Help w/ Witch Doctor a la Diablo III

[LichPlease]

I'm trying to make a niche build in the style of the Diablo III Witch Doctor. I'm going to need a heavy emphasis on curses/debuffs, plant/animal themed spells and Animate Dead (if not Create Undead as well). Bonus for having proficiency with blowguns. No 3rd party or homebrew. Looking for ideas.

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm trying to make a niche build in the style of the Diablo III Witch Doctor. I'm going to need a heavy emphasis on curses/debuffs, plant/animal themed spells and Animate Dead (if not Create Undead as well). Bonus for having proficiency with blowguns. No 3rd party or homebrew. Looking for ideas.

I mean, Necromancer Wizard seems like the closest choice. You get all of the undead raising spells, some methods to drain the HP of enemies, and you enhance the powers of your undead. Seems like a win to me.

Death or Grave Cleric comes at a close second, dealing with a lot of Necromancy damage spells and curses, while also having access to undead raising spells. Grave is more of a support/curser, where Death is a direct damage dealer.

Lastly, you can cheese out access to Undead spells by being a Divine Soul Sorcerer. You could focus a lot on curses and spells like Danse Macabre, just remember that you're pretty squishy. You could throw in 6 levels of Warlock so you can spam Animate Dead, to focus on quantity over quality with a build like this.

[Obermax]

I'd start off with some warlock levels maybe even hex blade + tome then get some sorc levels divine soul as mentioned if you want raise dead or shadow sorceror - hound of ill omen looks sweet here thematicly speaking I'd likely also go Human varient and pickup ritual caster or magic initiate to help give you some spell quantity/versatility for your early levels - in the same breath tiefling is good for this or depending on campaign drow even

I think I'd go for 2 warlock levels up to 6 warlock levels depending on patron
Then I'd get anywhere from 18-14 sorc levels respectively

I really like the sounds of a hex / tome warlock 3 shadow sorceror 17 personally for this kind of build

Warlock being what it is will give you solid damage as well as your hex/curse utility / theme and then shadow sorceror to pile on the spell slots / meta magic

Talk about lots of cantrips though I might play this! Thanks for the thread xD

[Mikaleus]

Witch doctors have a sort nature/ undead vibe going to them.

I’d say Spores Druid, with its access to summons and undead and circle spells but it seems to be thought of as a weak circle (no experience personally in playing a Spores Druid).

I’d also suggest necromancer, play up the flavour of the voodoo :)

[Spectrulus]

If allowed, try a Wizard of Theurgy (Nature Domain) it's a UA Archetype, but it would get you right on the spell list you want, as base wizard has lots of necromancy options.

In my upcoming chance to be a PC and not a DM I'm going to try Wizard of Theurgy(Grave Domain) to get the spirit-feel I want for my lizardfolk shaman.

If it has to be AL or something close to it, try just a nature cleric, they have lots of necromancy options as well. You'd have a solid spell list and decent Channel Divinity.

[Vogie]

I'd do Kensei Monk 6, Grave Cleric X with the sharpshooter feat.

Witch Doctors aren't heavily armored - so the unarmored defense acts as their defense.
Kensei monk 3 gives you proficiency with a ranged weapon of your choice - in your case, a blowgun. It also allows you to spend a bonus action to increase the damage by 1d4
The sharpshooter feat changes your normal range from 25 to 100
At Kensei monk 6, you can spend a single ki point each turn to add a damage die to your blowgun. This is useful because there's no way to remove the loading property of a blowgun. This allows you to deal 2d6+1d4 with your blowgun up to 6 times per short rest.
As a Grave Cleric, you'll act largely as a debuffer with things like Bane, Path to the Grave & Sentinel at Death's Door while keeping your party alive using their empowered StD and/or healing spells. Things like Bestow Curse will also increase their damage to a target while debuffing, and you'll unlock Animate Dead at Cleric 5
If not in AL, you can also use the Golgari Agent, Selesnya Initiate or Gruul Anarch background to give you more Plant and creature-based spells on your spell list.

