Making Cloak of Flies work

[Skrum]

I perhaps irrationally think this invocation is cool and powerful. But I'm also tripping up on a build that can use it. So far, I've made a character that uses it and played her a few times, but it hasn't been as good as I hoped, and since I realized this build is actually breaking the rules (I multiclassed incorrectly), I need to remake the build and I'm looking for ideas.

The build: paladin 2 hexblade 5. Str 8* Dex 14 Con 14 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 20. TCL, fey touched + ASI to get 20 Cha. Half plate + cloak of displacement, plus shield and silvery barbs

*This was my mistake; can't multiclass out of paladin with only 8 str

The Problems
- the timing of the damage. Since it doesn't trigger till their turn, a lot of lessor enemies (my initial assumption as to what Cloak would be good against) tend to just die before it can do much
- the range. I knew this of course, which is why I tried to stack defense, by it does mean I need to have a melee build. But also 20 Cha for it be worth it at all. Basically, I'm at cross-purposes from the get go

Any ideas? Overall character needs to be 7 ATM

[Segev]

Hm. Its main purposes seem to be discouraging people from remaining adjacent to you, and making you more intimidating. It might stack well with a Paladin of Conquest, if the DM lets Intimidation inflict the Frightened condition (no rules say it does, though). Otherwise, it thematically "helps," but doesn't have particular mechanical benefit.

I think it probably is most effective on a warlock who prefers to fight at range, since it discourages melee attackers staying in place. The fact that it applies damage only at the START of a creature's turn, though, does mean that a melee warlock might benefit from it by moving into a group, where normally that's a bad idea. What I think it might do best, though, for a meleeist is handle those times you deal damage and the darned dice leave the enemy with 1-2 hp.

[Skrum]

When/if this character went to 10 (the current cap in our game), I was planning on taking more paladin levels and yeah, going Conquest. It's def the most thematically fitting.

What I liked about paladin and why I went there originally is
- Spell slots. Warlocks don't get enough of them, especially for meleelocks that want to cast shield
- Divine Smite. 3rd level short rest pact magic slots can be channeled into divine smites just fine
- Fighting style. Extra +1 defense is just good

But the stat requirements are messing me up. If I stick with paladin I guess I could do 13 14 12 10 8 15

Secondary options, I'm looking at shadow sorcerer. No fighting style, no divine smite, but more cantrips and an extra 1st level slot is nice. Plus two metamagic points. Strength of the Grave fits the character too. And twinning a lightning lure to drag people into the aura is appealing.

[J-H]

Do you have to multiclass? I've always though of this as a Hexblade invocation for a Warlock who wants to get close to the enemy. It's free extra damage.

[Sorinth]

Perhaps Divine Soul Sorcerer and stack it with Spirit Guardians.

[Skrum]

Do you have to multiclass? I've always though of this as a Hexblade invocation for a Warlock who wants to get close to the enemy. It's free extra damage.

Warlocks by themselves are pretty very squashy. I'm worried about surviving in melee.


Perhaps Divine Soul Sorcerer and stack it with Spirit Guardians.

Solid pick, but I don't have the levels for it. Can only be 7th, and 5 need to be warlock to gain cloak of flies.

[Segev]

Warlocks by themselves are pretty very squashy. I'm worried about surviving in melee.There is an Invocation that gives false life at will. It's only 1d4+5 temp hp each action spent on it, but it can give you a good buffer and, if you do hit and run, your "run" rounds could put it back up.

Not sure how good that really is, but it might help.

[J-H]

On a Warlock, you don't want Shield. You want Armor of Agathys, and a way to reduce the damage you take. The MPMM version of the Goliath get's Stone's Endurance (reduce damage by 1d12+CON) PB/LR. You put up AoA and someone hits you for 30 damage? Now they hit you for 30-1d12-3 damage, and you still have some left.

At 5th level slots, it's 25 temp HP, and 25 cold damage each time someone hits you in melee. If you are fighting melee enemies, one casting can net quite a bit of damage, especially if they aren't bruisers who can do 20+ damage per hit.I'd rather take a couple of hits to my temp HP and do 50-100 damage to the enemy than use a high level spell slot on a temporary AC boost.

If you don't want to go this route, there's also Blur (disadvantage on attack rolls against you) and Blink, although Blink may cause problems with Cloak of Flies.

Hexblade AC should be 10 base + 4 breastplate + 2 dex + 2 shield = 18 before any magic items. It's not that bad.

[Amechra]

Armor of Agathys is one of those weird things where the first group I played with loved it to bits, but my newest group hasn't used it much.

[Skrum]

On a Warlock, you don't want Shield. You want Armor of Agathys, and a way to reduce the damage you take. The MPMM version of the Goliath get's Stone's Endurance (reduce damage by 1d12+CON) PB/LR. You put up AoA and someone hits you for 30 damage? Now they hit you for 30-1d12-3 damage, and you still have some left.

At 5th level slots, it's 25 temp HP, and 25 cold damage each time someone hits you in melee. If you are fighting melee enemies, one casting can net quite a bit of damage, especially if they aren't bruisers who can do 20+ damage per hit.I'd rather take a couple of hits to my temp HP and do 50-100 damage to the enemy than use a high level spell slot on a temporary AC boost.

If you don't want to go this route, there's also Blur (disadvantage on attack rolls against you) and Blink, although Blink may cause problems with Cloak of Flies.

Hexblade AC should be 10 base + 4 breastplate + 2 dex + 2 shield = 18 before any magic items. It's not that bad.

