Fun and effective Arcane Archery

[Kane0]

Pick Grasping Arrow as one of your two shot options, the other one doesn't really matter (I personally like Bursting but Banishing and Shadow are neat too). Take three levels of Swarmkeeper or one level of Daolock coupled with the Crusher feat. You can choose to take more levels in either for access to Spike Growth and further double down on this tactic. You can drop out of AA basically whenever you want depending on what breakpoint is important to you and what you'd rather take levels in.

Twice per short rest you shoot an enemy, move them away and laugh as they take the extra damage. They are then faced with a difficult choice; sit there and dodge or use a ranged attack if they have one, move and take the damage or waste their or an allies' turn to get rid of the effect (assuming they pass). It doesn't even matter if the poison damage is a wash, and the slashing damage from moving isn't from an attack so isn't halved by most creature's resistance either.

For best results, combine with one or more party members that can also move enemies around such as anyone with Repelling Blast, Lightning Lure, Dissonant Whispers, Thunderwave, Thunderous Smite, Pulse Wave, Repulsion Shield, Cleric Turning and so on. As an Archer you will likely want Sharpshooter and the Archery fighting style of course.

Not expecting to 'shake the meta', but was a nice trick I noticed and rather easy to pull off.

[RogueJK]

Still suffers from the same issue as all Arcane Archers: Other "magic archer" builds can do the same thing only better (and/or more often, and/or with less investment).


A Swarmkeeper Ranger archer gets access to Archery fighting style, Extra Attack, forced movement, Ensnaring Strike, and Spike Growth without the need to multiclass. Tag on Stars Druid 2 for additional BA magic arrow shots from Archer form.

A Dao Genie EB-faux-archer can flavor their EB as "magical bow shots", has a number of attacks that scales to match a fighter, and has access to Spike Growth, plus movement reduction from Lance of Lethargy and a ton of forced movement from Crusher, Repelling Blast, and/or Grasp of Hadar. Multiclass into Sorlock for Quickened Metamagic shenanigans and twice the "magical bow shots" in a turn.

A Hand Crossbow Bladesinger archer gets full Wizard spell progression with various restrain/slow/damage spells, plus the enhanced Extra Attack ability to make a "cantrip crossbow shot" each turn for extra effects like Ray of Frost's "slowing arrow".

A Stars Druid 2/Battlemaster Fighter X archer has "trick arrows" from Maneuvers as well as additional BA Archer Form "magic arrows", with Fighter's additional attacks and Action surge, plus a little Druid spellcasting to boot.

Even a Swords Bard archer gets full spell progression and forced movement, plus Extra Attack, and could eventually have access to stuff like Ensnaring Strike or Spike Growth as Magical Secrets if you don't want to dip for those, plus Swift Quiver for 4x arrow attacks per turn starting at Level 10. Start with 1 level of Fighter for CON save proficiency, bow proficiency, and Archery fighting style, and consider a 2nd level of Fighter for Action Surge after Bard 6 or Bard 10.

Or if your DM is generous and allows ranged Smites, something like an Ancients Paladin 3/Dao Bladelock X archer for Ensnaring Strike, Spike Growth, forced movement from Crusher, and "smite arrows".

[Damon_Tor]

Still suffers from the same issue as all Arcane Archers: Other "magic archer" builds can do the same thing, only better.

Except that the arcane archer has the benefit of having a fighter chassis. A fighter with no subclass at all is a better archer than just about anyone else.

[RogueJK]

A fighter with no subclass at all is a better archer than just about anyone else.

Due to Fighting Style? Rangers also get Archery fighting style, and anyone can get it with the Fighting Initiate feat or a 1 level Fighter dip.

Due to Action Surge? That's just a 2 level dip into Fighter on any of the above archer builds.

Due to additional attacks? There are ways to get more than two ranged attack for non-fighter archers. The Warlock EB-faux-archer gets 3x and 4x attack per turn as EB scales, and can be paired with Sorcerer for Quickened Metamagic to further double their number of EB shots in a turn (up to 8x). Or a Swarmkeeper Ranger dipping Stars Druid 2 would have access to a 3rd "magic arrow" ranged attack as early as Level 7, 4 levels before Fighters or Warlocks get their third ranged attack. Or a Swords Bard taking Swift Quiver as a Magical Secret can be making 4x bow attacks per turn at Level 10, one level before a Fighter's 3rd attack and a full ten levels before Fighter's 4th attack.

[Damon_Tor]

Due to Fighting Style? Rangers also get Archery fighting style, and anyone can get it with the Fighting Initiate feat or a 1 level Fighter dip.

Due to additional attacks? There are ways to get a more than two ranged attack for non-fighter archers. The Warlock EB-faux-archer gets 3x and 4x attack per turn as EB scales. Or a Swarmkeeper Ranger dipping Stars Druid 2 would have access to a 3rd "magic arrow" ranged attack as early as Level 7, 4 levels before Fighters or Warlocks. Or a Swords Bard taking Swift Quiver as a Magical Secret can be making 4x bow attacks per turn at Level 10, one level before a Fighter's 3rd attack and a full ten levels before Fighter's 4th attack.

Due to Action Surge? That's just a 2 level dip into Fighter on any of the above archer builds.

Well it's a whole package. All the feats and dips you rattle off to get the benefits of the fighter are costs. Costs the fighter doesn't have to pay, because they're included with his class. Your ranger dips druid 2, well he's now 2 ASI behind the fighter by 8th level. That's a -2 to attack rolls, -2 to damage rolls, and it's so that he can get a third attack that relies on wis instead of dex? Terrible choice.

Also relevant: Spell attacks don't benefit from the archery fighting style, nor from sharpshooter, so several of your builds here don't hold up for that reason alone.

[RogueJK]

Since you posit that a subclassless Fighter is a better archer than just about any other build, I welcome you to run the numbers. (Not per turn, since we're not talking single-turn nova capability, but over the course of a combat, or especially an entire average adventuring day.)

I'd probably start with comparing something like these Level 11 builds, since this is around when each of these builds' power curves starts to level off, and its a level that many players can plan to reach in a normal campaign (as opposed to theoretical Level 20 powerbuilds):
A) Subclassless Fighter 11 with access to Archery and Action Surge, with Sharpshooter and 20 DEX.
B) Dao Warlock 3/Red Draconic Sorcerer 8 with access to Quickened Spell metamagic, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Hex, Wall of Fire, and Spike Growth, with 20 CHA.
C) Fighter 1/Swords Bard 10 with access to Archery, Swift Quiver, and Blade Flourishes, with Sharpshooter, 18 DEX, and 16 CHA.
D) Swarmkeeper Ranger 5/Battlemaster Fighter 4/Stars Druid 2 with access to Archery, Action Surge, Archer Form, Pushing Attack maneuver, Precision Attack maneuver, Gathered Swarm's added damage or forced movement, Hunter's Mark/Favored Foe, and Spike Growth, with Sharpshooter, 18 DEX, and 16 WIS.

But you're welcome to do it at other levels too. I'd be interested to see how your Fighter stacks up. I suspect there may be certain levels where the subclassless fighter might have a slight temporary edge over one or two of the other builds, such Levels 5 and 6 when the Bardcher's 2nd attack hasn't come online yet, but it's not going to be across the board, nor at every level.

[Damon_Tor]

Since you posit that a subclassless Fighter is a better archer than just about any other build, I welcome you to run the numbers. (Not per turn, since we're not talking single-turn nova capability, but over the course of a combat, or especially an entire average adventuring day.)

I'd probably start with comparing something like these Level 11 builds, since this is around when each of these builds' power curves starts to level off, and its a level that many players can plan to reach in a normal campaign (as opposed to theoretical Level 20 powerbuilds):
A) Subclassless Fighter 11 with access to Archery and Action Surge, with Sharpshooter and 20 DEX.
B) Dao Warlock 3/Red Draconic Sorcerer 8 with access to Quickened Spell metamagic, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Hex, Wall of Fire, and Spike Growth, with 20 CHA.
C) Fighter 1/Swords Bard 10 with access to Archery, Swift Quiver, and Blade Flourishes, with Sharpshooter, 18 DEX, and 16 CHA.
D) Swarmkeeper Ranger 5/Battlemaster Fighter 4/Stars Druid 2 with access to Archery, Action Surge, Archer Form, Pushing Attack maneuver, Precision Attack maneuver, Gathered Swarm's added damage or forced movement, Hunter's Mark/Favored Foe, and Spike Growth, with Sharpshooter, 18 DEX, and 16 WIS.

