Build help: Strength Gloomstalker for Out of the Abyss

[McSkrag]

Hey Folks!

I’m helping my wife build a front line character for an upcoming Out of the Abyss campaign (no spoilers, please).

She wants to be a melee focused with a few spells to make it interesting to play. She tried a barbarian and thought it was a bit monotonous. She also does not like playing archers.

For RP and backstory reasons she wants to be a dwarf or human.

The rest of the party is a paladin, cleric, moon druid/barbarian, and bard.

CONCEPTS:

Gloom Stalker / Battlemaster

STR 16 | DEX 14 | CON 16 | INT 9 | WIS 13 | CHA 8

Fighter 1 - FS GWF? Proficiency CON saves
Ranger 1 - Favored terrain: Underdark
Ranger 2 - FS Defense
Ranger 3 - Gloom Stalker: Umbral sight
Ranger 4 - Feat: GWM or PAM
Ranger 5 - Extra Attack
Fighter 2 - Action Surge
Fighter 3 - Battlemaster: Precision, Trip attack, Riposte?
Ranger X

Gloom Stalker / Eldritch Knight

STR 16 | DEX 14 | CON 16 | INT 9 | WIS 13 | CHA 8

Fighter 1 - FS Dueling, Proficiency CON saves
Ranger 1 - Favored terrain: Underdark
Ranger 2 - FS Defense
Ranger 3 - Gloom Stalker: Umbral sight
Ranger 4 - Feat: GWM or PAM
Ranger 5 - Extra Attack
Fighter 2 - Action Surge
Fighter 3 - Eldritch Knight: Find Familiar, Shield,
Ranger X

Umbral Sight should give her advantage often enough to make GWM worth it.

We are playing AL rules, so I can trade to get her a Strength Belt or Gauntlets.

Variant Human, would let her take GWM or PAM at level 1 and do an ASI/feat at Ranger 4.

What do you think?

[rickayelm]

Aldrich Knight, a familiar plus a couple of defensive spells added to the ranger is pretty good. I have seen this done with horizon walker before.

Go variant human and take gwm, you will be using bonus action for hunters mark so Pam is kind of wasted.

[Dork_Forge]

She doens't want to play an archer but is she set on playing a Str based character with a heavy weapon? If she went Dex focused then she would have a very high initiative and could leverage Dueling+Hunter's Mark for substantial first round damage without losing to hit chance.

[heavyfuel]

We are playing AL rules, so I can trade to get her a Strength Belt or Gauntlets.

I'm not super familiar with AL rules, but if you can give her a Belt of 21 Str, why not have her start with 8 Str and be granted a Belt for a massive increase?

It could even make sense in character. She used to be Dex based, but after being gifted a belt that massively improved her Str, she decided to go a different route.

[Misterwhisper]

Hey Folks!

I’m helping my wife build a front line character for an upcoming Out of the Abyss campaign (no spoilers, please).

She wants to be a melee focused with a few spells to make it interesting to play. She tried a barbarian and thought it was a bit monotonous. She also does not like playing archers.

For RP and backstory reasons she wants to be a dwarf or human.

The rest of the party is a paladin, cleric, moon druid/barbarian, and bard.

CONCEPTS:

Gloom Stalker / Battlemaster

STR 16 | DEX 14 | CON 16 | INT 9 | WIS 13 | CHA 8

Fighter 1 - FS GWF? Proficiency CON saves
Ranger 1 - Favored terrain: Underdark
Ranger 2 - FS Defense
Ranger 3 - Gloom Stalker: Umbral sight
Ranger 4 - Feat: GWM or PAM
Ranger 5 - Extra Attack
Fighter 2 - Action Surge
Fighter 3 - Battlemaster: Precision, Trip attack, Riposte?
Ranger X

Gloom Stalker / Eldritch Knight

STR 16 | DEX 14 | CON 16 | INT 9 | WIS 13 | CHA 8

Fighter 1 - FS Dueling, Proficiency CON saves
Ranger 1 - Favored terrain: Underdark
Ranger 2 - FS Defense
Ranger 3 - Gloom Stalker: Umbral sight
Ranger 4 - Feat: GWM or PAM
Ranger 5 - Extra Attack
Fighter 2 - Action Surge
Fighter 3 - Eldritch Knight: Find Familiar, Shield,
Ranger X

Umbral Sight should give her advantage often enough to make GWM worth it.

We are playing AL rules, so I can trade to get her a Strength Belt or Gauntlets.

Variant Human, would let her take GWM or PAM at level 1 and do an ASI/feat at Ranger 4.

