Glaive + Booming Blade build!

[tatszico]

Hey all! Need some advice on a PC that I'm making for a campaign. Thematically, I'm excited for a glaive-user powered by the storms. For rolls, I got 15, 14, 14, 14, 9, 8. Was hoping to beef up WIS on the get-go, but 16 is decent considering I can keep STR and CON right behind. Going V. Human with Polearm Master. WIS 16, STR/CON 15, STR/CON 14. Still considering which stats to dump. At level 4, I was planning to get Spellsniper for Booming Blade cantrip to be able to use with my glaive.

Strategy would be to blow up and weaken mobs with a full-powered Shatter or Call-Lightning and then cleaning them up strategically by making them come to me to take advantage with AoO. Once it gets personal after the AoE and they manage to hit me, Wrath of the Storm + Thunderbolt Strike to push them away. If I applied BB beforehand and the enemy didn't move, then he's forced to either stay 10ft away or move closer and take extra damage. If they stay 10ft away, reapply BB and take a step back for AoO + BB damage if they want to engage again.
Bless/Bane will be up almost all the time, Shield of Faith for some extra tankiness.

This will be more of a sandstorm RP than a campaign in a homebrewed world so I don't know what to expect.

Any additions, advice, and help? The problem I see is that it'll be late until I get my ASI stat increases. I may want Res. CON or Warcaster at some point. Polearm Master's extra attack will be redundant after Spiritual Blade gets the additional d8 die. Otherwise, this seems like a very fun build to me...just want to make sure that I'm efficient. Or am I doing too much?

[Boci]

Isn't booming blade for arcane casters? How are you getting it as a cleric?

Also "free-form RP" tends to mean no rules, i.e. no system. Sand box is when you have a world to explore with no concrete plot initially.

[tatszico]

Isn't booming blade for arcane casters? How are you getting it as a cleric?

Also "free-form RP" tends to mean no rules, i.e. no system. Sand box is when you have a world to explore with no concrete plot initially.Spell Sniper allows me a free cantrip from any casting class. And thanks for the correction!

[TheMightyPotato]

You should know that booming blade cannot benefit from the reach of the glaive. In the spell description it says that the attack must be within 5 feet. The rest of the build should work though.

[Boci]

You should know that booming blade cannot benefit from the reach of the glaive. In the spell description it says that the attack must be within 5 feet. The rest of the build should work though.

Actually the spell sniper feat also double the range any the spell that requires an attack roll, so it becomes 10ft.

[Beelzebubba]

Actually the spell sniper feat also double the range any the spell that requires an attack roll, so it becomes 10ft.

Yeah, that was backed up in Sage Advice.

--

To the OP, I thought about this style of build a lot. If you're in melee, you *need* either Resilient Con or Warcaster to hold on to concentration spells. That means ability score increases coming online late, which means your 'Save or Suck' spells will be less powerful, and your damaging spells will be saved against more often.

So, IMO - the build is definitely do-able, but you'll end up trading focus for options. You won't get anything for free. Spells like Banish will be a bit riskier, and you'll probably end up in combat more because of it. But, when it does come, you'll be a lot more capable, and will have fun doing it.

5E is really well designed - you always feel like you're giving up something significant to get something else significant. What you're doing is a pseudo-multiclass - taking a tanky, defensively-powerful full caster and using feats to make them more melee. Why not go for it?

[Boci]

Yeah, that was backed up in Sage Advice.

And this would work with a non-reach weapon? I think it does by RAW, and hey its magic, so nothing to say the blade can't be stretched/translocated for the attack if you need to visualize it.

[Beelzebubba]

And this would work with a non-reach weapon? I think it does by RAW, and hey its magic, so nothing to say the blade can't be stretched/translocated for the attack if you need to visualize it.

The answer was for a pole-arm, so I assume it's only for reach weapons, or for a Quarterstaff wielder with Pole Arm Master that gives it reach.

[Boci]

The answer was for a pole-arm, so I assume it's only for reach weapons, or for a Quarterstaff wielder with Pole Arm Master that gives it reach.

Booming Blade says "you make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell's range" so it should work with a non-reach weapon.

[Beelzebubba]

Booming Blade says "you make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within the spell's range" so it should work with a non-reach weapon.

I can see why you'd conclude that, but the spell being cast via attacking with the weapon, and a non-reach weapon having a range of 5', would trump that in my eyes. The range of the spell *is* the weapon. Non-reach weapons don't attack 10' out, so you'd need a weapon capable of attacking 10' out to make the spell range function there.

The idea of the spell somehow making a dagger just as capable as a pole-arm for reaching distant targets doesn't make sense to me.

