Greywander
2022-04-27, 05:56 PM
You might be familiar with the rather abserd (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZCIh_3b5K8) concept of dipping 1 level into every class. That's not what this is about. Though a number of classes and subclasses have quite useful abilities that are frontloaded, meaning we can pick up a broad variety of useful abilities by dipping into several classes. What I'm curious about is if we can make something that's viable in combat while also having good out-of-combat utility thanks to all these dips?
As a couple examples, we have the Echo Knight's echo. It's at-will, so there's no resource expenditure. This means we can always make use of it any time it comes in handy. Aside from its combat potential, we can also use it as a form of at-will teleportation. The max range is 60 feet, and also the echo can apparently fly. It may or may not be able to go through walls (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?645252-Can-the-Echo-Knight-s-echo-go-through-walls), but we can still use it to teleport through walls, albeit by a bit more circuitous means.
To teleport through a wall, you have to first summon a familiar to the other side of the wall. We don't need to see where we summon the familiar to, only that the spot is unoccupied and within range. We can then see through our familiar's senses as an action, then use a bonus action to create the echo in a spot we can see. Since we can see the other side of the wall, we can create the echo there. On our next turn, we can teleport through.
Speaking of familiars, another great dip is into warlock for Pact of the Chain. Find Familiar is already a great spell, but the additional options added by Pact of the Chain make it even better. Voice of the Chain Master and Investment of the Chain Master can make the familiar even better (though I think the latter is optional). It's a bit outdated, but an older thread of mine details many of the things you can do with an imp familiar (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?571635-The-many-uses-of-an-imp-familiar).
Another feature I had in mind was Minor Conjuration. The Conjurer subclass has never been of particular interest to me, for some reason I'm just not into summoning, but despite that I really like their 2nd level feature. Again, this is at-will, so you can use it as much as you want. You can just straight up create an item out of nothing and have it for up to 1 hour. And after that, you can just conjure the item again if you want. You can only have one item at a time, but even so it's great utility.
Another good feature is Wild Shape. Being able to turn into a number of different animals has a lot of utility value. Not sure if it makes sense to go Moon druid for access to the additional forms, since it doesn't give you access to swimming or flying forms any earlier, and you're probably not using these for combat if you're just dipping.
Aside from that, I'm not sure what else might make for a good dip. I feel like rogue, bard, cleric, and/or ranger might be good choices, but I'm undecided on subclass picks. I'm also not sure about warlock or druid subclasses, though I'm leaning strongly toward Genie for warlock (since the benefits scale with proficiency bonus, and are pretty nice). Shepherd has an interesting feature in being able to talk to animals, but the other feature mostly scales with druid level, so not great for a dip.
If we're dipping into warlock, then perhaps the best option for combat viability is Eldritch Blast. We might want to push warlock as far as 5th level in order to get that third invocation, allowing us to grab Agonizing and Repelling Blast, in addition to Voice of the Chain Master. That, plus the Genie patron, will help us to pull some weight in combat. (Plus, we can also ghostlance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZeSm9v-ujc).) We'll also have access to 3rd level spells, with two short rest slots and however many long rest slots, so we can throw out some decent leveled spells.
Not sure what race would be a good fit for this. I feel like something like dhampir for spiderclimb or hexblood for spooky utility features, or a flying race maybe. What would even be the backstory/personality for such a character? Maybe go hexblood or fairy and fluff yourself as some kind of fey trickster.
In summary, probably a Genielock 5 / Echo Knight 3 or 4 / Conjurer 2 / Druid 2 / +others. EB for our main attack. At-will teleportation (including through walls) via our echo, chainlock superfamiliar, Minor Conjuration, Wild Shape, and plenty of room for more dips. Heck, this sounds a lot like a trickster build I tried, and failed, to make RAW some time ago.
As a couple examples, we have the Echo Knight's echo. It's at-will, so there's no resource expenditure. This means we can always make use of it any time it comes in handy. Aside from its combat potential, we can also use it as a form of at-will teleportation. The max range is 60 feet, and also the echo can apparently fly. It may or may not be able to go through walls (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?645252-Can-the-Echo-Knight-s-echo-go-through-walls), but we can still use it to teleport through walls, albeit by a bit more circuitous means.
To teleport through a wall, you have to first summon a familiar to the other side of the wall. We don't need to see where we summon the familiar to, only that the spot is unoccupied and within range. We can then see through our familiar's senses as an action, then use a bonus action to create the echo in a spot we can see. Since we can see the other side of the wall, we can create the echo there. On our next turn, we can teleport through.
Speaking of familiars, another great dip is into warlock for Pact of the Chain. Find Familiar is already a great spell, but the additional options added by Pact of the Chain make it even better. Voice of the Chain Master and Investment of the Chain Master can make the familiar even better (though I think the latter is optional). It's a bit outdated, but an older thread of mine details many of the things you can do with an imp familiar (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?571635-The-many-uses-of-an-imp-familiar).
Another feature I had in mind was Minor Conjuration. The Conjurer subclass has never been of particular interest to me, for some reason I'm just not into summoning, but despite that I really like their 2nd level feature. Again, this is at-will, so you can use it as much as you want. You can just straight up create an item out of nothing and have it for up to 1 hour. And after that, you can just conjure the item again if you want. You can only have one item at a time, but even so it's great utility.
Another good feature is Wild Shape. Being able to turn into a number of different animals has a lot of utility value. Not sure if it makes sense to go Moon druid for access to the additional forms, since it doesn't give you access to swimming or flying forms any earlier, and you're probably not using these for combat if you're just dipping.
Aside from that, I'm not sure what else might make for a good dip. I feel like rogue, bard, cleric, and/or ranger might be good choices, but I'm undecided on subclass picks. I'm also not sure about warlock or druid subclasses, though I'm leaning strongly toward Genie for warlock (since the benefits scale with proficiency bonus, and are pretty nice). Shepherd has an interesting feature in being able to talk to animals, but the other feature mostly scales with druid level, so not great for a dip.
If we're dipping into warlock, then perhaps the best option for combat viability is Eldritch Blast. We might want to push warlock as far as 5th level in order to get that third invocation, allowing us to grab Agonizing and Repelling Blast, in addition to Voice of the Chain Master. That, plus the Genie patron, will help us to pull some weight in combat. (Plus, we can also ghostlance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZeSm9v-ujc).) We'll also have access to 3rd level spells, with two short rest slots and however many long rest slots, so we can throw out some decent leveled spells.
Not sure what race would be a good fit for this. I feel like something like dhampir for spiderclimb or hexblood for spooky utility features, or a flying race maybe. What would even be the backstory/personality for such a character? Maybe go hexblood or fairy and fluff yourself as some kind of fey trickster.
In summary, probably a Genielock 5 / Echo Knight 3 or 4 / Conjurer 2 / Druid 2 / +others. EB for our main attack. At-will teleportation (including through walls) via our echo, chainlock superfamiliar, Minor Conjuration, Wild Shape, and plenty of room for more dips. Heck, this sounds a lot like a trickster build I tried, and failed, to make RAW some time ago.