Help me build the ultimate support character

[Mandarin]

Alright so here is my rough draft so far.

Race- Mark of Hospitality Halfling- Why? Because lucky and goodberry are super good, the other spells also seem pretty nice..
Background- Fisher- because now every body of water is free food and also you can make fast friends from telling fish tales... fun to RP!
Level 1- Peace Cleric- 1d4 added to your friends rolls + bless= 2d4 to almost all rolls. You are not super strong, but your allies are at level 1. Medium armor and shield make you durable.
Level 2-20- Creation Bard- Now add your bardic inspiration to others rolls

Feats- Warcaster, Chef, Resilient Con, ?

This character would definitely want to be cooking food as his RP. Having a few portable holes filled with sundry goods, an oven, chests of preserving would make him a welcome addition to any dungeoneering group. Yes you may be in the depths of a dungeon... but that doesnt mean you cant have a 4 course meal for breakfast does it? In combat he would utlitize bless often, but if not he can always animate his silverware to cause mayhem while giving the group 1d4 to their rolls, and bardic inspiration on top. I know this can be made better, help me!

[ender241]

The Bountiful Luck feat would let you share your lucky trait with your allies.

[Mandarin]

The Bountiful Luck feat would let you share your lucky trait with your allies.

YES! Perfect!

[RogueJK]

While Creation Bard is certainly a good choice, Lore Bard could be slightly better, since you can grab a couple extra non-Bard support spells from their additional Magical Secrets at Level 6, and Cutting Words is a useful support option (such as when used to make a party member's save-or-suck spell more likely to stick).

Otherwise, you've nailed it. Pre-Tasha's, Life Cleric 1/Lore Bard X was the "ultimate support build", but this has since been supplanted by Peace Cleric 1 and their stackable Emboldening Bond that scales with proficiency.

[kazaryu]

Alright so here is my rough draft so far.

Race- Mark of Hospitality Halfling- Why? Because lucky and goodberry are super good, the other spells also seem pretty nice..
Background- Fisher- because now every body of water is free food and also you can make fast friends from telling fish tales... fun to RP!
Level 1- Peace Cleric- 1d4 added to your friends rolls + bless= 2d4 to almost all rolls. You are not super strong, but your allies are at level 1. Medium armor and shield make you durable.
Level 2-20- Creation Bard- Now add your bardic inspiration to others rolls

Feats- Warcaster, Chef, Resilient Con, ?

This character would definitely want to be cooking food as his RP. Having a few portable holes filled with sundry goods, an oven, chests of preserving would make him a welcome addition to any dungeoneering group. Yes you may be in the depths of a dungeon... but that doesnt mean you cant have a 4 course meal for breakfast does it? In combat he would utlitize bless often, but if not he can always animate his silverware to cause mayhem while giving the group 1d4 to their rolls, and bardic inspiration on top. I know this can be made better, help me!

so...mark of hospitality is good, lucky isn't so much, at least not for you if you're going for support. Based on your build it looks like you're going for a more stereotypical cleric style support? more focused on buffing and such than targetting enemies? in which case you shouldn't be rolling too many d20's. But thats just being somewhat nitpicky, mark of hospitality is more than enough reason to go halfling.

do you mind enumerating what all you want to absolutely exist on the character?




assuming everything is up for grabs at this point, i have a few ideas.

first to keep on the cleric/bard theme: life cleric 1/lore bard x. look, emboldening bond is pretty good. but you're playing support, you have ALOT of different things that you're wanting to use your action for in preparation for combat. Bless+emboldening bond is really strong on paper, but in practice allies will often not get the full benefit until turn 3 of combat. which isn't great. Also, due to the nature of attack bonus scaling, emboldening bond loses relative value over the course of a campaign (when you're rolling with a +10 to hit and are consistently at advantage, an extra d4 is FAR less useful than it was when your to-hit was +5 and you struggled to get advantage). Life cleric benefit is always on, and it also gives you heavy armor proficiency for some beefiness, also it scales better, let me explain.

lore bard gives you 2 major benefits over creation bard (not to say that its a direct upgrade, the bonus effects that a creation bard gives are pretty nice)
1. cutting words: now, in addition to giving allies BI you can use your BI reactively to protect them. even from crits.
2. magical secrets: this is where that 1 level in life cleric really pays off. aura of vitality +disciple of life is MASSIVE (a 70% increase in the overall healing you get from AoV). depending on DM, disciple of life can also greatly increase the healing from goodberry. your second magical secret can be for any number of options. find steed can help increase your mobility, mass healing word is a BA get your entire party up, warding bond so you can help to tank damage for your party etc, revivify is obviously a good looking option, etc.