[Boci]

I can see why you'd conclude that, but the spell being cast via attacking with the weapon, and a non-reach weapon having a range of 5', would trump that in my eyes. The range of the spell *is* the weapon. Non-reach weapons don't attack 10' out, so you'd need a weapon capable of attacking 10' out to make the spell range function there.

But you need a feat to attack with a reach weapon. If the range of the spell was the reach of the weapon you wouldn't need that.


The idea of the spell somehow making a dagger just as capable as a pole-arm for reaching distant targets doesn't make sense to me.

Its a cantrip, so magic, and a feat in combination. Giving a dagger extra reach doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Its thunder damage, you project the weapons shape in sound waves or something.

[Vaz]

But you need a feat to attack with a reach weapon. If the range of the spell was the reach of the weapon you wouldn't need that.



Its a cantrip, so magic, and a feat in combination. Giving a dagger extra reach doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Its thunder damage, you project the weapons shape in sound waves or something.

The spellsniper increases the range of the spell, which lets you make a weapon attack.

It is also a Cantrip, on a Cleric, allowing a Melee Weapon Attack as an action, on a class without Extra Attack. You are giving up basically nothing when you use Booming Blade to make an attack as opposed to a Melee Weapon Attack. The opportunity cost of not taking another race (Half elf, Firbolg, Water Genasi etc) is weighed up against the cost of that being what the OP wanted to do.

[Beelzebubba]

But you need a feat to attack with a reach weapon. If the range of the spell was the reach of the weapon you wouldn't need that.

Yes, you do need the feat. Because the range of the spell is not 'the range of the weapon', it's 5'.

You understand exactly.

If you get the feat, then the range extends to where it will work with a weapon that has a 10' range.



Its a cantrip, so magic, and a feat in combination. Giving a dagger extra reach doesn't seem like too much of a stretch. Its thunder damage, you project the weapons shape in sound waves or something.

'So magic' as a rationale is kinda lame. You can say that with any spell anywhere to justify anything.

It requires a melee weapon attack to hit to cause the damage. Daggers cannot attack melee at 10'. Never have, never will.

You've basically arbitrarily given capabilities of a Reach weapon without any of the balancing drawbacks (like not being able to use a shield, or having to burn a feat for quarterstaff, or inability to dual-wield like a whip) 'because magic'. That is enough right for me to say 'no' right there. Reach is powerful. Fighters pay a price to use it, spellcasters should too.

It won't break the game, but it's still seems a bit too hazy of a rationale ('because magic', 'or something'), is another one of those 'creeping caster supremacy' rationales, and so it wouldn't fly at my table.

If you want a melee attack at reach, you suffer the same penalties martial characters have to endure with it - lose the shield, burn the Polearm Master feat for your quarterstaff, or use a whip.

[Boci]

The spellsniper increases the range of the spell, which lets you make a weapon attack.

It is also a Cantrip, on a Cleric, allowing a Melee Weapon Attack as an action, on a class without Extra Attack. You are giving up basically nothing when you use Booming Blade to make an attack as opposed to a Melee Weapon Attack. The opportunity cost of not taking another race (Half elf, Firbolg, Water Genasi etc) is weighed up against the cost of that being what the OP wanted to do.

Not sure why you quoted me. Do you disagree/agree with what I said?


Yes, you do need the feat. Because the range of the spell is not 'the range of the weapon', it's 5'.

You understand exactly.

If you get the feat, then the range extends to where it will work with a weapon that has a 10' range.

Which means the range of the cantrip isn't tied to the reach of the weapon you wield, otherwise you wouldn't need the feat. No where in the cantrip's description is the reach of the weapon mentioned. Its not arbitrary, its the rules.


'So magic' as a rationale is kinda lame. You can say that with any spell anywhere to justify anything.

I've offered 3 justification beyond "it's magic", (and my "it's magic" comment was actually pointing out that it was magic specifically modified by a feat, it wasn't the cantrip innately doing it), t vest one being that the weapons sends a bolt of thunder at the target, allowing the strike 10ft away.

It doesn't break the game, its kinda cool, and its RAW. So why not allow it?

[Vaz]

You still need to hit with a weapon attack. If the weapon cannot hit because it's out range, you don't hit.

I don't have a problem with handwaiving as a DM. It's still not something that you can do without that.

[Boci]

You still need to hit with a weapon attack. If the weapon cannot hit because it's out range, you don't hit.

I don't have a problem with handwaiving as a DM. It's still not something that you can do without that.

I'm not sure you need to handwaive it. As part of the action to cast the spell, you make a melee attack against a creature within the spell's range. It doesn't say anything about the weapon's reach.

