once per short rest, unless you get to Cleric or Pally 6.
Pally 6 gets Extra Attack and +Cha to Saves. Cleric 6 does less, but Cleric 8 will give you +d8 on one attack per turn (can also be maxed). Of going Cleric heavy, MI Druid for Shillelagh let's you use Wisdom with your QStaff or Club.
Cleric also has a Reaction ability to damage the enrmy if you are hit. This works well in combination with Rogue Uncanny Dodge, and Warlock Armor of Agathys.

Sorcerer let's you Quicken or Twin BB. Quicken will eat your Bonus Action, however, making it demanding of Swash3 or Mobile feat.
----

I've played a few one shot "test crawls" with different iterations of both the GFB and the BB build, and have found personally that the BB build is more enjoyable, nearly as damaging, and more importantly, more useful to the party. Going Pal/Rogue/Cleric/Lock at higher level created a character which said to bosses
"You're right taking a ton of damage (102 from the attack, rider, and reactionary effects) to come attack me for half damage, or you're taking most of that and attacking my friends with Disadvantage"

[djreynolds]

I like the build, interesting

Its an interesting build using a quarterstaff one handed that becomes 1d8 instead of 1d6 and using a shield and should build off your charisma

But you already have a 15 strength, now 16.

Go for PAM if you want and dump the shillelagh business. IMO you are only getting the difference between a 16 and 20, +3 or +5.

Also, as crazy as it sounds you can grab 6 paladin, get the extra attack from paladin, and instead of taking thirsting blade invocation... take another invocation

Their is nothing that says thirsting blade is a prereq of life-drinker

I would go hill dwarf, obviously not as cool or EMO as a half-angel, but he could dump strength to 13, leaving you 4 points to place somewhere else at 1st level, +2 con and +1 HP and can wear heavy armor even with an 8 in strength, but 13 for the paladin prereq

[Hakon]

Why PAM and QStaff if you're using SCAG cantrips? They aren't an Attack Action, they won't trigger the bonus attack.

Thirsting Blade or Extra Attack is worth a lot less with GFB on offer, so I'd only take Lock to 3, 4 at most for the ASI. Go Tome, grab Find Familiar, and Shillelagh (if you want to use a Shield)

After that, I'd take everything in Dragon Sorc (Fire).
Now you have Charisma as an attack stat (Shillelagh) and get +2xCha to all Fire Damage, and Quicken Metamagic. So GFB looks like
D8 + #D8 + Cha + Cha + Cha
And you can use Metamagic to throw it twice per turn.

For your Feat, instead of PAM, you want:
Elemental Adept (Fire) to overcome a common resistance and boost average damage
Warcaster - now you can GFB as an AO, and also gives Advantage on Concentration

Another worthwhile consideration might be throwing that 13 into STR just to get in/out of Paladin, and starting in Sorcerer for Con proficiency.

yes, on point.

however i always say start as a sorcerer, unless you want heavy armour.
con and cha saves are the best in the game.

[Hakon]

I feel this build of UL Lock /paladin / Sorcerer needs an easy name.

How about Arcanadin
because your basically a paladin who has a so many arcane spells its not fully

with pact of the tome undying light and sorcerer you have 14+ cantrips, find familiar and ability to cast rituals

[CaptainSarathai]

I feel this build of UL Lock /paladin / Sorcerer needs an easy name.

How about Arcanadin
because your basically a paladin who has a so many arcane spells its not fully

with pact of the tome undying light and sorcerer you have 14+ cantrips, find familiar and ability to cast rituals

I don't think it needs a name, because it's not quite legal. UL is UA material, although just 1 instance of -Cha isn't really the end of the world, if you had to go with another Patron.

Really though, it's just a Sorcadin with a dip in Warlock. I'm not even really sure if it's worth splitting from the Sorcadin at all, because it's in a wierd spot where it's not quite "Nova damage" and not quite "At Will" because you're still eating slots and points like PEZ candies.
I've thought about someone writing a guide for odd classes that get the utmost out of GFB and BB, but I'm not sure how worthwhile it is, since it's in the strange window and is basically just a parlor trick to work around your higher level stuff.

