What would you play?

[Bobthewizard]

We are in an epic campaign trying to complete a quest to find help while fighting an invading army. Our beloved Warlock 2/Wildfire Druid 6 just got eaten by a Deep Old One after heroically taking out an enemy warship and preventing a likely TPK. We are currently level 8 and the rest of the party consists of

Twilight Cleric, support (twilight sanctuary is so good).
Ancients Paladin, melee
Monster Slayer Ranger, sharpshooter
Lore Bard, mostly buffs
Bladesinger, mix

What would you play as your replacement character?

Edit: Everyone starts with 10 uncommon magic items.

[kaervaak]

Your party has excellent coverage already, so really, play whatever you want!

Centaur Ancestral Guardian Barbarian with sentinel that is ridden by the Paladin would be pretty great

Nuclear Wizard (Hexblade 1/Evocation wizard 7) is always a solid choice

Echo Knight if you want to play a fighter with amazing area control

What kind of play style do you prefer?

[Psyren]

Agreed, your party has pretty much every base covered already (melee, ranged, healing, buffing, control, all three mental ability scores etc).

Personally I would do Artificer so you can kit them all out in various shiny toys, but even that might be superfluous if magic items are readily available.

[Bobthewizard]

Oh yeah. The DM let's everyone start with a ridiculous 10 uncommon magic items. So not sure an artificer is necessary. I'll add that up top.

[KorvinStarmast]

Oh yeah. The DM let's everyone start with a ridiculous 10 uncommon magic items. So not sure an artificer is necessary. I'll add that up top. Monk. (Drunken Master, Radiant Soul, Mercy, hard to have a bad choice)
Suggested items:
Make two of the uncommon items Ogre Gauntlets and Ring of Jumping.
Boing Boing Jumping Monk is fun. :smallsmile:
Broom of flying for when you need to fly. (No attunement)
Cloak of Protection
+1 dagger or short sword
+1 spear

[Psyren]

Oh yeah. The DM let's everyone start with a ridiculous 10 uncommon magic items. So not sure an artificer is necessary. I'll add that up top.

I mean, I'd still consider Artificer - With 10 items, you can get a lot of mileage out of their bonus attunement slots, and a good chunk of their infusions don't need attunement either.

[Pildion]

We are in an epic campaign trying to complete a quest to find help while fighting an invading army. Our beloved Warlock 2/Wildfire Druid 6 just got eaten by a Deep Old One after heroically taking out an enemy warship and preventing a likely TPK. We are currently level 8 and the rest of the party consists of

Twilight Cleric
Ancients Paladin
Monster Slayer Ranger
Lore Bard
Bladesinger

What would you play as your replacement character?

Edit: Everyone starts with 10 uncommon magic items.

If the Ranger and Bladesinger spend most of the time in Melee then you have 3 guys fighting for the front already, I would think maybe an Archer Character? Rogue1>ValorBard19 and you'd be able to be the lockpicker\stealth guy, unless the Ranger is going stealth archer? All while having spells and helping out, don't forget to grab Swiftquiver with your MS!

Or just a Rogue archer, or Fighter Archer character.

[Bobthewizard]

The ranger is a longbow sharpshooter. The bladesinger bounces back and forth.

[Pildion]

The ranger is a longbow sharpshooter. The bladesinger bounces back and forth.

Ahh, melee would be better then. Still a Rogue would fit in nice. If you want, like Psyren said, a Battle Smith Artificer would work well in this group. Rune Knight is never a bad choice ether, for a good Melee Character.

[Psyren]

I'd go with Armorer as they eventually get 8 attunement slots. Between your 10 free items and all your infusions you should have little trouble using them all up for a massive power boost. You can also swap freely between melee and ranged builds every short rest until you figure out which will help the party more.

[paladinn]

I'd say evocation wizard or dragon sorcerer. The druid character sounds like s/he was at least a bit of a blaster if s/he took out a warship. And it seems like that's a niche that you don't have filled.

Probably hexblade/sorc for the Cha synergy.