But you're welcome to do it at other levels too. I'd be interested to see the results. I suspect there may be certain levels where the subclassless fighter might have a slight temporary edge over one or two of the other builds, such Levels 5 and 6 when the Bardcher's 2nd attack hasn't come online yet, but it's not going to be across the board, nor at every level.

That's a big project, but my interest is piqued. I'll randomly generate encounters for a solo 11th level character using the generator here: http://tools.goblinist.com/5enc

The "adventuring day" will be:

Encounter (easy) 6 giant wasps
Encounter (med) 2 allosaurus
Short rest
Encounter (easy) 7 winged kobolds, 3 kobolds
Encounter (hard) 1 night hag
Short rest
Encounter (easy) 1 phase spider
Encounter (deadly) 1 manticore, 1 hobgoblin warlord
Long rest

I'll look for an interesting battlemap for this, something with a moderate amount of interesting terrain features, at least a small amount of cover that can be taken advantage of. Edit: https://imgur.com/gallery/8BjadfS
the trees provide both sides with opportunity to advance with cover. I'll start the PC at the southern end and the NPCs at the top. I'll run each build through the gauntlet 3 times and see how each performs. Gear is anything mundane, and we'll include silvered weapons in that category

[RogueJK]

Cool. Since you're tackling that, what's one more competitor, right? :smallbiggrin:

Kensai Monk 11 longbow archer with 18 DEX and Sharpshooter, utilizing Sharpen the Blade, with Deft Strike/Focused Aim + Ki Fueled Shot for 3x attacks in many turns.

[Dr.Samurai]

I’ll butt in for a second and suggest that the encounters be blind encounters for the posters building the builds. So maybe someone else can do the encounters and make the reveal when everyone has presented builds. Otherwise resource expenditure is going to be super precise, which isn’t very realistic.

[Kane0]

Also, probably shouldnt be testing anything with a solo character. Try some sidekicks to flesh out a basic party.

Edit:

Still suffers from the same issue as all Arcane Archers: Other "magic archer" builds can do the same thing only better (and/or more often, and/or with less investment).

However the AA doesnt use actions nor concentration to deploy the arrow, and in fact things like Ensnaring Strike and Branding Smite stack on top. So it has that going for it.

[J-H]

The Poisoner feat lets you ignore poison resistance, and stacks well with the poison-damage arrow.

[stoutstien]

The Poisoner feat lets you ignore poison resistance, and stacks well with the poison-damage arrow.

Unfortunately poison resistance is rare while immunity isn't.*setting dependant*

[ender241]

The Poisoner feat lets you ignore poison resistance, and stacks well with the poison-damage arrow.

Except very few monsters are resistant to poison and poison immunity is extremely common. So investing any resources in poison damage is generally a bad idea (especially something as valuable as an ASI).

[Kane0]

The Poisoner feat lets you ignore poison resistance, and stacks well with the poison-damage arrow.

It would be campaign dependant but yeah a novel way to get some use out of the feat. Fighters do get the extra ASIs after all.

[Damon_Tor]

Ran the first build through the encounters I detailed above, the no-subclass fighter. He died during the final fight, after killing the manticore and leaving the warlord at 33 HP. Most of the other fights were cakewalks with only minimal damage taken. If the rolls had gone just a little different the last battle could have gone the other way, 33 HP is just ~2 extra attacks landing with SS.

Attaching my notes here if anyone wants to see how it went: Fighter 11 (No subclass)

Custom Race, +2 Dex, Sharpshooter, 17 Dex
4- +2 Dex (19)
6- +1 Dex, +1 Con (20/16)
8- Martial Initiate (Quick Toss)

Gear:
Longbow with an arbitrary number of silvered arrows
Studded Leather
Two Shortswords
An arbitrary number of nets
An arbitrary number of silvered darts
Msc Adventuring Stuff

HP- 103

Tree trunks are large enough to provide 3/4 cover when right behind it. The leaves/branches of the trees provide 1/2 cover from attacks from above the tree line.

Encounter 1

Roll Initiative
PC- 23
W1- 12
w2- 22
w3- 17
w4- 6
w5- 5
w6- 7

PC has the first turn. He figures that if he uses sharpshooter he can take out each wasp in 1 hit, so he does, firing three attacks using the attack action.

Results are 8, 12, and 24 vs the wasps' AC of 12. Each hit does a minimum of 16 damage, so I won't even bother rolling: two wasps are dead

Wasps have an int of 1, so they don't have any regard for tactics beyond a desire to stick together in a nasty swarm. They double move toward the PC, closing 100 feet.

The PC takes his next turn, firing off another three arrows with sharpshooter. Results are 21, 17 and 11, two more hits, two more kills. He draws one of his shortswords, expecting to need to melee the next round.

The remaining two wasps close in on the PC's position and attack him once each with their stingers. Results are 10 and 22 vs the fighter's AC of 18, one hit for 6 Damage. He rolls a 16 to resist the poison and takes half of 3d6 damage, which comes out to another 6 hp gone. His HP is down to 89/103

Dropping his bow and drawing his second shortsword, the fighter attacks the wasps 3 times with his attack action, the first two attacks are a 24 and a 13, dealing 14 damage to one of the two remaining wasps, killing it. The third attack is a critical hit, dealing 12 damage to the last wasp, leaving it nearly dead. As a bonus action he attacks with his off-hand shortsword, the attack is a 20 after attack modifiers, and the hit removes the wasp's last remaining hitpoint, killing it and ending the first encounter.

He has little time to celebrate (just a moment to rest himself back to wielding his bow), as soon he encounters a pair of allosauruses!

Initiative
PC- 15
A1- 13
A2- 3

The PC goes first, Firing 3 rounds into the first Allosaurus using sharpshooter, 15, 9, and 21, two hits vs the allosaur's 13 AC, for 35 damage. Knowing this will be a much harder fight than the last, he uses his action surge to fire another 3 rounds, 25, 16 and 13, three hits. The first attack deals 20 damage, killing the first allosaurus. The second two attacks deal 36 damage to second.

Enraged, the surviving allosaur charges, covering 120 feet.

The PC casually tosses a net at the creature using Quick Toss, hitting with an attack roll of 27 and restraining the allosaurus. He then unloads three arrows into the creature with advantage and sharpshooter: Attack rolls of 24, 12 and 23 result in two hits for 34 damage, killing the creature.

He then gets a short rest, where he recovers his action surge and his superiority dice, and he spends 1 hit die to recover 1d10+3 hp. A roll of 12 means he's back at full, 103 hp.

Feeling pretty good, he continues on until he comes across a pretty sizeable gaggle of kobolds, most of them the winged variety.

Initiative

U1- 17
U2- 18
U3- 21
K1- 18

PC- 16

U4- 8
U5- 14
U6- 5
U7- 11
K2- 7
K3- 3

4 of the kobolds, 3 urds and 1 of the standard variety, beat the PC for initiative. The urds fly up into the leaves of the trees and attempt to hide in the dense foliage. Their stealth checks are 10, 13, and 20 against the PC's passive perception of 15, leaving one successfully hidden, the others visible. The landbound kobold advances into long range for his sling and launches an attack against the PC with disadvantage. A very lucky pair of rolls gets hims a 19, which hits the fighter's 18 AC, dealing 4 points of damage, leaving our hero at 99 HP.

The fighter takes his turn. Not bothering with sharpshooter against these little nuscances, fires his arrows at the two unhidden urds and the kobold who bonked him with the sling stone. 17, 24 and a nat 1 results in two hits on the urds in the trees. The first takes 7 points of damage and dies. The second takes just 6 and hangs on to life by a thread. Our hero moves casually to a nearby tree to take advantage of cover.

The remainder of the kobolds take their turns. No faith remains in hiding in the trees as their cousin's corpse falls from one, so the urds charge, taking to the air and advanceing at full speed. The ordinary kobolds continue to fire their slings from long range while advancing, but none of them hit the well defended fighter behind the tree.

