Swiss army adventurer

[Mechaviking]

I haven´t played next in about 3-4 months and I have had an idea for a build, that I want to share with this tiny part of the interwebz :D.

This isn´t the strongest or most viable build in every situation, but if you like being able to do a variety of things and be somewhat competent at fighting you should find this enjoyable.

Stats:

Str 16
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 14

Point buy + Half elf.

Barbarian 1-5, you get everything that you need to survive in a protracted fight, 3 rages, fast movement, advantage when you need it and other goodies besides, Half elf really shores up the extra skills you might need to mesh better with your group or plug holes.

After this you can pretty much go with whatever you want but here are some ideas:


Rogue 5: sneak attack?, the ability to reduce damage every round(at the cost of a reaction), SKILLS(double prof. on athletics? Perception? Persuasion? Intimidate?) and a multi-class rogue skill :D.
Paladin 4: Smite, divine health, the ability to wield a holy avenger, ASI, a bit of lay on hands and an oath of your choice.
Warlock 5: 2 lvl 3 spellslots for smiting, healing or ARMOR OF AGATHIS, Patron that fits, Pact boon that gives A LOT of versatility(Book for a bunch of rituals) or a pact weapon to be always armed? Maybe a snickering sidekick to assist you with witty so and so comments.

You can also go Paladin 6, warlock 5, barb 4 and rogue 5.

There´s also a Rexxar wisdom version that has 13/14 wisdom that is Barb 5/Ranger 4/Rogue 5 and kicks ass (cause you can even shove a monk in there).

You can level in any direction you want when you want so leveling up should never be boring and you can pretty much decide on the spot where to go and why.

The best part is that you are big, boisterous and have the charisma to go with it.

Considering campaigns rarely go to 20 anyways so you trade a THEORETICAL level 20 ability for a more proactive and fun leveling process, barbarian 5 gives you enough killing power so spend the rest of your levels on something fun and interesting, relentless rage is pretty good, but I´ve yet to see it turn the tide of battle and brutal critical makes me VIOLENTLY ILL so I´d rather grab something fun.

Hope this gives some of you fun ideas, just remember to do ONE CLASS AT A TIME, otherwise you will be garbage.

Piece out :D

[MrWesson22]

I like the concept, but wouldn't this be strictly better with a dex sword and board build instead of strength? I don't see any downside at all. Perhaps explaining your play style thinking would clarify things a bit.

[Mechaviking]

I like the concept, but wouldn't this be strictly better with a dex sword and board build instead of strength? I don't see any downside at all. Perhaps explaining your play style thinking would clarify things a bit.

With strength you can use ANY melee weapon in the game, I mention this cause my last campaign ended after we found the "master" sword, which was a holy avenger long sword, we didn´t have a paladin in the group and no one could multiclass into it(lvl 15+). I have played more dex based fighters that strength ones and I ALWAYS run into the problem of not getting any gear. Even though a holy avenger can be a rapier(queensguard from soul calibur) or a short sword, I have never seen that happen. The last campaign I played was the holy avenger example above and I played an ARCHER fighter from 7-19 and I NEVER got a magic bow or even a magic arrow, although TBH that is probably dm troubles.

You are correct that dex is theoretically better, but you still need 13 str to multiclass out of paladin.

And besides this statline allows anybody to channel their inner Bryan Blessed :D

[Talionis]

One level of Monk can turn a lot of weapons into Finesse weapons, so this can be an awesome dip. It wouldn't help you hold a Holy Avenger, but it was bad DMing to not change that to something your party could use or at least give you an opportunity to swap it for something more useful from a NPC.

But it's also good to role play different types of characters.

I like to start with Barb especially for Warlock who has Armor of Agathys, since it's not concentration. One problem with AoA is that it's worthless in a low level casting slot, so it works best if you are advancing caster levels quickly. Warlock is messy because it's spell slots don't stack with other casters So you either stay Warlock till like eleven when you max out your Warlock spellslots and get the extra slot per short rest or you get just the one level of Warlock and dip out into other full casters. So a 3 Barbarian/12 Blade-lock/X is a really great build. 12 gives lifedtinker invocation, 3rd spell slot.

5 Barbarian/ 11 Tome-lock/Chainlock lets Barb pick up extra attacks. Seeker makes a great Patron so you can cast AoA and Mirror Image in the same buff turn. Tomelock could also help with madness, since you could pick up Shillelaghs to use Charisma to attack.

But you are proposing very MAD build, which can be done but you have to make choices and understand your limitations. You may not get much advantage features like unarmored defense may do little.

[Specter]

It doesn't pay to prepare for future magic items. Even if they do come up, you may have crippled yourself before to get there.

I believe the most diverse adventurer you can build is Rogue/Valor Bard. You can be a striker, a controller, a buffer, a debuffer, a tank and a skillman whenever the situation calls for it.

[JackPhoenix]

One level of Monk can turn a lot of weapons into Finesse weapons, so this can be an awesome dip.

It can't. Monks can use dexterity for attack and damage with monk weapons, but the weapons aren't finesse and not eligible for sneak attack. And the first build doesn't have Wis to multiclass into a monk

[Talionis]

It can't. Monks can use dexterity for attack and damage with monk weapons, but the weapons aren't finesse and not eligible for sneak attack. And the first build doesn't have Wis to multiclass into a monk
It's a DM call, even if their is Sage Advice or errata to the contrary... Monks use Dex to attack with Simple weapons which is very definition of Finesse. it won't break game balance in the least since simple weapons aren't the bigger damage dice weapons. It's not like you can advance unarmed attack and sneak attack at the same time you have to make a choice and have an opportunity cost.