[Bobthewizard]

I'd say evocation wizard or dragon sorcerer. The druid character sounds like s/he was at least a bit of a blaster if s/he took out a warship. And it seems like that's a niche that you don't have filled.

Probably hexblade/sorc for the Cha synergy.

She took out the warship by floating underwater and then using enlarge/reduce on the keel, causing the boat to fall apart. It was inspired. Unfortunately, we all forgot that the DM told us about rumors of Deep Old Ones in this sea. She was supposed to wild shape into a dolphin and swim back to our ship and never arrived.

They are considering Draconic Sorcerer 6 / Evoker 2. There's a role-play angle that makes that character work.

[J-H]

Barbarian. You only have 1 dedicated melee, and there's LOTS of support to buff the barb and make him more awesome.

Whatever flavor of Barb you want.

Or maybe fighter or monk.

[Greywander]

Monk. (Drunken Master, Radiant Soul, Mercy, hard to have a bad choice)
Suggested items:
Make two of the uncommon items Ogre Gauntlets and Ring of Jumping.
Boing Boing Jumping Monk is fun. :smallsmile:
Broom of flying for when you need to fly. (No attunement)
Cloak of Protection
+1 dagger or short sword
+1 spear
Insignia of Claws and Eldritch Claw tattoo are both Uncommon as well. Get a +2 bonus to unarmed attack and damage rolls, plus the other benefits of the tattoo. There's also the Dragonhide belt, with the +1 variant being Uncommon, and is specifically a monk item. If you want extreme jumping, don't forget to add in the Boots of Springing and Striding.

One build I was looking at recently was a winged tiefling dragon monk, refluffed to be an actual dragon. Winged tiefling gets you wings and fire resistance, dragon monk gets you your breath weapon. See if your DM will let you switch all your monk abilities over from WIS to CHA (which is more thematic for a dragon). You can get the Gauntlets of Ogre Power to have good STR (which, again, is thematic for a dragon) while also beefing up your DEX for AC and initiative. Since dragon monk gives you access to more than just one draconic element, consider taking Infernal Constitution to also get resistance to cold and poison, covering 3/5 of the common dragon types.

The access to magic items could enable some interesting builds. You have access to Gauntlets of Ogre Power and the Headband of Intellect, suggesting perhaps an Eldritch Knight who can put all ASIs into CON or other stats, or go entirely for feats. Wand of Web is also available, and Web is a pretty strong control spell. The Eversmoking Bottle is also available, which is a good pairing with the Blind Fighting style.

[Demonslayer666]

My first thought was rogue, but a wizard would also work in there very well.

[nickl_2000]

I know you already have a Ranger, but you get to start at level 8. I suggest a Drakewarden Ranger 8

-You are above level 7 so your Drake flies and can be a mount (but can't fly while it's a mount). However, in an emergency, with 16 strength it should be able to carry you.
-You have Cleric Cantrips and Shillelagh (from Druidic Warrior fighting style), so you have ranged and melee attack based on Wisdom and thus you only need to put 14 into Dex for medium armor. However, you can also go heavy armor to tank better if you like.
-Lean into the Dragon theme by being one of the new Dragonborn for a breath weapon and since you only needed 14 in Dex you can boost your Dex higher

[kaervaak]

10 uncommon magic items just begs for minons to make use of them. Wizard or Sorcerer upcasting tiny servant and giving them all wands of magic missile is pretty outrageous from a damage perspective.

[KorvinStarmast]

Insignia of Claws and Eldritch Claw tattoo are both Uncommon as well. Get a +2 bonus to unarmed attack and damage rolls, plus the other benefits of the tattoo. There's also the Dragonhide belt, with the +1 variant being Uncommon, and is specifically a monk item. While a thematic yes to all, doesn't that eat attunement slots?
If you want extreme jumping, don't forget to add in the Boots of Springing and Striding. We are now into attunement management again, the gaunts and ring render the boots moot.

