Frontline control caster?

[Rfkannen]

I enjoy playing full casters who focus on control spells (terrain manipulation, debuffing, moving enemies around, etc.) However, I dislike playing backline characters. (I find it a lot more fun when my character is up in the middle of the action, sniping from a distance as an archer is my least favorite type of gameplay)

I want to play a control caster who runs into combat with the barbarians and the fighters, but I can't think of a build that actually benefits from doing that; I mean, you can cast hold person just as effectively from 30 feet away as you can from 5 feet away. The only effect being in melee has is that your concentration will break quicker, and you are more likely to die. That's not even getting into the fact that many casters are squishy and can't survive being in the thick of combat.

Are there any good control caster builds that can survive being in melee? Are there any that benefit from being in melee range? What type of character would you recommend?

[Eldariel]

Well:
1) Any Cleric
2) Moon Druid (also any Druid if you can get the metal armor issue sorted out with e.g. dragonhide or whatever)
3) Abjurer, War Wizard, Bladesinger (also any Wizard with light armor race and Moderately Armored; you can gish or cast in melee, it doesn't really matter; particularly the Mark of Warding Dwarf variant with Armor of Agathys to actively want to get hit)
4) Swords Bard
5) Hexblade (also any Warlock with Moderately Armored)

You can use Hobgoblin/Githyanki/Mountain Dwarf to gain armor proficiency and then the feat for medium armor proficiency. All of those have great reason to fight in melee and if you take War Caster, the very fact that you can get extra spells off while being nearly unhittable is just great. Something like a Wizard with base 19 AC and the option of Shield is hilariously hard to hit and something like Abjurer actively wants to be taking hits to spare their allies and make use of their Ward. Armor of Agathys Abjurer is just gravy: you'll have more effective HP than the group Barbarian easily enough so it's not like you're going down, and it doesn't even take Concentration spell (you can use Concentration spells as a bait to make enemies kill themselves hitting you, trying to make you drop it - and obviously you pick Res: Con fairly soon so small damage will fairly quickly not even be able to drop your Concentration).

[LudicSavant]

I want to play a control caster who runs into combat with the barbarians and the fighters, but I can't think of a build that actually benefits from doing that; I mean, you can cast hold person just as effectively from 30 feet away as you can from 5 feet away. The only effect being in melee has is that your concentration will break quicker, and you are more likely to die. That's not even getting into the fact that many casters are squishy and can't survive being in the thick of combat.

Are there any that benefit from being in melee range?

Some of the benefits of melee range on a caster (properly built to be frontline-capable) are thus:

1) Better coverage of effects that originate from you (Spirit Guardians, Cone of Cold, Thunderwave, Warding Wind, Radiance of the Dawn, etc).

2) Opportunity Attacks. Warcaster has the potential for especially dangerous OAs, up to a point where walking away from you is a "so, you have chosen death" option (for example, you know the Nuclear Wizard combo? That combo works with Warcaster, too. Likewise, so do things like Portent-guaranteed save-or-loses). Though just Warcaster cantrips alone are already a potent deterrent. And enemies standing still to avoid OAs have all kinds of downsides, such as having Disadvantage on ranged attacks, or being stuck standing in your hazard spells.

3) Retribution effects (think Flames of Phlegethos, Armor of Agathys, Fire Shield, Hellish Rebuke, etc). These retribution effects are often good on their own, and often can combo with other things (For another example, Flames of Phlegethos, Fire Shield, and Hellish Rebuke would all trigger Hexblade's Curse per-hit). This can make attacking you in melee into a trap option pretty quick -- after which point you can punish people trying to get away with things like point #2.

3) Range. Quite a few powerful spells and abilities are actually fairly limited in their range -- even things like Counterspell are harder to deal with if the enemy can't just back up to get out of your counter range. Pushing forward can also help with vision control, or seizing key strategic positions on the map.

5) Many of the caster builds that are capable of effective frontlining are also capable of playing at multiple ranges, which means you can "switch-hit" who's standing on the front line, making it harder for enemies to focus anything down (as well as getting extra mileage out of things like AoE heals and temp HP, like Inspiring Leader). It also makes you more adaptable to enemies dropping in from unexpected angles on the party.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Armor of Agathys + Arcane Ward from Abjurers is an amazing combination if you wish to be at melee. Great endurance with good retribution damage as Ludic pointed out. And since you are a Wizard, you can still do all the controlling shenanigans. My preferred way to build upon that is through a Mark of Warding Dwarf, but a single level of Hexblade (as always), will do wonders to you.

