What do you mean full casters got low health?!

[Spacehamster]

So were thinking of fun builds as usual and this popped up, very simple and not that optimal but should be fun,
Start as hill dwarf with start stats: 8/14/17/8/10/15, pick fighter for first level, defensive style. Pick what background and proficiences that suits you, then go rest of it draconic sorcerer spend your 5 ASI's at maxing CON and CHA and one on the toughness feat, will leave you with a full plate wearing dwarf sorcerer of awesome with a whopping 246 HP at max level while still having good AC, maxed casting stat and a great constitution save for concentration.
ASI's would be spent in order: +1 CHA/CON, thoughness, +2 CHA, +2CON and finally +2 CHA.

Thoughts on this beefy dorf sorcerer? :)

[GorogIrongut]

I always preferred to go the Stone Sorceror route. You get the same +1 to hp and your AC improves with your Constitution... so there's no need to wear armour.

Plus it also seems appropriate for a Dwarf to be a Stone sorceror.

[Spacehamster]

I always preferred to go the Stone Sorceror route. You get the same +1 to hp and your AC improves with your Constitution... so there's no need to wear armour.

Plus it also seems appropriate for a Dwarf to be a Stone sorceror.

That's not in any book tho right? Also full plate feels more dwarfy to me, how else would his dorf kin respect him if he did not look like a warrior?! :p

[Beechgnome]

Wearing full plate with 8 strength is hard. I assume this requires a helpful DM willing to give you gauntlets of armor-wearing strength? You could flip the strength and Dex and do it though.

[Spacehamster]

Wearing full plate with 8 strength is hard. I assume this requires a helpful DM willing to give you gauntlets of armor-wearing strength? You could flip the strength and Dex and do it though.
Dwarfs ignore STR requirements of heavy armor

[Willie the Duck]

Dwarfs ignore STR requirements of heavy armor

But check with your DM regarding encumbrance.

[Beechgnome]

Dwarfs ignore STR requirements of heavy armor

Well you meet the requirement but it still weighs 65 pounds of the 80 you can carry, so the rest of your stuff (shield, staff, backpack, etc etc) will need to be light if you have aspirations of taking treasure. I just thought since full plate doesn't give you a Dex bonus anyway you'd be better off making strength more practical and bumping it up.

[TalksAlone]

I may be speaking out of my nether regions here, but this is not nearly as tough a caster is able to become.

Deep Gnome Fighter 1-2/Abjurer x with Svirfneblin Magic seems to tank quite a bit more with Arcane Ward. Slap in some medium armor (you recieve a +1 to dex anyways) and a shield (maybe work in warcaster even). It is also more efficient stat-wise because you would be getting EHP out of your spellcasting stat, to wich you naturally have +2 to. Indefinetly recover the EHP of Arcane Ward out of combat with your Svirfneblin Magic, since Arcane Ward takes damage for you you may not even need to roll Concentration saves for whatever hits you, Shield, Blade Ward, Absorb Elements, Counterspell and many others can recover your EHP mid-fight with little to no waste of action currency.

I'm not saying it is not worth playing this build you mentioned if you are more of a Sorcerer type, but I do not think it is even close to optimal for a concept that itself is not really optimal.

[mephnick]

But check with your DM regarding encumbrance.

Oh don't worry, probably another table where no one tracks encumbrance and everyone gets to climb, jump and swim with Acrobatics.

DAE strength drools and Dex rools :smalltongue:

[Spacehamster]

Well you meet the requirement but it still weighs 65 pounds of the 80 you can carry, so the rest of your stuff (shield, staff, backpack, etc etc) will need to be light if you have aspirations of taking treasure. I just thought since full plate doesn't give you a Dex bonus anyway you'd be better off making strength more practical and bumping it up.

Well just bump STR to 9 then and keep WIS at 10 since I forgot about the +1 WIS hill dwarves get. :)

[Spacehamster]

I may be speaking out of my nether regions here, but this is not nearly as tough a caster is able to become.

Deep Gnome Fighter 1-2/Abjurer x with Svirfneblin Magic seems to tank quite a bit more with Arcane Ward. Slap in some medium armor (you recieve a +1 to dex anyways) and a shield (maybe work in warcaster even). It is also more efficient stat-wise because you would be getting EHP out of your spellcasting stat, to wich you naturally have +2 to. Indefinetly recover the EHP of Arcane Ward out of combat with your Svirfneblin Magic, since Arcane Ward takes damage for you you may not even need to roll Concentration saves for whatever hits you, Shield, Blade Ward, Absorb Elements, Counterspell and many others can recover your EHP mid-fight with little to no waste of action currency.

I'm not saying it is not worth playing this build you mentioned if you are more of a Sorcerer type, but I do not think it is even close to optimal for a concept that itself is not really optimal.