Boots of Striding and Springing Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)
While you wear these boots, your walking speed becomes 30 feet, unless your walking speed is higher, and your speed isn’t reduced if you are encumbered or wearing heavy armor. Monk doesn't need any of this. Dwarf paladin might.
In addition, you can jump three times the normal distance, though you can’t jump farther than your remaining movement would allow. Ring already provides this.
The claws yes, no attunement required.
The tattoo requires attunement, drop the cloak for that attack? No.
Belt requires attunement, but, it can give back ki. Drop the cloak for the belt. :smallsmile:
Good catch! :smallsmile:
Add bag of holding to the uncommon items list. Must have.
Immovable Rod: Shenanigans abound, must have.

[Greywander]

While a thematic yes to all, doesn't that eat attunement slots? We are now into attunement management again, the gaunts and ring render the boots moot.
Monk doesn't need any of this. Dwarf paladin might. Ring already provides this.
The claws yes, no attunement required.
The tattoo requires attunement, drop the cloak for that attack? No.
Belt requires attunement, but, it can give back ki. Drop the cloak for the belt. :smallsmile:
Good catch! :smallsmile:
Add bag of holding to the uncommon items list. Must have.
Immovable Rod: Shenanigans abound, must have.
Yeah, attunement slot management is tricky. But the tattoo and belt are at least worth mentioning, since they're geared toward unarmed/monks. On a class that can be making four attacks, the +1d6 force damage per hit it not weak, either. The OP can decide which items are best for the character they want. Stacking the tattoo with the insignia does get you a nice bonus to unarmed strikes. TBH, I'd like to see a redo of the attunement system that either (a) allows you to merge less rare items into a single rarer item, or (b) gives you bonus or even unlimited attunement slots for less rare items at higher levels. Or just axe attunement altogether and/or come up with a more sensible limit.

The main thing with the Boots of Springing and Striding was that it stacks with the Ring of Jumping. It's also always on, instead of requiring you to cast the spell, and can stack if someone else casts the spell on you. Both require attunement anyway. Personally, I don't think jumping is this important to optimize for, but a while back I did look into a super hero build that I specifically wanted to have crazy jumps instead of just a fly speed.

For an optimized monk, I'd probably drop the gauntlets for the tattoo. STR isn't getting you anything other than jump distance and Athletics checks. I'd also drop the ring for the belt. Probably keep the Cloak of Protection, unless there's another item that's better suited to the character. That said, I don't think there's a need to be this optimized, so a more flavorful item might be more enjoyable than any one of these.

Some other good Uncommon items that don't require attunement include:

Alchemy Jug
Bag of Holding
Bag of Tricks
Boots of Elvenkind
Broom of Flying
Circlet of Blasting
Cloak of the Manta Ray
Decanter of Endless Water
Deck of Illusions
Driftglobe
Eversmoking Bottle
Gloves of Thievery
Goggles of Night
Helm of Comprehend Languages
Immovable Rod
Lantern of Revealing
Wand of Magic Missile

There might be others that would be good for your character/party, but that's a pretty sizable selection to choose from once your attunement slots are filled. You can probably take the same item more than once, too, so multiple bags of holding or wands of magic missile and such.

[Bobthewizard]

Some other good Uncommon items that don't require attunement include:

Alchemy Jug
Bag of Holding
Bag of Tricks
Boots of Elvenkind
Broom of Flying
Circlet of Blasting
Cloak of the Manta Ray
Decanter of Endless Water
Deck of Illusions
Driftglobe
Eversmoking Bottle
Gloves of Thievery
Goggles of Night
Helm of Comprehend Languages
Immovable Rod
Lantern of Revealing
Wand of Magic Missile


This is a good list. I'd add pipes of haunting and gem of brightness (while consumable, you likely won't use all 50 charges by the end of a campaign)

[paladinn]

She took out the warship by floating underwater and then using enlarge/reduce on the keel, causing the boat to fall apart. It was inspired. Unfortunately, we all forgot that the DM told us about rumors of Deep Old Ones in this sea. She was supposed to wild shape into a dolphin and swim back to our ship and never arrived.

They are considering Draconic Sorcerer 6 / Evoker 2. There's a role-play angle that makes that character work.