Our fighter takes another turn, firing his longbow at three of the advancing urds from his defensible position. 22, 30, and 18 all hit, killing all three. They take 11, 7 and 7 damage respectively.

The urds continue their advance, closing another 60 feet, nearly reaching his position. The kobolds fire another volley, again they miss every one.

Only three urds remain and our fighter fires an arrow at each, A 16, a nat 1, and a crit are the results, the first dealing just 6 damage to its target leaving it 1 hp. The crit kills its target, but we've still got 2 urds about to close in on our position! The fighter draws a shortsword.

The urds are now in melee range of the fighter, and their pack tactics cancel out their disadvantage for sunlight senstitivity! They both draw daggers and attack the fighter, Neither a 13 or a 10 hit our fighter, however. The slingers attack the fighter again, this time without disadvantage, but the tree our fighter is still standing behind provides 3/4 cover, enough to deflect all but a direct hit, and all attacks miss.

Our fighter uses his shortsword to attack the two urds in melee range of him, first attacking the badly wounded one, but the nat 1 misses. His second attack roll is a 19 and hits easily, slaying the creature. His third attack against the final urd misses with a roll of 12.

The final urd strikes again, missing with a roll of 7. The slingers try their luck again as they spread out to try to get a better angle, but even when they begin to loop around the tree to reduce its cover to 1/2, they still can't hit the fighter.

The fighter slashes the urd with his shortsword again, this time hitting with a roll of 23, but dealing just 6 points of damage. He strikes again with an attack roll of 14, killing it. Free again of any kobolds in melee range, he sheathes the shortsword and fires his remaining attack at one of the slingers, hitting with an attack roll of 30, killing it outright. He retreats to another tree, foiling the slingers' ongoing attempts to flank him.

Only two kobolds remaining, one of them draws his dagger and charges into melee range with the fighter, while the other continues to advance more slowly and fire attacks with his sling. It pays off as the slinger rolls a nat 20 on his attack roll and deals a whopping 7 points of damage to the fighter.

Annoyed to have to use his sword again, the fighter slashes at the kobold now in melee range, hitting with a 14 and slaying the creature with 6 points of damage. He then drops the sword and fires his two remaining attacks at the last kobold, hitting with a 13 and a 16 and killing it dead, ending the encounter. He has 92 hitpoints remaining.

And now the Night Hag. I'm going to assume she doesn't have the heartstone she needs to become ethereal (?) because otherwise the encounter would just be silly (and we'll have plenty of that with the phase spider)

Initiative
PC- 25
NH- 6

The PC goes first, dealing as much damage as possible, making 6 attacks by using action surge, each attack using sharpshooter. We roll well: a 23, a 23, a 23, a nat 20, an 11 and a 9 gives us three regular hits and one crit, for a total of 86 points of damage (26 remaining!). We move as far into a corner as we can to put maximum distance between us and the hag.

The hag shrieks and moves toward us, getting just barely into range for a magic missile volley, which she launches at us with gusto, dealing us 9 points of damage, bringing us to 83 hp.

We take another turn, making another three sharpshooter attacks. A 13 and a 16 miss the target, but another nat 20 crits, dealing 23 Points of damage, leaving the hag at just 3 HP. Again, we move further into the corner to maximize our distance from her (we REALLY don't want sleep cast on us!)

She moves toward us again, and again can just cast magic missile for 14 damage this time, putting us at 69 hp.

Knowing she's on the ropes because we're metagaming like mad, we're going to forgo sharpshooter in this next volley: our first attack hits with a roll of 25, and the hag dies with a horrible yowl.

Taking a well deserved short rest, the fighter spends hit dice until he returns to full hitpoints, using up 5.

+4
73
+7
80
+6
86
+9
95
+11
103/103


The phase spider-

A weird fight, but here goes.

Initiative-
PC- 7
S- 15

Of course we lose initiative in the one fight where it really makes a huge difference.

The spider goes first and vanishes into the etherial realm and moves as fast as it can torward us, closing 60 feet, not that we can see it happening.

On our turn we take the dodge action and move into the open so we can't cornered.

On its turn it dashes toward us again, and is not in melee range of us. Again, we can't see this happening.

We dodge again.

It makes its move and phases back in to try and bite us, at disadvantage due to dodge. It rolls a 10 and misses.

On our turn we back up 5 feet and the spider tries an opportunity attack, barely missing with a 17. We unload 3 attacks into it using sharpshooter, a 14, an 11 and a 15 rsulting in 2 hits against its 13 AC, dealing 38 points of damage, enough to kill it.

Next is the big fight for all the marbles, the hobgoblin warlord and his manticore. The warlord will begin combat mounted on the manticore. The manticore is an independant mount.

Initiative
M- 23
PC- 12
W- 5

The manticore wins initiative, and immediately takes to the air, flying up about 50 feet towards us, flinging three tail spikes at us! With attack rolls of 20, 22 and 17, it hits us twice, dealing us 13 points of damage, putting us at 90/103

On our turn we again take cover behind a nearby tree and attempt to take down the manticore quickly, attacking six times using action surge and sharpshooter. I roll horribly, 9, nat 1, and 11, for every attack a miss on the first three attacks. My next three attack rolls are an 18, an 8, and a 25, for two hits dealing 39 damage, brining the manticore to 29.

The warlord takes turn, shouting words of encouragement to his horrible ally and urging the creature to advance with haste. (He activates his Leadership ability.)

The manticore obeys its master's command and dashes forward, closing the gap and entering melee range of the fighter!

The fighter decides its worth it to try to eat opportunity attacks and backs away. The Manticore attempts to bite the fighter and misses with a 16. The warlord swings at the fighter with his shield and hits with a 24, dealing 4 damage, plus 19 from his martial advantage (67/103) and forcing the fighter to attempt a strength save or be knocked prone. We fail the save and hit the ground, forcing us to use half our movement to stand, so we can only get 15 feet away from the pair. Quick Toss to toss a net at the manticore, we hit with a largely wasted nat 20, entangling the beast. We use our action to attack it with SS and advantage. The first attack hits with a 16, dealing 19 points of damage, taking it to 10 hp. The second hits with a 24, killing the manticore. The warlord falls prone as his mount collapses beneath him. My third attack goes for the warlord. The attack is made with disadvantage because he's prone, and it misses with a nat 1.

The warlord stands and advances on the fighter with his sword drawn, striking first with his shield to attempt to knock the fighter prone, hitting with a 23 and dealing 6 damage (61/103). The fighter passes his save with a 20, so the warlord tries again, striking with his shield again with a 25, dealing 4 damage (57/103). The fighter saves with a 21 and stays standing, so the hobgoblin hits him with the shield again, hitting with a 21, dealing 5 damage (52/103). The fighter barely saves with a 15.

On the fighter's turn he eats another OA and backs away, facing another shield bash from the hobgoblin, which misses on a 16. We back up 30 feet and attack him 3 times using sharpshooter. We get one crit, then two misses at 8 and 10. The crit deals 30 damage, leaving the warlord at 67 HP.

These tactics play out for the duration of the fight. On his turns the warlord will use his shield to attempt to prone to the fighter, while the fighter will keep backing away to hit the warlord with ranged attacks.

Warlord attacks Strikes:
3 hits, Shield (prone, save failed) sword, sword, 19 damage total (33/103)

Stand retreat shield OA (miss)
3x Attack with SS, miss miss hit, 21 damage (warlord HP: 46)

Warlord attacks:
Miss, hit (7 dmg, prone), miss (fighter hp: 26/103)

Stand retreat, shield OA (Hit 4 damage, prone again) (Fighter HP 22)
Can't back away! Stand again, Ranged attacks made at disadvantage, no SS.
2 hits one miss, 13 damage (warlord HP: 33)

Warlord attacks
shield (hit, 7 dmg, saved) (fighter hp 15)
shield (miss)
shield (miss)

Stand retreat, shield OA (Hit, 6 damage, saved) (fighter hp 16)
Three attacks with SS (All miss!)

Warlord attacks
shield (hit 4 dmg, prone)
sword (hit 7 dmg)
sword (hit 5 dmg) (Fighter HP: 0)

Result: Fighter dead, final boss has 33 HP remaining.

