Ideas for the creation of a swarmkeeper warforged

[tontoncho]

Hi, Ive been meaning to create a warforged swarmkeeper ranger for a while now but I cant seem to find the right way to conceptualize and optimize it so this is somewhat of a brainstorm post feel free to throw in whatever you see fit.

Ok so the background is kind of important here: "Guardian of the silk moth sanctuary"; the character is a construct created for the purpose of capturing, nurturing and protecting a special species of silk moth. Specialized design will provide the weavers tools or land vehicle, for flavor, and Im probably gonna train nature, animal handling, stealth, perception, and acrobatics/athlecis (dont know which one would be better for this build). Part of the background describes how the sanctuary was constantly attacked by monsters hungry for the magic the moths produce in their silk so guardians also had the duty to protect it. Until a horde of monsters so strong came one night and left the sanctuary in ruins, my character manages to save a few moth specimens or eggs and now has the mission to keep them alive and find them a new habitat. The swarmkeeper powers will come later from the spirits of all the deceased moths during the night of the attack.

For the character mechanics I really wanted it to fight with a silk braid kinda thing (whip) cause I love the idea of a construct originally designed for capturing flying moths having to adapt its body parts for a new life of combat, so the idea for the whip comes from it originally having some kind of long range net throwing device now turned into a reach weapon (since there are no hook throwers in dnd 5e). Also I was toying with the idea of making it a dual fighter with 2 whips and maybe find a way to be able to grapple people from afar with them, although that's a longshot. Or dual fighter with the crossbow expert feat at lvl 4 and have it wield the silk braid whip in one hand and a Samus like cannon (the hand crossbow) in the other. This is where I start to lose track as you can see. And don't even get me started on the spells and optional class features Tasha's bring to the table. Id like it to be really fast and be able to move across the board hitting and tangling foes all over the place, so I thought Zephyr strike and Ensaring strike but I reckon there are better options (the almighty hunters mark).

Other things Ive considered:

Mobile
Dual Wielder
Defensive duelist
Crossbow expert
Slasher
Pick deft explorer for the bonus speed
Ability Score priority: DEX,WIS,CON

And thats about it, hope someone can help me bring some clarity to this character development. Thanks!

[Sorinth]

Sounds like a cool concept, I can easily see Ensnaring Strike being flavoured as silk webbing type stuff that crushes/strangles the victim instead of being a thorny vine. Same with the Entangle spell, plus you get Web. As a strategy restricting movement is solid especially with the swarm's push, you do have to watch out for concentration though.

I suggest talking to the DM about how using a Net works, it seems thematic for you to use but the RAW is vague about how it works. It can be very solid weapon or completely useless depending on how the DM rules it.

[Khrysaes]

There is a Lasers & Liches race that I think fits your character. I am saying it as reference for conceptualization, not to use the actual race.

Swarmforged:
A suit of armor full of BEES!
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/303272/Swarmforged

[Sorinth]

One more note, if you want to lean into the control aspects you might want to prioritize Wis a bit over Dex. Grab Druidic Warriror and reflavour Thorn Whip as silk strands. The swarm triggers on spell attacks not just weapon attacks so they do go off when using Thorn Whip, Produce Flame, Magic Stone, etc... Which makes focusing on Wis a little bit easier for you.

[Naanomi]

We had a similar concept at the table once, someone was a Dwarven experimental mobile Mead brewery; part bee-hive part distillery/keg

[Sherlockpwns]

One of the nice things about ranger is how front loaded it is. The first thing to decide is if you are a caster or not.

A weapon based ranger for instance could be all ranger. You really get all the web, entangle, etc, and can just run around hitting things and throwing CC with the limited spell slots.

An alternative mentioned is net. With just Ranger 4 you can get all you need here and pick up crossbow expert. Your primary “attack” is to be adjacent to an enemy and use your attack action to net them, then bonus action shoot with the hand crossbow for 2d6+dex. Then you shift over to rogue for the mobility you want and the sneak dice to keep your damage up. Since swarm is giving you 1d6 you won’t be far behind a rogue and you can wear medium armor, cast spells, etc. not a bad trade. This stats you as dex, Wis, con. Not too mad. Scout may be your best bet for subclass, but you can consider trickster for some more spell slots and some non-dc based spells (since your INT will be crap probably).

Then there is the caster route. The saddest thing about being a caster is none of the CC spells trigger swarm damage between level 1-3. Even then they are few and far between. Storm sphere(4), bigbys hand attack(5), oddly contagion, and wrath of nature to name a few. It’s not the end of the world. You can still use cantrips like booming blade or any of the ranger spell attacks (thorn whip etc).

So instead you’d probably mostly focus on tossing down 1 or more CC spells per combat and focusing on the entangle aspect. Druid is the most obvious choice here (though nothing stops you from being a wizard or sorcerer to make use of storm sphere and other spell attacks, I think it’s a bit less thematic.). The most logical choices would be land: under dark or dreams. Under dark would give you access to web and spider climb, and stinking cloud (of stink bugs) and more casts in general, later some mobility. Dreams gets you healing and much later the teleport ability. In general I’d favor under dark for thematic reasons.

If you make it to level 12 you could cast wrath of nature. That’s about as far as I’d take this theorycraft.

I would consider all 3 viable. I’m not a huge fan of the whip in any of these but it isn’t a huge deal to lose 1-2 damage per attack (average). If you like the flavor, do it! :)