Too cool.. I remember what the old Druid "Warp Wood" spell would do to a ship. It wasn't pretty.

[Greywander]

They are considering Draconic Sorcerer 6 / Evoker 2. There's a role-play angle that makes that character work.
Consider swapping Evoker with Genielock, matching the genie type with the dragon type. This allows you to apply Elemental Affinity to any attack spell, including Eldritch Blast. This is actually the basis of an Eldritch Sniper build I've mentioned a couple of times on the forums. That said, maybe they don't want to play another warlock.

If another warlock is amenable to them, maybe they could consider the Ghostlance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZeSm9v-ujc). TL;DR, Echo Knight 3 / warlock 2, you position your echo between you and an enemy/next to an enemy, and when they move past/away they provoke an OA from you. You then use Warcaster to replace the OA with a Repelling EB to keep them away from you, often pushing them back into the area around your echo. The echo is resource-free, and provides some cool utility by way of swapping places with it (an up to 60 foot teleport, again, at will).

[Bobthewizard]

By Elemental Affinity do you mean Genie's Wrath, adding PB to one attack every round? That doesn't seem worth giving up sculpt spells.

I'm not sure repelling blast will work the way you want. The enemy is going to move around the echo and then leave its reach as it approaches you, so repelling blast will send it towards you. Thorn whip or Grasp of Hadar might work better, or just the Sentinel feat.

I've played several echo knights before. They are by far my favorite fighter. Here's The Templar of Time (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24504068&postcount=438), an echo knight / hexblade build I made for a one-shot once that worked really well.

[Greywander]

By Elemental Affinity do you mean Genie's Wrath, adding PB to one attack every round? That doesn't seem worth giving up sculpt spells.
I mean both. Let's say you go for an efreet patron with a red dragon ancestry. When you cast EB, Genie's Wrath adds prof. bonus fire damage to the first beam to hit (important, because the chance of hitting at least once increases dramatically as you shoot more beams). Because EB is now dealing fire damage, it also triggers Elemental Affinity from the draconic sorcerer, adding CHA mod to the damage of that same beam. Basically, at 17th+ level with 20 CHA, your first beam to hit will deal +11 damage, or around double your other EB beams. This helps a lot with maintaining a consistent DPR, since your odds of hitting with at least one beam go up to like 95% once you get four beams, almost guarantying a minimum of 2/5ths your maximum potential damage output every round. Put another way, it's like automatically hitting a second time for free so long as you can hit at least once.

Whether that's worth giving up Sculpt Spells or not is a call you'll have to make. But I find it to be an interesting interaction, so I thought it worth mentioning at least. The Eldritch Sniper build I mentioned is designed to act more like a half caster archer gish, so big blast spells aren't their forte.


I'm not sure repelling blast will work the way you want. The enemy is going to move around the echo and then leave its reach as it approaches you, so repelling blast will send it towards you. Thorn whip or Grasp of Hadar might work better, or just the Sentinel feat.
EB is cast from your space, not the echo's. The echo only allows you to make the OA from its space, and we're replacing the OA with a spell. This is why Booming Blade doesn't work. As such, you're blasting the enemy away from you and back toward your echo.

Again, making the attack from the echo's space only applies to OAs. If we use Warcaster to replace the OA with a spell, we're no longer making an OA. This is also why Sentinel won't reduce speed to 0 if you replace an OA with, say, Booming Blade (or EB, for that matter). I know this can be a bit difficult to wrap your head around, since the natural assumption is that the Warcaster reaction spell is treated as if it were an OA, but it's not, and thus isn't affected by anything that affects OAs (which includes the echo allowing you to make the OA from the echo's space).

Definitely clarify this with the DM, however, as they might decide to rule otherwise (either because they still don't understand, or just because they think it's stupid). If they do, then I'm sure there are some interesting Booming Blade builds you could do with an Echo Knight that do something pretty similar to the Ghostlance, only freezing them in place (or getting free bonus damage) instead of pushing them back. Also consider Crusher (especially on a dao genielock), which allows you to push an enemy to an unoccupied space, so you could move it away from you even when making the attack from the echo's space.

