Combining character abilities

[Platypusbill]

Usually people make builds with the expectation of self-sufficiency. Now, they're obviously not attempting to cover the party's magical needs as a Barbarian, but the intention is to have inherent synergies to make a character that is effective on their own. But have you ever tried working together with another player to make combos that cannot be achieved on your own?

For instance, a lvl17 Drunken Master Monk gains an inherent 30ft movement speed and another 10ft + automatic Disengage while using Flurry of Blows (so 70ft with most races, or 90ft as a flying Aarakocra). The sublass capstone allows up to 5 bonus action attacks with FoB if each strike is targeted at a separate opponent. Now, if someone cast Haste on them, they could have a speed of 140-180ft and a total of 8 attacks, or 280-360ft and 7 attacks if they used the Haste action to Dash. Basically, they could zip all the way across the battlefield multiple times whilst smacking a bunch of enemies that are nowhere near each other in the face.

Another one I thought about was a Moon Druid wildshaping into Huge creatures and letting a rider with the Mounted Combatant feat gain effectively always-on advantage with attack rolls against Large or smaller creatures (however, this obviously wouldn't work in confined spaces). Double the fun is there is a caster with the Enlarge spell to make the animal form Gargantuan.

[Unoriginal]

I'd like to think PCs working together is the default. Using Haste on others or getting the right shape to help are common combo.

[Greywander]

Building a team rather than a single character is always going to be more effective. The problem is that most people expect each person to create their own character. Most people wouldn't be too happy to have their character created by someone else, and it can be difficult to find someone who's willing to go along with a team build concept you have. I think the other problem is that there are a lot of theorycrafters here, myself included, that don't get to play that often and so spend time coming up with new builds or homebrew or what have you. These theoretical characters are generally created in a vacuum because there's no point of reference for a group. You might be able to pull that character out when you join a group, but before that point you don't even know how many people will be in the group, let alone what types of characters they'll be playing.

It would certainly be interesting to see some team-based builds. One idea I posted in another thread was a party of variant human hexblade warlocks with Polearm Mastery (to provoke OA on approach) + Sentinel (to stop movement on OA) + Spell Sniper (to extend range of booming blade/eldritch blast) + Warcaster (to OA with booming blade, cast with hands full) + reach weapon + booming blade. Once enemies get within 10 feet of you, they can't move, either closer or farther. Bonus points if you can do a pincer attack and get on either side of the enemy, so moving within 5 feet of one player means moving 15 feet away from another, thus provoking an OA. If you take at least 9 levels of warlock, you can also pick up all 5 eldritch blast invocations and enjoy pushing, pulling, and slowing enemies down from 600 feet away. You may want to push warlock to 12 for another ASI, or multiclass into fighter or rogue for extra ASIs. You need 5 ASIs + vHuman's feat in order to push CHA to 20 while still getting all four feats.

I also know that Drunken Master can redirect attacks that miss him for an autohit on an enemy. Get Great Weapon Master (-5 to hit, +10 damage), close your eyes (blinded, disadvantage on attack roll), and attack the monk. When (if) it misses him, he redirects the attack to autohit an enemy, which can be nice if the enemy has absurd AC. Otherwise, quite risky.

I think there are probably some combos involving grappling and moving an enemy into a hazard. Also, get two (or more!) beefy rogues into melee with Sentinel. If enemy attacks one, the other gets an OA, and sneak attack since flanked. Combine this with a source of healing or temp HP, or mirror image, or other defensive options, and you can kill things fast.

[Joe the Rat]

Every nonblaster caster, though that is a general-purpose design, rather than one to capitalize on specific strengths.

This is one of the reasons I like session 0s - it gives you an opportunity to make these sorts of plans and design choices... though it typically ends up "covering the bases" and "combining backstories."

Some things I've seen or done:
Hammer and Anvil: I've discussed this multiple times: A heavy striker with Sentinel (Rogue is the classic version), and a Sword-and-board with Protection Style. Hit anyone but the striker, he gets to attack. Attack the striker, and the shield can use a reaction to impose disadvantage on the attack.

Team Rogue: Two rogues effectively have up to eight areas of Expertise between them. Boxman and Stalker. Filcher and Face. Sniper and Swashbuckler.

Team GTFO: He can cast fly, you know invisibility.

Shield Wall and Shooter: Protection meleer with a sharpshooter (or spell sniper) standing within 5 feet. Free +2AC for partial cover, and disadvantage on a reaction. Feats allow the shooter to ignore his buddy's being in the way (though a simple step out-step back when room allows can work as well). Also a possibility for Lockdown and Pummel, though it's better for Lockdown to be Hiding entirely.

I haven't actually seen Mounted Druid in play, but it's a great concept (and protects the druid).

[nickl_2000]

Another one I thought about was a Moon Druid wildshaping into Huge creatures and letting a rider with the Mounted Combatant feat gain effectively always-on advantage with attack rolls against Large or smaller creatures (however, this obviously wouldn't work in confined spaces). Double the fun is there is a caster with the Enlarge spell to make the animal form Gargantuan.


You can take this even further of you like with the Moon Druid taking a 3 level dip into Caviler and taking the Sentinel feat.

[Caelic]

You can take this even further of you like with the Moon Druid taking a 3 level dip into Caviler and taking the Sentinel feat.


...or a two-man team: Moon Druid/Ancestral Guardians Barbarian as mount, and Cavalier with Sentinel as rider.

It's a tough nut to crack, especially at low-mid levels.

[Vaz]

As a Wizard or another Familiar using Class, you grant free advantage to any other member to the party. Obviously useful on a Rogue to the bonus damage, but any class which can expend a resource on a hit for additinal effect is going to be improved by twice the chance to Crit and twice the chance to affect the target.

[Phoenix042]

I actually had quite a lot of fun putting together my support fighter. A 7th level battlemaster specializing in the feats and maneuvers essential to making the most of my allies' attacks. I was about to post it in another thread asking for feedback, so I'll do that after this reply.

Basically, its a sword-and-board fighter with shield master and all of the support maneuvers (commander's strike, maneuvering attack, and rally), which I think are highly underrated maneuvers.

[MintyNinja]

I've played as the Druid in the Mounted Druid team-up. We were pretty low level, though, so my partner was a Halfling Fighter with a Lance and a tonne of weapons. The only problem that I could really tell at the time was figuring out our movement. Do we only move on my turn? Do we move on the Halfling's turn? What's what? Our GM didn't really like the synergy and the game ended shortly after.

PS: My Druid was a Hill Dwarf named Kelvin Greenstone, the Fighter was a halfling named Hopps, short for Hoplite. We were Kelvin & Hopps. :smallbiggrin: I turned into a Direwolf most often.