[Vaz]

I'm not sure you need to handwaive it. As part of the action to cast the spell, you make a melee attack against a creature within the spell's range. It doesn't say anything about the weapon's reach.

It doesn't say anything about the weapons reach because it doesn't need to, it uses the reach of the weapon. If it changed the range of the weapon to the reach of the spell, it would say so.

[Boci]

Fair enough. Shame, but I can see its probably not RAW then.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

If you take Rogue to lvl 9 then you could start combat with Panache. Makes it so your target cant willing move away from you, and can attack anyone else therefor increase the chance of BB going off. combo this with PAM and you are really putting the hurt on. Latter levels maybe take Sentinel or Warcaster for more shenanigans.

P.S. The Biggest issue i see is BB has somantic components. RAW you have to have a free hand, which you wont have if you are wielding a Glaive. Warcaster fixes this so probable take the over PAM at 8th lvl.

[Koren]

I just want to make sure you understand that by the sound of what you want to do, you actually need three feats.

Polearm Master for hitting AoO when they enter your reach
War Caster for AoO with cantrips
And of course Spell Sniper for using BB with Reach.

[Crgaston]

P.S. The Biggest issue i see is BB has somantic components. RAW you have to have a free hand, which you wont have if you are wielding a Glaive. Warcaster fixes this so probable take the over PAM at 8th lvl.

Eh, swinging a weapon is pretty somatic. Plus every other spell can be cast using a 2h weapon without war caster, but I can definitely see how one could read it this way.

[Khrysaes]

This would be good with the Zeal domain from Plane Shift: Amonkhet

It will increase your thunder damage, It is like the tempest domain, but with thunder rather than lightning. Also turns booming blade into a push. It may or may not trigger the booming blade effect.

[Naanomi]

You can do the somatic components of a spell with the material component in the hand instead of it being 'free'... the weapon is the material component. Warcaster not required in this case (though Booming Blade is good with Warcaster builds in general)

As for the reach... Battlemaster for Lunging Attack? Be a Bugbear?

[tatszico]

Thank you so much for the feedback guys! I understand that it's feat heavy and all of the RAW/RAI stuff will need to be discussed with my DM beforehand. Someone else that I asked has suggested me a Tempest Cleric 2-6/Storm Sorc X build which actually sounds very viable to me as a hybrid build. A lot for lightning/thunder spell options and twinning/quickened/maxed damage would be awesome. Not to mention Tempestuous Storm will help me get out of sticky situations. Quickened BB + spell + Flying away will either force them to move towards me or stand still. Bless/Bane and other utility spells will take up my Cleric spell slots while some of my sorc spell slots will be freed up because of melee, so more sorc point conversions for extra BB/GFB.

question is, will reach weapons still be relevant if I take this route? if I wanna go this path, was wondering if I should go 2-h and take GWM. does -5/+10 still work with BB??

if GWM doesn't work, i might take HAM for extra tankiness due to lower health.

[Vaz]

GWM works even when BBING.

[Rysto]

GWM works even when BBING.

-5/+10 would work, but given the extra damage from BB I'd expect that in most cases the loss of accuracy costs you more DPR than the +10 adds.

[tatszico]

-5/+10 would work, but given the extra damage from BB I'd expect that in most cases the loss of accuracy costs you more DPR than the +10 adds.yea, i was afraid of that. just depends on how often i can get adv too on attacks. Bless would help mitigate accuracy loss but idk if it's worth a feat for the +10

[CaptainSarathai]

Remember, Sentinel + Warcaster does not let you use BB on the Sentinel attack, as per Sage Advice. You can use Warcaster on Opportunity Attacks, but Sentinel's extra attack triggers are just Reactions.

Whips are a 1-hand Reach weapon and wouldn't need Warcaster to throw the Somatic components. It's Finesse, but you can still attack with Strength of you prefer.

Having played a build like this (Rogue with BB and Whip) I can tell you that it doesn't usually work out the way you want it to. Enemies will lock on to your friends, and you can't trigger the second half of BB because they won't need to move. You need to make it abundantly clear to your party that you probably will not be particularly "sticky," because you're going to be moving around a lot and not exerting the usual "Opportunity Zone" that regular tanky classes count on (because you're not standing adjacent to enemies, other than BB they can move away freely).