The main "weakness" of the Ghostlance is that the technique really only works against melee enemies (that, and the 30 foot limit on the echo). Those with ranged attacks or spells are perfectly happy to stand next to your echo all day without moving. If you're built for it, you can instead swap places with your echo and engage them in melee, though that does require additional investment into making you better in melee. Alternatively, you could maximize range with Eldritch Spear and/or Spell Sniper and just take them out from afar before they get close enough to engage the party. You might not find yourself in open enough spaces to get consistent use out of that extra range, though.

[jojo]

For the most part I agree with Psyren. Play an artificer, they seem fun but there's rarely room for them in parties that I've been a part of or DM'd for. I'd suggest the Battlesmith which will fill a similar role to what the now deceased Druid did.

However, like others are saying your party is pretty well formed already with very few, if any, gaps.

An alternate suggestion that I would have would be to play a Sun Soul Monk since they're pretty awesome in general and, to play it as a Halfling since the Twilight Cleric makes up for the Halfling's lack of Darkvision and, since the luck abilities are ridiculously strong. Because you have so many sources of Buffing you could reasonably expect to walk around Enlarged to make up for disadvantage to Grappling for your size if you wanted (although Sun Souls are ranged strikers by default).

Alternately Rune Knights are fun to play as a Variant Human (or again, a Halfling for the lulz) for a whopping 8 feats...

*EDIT* You could also play a favorite character of mine, Phineas Gage, a one-eyed Human Barbarian with the Improvised Weapon Feat and, personality altering Head Trauma who is convinced that he is a Gnome (because all wizards are Gnomes) and, that he is the "Omni-Mage" (because he has head trauma) who invents the bestest spells ever invented (The only valid use of Phineas' 14 Intelligence is to coherently rationalize his delusions of being a mage) including but, not limited to:

1. Permanent Enlarge (He's medium, to demonstrate the validity of this he gets down on his knees and uses fast movement to maintain the same speed a Gnome would have)
2. Magic Missile Shotgun (He throws a handful of rocks)
3. Decapitate (He rages and, hits things with his axe)

as well as many other "at-will spells and spell like effects."

Phineas however must be named Phineas. Must fight "mostly naked" except for his "Large, Pointy Wizard Hat" must have lost an eye to a crossbow bolt and, must respond to all inter-party conflict by casting "Summon Couch" which consists of Phineas stealing the nearest couch and dragging it to wherever the party happens to be arguing. He must also greet the party by offering them hallucinogenic mushrooms of which he is ruled to have an infinite source...

P-H-I-N-E-A-S Spells FUN!

[Bobthewizard]

I mean both....

EB is cast from your space, not the echo's....

I get the fire damage now, focusing on eldritch blast. I'd rather have sculpt spells, but I see what you are doing.

For the echo knight, I'm not sure warcaster overrides the "as if you were in the echo's space" of the echo knight OA ability, but if you can talk a DM into it, that's great. But I'd allow booming blade to be cast from the echo as part of the OA if they have warcaster, so either way that gets ruled you could do something fun with it.



*EDIT* You could also play a favorite character of mine, Phineas Gage, a one-eyed Human Barbarian with the Improvised Weapon Feat and, personality altering Head Trauma who is convinced that he is a Gnome (because all wizards are Gnomes) and, that he is the "Omni-Mage" (because he has head trauma) who invents the bestest spells ever invented (The only valid use of Phineas' 14 Intelligence is to coherently rationalize his delusions of being a mage) including but, not limited to:

1. Permanent Enlarge (He's medium, to demonstrate the validity of this he gets down on his knees and uses fast movement to maintain the same speed a Gnome would have)
2. Magic Missile Shotgun (He throws a handful of rocks)
3. Decapitate (He rages and, hits things with his axe)

as well as many other "at-will spells and spell like effects."