Another Wizard subclass that is quite good at close-quarters is the Enchanter in order to deploy Hypnotic Gaze. Cast some BA concentrado spell like Flaming Sphere, lockdown one enemy and go after the rest. It’s super effective.

[Eldariel]

Armor of Agathys + Arcane Ward from Abjurers is an amazing combination if you wish to be at melee. Great endurance with good retribution damage as Ludic pointed out. And since you are a Wizard, you can still do all the controlling shenanigans. My preferred way to build upon that is through a Mark of Warding Dwarf, but a single level of Hexblade (as always), will do wonders to you.

Another Wizard subclass that is quite good at close-quarters is the Enchanter in order to deploy Hypnotic Gaze. Cast some BA concentrado spell like Flaming Sphere, lockdown one enemy and go after the rest. It’s super effective.

Armored Necromancer is pretty sweet with Spirit Shroud too, getting 3x3 Grim Harvest procs for every kill within 10' (and the usual superfrontline Zombies and backline Skeletons plus free Magens and what-have-yous).

[kingcheesepants]

A sorcadin can be played as a control caster. You can cast some control spells (with some metamagic to make them a little better than usual) and then use booming blade/green flame blade and opportunity attacks for at will damage and smites for nova. Even just Paladin 2 gets you smites, lay on hands, armor and some HP and if you go up to Paladin 6 you get the aura to make saves great. Take divine soul to get some cherry picked cleric spells like spirit guardians or go with one of the new sorcerer subclasses for the extra spells (and some handy effects like negating magic resistance or having always on subtle spell).

[strangebloke]

Another big thing is counter spell. You really want to be in range to use it.

[LudicSavant]

Armored Necromancer is pretty sweet with Spirit Shroud too, getting 3x3 Grim Harvest procs for every kill within 10' (and the usual superfrontline Zombies and backline Skeletons plus free Magens and what-have-yous).

Adding to the comment on Armored Necromancer frontliners:

A big thing about the Necromancer's Grim Harvest is that it heals once per turn, rather than per round. That means that AoEs and hazards and retribution effects that do their damage on someone else's turn ("at the beginning of the target's turn" "at the end of the target's turn" "when they enter" etc) can rack up tons of healing when fighting groups. Enough to full heal in a round, sometimes.

Indeed, many of the best spells for a Necromancer's Grim Harvest are not from the Necromancy school, despite the reduced multiplier. You want those sweet repeatable and/or off-turn procs paired with already-good damage spells (most of which aren't Necromancy).

[Rfkannen]

Alright, awesome! I am super glad to hear there are good reasons to do it!

Oh, the necromancer wizard one hits hard, lol. The campaign where I learned I love control casters was one where I played a necromancer wizard, and I remember having a lot of trouble deciding whether to play a human or a hobgoblin! A human was the right choice for the lore (Eberron, a former noble of cyre) but I kind of bummed to hear hobgoblin might have been more fun mechanically.
That campaign wasn't too long ago, so I don't think I want to play another wizard yet, but I will keep that build in mind for the future!



How would a variant human(moderately armored) lore bard do? Swords bard was mentioned above, but I am not looking to gish. Grab counterspell for that closer range; you already have light armor in the class. Not sure how good bards are at crowd control, but I know they get hypnotic patterns which is one of my favorite spells.

What about a single-class draconic sorcerer? I usually try to avoid multiclassing, but the circadian does sound fun. Does a draconic sorcerer give you enough tackiness to land the same idea?

[LudicSavant]

How would a variant human(moderately armored) lore bard do?

Lore Bards do well. In fact, I daresay their kit may better suit a main tank than the Valor Bard (whose Bardic Inspiration can only boost a different player's AC, and even then only if you're buffing them ahead of time... so it's only really reliable if you know beforehand that someone else in the party is going to draw aggro, and be tanky enough to get good dividends from a stacking AC. You know, like if someone ELSE is a frontline controller).

By contrast, a Lore Bard's Cutting Words is reactive, can defend yourself or others, and is more versatile than just an effective AC bump -- it can also cut an enemy's initiative (potentially losing them an entire round, effectively), or cut damage rolls (especially effective against things where one damage roll causes damage multiple times, such as with AoEs), or synergize with Armor of Agathys (since Cutting Words cuts damage rolls), or ruin counterspell rolls, and the like. And extra Magical Secrets can grab you nice frontliner tools. It also benefits more than Valor from a 1 level Hexblade dip, if you wanna go that route.

