Ideas for replacement character for Avernus campaign?

[Yakmala]

So, my Level 13 Ancestral Guardian Barbarian in an Avernus homebrew campaign that's been going on for a year or so, died in a way that is not recoverable (his soul has been claimed by one of the major powers in the campaign and he's an NPC now).

So, I'm looking for ideas for a good replacement, given the current party dynamic. As with most AG's, I was the main party tank and a pretty effective melee DPS as well (GWM/PAM).

Party currently consists of:

Astral Monk
Bladesinger
Paladin (subclass tbd, also a replacement for a fallen character)
Order Cleric



With a Paladin joining the fray, I might not need to be the main tank anymore, so, I'm kicking around ideas for something new. The new character will be able to start with a mix of good magic items, including 1VR, 2R and 3UC to make him comparable to the gear of the previous character and other party members.

What would you all suggest given the current party makeup shown above?

[Sigreid]

In your place, I'd either make a rogue or a celestial warlock. I think either one will bring something your party can use without stepping on someone else's niche.

[RogueJK]

You've got a lot of melee characters in the party, and a Paladin to take over from your dearly departed Barbarian as Tank, so I'd go with some flavor of ranged character.

Avernus is primarily Fiends, and their magic resistance makes save effects iffy. Therefore, I'd stick with a straight ranged attack roll build. Good options include stuff like a Sharpshooter Archer Fighter or an Eldritch Blast-centric Warlock.


An example of the Sharpshooter Archer could be something like this:
Shadar-Kai Samurai Fighter 13
STR 8
DEX 15+2
CON 13+1
INT 8
WIS 15
CHA 12
Archery Fighting Style
ASIs: Elven Accuracy (18 DEX) at 4, Sharpshooter at 6, Piercer (19 DEX) at 8, 20 DEX/16 WIS at 12

Go forth, my son, and fish for all the crits while firing your Longbow like a machine gun. You've got at-will Triple Advantage for one round per combat thanks to Fighting Spirit, which you'll want to pair with Action Surge to get the most out of it, allowing you to make six Longbow attacks - all at Triple Advantage - in one turn. And even when you aren't Action Surging or generating your own Triple Advantage, you still have three attacks per turn, and a high attack bonus to help offset the Sharpshooter penalty. Plus you've got WIS saving throw proficiency to help with those nasty fear/mind-affecting saves, and 2x Indomitable too. And you even get +WIS and +CHA to Persuasion in order to be a passable Face if the Paladin doesn't have that covered. You also have emergency teleportation with damage resistance, if you get cornered by a melee enemy.

This build will be able to put out a similar high damage output to your GWM Barbarian, if you enjoyed stacking up the big numbers like that. And while it's not quite Reckless Attack, you'll still have at-will Advantage numerous times throughout the day, without the nasty drawback of Reckless, and with the added benefits of Elven Accuracy's extra dice and Piercer's damage reroll and extra damage on a crit.



An example of the EB Warlock could be something like this:
High Half Elf Celestial Warlock 13
Pact of the Tome
STR 8
DEX 12+1
CON 13+1
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 15+2
ASIs: Moderately Armored (14 DEX) at 4, Fey Touched or Elven Accuracy (18 CHA) at 8, 20 CHA at 12
Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Grasp of Hadar, Book of Ancient Secrets, Eldritch Mind, and whatever else floats your boat

Between your access to all Rituals and ten cantrips (4 Warlock + 2 Celestial + 1 racial Wizard + 3 any class), you're the ultimate swiss-army-knife utility caster, on top of being a solid ranged attacker and useful backup healer with access to a Mega-Healing-Word-Plus (that doesn't put a cramp on your Action spellcasting since it's not actually a Bonus Action spell...) Focus your Warlock spell picks on spells that don't involve enemies making saves, because Fiends. So that'd be things like utility, summoning, buffing, healing, etc. Your three attacks per turn from Eldritch Blast will be your bread and butter most rounds anyway, both inflicting solid damage as well as causing no-save push and/or pull effects. And all your allies will really appreciate the buckets of additional Temp HP after every rest.

This one won't be putting up the huge damage numbers like the Sharpshooter, but it's deal reliably solid Eldritch Blast damage plus its forced movement effects, and allow you to supplement and complement both the Wizard and Cleric in the party, filling in gaps that they don't have covered while also filling in for them if they're busy or down. You'll just want to cooperate together to avoid too much duplication and stepping on toes.