This took a while. I intend to run other builds through the same encounters, but if you guys get impatient feel free to do it yourselves. And yes, I'm sure there were better ways to build this fighter. Crossbow mastery would have probably won me the last encounter over Martial Initiate since I wouldn't have had to back out of melee all the time.

[LordShade]

This is awesome, looking forward to seeing the other builds compared. TY @Damon_Tor, @Kane and @RogueJK.

[Damon_Tor]

Ran through this with the Dao Warlock/Red Dragon Sorcerer. He made it to the end alive with 59 HP remaining and totally out of spell slots and sorcery points. Spike Growth is brutal versus enemies who can't fly and can't effectively engage in ranged combat. It allowed us to save resources for the harder fights.

Custom Race- +2 Cha, Crusher (+1 con)

2 ASI: +2 Cha, +2 Cha

(Dex 14, Con 14, Wis 12)

Warlock 3-
2 Invocations (Hurt Blast, Push Blast)
4 Spells Known (Hex, Spike Growth, ???, ???)
2 Cantrips (Eldritch Blast, ???)
2 2nd level slots (Short Rest)
Pact Boon (???)

Dao (+4 bludge damage 1/turn on a hit.)


Sorcerer 8-
9 Spells Known (Wall of Fire, Fireball, Dimension Door, Scorching Ray, Burning Hands, ???, ???, ???, ???)
5 Cantrips Known (???, ???, ???, ???, ???)
Slots- 4/3/3/2
8 Sorcery Points
Metamagic (Quickened Spell, ???)

Dragon (Red)
+1 HP per level
13+Dex AC (15)
+5 To a fire damage roll 1/round

HP 34 from warlock levels, 56 from sorcerer levels, = 90 HP

Our first encounter is against the wasps, and we're going to try not to spend any daily resources in this fight.

Initiative

PC - 14
W1 - 7
w2 - 11
w3 - 10
w4 - 9
w5 - 11
w6 - 10

We go first, and we move up just enough to fire eldritch blast at three of the closest wasps: Crit, 20, 14 vs AC 12. All hit
The crit deals 13 damage, killing the first wasp. The other two wasps take 7 and 9 damage respectively and are knocked 10 feet back. We add our Dao bonus damage of +4 to the one most badly damaged, and it dies too.

The wasps take off toward the PC, dashing 100 feet towards him.

They're clustered pretty tightly together, so our "archer" decides its a reasonably effective use of his resources to use a warlock spell slot to cast Burning Hands. He can catch all four wasps together in the blast, so he steps forward and does exactly that. They all fail their dex save, so each takes 22 damage from the spell, killing all of them and ending the encounter. We're down 1 warlock spell slot, but no HP lost

Now the allosaurus encounter:

Initiative-

PC - 8
A1 - 22
A2 - 13

Both Allosaurs go first, charging headlong toward our plucky hero, covering 120 feet easily.

Using his Quickened Metamagic, our guy casts Spike Growth centered about 20 feet behind the charging allosaurs, then he Casts Eldritch Blast. The first beam hits, dealing 10 Damage (including the dao bonus) and knocking the allosaur 15 feet back into spikes, for another 14 points of damage (27 HP remaining). He fires his second beam at the same dinosaur, a hit for 6 damage and another 10 foot push even deeper into the spikes and another 6 points of damage (11 HP remaining). Eager to put down one of the two mosters he fires his third beam at the same allosaur, Hitting for 12 points of damage and killing it.

And because our PC is a merciless metagamer, he knows its in his best interest if the remaining allosaur stays right where it is so it cant use it's pounce attack, and so that it will stay right next to the spikes. so he walks right up to the creature like a BOSS.

The Allosaur is a little confused by the little meat-thing walking right up to it, but it's not going to complain. It uses its bite attack, hitting with a roll of 18. It deals 17 damage to the sorcerer, leaving him at 73 HP and forcing him to make a concentration save to maintain his spikes, but we pass the save.

On our turn our boy blasts the dinosaur point blank, the first attack taking disadvantage from proximity, and barely missing with a roll of 12. The second beam hits with a roll of 21, dealing 10 damage and pushing the creature 15 feet back into the spikes for 14 more damage (26 HP remaining). The third beam misses with a nat 1. Eager to be rid of the creature, we use quickened metamagic to cast it again, Our first beam hitting to deal 9 damage and pushing 10 feet for 11 more (6 HP remaining). The second beam is a nat 1. Our third beam hits for 13 points of damage, killing the dinosaur and ending the encounter.

We begin our first short rest. We spend hit three hit dice, 2d8 plus 1d6, to return to full HP:

73
+10
83
+4
87
+7
90/90

Our warlock spell slots recover, and we still have all our sorcerer spell slots. We are missing 4 of our sorcery points.

The kobold encounter

Fireball

Encounter over, 1 third level slot expended.

Seriously, this is probably the best call tactically. Kobolds are clever enough to use cover and then mob us. Better to fireball them before they can scatter.


The Night Hag

Initiative
PC - 11
NH - 22

The Night Hag goes first, taking cover behind a nearby tree and readying magic missile for when you come into range.

On our turn we move forward, casting Shield to protect us from the Magic Missiles as we cast eldritch blast at the hag. All three of the attacks miss, partly due to cover.

The hag cackles and moves to a slightly closer tree, then dashes to another (no point in casting magic missile again, as our shield spell is still in effect)

Well we can see where this is going, she's trying to close in to melee to get her claws in us, which we don't want. We go ahead and cast Spike Growth centered on her location as a Quickened Spell, then we cast eldritch blast again while trying to move to a better angle, cover be damned. Again, all our attacks miss.

The crone giggles a bit and decides to stay right where she is, shooting a magic missile at us again. Again, we block with shield, but we can't do that forver.

We keep moving around the tree where the hag is hiding, and finally we can get a proper shot at her without the tree in the way. Our first hit it a miss, but the second is a nat 20 crit dealing 23 damage, pushing the hag 15 feet for 12 more damage, AND activating the special feature of the crusher feat, which gives us advantage on every remaining attack this turn. The third attack hits for 6 damage with a 10 foot push for 8 more. With quickened metamagic we cast eldirich blast again, and two of the three beams hit this time for another 21 damage. We push the hag the rest of the way out the other side of the spikes for another 8 damage. The hag is now at just 34 hitpoints remaining.

She shrieks, no longer amused. She dashes, moving as fast as she can to circumnavigate the spike trap and try to get to you as quickly as possible. In her haste, she ends her turn out of cover.

Again we cast eldritch blast, though only one of the beams hits her AC, dealing 19 damage and pushing 15 feet. She's at 15 hitpoints.

Again she dashes toward you, ending her turn standing directly in front of you, her claws ready to tear you up.

We step back and she takes an opportunity attack against us, but she misses. We angle ourself so that she's between us and the spikes again, and cast eldritch blast. Two hits deal 26 hitpoints, so she's dead even before the knockback effect shreds her body through the cheese grater.

We begin our next short rest missing no hitpoints. We have one warlock slot remaining, which we can happily convert to 2 sorcery points. We're going in to our last two encounters looking strong, missing just 2 1st level slots and 1 3rd level slot. To be safe, we'll go ahead and break down our three second level slots into sorcery points to fill them back to full, so we now have 8 sorcery points, 2 1st level slots, 2 3rd level slots, and 2 4th level slots.

The Phase Spider

Initiative
PC - 3
PS - 21

Welp, this again. On the Spider's first turn it turns etherial and disappears. As before, we'll step into the open and take the dodge action until the thing shows itself and attacks us. It does, and we have to cast shield to keep ourselves from being hit.

We back up and risk an OA, but the spider misses us. We cast Hex on the creature then we hit it with an eldritch blast, hitting with all three attacks. for a total of 58 points of damage, killing the thing outright.


The final bossfight begins, the hobgoblin warlord and his manticore mount.

Initiative
PC- 15
M- 22
w- 17

The manticore goes first, and like last time, it begins by taking to the air and firing a volley of tail spikes at us. The first attack hits, so we cast shield with our last 1st level slot and make it miss. The second attack misses, but the third attack hits us despite the shield, dealing us 10 damage (80/90). We pass our concentration save to keep up Hex.

The Warlord's turn is next, activating his Leadership ability and urging his steed to rush to melee range.

