Best synergy between two builds

[lesbiasparrow]

What, in your opinion, is the best two-build combo for someone designing a character to be played alongside a friend? (For RP purposes, the characters are friends, siblings, or partners in crime -- they've intentionally "built" themselves to work well together.)

Caveats:

1. Both builds should be fun to play, but more fun together.
2. Both builds should be fun from low levels (no "well this Sorcadin is pretty sweet once you hit char level 10...")
3. Bonus points if there's some "thematic" synergy too -- a con man thief and a Devotion paladin are probably not going to "feel" right.
4. All official material is legal.
5. Assume there's a whole rest of the party, too, who can fill in roles these builds don't cover.

I know "fun" is relative, but I want to hear your opinions!

[sithlordnergal]

Hmmm, a Bard and a Wizard could be fun, especially a Necromancer Wizard or a Portent Wizard. If you went Necromancer Wizard and Lore Bard, the Bard could grab Crusader's Mantle at level 6. Now the Wizard's undead have deal an extra 1d4 radient damage. Basically, the Bard focuses on buffing the undead army. If the Wizard went Portent, they could force fails for the Bard's best Save-or-Suck spells. In this situation, the Wizard is helping the Bard Debuff their enemy. Both classes would be fun to play no matter what.

Or you could do a Druid/Ranger combo. Take a small race, then have the Ranger get an animal companion they can ride on. The ranger can then use dual wielding and take the dual wielder feat to dual wield lances while riding. Meanwhile, the Druid can serve as a mount, and can use their animal based spells that allow them to see through an animal's eyes. I forget what it is called.

Paladin and Clerics always go well together. One could be the holy knight, protecting their sibling who entered the church.

And finally, Wizards can go with almost anyone

[Chugger]

A wolf barb and almost any other meleer.

With advan. on almost every attack you will land those gwm -5 +10 blows. But almost any meleer benefits insanely from wolf totem. And the barb can reckless to get adv.

[Potato_Priest]

Barbarians with mounted combatant riding moon druids with sentinel is always a popular choice, and not anti-thematic.

A warlock with repelling blast accompanying a druid who can cast spike growth and thorn whip is also pretty darned effective.

[Seclora]

Wolf Barbarian granting advantage to his friend, the Mastermind Rogue with a whip, who helps to give him advantage.
Rogue specializes in social skills, Barbarian in physical ones giving them skill synergy. At higher levels, Rogue forces enemies to target his friend, who uses a shield to protect them both.

Alternatively, double Life Cleric. Go team Cleric!

[TheUser]

Twin Spell Sorcerer + Anyone Else.

It allows the sorcerer to twin buffs that would otherwise occupy the concentration of the person they accompany whilst also buffing themselves.

@ Level 3 Twin Spell comes online: Twinned Spider Climb to shutdown melee, Twinned Hold Person if you want to end fights with humanoids quickly, twinned enlarge if you want to grapple or do bonus damage.

@ Level 5: Twinned Haste or Twinned Fly: Twinned Haste is great because it makes the sorcerer equivalent to a martial class by having an extra attack (cantrip + attack is great) and brings the person paired with them up to parity. Functions especially well with power attack classes that can take -5 to hit for +10 damage.

@ Level 7: Twinned Greater Invisibility and that's that, the game's over now. You both get 10 rounds of invisibility where you can attack and cast spells without breaking it. You retain the ability to counterspell anyone who tries to detect you and if you take subtle spell you can't have your location picked up on from casting while invisible. If you take Twinned Polymorph you can both become CR 7 Giant Apes that have 157 hitpoints and hit TWICE for 3d10+6 damage at +9 to hit.

I'm sure someone will come up with a great partner for this character, but twinned spell is the best way to propel a 2 man group into OP territory.

A Paladin 6/Arcane Trickster Rogue X would probably be my ideal candidate for partnering. Provides, Bless, Healing, Curing, Restoration and a strong front liner that eventually adds lots of sneak attack dice. Any specialization will do, they all have benefits.

[Dudewithknives]

RP wise: A Dwarven Arcana Cleric and an elven Favored Soul Sorcerer. Constantly arguing about who has the better magic, the one whose god gave them divine magic with some arcane on the side, or the one whose godly bloodline gave them arcane with divine on the side.

Or

Diviner wizard halfling with lucky and the racial luck feat who is extremely CN and let's luck save him when he does something stupic, teamed with a hard nosed, by the book, LN, grizzled seen it all veteran battlemaster human.


Game wise:

Half orc champion fighter who goes sword and shield style with a versatile weapon, and a Tabaxi scout rogue who carries a bow and paired daggers.

Zero resources to spend, can go all day every day, well rounded saves and skills.