What do you think?

In that group you are going to bring very little to the table.

The barbarian is for sure str based and melee
Almost every paladin is str. based and melee.
Cleric could be a lot of things but are usually front line so they can heal.

The group does not need another str based melee build.

What that group is going to need is skills and versatility.
Also the group has nothing for ranged fighting other than back up plans.

In that kind of campaign something like an artificer or a warlock will be amazing, especially the artificer. A rogue would also greatly help out and you could make a good blood hunter.

I have plenty of ideas if you want them, but I do have a question, I don’t play AL, can UA be used in them?

[McSkrag]

Aldrich Knight, a familiar plus a couple of defensive spells added to the ranger is pretty good. I have seen this done with horizon walker before.
Go variant human and take gwm, you will be using bonus action for hunters mark so Pam is kind of wasted.

Cool, I was leaning toward VHuman + GWM as well.


She doens't want to play an archer but is she set on playing a Str based character with a heavy weapon? If she went Dex focused then she would have a very high initiative and could leverage Dueling+Hunter's Mark for substantial first round damage without losing to hit chance.

She is set on being primarily melee and likes doing damage. It's more about making something fun for her to play that also fits her backstory than being perfectly optimized.

[McSkrag]

In that group you are going to bring very little to the table.

The barbarian is for sure str based and melee
Almost every paladin is str. based and melee.
Cleric could be a lot of things but are usually front line so they can heal.

The group does not need another str based melee build.

What that group is going to need is skills and versatility.
Also the group has nothing for ranged fighting other than back up plans.

In that kind of campaign something like an artificer or a warlock will be amazing, especially the artificer. A rogue would also greatly help out and you could make a good blood hunter.

I have plenty of ideas if you want them, but I do have a question, I don’t play AL, can UA be used in them?

UA and artificer are not available in AL.

Good point about the ranged fighting. Currently we are weak there. But the cleric is a light cleric, the bard has a level of hexblade for EB, the druid/barb is mostly druid, and the paladin will take sorcerer levels at some point, so the ranged combat should get better. We are trying to lock in 1 more player to be a rogue.

My thought was Gloom Stalker would give her a good mix of in and out of combat abilities, with the Underdark as her favored terrain.

[Rara1212]

If you know you'll get a pair or Gauntlets of Ogre strength, or a Belt of Giant strength, I'd dump str, and use a rapier for the early levels. Shield AC is really important early, and being able to boost other ability scores would be nice.

Great Weapon Fighting isn't that good of a fightingstyle, if I remember correctly it adds about 1.4 dmg to a greatswords average damage. I'd instead recommend Defense, for the +1 AC, especially if she is gonna wield a 2h weapon later on.


I played a Vhuman Gloomstalker in OotA aswell before, the first levels before you get darkvsion aren't too easy/fun, but they can be done.

[Misterwhisper]

No spoilers, but str based classes and builds are going to get the shaft pretty hard in that adventure.


When we played through it we had:

A gloom stalker archer
A lore bard
A paladin 2/ death cleric x
A rogue swashbuckler
And
A warlock, I think she was infernal... maybe.

The only one who was str based was the paladin/cleric and he almost died like every fight.

How strict your DM is will make a massive difference too.

Some generic advice:

1. An artificer would be a gift from god in OotA, especially if you play a warforged.

2. Having multiple movement options is a great bonus, like if you have a climb or swim speed.

3. Utility spells and abilities are a big bonus.

4. This one is for the dm mainly but, the maps in the book suck, go online to one of the websites that are guides for the module and find better maps.

5. Be prepared to encounter this situation a lot:

Players: why would we go there or do that?
Dm: ummm because the book kinda of needs you to.

At least 3 times we kind of skipped a major plot/section of the adventure because there was no real reason to be where that plot was happening, or caring about the plot attached to it.

Essentially be prepared to be railroaded a lot.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'm currently playing a Gloomstalker who has added a couple of Fighter levels after 9th. Gotta say I've never missed having proficiency in Con saves, and if that's the main reason you are considering starting with Fighter I'd reconsider. My single class Gloomstalker (though Dex based) was fine, and I'm not sure delaying progression would have been an improvement; I think it would have been worse.

[McSkrag]

No spoilers, but str based classes and builds are going to get the shaft pretty hard in that adventure.

When we played through it we had:

A gloom stalker archer
A lore bard
A paladin 2/ death cleric x
A rogue swashbuckler
And
A warlock, I think she was infernal... maybe.

The only one who was str based was the paladin/cleric and he almost died like every fight.

How strict your DM is will make a massive difference too.

