Suggestions on a primary caster class for my group

[Mikaleus]

Hi guys currently playing a Fey Knight (Ancients oath Paladin) and a Moon Druid.
Want to try a primary caster type class this time around for my next adventure but am really stuck on what to choose.

The group is

Vuman Undying Warlock
Tortle Ancestral Barbarian
Elf Arcane Archer
Monk / rogue (currently undecided)


I've been contemplating Bard, Cleric, wizard or a sorcerer.
As there is a warlock already in the group don't want to step on any toes.

Any advice greatly appreciated, as I tend to play more melee based characters with magic as supplements to my combat skills.

[Waazraath]

Hi guys currently playing a Fey Knight (Ancients oath Paladin) and a Moon Druid.
Want to try a primary caster type class this time around for my next adventure but am really stuck on what to choose.

The group is

Vuman Undying Warlock
Tortle Ancestral Barbarian
Elf Arcane Archer
Monk / rogue (currently undecided)


I've been contemplating Bard, Cleric, wizard or a sorcerer.
As there is a warlock already in the group don't want to step on any toes.

Any advice greatly appreciated, as I tend to play more melee based characters with magic as supplements to my combat skills.

If you want Something Completely Different, I'd might just go for wizard, and focus on spells that do direct damage, buff, debuff, give some battlefield control and summon creatures. Anything but melee. If you don't want to step on toes, just take care you don't pick the same spells as the Warlock uses. Maybe go for a subclass that keeps you as far away as possible from your normal role (melee with magic), so avoid bladesinger, abjurer and war wizard, but pick evoker or the like.

[Sobeit]

There are about a million possibilities but I would suggest Lore Bard, their spell list is very varied (you could easily focus on damage, utility, buff or even healing up to a point).

Magical Secrets at higher levels opens up even more options.

Even drow Bard for some extra spells. Sunlight sensitivity won't be a huge issue if you primarily use spells that don't require an attack roll.

Plus I strongly believe Vicious Mockery is the most fun you can have in game with a cantrip.

Option B, go for cleric especially if you are playing something like Curse of Strahd or an undead/demon filled campaign and you don't have a divine caster. Personally I find playing support cleric boring though :smallsmile:

[Citan]

Hi guys currently playing a Fey Knight (Ancients oath Paladin) and a Moon Druid.
Want to try a primary caster type class this time around for my next adventure but am really stuck on what to choose.

The group is

Vuman Undying Warlock
Tortle Ancestral Barbarian
Elf Arcane Archer
Monk / rogue (currently undecided)


I've been contemplating Bard, Cleric, wizard or a sorcerer.
As there is a warlock already in the group don't want to step on any toes.

Any advice greatly appreciated, as I tend to play more melee based characters with magic as supplements to my combat skills.
Hi!
Bladesinger Wizard is the perfect fit for you. Works fine pure-build, can benefit of a starting dip into Fighter or Sorcerer depending on how much you plan on using melee attacks and skills.
- INT based, so you shore up one important group of skills (well unless your DM waives around everything related to investigation, creatures/spells/items analysis and the like).
- Full caster from bones to nails, with a wide enough variety of spells and rituals + arcane recovery (you can provide all the essentials regarding adventuring, AOE, battlefield alteration, control).
- Great melee prowess with just a bit of spell consumption thanks to Extra Attack + INT on attacks + Shadow Blade/Haste/Greater Invisibility (pick your drug) + potential dual-wielding.

Second choice would be Nature or Tempest Cleric, both with Arcane Initiate.
Cleric brings a very useful healing/buff (Enhance Ability! Bless!) power, and has some nice "melee" spells with Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians.
Nature can be built as a drawing tower (Spirit Guardians + Thorns Whip + Plant Growth or Grasping Vine) or as a stopper (Spirit Guardians + Shillelagh + Sentinel + Booming Blade from Magic Initiate).
Tempest can be built as a "push-stopper" with heavy nova thanks to Channel Divinity (same as above without Shillelagh, ability to maximize a Thunderwave / Booming Blade / Destructive Wave, ability to push away when inflicting lightning damage).
Both get extra elemental damage on their weapon attacks too.


Third choice would be Swords Bard: nice uses of Bardic Inspiration, and Magic Secrets, but they do have quite a bit of a focus on skills: in my view that would not be a problem with your Rogue, because there are enough skills available to avoid any tip-toe. You may have a different opinion.
The other thing is that you already have a high-CHA character that can cover fairly well those Persuasion / Intimidation skills and possibly grab Inspiring Leader.