[Mastikator]

I agree RogueJK that your party seems to lack ranged DPR. I'll add Valor Bard with a bow to the suggestion. Grab sharpshooter and quick quiver, some mix of utility/CC/buff/healing bardic magic

[animorte]

I'll recommend Artillerist Artificer, if we're discussing ranged options. It's one of my favorite ranged builds. You start out with those infusions for extra magic items, can't go wrong. Still have different cannon options for versatility. Unfortunately you don't have the extra cannon until level 15, but you're not far!

[tiornys]

With a very rare and two rare items (assuming you get to pick) I'd take a look at Sorcerer attuned to a Staff of Power, +2 Bloodwell Vial, and Shadowfell Shard. The staff and vial give you a net +4 to spell attacks and save DCs, and the shard can counter a fiend's magic resistance by imposing disadvantage on a stat of your choice whenever you use metamagic on a spell (I'm not sure if this is more or less likely to get a book thrown at you vs. building around Illusionist's Bracers...).

Some other very rare items I might try to build around include a Wakened Dragon's Wrath weapon (great for an archery build), Rod of Absorption, or a Belt of Fire Giant Strength.

[Sherlockpwns]

One of the nicer things about a high level reroll is you can do stuff that just SUCKS to do when starting from level 1. As an example a mounted combat bard that takes fgs at level 10. Essentially playing that from level 1 you don’t get to do “your thing” until ages later.

Flying around on your Pegasus (or nightmare in avernum) singing songs and kicking ass.

That’s just one example, but my point would be this is your chance to really play something wild.

Another good example would be a Shepherd 6 - 8 / BM Ranger 5 - 7

This is the ideal mix of having an incredible summoned trio basically always at the ready. You get a spirit flying beast via ranger and a second one (or a fey) via the spell. Though the hp of your bird spirit will be low, flyby will keep it relatively safe and it’s a level 1 spell to bring it back. They also both get HP from the Druid and both get magical attacks. The end result is outputting pretty absurd numbers without considering your spell power. E.g a level 4 spell gives the summon 2 attacks, you get 2 attacks, the beast gets one attack. Assuming you use a magic item on your non metal armor your ac is going to be good and will probably have plenty of spells to sling around, even if they aren’t high level spells.

Long story short: use this as an opportunity to go crazy and come up with something fun that you would NOT want to play until high level.

[KorvinStarmast]

Party currently consists of:

Astral Monk
Bladesinger
Paladin (subclass tbd, also a replacement for a fallen character)
Order Cleric



The new character will be able to start with a mix of good magic items, including 1VR, 2R and 3UC to make him comparable to the gear of the previous character and other party members.

What would you all suggest given the current party makeup shown above? I'd suggest a Celestial Warlock with:
Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 (UC),
Robe of Stars (VR),
+1 Studded Leather Armor of Glamor (UC),
Broom of Flying (UC)
Ring of Protection or Ring of Spell Storing. (R)
Or
Rod of Pact Keeper +3 (VR) (attune)
Robe of Displacement (R) (attune)
+1 Studded Leather Armor of Glamor (UC),
Broom of Flying (UC)
Ring of Protection (R) (attune)
Bag of Holding (UC)


I'd suggest Pact of the Tome, and work with your DM to figure out what other ritual spells you have added to your book of secrets. I have found that getting the extra cantrips opens up some flexibility in damage types, and taking Mind Sliver can be handy.

Mystic Arcanum tailored to your campaign:
Level 6: True Seeing or Conjure Fey.

True Seeing can provide important detection capability.
Conjure Fey allows for summoning an ally which makes the action economy better, but I am not sure how your DM runs conjuring spells.


Level 7: Crown of Stars or Forcecage.

Crown of Stars does a good kind of damage and does not require concentration.
Forcecage can shut down / control an enemy on the battlefield, once per long rest.

[Amnestic]

I will second an Artificer. Artillerist gives solid ranged damage, infusion/cannon support, and Flash of Genius combo with the paladin aura can make crucial saves much safer.

