Help me build the most broken fighter I can!

[Mikimof2]

The rules are:
5 levels, and single-class.
The stat array (for some reason) is 16/15/14/12/10/8
The books allowed (besides Core) are Xanathar and Tasha.
Thanks.

[Dualswinger]

If you’re allowed a simple uncommon item, having blindsight and an eversmoking bottle can make you near impossible to find while you dart into and out of the fray.

[Mastikator]

Just go with the standard xbow master and sharpshooter that has been available since 2014? Tasha's let you go custom lineage so you can start your dex at 18 on level 1. Battlemaster or samurai are good options. Samurai especially if you're not using a hand crossbow. Battlemaster with ambush if you want go before the enemies and take one out before it has its turn.

[Unoriginal]

The rules are:
5 levels, and single-class.
The stat array (for some reason) is 16/15/14/12/10/8
The books allowed (besides Core) are Xanathar and Tasha.
Thanks.

Lvl 5 Psi Warrior Fighter is pretty good.

[da newt]

Broken huh?

Purple Knight, small race, pike, 8 ST, 12 DX, 10 CON, chain mail for reduced speed, etc

[J-H]

Wood Elf Dexterity-based Samurai, melee. Go sword and board with a rapier. Take the Interception fighting style, and Elven Accuracy for your feat. Criminal/Spy background

HP 49
Speed 35'
AC 18 w/ Breastplate & Shield
Str 12, Dex 18 [started 15], Con 16, Int 8, Wis 11 [started 10], Cha 14
Saves: Str +4, Con +6
Skills: Athletics +4, Deception +5, History +2, Perception +3, Persuasion +5, Stealth +7 (+ Mask of the Wild for better hiding)
Attack
2 Attacks +7 for 1d8+4 with rapier, or dagger 20'/60' +7 for 1d4+4
Bonus actions
Fighting spirit: 3x/LR +5 temp HP and elven advantage (roll 3d20, or 2d20 + reroll lowest) until the end of your turn
Second Wind 1d10+5 1/SR
Reactions
When a creature you can see hits a target, other than you, within 5 ft. of you with an attack, you can use your reaction to reduce the damage the target takes by 1d10+3 (to a minimum of 0 damage). You must be wielding a shield or a simple or martial weapon to use this reaction.
Also: Action Surge 1/SR, which lets you make 4 attacks in one turn when you're using Elven Fighting Spirit.

You have the skills to be a reasonable party face, and a decent party scout.
Your AC is a bit low, but your speed is a bit above average, so you can get to where you need to be in combat. Once you're there and next to an ally, you can block an average of 8 damage per round. Over 10 rounds of combat in a day, that's 80hp in damage prevention. Pair with another fighter who has Interception and it can get ridiculous.
Your damage is decent, but reliant on magic weapons for improvement as usual for Fighters.
In a clutch (3/day) you can give yourself a buffer of temp HP and enough d20s that you're almost guaranteed to hit.
If you use your Second Wind and all 3 Fighting Spirits in a boss fight, you have 1d10+20hp of self healing, which is about a 50% boost above your regular HP.

I wouldn't call this broken exactly, but it's got a good amount of utility for both social and combat encounters. For exploration challenges, you still have stealth, perception, and physical skills.

[RogueJK]

There's not really any truly broken build you can achieve with just those three books (PHB, XGTE, TCOE) and 5 levels of single-classed fighter. The only Level 5 martial builds that start to approach "broken" territory rely on multiclass combos and/or other races/classes/subclasses (such as PAM/GWM Echo Knight or PAM/GWM Darkness/Devil's Sight Eldritch Smite Bladelock)


The best you're going to achieve within your limited parameter would be semi-optimized above-average damage compared to other 5th level martial PCs. If that's what you're wanting, look at ways to gain a third attack like Polearm Master or (Hand) Crossbow Master, combined with the Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter feat, plus a means to occasionally help offset the associated GWM/SS attack penalty such as the Advantage from the Samurai subclass and/or Tiefling racial Darkness + Blind Fighting style, or from the Battle Master's Precision Attack maneuver.