It's our turn, and our first order of business is to use our bonus action to tranfer Hex to the manticore. Then we use our action to cast Scorching Ray at the Manticore using a 4th level spell slot, making 5 attacks, 3 of which hit. It takes a total of 39 damage and is pushed 5 feet. The warlord passes his save to stay on the mount. We move as far as we can from the manticore while ducking behind a tree for cover. (Manticore HP: 29)

The manticore rushes toward us, closing 100 feet and bringing both it and its rider into melee range of us. the warlord strikes at us with his shield, we cast shield using a 3rd level slot and block it. He tries again and misses, and again, this time hitting. He deals us 21 damage including his martial advantage ability, reducing us to 59 hp. We pass our save to stay standing and our concentration save to maintain hex.

Well it's our turn now, so we cast Quickened Dimension Door to get about 120 feet north of the pair. Then we cast Eldritch Blast at the Manticore. All three attacks hit, dealing 36 damage to it, killing it. The warlord falls 10 feet to the ground and takes 6 fall damage and is prone. (91 remaining)

On his turn the warlord stands and begins dashing toward us, taking care to keep in cover in the trees.

Rather than try to hit him while he's in cover (his AC is already very high) we'll use a bonus action to transfer hex to the warlord, take up a position with cover of our own, and ready Eldritch Blast for use when he steps out of cover.

Which he does, and so we blast him.Two of the attacks hit him as he steps out from behind a tree, dealing 36 damage and pushing him 25 feet back away from us. (warlord HP: 55) He has to dash just to get back to where he started his turn.

We have just 1 3rd level slot and 6 sorcery points remaining. I use a bonus action to turn my 6 sorcery points into a 4th level slot, then once again I ready Eldritch Blast for if he steps out of cover.

He does, but this time he takes the dodge action first, so our attacks are made with disadvantage. One of the three attacks hits, dealing 18 damage and pushing him back 15 feet. (HP: 37) He doesn't have enough movement left to get to cover.

At this point I should just end him with eldrich blasts, but I feel like I'm committed to casting Wall of Fire now that I've converted my sorcery points. So I do, I cast Wall of Fire in a ring around him. As a bonus action I convert my 3rd level slot into 3 sorcery points.

He throws himself through the wall of fire on his turn, taking 27 points of damage (10 HP remaining) and he charges toward us, dashing again, desperate. He ends his turn in melee range of us.

We unload a full eldrich blast into him at disadvantage from being in melee. All the attacks miss. We cast a quickened EB and the first beam hits, dealing 21 damage and killing him, ending the gauntlet.

[Fumble]

Would love to see more builds.

[Frogreaver]

Ran the first build through the encounters I detailed above, the no-subclass fighter. He died during the final fight, after killing the manticore and leaving the warlord at 33 HP. Most of the other fights were cakewalks with only minimal damage taken. If the rolls had gone just a little different the last battle could have gone the other way, 33 HP is just ~2 extra attacks landing with SS.

Attaching my notes here if anyone wants to see how it went: Fighter 11 (No subclass)

Custom Race, +2 Dex, Sharpshooter, 17 Dex
4- +2 Dex (19)
6- +1 Dex, +1 Con (20/16)
8- Martial Initiate (Quick Toss)

Gear:
Longbow with an arbitrary number of silvered arrows
Studded Leather
Two Shortswords
An arbitrary number of nets
An arbitrary number of silvered darts
Msc Adventuring Stuff

HP- 103

Tree trunks are large enough to provide 3/4 cover when right behind it. The leaves/branches of the trees provide 1/2 cover from attacks from above the tree line.

Encounter 1

Roll Initiative
PC- 23
W1- 12
w2- 22
w3- 17
w4- 6
w5- 5
w6- 7

PC has the first turn. He figures that if he uses sharpshooter he can take out each wasp in 1 hit, so he does, firing three attacks using the attack action.

Results are 8, 12, and 24 vs the wasps' AC of 12. Each hit does a minimum of 16 damage, so I won't even bother rolling: two wasps are dead

Wasps have an int of 1, so they don't have any regard for tactics beyond a desire to stick together in a nasty swarm. They double move toward the PC, closing 100 feet.

The PC takes his next turn, firing off another three arrows with sharpshooter. Results are 21, 17 and 11, two more hits, two more kills. He draws one of his shortswords, expecting to need to melee the next round.

The remaining two wasps close in on the PC's position and attack him once each with their stingers. Results are 10 and 22 vs the fighter's AC of 18, one hit for 6 Damage. He rolls a 16 to resist the poison and takes half of 3d6 damage, which comes out to another 6 hp gone. His HP is down to 89/103

Dropping his bow and drawing his second shortsword, the fighter attacks the wasps 3 times with his attack action, the first two attacks are a 24 and a 13, dealing 14 damage to one of the two remaining wasps, killing it. The third attack is a critical hit, dealing 12 damage to the last wasp, leaving it nearly dead. As a bonus action he attacks with his off-hand shortsword, the attack is a 20 after attack modifiers, and the hit removes the wasp's last remaining hitpoint, killing it and ending the first encounter.

He has little time to celebrate (just a moment to rest himself back to wielding his bow), as soon he encounters a pair of allosauruses!

Initiative
PC- 15
A1- 13
A2- 3

The PC goes first, Firing 3 rounds into the first Allosaurus using sharpshooter, 15, 9, and 21, two hits vs the allosaur's 13 AC, for 35 damage. Knowing this will be a much harder fight than the last, he uses his action surge to fire another 3 rounds, 25, 16 and 13, three hits. The first attack deals 20 damage, killing the first allosaurus. The second two attacks deal 36 damage to second.

Enraged, the surviving allosaur charges, covering 120 feet.

The PC casually tosses a net at the creature using Quick Toss, hitting with an attack roll of 27 and restraining the allosaurus. He then unloads three arrows into the creature with advantage and sharpshooter: Attack rolls of 24, 12 and 23 result in two hits for 34 damage, killing the creature.

He then gets a short rest, where he recovers his action surge and his superiority dice, and he spends 1 hit die to recover 1d10+3 hp. A roll of 12 means he's back at full, 103 hp.

Feeling pretty good, he continues on until he comes across a pretty sizeable gaggle of kobolds, most of them the winged variety.

Initiative

U1- 17
U2- 18
U3- 21
K1- 18

PC- 16

U4- 8
U5- 14
U6- 5
U7- 11
K2- 7
K3- 3

4 of the kobolds, 3 urds and 1 of the standard variety, beat the PC for initiative. The urds fly up into the leaves of the trees and attempt to hide in the dense foliage. Their stealth checks are 10, 13, and 20 against the PC's passive perception of 15, leaving one successfully hidden, the others visible. The landbound kobold advances into long range for his sling and launches an attack against the PC with disadvantage. A very lucky pair of rolls gets hims a 19, which hits the fighter's 18 AC, dealing 4 points of damage, leaving our hero at 99 HP.

The fighter takes his turn. Not bothering with sharpshooter against these little nuscances, fires his arrows at the two unhidden urds and the kobold who bonked him with the sling stone. 17, 24 and a nat 1 results in two hits on the urds in the trees. The first takes 7 points of damage and dies. The second takes just 6 and hangs on to life by a thread. Our hero moves casually to a nearby tree to take advantage of cover.

The remainder of the kobolds take their turns. No faith remains in hiding in the trees as their cousin's corpse falls from one, so the urds charge, taking to the air and advanceing at full speed. The ordinary kobolds continue to fire their slings from long range while advancing, but none of them hit the well defended fighter behind the tree.

Our fighter takes another turn, firing his longbow at three of the advancing urds from his defensible position. 22, 30, and 18 all hit, killing all three. They take 11, 7 and 7 damage respectively.

The urds continue their advance, closing another 60 feet, nearly reaching his position. The kobolds fire another volley, again they miss every one.

Only three urds remain and our fighter fires an arrow at each, A 16, a nat 1, and a crit are the results, the first dealing just 6 damage to its target leaving it 1 hp. The crit kills its target, but we've still got 2 urds about to close in on our position! The fighter draws a shortsword.

The urds are now in melee range of the fighter, and their pack tactics cancel out their disadvantage for sunlight senstitivity! They both draw daggers and attack the fighter, Neither a 13 or a 10 hit our fighter, however. The slingers attack the fighter again, this time without disadvantage, but the tree our fighter is still standing behind provides 3/4 cover, enough to deflect all but a direct hit, and all attacks miss.