Of course that's if you even care about using sneak attacks often giving up 1 or 2d6 in sneak attack to use a magical weapon is worth it.

[Specter]

It's a DM call, even if their is Sage Advice or errata to the contrary... Monks use Dex to attack with Simple weapons which is very definition of Finesse. it won't break game balance in the least since simple weapons aren't the bigger damage dice weapons. It's not like you can advance unarmed attack and sneak attack at the same time you have to make a choice and have an opportunity cost.

Of course that's if you even care about using sneak attacks often giving up 1 or 2d6 in sneak attack to use a magical weapon is worth it.

A DM may allow a player to use sneak attack with a non-finesse weapon (as I would), but it's against RAW. Don't count on it for AL.

[JackPhoenix]

It's a DM call, even if their is Sage Advice or errata to the contrary... Monks use Dex to attack with Simple weapons which is very definition of Finesse. it won't break game balance in the least since simple weapons aren't the bigger damage dice weapons. It's not like you can advance unarmed attack and sneak attack at the same time you have to make a choice and have an opportunity cost.

Of course that's if you even care about using sneak attacks often giving up 1 or 2d6 in sneak attack to use a magical weapon is worth it.

It's not DM call, Sage Advice or errata, it's straight up RAW. Martial Arts feature doesn't mentions finesse. Ranged weapons also use Dex, that doesn't make them finesse weapons. While a DM can rule otherwise, it's houserule, not ruling, because the rules are clear on the matter.

[Talionis]

It's much greyer than you guys make it sound. The definition of Finesse matches the Monk ability. Finesse is just a key word.

There really is no mechanical advantage other than to disensent multiclassing Monk and Rogue which is unnessessary.

I could see it being accepted in Adventure League. But I wouldn't go so far as to say AL would accept it.

It strikes me as something they never thought about in playtesting to clearly delineate.

All that being said if you can dump strength and use more weapons with Dex that maybe worth the one level of Monk dip, whether sneak attack works or not. Honestly I wasn't thinking much about Sneak Attack since the op was only really dipping Rogue.

[thereaper]

A Dex Cleric or Dex Bard (with the Rogue skill and tool proficiencies) Can do everything you need without any multiclassing.

[Herobizkit]

I was thinking more like this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrK1f4TsQfM

[Mechaviking]

But you are proposing very MAD build, which can be done but you have to make choices and understand your limitations. You may not get much advantage features like unarmored defense may do little.

This seems to be true, but the only thing you need to be effective is 20 Str eventually. If you get an awesome weapon you can feat into it(GWM or Polearm Master), if you don´t get one you don´t have to. Extra con would net you 1 extra hp per level and a bonus to con saves and extra AC when you aren´t wearing armor(which we will be doing most of the time) 16 ac or 18 with a shield is fine enough for most characters so increasing con doesn´t really do much. Dex is pretty much the same you need a ****ty feat to be able to use 16 dex with medium armor so increasing dex doesn´t do anything.
We don´t need int. Wisdom would be nice, but point buy just flat out denies us high wisdom, we can probably get by with an expertise in perception. And charisma isn´t really that great unless we push up to paladin 6 or go ham on warlock(which is another character entirely, but an awesome one).

So how is this MAD? You only use Strength for attack, the rest is just more skills and more tools to affect the plot.

Also you can sneak attack just fine with strength(you just need to do it with a finesse weapon) and you generate your own CA.

On average I´ve played a session of next 1-2 a week until about 3 months ago, ONCE we played a final encounter at level 19 and the other was elemental evil which capped at 15(I think), most likely this character will only get to about 11-12 realistically, but you can at least have some fun with the levelling process.


A Dex Cleric or Dex Bard (with the Rogue skill and tool proficiencies) Can do everything you need without any multiclassing.

Sure you can, but a Dex cleric or bard isn´t Bryan Blessed(big charismatic brute). Also I can´t seem to play clerics they bore the hell out of me.

[JackPhoenix]

It's much greyer than you guys make it sound. The definition of Finesse matches the Monk ability. Finesse is just a key word.

There really is no mechanical advantage other than to disensent multiclassing Monk and Rogue which is unnessessary.

I could see it being accepted in Adventure League. But I wouldn't go so far as to say AL would accept it.

It strikes me as something they never thought about in playtesting to clearly delineate.

All that being said if you can dump strength and use more weapons with Dex that maybe worth the one level of Monk dip, whether sneak attack works or not. Honestly I wasn't thinking much about Sneak Attack since the op was only really dipping Rogue.

But that's just the thing: Finesse is a Keyword, and Martial Arts doesn't give the affected weapons that keyword, thus abilities depending on that keyword (Sneak Attack and Defensive Duelist) do not work. Definitions are secondary.

Just as noticing that Greatclub is 3rd heaviest weapon in the game in terms of weight doesn't mean that halflings have disadvantage when using it, or that it works with GWM's +10/-5 mechanic, because it lacks "Heavy" keyword. Or that paladin's Divine Smite works with Green-Flame Blade but not with Disintegrate, because it requires "melee weapon attack" keyword the later spell lacks. Or... or... you get the point.

[Kane0]

I'm a fan of Valor Bard for a 'bit of everything' kind of adventurer. Makes for a great 5th party memeber when already have four specialists and works straight out of PHB without feats or multiclassing.

Given more stuff to choose from i'd probably take a Celestial Tomelock. EB and Shillelagh/GFB/BB for damage output, Rituals and a familiar for support, healing available from subclass, invocations and short rest spell slots for support/blaster casting while also being a Cha class for facing. Add in some feats like healer or inspirational leader as necessary plus maybe a fighter dip if you need it and you have a great all-rounder.