Something like this would be doing above average damage output for a 5th level martial:
Custom Lineage Samurai Fighter 5
STR 16+2
DEX 10
CON 15
INT 8
WIS 14
CHA 12
ASIs: Polearm Master at Level 1, Great Weapon Master at Level 4. Then be planning for Sentinel next.
Great Weapon or Defense Fighting Style
Wear Heavy Armor and use a Halberd or Glaive.

You have a reliable use of your Bonus Action in every turn, either with a third 1d4 PAM BA attack, a third 1d10 GWM BA attack if you downed an enemy or crit, or Fighting Spirit.

When fighting low AC enemies or in situations when you otherwise have Advantage you can utilize GWM's -5/+10 to greatly boost your damage.

And you can combo Fighting Spirit and Action Surge to make 4x -5/+10 attacks in one turn, with Advantage on all of them to help offset GWM's attack penalty, potentially landing 4d10+56 damage in that single turn.


Or


Custom Lineage Battle Master Fighter 5
STR 8
DEX 16+2
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 15
CHA 10
ASIs: Crossbow Master at Level 1, Sharpshooter at Level 4. Then be planning for either Resilient WIS or Skill Expert (+1 WIS, Stealth Expertise) next, followed by 20 DEX.
Archery Fighting Style
Precision Attack, Pushing Attack, and Ambush maneuvers
Wear Light Armor and use a Hand Crossbow.

You have a reliable use of your Bonus Action in every turn with a third BA Hand Crossbow attack. And Sharpshooter extends out the normally short-ranged Hand Crossbow to 120'.

Archery fighting style brings Sharpshooter's attack penalty down to effectively just -3, so you can afford to use it more frequently. Then apply the Precision Shot maneuver when you really want to ensure a Sharpshooter shot lands.

And if you Action Surge, you can be making 5x -3/+10 attacks per turn, potentially landing up to 5d6+66 damage in a single turn.

[Corran]

If you’re allowed a simple uncommon item, having blindsight and an eversmoking bottle can make you near impossible to find while you dart into and out of the fray.
Goblin for bonus action hiding. Stealth proficiency. Recommended feat either one that gives you access to booming blade or expertise in stealth, depending on if you want to focus more on offense or defense.

==========================

Alternatively, longbow with mobile and sharpshooter. You have to stick with a medium sized race to be able to fire the longbow properly, and the two feats further shoehorn you into either a vhuman or a clineage. Athletics and acrobatics training highly recommended to defend against grapples, restraining effects and sometimes against uncooperative terrain or terrain that you want to make the most of.

For group play, find what works best and go with it. Eg are they missing dpr and they wouldnt mind an extra body up front? You could go with a PAM/ GWM battlemaster. Do they need a tank? You could go with a S&B EK. Do they lack ranged damage? Well, most subclasses can fill that role nicely, just pick the archery feats. Etc.

[Eldariel]

The strongest Fighter on this level is probably Echo Knight. Get Blind-Fighting, project your Echo, go e.g. PAM/GWM and profit.

Rune Knight and Battlemaster have more versatility but RK picks off in two levels while Echo Knight is already fully online; Battlemaster is mostly for archery (SS/XBE/Archery and profit).

[Dork_Forge]

I gotta second the call for Psi Warrior, it's a ton of fun and works well. I'd go sword and board and either take Dueling or Superior Technique.


The strongest Fighter on this level is probably Echo Knight. Get Blind-Fighting, project your Echo, go e.g. PAM/GWM and profit.

OP said books allowed are core and Xanathar's+TCoE, so Echo Knight would be unavailable. Good choice though.