again..the life cleric, i know. its just REALLY good on support characters. ironically, the only feature you NEED from druid (for the support part, not in general) is the core subclass feature, but since it scales with druid level you really need to keep taking druid levels to leverage it fully. this build is fairly self explanatory, druids get plenty of support spells (druidcraft is also great for its ability to predict the weather, since you seem to want to be able to help in survivaly aspects too). ITs just the math i wanted to highlight. whenever you cast a spell that restores hit-points you get an AoE heal (that could easily be party wide) equal to your druid level. healing word to pick up a downed ally? sure, but also some extra HP to everyone else. at level 10 you get 5th level spells and you can cast mass cure wounds to heal 3d8+16+ 5(or wis mod) to the entire party. thats half of a Heal spell to everyone. at level 12 you can Heal a single target for 90 while also getting everyone else for 11. or use that 6th level spell slot for mass cure wounds for 4d8+5+8+11 (42) to the entire party

you might dip a level or somewhere (you want to primarily focus on cleric levels for this) but even straight up, twilight domain is broken. with their channel divinity you can ensure that your entire party pretty much always has a significant buffer of THP. hugely reducing the damage they take. coupled with the cleric spell list i'd be remiss to not mention it in a thread of this title

kind of a weird one, and also a bit of a slow starter. in fact im not entirely sure where you'd want to start but where it might be fun to end up is:
paladin 6, fighter 2, cleric 12. subclasses are kind up in the air.
for paladin: devotion can channel divinity to turn fiends in addition to undead, and watchers can channel divinity to give advantage on mental saving throws for a time. those are probably the best bet for a support character (in fact watcher channel is pretty on the nose for the concept)
cleric: peace cleric would be interesting to help double down on the overall concept, you already know my thoughts on life clerics (assuming you read the other build ideas...) twilight, while not quite as strong as if you went full cleric, would still be pretty decent...

overall concept: bit by bit you're getting features that provide a boost to ally saves. eventually culminating (if you go peace cleric) in being able to grant a good number of your allies a 2d4+5 to most/all all saving throws. (the 2 fighter levels are there to help alleviate the action economy burden). lay on hands is quite a bit more efficient than lesser restoration for curing poisons (if that is ever a problem) and a 30 point, non-spell, burst heal is pretty good even at high levels. so its not like the paladin levels are all useless from a support standpoint, its not just 5 dead levels and then boom! aura of protection.

other feats you might consider:
healer: 1d6+level healing per short rest pre party member (on top of the chef feat/song of rest your current draft has).
inspiring leader: can help ensure your party tends to enter combat with buffer THP (flavor it as you playing an amazing host during meal times).
alert: not a direct boost, but not being surprised ensures that you can either drop a protection spell (or twlight channel divinity) to mitigate surprise's impact, or react to an ambush to ensure noone is down on their first turn, depending on how your initiative rolls out.

[Mandarin]

do you mind enumerating what all you want to absolutely exist on the character?

Well I do not know if I have anything that must absolutely exist, and I really appreciate your feedback so far! Some things that I would consider important.

Roleplayability- I really enjoy a character with a theme. Cooking and hosting events was this characters concept... but I can always create a new concept around whatever ends up working out well.

Healing being subpar- From what I have experienced, healing is good in small doses... but being able to either allow characters to make a save they would have failed otherwise, or CC a target that does a ton of damage is more bang for your buck.

Summons- I def think when it comes to power... yeah the strongest character would be a life bard/shepherd druid. But I have found at a table this can really make the rest of the table feel overshadowed and also takes a lot of time for the DM to set up and. That is actually hat started me on this path of finding the ultimate support build that buffs/CC's/heals.

Not sure if any of that helps.

[LordShade]

I have often seen Diviner 2 thrown into these dice control support builds. I feel like I have seen Life 1/Diviner 2/Bard X discussed almost as often as Life 1/Bard X for "ultimate supports." In addition to Peace 1 and Life 1, Forge 1 is a possibility for the free +1 item, depending on scarcity of magic.

Also can't neglect Artificer X/anything (Diviner 2 fits in nicely). Infusions are free magic items for the party, and Flash of Genius is arguably just as good as the Paladin aura thanks to easier positioning requirements. The two together with Counterspell backup is almost unbreakable magic defense for the party. It's an issue I will have to confront soon as I'm DMing a paladin/artificer/necromancer/ranger group right now.

edit - and for "healing", nothing beats Twilight 20. IMO the most overpowered class in the game in terms of changing how I design encounters as a DM, bar none. You could have a 10 in all stats, take Bountiful Luck, Dodge on all rounds other than activating your bubble for the entire campaign, and you would still be good.