[deathadder99]

yes, on point.

however i always say start as a sorcerer, unless you want heavy armour.
con and cha saves are the best in the game.


Debatable. There's a strong argument for wisdom as well, and so long as you've got the strength, there's no point NOT taking heavy armor.

[Gignere]

If you got access to UL Warlock you definitely need to build for the Oathbreaker 7/Draconic Sorcerer 6/UL Warlock 3 build. The final build can be 8/8/4 just so you get all the ASIs or 8/9/3 to get haste, or whatever other splits you care for.

GFB + Shillelagh + Twin or Quicken will be your bread and butter with this build. Just max charisma you can count how many times you are getting charisma to damage. So your QS or Club will be dealing 5d8 + 20 on primary target and 3d8 + 15 on secondary target. If you quicken follow with twin you can do this attack 3 times in a round (although you need more than one target) and layer on top level 4 smites as well.

You got a familiar as well as darkness + devil's sight so all of your attacks will typically be made with advantage and you are rocking plate armor + shield. Nab resilient con since you only need a couple of ASIs to maximize charisma.

The best race for this is either the Volo Aasimar depending on how the aura damage interacts with UL warlocks + charisma to damage on radiant and fire this maybe your highest damage race once per short rest. Otherwise goblins are pretty nasty too with their +damage once per short rest but you'll need more ASIs to max charisma.

[Hakon]

I don't think it needs a name, because it's not quite legal. UL is UA material, although just 1 instance of -Cha isn't really the end of the world, if you had to go with another Patron.

Really though, it's just a Sorcadin with a dip in Warlock. I'm not even really sure if it's worth splitting from the Sorcadin at all, because it's in a wierd spot where it's not quite "Nova damage" and not quite "At Will" because you're still eating slots and points like PEZ candies.
I've thought about someone writing a guide for odd classes that get the utmost out of GFB and BB, but I'm not sure how worthwhile it is, since it's in the strange window and is basically just a parlor trick to work around your higher level stuff.

as many have said fiend warlock although not as good is still viable

[Hakon]

If you got access to UL Warlock you definitely need to build for the Oathbreaker 7/Draconic Sorcerer 6/UL Warlock 3 build. The final build can be 8/8/4 just so you get all the ASIs or 8/9/3 to get haste, or whatever other splits you care for.

GFB + Shillelagh + Twin or Quicken will be your bread and butter with this build. Just max charisma you can count how many times you are getting charisma to damage. So your QS or Club will be dealing 5d8 + 20 on primary target and 3d8 + 15 on secondary target. If you quicken follow with twin you can do this attack 3 times in a round (although you need more than one target) and layer on top level 4 smites as well.

You got a familiar as well as darkness + devil's sight so all of your attacks will typically be made with advantage and you are rocking plate armor + shield. Nab resilient con since you only need a couple of ASIs to maximize charisma.

The best race for this is either the Volo Aasimar depending on how the aura damage interacts with UL warlocks + charisma to damage on radiant and fire this maybe your highest damage race once per short rest. Otherwise goblins are pretty nasty too with their +damage once per short rest but you'll need more ASIs to max charisma.

No it will be dealing 1d8+5 (charisma)+3(magic weapon) damage and 3d8+5(UL)+5(DS) fire damage

for a total of 4d8+18 to the first attack and 3d8+15 on the second attack


an argument could be made to go paladin 11, warlock (UL) 3, sorcerer 6
this would mean you do +1d8+5 radiant on every attack but sacrifices 3 feats to do so

If you can use UL then you can get tunnel fighter
take it as your paladin fighting style and get polearm master and sentinel, now if anyone enters your reach, free attack, if they leave your reach free attack, if they don't attack you, they get disadvantage.

you can be charged my 1500+ enemies in a turn and as long as you kill them in one hit you can wipe them all out, since the reaction occurs before they attack.

because you kill anything in melee before it can hit you a high ac is not necessary and you can still use your reaction to cast shield, using your ac by 5.

in the end you only need a high ac against ballistic weaponry, and shield spell works for that, so i'd say your better off starting as sorcerer to keep your concentration spells up, and have high spell defence then working about being hit in combat.