[agnos]

Any additions, advice, and help? The problem I see is that it'll be late until I get my ASI stat increases. I may want Res. CON or Warcaster at some point. Polearm Master's extra attack will be redundant after Spiritual Blade gets the additional d8 die. Otherwise, this seems like a very fun build to me...just want to make sure that I'm efficient. Or am I doing too much?
The major issue I see currently is that to use Booming Blade as a reaction you need 3 feats (Spell Sniper, PAM, and Warcaster). Spell Sniper for the extra range; PAM for the AoO on entry; Warcaster for the spell cast for AoO. That means that the build isn't online until level 8 if human or level 12 if not; in those cases, you still haven't increased your Wisdom or Strength/Dex. So in general, your "at will" damage is much lower in general for a slight increase in power for when you win initiative and aren't surprised. So you're really somewhat locked into taking Alertness at level 12 just to help win initiatve all in order to get marginal use out of 3-4 feats.

Can you do it? Of course. Is it likely to be more effective than doing other things? Probably not. Is it fun? IDK, maybe. Me personally, I don't think that I or many players I know would enjoy it because they lose out on feeling effective a non-insignificant portion of the time by losing out on stats to increase likelihood of hitting the opponent (Str) or of the opponent failing saves (Wis). But if you want to try it, come back and tell me how it feels. Looks like it could be really fun. I'd suggest using like a EK Fighter 6-8/Pally 2/Cleric 8 build (probably taking levels in that order); but it might be better to just cut the Cleric and add more Pally/Bard/Sorc levels. In the least, it feels like being heavily fighter as compared to Cleric or Pally would help a bunch for increased ASI rates.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

Eh, swinging a weapon is pretty somatic. Plus every other spell can be cast using a 2h weapon without war caster, but I can definitely see how one could read it this way.

I only added the PS as a word of warning because RAW the PHB stats you must have a free hand to perform somantic components of a spell, which Warcaster specifically lets you bypass. Some DMs (including myself) could interpret this as you cant do this while wielding a 2h weapon. But this isn't an issue for this combo. I went back and looked at BB and it only has Verbal and Material with the required material being a weapon. As Naanomi stats you can cast a spell with the material component in hand so Warcaster would not be need.

[Matrix_Walker]

The major issue I see currently is that to use Booming Blade as a reaction you need 3 feats (Spell Sniper, PAM, and Warcaster). Spell Sniper for the extra range; PAM for the AoO on entry; Warcaster for the spell cast for AoO. That means that the build isn't online until level 8 if human or level 12 if not; in those cases, you still haven't increased your Wisdom or Strength/Dex. So in general, your "at will" damage is much lower in general for a slight increase in power for when you win initiative and aren't surprised. So you're really somewhat locked into taking Alertness at level 12 just to help win initiatve all in order to get marginal use out of 3-4 feats.

Can you do it? Of course. Is it likely to be more effective than doing other things? Probably not. Is it fun? IDK, maybe. Me personally, I don't think that I or many players I know would enjoy it because they lose out on feeling effective a non-insignificant portion of the time by losing out on stats to increase likelihood of hitting the opponent (Str) or of the opponent failing saves (Wis). But if you want to try it, come back and tell me how it feels. Looks like it could be really fun. I'd suggest using like a EK Fighter 6-8/Pally 2/Cleric 8 build (probably taking levels in that order); but it might be better to just cut the Cleric and add more Pally/Bard/Sorc levels. In the least, it feels like being heavily fighter as compared to Cleric or Pally would help a bunch for increased ASI rates.

I'm currently plaing a level 6 vengence pally with Tunnel Fighter, Polearm master and Sentinel... I've been considering the warcaster/spell sniper combo, but if I go that route, it'll be level 12 before it comes online... Might just be too much investment (especially for a character with 16s in STR and CHA) but the build is certainly an enjoyable romp along the way.

[Ruebin Rybnik]

I'm currently playing a level 6 vengence pally with Tunnel Fighter, Polearm master and Sentinel... I've been considering the warcaster/spell sniper combo, but if I go that route, it'll be level 12 before it comes online... Might just be too much investment (especially for a character with 16s in STR and CHA) but the build is certainly an enjoyable romp along the way.

With just the bare bones of the build you provided i'm not sure the warcaster/spell sniper combo is really needed for your PC. I dont know what spells you typically prepare but seems like most of you damage will come from your melee with your spells just boosting that. i.e. at lvl 12 you will have Improved Divine smite +1d8 and Hunters Mark +1d6 on your attacks, so with a Glaive you will be doing 1d10+1d8+1d6+4(Str with ASI) * 2 = 35 avg before even considering smites or magic weapons.

Now if you really wanted the combo due to certain spells, well then i say that 16s are not that bad. Consider that most of the enemies you face by level 12 will have an AC of 18 or less, with a +7 to hit you only need to roll 11+ to hit. If you run into something you are having trouble hitting then you can just activate you vow of Enmity for advantage on attacks. If you have a +1 magic weapon (which isn't that uncommon by level 12) then you only need to roll 10 average for a d20.