Building a grappler, Armorer Rune knight

[KCWONDER99]

Hi,

I recently had the idea to try make a top grappler as a Artificer Armorer 14 /Rune knight 3 build and was looking for people who know the game best to fix any mistakes I make. The ideal would be to make a character who can grab and control any monster or mage and shut them down.

Race: Duergar / Vhuman. Duergar for the free enlarge spell at level 3 which can be used after Giants Might, in case the monster you are against is too big to grapple. Vhuman for metamagic to subtle spell/Quicken spell.

Ability scores : Not going to specify but keeping Con and Int as the top 2 for the respective class abiliities and saves. Probably dump Strength as the artificer can scale this to 23 with Infustions later.

Runes - Cloud and Fire for redirecting 1 big attack away and to lockdown a weaker character along with the passive benefits.

Infusions Active- Enhanced Arcane focus, Enhanced defense, Radiant weapon to help with blinding enemies, Belt of Giant Strength (swapped from Ogre gauntlets at 14th level ), Dimensional Shackles/ Amulet of health/ring of protection for 14th level choice( Con should be naturally high but I could keep it lower and boost other scores or get feats) Winged boots, Bag of holding. Armorer gets 2 more infusions for piece of their armor.

The build should be able to get big enough to grapple pretty much anything, Subtle spell and quicken spell should help with mages and lightning launcher allows long range attacks when needed or can shoot from the chest while grappling.

I'm sure I am leaving out important pieces to make a strong grappling character but this is my first draft and I am mainly looking to see what I am blind to at the moment.

[RogueJK]

Replicating some Gauntlets of Ogre Power require a Level 10 Artificer, and a Belt of Hill Giant Strength requires a Level 14 Artificer.

So unless you're starting at Level 10-14+, you won't be able to dump STR and still be an effective Grappler.


In addition, multiclassing into Fighter requires either a 13 STR or 13 DEX.


So you'll want to have at least a moderate STR (14ish or more), preferably combined with something like Athletics Expertise from Skill Expert.


I'd recommend something like this:
VHuman Armorer Artificer 5 -> Rune Knight Fighter 3 -> Armorer Artificer X
STR 14+1
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 15+1
WIS 10
CHA 8
ASIs: Skill Expert (16 STR, Athletics Expertise) at 1, 18 INT at 4, 16 CON at 8, 20 INT at 12

Or this:

Duergar Armorer Artificer 5 -> Rune Knight Fighter 3 -> Armorer Artificer X
STR 15+1
DEX 8
CON 14
INT 15+2
WIS 10
CHA 8
ASIs: Skill Expert (18 INT, Athletics Expertise) at 4, 16 CON at 8, 20 INT at 12

Or even:

CLineage Armorer Artificer 5 -> Rune Knight Fighter 3 -> Armorer Artificer X
STR 14+2
DEX 10
CON 14
INT 15
WIS 10
CHA 8
ASIs: Skill Expert (16 INT, Athletics Expertise) at 1, 18 INT at 4, 16 CON at 8, 20 INT at 12

[KCWONDER99]

Replicating some Gauntlets of Ogre Power require a Level 10 Artificer, and a Belt of Hill Giant Strength requires a Level 14 Artificer.

So unless you're starting at Level 10-14+, you won't be able to dump STR and still be an effective Grappler.


In addition, multiclassing into Fighter requires either a 13 STR or 13 DEX.


So you'll want to have at least a moderate STR (14ish or more), preferably combined with something like Athletics Expertise from Skill Expert.


I'd recommend something like this:
VHuman Armorer Artificer 5 -> Rune Knight Fighter 3 -> Armorer Artificer X
STR 13
DEX 10
CON 15+1
INT 15+1
WIS 10
CHA 8
ASIs: Skill Expert (14 STR, Athletics Expertise) at 1, 18 INT at 4, 20 INT at 8, 18 CON at 12


Or you could do:
Duergar Armorer Artificer 5 -> Rune Knight Fighter 3 -> Armorer Artificer X
STR 14+1
DEX 10
CON 13+1
INT 15+1
WIS 12
CHA 8
ASIs: Skill Expert (16 STR) at 4, 18 INT at 8, 16 CON at 12

Excellent, Thank you! I knew I would miss something basic

[Psyren]

Replicating some Gauntlets of Ogre Power require a Level 10 Artificer, and a Belt of Hill Giant Strength requires a Level 14 Artificer.