[Gignere]

No it will be dealing 1d8+5 (charisma)+3(magic weapon) damage and 3d8+5(UL)+5(DS) fire damage

for a total of 4d8+18 to the first attack and 3d8+15 on the second attack


an argument could be made to go paladin 11, warlock (UL) 3, sorcerer 6
this would mean you do +1d8+5 radiant on every attack but sacrifices 3 feats to do so

If you can use UL then you can get tunnel fighter
take it as your paladin fighting style and get polearm master and sentinel, now if anyone enters your reach, free attack, if they leave your reach free attack, if they don't attack you, they get disadvantage.

you can be charged my 1500+ enemies in a turn and as long as you kill them in one hit you can wipe them all out, since the reaction occurs before they attack.

because you kill anything in melee before it can hit you a high ac is not necessary and you can still use your reaction to cast shield, using your ac by 5.

in the end you only need a high ac against ballistic weaponry, and shield spell works for that, so i'd say your better off starting as sorcerer to keep your concentration spells up, and have high spell defence then working about being hit in combat.

GFB gives your main attack fire damage at higher levels. Specifically at level 5 that is why you get to add charisma 2x on main attack as well. Also oathbreaker aura adds + charisma to all melee attacks you get another +5. With the base +5 from Shillelagh it is +20. This is becoming a pattern with your posts, you are not very familiar with the rules of the abilities but post like you are an expert.

[Hakon]

GFB gives your main attack fire damage at higher levels. Specifically at level 5 that is why you get to add charisma 2x on main attack as well. Also oathbreaker aura adds + charisma to all melee attacks you get another +5. With the base +5 from Shillelagh it is +20. This is becoming a pattern with your posts, you are not very familiar with the rules of the abilities but post like you are an expert.

you still had 1 to many d8s on your first post and

oathbreaker aura requires an evil character most dm's will not allow.
especially since your lock powers come from the positive plain of existence.

your better of with being good and gaining a further +5 to hit with sacred weapon to make sure your attack hits

[CaptainSarathai]

Hoo boy, you're both kinda messing this up.

1. GFB at 17th level deals Weapon+3d8 primary damage. You're not getting an extra D8 until Pally11.

2. GFB cannot be Twinned, via Crawford on Sage Advice. It technically has 2 targets (primary, and whoever eats the secondary)

3. Undying Light +Cha to Radiant/Fire only applies to Spells. It will not do anything for Aasimar since (iirc) their racial is not a spell.

4. VHuman still takes the cake for all of this, if you're going THAT feat intensive.

There's probably other stuff too, but I'm posting from mobile and can't see the preceding posts.

[Hakon]

Hoo boy, you're both kinda messing this up.

1. GFB at 17th level deals Weapon+3d8 primary damage. You're not getting an extra D8 until Pally11.

2. GFB cannot be Twinned, via Crawford on Sage Advice. It technically has 2 targets (primary, and whoever eats the secondary)

3. Undying Light +Cha to Radiant/Fire only applies to Spells. It will not do anything for Aasimar since (iirc) their racial is not a spell.

4. VHuman still takes the cake for all of this, if you're going THAT feat intensive.

There's probably other stuff too, but I'm posting from mobile and can't see the preceding posts.

Crawford was wrong

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell's range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack's normal effects, and green fire leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of it. The second creature takes fire damage equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. This spell's damage increases when you reach higher levels. At 5th level, the melee attack deals an extra 1d8 fire damage to the target, and the fire damage to the second creature increases to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. Both damage rolls increase by 1d8 at 11th level and 17th level.

because the secondary function only occurs after a primary target is hit, and can not happen at any other point, it can be twinned.

it is similar to if you twin cloud of daggers on 2 different targets if those enemies then move out, and 2 different enemies move in then each spell hit 2 targets so it should not have been possible to twin, but at the time of the cast it only targeted one target. since time can't be undone the spell remains.

because the secondary effect only occurs after the spell has targeted 1 creature it can be twinned