Help needed making a character for a new AL Eberron Campaign

[Rivaler]

Hello everyone!

As the title says, I'm looking for help making a new character for an AL campign I might be starting soon.

With all the interesting options unlocked in this new setting, which honestly I'm kind of unfamiliar with, I'm struggling on what would be cool to play, so I'm looking for some inspiration and/or ideas.

So far I'm inclined on a couple builds:

Warforged Artificier

Seems like it would be an interesting tank, but having never played it I'm not sure how it would work. Any advice for building and playing it decently would be very welcome!

Changling Bard/Hexblade/(paladin?)

This feels like a fun party face / DPR, but again, I'm at a loss for how to building him effectively, keeping him relevant at all levels. Any tip very appreciated!

Can you all-knowing veteran guys suggest me something else or provide some tips on how to better make the above builds?

Thanks in advance!

[Sception]

Which AL Eberron campaign, Ember's of the Last War, or Oracle of War? I'm assuming the latter, since that's the most recent, and uses the published eberron campaign book instead of the earlier digital wayfarer's guide.

The player pack for Last War allows you to use content from the PHB, Eberron: Rising From the Last War, and Xanathar's Guide. You pointedly don't have any options from other books. No race options from Volo or Mordenkainen, no cantrips from SCAG. The latter point is a bit of a blow to gishy builds, including hexbards, but can be worked around.

Do you know what anyone else in the campaign will be playing yet?

[Rivaler]

Thanks for the reply!

First of all yes, I was talking about Oracle of War! Should have specified it :smallsmile:

As for the group, I probably won't have a consistent group, but will rather change between many groups. As such, party composition is something that probably can't be calculated beforehand.

Yea, since I'm used to making brute guys ( I got a few barbarians ), this time I'd like to change a little bit and be more spell oriented, hence the above ideas. I know that missing the SCAG cantrips is a bit of a blow, but I thought that maybe there would be other ways to be relevant :smallbiggrin:!

[Sception]

When I'm not sure of the party construction, I tend towards a tanky class personally, especially paladin which has a good combination of support features (Lay On Hands for healing, Bless spell for buffing, Aura of Protection) to make most any party members you end up with stronger and personal offensive output (Divine Smite, Extra Attack) to lay on the damage if needed.

However, if you've played a lot of tougher-than-the-toughies and want to try your hand at a smarter-than-the-smarties there's a lot of options there.

You mention artificer, and that's a decent option, though your personal combat contribution as an artificer will still tend more towards damage output rather than the full caster staples of buffing, debuffing, and battlefield control. You can, build depending, have some decent blasting ability. If you're looking for optimization advice for artificers, I recommend checking out Treantmonk's videos:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRgcwtw4-fGOZ8zkNLGQRI6mT4XtP_Swf

Treantmonk's stuff in general is a good place to start for combat optimization advice. Just be aware that he gets some details wrong on occasion, and his guides tend to assume generic game settings with all or most published content allowed, so you'll need to double check that the options he talks about are allowed in the more restrictive Adventurer's League setting before you use anything directly. In particular, in his intro to artificer's video he spends a lot of time looking at the Xanathar's Guide rules for creating magic items, but those rules are not in effect in Adventurer's League.

I mostly recommend his videos as a good place to start from and a good angle from which to look at your options, especially combat options. If you want to consider other full casters, he also has a LOT of solid videos on Wizards and Clerics.


From a non-combat perspective, artificers are a high int class, so skill wise you can and should bring a strong investigation skill and also multiple good knowledge skills for identifying both monsters and magical effects. You also get proficiency in thieves tools, eventually with expertise, which means you can be the party's solution to locks and traps, and you should make sure you can do that in case you end up on a team without a rogue. For combat optimization you'd like to have proficiency with both perception and either acrobatics or athletics to resist grabs, but honestly I think you're better off covering more knowledge skills, even if you're slightly less effective in combat as a result.



For backgrounds - check the player's pack for Oracle of War, there are a number of suggested backgrounds with some slight variants or additional descriptive text that will help add some flavor to the character and specifically tie them into the start of the campaign. I recommend choosing one of these backgrounds for that reason.

For race... consider Warforged. The RftLW warforged race features are sadly much less exciting than those from Wayfarer's Guide, but they're still decent and are particularly good for an artificer, or any other dedicated spellcaster, with +2 con and +1 to stat of choice, +1 AC, and in particular no need to eat, which could potentially be an issue in the campaign. I don't know anything about the adventurer's themselves, but the description of the campaign includes delving into the mournland.

Unfortunately the actual effects of the mournland are rather poorly defined in RftLW, and directly controdict the more explicitly established features from previous editions so your DM can't even just refer back to those, but 'tainted food and water' are mentioned (frustratingly without any description I could find of the effect of that taint), so a race that doesn't need to eat or drink could be nice. Plus if you're heading into the Mournland it's likely you might run into the Lord or Blades, or at least agents of the LoB, and being a warforged yourself could allow you to bypass otherwise hostile encounters, or if not that then at least some juicy role playing opportunities as you come face to face with the apocalyptic legacy of the war your kind were literally created to fight, and confront other warforged who challenge your decision to pursue peace with the mortal races when surrounded by the evidence of their violent nature and the atrocities they used your people to commit.




