"Hey! Listen!" How do I build Navi?

[rmnimoc]

I was hanging out with a friend of mine who was DMing a game for a party of new players. He's not the most experienced DM, he likes puzzles and puzzle-like encounters, and he tends to make Zelda-esque dungeons with puzzle rooms based around taking advantage of magic items or spells the players have. The party seemed to love them, but they ran into quite a few rooms that just had them stumped. It was frustrating to both them and the DM, so as a joke I took a pixie that they beat up a few rooms back and started started giving them little hints about the puzzles or enemies with my meta-knowledge when they were stuck. It was way more fun for everyone involved than it really had any right to be.

It was fun enough that I decided to look into making a pixie knowledge cleric as a character to play in the future, but then I remembered that 5e doesn't quite have the same monstrous race support that 3e did. So, if I figured I'd turn to you guys to see if we can't find a way to make a similar character.

So, the targets to hit: Tiny, Flying, knows lots of things, can heal.

The first two are where the real problem is. I could get Tiny by Wizard 3 (though only for 2 minutes a day) and flight at Wizard 3 (for 20 minutes a day), though I can't do both of them, since they're both concentration. I honestly can't find a good way to get both before level 17 (though that costs 1,500 gold and you can only do it once a day).

Anyone have any good ideas?

[Blood of Gaea]

Be a variant human Moon Druid and take the skilled or prodigy feat.

[Nettlekid]

Be a Warlock, Pact of the Chain to get a Sprite, which you then instruct to use the Help action to benefit your allies.

Alternatively if you're more focused on the "I incessantly advise people" angle rather than the tiny flying sprite angle you could go with a Halfling Mastermind Rogue who just constantly uses their Bonus Action to Help your allies. Lightfoot Halfling could work by hiding behind the ally and whispering in their ear (things like "Hey stab that guy real hard. You have Advantage now") but I recommend the Ghostwise Halfling which has one-way telepathy so your allies CANNOT SHUT YOU OUT no matter how much they don't want to listen to you.

[iTreeby]

Fey pact warlock of the chain, take the sprite familiar and play as Link AND Navi. That way you can be only pull out the "Hey, Listen" when it's appropriate. Bonus points if you only use Eldritch blast while at full health.

[rmnimoc]

Be a variant human Moon Druid and take the skilled or prodigy feat.

I was going to say that I thought about that since it fits at level 8, but wildshaping takes away the ability to talk. Then I saw:


Be a Warlock, Pact of the Chain to get a Sprite, which you then instruct to use the Help action to benefit your allies.

Alternatively if you're more focused on the "I incessantly advise people" angle rather than the tiny flying sprite angle you could go with a Halfling Mastermind Rogue who just constantly uses their Bonus Action to Help your allies. Lightfoot Halfling could work by hiding behind the ally and whispering in their ear (things like "Hey stab that guy real hard. You have Advantage now") but I recommend the Ghostwise Halfling which has one-way telepathy so your allies CANNOT SHUT YOU OUT no matter how much they don't want to listen to you.


and the Ghostwise Halfling. A few minutes of book flipping later and there was the solution to the wildshape problem. Mastermind Rogue was also not a thing I'd thought of, though it totally works.

So, running best plan is Ghostwise Halfling Druid 2(Moon)/Rogue 3(Mastermind)/Druid 8 (Moon) and Rogue (Mastermind) for the rest. Putting the basic thing online at level 5 (Tiny helpful thing) and then fully online at level 11 (tiny flying helpful thing).

Thanks.

Edit:

Fey pact warlock of the chain, take the sprite familiar and play as Link AND Navi. That way you can be only pull out the "Hey, Listen" when it's appropriate. Bonus points if you only use Eldritch blast while at full health.
That's also a pretty fun idea.

[Blood of Gaea]

Raven's also have the ability to mimic simple sound they have heard, so "Hey! Listen!" would totally be doable, you could then use Ghostwise or Great Old One Warlock to give the message telepathically. Ravens are also tiny size and have a flight speed.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Mystic, maybe? The Diminution discipline gets you to Tiny size for 10 minutes a pop for the low low cost of... somewhere between a first and second level spell, while some of the Avatar disciplines like Mantle of Command have some excellent party-buffing capabilities. For race I'd probably go with an Aarakokra for all-day flight from level 1.

[rmnimoc]

Raven's also have the ability to mimic simple sound they have heard, so "Hey! Listen!" would totally be doable, you could then use Ghostwise or Great Old One Warlock to give the message telepathically. Ravens are also tiny size and have a flight speed.

Huh, I never noticed that. Neat.


Mystic, maybe? The Diminution discipline gets you to Tiny size for 10 minutes a pop for the low low cost of... somewhere between a first and second level spell, while some of the Avatar disciplines like Mantle of Command have some excellent party-buffing capabilities. For race I'd probably go with an Aarakokra for all-day flight from level 1.

That's...actually perfect. I completely forgot mystic was a thing. Starting at Level 9 I'd be able to have Flight (1Hr) up with Diminution (C;10M) while having an aura that lets me use a reaction to help allies move half their speed. They're good at throwing around random knowledge and facts too thanks to Nomadic Mind.

I don't really like the Aarakocra, they're an interesting race and all, but like most outsiders they're just really hard for me to get into the head of.

[Asmotherion]

I was halfway going to suggest recruiting people at the docks, and combinations of spells that can turn raw materials into ship, until I realised you're going for a diferent kind of Navy :P

Chainlock, Sprite Familiar. Simple as that. Convince your DM to RP the Sprite*? It's no big deal.