[Yakmala]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far! I haven't made my final decision yet (I have a few more days until the next session) but I'm in agreement with the prevailing feedback here that ranged DPS would be the best fit, be it Rogue, Warlock, Artillerist or something else.

[Eldariel]

The most natural option seems to be the Druid. It's the big spell list you're missing with a lot of unique good ones and while it's not godlike anymore, it's still very good on this level (Lore Bard could of course mimic Druid pretty easily, but Druid probably has the better supporting abilities): Pass without Trace never goes out of style (especially now that you can full party Invisibility with the Wizard's high level slots to go with it when you wanna sneak through a place), Plant Growth is very good against many types of devils, Conjure Animals and Woodland Beings is still very powerful in spite of enemies having resistance, etc. Magic Stones are also nice if there are any minionmancers in the group. Add Fey-Touched for the baseline competency of teleportation and Silvery Barbs for a utility reaction and you're golden. And it can fit any spots you want in the party.

You have a lot of options on the flavour of Druid:
- Stars would add by-now-at-most-passable ranged attack (in Guiding Bolt, not Archer constellation, which has a painfully short range, but is otherwise fine) and some valuable die manipulation. It also makes you something of a Wisdom check god (and pretty good at Int checks too). Overall it has a lot of nice stuff.
- Moon is great as ever, though no longer in its prime on these levels. The sheer number of temporary HP it gives you can never be discounted though (Steel Leaf Kavu has 142 HP so 284 before any actual damage taken), and having Earth Elemental's Earth Glide opens up a lot of options that simply don't exist without it. It also at least has decent magical physical attacks and with Mage Armor, a decent AC so the numbers are nicely rounded.
- Shepherd would let your minions completely rip through all opposition if you want to go the damage dealing route (also something like Planar Bound Giant Ape with Shepherd's attacks is pretty darn scary for devils to deal with as is something like Korred or Bheur Hag). It's also just about the best healer in the game by a fair bit around these levels: slap down Unicorn totem and cast any healing spells and the whole party gets healed for more than the total result of most healing spells in the game. While this doesn't use Wildshape, that frees the ability up for scouting, mobility, etc. where it excels. And you still have up to CR1 flying forms, so it's decidedly not bad in that sense.

Druids would also make great use of those items (Rod of Absorption for near infinite slots and spell absorption/defense, Staff of Swarming Insects for one-sided vision denial, some solid non-metal armor, etc.)


As for non-Druids, Ranger has some of the good Druid spells and would add a proper archer to the party. It's obviously nowhere near as good as having another caster with 7th level spells but it's not bad either: many of the best Druid thingies are indeed low level, and an archer with a decent bow would be great. Gloom Stalker is still great here.

And Bard is overall very, very solid here. Lore Bard, Swords Bard, Eloquence Bard, while it's quite out the wheel house of Eloquence, it's still very good as always. Swords is about to get decent and Lore is always solid. Any of those is a fine pick (though obviously missing those 7th level Magical Secrets does hurt). Even Warlock wouldn't be bad; Genielock or Celestial Lock are both decent as long range damage dealers with passable spell lists. Getting that 3rd spell per short rest is huge as is mystical arcana even if it's less than ideal in many senses.

[Ir0ns0ul]

It seems your party is good on control, healing and survivability, you guys might need a reliable and consistent DPR figure, and I cannot see something better than a Gloomstalker 11 / Fighter 2 with CBE, SS and Conjure Animals. You can still contribute with utility spells like Goodberry, Fog Cloud, Silence and Pass Without Trace.

[TyGuy]

Perfect timing, setting, and open niche for a warlock. Getting to skip the slog of 2 slots for 10 levels and jump right into tier 3 is something I personally would be excited for.
I would go either fiend or celestial, because avernus.

[RogueJK]

Perfect timing, setting, and open niche for a warlock. Getting to skip the slog of 2 slots for 10 levels and jump right into tier 3 is something I personally would be excited for.


Similar reasoning to why I suggested Samurai Fighter alongside Warlock. Samurai can sometimes feel a little lackluster until Tier 3, only having three total Fighting Spirit uses per day until Level 10, at which point it becomes once per combat. That's a noticeable increase in available uses of their primary subclass ability (roughly 2x-3x, depending on the total number of combats per day). So being able to skip directly to that by starting at Level 10+ is nice.