[animorte]

Might I recommend this?
Background - Outlander with which you can always find food and fresh water for yourself and up to 5 others each day, if the land provides. Also a great bonus having excellent memory of maps/geography and always recall the layout of terrain.

Disclaimer: A lot of the following is just my own personal experience/preferences


Stars Druid 2 (or 6)
Twilight Cleric X
Feat: Bountiful Luck
OR
A lot of what Shepherd Druid does feels redundant to what Twilight Cleric offers better. So if you want Shepherd:
Peace Cleric 6
Shepherd Druid X


Divine Soul Sorcerer 1 (Low-level Cleric access)
Crown Paladin 3 (Have a really good look at Champion Challenge, talk about battlefield control), maybe go to level 6 for Aura of Protection.
and you guys know I can't help myself
Celestial Warlock X (Talisman can provide solid single target protection, otherwise go with Chain because touch spells/advantage/utility/etc.)
Feat: Inspiring Leader
OR
Crown Paladin 3 (same as above)
Bard (whatever the literal F you want, honestly. Just focus on control spells.)

Other note: Level 10 Genie Warlock creates a free safe zone for the entire party. I love it, but takes a while to get to.

[kazaryu]

Well I do not know if I have anything that must absolutely exist, and I really appreciate your feedback so far! Some things that I would consider important.

Roleplayability- I really enjoy a character with a theme. Cooking and hosting events was this characters concept... but I can always create a new concept around whatever ends up working out well.

Healing being subpar- From what I have experienced, healing is good in small doses... but being able to either allow characters to make a save they would have failed otherwise, or CC a target that does a ton of damage is more bang for your buck.

Summons- I def think when it comes to power... yeah the strongest character would be a life bard/shepherd druid. But I have found at a table this can really make the rest of the table feel overshadowed and also takes a lot of time for the DM to set up and. That is actually hat started me on this path of finding the ultimate support build that buffs/CC's/heals.

Not sure if any of that helps.

roleplayability: this may just be a difference in perspective. im fairly fluid with flavor, typically i focus on making a character work the way i want mechanically. the roleplay is a whole separate deal that, at worst, might involve some flavoring of abilities i have.

summons- well yeah, i wouldn't use summon spells either, and thats a big downside of that combo. if you don't use summons then you're going several levels in druid, but really only using the first subclass feature. depending on the player tho, that might not be a problem. but...yeah, that particular build concept was entirely just around the primary shepherd feature, and even more specifically the unicorn spirit. nothing else

healing- its complicated. in general, in combat, casting a healing spell is inefficient. either from a spell slot perpective, or from an action economy perspetive. If you cast a single target heal (i.e. cure wounds) then often you're trading your action for an action of the enemies. (i.e. you heal, they attack and deal all the damage you just healed). whereas ideally you want to be spending your action consuming multiple enemy actions. Which requires you cast either an AoE heal, or use a higher spell slot for cure wounds. and both of those work, they DO make it much more efficient from an action economy standpoint. But now you're spending a disproportionately high spell slots. mass cure wounds, for example, a 5th level spell slot in order to heal 20 HP to all of your allies (normally). at level 10 thats 1-2 actions per ally that you've consumed (or one big AoE effect) thats *pretty* efficient action economy assuming you're facing multiple enemies, or someone with consistent AoE. however, with that same 5th level spell slot you could instead cast dawn, and drop an AoE burst in an area, functioning as both a damage spells and a control spell. or you can summon a celestial, or cast holy weapon on a martial. or upcast banishment, etc. and many of those options tend to trade out better than 2-3 HD worth of HP.

in short, the thing that makes healing inefficient is that the volume of healing tends to be small compared to the spell slot you expend on it the spell Heal is a great counter point to this, it actually can be extremely efficient, its just not commonly talked about because its such a high level spell. the point is that boosting the healing can change that. think of it this way: at max level when you cast a cure wounds spell, you can then heal everyone in the unicorns aura for 19HP...thats as much as mass cure wounds. so now even small spell slots you spend on healing end up throwing in a mass cure wounds on top of them. dropped a healing word to pick up the wizard? free mass cure wounds. i mean...obviously thats 20th level, but i hope you get my point.


and then with eh lifecleric/lore bard, aura of vitality was specifically picked because it was out of combat healing which has no where near the same considerations. a 3rd level spells for 20d6+50 HP distributed among the party is very good.