Our fighter uses his shortsword to attack the two urds in melee range of him, first attacking the badly wounded one, but the nat 1 misses. His second attack roll is a 19 and hits easily, slaying the creature. His third attack against the final urd misses with a roll of 12.

The final urd strikes again, missing with a roll of 7. The slingers try their luck again as they spread out to try to get a better angle, but even when they begin to loop around the tree to reduce its cover to 1/2, they still can't hit the fighter.

The fighter slashes the urd with his shortsword again, this time hitting with a roll of 23, but dealing just 6 points of damage. He strikes again with an attack roll of 14, killing it. Free again of any kobolds in melee range, he sheathes the shortsword and fires his remaining attack at one of the slingers, hitting with an attack roll of 30, killing it outright. He retreats to another tree, foiling the slingers' ongoing attempts to flank him.

Only two kobolds remaining, one of them draws his dagger and charges into melee range with the fighter, while the other continues to advance more slowly and fire attacks with his sling. It pays off as the slinger rolls a nat 20 on his attack roll and deals a whopping 7 points of damage to the fighter.

Annoyed to have to use his sword again, the fighter slashes at the kobold now in melee range, hitting with a 14 and slaying the creature with 6 points of damage. He then drops the sword and fires his two remaining attacks at the last kobold, hitting with a 13 and a 16 and killing it dead, ending the encounter. He has 92 hitpoints remaining.

And now the Night Hag. I'm going to assume she doesn't have the heartstone she needs to become ethereal (?) because otherwise the encounter would just be silly (and we'll have plenty of that with the phase spider)

Initiative
PC- 25
NH- 6

The PC goes first, dealing as much damage as possible, making 6 attacks by using action surge, each attack using sharpshooter. We roll well: a 23, a 23, a 23, a nat 20, an 11 and a 9 gives us three regular hits and one crit, for a total of 86 points of damage (26 remaining!). We move as far into a corner as we can to put maximum distance between us and the hag.

The hag shrieks and moves toward us, getting just barely into range for a magic missile volley, which she launches at us with gusto, dealing us 9 points of damage, bringing us to 83 hp.

We take another turn, making another three sharpshooter attacks. A 13 and a 16 miss the target, but another nat 20 crits, dealing 23 Points of damage, leaving the hag at just 3 HP. Again, we move further into the corner to maximize our distance from her (we REALLY don't want sleep cast on us!)

She moves toward us again, and again can just cast magic missile for 14 damage this time, putting us at 69 hp.

Knowing she's on the ropes because we're metagaming like mad, we're going to forgo sharpshooter in this next volley: our first attack hits with a roll of 25, and the hag dies with a horrible yowl.

Taking a well deserved short rest, the fighter spends hit dice until he returns to full hitpoints, using up 5.

+4
73
+7
80
+6
86
+9
95
+11
103/103


The phase spider-

A weird fight, but here goes.

Initiative-
PC- 7
S- 15

Of course we lose initiative in the one fight where it really makes a huge difference.

The spider goes first and vanishes into the etherial realm and moves as fast as it can torward us, closing 60 feet, not that we can see it happening.

On our turn we take the dodge action and move into the open so we can't cornered.

On its turn it dashes toward us again, and is not in melee range of us. Again, we can't see this happening.

We dodge again.

It makes its move and phases back in to try and bite us, at disadvantage due to dodge. It rolls a 10 and misses.

On our turn we back up 5 feet and the spider tries an opportunity attack, barely missing with a 17. We unload 3 attacks into it using sharpshooter, a 14, an 11 and a 15 rsulting in 2 hits against its 13 AC, dealing 38 points of damage, enough to kill it.

Next is the big fight for all the marbles, the hobgoblin warlord and his manticore. The warlord will begin combat mounted on the manticore. The manticore is an independant mount.

Initiative
M- 23
PC- 12
W- 5

The manticore wins initiative, and immediately takes to the air, flying up about 50 feet towards us, flinging three tail spikes at us! With attack rolls of 20, 22 and 17, it hits us twice, dealing us 13 points of damage, putting us at 90/103

On our turn we again take cover behind a nearby tree and attempt to take down the manticore quickly, attacking six times using action surge and sharpshooter. I roll horribly, 9, nat 1, and 11, for every attack a miss on the first three attacks. My next three attack rolls are an 18, an 8, and a 25, for two hits dealing 39 damage, brining the manticore to 29.

The warlord takes turn, shouting words of encouragement to his horrible ally and urging the creature to advance with haste. (He activates his Leadership ability.)

The manticore obeys its master's command and dashes forward, closing the gap and entering melee range of the fighter!

The fighter decides its worth it to try to eat opportunity attacks and backs away. The Manticore attempts to bite the fighter and misses with a 16. The warlord swings at the fighter with his shield and hits with a 24, dealing 4 damage, plus 19 from his martial advantage (67/103) and forcing the fighter to attempt a strength save or be knocked prone. We fail the save and hit the ground, forcing us to use half our movement to stand, so we can only get 15 feet away from the pair. Quick Toss to toss a net at the manticore, we hit with a largely wasted nat 20, entangling the beast. We use our action to attack it with SS and advantage. The first attack hits with a 16, dealing 19 points of damage, taking it to 10 hp. The second hits with a 24, killing the manticore. The warlord falls prone as his mount collapses beneath him. My third attack goes for the warlord. The attack is made with disadvantage because he's prone, and it misses with a nat 1.

The warlord stands and advances on the fighter with his sword drawn, striking first with his shield to attempt to knock the fighter prone, hitting with a 23 and dealing 6 damage (61/103). The fighter passes his save with a 20, so the warlord tries again, striking with his shield again with a 25, dealing 4 damage (57/103). The fighter saves with a 21 and stays standing, so the hobgoblin hits him with the shield again, hitting with a 21, dealing 5 damage (52/103). The fighter barely saves with a 15.

On the fighter's turn he eats another OA and backs away, facing another shield bash from the hobgoblin, which misses on a 16. We back up 30 feet and attack him 3 times using sharpshooter. We get one crit, then two misses at 8 and 10. The crit deals 30 damage, leaving the warlord at 67 HP.

These tactics play out for the duration of the fight. On his turns the warlord will use his shield to attempt to prone to the fighter, while the fighter will keep backing away to hit the warlord with ranged attacks.

Warlord attacks Strikes:
3 hits, Shield (prone, save failed) sword, sword, 19 damage total (33/103)

Stand retreat shield OA (miss)
3x Attack with SS, miss miss hit, 21 damage (warlord HP: 46)

Warlord attacks:
Miss, hit (7 dmg, prone), miss (fighter hp: 26/103)

Stand retreat, shield OA (Hit 4 damage, prone again) (Fighter HP 22)
Can't back away! Stand again, Ranged attacks made at disadvantage, no SS.
2 hits one miss, 13 damage (warlord HP: 33)

Warlord attacks
shield (hit, 7 dmg, saved) (fighter hp 15)
shield (miss)
shield (miss)

Stand retreat, shield OA (Hit, 6 damage, saved) (fighter hp 16)
Three attacks with SS (All miss!)

Warlord attacks
shield (hit 4 dmg, prone)
sword (hit 7 dmg)
sword (hit 5 dmg) (Fighter HP: 0)

Result: Fighter dead, final boss has 33 HP remaining.

This took a while. I intend to run other builds through the same encounters, but if you guys get impatient feel free to do it yourselves. And yes, I'm sure there were better ways to build this fighter. Crossbow mastery would have probably won me the last encounter over Martial Initiate since I wouldn't have had to back out of melee all the time.

Was there disadvantage for when enemies closed into melee?

[Damon_Tor]

Was there disadvantage for when enemies closed into melee?

Yes, as per the "Ranged Attacks in Close Combat" rule.

[Damon_Tor]

Running into a problem wile running the Bard archer through the gauntlet: As a 10th level bard he has access to Find Greater Steed and thus a source of at-will flight. This trivializes basically the entire gauntlet: even the encounters that include flying creatures can be kited vertically indefinitely under the scenario outlined here, the superior speed of either the griffon or pegasus and the range of our longbow totally making the flight speed of the wasps, kobolds and manticore irrelevant.

