Suggest a SAD Class for this Charismatic party?

[Eshfyre]

I'll be starting the Storm King's Thunder in a couple of day with a group of friends. Our DM made us roll for stats. I can put them in whatever order I like, or I can take the standard array.

17
13
13
12
9
10

My party:
Monk Kensei Bugbear
Paladin Half-Elf
Sorcerer Divine Soul Half-Elf
4th [Undecided]

It would make the most sense to have a SAD character for that 17. Since we have the support/tanking covered what would be a good foil for this group?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I'll be starting the Storm King's Thunder in a couple of day with a group of friends. Our DM made us roll for stats. I can put them in whatever order I like, or I can take the standard array.

17
13
13
12
9
10

My party:
Monk Kensei Bugbear
Paladin Half-Elf
Sorcerer Divine Soul Half-Elf
4th [Undecided]

It would make the most sense to have a SAD character for that 17. Since we have the support/tanking covered what would be a good foil for this group?

Looks like you need someone who can do some skill-based stuff. Lore Bard, perhaps, which is the best skill generalist yet published, and could add a bit of extra healing and utility magic to a party that might be low on those things. Racially Half-Elf looks like a great choice for the Bard since it'll smooth out some of those odd numbers. Alternately, an archer Rogue, which could give you some additional ranged options and some power at a smaller set of skills than the Bard.

You could also go Hexblade Warlock for melee attack and damage and ranged attack and damage all running off your Cha, starting at level 2.

[Unoriginal]

I'll be starting the Storm King's Thunder in a couple of day with a group of friends. Our DM made us roll for stats. I can put them in whatever order I like, or I can take the standard array.

17
13
13
12
9
10

My party:
Monk Kensei Bugbear
Paladin Half-Elf
Sorcerer Divine Soul Half-Elf
4th [Undecided]

It would make the most sense to have a SAD character for that 17. Since we have the support/tanking covered what would be a good foil for this group?

Champion Fighter for DPS?

[Aett_Thorn]

I'll be starting the Storm King's Thunder in a couple of day with a group of friends. Our DM made us roll for stats. I can put them in whatever order I like, or I can take the standard array.

17
13
13
12
9
10

My party:
Monk Kensei Bugbear
Paladin Half-Elf
Sorcerer Divine Soul Half-Elf
4th [Undecided]

It would make the most sense to have a SAD character for that 17. Since we have the support/tanking covered what would be a good foil for this group?

So you've got a Skirmisher, a Tank/melee fighter, and Blaster/Healer (depending on which way they go). Seems to me like you need a Skill Monkey/Ranged Fighter. And since you're asking for SAD, I'd say go straight up Thief Rogue.

[GlenSmash!]

I say Scout Rogue for ranged damage and picking locks.

Edit: Or Ranger with Favored Enemy Giant, might be useful in SKT. Hunter, or any of the XGtE Rangers would work.

[Eshfyre]

Looks like you need someone who can do some skill-based stuff. Lore Bard, perhaps, which is the best skill generalist yet published, and could add a bit of extra healing and utility magic to a party that might be low on those things. Racially Half-Elf looks like a great choice for the Bard since it'll smooth out some of those odd numbers. Alternately, an archer Rogue, which could give you some additional ranged options and some power at a smaller set of skills than the Bard.

You could also go Hexblade Warlock for melee attack and damage and ranged attack and damage all running off your Cha, starting at level 2.

I'm kinda torn between Archer Rogue and Hexblade at this point. With Hexblade I worry I'll just become a poor man's Paladin. Archer Rogue is nice, but I worry since we're playing theater of the mind that I won't be as effective.

[Ovarwa]

Moon Druid

You only need Wisdom anyway; just add Feats. Not my favorite class, but good in this group. Pretty versatile.

[Angelalex242]

Cleric's not a terrible option. Stick that 17 in wis and have a day.

Rogue is the other obvious choice.

[DireSickFish]

I'd go cleric. They really only need WIS and the group could use some divine magic. Pick a domain that gives you heavy armor and put one of those 13's into CON and you're good to go. A lot of other classes that don't get heavy armor benefit a lot from DEX.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I'm kinda torn between Archer Rogue and Hexblade at this point. With Hexblade I worry I'll just become a poor man's Paladin. Archer Rogue is nice, but I worry since we're playing theater of the mind that I won't be as effective.