Some generic advice:

1. An artificer would be a gift from god in OotA, especially if you play a warforged.

2. Having multiple movement options is a great bonus, like if you have a climb or swim speed.

3. Utility spells and abilities are a big bonus.

4. This one is for the dm mainly but, the maps in the book suck, go online to one of the websites that are guides for the module and find better maps.

5. Be prepared to encounter this situation a lot:

Players: why would we go there or do that?
Dm: ummm because the book kinda of needs you to.

At least 3 times we kind of skipped a major plot/section of the adventure because there was no real reason to be where that plot was happening, or caring about the plot attached to it.

Essentially be prepared to be railroaded a lot.

Thanks for the non-spoiler tips. Our DM has said as much in terms of some of the issues with how OotA was written. He's been on some of the OotA DM groups researching advice on how to run it and kill us in terrible ways. So we got that going for us which is nice haha.

[McSkrag]

First, thanks to everyone for their input so far. I went back and made these two concepts. She will be able to get Strength belts and +X magic polearms to help with GWM accuracy.

She will do plenty of damage.

To help compensate for low AC and maintain concentration she takes proficiency CON saves (fighter level or resilient), defense fighting style, and medium armor master, and 10 ft. reach from a polearm.

So my last real question is to go fighter or not?

#1
Variant Human
Gloom Stalker / Fighter
STR 8 (19 from gauntlets) | DEX 16 | CON 16 | INT 10 | WIS 14 | CHA 8

Spells: Disguise self, Hunters Mark, Fog Cloud, Absorb Elements, Pass Without Trace, Spike Growth, Rope Trick, Fear, Conjure Animals

Fighter 1 - FS Defense, CON saves, Feat: GWM
Ranger 1 - Terrain: Underdark, Enemies: Fiends
Ranger 2 - FS Archery? Dueling?
Ranger 3 - Gloom Stalker: Umbral sight
Ranger 4 - Feat: Medium Armor Master
Ranger 5 - Extra Attack
Fighter 2 - Action Surge
Fighter 3 - Battlemaster or Eldritch Knight?
Ranger 6 - Terrain: Mountains, Enemies: Elves, Dwarves
Ranger 7 - Iron Mind (WIS Saves)
Ranger 8 - Feat: Lucky, Alert, +2 WIS
Ranger 9 - Spells: Fear, Conjure Animals
Ranger 10 - Terrain: Forests, Enemies: Undead
Ranger 11 - Stalkers Flurry

#2
Variant Human
Gloom Stalker
STR 8 (19 from gauntlets) | DEX 16 | CON 15 | INT 8 | WIS 16 | CHA 8

Ranger 1 - Feat: Resilient CON, Terrain: Underdark, Enemies: Fiends
Ranger 2 - FS Defense
Ranger 3 - Gloom Stalker: Umbral sight
Ranger 4 - Feat: GWM
Ranger 5 - Extra Attack
Ranger 6 - Terrain: Mountains, Enemies: Elves, Dwarves
Ranger 7 - Iron Mind (WIS Saves)
Ranger 8 - Feat: Medium Armor Master
Ranger 9 - Spells: Fear, Conjure Animals
Ranger 10 - Terrain: Forests, Enemies: Undead
Ranger 11 - Stalkers Flurry

[MrStabby]

I would go war cleric rather than fighter if you want to dip and boost wisdom over dexterity (keeping the 13 needed for multiclass).

This gives you heavy armour proficiency, and wisdom number of extra attacks per day - Ok so each attack will be like half of a fighter's action surge but you get more and for just one level. Cleric also accelerates your progression in spell levels and will grant a big boost to spells known/prepared.

[SVamp]

I’d like to suggest a melee hexblade. With or without the first lvl fighter, you get a lot:

- easy to get advantage and disadvantage on your enemies improves your survivability and dps enormously. (Devil sight / shadow of Moil)

- elven accuracy for amazing big sword fighting with a great chance to crit once you throw hexblade curse as a bonus action

- pretty good ranged backup attack for when melee doesn’t work: EB + hex or darkness

- hex can really help with social interactions if you cast it before during combat. You can shift it unto your target without them noticing and give them a penalty to their skills f.ex . Spell lasts all day at higher levels as long as you don’t lose concentration

- cha based halfelf opens up a lot of social options and skill choices

- you can have a much higher wisdom since you can tank strength and still use great swords.

Emergency crowd control with short-rest based spells

Just remember to remind everyone that they are NOT hurt by darkness if they don’t have advantage anyway: their disadvantage to hit gets cancelled by their advantage to hit someone that can’t see them.