[Waazraath]

I think the most obvious ones are mentioned already, these are imo a Battle Master with precicion attack and either SS/CBE or PAM/GWM - with the former being the stronger imo at these levels. The other one (blindsight fighting style + form of vision impairment) was mentioned in combination with a magic item, but could be pulled of with party optimization or a racial spell (though that would only be usable 1/day) - combine with sentinel for a very effective lockdown. (if your party can reliable provide things like fog cloud or darkness, I think this comes closest to 'broken').

Personally, I don't think either GWM or SS are really needed at this level - without items the -5 is quite steep, even with precision (and using precision maneuvers means you can't use them for something else). For a 'strongest' (always arguably and depending on a lot of things) but still not broken (you can't really break fighter 5) I'd argue somthing like spear & board with PAM and Heavy Armor Master, and a defense fighting style. 3 attacks, 4 with a reaction attack, AC 21, 18 str (with custom race), and -3 on every hit - that results in a very decent alrounder both defensively and offensively. And that's without subclass! Both the psi warrior as well as the battle master would give a lot of fun options, the latter being probably the strongest.

[RogueJK]

The other one (blindsight fighting style + form of vision impairment) was mentioned in combination with a magic item, but could be pulled of with party optimization or a racial spell (though that would only be usable 1/day)

One could extend it out to a few additional uses per day via Eldritch Knight. That'd be something like a Tiefling Eldritch Knight 5 with the Blind Fighting style, taking Fog Cloud as their 1st Level "any school" spell pick. This would allow them to do the "Blind Fighting + Vision Impairment" trick up to 4x per day: 1x per day racial Darkness + 3x per day 1st level slots for Fog Cloud.

But this runs the real risk of hampering the rest of the party. And unlike the Warlock's Darkness + Devil's Sight combo, your Darkness/Fog Cloud isn't totally see-through for you, since you only have Blindsight out to 10'. So once you defeat any immediately adjacent enemy/enemies, you're in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to being blinded.

[JonBeowulf]

Broken huh?

Purple Knight, small race, pike, 8 ST, 12 DX, 10 CON, chain mail for reduced speed, etc
Yep, this is what I was thinking. Burn your ASI on CHA while you're at it.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

One could extend it out to a few additional uses per day via Eldritch Knight. That'd be something like a Tiefling Eldritch Knight 5 with the Blind Fighting style, taking Fog Cloud as their 1st Level "any school" spell pick. This would allow them to do the "Blind Fighting + Vision Impairment" trick up to 4x per day: 1x per day racial Darkness + 3x per day 1st level slots for Fog Cloud.

But this runs the real risk of hampering the rest of the party. And unlike the Warlock's Darkness + Devil's Sight combo, your Darkness/Fog Cloud isn't totally see-through for you, since you only have Blindsight out to 10'. So once you defeat any immediately adjacent enemy/enemies, you're in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to being blinded.

This seems to me the only 'broken' thing on the list, given that Echo Knight is unavailable. Getting both reliable advantage + disadvantage for multiple characters easily is so broken, we don't build around it as a full group, because most level appropriate encounters can be trivialized. We do have a larger party I play with where 2 of the 6 of us use this tactic on occasion when enemies are spread out and the rest of us can act without impediment.

[RogueJK]

I know it's not in the allowed books for the OP, but Echo Knight has been mentioned a couple times already, and I can confirm that at in Tiers 1 and 2 it's about as broken as one can get in a Fighter.

My Level 5 Echo Knight was routinely dropping 7x attacks in a turn, a couple times each day:

*Action*
Attack
Extra Attack
Unleash Incarnation

*Action Surge*
Attack
Extra Attack
Unleash Incarnation

*Bonus Action*
PAM Attack

I also frequently had Advantage (especially since after Fighter 5 I took 3 Barbarian levels and had access to Reckless Attack), so would rarely miss and would frequently crit during these bursts.