Hexblade Tomelock is an interesting combo. Yeah, maybe less effective Paladin, but you're effective all the time. Light armor, shields and Cha-based melee. Scaling Cha-based ranged cantrips with Agonizing Blast. Ritual casting. You can't do skills like a bard, obviously, but you can contribute a lot everywhere else.

[jaappleton]

Paladin and Sorcerer have Charisma covered, as well as a decent amount of healing. Not amazing, but decent.

Monk has Dex and Wis fairly well covered. However, Dex can almost never be 'too covered', as it determines so much in this edition.

You don't have skills covered. You're lacking considerably in that department. I suggest Rogue, specifically Arcane Trickster.

I'd go any race that boosts Dex and Int. Even with a just 14 Int, getting Expertise in Arcana can cover a lot of ground. Bonus points to any Elven race (Eladrin?), since you can also get the Elven Accuracy feat which will boost a stat point as well.

[Eshfyre]

Paladin and Sorcerer have Charisma covered, as well as a decent amount of healing. Not amazing, but decent.

Monk has Dex and Wis fairly well covered. However, Dex can almost never be 'too covered', as it determines so much in this edition.

You don't have skills covered. You're lacking considerably in that department. I suggest Rogue, specifically Arcane Trickster.

I'd go any race that boosts Dex and Int. Even with a just 14 Int, getting Expertise in Arcana can cover a lot of ground. Bonus points to any Elven race (Eladrin?), since you can also get the Elven Accuracy feat which will boost a stat point as well.
I'm leaning towards that or Scout Rogue at this point. Statistically, I think High Elf is better than Eladrin at this point for Arcane Trickster (but we'll see once Tome of Foes come's out) and Wood Elf for the other.

[jaappleton]

I'm leaning towards that or Scout Rogue at this point. Statistically, I think High Elf is better than Eladrin at this point for Arcane Trickster (but we'll see once Tome of Foes come's out) and Wood Elf for the other.

Eladrin's ability to Fey Step is not to be underestimated. Surrounded? Enemy chasing you? Even if you Cunning Action to Dash, they can see the direction you're going. But if you teleport away, well...

Or teleport behind a target before driving the dagger into their neck?

[mormon_soldier]

I would second the suggestion for bard. Having the skills boosts is huge, and bardic inspiration is very powerful. Lore bard is going to give you better magic, but valour's bardic inspiration can be used for basically anything your party needs. Either way, being a full caster gives you the ability to control the battlefield and maximize everyone else's abilities.

[Eshfyre]

Eladrin's ability to Fey Step is not to be underestimated. Surrounded? Enemy chasing you? Even if you Cunning Action to Dash, they can see the direction you're going. But if you teleport away, well...

Or teleport behind a target before driving the dagger into their neck?
Because I'm starting at 19 Dex I can take Fey Teleportation as a feat netting me a point in Intelligence and a short-rest Misty Step. That plus having access to Booming Blade from level 1.

[Specter]

Rogue (any).
Skills and damage, exactly what your party needs.

[CTurbo]

Vhuman Light Cleric with Res(Con) at level 1 gets you 18 Wis, 14 Dex, and 14 Con to start.

Blast away


Or any Vhuman Rogue with Moderately Armored Feat at level 1 gets you 18 Dex, 14 Con, and 14 Wis. Breast Plate + Shield = 18 AC which is crazy for a Rogue.


I like the Vhuman feats that add a +1 to something important. You basically get a +1 to 3 different things which is helpful to your stats.



Or Hill Dwarf Tempest Cleric with 13 Str, 12 Dex, 15 Con, 9 Int, 18 Wis, 10 Cha. You'd take Res(Con) at level 4 and be tough as nails all the time with Plate + Shield 20 AC and extra HP. Tempest Cleric is the funnest character I have ever played in 5e.

[Eshfyre]

Vhuman Light Cleric with Res(Con) at level 1 gets you 18 Wis, 14 Dex, and 14 Con to start.

Blast away


Or any Vhuman Rogue with Moderately Armored Feat at level 1 gets you 18 Dex, 14 Con, and 14 Wis. Breast Plate + Shield = 18 AC which is crazy for a Rogue.


I like the Vhuman feats that add a +1 to something important. You basically get a +1 to 3 different things which is helpful to your stats.



Or Hill Dwarf Tempest Cleric with 13 Str, 12 Dex, 15 Con, 9 Int, 18 Wis, 10 Cha. You'd take Res(Con) at level 4 and be tough as nails all the time with Plate + Shield 20 AC and extra HP. Tempest Cleric is the funnest character I have ever played in 5e.
It turns out the Monk is actually playing a Bugbear Monk/Cleric (if only I knew why), so I'm going to steer clear of Clerics in this campaign.