Phineas however must be named Phineas. Must fight "mostly naked" except for his "Large, Pointy Wizard Hat" must have lost an eye to a crossbow bolt and, must respond to all inter-party conflict by casting "Summon Couch" which consists of Phineas stealing the nearest couch and dragging it to wherever the party happens to be arguing. He must also greet the party by offering them hallucinogenic mushrooms of which he is ruled to have an infinite source...

P-H-I-N-E-A-S Spells FUN!

That sounds awesome! I played alongside a goblin barbarian "Wizard" once and it was fun. He kept yelling "Magic Missile!" and throwing an axe at the enemy.

[Keravath]

I liked the monk suggestions above :) .. stun is an amazingly useful ability and by 8th level you have enough ki to stretch it out through most combats.

I'm partial to shadow monk for the 60' bonus action teleport in dim light or darkness. Depending on circumstances this can be very useful both in and out of combat.

However, the Artificer suggestion is also good.

[Leon]

Oh yeah. The DM let's everyone start with a ridiculous 10 uncommon magic items. So not sure an artificer is necessary. I'll add that up top.

If a multitude of magic items is stopping you from playing a wonderfully varied class then you need to broaden your horizons outside of the the infusions it brings

[jojo]

I get the fire damage now, focusing on eldritch blast. I'd rather have sculpt spells, but I see what you are doing.

For the echo knight, I'm not sure warcaster overrides the "as if you were in the echo's space" of the echo knight OA ability, but if you can talk a DM into it, that's great. But I'd allow booming blade to be cast from the echo as part of the OA if they have warcaster, so either way that gets ruled you could do something fun with it.




That sounds awesome! I played alongside a goblin barbarian "Wizard" once and it was fun. He kept yelling "Magic Missile!" and throwing an axe at the enemy.

Lol, same basic concept and it is AWESOME. I'm glad I finally found someone who understands lol.

My personal favorite thing about Phineas was that he didn't believe in "Dominate" because it was "icky" and so "refused to cast enchantment spells" lol. He was "fine with Hold Person" though, and also with "confusion" which he generally accomplished by giving bear hugs and either kissing his opponent directly on the mouth or, stroking their hair lovingly lol. When the party reacted like "WTF!?" He just used that as further proof of the Omni-Mage's powers because see... "MY HOLD SPELLS ARE AREA SPELLS!"

Also his idea of a "Friends" cantrip was to give someone a magic mushroom which was usually pretty funny.

[Witty Username]

I would say Ranger but I have been hungering to play a ranger for months now. Monster Slayer wouldn't be my first choice but if you want it go for it. I am not sure what your party may be lacking at this point, if your druid was your primary healer support, I may recommend some levels in cleric.

Edit: NVM, I thought that was a list of character considerations, not your party list. sorry my brain must have been fried by my work shift.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Wild Magic Barbarian


I would say Ranger but I have been hungering to play a ranger for months now. Monster Slayer wouldn't be my first choice but if you want it go for it. I am not sure what your party may be lacking at this point, if your druid was your primary healer support, I may recommend some levels in cleric.
Those aren't options those are whats already in the party.

[Witty Username]

Wild Magic Barbarian


Those aren't options those are whats already in the party.

Yeah, I just saw, I am out of brain. I think I need a reboot.

[arnin77]

I would play a Barbarian! Rush in and attack with reckless abandon!

Technically there's 3 full casters and 2 half casters already so I'd lean into melee

That or maybe a rogue depending on what the bard and ranger took for skills but I personally love a reckless barb! (maybe a zealot so the cleric can bring you back...)

[kingcheesepants]

Honestly anything would be fine but I love the synergy of multi wizard teams. They can copy each others spell books and prepare complementary spells for use in combos and cover different things so that every possibility is accounted for. And if you're already at 10 that means simulacrum isn't too far off. 4 wizards with 4 different concentration effects going at once. The possibilities are endless.

[Rashagar]

If it was me I'd probably use the level 8 start to make use of a 5/3 multiclass martial split, like rogue 3 barbarian 5, or fighter 3 monk 5, or any of those kinds of combinations.

That or straight phantom rogue since you'd be only 1 level away from the funky level 9 ability.