Points in favor of the bard, I guess? In retrospect I should have set these encounters in an interior environment to avoid this sort of thing.

[Ir0ns0ul]

I was thinking about on how to optimize around Grasping Arrow and the fact that you don’t have a reliable bonus action usage since CBE is not a viable option for Arcane Archers (at least until level 7).

Poisoner feat came to my mind, which would help offset some poison resistance (although poison immunity is quite prevalent) and offer some good option for your bonus action.

On a second thought, Hex also appeared to be a good thing, mainly because it would give disadvantage on the Athletics checks of our Grasping Arrow targets, and of course put our bonus action into usage with some ok extra damage; nowadays you can grab Hex through Fey Touched, which is a great feat or simply multiclassing into Warlock for the short rest spell slot recharge (or even both).

I ended up with a vHuman, getting Poisoner with my free feat, going straight 3 levels of Fighter for Arcane Archer and then multiclassing into Daolock at level 4 for short rest Hex.

At round 1 we are causing 2d6 (no save and no resistance) poison damage with Grasping Arrow + 1d8+3 (Longbow) + 1d6 (Hex) + 2 (PB from Daolock). At round 2 the enemy has the hard choice to use his action and try to save against Grasping Arrow with disadvantage, otherwise he will take +2d6 slashing damage and we will follow-up with the potent poison from Poisoner feat potentially adding +2d8 into this account, although it’s a CON save, so not so easy to apply.

Potential damage for this at level 5, assuming 18 DEX and a dream situation where the opponent failed his saves is 2d6 (Grasping Arrow) + 2d8 (Potent Poison) + 2d8+6 (Longbow) + 2d6 (Hex) + 3 (PB from Daolock), which gives us 37.6 of avg DPR. If the enemy passes the poisoner CON save, it’s 28.6 avg DPR, still quite reliable.

Although just having two arcane shots per short rest sounds bad, specially if we consider Battlemaster has 4 SDs at this stage, the thing is that a boosted Grasping Arrow can be effectively an encounter-winning move on the fashion of great spells like Web, Hypnotic Pattern, etc. It’s not only really good damage potential, but also forces enemies into waste their action, and since it’s a Athletics check, not even legendary saves would work. Not bad at all.

[Kane0]

The point of Swarmkeeper or Daolock + Crusher is to do that push as soon as you land the Grasping Arrow, which adds the 2d6 slashing damage as well as the control of pushing and slowing an enemy forcing then to choose between taking more damage or use their action on the check. Although there is no reason you cant just apply some poison to some arrows beforehand if you get the chance to anyways.

Poisoner isnt a really a great feat because poison immunity is way more common than poison resistance, and both the ranger and warlock option gives you access to a BA optipn in the form of hunters mark or hex respectively without needing to use another feat on it. Favored Foe is also another alternative, but honestly id go with the warlock option since its a smaller dip, hex recharges on a short rest and also imposes disadvantage on those checks against grasping arrow but its nice to have alternatives if your stats arent right for the multiclass.

If youre going Vuman, i'd say just start with Crusher and use a sling to push as needed until you can get your combo up and running (level 4-6 depending on when you want Extra Attack)

And youre right, the no save, no resistance part of the damage is really nice in combination with the control aspect. You might only get two per rest, but its extremely unlikely to be wasted.

[Ir0ns0ul]

Oh mine, sorry man, I have seen Ensnaring Shot in your original post and I was thinking about some homebrew you created for Arcane Archer. Completely misread it. Definitely the combination of Daolock and Crusher is more effective.

[Kane0]

Oh nah when making the first post I mixed up ensnaring strike and grasping arrow in my head, typed in the wrong thing.

[anamiac]

My opinion isn't that Arcane archery is bad compared to non-fighter archers, but rather that people who don't like Arcane Archery are simply looking at it compared to other fighter subclasses.

Therefore, I've got an archery build to throw in for the test, if anyone is interested:
Level 3 Assassin/Level 8 samurai/fighter with dex 20 and Elven Accuracy & Sharpshooter feats, expertise in stealth and perception.

[LudicSavant]

A gauntlet? Oh fun!

Here I'll take one. Kensei 9 / Fighter 2

VHuman / 20 Dex / Sharpshooter.
Archery style.
Very simple. Basically a standard Monk.


Kensei will always attempt to stealth out of combat. Just to be extra nice to these poor helpless monsters, we'll pretend they don't get Surprised when they fail their perception (even though that's totally what would happen, because the Monk has a decisive advantage in detection range over those Wis-dumping, half-plate-wearing clankers).

Also, we need to determine how tall these trees on the "straight forest road" map are, because no sane Monk is going to neglect verticality. I googled "how tall are forests" and the first result said 25 meters is normal for temperate forests, so I'm goin' with that. (Though it turns out that they curb stomp these fights so hard that this barely comes into play).

Encounter 1:
Kensei gets a 19 initiative, and a 17 on their stealth check. Team Giant Wasp has passive perception of 10 and gets an Init roll of 8+2=10.

Kensei opens from from a corner of the map about 135 feet away. Frankly, there is no reason for the Monk to be this generous -- after all, even if they didn't start already stealthed, they could have just Hidden upon winning initiative and repositioned wherever they wanted, including 600 feet away. But we'll have them stick on the map. We're being merciful to these helpless monsters.

Attack one: Attack with Advantage, breaking stealth and hitting for 16 with a minimum sharpshooter damage roll. That's enough to kill a wasp.
Attack two: 13, also a hit, kills the wasp even with another minimum damage roll.
Attack three: The Monk decides "oh what they hey I'll use a ki on Deft Strikes" and triggers a 3rd attack, killing a third wasp.

The Wasps move 100 feet.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967001721647792148/unknown.png
In a real game the Monk could just like... move backwards here, laughing at their movement ranges. But we're being nice. So he'll pretend there's an infinitely tall wall behind him or something, lol.

Anyways, the Monk just proceeds to fire arrows again. Pew! First shot rolls a 13... hit! Kills with minimum sharpshooter damage. Second shot rolls an 11... so they use Focused Aim to fix it. Third shot rolls a 13. All 3 wasps are dead before they cross the map to reach the Monk.

2 ki have been spent. 7 remain.

Encounter 2:
Allosaurus enters the field! Rawr!

Surprisingly, the Monk loses initiative, rolling 10 to the Allosaurus pack's 12. But it doesn't actually matter because the Monk rolled a 25 on Stealth.
Monk climbs up a tree using their wall-running, perches on a branch, and opens fire. 3 Attacks with Sharpshooter.
First attack with Advantage breaks hidden and hits. It rolls a 1 for damage... +15 = 16 damage. Second attack... a 9, really? I'll spend 2 ki to turn that into a hit for 19 damage, and also trigger my third attack. Third attack... 13, is a hit, 18 damage. Total 53 damage, enough to down the first Allosaurus.

Allosaurus watches the opening barrage kill its partner with two shots in the eyes and a third down its gullet. It roars and charges, crossing 120 feet.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967006197934862356/unknown.png

The Monk doesn't care. He's up in a tree and still has 5 ki and Action Surge and Second Wind left. Pfft.

He Action Surges and fires... and gets really bad rolls. 9, 14, 7, 13, 10. Still, has enough ki to turn two of those misses into hits, plus a Deft Strikes on top. This is frankly unnecessary overkill -- the allosaurus wouldn't have been able to climb the tree high enough to reach him next turn anyways. Damage comes out to... 81. So yeah, total overkill. The Monk didn't really need to spend resources here, but hey, short rest is coming, soooooo...

Encounter 3
Feeling fresh from their short rest, the Kensei goes into another fight.

The kobolds are going to be using stealth themselves, but don't beat the Monk's passive perception of 17, while the Monk's own 21 stealth check handily beats their perception. The kobolds can approach with cover but it yields nothing against Sharpshooter. And they advance painfully slowly with just a 30 foot fly speed.

This is going to be shooting fish in a barrel.

The Monk rolls low and loses initiative to both the winged and grounded kobolds, but still get the first shot off because of their stealth advantage. Since these are just kobolds, he opts not to use -5/+10 for a change. All shots hit. First shot kills. Second shot only gets a 6 on the damage roll so they use Deft Strikes (their smite-like ability), making it kill and triggering their third attack. Third attack kills.