[LichPlease]

Thanks for the suggestions. Though I found it strange that hardly anyone suggested levels in Druid, the suggestions for Necromancer Wizard made me realize I missed the obvious. I am favoring Shepherd Druid 14/Necromancer Wizard 6. The collective abilities and spells seem to check off all the marks with only a bit of reskinning needed.

[Trustypeaches]

Definitely a druid. Spores would work, but so would Land or Shepard. (Just imagine your spirits like Voodoo totems).

You can reflavor all the spells to be darker, more "witch"-like. Even your summons can be mangled creatures from the darkest depths of the Feydark.

[LichPlease]

Something very neat I found about this multiclass (Shepherd Druid/Necromancer) is that you gain Life Transference from the Wizard and Spirit Totem-Unicorn Spirit from Druid and undead qualify for healing from both - and constructs to a lesser extent. I am not aware of any other abilities/spells that are capable of this. Are there any?

[Man_Over_Game]

Something very neat I found about this multiclass (Shepherd Druid/Necromancer) is that you gain Life Transference from the Wizard and Spirit Totem-Unicorn Spirit from Druid and undead qualify for healing from both - and constructs to a lesser extent. I am not aware of any other abilities/spells that are capable of this. Are there any?

Inspiring Leader is a common one, but not one I'd recommend, due to the MADness you're already looking at with Druid/Wizard. Inspiring Leader would fit better with a Divine Soul/Warlock combination, for spamming lots of drones and bumping up their temporary hitpoints with Charisma.

[LichPlease]

Inspiring Leader is a common one, but not one I'd recommend, due to the MADness you're already looking at with Druid/Wizard. Inspiring Leader would fit better with a Divine Soul/Warlock combination, for spamming lots of drones and bumping up their temporary hitpoints with Charisma.

I should have specified healing of HP. Negative Energy Flood also gives THP.

[sambojin]

Druid. Lots of druid.

Maybe a Land druid (choose your flavour), or a Spores druid, with a Guilds of Ravnica Golgari background. Could even go Shepherd if big "undead" mooks are your thing.

A few of the slow spells (Spike Growth, etc) kinda cover your AoE damage/debuff, you've got frogs and spiders and stuff to throw around if you want from Conjure Animals (or, like, anything better. Apply the word Giant to spiders and frogs and they aren't bad though), you've got your healing, you've got your flame bats (fire elementals), your big mana pool (druid spells last ages and natural recovery means you'll have wizard-level-amounts of them), your skellies through Golgari (and other weird "not really alive" summons from Conjure Fey or Minor Elemental) and a couple of other options to play with from your land type (spells and a spare cantrip), or just "poison darting" stuff as a spore druid.

Coastal gets you a teleport via Misty Step (and Mirror Images for unhittability) for a "spirit-walk", or Grasslands gets you Invisibility (or Haste) for a different version of that.

Maybe even go with the rather poor choice of High Elf, if you really need to fill a thing that Witch Doctors "really need to be able to do to get their witch-phD" with the extra Int-based Wizard cantrip from that. Or just anything with high +Wis, or that is a variant human (Magical Initiate other cantrips in if you want, or grab Alert so you're a better controller/summoner).

Easy enough. Golgari High Elf (or v.human) Land Druid. Not exactly a bad character by default, but you can focus and flavour stuff so it feels more like D3 in what you do, while still having plenty of other options if that's really not working that well in your current campaign or situation. As mentioned below, you could also grab a few cleric levels if that's what you want, but Land 1->20 works fine too. Little wildshape offers you all the poison you'll ever need by level 8 (and you can always set yourself on fire as a giant eagle. Be the bat!), your summons are as good of a speedbump damage field as Spirit Guardians are, and you get to Awaken the biggest beast you can find at lvl9 to use as your permanent giant "undead" thing (or lots of them, eventually. It's a smart undead thing too, and it can talk. Though it's not really undead 😢 )

[vexedart]

Orzhov necromancer wizard, spirit guardians seems thematic, can misty step as a sort of spirit walk, maybe get craft taxidermy or maybe the heal skill will cover that or something, and animate objects to rain frog bodies stuffed with alchemists fires on your enemies from the heavens for the lolz. Can grab some nasty undead with the necromancer too, maybe some giant mummies, or wraiths to fill in the missing flavors.