[stoutstien]

Lore Bards do well. In fact, I daresay their kit may better suit a main tank than the Valor Bard (whose Bardic Inspiration can only boost a different player's AC, and even then only if you're buffing them ahead of time... so it's only really reliable if you know beforehand that someone else in the party is going to draw aggro, and be tanky enough to get good dividends from a stacking AC. You know, like if someone ELSE is a frontline controller).

By contrast, a Lore Bard's Cutting Words is reactive, can defend yourself or others, and is more versatile than just an effective AC bump -- it can also cut an enemy's initiative (potentially losing them an entire round, effectively), or cut damage rolls (especially effective against things where one damage roll causes damage multiple times, such as with AoEs), or synergize with Armor of Agathys (since Cutting Words cuts damage rolls), or ruin counterspell rolls, and the like. And extra Magical Secrets can grab you nice frontliner tools. It also benefits more than Valor from a 1 level Hexblade dip, if you wanna go that route.

Aye. Valor does just fine in no feat and/or multiclass games but if both are in play it's hard to argue against the power lore has combined with the ease weapon/armor proficiencies can be picked up. Even if you wanted to avoid hexblade because they are a dime a dozen it's not like you aren't spoiled for choices. Had a player with a rather straight forward BM fighter/ lore bard back when it was just PHB and I'd dare say that it would probably still hold up as a very strong Frontliner with room to spare.

[heavyfuel]

Here's a character that I immensely enjoyed playing:

Mark of Warding Dwarf for Armor of Agathys, Twilight Cleric 1 / Abjurer X. Pick Eldritch Adept at level 4 for Armor of Shadows, then max Int, followed by Alert or Res:Con (never got to that point though).

This character works best for rolled stats, because you really want maxxed Int over everything else. You don't need Str to use armor (because Dwarf), you don't need Dex except for Initiative (because heavy armor), you don't need high Con because the bulk of your defenses are AC, Arcane Ward, and AoA, and you don't need Charisma because you're not the party face.

You only need 13 Wis for multiclassing and as much Int as you can. So if you rolled like 16 12 10 8 8 6, then you're better off than with 15 14 13 12 10 8 from PB/Standard array, especially if Tasha's rules are in play

A variant of this character is going for Medium Armor with 14 Dex, in which case Twilight Cleric might not be the best option. This is better if your DM is a stickler for Encumberance, plus, you get to have decent Initiative.

Once you reach level 4, your Arcane Ward is always going to be at full health between fights, and damage done to the Ward doesn't require a Concentration save, so you're pretty much immune to those.

Ask your DM is Temporary HP also protects you against Concentration saves (point to pg 198 of the PHB that says "Temporary hit points aren't actual hit points; they are a buffer against damage, a pool of hit points that protect you from injury.") If they agree that Temp HP is a indeed a buffer against damage, then between the Ward and Armor of Agathys you'll likely never have to make a Concentration save.

Play this character by taking the front line and start off casting the biggest Concentration spell you want to cast. You'll likely take some damage after the first round, so the 2nd round you can use AoA to gain some Temp HP and heal the Ward.

Because you have a Cleric dip, it means that on odd levels you'll have a spell slot higher than you highest spell known, luckly, AoA is an amazing upcast spell because it increases both the Damage it deals, the Temp HP you gain, and the amount your Ward is healed.

[Eldariel]

For Abjurer, I prefer no dip. You actively don't want too much AC since only hits deal damage. Biggest threat to you isn't attacks but everything else; so putting a level to become better against attacka kinda feels like a waste of level even if Twilight IS really good.

[Man_Over_Game]

Storm Sorcerer is another contender, you'll need to pick up some added durability through the Tough Feat or from Hill Dwarf, though.

With it, you can do some cool things like cast Earth Tremor before flying away from the Difficult Terrain you made around you, or maneuver around with something like Warding Wind.

You might even get away with using something like Storm Guide with Warding Wind to only apply the negative effects (Difficult Terrain, disadvantage on ranged attacks) from one direction if your DM was cool enough about it.

Not to mention that your Heart of the Storm feature is an AoE damage aura centered around you.