Other third choice ex-aequo would be Land/Shepherd Druid: I put it "last" because you just played a Moon Druid, but I guess you spent most of the time having fun with Wild Shapes. Druid is actually a very powerful caster in itself too and is much more versatile than Wizard since you don't rely on loot/shops to expand your spell list. Plus it has some of the best party spells (Goodberry, Enhance Ability, Healing Spirit, Pass Without Trace, Water Breathing, Wind Walk etc).
Land Druid gives even more spellcasting greatness through expanded spelllist and arcane recovery.
Shepherd would give your party an increadible boost in resilience and flexibility between Healing Spirit, THP/STR advantage/advantage on ranged Aura and upgraded conjurations later.
So this would normally have been my very first choice for you. ;)
BUT...
- The fact that you just played a "Druid" obviously weighed in big time, since I don't know whether you really tried to play it as a caster and disliked it or just never had a chance.
- And the lack of significant features in the melee department was also held against it, since here too, it seems to be a significant part of your character concept.

Last choice would be Divine Sorcerer with Extend and Twin (and Quicken later): you get limited spell known, but just Healing Words + Enhance Ability + Spiritual Weapon + Polymorph + Fireball + Spirit Guardians should largely cover all your offensive needs for fights and other. You can greatly increase your party's resilience by upcasting Extended Aid. And you could also Twin Haste both your Rogue and Monk pals:
- Rogue so he can land his Sneak Attack with the Haste Attack and Ready his action to land another Sneak Attack later without having to hope for an OA.
- Monk so he can get the benefit of a Disengage or Dash action and still make 3 attacks without consuming Ki, which is a big deal at low levels for his resource management. Or get a 5th chance to land a Stunning Strike in a single turn, which is nice too. ^^
I put this one "true last" because of two things.
a) While spellcaster, you have a limited number of spell known, plus metamagics, which tend to make you rely on a handful of tactics every day: you'd be a "focused" caster, and I feel this is not what you look for.
b) CHA-character, when Warlock and Rogue both could take on the face job.


Choose freely and go have fun ;=) (I'm still around later if you'd like more informations on any of those suggestions).

EDIT: Catching up with other posters, I realize I may have understood you in the opposite way: are you actually looking for a caster that does not want to be in melee at all?
In which case I'd rather suggest 1) Abjurer/Evoker Wizard or Land/Shepherd Druid, 2) Lore Bard, 3) Light Cleric.

[Mikaleus]

Thankyou for the replies everyone.

I'm slightly inclined to go with a character that can heal- as Paladin and druid, I've always had the option and perhaps it is time to get out of my norm? Afterall, healing potions should suffice ....hopefully.

No idea what the campaign will involve- our Gm is keeping it a mystery.

I think Arcana Cleric (wizard vibe), Divine Soul Sorcerer or a Wizard (so many choices 😆) are the options that appeal to me at the moment.

[jaappleton]

I’m going to heavily suggest Cleric, with my Domain suggestion being Light, Knowledge or Nature.

Clerics have an amazing spell list, and excellent armor options for a Caster. They lack some versatility in damage Cantrips, but make up for it by having excellent damage types for them.

They can buff. Heal. Debuff. Damage. They can it all. And that’s the base Cleric list.

Xan’s Guide only added a few new spells to Clerics, but they’re quite amazing: Holy Weapon will make you everyone’s favorite party member, and Dawn is the mass damage AoE they were missing.

Go Light and turn the damage up, with spells like Fireball and Wall Of Light, with the ability to use Warding Flare to turn enemy hits into misses.

Nature’s bonus spell list and Channel Divinity are.... Not great, to be honest. But it’s lv6 Ability is maybe the best in the game. You took or an ally took elemental damage? Resistance.

Knowledge is not to be underestimated. The ability to gain skill proficiency whenever you want it, or to use Suggestion in such a way is devastating in the right hands.

[Citan]

Thankyou for the replies everyone.

I'm slightly inclined to go with a character that can heal- as Paladin and druid, I've always had the option and perhaps it is time to get out of my norm? Afterall, healing potions should suffice ....hopefully.

No idea what the campaign will involve- our Gm is keeping it a mystery.

I think Arcana Cleric (wizard vibe), Divine Soul Sorcerer or a Wizard (so many choices 😆) are the options that appeal to me at the moment.
I love Sorcerer so I often champion it, but...
In your case I wonder if that may just be too much of a difference, one extreme to another... ^^

Seems you have been playing characters that can change prepared spells every long rest most of the time. Going straight to a caster that is very focused on a handful(s) of spells, even if those are very flexible, may be too big of a stretch to gap in one shot.