*You can further this, and make your actual character a silent character/having lost his voice, but, due to telepathic comunication, your Familiar can comunicate what you're thinking... kinda like your translator or something. It can give an interesting RP I think.

[Boverk]

Like many have said above, chain warlock is probably the way to go with this.

If you want to make a divine guidance sprite character, you could have an old celestial pact of the chain warlock who they have never met. Their patron could be a celestial being who is working to bring down the big bad of the campaign

Take the pact of the chain feature, and the invocation voice of the chain master invocation.

Have the Warlock hanging back in their home, sending out the sprite as an emissary of sorts, giving divine guidance etc. as necessary. The DM could control the character entirely, and possibly never even have the party meet the warlock. Just using the familiar to give gentle nudges in the right direction, or to fill in knowledge gaps in the party if you are feeling generous.

[StorytellerHero]

I wrote up a fairy race/class hybrid for DMsGuild a while ago.

It has a pixie subrace/archetype, and it's designed with relative balance in mind, gradually gaining pixie features as you level up as a pixie. Multiclassing becomes available when you gain the ability to grow big like Julia Roberts' Tinkerbell in Hook.

Here's the link if you're interested.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/201050/Monstrous-PC-Races-5e--Fairy?

[Ninja_Prawn]

If homebrew is on the table, I have a pixie race (https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3crmpfdbc5u5x5/Fey%20Creatures%20Complete.pdf?dl=0) too. I've been running a fey-only game (http://tinyurl.com/z4vqrb6) since 2015, and the pixie has worked fine for us.

[DarkKnightJin]

I was halfway going to suggest recruiting people at the docks, and combinations of spells that can turn raw materials into ship, until I realised you're going for a diferent kind of Navy :P

Chainlock, Sprite Familiar. Simple as that. Convince your DM to RP the Sprite*? It's no big deal.

*You can further this, and make your actual character a silent character/having lost his voice, but, due to telepathic comunication, your Familiar can comunicate what you're thinking... kinda like your translator or something. It can give an interesting RP I think.

I might combine some of this with possibly a Half-Elf(perhaps full Elf) Hexblade/Paladin mix to make a decent approximation of Link and Navi. Or whatever the current companion is called.
It'd also be a fun and flavorful reason to pick something other than Tome.
Blade could work if you want a Biggoron's Sword-wieldin' Link.
Chain would be the most RP-heavy option of the 3 boons.

I've been wanting to make a Link-like character for a while, and a Half-elven Hexblade seems like a great fit. Medium armor and shield. Don't mind Str too much and get 16 Dex to work with Medium Armor Master.
Perhaps fluff the Breastplate/Half-Plate armor as the Twilight Princess Magic Armor.
..I just hope this one doesn't use gold pieces to negate damage..

[Boverk]

Link/Navi combo you say?

I've put quite a bit of thought into this.

Half Elf, 6 levels of paladin, 14 levels of hexblade

If the DM allows it, there's a ruling in one of the books(I forget which) which says your familiar can be any tiny creature, so you can choose sprite that way. If not, pact of the chain hexblade, if so, pact of the blade hexblade for the last 14 levels (you can mix up which order you take the levels in, but I would take paladin first).

mechanically, you want to have decent strength, dex, con and great charisma(if you go heavy armor, go at least 15 strength)

Play it off as a Paladin of the Crown at first (For Hyrule!) then swap in to serving a being who is associated with Magic weapons(like the Master Sword)

find mount, that gets you Epona.
+ cha to all saving throws (Link's legendary courage to push on through)
Flavor a few spells as ice and fire arrows, eldritch blast as the light arrow
Familiar is Navi (either by pact or by feat)
Charisma to hit and damage (again, link is all about willpower and desire to fight evil)
if you want to do BOTW link, mage-hand and shape water would be good cantrips for magnesis and cryonis

[intregus]

I'd go druid 2(I don't think the subclass matters just turn into a tiny beast that has flying and refluff it to a pixie)/mystic 18

At mystic 2 you get telepathy so you can communicate to your party and RAW you can activate all of your mystic abilities while shape changed since none of them require V,S, or M components.

After that pick up the healing discipline and the aura sight discipline

[Grey Watcher]

If homebrew is on the table, I have a pixie race (https://www.dropbox.com/s/s3crmpfdbc5u5x5/Fey%20Creatures%20Complete.pdf?dl=0) too. I've been running a fey-only game (http://tinyurl.com/z4vqrb6) since 2015, and the pixie has worked fine for us.

Heh, I did a thought exercise of "Navi as a D&D character" and your work was a good source. I think the Coure fits the bill better than the Pixie, since it has fewer extraneous abilities and can even appear simply as a ball of light!

As for class, the Inquisitive Rogue from Xanthar's is, I think, the best fit. Yes, the Mastermind gets Help as a bonus action, but Navi doesn't fight, so using her main action to Help fits. And the Inquisitive Rogue is all about spotting things, which is what Navi does (highlighting objects with which Link can interact). Using her action every combat turn to spam Help lines up nicely with Z-targeting (again, in combat, all Navi does is help Link aim).

EDIT: As for healing, Magic Initiate with Cure Wounds, Spare the Dying, and Resistance works.

[Vogie]

Raven's also have the ability to mimic simple sound they have heard, so "Hey! Listen!" would totally be doable, you could then use Ghostwise or Great Old One Warlock to give the message telepathically. Ravens are also tiny size and have a flight speed.

A single level in Raven Queen Warlock will give you a sentinel raven that is flying around.

If no one is jonesing for going 3 levels in Warlock/AT Rogue/EK Fighter, that's the best way to get one.