[MrConsideration]

A Bard can get you the access to spells you would want (Debuffs and Magical Secrets) if you totally refluff the class.

You could easily be a Warlock and refluff your patron as a Loa - Old One Warlock would get you Death Thrall and a good mix of weird 'evil' themed spells. Chain Pact Warlock would give you some minor summoned creature which you could refluff as an undead spirit or some kind.

[LichPlease]

Since there are still a few hits on this thread, I figured I'd post what I came up with for a final level 20 build. Remember, the point of this build is to accurately replicate the Diablo III Witch Doctor. Proper representation takes precedence over optimization.
Note: Anything inside "(aka ___)" is the Diablo III Witch Doctor skill reflected by the particular spell or ability.

Classes:
Druid (Circle of the Shepherd) 14
Wizard (School of Necromancy) 6

Race:
Human
+1 INT, +1 WIS
Feat - Weapon Mastery (Blowgun, Greatclub, Net, Whip)
Proficiencies - Animal Handling, Abyssal

Background:
Witch Doctor (Custom)
Proficiencies - Medicine, Religion, Poisoner's Kit, Primordial
Feature - All Eyes on You

Ability Scores:
STR - 8 (-1)
DEX - 14 (+2)
CON - 12 (+1)
INT - 20 (15+1(Human)+2(ASI)+2(ASI)) (+5)
WIS - 20 (15+1(Human)+2(ASI)+2(ASI)) (+5)
CHA - 8 (-1)

AC - 15/17 (Hide Armor + Shield)
Initiative - +2
Speed - 30
Hit Points - 117
Hit Dice - 14d8/6d6

Saving Throw Proficiencies:
Intelligence, Wisdom

Skill Proficiencies:
Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature, Religion, Survival

Armor/Weapon/Tool/Language Proficiencies:
Light Armor, Medium Armor, Shields
Blowguns, Clubs, Daggers, Darts, Greatclubs, Javelins, Maces, Nets, Quarterstaffs, Light Crossbows, Scimitars, Sickles, Slings, Spears, Whips
Herbalism Kit, Poisoner's kit
Common, Abyssal, Druidic, Primordial, Sylvan

Druid (Circle of the Shepherd) Class Skills:
Wild Shape (CR 1, Swimming/Flying)
Speech of the Woods
Spirit Totem (aka Big Bad Voodoo)
-Bear Totem --> Crocodile Totem
-Hawk Totem --> Snake Totem
-Unicorn Totem --> Bat Totem
Mighty Summoner
Guardian Spirit
Faithful Summons

Wizard (School of Necromancy) Class Features:
Arcane Recovery
Necromancy Savant
Grim Harvest (aka Soul Harvest)
Undead Thralls

Spellcasting:
Classes - Druid, Wizard
Spellcasting Ability - Wisdom, Intelligence
Spell Save DC - 19/19
Spell Attack Bonus - +11/+11

Spells (Incomplete):

Cantrips:
Infestation (aka Corpse Spiders, Locust Swarm)
Poison Spray
Produce Flame (aka Firebomb)
Thorn Whip
Chill Touch (aka Haunt)
Mage Hand
Message
Toll the Dead

1st Level:
Burning Hands (aka Firebats)
Find Familiar
Magic Missile (aka Spirit Barrage)
Ray of Sickness (Poison Dart)
Tasha's Hidous Laughter
Unseen Servant
Entangle (Grasp of the Dead)

2nd Level:
Blindness/Deafness
Dragon's Breath
Invisibility (aka Spiritwalk)
Ray of Enfeeblement
Web

3rd Level:
Animate Dead (aka Zombie Dogs, Zombie Charger, Wall of Death, Fetish Army)
Bestow Curse
Conjure Animals (aka Plague of Toads)
Fear (aka Horrify)
Haste (aka Big Bad Voodoo)
Stinking Cloud

4th Level:
Confusion (aka Mass Confusion)
Polymorph (aka Hex)

5th Level:
Contagion
Insect Plague (aka Locust Swarm)
Maelstrom (aka Piranhas)

6th Level:
No Picks Yet

7th Level:
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