And I had a 35' movement speed, so was also doing stuff like BA Teleport 60' at the cost of 15' movement + Move 20' + Dash 35' for 115' total movement in a turn, or 150' movement if I also Action Surged to Dash again.

[Waazraath]

One could extend it out to a few additional uses per day via Eldritch Knight. That'd be something like a Tiefling Eldritch Knight 5 with the Blind Fighting style, taking Fog Cloud as their 1st Level "any school" spell pick. This would allow them to do the "Blind Fighting + Vision Impairment" trick up to 4x per day: 1x per day racial Darkness + 3x per day 1st level slots for Fog Cloud.

But this runs the real risk of hampering the rest of the party. And unlike the Warlock's Darkness + Devil's Sight combo, your Darkness/Fog Cloud isn't totally see-through for you, since you only have Blindsight out to 10'. So once you defeat any immediately adjacent enemy/enemies, you're in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to being blinded.

Good points! And you are right of course about allies, that's always a thing with these strategies. On the other hand, it's still powerful tactically, for those combats when you can move up to an isolated baddy and cast fog cloud there, and lock it down with sentinel. But it costs a bunch of spell slots and is somehow situational, so if it works it's really good, but over a lets say 10 adventures, I'm not sure if it's better than the allrounder spear/board BM with the PAM and HAM feats and a bunch of strong maneuvers that help the team (like Trip), or a bunch of other builds. But it's the only 'broken' trick I guess, with broken used quite liberally.

[animorte]

Well, the OP hasn’t responded yet but a thought crossed my mind. Is the restriction intended to be the most broken “Fighter class” or “class that fights?”

It only specifies single class, doesn’t say anything about strictly being a Fighter. In this case, I would probably recommend Paladin.

[RogueJK]

It only specifies single class, doesn’t say anything about strictly being a Fighter. In this case, I would probably recommend Paladin.

In that case, since we're doing strictly 5th level, I'd go Tiefling Hexblade Pact of the Blade Warlock, leveraging Darkness + Devil's Sight for frequent Advantage while utilizing GWM with Thirsting Blade and a Greatsword Pact Weapon, with Eldritch Smite for burst damage.

Tiefling Hexblade Warlock 5
STR 10
DEX 14
CON 15+1
INT 8
WIS 12
CHA 16+2
Medium Armor and a Greatsword Pact Weapon
ASI: Great Weapon Master
Invocations: Devil's Sight, Thirsting Blade, Eldritch Smite
Racial Spells: Thaumaturgy, Hellish Rebuke, Darkness
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Mind Sliver
Spells Known: Fly, Summon Undead, Darkness, Suggestion, Hex, Armor of Agathys

[strangebloke]

Bugbear BM 5 with ambush, precision attack, and skill expert: stealth for the ASI.

Very very very sneaky and you can absolutely melt targets in the first round/surprise round. Sharpshooter not required.

[RogueJK]

Bugbear BM 5 with ambush, precision attack, and skill expert: stealth for the ASI.

Very very very sneaky and you can absolutely melt targets in the first round/surprise round. Sharpshooter not required.

Bugbear's not in PHB, XGTE, or TCOE.

It's in MTOF (old) or MOTM (new).

[Hael]

The two primary options (given the book constraints and that we are talking about ‘fighters’) are damage dealing BM, or grapple focused RK.

The latter can be even more deadly than the former, but it requires some group buy in (eg druid spike growth, or wizard wall of fire, or a cleric spirit guardians)

[Frogreaver]

I agree that Runeknight or Battlemaster are the best choices. Seems to be the consensus here.

[Unoriginal]

I agree that Runeknight or Battlemaster are the best choices. Seems to be the consensus here.

Both Battle Master and Rune Knight are great, but I do think Psi Warrior got the full package of DPS, defense, and mobility (including helping other people in the group move, which is rarer than self-move buff). Plus some quirky stuff that I think give the subclass the edge, like the ability to lift a Large thing with the power of their mind and drop it elsewhere, including on enemies.