[90sMusic]

I've always liked the idea of a Porom + Palom duo where one is a white mage (in our case, a cleric) while the other is a black mage (sorcerer)

Another good combo is a rogue + bard. Both are incredibly talented at using all manner of skills, both can take expertise in stealth to be a sneaky duo together.

The rogue can deal the damage while the bard supports and heals and provides utility out of combat.

The two of you could sneak into just about any location and between your combined skills, the rogue's ability to kill, and the bard's magical swiss army knife, you two could commit any sort of crime or heist together and get away without much trouble.

If they are identical twins, you could also use some trickery to convince everyone that you're a single person that is just incredibly powerful and gifted and able to do everything by showcasing the rogue talents and combat ability then making the swap to bard and showing your arcane mastery and knowledge of all things and innate charisma.

For a good thematic combo, cleric + paladin is pretty good too. Both could've come from very religious families and one pursued priesthood while the other wanted to be more martial oriented while still retaining their faith.

Could also do like 2 warlocks and reflavor them to be Witches. It's a pretty common trope for witch sisters to work together.

[Beechgnome]

How about this:


Aasimar light cleric 1/phoenix sorcerer x
Earth genasi totem barbarian x/possibly champion 3 later



Have your aasimar (the +1 wisdom one) start as cleric and take faerie fire, burning hands, guiding bolt, healing word and sanctuary.

Then as a sorcerer take greenflame blade, fire bolt, etc etc for cantrips and false life and earth tremor, and then at later levels spells usable with twin or careful: pyrotechnics, enlarge/reduce, erupting earth, haste, hypnotic pattern...

Now you have a spellcaster who should have hp/AC high enough to hang around in melee (warding flares and phoenix reaction damage should help there) and who can cast spells to disrupt the battlefield and give advantage to the barbarian tank without affecting said tank. Faerie fire, pyrotechnics, hypnotic pattern and earth tremor all do no damage to allies when you use careful, and give a variety of debuffs (no invisibility, blindness, incapacitated, prone) that makes enemies easier to smash.

Note earth tremor and erupting earth also create difficult terrain, which the earth genasi ignores because of his racial feature, giving him/her greater mobility than the baddies. Give the barbarian bear at level 3 for resistance to most damage and even burning hands and erupting earth wont do much.

The sorcerer/cleric also has bonus action spells like sanctuary and healing word, both twinnable at low cost, that let's him buff while still attacking with his green flame blade.

Because neither of you have heavy armor you can also be stealthy when you need to be. Earth genasi's pass without trace helps here.


Let the sorcerer be the face and let the barbarian be the physical skill monkey (bear aspect for lifting?) and you've got pretty much all your bases covered.

[smcmike]

Siblings with a magical bloodline. Take the dynamic between the siblings on Firefly, and add a magical legacy for both of them.

Big Brother is a big dumb LG Devotion Sorcadin. He's spent his whole life protecting Little Sister. She's a Sorcere/Warlock who is a bit fragile, but designed to go supernova.

[Maxilian]

I love the idea of a Loner Necromancer (Wizard) that have come to hate how slowly but surely society have gone downhill and a Druid Circle of the Sheperd that loves animals more than humans, they eventually come together as the Druid run into the lone tower in the deep of the forest of the Necromancer, they basically work to make the world "true", to reform society.

They both have pretty nice options as full casters, the druid have the ability to summon many creatures that can be used as mounts by the undeands or just more bodies in the battlefield, and the auras give the summons (including the undeads) more HP (temp), and more options in combat (like giving adv in STR, so it will be easier to control the battlefield with undead grapplers, and unlike most healings, the unicorn aura allows you to heal even the undeads.

Thematically it could be quite fun and interesting, how this 2 forces work together.

Note: You could also RP the Druid as a Blight Druid.

[Easy_Lee]

Not best, but Land Druid + Hunter Ranger (longbow) is pretty good.

Thematic
Druid buffs the Ranger with whatever is needed, generally Haste
Druid can provide the Ranger advantage on attacks by casting Faerie Fire on enemies
Druid wildshapes into a mount, Ranger rides, enemies can't get close enough to hit assuming there's space to move - warhorse, giant lizard, giant eagle are all good
Ranger puts the clip quiver in the AK longbow and slays from far away - next to nothing is immune to magical bow damage + SS
Pass Without Trace + Ranger Stealth means the Ranger can get the drop on enemies
Revised Ranger has advantage on Initiative, can generally act quickly enough to avoid a bad situation
Spell synergy - Entangle + Spike Growth + Plant Growth, your enemies are going nowhere while the Ranger picks them off.

Have played this and it works very well.