We are talking real hp here not fake news gnome hp! ;) cool build tho, but as I said were not out to make an optimized toon but a fun one. :)

[MinotaurWarrior]

Well you meet the requirement but it still weighs 65 pounds of the 80 you can carry, so the rest of your stuff (shield, staff, backpack, etc etc) will need to be light if you have aspirations of taking treasure. I just thought since full plate doesn't give you a Dex bonus anyway you'd be better off making strength more practical and bumping it up.

Taking treasure is rarely an urgent activity. FP + Shield + Staff gives you 5lbs to spare, for carrying things around, and then when looting you just need to offload it onto something or someone else, e.g. a pack animal.

Plus, isn't Enhance Ability typically a worthwhile spell for sorcs?

[Zippee]

Taking treasure is rarely an urgent activity. FP + Shield + Staff gives you 5lbs to spare, for carrying things around, and then when looting you just need to offload it onto something or someone else, e.g. a pack animal.

Plus, isn't Enhance Ability typically a worthwhile spell for sorcs?

Staff?

Real dwarves don't wield staffs!

A dwarf needs a big ol' axe or hammer - and probably a fancy beard clasp arcane focus

[JackPhoenix]

Well you meet the requirement but it still weighs 65 pounds of the 80 you can carry, so the rest of your stuff (shield, staff, backpack, etc etc) will need to be light if you have aspirations of taking treasure. I just thought since full plate doesn't give you a Dex bonus anyway you'd be better off making strength more practical and bumping it up.

8*15=120, not 80, so you have enough to spare, unless you're using variant encumbrance rules. And if you're using those rules, even just the plate would give you another -10' to already slow dwarven speed of 25' before hitting heavy load.

[Quoxis]

Well you meet the requirement but it still weighs 65 pounds of the 80 you can carry, so the rest of your stuff (shield, staff, backpack, etc etc) will need to be light if you have aspirations of taking treasure. I just thought since full plate doesn't give you a Dex bonus anyway you'd be better off making strength more practical and bumping it up.

You assume a mage carries his loot himself like a filthy barbarian? What do you think Leomund invented the secret chest spell for? What other use would unseen servants and tenser's discs and dumb goliath party members have if not to do that job?

[Slipperychicken]

That's not in any book tho right? Also full plate feels more dwarfy to me, how else would his dorf kin respect him if he did not look like a warrior?! :p

If he was going into battle shirtless with skin that looks like stone, somehow I don't think dwarfiness would be an issue.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Well you meet the requirement but it still weighs 65 pounds of the 80 you can carry, so the rest of your stuff (shield, staff, backpack, etc etc) will need to be light if you have aspirations of taking treasure. I just thought since full plate doesn't give you a Dex bonus anyway you'd be better off making strength more practical and bumping it up.

Oh don't worry, probably another table where no one tracks encumbrance and everyone gets to climb, jump and swim with Acrobatics.

DAE strength drools and Dex rools :smalltongue:

Tenser's Floating Disk solves that problem neatly.

[Jamesps]

8*15=120, not 80, so you have enough to spare, unless you're using variant encumbrance rules. And if you're using those rules, even just the plate would give you another -10' to already slow dwarven speed of 25' before hitting heavy load.

This is correct in the base rules. The optional rules offer up a system whereby you can carry between 5 and 15 times your strength, but they're optional.

The base rules were designed to let you pretty much ignore encumbrance except in extreme conditions like carry party members. He'll be fine as is.

[GorogIrongut]

If he was going into battle shirtless with skin that looks like stone, somehow I don't think dwarfiness would be an issue.

Dwarfs are notorious for having many kinds of warriors. Else where would you get the Mtn Dwarf Barbarian? Some of them have armour. Some don't... Make yourself a bright red mohawk and you could be a Slayer (stone) Sorceror for all I care.

[Willie the Duck]

Tenser's Floating Disk solves that problem neatly.

Just the carrying stuff part, and for an hour.

[ATHATH]

That's not in any book tho right? Also full plate feels more dwarfy to me, how else would his dorf kin respect him if he did not look like a warrior?! :p
It's in an Unearthed Arcana article.

Can't you just refluff your stone skin to look be plate mail (with the stats of your stone skin) that your ancient dwarven traditions forbid you from ever taking off or something?

[Trampaige]

Can't you just refluff your stone skin to look be plate mail (with the stats of your stone skin) that your ancient dwarven traditions forbid you from ever taking off or something?

Until you fall asleep (incapacitated.)

Then you're naked.

And everyone is looking at you.

Maybe that's why questions about his dwarfiness came up...

[Beechgnome]

8*15=120, not 80, so you have enough to spare, unless you're using variant encumbrance rules. And if you're using those rules, even just the plate would give you another -10' to already slow dwarven speed of 25' before hitting heavy load.

My bad, I thought it was x 10 and was doing it from memory. I can't believe I got the plate Armor weight right, all things considered.

I had an 8 strength gnome wizard who, uh, quickly reached carrying capacity in a campaign with no tenser spell in sight. So maybe he could have dragged that body around? Ah, that's another story...