[krunchyfrogg]

Arcana cleric. JMO.

[CTurbo]

There's no rule that says there can't be 2 Clerics in the same group lol


ok well that leaves you with Rogue, Hexblade, or Druid as the 3 most obvious choices depending on what kind of character you want to play.

I'd probably stick with Rogue. You could be Vhuman Assassin with Alert at level 1, the Moderately Armored Rogue with the high AC I mentioned earlier which could be any Archetype.

Arcane Trickster using Booming Blade and a familiar would be great.

A Vhuman Swashbuckler with Magic Initiate at level 1 to get Booming Blade and Find Familiar would be a ton a fun.

A Vhuman Thief with Healer feat would be strong too.

How about a BattleRager Barbarian? Vhuman with Tavern Brawler gets you 18 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con. You could be a grappling beast and inflict all kinds of random damage. Good flavor

[Honest Tiefling]

Monk has Dex and Wis fairly well covered. However, Dex can almost never be 'too covered', as it determines so much in this edition.

I'd argue that Wisdom can't ever be too covered, due to people still being able to roll really badly and missing ambushes. And don't forget insight on anyone with a moustache! Since the OP is leaning to rogue anyway, just invest a bit into your Perception skill, which is something the monk can't reasonably complain about even if they are going for cleric levels.

Remember, Mr. Shiny Armor and Mrs. Holy Light will make for good distractions for stealth shenanigans. Also, I could see a scruffy rogue-type contrasting with your archetypal holy types, if that is up your alley.

[jaappleton]

I'd argue that Wisdom can't ever be too covered, due to people still being able to roll really badly and missing ambushes. And don't forget insight on anyone with a moustache! Since the OP is leaning to rogue anyway, just invest a bit into your Perception skill, which is something the monk can't reasonably complain about even if they are going for cleric levels.

Remember, Mr. Shiny Armor and Mrs. Holy Light will make for good distractions for stealth shenanigans. Also, I could see a scruffy rogue-type contrasting with your archetypal holy types, if that is up your alley.

I like anything Honest Tiefling says about anything, ever.

[Honest Tiefling]

I like anything Honest Tiefling says about anything, ever.

I'm glad more people acknowledge the superiority of tieflings.

That being said, it's hard to beat out a High Elf for a Arcane Trickster, but can you use the variant tieflings? They will also make a good contrast with the holy types, and give you a perfectly good reason to shun social encounters to let them shine. I...I just have a skin condition, don't mind me...

Winged is really nice, but a lot of DMs don't like flying characters, and one that can see in the dark, well...That's just hilarious.

[Eshfyre]

I'm glad more people acknowledge the superiority of tieflings.

That being said, it's hard to beat out a High Elf for a Arcane Trickster, but can you use the variant tieflings? They will also make a good contrast with the holy types, and give you a perfectly good reason to shun social encounters to let them shine. I...I just have a skin condition, don't mind me...

Winged is really nice, but a lot of DMs don't like flying characters, and one that can see in the dark, well...That's just hilarious.

I can go Tiefling Variant, but no wings sadly.

[Protato]

If you do go Warlock, I don't know which subclass, but I think you could take invocations that improve your blast. Agonizing and Repelling at L2 would give both good damage and control, and with Grasp of Hadar, Lance of Lethargy, and maybe even Eldritch Spear, you could be amazing at controlling the battlefield. The DM might rule that you can use, say, Lance of Lethargy and Repelling Blast on the same attack but either way, you'd have a lot of options.

If you don't go Warlock a Ranger (especially Revised) with Giant Favored Enemy and a focus on Dex for ranged attacks and spells that don't use Wis like Hail of Thorns, Hunter's Mark, and Healing Spirit could be good, as could a Scout/Thief Rogue.

[Citan]

I'll be starting the Storm King's Thunder in a couple of day with a group of friends. Our DM made us roll for stats. I can put them in whatever order I like, or I can take the standard array.