Because of that I'd say Wizard is probably the best route for you, since you seem to want going out of your comfort zone: no healing, light resistance and "limited spells" (in quotes because loot may expand quite a bit your selection) should be enough to make quite a refresh on your playstyle. Yet, having most kinds of magics covered in the choice available and having many good rituals, plus offensive cantrips, should allow for a smooth transition. :)

With that said, no healing at all may lead your party to some dangerous situations. Nothing making going "healer caster" mandatory though: your Warlock pal may grab Inspiring Leader or go "healing archetype" or grab Rituals Invocation (all three will make him largely good enough to sustain the whole party unless you all behave recklessly), maybe your "Monk or Rogue" will go Thief Rogue (in which case Healer feat is one of the top three feats for him). Arcane Archer should have enough feats to spare one on either.
Or if really you are weary of your party's survival (or at least your own) after the first levels, you could always boost WIS enough for multiclass and take a single level in Life Cleric. Or present to your Monk (if exists) with a small multiclass dip into that (obviously has some drawbacks especially because of Ki economy, but also brings many great things to a Monk so overall a fair proposition).

Or then pick Bard, so you can rest easy knowing you have your safety bag built-in (Healing Words, Leomund's Tiny Hut etc).

Also, in the end I'm still not sure whether you want a primary caster that is still adept in melee or if you want to really pull the card of the "cowardly backline caster" trope?

[djreynolds]

Evocation wizard, sculpt spell is very useful.

[ImproperJustice]

Dwarven Cleric of the Forge.

Tank on the frontlines with the Barbarian and unleash spirit guardians. Enchant his weapons Or those of the archer / rogue for more fun.
Heat Metal is good and animate objects is great.

After battle, you havd healing to share.
Grab Heavy Armor Master or Dwarven reslience to be even more tough.

Being able to “magic up” mundane tools and objects can be surprisingly useful, for all those times when your party says, if only we had a *blank* to solve this problem.

[Mikaleus]

Thankyou so much for everyone's suggestions they've been really informative and inspiring- especially for future oneshots too.

The lack of healing in the group will be no problem as I've now settled on choosing between :

Aarakocra Light Cleric (going for a Ra/ Horus vibe )

Or possibly .....

A Firbolg Shepherd Druid.

I can't help it....I like my druids.

[jaappleton]

Thankyou so much for everyone's suggestions they've been really informative and inspiring- especially for future oneshots too.

The lack of healing in the group will be no problem as I've now settled on choosing between :

Aarakocra Light Cleric (going for a Ra/ Horus vibe )

Or possibly .....

A Firbolg Shepherd Druid.

I can't help it....I like my druids.

Here's the thing with Shepards:

They're powerful. Very much so. And this isn't even an issue with Shepards, its an issue with 'Summoner' style characters.

But its entirely dependent on your table. If you're rolling for each individual monster you summon, and you've summoned like 8 wolves, that slows down the table a lot. Initiative, attack rolls, looking up their stats, etc. It slows down more when you summon anything that can cast spells, and make their concentration checks, etc.

[Mikaleus]

Found out my Gm isn't too fond of the conjure spells so might drop Shepherd out of the potential character list.

[Mikaleus]

So the final group is

Drunken master Monk
Ancestral Barbarian
Undying warlock
Arcane Archer Fighter

[Personification]

I would definitely go with Land, or if UA is allowed Spore (because it is awesome), Druid. You get lots of versatility with spells, full casting, healing, and as you said, you like Druids.

[Mikaleus]

I would definitely go with Land, or if UA is allowed Spore (because it is awesome), Druid. You get lots of versatility with spells, full casting, healing, and as you said, you like Druids.

Narrowed it to Coastal Druid vs a Tempest Cleric vs Sword Bard.

[Citan]

Narrowed it to Coastal Druid vs a Tempest Cleric.

Although I initially was thinking to stay in the backline but like that i can move wherever I want in the battlefield and perform well as Cleric.
Well... If you want single-class, choice will tough, I guess it will amount to whether you like the idea of using others with small positioning through Thorns Whip. If you don't like it, then definitely pick Cleric. Land Druid does not have *bad* AC per se (although it's usually 2 points less than a Cleric, worth noting), it's just that he doesn't have any built-in defensive features nor melee-enhancer abilities, so you'll just end bored or frustrated if you don't like TW since it's the only worthy "melee" ability.

If you're not again multiclass and DM agrees to waive the armor limitation of Druid, then I'd say your best call is to pick Druid, grabbing one level of Tempest Cleric early for armor, extra cantrips and protection spells, and another level much later once you got 3rd level Cleric spells to get nova Lightning Bolt. ;)

[Mikaleus]

I decided on a Bard.

Though next character I think Tempest cleric will be it 😆

Thanks to everyone 👍