The kobolds are panicking and running for cover as they watch 3 winged kobolds drop. The grounded kobolds fire back with their slings, but can't hit the Monk that's in 3/4 cover. The winged ones dash, hoping to use their dropped rocks.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967011519378391070/unknown.png

The Monk calmly nocks and fires from their treetop perch. He decides to use his bonus action to get +1d4 damage on ranged attacks, electing to spend no more ki on this fight (they already used ONE ki. And they don't know what they're going to fight next combat). They shoot down 2 Winged Kobolds.

Next turn, basically the same thing. Grounded kobolds advance, use slings, take cover (not that it matters). Winged kobolds dash. Monk effortlessly shoots down the last two winged kobolds. All 3 grounded kobold slings miss.

Next, 2 grounded kobolds die. The remaining one misses, then dies.

The Monk is undamaged. They have used 1/9 ki and no other resources.

Encounter 4
A Night Hag! Finally, a creature with an actual approach vector: It can traverse the Ethereal plane with its Heartstone! And it can Plane Shift! If they don't finish it off quickly, it will be a persistent annoyance, possibly for days.

That could be annoying, so the Monk decides to take it to melee this time. They get a 24 on their Stealth, get up close with their battleaxe in two hands (which counts as magical because of their level 6 ability), and attack.

First attack breaks stealth and hits with a 24. They spend 1 ki for Stunning Strike... and the Hag fails their Con save. The Monk grins, knowing they have already won this fight.

They drop their battleaxe, draw their bow, and proceed to unload Sharpshooter shots with Advantage, adding on a second attack, a 3rd bonus action attack, and a 4th and 5th attack with Action Surge. They spend 3 ki -- 2 on Focused Aim (seriously I keep rolling bad even with Advantage and Archery style and max Dex), 1 on Deft Strikes. They do a total of 97 damage on round 1, and the Night Hag is stunned, preventing them from going ethereal or escaping to another plane to harass the Monk later.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967017743788441610/unknown.png

Round 2, the Night Hag is still stunned (because it lasts to the end of the Monk's NEXT turn). The Monk casually finishes off the Night Hag (dealing 37 damage in two attacks) without the Hag having any chance to take an action... or even realize what hit them.

They still have a bunch of ki left. And still haven't taken any damage from this gauntlet. They take their second short rest on schedule, and are disappointed that they won't get to spend any of their hit dice today. They whisper a prayer to Kord to bless them with stronger enemies, so that they might improve their martial arts.

Encounter 5:
Phase Spider is a squishy boi. We shoot it and it dies in two attacks, without getting to do anything. However, my bad luck strikes again and I use not one but 2 ki on Focused Aim.

Encounter 6:
Manticore ridden by a hobgoblin warlord. Well, Team Monster, this is your last chance to try and... like... actually do something.

Init: Monk 16, Manticore 8, Hobgob 6.

Monk still has 7 ki left, and an Action Surge and Second Wind.

He takes aim at the manticore first, of course. First attack: Hit (with 24), second attack: Hit (with 14), Action Surge third attack: Hit (14), fourth attack: (hit, 12+2, 1 ki on Focused Aim). Damage from those 4 Sharpshooter hits is (1+15)+(1+15)+(3+15)+(4+15). Yes, that's right, I rolled below average damage on every attack, but it's okay, the Manticore's still dead and I still have my bonus action attack left (triggered by that Focused Aim). So now I take aim at the Hobgoblin, who fell prone. I decide not to use -5/+10 as a result. I hit with a 21... psyche, the Hobgoblin parries. I could use ki to turn that back into a hit, but I decide not to. I wasn't using -5/+10 anyways, and the gobbo is still far away.

I have 6 ki left.

The Hobgoblin grumbles about its useless mount dying before it can even move, gets up from Prone, Dashes, then drops prone again (which is actually faster than advancing with Dodge). He knows that throwing javelins is basically a trap option, so doesn't (if he did, I'd just Deflect Missiles it for free).
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967033981923131443/unknown.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967033784442695680/unknown.png

Round 2:
Since he's giving me Disadvantage to hit, and has a parry, I... miss all my attacks. Despite not using -5/+10, despite Archery style, etc. I don't even get within a (reasonable cost) Focused Aim range.

This hobgoblin uses half movement to get up from prone, moves 15 feet, dashes another 30 feet, drops prone behind cover. And since we're pretending that the Monk can't just walk backwards and leave the map, this guy's actually starting to close the distance! And isn't dead yet! Has Kord granted our prayers for an enemy that actually has a chance of scratching us?

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967034245719670804/unknown.png
"You can do it little guy! We believe in you! Go get to that pesky Monk in a tree! Work that Disadvantage and 23 AC!"

Round 3: The Monk shoots again. "I got a 27 and a 17!" (That's a miss). "I got another 27 and a 19!" (That's a miss too, pal). The Monk shrugs, still maintaining his zen.
The Hobgoblin sneers and advances.

Now the hobgoblin here has a few choices. They could try to throw javelins (against a Monk with deflect missiles, cover, and disadvantage from the range penalty? LOL fat chance). They could do their "move 45 feet and fall prone" thing again, but the Monk could drop down and melee them with Advantage if they did that (though the gob might not expect Slow Fall, since the Monk is 60 feet high). They could get up and Dodge, moving only 15 feet. Or they could get up and dash and NOT drop prone (but abandon their Disadvantage to be hit).

Let's say they go with the get up and Dodge. They move just 15 feet, and then on round 4 they move another 30 feet and Dodge again, getting them to the base of the tree. Then they start climbing, at a rate of 15 feet a round, while climbing. So that takes them another 4 rounds.

So it'll take them uh... 5 rounds to approach that way, if they Dash on the 5th round. So our Monk gets to make a ton of attacks in that time. Out of 10 attacks, only 3 slip past the 23 and Disadvantage to hit (despite their +11 attack bonus). They do a total of 36 damage (finally getting some meaty rolls on those longbow d8s). But the Hobgoblin isn't even Bloodied yet.

But the Monk hasn't been spending ki, either. He's just been waiting, firing arrows at the turtle as it approaches, biding his energy.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967037544422330388/unknown.png
"I've got you now, archer! I'll shield bash you out of your damn tree and you'll splatter on the ground!"

Okay, so the Hobgoblin is finally in melee range after their Dash. The Monk smiles, and congratulates the hobgoblin for getting to the top of the tree. He uses Slow Fall, drops without provoking an OA, and runs 45 feet away from the base of the tree, ending their turn behind cover... but not before firing off a few more arrows.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/445485023299108875/967039863717257216/unknown.png

At this point, the hobgoblin warlord howls in frustration, and finally tries to throw a damn javelin from the tree branch. He misses, of course, he hasn't a chance in hell of hitting the Monk with Disadvantage and cover.

And now that the hobgoblin doesn't have Disadvantage to be hit, the Monk fires and hits all 3 shots, knocking them down 30 hp.

The hobgoblin is looking pretty dejected. They are completely out of ideas. They can't catch up to the Monk to use melee. They can't hit them with javelins. They try to surrender. The Monk says "train and get stronger. Perhaps one day, you shall hit me."

(Or the Monk just takes their next turn and finishes them off, if you wanna be like that)

So uhm... yeah. Nothing in this gauntlet had the tools it needed to both survive the Monk's alpha strike and actually reach the Monk and do damage. Even if the Manticore had hypothetically survived the Monk's first turn (easier said than done, probability-wise, since I had enough ki to Focused Aim all I wanted even with my lame rolls), what was it gonna do? Its ranged attacks (even with the benefit of the hobgoblin's Leadership) are worthless against cover and Deflect Missiles, and it's not fast enough to get there in time to melee attack the Monk. And while it would have dropped the hobgoblin closer, the hobgoblin still had no way to actually catch up to the Monk, who could effortlessly kite them forever.

And this would have been even worse for Team Monster if I wasn't giving Team Monster favorable assumptions (I made them all immune to Surprise, pretended the forest was surrounded by a wall the Monk couldn't/wouldn't move past, and gave the Night Hag their full repertoire unlike the Fighter example done above).

In the future I'd like to see a gauntlet with more challenging encounters. And maybe a party.

[Fumble]

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