So unless you're starting at Level 10-14+, you won't be able to dump STR and still be an effective Grappler.

Sure they can - just infuse Armor of Magical Strength, which lets you add Intelligence to your grapple checks as early as level 2. You can thus keep your Str at 10 until 10th level when you can make the gauntlets. Once you hit 7th level, you'll also have Flash of Genius to boost your grapple checks; even if your GM rules they don't stack, simply alternate them and you've effectively doubled your charges.

[RogueJK]

That's fine, but its limited uses mean that it's a better supplement than outright replacement for STR.

Armor of Magical Strength has just 6 charges, and recovers 1d6 each dawn. So it's usable 6 times the first day, and potentially <6 times each subsequent day.

If you're building your entire character around being a Grappler, you want to be able to do that effectively more than 1-6 rounds per day.

[stoutstien]

That's fine, but its limited uses mean that it's a better supplement than outright replacement for STR.

Armor of Magical Strength has just 6 charges, and recovers 1d6 each dawn. So it's usable 6 times the first day, and potentially <6 times each subsequent day.

If you're building your entire character around being a Grappler, you want to be able to do that effectively more than 1-6 rounds per day.

Just reinfuse it to max recharge everyday. The recovery of X per day clause is a waste of ink.

[RogueJK]

Okay, even if you were to go with daily reinfusion (followed by reattunement for another hour), you're now an effective Grappler for just 6 Athletics checks per day.

That's about one combat for a dedicated Grappler, between Athletics checks to initiate grapples and perform shoves on your turns and additional Athletics checks when enemies attempt to break out on their turns.

[stoutstien]

Okay, even if you were to go with daily reinfusion (followed by reattunement for another hour), you're now an effective Grappler for just 6 Athletics checks per day.

That's one combat for a dedicated Grappler.

Well since you can choose to use it after you roll (but before the results are known) and you have the spare ASI for expertise you can probably get by with 10 str most days until you get FoG and the + str infusions.

[Psyren]

Okay, even if you were to go with daily reinfusion (followed by reattunement for another hour), you're now an effective Grappler for just 6 Athletics checks per day.

That's about one combat for a dedicated Grappler

Not even a dedicated grappler needs to grapple every round, especially at low levels, and especially one like you that has way more things you can do during a fight besides grapple. And as stoutstien mentioned, you get to see the die result before deciding to burn a charge. 6 is plenty, and 10 Str is fine.

Artificers also get Enhance Ability for multiple combats of advantage to all their grapple checks.

[solidork]

I mean, you can have a decent strength AND use Armor of Magical Strength and be even better.

I played an armorer that grappled a fair amount (whenever I felt it was the best option) from levels 4-9. I never ran out of charges on my Armor, for what it's worth. Going into every fight with the plan to grapple something isn't really the best option, even if you're sure it will work - sometimes you really do need to just do damage, or Web some enemies and stay out of range so you don't lose concentration. It's a low resource use control and damage mitigation/amplification tactic.

I started with 14 Strength because I pictured my character as a pretty buff guy even out of his armor and we started at level 4, so I took Skill Expert in Athletics. I was a Beasthide Shifter (the old kind) so I had a lot of added durability from even more temporary hit points. That was overkill on most days, but turned out to be exactly enough for the most grueling series of fights that I've ever faced where every single resource - hit dice, spell, potion, limited use ability - was used and we ended with multiple people at 1 HP.

This kind of build is good if you've got other melee people and not many people who want to shoot from range. Our Battlemaster really liked having advantage from enemies being stuck prone.