[Greywander]

Arcana cleric can be pretty deadly in close quarters due to how Potent Spellcasting interacts with the wizard cantrips you can pick up. Divine Strike only works on your own turn (so not with Warcaster AOs), and Blessed Strikes can only be applied to one target per round. By contrast, Potent Spellcasting procs every single time you deal damage with a cleric cantrip, on turn and off, single target or multiple. Thus, Potent Spellcasting will apply to both the primary and secondary damage of Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, including when used for OAs via Warcaster (and yes, you can use GFB with Warcaster, with the caveat that you don't target a second creature). I prefer BB myself, and BB is also a good control spell that can "encourage" an enemy to stay where they are, and because Potent Spellcasting adds to that secondary damage, it strengthens that "encouragement". For an interesting combo, take Crusher and push them 5 feet away so that they're out of melee range and can't retaliate on their turn.

For your second wizard cantrip, I'd actually suggest Create Bonfire. Create Bonfire can actually be used as an AoE (a 5 foot cube is actually a pretty massive fire) by placing it on a corner between four squares, hitting a 2x2 area (technically, by RAW you can hit a 2x3 area by placing it centered on the edge between two squares and rotating the cube 45 degrees, but RAW or not, that's going to be a very hard sell to your DM). Again, Potent Spellcasting will apply to every creature you hit with CB, instead of just one like Blessed Strikes, and it will apply to any hits on subsequent turns after creating the bonfire. Again, this isn't just about straight damage, this also encourages enemies to stay out of the bonfire, making it more effective at blocking off corridors and such. Both BB and CB can be effective control cantrips that also deal a fair amount of damage as a bonus. Clerics also have Word of Radiance, a melee AoE that, again, Potent Spellcasting will boost the damage against each target instead of just one.

Now, clerics don't have a lot of good control spells, though they do have some (Spirit Guardians, for example), so you might want to look at some other caster classes. Wizards have been mentioned a lot, and for good reason. If you're not familiar with Treantmonk's Guide to Wizards (https://www.enworld.org/threads/treantmonks-guide-to-wizards-5e.450158/) then you should definitely check that out, as it focuses a lot more on control. Defense is an issue for wizards, and I see some people suggesting a Hexblade dip or taking Moderately Armored on a race with light armor proficiency; my personal favorite is to dip a level into cleric, though, as that adds a lot of value to a wizard.

If you want a strong meatgrinder wizard, you could look into a Thunderclap Evoker. Potent Cantrip means enemies take half damage even if they pass their save, and Empowered Evocation adds your INT mod to the damage against each target, similar to Potent Spellcasting. This makes it much easier to quickly grind through hordes of weak enemies like goblins. That said, this is a pretty niche trick, so I don't know that it's worth speccing for, especially when there are so many other subclass options for wizards that offer their own interesting combos. But wizards are pretty flexible, regardless of their subclass, so no matter what you pick you'll still have access to tons of great wizard spells.

Sorcadin is another great option. 2 levels of paladin for smites and heavy armor, maybe a dip into Hexblade so you can attack with CHA, and the rest in sorcerer. You get the heavy armor, and access to great control spells on the sorcerer list, and can dump out some heavy damage via smites. You used to be able to twin Booming Blade, consult your DM to see if they might still allow it. Sorcerer also has a neat trick in that you can Quicken a good concentration spell like Web, then use your action to cast a cantrip like Booming Blade, all in the same turn.

Another neat trick is to pick up Flames of Phlegethos and then dip into genielock, specifically efreet. This makes any spell you cast with an attack roll trigger Flame of Phlegethos, punishing anyone who attacks you. You miss out on the damage buff if the spell doesn't natively inflict fire damage, but it gives a lot more flexibility, and allows you to use something like Booming Blade (instead of GFB) for the control it provides while still triggering the fire shield effect. Plus, Fireball is always a good pick; I'm not even super wild about blasting, but Fireball is just that strong, and there's no better control than death.

TL;DR, if you want a melee control caster, then you're probably looking at something built around Booming Blade spam. Cast your concentration spell, then go to town with BB, maybe throwing in the occasional Fireball, Thunderwave, or other non-concentration spell every now and then. Sorcadin is probably your best bet, though Arcana cleric might work as well. For a wizard or druid, you might not want to go for BB, so consider other options (e.g. Wild Shape or Thunderclap spam).

Honorable mention goes to Conquest paladin. Not a full caster, so I'm not sure it counts, but the combination of their aura and several different ways of inflicting fear on enemies make them decent controllers (so long as the enemy isn't immune to fear). Wrathful Smite is cheap and highly effective for locking down a single enemy (note that after the initial save, it uses an ability check on subsequent turns to end the effect early, and because the enemy is frightened, they have disadvantage on ability checks). And of course paladins excel in melee.