[Diebo]

I've been tinkering with something similar, but not multi-classing. Just straight wild sorcerer. Mountain Dwarf for medium armor. Stats 15/10/17/10/8/15 to start. First ASI heavy armor and 16 STR. Second ASI +1 CON, +1 CHA. CHA from there. Sure fighter would be more optimal, but fun to think about as a straight sorcerer.

Not as many hit points, but this is a proper burly dwarf with an axe. Even better, go subtle magic and only take spells without components. Pretend you don't know magic at all, and you are just a fighter. Tell people that your axe is magic (but really cast Booming Blade). A family heirloom attuned only to your family blood. Twin Booming Blade on occasion. With blur (another "magic" item) you can front-line with the best of them. You'd only have 2 fewer hit points at level 8 than a fighter with 14 CON, and you'd have shield and blur available. Take deception to hide your magic from people. Insist you are just a fighting dwarf. Have fun explaining the wild magic surges (blame others).

Subtle magic fun with mage hand, minor illusion*, prestidigitation, charm person, blindness, chill touch, counterspell, phantasmal force*, greater invisibility, dispel magic, animate objects, telekinesis, dimension door, dominate person/monster, and wish. Lots of battle, social, and exploration uses.

*these two require fleece as a material component, but I figure the character would be wearing something with fleece and wouldn't even necessarily know that it was required to cast the spell. I just like the concept of subtle phantasmal force.

Would work even better if the DM was nice and allowed you to use variant spell point system.

[SharkForce]

Dwarfs are notorious for having many kinds of warriors. Else where would you get the Mtn Dwarf Barbarian? Some of them have armour. Some don't... Make yourself a bright red mohawk and you could be a Slayer (stone) Sorceror for all I care.

you could also just make sure your weapon has a recursive image of itself on it, and put some menacing spider silk spikes on there :P

maybe you could also have one absolutely amazing artifact sock and one regular sock to complete the look ;)

[Dimers]

Why are you crazy people using Hill Dwarves and Mountain Dwarves when you could take a Revenant Dwarf for +3 Constitution at first level? :smallcool: Plus, ya know, almost unkillable because they heal a hit point every round ...

And why are you using sorcerer instead of mystic? Immortal Mystic can get d8+1+Con hit points per level, Constitution save proficiency swap, 5 temp hit points every round, an extra 115 points of self-healing as bonus actions per day, half damage against one attack per rest, and self-revival at 0 hp if anyone ever manages to get you that far. Oh, and 20th level gets you poison immunity, resistance to weapons (even magical ones), and outright cheating death 55% of the time.

EDIT: And that's without considering psi focus or actual disciplines. If you want to be truly badass, give the finger to eating, breathing and sleeping starting at level 1 ...

[Citan]

So were thinking of fun builds as usual and this popped up, very simple and not that optimal but should be fun,
Start as hill dwarf with start stats: 8/14/17/8/10/15, pick fighter for first level, defensive style. Pick what background and proficiences that suits you, then go rest of it draconic sorcerer spend your 5 ASI's at maxing CON and CHA and one on the toughness feat, will leave you with a full plate wearing dwarf sorcerer of awesome with a whopping 246 HP at max level while still having good AC, maxed casting stat and a great constitution save for concentration.
ASI's would be spent in order: +1 CHA/CON, thoughness, +2 CHA, +2CON and finally +2 CHA.

Thoughts on this beefy dorf sorcerer? :)
Overall a good plan for non-UA build, although the Fighter is a waste imo if just for heavy armor proficiency because everything else is redundant (constitution proficiency Sorcerer got, weapons mostly useless unless you really wanted a melee caster, starting +4 HP seems overkill to me considering everything else you stack).

I'd rather grab 2 levels of Paladin dispatched somewhere in-between level 3 and 7 of Sorcerer (and grit my teeth until then), because while twice the investment cost (so twice the delay for better spells) and loss of heavy armor, it brings multiple times better value imo: healing spells, Divine Smite, small but still nice self-heal...

But honestly, the true best tanky Sorcerer would be Cleric 3 / Draconic Sorcerer 17, simply because of extended upcast Aid which ultimately ends as more than Tough feat every other day, for you and two other friends. Makes spell progression a great pain though, so wouldn't recommend to anyone that "primarily wants to play a Sorcerer" (in which case a single level in Tempest Cleric as level 2 will be ample enough).
In which case, you can easily make it work with starting stats: 8 / 12 / 17 / 8 / 14 / 15 (basically you vampirize DEX to bump WIS).

[holywhippet]

That's not in any book tho right?

Not yet, but there is a new splatbook coming out in November and it might appear in that.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Taking treasure is rarely an urgent activity. FP + Shield + Staff gives you 5lbs to spare, for carrying things around, and then when looting you just need to offload it onto something or someone else, e.g. a pack animal.

A pack animal, the party fighter, they're the same thing, right?