banthafett
2018-03-28, 03:29 PM
I’m looking for some help planning the later parts of character idea I came up with. The character concept is a member of a pacifistic group that endorses assassination as a last resort to avert larger scale conflicts. They select promising members from among their group to train to become assassins. These individuals are sent into the world to apply their philosophy practically, and to see how destructive conflict can be. If, after this period of trial is over, they return to the fold then their training is completed and they become sanctioned assassins. Given this background the character tries to avoid violence as much as possible, but when it is needed he metes out death in an instant. He has a suite of skills and high Charisma to navigate social situations, as well as stealth to avoid conflicts entirely.
The Mechanics:
Note: Houserules disallow Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter -5/+10, and additionally the Polearm Mastery/Crossbow Expert bonus attacks.
The basic idea is to leverage advantage, improved crit, action surge, and Eldritch Smite for high burst, without sacrificing too much sustained damage, and also have tools for avoiding conflicts such as disguises and social skills.
Hexblade 5/Fighter 2
Half Elf - 8/16/14/10/10/17
Combat/Burst:
Hexblade straight to 5 to get a second attack, and Eldritch Smite as quickly as possible. Leverage the Darkness/Devil’s Sight combo for consistent advantage.
Start with dual Scimitars, and switch to Greatsword at 5.
Grab Elven Accuracy at 4 for Charisma bump and triple advantage.
Pick up Great Weapon Fighting style at 6, and Action Surge at 7.
This yields four Greatsword attacks with triple advantage and 19-20 crit range, yielding a ~72% chance of a crit per round, proficiency added to each attack, and a 4d8 smite that can be combined with a crit for double damage, as well as the ability to reroll 1s and 2s on all damage dice.
Utility:
Skills: Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Insight, Perception, Stealth
Proficiencies: Disguise Kit, Thieves’ Tools
Mask of Many Faces initially, but eventually sub it out at level 5 since all three invocations are needed for Devil’s Sight, Thirsting Blade, and Eldritch Smite.
Where Do We Go From Here?:
Taking Fighter to 4 gets us our second ASI ASAP, and allows us to choose a Fighter Subclass. So lets look at those options.
Samurai - 3/day Advantage for a turn, doesn’t require Darkness setup. Uses a bonus action, so can’t be used on the same turn as Hexblade’s Curse.
Eldritch Knight - 1st Level slots that could be used for Hex after Hexblade’s Curse is used up. Access to Find Familiar.
Battlemaster - 4 d8s of damage and utility per short rest.
Alternatively we could continue in Hexblade and receive our Accursed Spectre, upgrade our slots to 4th level, and get another Invocation, but delay our ASI a level. Accursed Spectre isn’t that great for us since we’ll try to avoid killing in general.
After our second ASI our options seem pretty wide open. The main draw of continuing as Warlock is higher level slots and some flexibility with invocations. College of Whispers Bard has a lot going for it, in that it improves our burst, our skills, and our utility in general, while also granting us spell slots that we can use to save our Warlock slots for Smiting, but much of that comes at level 3. Rogue gives benefits immediately, but is less adept at spell casting. Sorcerer would gives us more spell casting options, but is similar to Bard in that the benefits take a while to be realized.
So I’m curious what you all think about what I have so far, and your recommendations for continuing after level 7.
The Mechanics:
Note: Houserules disallow Great Weapon Master/Sharpshooter -5/+10, and additionally the Polearm Mastery/Crossbow Expert bonus attacks.
The basic idea is to leverage advantage, improved crit, action surge, and Eldritch Smite for high burst, without sacrificing too much sustained damage, and also have tools for avoiding conflicts such as disguises and social skills.
Hexblade 5/Fighter 2
Half Elf - 8/16/14/10/10/17
Combat/Burst:
Hexblade straight to 5 to get a second attack, and Eldritch Smite as quickly as possible. Leverage the Darkness/Devil’s Sight combo for consistent advantage.
Start with dual Scimitars, and switch to Greatsword at 5.
Grab Elven Accuracy at 4 for Charisma bump and triple advantage.
Pick up Great Weapon Fighting style at 6, and Action Surge at 7.
This yields four Greatsword attacks with triple advantage and 19-20 crit range, yielding a ~72% chance of a crit per round, proficiency added to each attack, and a 4d8 smite that can be combined with a crit for double damage, as well as the ability to reroll 1s and 2s on all damage dice.
Utility:
Skills: Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, Insight, Perception, Stealth
Proficiencies: Disguise Kit, Thieves’ Tools
Mask of Many Faces initially, but eventually sub it out at level 5 since all three invocations are needed for Devil’s Sight, Thirsting Blade, and Eldritch Smite.
Where Do We Go From Here?:
Taking Fighter to 4 gets us our second ASI ASAP, and allows us to choose a Fighter Subclass. So lets look at those options.
Samurai - 3/day Advantage for a turn, doesn’t require Darkness setup. Uses a bonus action, so can’t be used on the same turn as Hexblade’s Curse.
Eldritch Knight - 1st Level slots that could be used for Hex after Hexblade’s Curse is used up. Access to Find Familiar.
Battlemaster - 4 d8s of damage and utility per short rest.
Alternatively we could continue in Hexblade and receive our Accursed Spectre, upgrade our slots to 4th level, and get another Invocation, but delay our ASI a level. Accursed Spectre isn’t that great for us since we’ll try to avoid killing in general.
After our second ASI our options seem pretty wide open. The main draw of continuing as Warlock is higher level slots and some flexibility with invocations. College of Whispers Bard has a lot going for it, in that it improves our burst, our skills, and our utility in general, while also granting us spell slots that we can use to save our Warlock slots for Smiting, but much of that comes at level 3. Rogue gives benefits immediately, but is less adept at spell casting. Sorcerer would gives us more spell casting options, but is similar to Bard in that the benefits take a while to be realized.
So I’m curious what you all think about what I have so far, and your recommendations for continuing after level 7.