[heavyfuel]

For Abjurer, I prefer no dip. You actively don't want too much AC since only hits deal damage. Biggest threat to you isn't attacks but everything else; so putting a level to become better against attacka kinda feels like a waste of level even if Twilight IS really good.

When I was building the character, I was torn between dipping and not dipping.

I did decide to dip for a few reasons though:

1 - It was a small party (me and one other player) so I was truly the only one on the frontline and felt like the increased AC - especially once magic armor/shields came into play - did help significantly more than the extra 2 HP/combat;

2 - Twilight's advantage on Initiative made so I was often going first even with 8 Dex. This is amazing for a Controller;

3 - With maxxed Int, I felt like Cha save prof was better than Int save prof. For rare saves, I thought it better to have both at a decent level rather having one be really good and the other be terrible (it did come up a couple of times);

4 - AoA is a really great upcast spell, especially at lower levels, so you don't miss out as much on having no highest level spell known;

5 - The extra source of Temp HP with Channel Divinity, even if a low amount, meant my Cpncentration was even harder to break in the lower levels.

I could definitely see this character going full Wizard, especially in a larger party. But I don't regret my Cleric dip one bit for him.

[Rfkannen]

Okay I talked with the dm, and I am going to be playing a reborn hexblade warlock 2/ bard x with the smuggler background!! (Character is going to be a musician who died and did a battle of the bands against the grim reaper to come back to life and it... sort of worked. He is going to look like a skeleton, his instrument is going to be a guitar, and his eldritch blast will look like a spectral pistol, going full cowboy with this)
Any suggestions for how to build him? Any subclasses that might work better than lore?

Also welcome other Character ideas for future campaigns! I love the ideas y'all are throwing out!! (Now I really want to play an abjurer wizard at some point in the future!)

[Greywander]

Okay I talked with the dm, and I am going to be playing a reborn hexblade warlock 2/ bard x with the smuggler background!! (Character is going to be a musician who died and did a battle of the bands against the grim reaper to come back to life and it... sort of worked. He is going to look like a skeleton, his instrument is going to be a guitar, and his eldritch blast will look like a spectral pistol, going full cowboy with this)
Any suggestions for how to build him? Any subclasses that might work better than lore?

Also welcome other Character ideas for future campaigns! I love the ideas y'all are throwing out!! (Now I really want to play an abjurer wizard at some point in the future!)
EB is great for range, but you said you wanted to mix it up in melee? Since you're a hexblade, I'd pick up Booming Blade for a nice at-will control option that also deals a fair amount of damage. Add Crusher and you can push the enemy back so they can't reach you without moving and triggering the secondary damage from BB. Heck, thunder damage is a nice thematic fit for a bard, too.

Have you considered what bard subclass you want? My first thought was Swords for melee, but your Blade Flourishes require the Attack action, so it's not compatible with BB. Valor gets Extra Attack, but again, not compatible with BB. I'm not as familiar with bard subclasses, so I'm not sure which one I'd recommend.

Which invocations would you get? If you want control, then Repelling Blast might suit you better than Agonizing Blast. Of course, you can get both, but there are also a lot of other great invocations to choose from.

[Rfkannen]

EB is great for range, but you said you wanted to mix it up in melee? Since you're a hexblade, I'd pick up Booming Blade for a nice at-will control option that also deals a fair amount of damage. Add Crusher and you can push the enemy back so they can't reach you without moving and triggering the secondary damage from BB. Heck, thunder damage is a nice thematic fit for a bard, too.

Have you considered what bard subclass you want? My first thought was Swords for melee, but your Blade Flourishes require the Attack action, so it's not compatible with BB. Valor gets Extra Attack, but again, not compatible with BB. I'm not as familiar with bard subclasses, so I'm not sure which one I'd recommend.

Which invocations would you get? If you want control, then Repelling Blast might suit you better than Agonizing Blast. Of course, you can get both, but there are also a lot of other great invocations to choose from.

Oh deffinitly! I am going to keep eldritch blast for backup but a steel driving hammer would be the main weapon. Booming blade and crusher sound like a fantastic combo!!

Yeah no idea on what subclass of bard to go.

Not sure on the invocations! Part of me wants to go mask of many faces (because in this setting people will kill a skeleton on sight) but also I kind of enjoy the idea of constantly having to keep a disguise on and bluff my way out of bad situations with expertise in deception. Repelling blast and agonizing blast sound like a geat combo, maybe ill do that!