17
13
13
12
9
10

My party:
Monk Kensei Bugbear
Paladin Half-Elf
Sorcerer Divine Soul Half-Elf
4th [Undecided]

It would make the most sense to have a SAD character for that 17. Since we have the support/tanking covered what would be a good foil for this group?
If you want to be versatile...
- Tempest Cleric: good versatility thanks to bonus spells, can hold his own in fight, gets strong buffs for friends, gets nova damage which will help.
- Shepherd Druid: if you don't care about being in melee, possibly the best: lots of versatility, several AOE that can be friendly to your friends, incredibly useful Aura.
- Moon Druid: if you like being creative and get occasional melee time
- Bladesinger Wizard: very good in all aspects, melee/ranged/casting, although much less day-to-day versatility than the aforementioned of course. On the plus side, you have a wide array to choose from, including many of the best spells in each category, and you could possibly get the majority of the best rituals if you learn directly or the DM works with you to provide spells as loot/products.
- Evoker Wizard: same as the previous except that you trade positioning versatility and better defense to get a free pass on blasting.

In short...
- Most versatile? Druid (both, although in different ways) > Tempest Cleric > Bladesinger Wizard.
- Easiest? Tempest Cleric > Evoker Wizard > Moon Druid & Bladesinger Wizard (you can stand some melee threat, but you're not truely a tank, being careless could quickly lead to death).
- Most efficient for your party, as far as shoring up one lacking area goes? Evoker Wizard: even if Sorcerer could get damaging spells, nothing bests an Evoker when party needs to clear up a chaotic melee with friends in-between, unless those friends happen to be impervious to your spells (Bear Barbarian possibly with Shield Master, 8+ Rogue or Monk, Ancients Paladin possibly with Shield Master).

[MrWesson22]

Hexblade 2/lore bard x would be great. You can still get SCAG cantrips if your campaign isn't using AL PHB+1 restrictions, so you don't have to worry about extra attack.

[strangebloke]

Rogue.

You want to be SAD, your team has no expertise, and you have three Nova characters.

Rogue is SAD, has expertise, and is very consistent.

Subclass and race are up to you. AT offers the most flexibility, assassin is the most DPR, scout is really slippery.

[Keravath]

I'd second the hexblade warlock/lore bard option.

If you are using feats then take variant human with the resilient constitution feat to add plus one to con and give you better ability to concentrate on spells.

Using your numbers this gives

9
13 +1 (vh)
13 +1 (resilient)
10
12
17 +1 (vh)

.. which lets you start with 18 charisma and saving throw proficiency in either dex/con/cha or wis/con/cha depending on whether you start bard or warlock.

Hexblade gives you medium armor and shield proficiency, the ability to use charisma for to hit and damage on one weapon, eldritch blast (warlock 2 gives you agonizing blast and a second invocation), and two short rest spell slots. This gives the lore bard respectable at will ranged damage.

Lore bard gives a lot of skills, jack of all trades, full caster spell list including both some healing and some crowd control. One thing that bard seem to lack is decent scalable at will damage which the warlock dip fills in.

You can take warlock to 3 for a pact boon and second level spells and spell slots.

With medium armor, a shield and dex 14, your AC is 18 or 19 depending on what you can afford and the shield spell will bring this up to 23/24 which makes a typically squishy bard a lot more survivable.

You can also pick up thieves tools with your background choices in case the party will need a backup to find/remove traps (expertise in perception will also help).

Finally, with the flexibility and the long list of skills (once you hit lore bard at level 3) the character is loads of fun to play. If you take expertise in persuasion then the character becomes very effective at the social aspect of the game.

There are a lot of equally good options for the first few levels but I would tend to take the hexblade levels sooner rather than later to get the added survivability and the flexibility/damage output from EB+hex.

[Biggstick]

As someone who's DM'ed STK from start to finish, and seeing your party, I'd highly recommend a High Elf Arcane Trickster who grabs Sharpshooter at level 8 or level 10. Being able to use a Longbow and it's range (once you have SS), plus having Uncanny Dodge (Giants can throw rocks, and they hurt), Evasion (breath weapons are still a thing you probably have to worry about), and being able to Cunning Action Dash will all serve you well when playing through STK.

This is of course assuming your Sorcerer is grabbing crowd control spells like Hypnotic Pattern and it's ilk. Giants typically don't have the best mental saves...

If your Sorcerer isn't grabbing spells like that, see if you can figure out what the 4th player is going to end up playing. Splitting up the "role" of Sharpshooter and Crowd Controller is something that should definitely be considered.

In summary my recommendation is to play a Sharpshooter in STK (as Giants typically have lower AC's that can be taken advantage of by Sharpshooter). This can be done effectively on a Rogue, a Fighter, or a Ranger. While a Rogue won't have as high or as consistent of damage as the Fighter or Ranger Sharpshooters, it will have more defensive options available to itself with Cunning Action, Uncanny Dodge, and Evasion.