Master of Ravens build, starting at level 1

[Blas_de_Lezo]

Human Warlock (Raven Queen Patron) level 1

Str 8
Dex 16
Con 12
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 14

Feat: Magic Initiate: Minor Illusion, Shocking Grasp, Find Familiar



My idea is multiclassing then to Ranger (Beast Master) 3 to obtain a third Raven (animal companion) and choosing Animal Friendship spell to get a fourth Raven. Then leveling up to ranger 9 to get the Conjure Animals spell (and thus conjure 4 Swarms of Ravens) What do you think? It's just for fun, but i's too underpowered? Are there other ways of building a viable Master of Ravens?

Raven Family:

Raven's Queen Raven: perched in shoulder, passive perception bonus, darkvision, exploration.

Familiar's Raven: Shocking Grasp touch attack, Cure Wounds touch, backup exploration, help action.

Animal Companion's Raven: attacks, distraction, backup exploration.

Animal Friendship's Raven: decoy.

[Ventruenox]

That is certainly an interesting character concept. MAD makes it less than optimal mechanically, but depending on your stats, could be viable. May I suggest refluffing your Eldritch Blast as spectral ravens?

[Joe the Rat]

Your shocking grasp will be pretty poor, since it still uses your INT to hit, and casting it through your familiar uses your action. I'd suggest Mage Hand (as a spectral raven).

[Byke]

Your shocking grasp will be pretty poor, since it still uses your INT to hit, and casting it through your familiar uses your action. I'd suggest Mage Hand (as a spectral raven).

Agreed with above post

[smcmike]

Play as a Kenku.

[thoroughlyS]

After doing some research and tooling with some concepts, I have some recommendations for your build.

Kenku

10 STR
16 DEX (14+2)
12 CON
10 INT
14 WIS (13+1)
14 CHA

Warlock 3/Ranger 3/Warlock +14

You are a raven person. At 1st level, you have a sentinel raven. At 3rd level, you get pact of the chain OR tome (with book of ancient secrets) for your second raven. At 5th level, you get animal friendship for your third raven. At 6th level, you get a ranger companion raven. 7th - 20th level is just more Warlock. Early game, you make a great skill-monkey thanks to 2 free skills from kenku. You have a 5% worse chance to hit than an average Warlock, but this is mitigated by your ravens, which can provide advantage.

OR

Variant Human

8 STR
14 DEX (13+1)
12 CON
10 INT
14 WIS
16 CHA (15+1)

Magic Initiate (Wizard) - Mending, Message, Find Familiar

[Mortis_Elrod]

Not sure why you need magic initiate when can just take pact of the chain.

In any case the Ranger to 3 is fine, by the time you get conjure animals you might be tired of the raven shtick. Lore bard 6 could get the spell if you really wanted it.

Warlock 11/Ranger 9 isn't bad tho depending on what you are doing. If you don't go chain you can pick up magic initiate for he familiar raven, then go pact of blade and melee it up with an unkindness of ravens.

Edit: Or even go ranged. Get a cool bow and make it your pact weapon, then pick the new smite and imp. pact weapon invos. I'd probably would leave out the conjure animals and go 12/8 for extra asi's and invos.

Half elf (dex and con)
Point buy
8/16/14/8/13/16

ASIs: +2 dex, +2 dex ,
Feats: Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, Magic initiate Wizard (Mending, Message, Find Familiar,)
Ending stats:
8/20/14/8/13/16


Invocations:
Beast Speech
Devil's Sight
Imp. Pact Weapon
Thirsting Blade
Eldritch Smite
Lifedrinker

Ravens:
Sentinel Raven
Animal Companion
Familar
Animal Friendship
Conjure Fey (can be a beast cr6 or lower) into Swarm of Ravens

You can see in magic darkness, talk to ravens, and shoot like a boss.

[Maxilian]

IMHO, don't take Magic Initiate, you could Take Pact of the Chain or the Book and pick Find Familiar with it.

Instead of going DEX as main stat, go with CHA and use EB as your main damage output, that way your damage won't suffer much by doing a lot of MC (As EK scale with character lvl not class lvl).

You can pick up the Feat Animal Handler instead of Magic Initiate.

https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UA-SkillFeats.pdf

The other way to get even more campanions is with 6 lvls in Artificer (For a mechanical Raven, that can be big enough for it to be your mount)

[TundraBuccaneer]

Also try to be a wereraven from Curse of Strahd

[Saiga]

You should somehow learn Spirit Guardians, which can take on the form of Ravens if the Raven Queen is your deity.

Bard might really help for picking up spells of different lists. A gnome should be able to get a pet raven.