If you opt for wizard or cleric, warforged works equally well for those mechanically, and the role playing and mournland stuff still applies. Treantmonk again has good videos for those if you're looking for build advice - again just double check to make sure that the details are right & haven't been errata'd since the video's release, and that the options are all stuff allowed in the Adventurer's League. Here's a character I've been tinkering with for if I ever get the chance to play in an Oracle of War game:


Warforged Life Cleric 1 (of the Sovereign Host, though your faith is shallow for a cleric), Necromancy Wizard X, Morgrave University Professor. You were built to be a medic during the last war, but life on the battlefield surrounded by the dead and the dying since literally the day you were created desensitized you to the horrors of war and injury, giving you a detached and rather unsettling bedside manner. You were there for the Day of Mourning, and while your warforged nature allowed you to survive the calamity, the days you spent afterwards, wandering alone, surrounded by the corpses of the dead and the warping storms of wild, untamed magic, changed you, filling you with a fascination for death and magic and the combination of the two.

After the War, you searched for opportunities to pursue your new interest in Necromancy, but between the prejudice against warforged, the prejudice against necromancy, and your lack of money and standing, you were unable to gain entry into most schools of the arcane. However, some of the professors at Morgrave University, particularly Dean Telfyr Brackett of the history department, took an interest in you as a curiosity, and in particular in your first hand account of the Day of Mourning. Though you lacked the money or standing to officially enroll as a student, Brackett took you on as a 'pet project', studying you while you were allowed to audit his classes in history and applied arcana. You took to your studies well, and were soon hired on as a teaching assistant, eventually given an honorary degree in history so that you could serve as an adjunct professor, and instead of pay you were allowed to enroll officially in the applied arcana curriculum. However, your persistant interest in the not-outright-banned but certainly heavily discouraged (in Breland at least) school of Necromancy have hampered the completion of your education. So you have decided to take a break from the University in order to pursue your studies on your own, particularly by investigating the Mournland itself and the baleful magics that created it, while still maintaining your standing at the University by reporting your discoveries back to your mentor and friend Dean Brackett.

To that end you have hired yourself out as a loremaster and medic to the emerging market of adventuring groups plundering the Mournland for abandoned treasure and arcane discoveries, and have a particular personal interest in locating and studying from any wizard spellbooks you might find in Cyre's battlefields and cities.

Buildwise, you're a cleric at first level, but all your future levels will be in Necromancer Wizard, playing as a support caster mixing mixing classic wizard buffing and control spells like Sleep, Web, and Haste with a few options taken from first level cleric - particularly Guidance, Bless, and Healing Word. You'll be a bit behind in spells known due to the cleric dip, but you'll have a full caster's slot progression, and you'll have a very good natural AC between life cleric's heavy armor & shield proficiencies and Warfoged's extra +1, so you can save spell slots on personal defense.

Once you hit 7th level, you'll get the necromancer wizard's enhanced Animate Dead feature, and will take tremendous ironic pleasure in treating human remains as raw materials to build disposable servants and soldiers, much as how the humans treated warforged during the war. There's no malice in your actions, though. Raw materials are raw materials, and there are plenty such materials to be found in the Mournland, it would be wasteful to simply leave them there.



alternatively, you could play the same character as a straight life cleric - clerics get a number of creepy necromance spells too, including animate dead.

[Rivaler]

Thanks a real lot for taking the time to write this reply!

I didn't know Treantmonk had guides for artificiers. I'll definitely take a look into those. As you mentioned, making a tanky warforged sounds fun, and the artificier class intrigues me somehow. There's plenty of stuff to check now! :smallbiggrin: Thanks mate!

[Sception]

No problem. Warforged artificer is a classic thematic combo, and works great mechanically under the current rules. Go battlesmith for weapon use - melee or ranged - with a nice support pet, or artillerist for blasting with flame thrower turrets. Both work great mechanically, both feel like natural fits for a warfoged character. Either way remember to cover investigation, lock & trap fixing, arcana, maybe other knowledge skills. If going for a melee battlesmith you probably want to grab either athletics or acrobatics to resist grapples, and perception is good if you can fit it, but if you can't you'll be fine. put high scores in int and constitution, try to put either a 14 in dex for medium armor or a 15 in strength for heavy armor, even if it costs you a lower con. Note that heavy armor proficiency will require a multiclass dip at first level or a feat at 4th. 1 to 3 levels of fighter work quite well with artificer, battlesmith in particular, so if your vision for your character is heavy armor based that's what I'd recommend. But medium armor works fine, is better for initiative and the oh so common dexterity saves, and you mention not wanting to play another tough bruiser, so I'd recommend that.

Example medium armor array: s10 d14 c16 i16 w10 h8

Example heavy armor array: s15 d10 c14 i15 w8 h8

Again, both battlesmith and artillerist work great, but since you're looking for a less fightery, more castery build I'd recommend artillerist. TM's artillerist build video is in the playlist linked above, and is a great starting point for thinking about building an artillerist character.