Not saying it can't work, but I'm skeptical of it working at our particular table. For a couple of reason, we skew ultra-deadly encounters. In last night's game, my character (who got some bad luck, granted) was getting hit for 20-30 damage per hit by some acidic blobs and 7-12 damage per hit by some vampiric rats. Luckily she wasn't fighting the gargoyle that was putting out about 40 damage a round, between bite and claw attacks. She ended the fight having dropped to 0 from 55 full hit points, healed to 20, went back down to 2, had her maximum hit points lowered to 44, and had her armor get a permanent -2 reduction to AC. Oh and she used all of her spell slots. The party was 4 level 7's, for context.

One example isn't meant to be indicative of our average encounter, but the heat is definitely high. She actually does have 18 AC (half plate, 14 dex, defensive fighting style), with a cloak of displacement. And then she can cast shield or silvery barbs as needed.

Goliath is great, but I'm pretty wedded to TCL and 20 Cha, which makes Cloak of Flies marginally worth it.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Goliath is great, but I'm pretty wedded to TCL and 20 Cha, which makes Cloak of Flies marginally worth it.

Seems like the most important first step is to figure out what your priority for your build is. Is it to optimize Cloak of Flies, or something else?

[Skrum]

Seems like the most important first step is to figure out what your priority for your build is. Is it to optimize Cloak of Flies, or something else?

Optimize cloak of flies, yes, but I don't want to sell out on cloak. I want the build to be functional.

Like, dropping to 4 damage from 5 is only 1 damage, but it's also a 20% reduction (it also reduces my attacks by 1, weapon damage by 1, and spell DC's by 1. That's a lot!). If there was a super compelling reason to do so, I'd be open to the idea, but goliath and armor of ag isn't quite "super compelling." I'd be more inclined towards Earth Genasi, if I were to go that route.

[Amechra]

I'll be honest, I'm not sure Cloak of Flies is actually worth it in a Deadly+ environment like yours? "Stuff that starts its turn next to me takes 5 damage" is a cool ability and all, but you're fighting stuff that hits so hard that being in melee range of it is a silly idea in the first place.

[Kane0]

You would probably want to stack aura damage effects then, like the storm herald barbarian, fire shield or spirit guardians spell, etc. Then focus on keeping alive (with concentration) and getting into position to employ your nono zone.

[Jerrykhor]

I'm not too impressed by Cloak of Flies. The poor damage type and small non-scaling number is bad enough. Bonus Action to activate is decent but if you're melee then you're likely Hexblade, which got too much competition for bonus action. Also the 'last until incapacitated' thing is annoying, not sure why is it necessary for something this weak. Seems to be common on most things nowadays, to the point where getting hit by a Hold Person can wall you very hard. IMO melee warlocks simply have too much Invocation tax anyways, and better invocations to pick.

[elyktsorb]

You would probably want to stack aura damage effects then, like the storm herald barbarian, fire shield or spirit guardians spell, etc. Then focus on keeping alive (with concentration) and getting into position to employ your nono zone.

I thought of Storm Herald immediately, but the fire damage effect is worse than cloak of flies and only gets slightly better as you level, and then the lighting effect only picks one creature and both have to be activated by a bonus action each turn. And then it's also only active during Rage so no spells can be concentrated on.

I dunno man, cloak of flies just seems like a bad idea for anything. Maybe if you have spirit guardians that stacking could be worth it? But then again you'd need to be within 5ft of an enemy to make cloak of flies work, and then to make it worth using, you'd need to be in range of like, what, at least 3 enemies? Since thirsting blade would be at least another 1d8+5 and that's not even factoring hex in, which would be an additional 1d6.

You're putting yourself at too much risk for too little reward with cloak of flies imo.

But I also like making weird things work so let's look at stuff that adds to the vibe?

Storm Herald Barbarian is an option, assuming you want the storm effect that hits every enemy around you per bonus action, at 3rd level that's 2 fire damage on everything in it's range per bonus action. So +cloak of flies that would be 7 damage per turn (wouldn't come online until level 8 tho)

2 Levels of Druid gets you spore druid, which gives you a reaction to deal 1d4 necrotic damage to one target within 10 ft of you on a con save, 2d4 if you put up symbiotic entity which is only something you'd want to do before combat, but drops back to 1d4 if you lose the 8 temp hp.


I don't know what your race is, but Aasimar (Scourge) get this "Radiant Consumption. Starting at 3rd level, you can use your action to unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing a searing light to radiate from you, pour out of your eyes and mouth, and threaten to char you. Your transformation lasts for 1 minute or until you end it as a bonus action. During it, you shed bright light in a 10-foot radius and dim light for an additional 10 feet, and at the end of each of your turns, you and each creature within 10 feet of you take radiant damage equal to half your level (rounded up). In addition, once on each of your turns, you can deal extra radiant damage to one target when you deal damage to it with an attack or a spell. The extra radiant damage equals your level. Once you use this trait, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest."

And that seems like it would fit well with this sort of thing, especially since cloak of flies also does friendly fire, and this doesn't require any class investment, just turns on at 3rd level. As long as self damage doesn't matter to you.

Sword Burst is a cantrip that deals force damage to all creatures within 5ft of you on a dex save

That's all I've got

[Dork_Forge]

I like Cloak of Flies too, personally I have success with it on a regenerating tank. I believe I detailed the full build in a throw down thread at one point, but the gist is:

- Celestial Chainlock with gift of the everliving. This let's you max any healing you do to yourself and gives you a pool of bonus action healing (and a fat Cure Wounds).

- 1 level of Fighter, take it first if you want the heavy armor, personally I don't bother with heavy. This gives you a fighting style, all the proficiencies you could want, and another bonus action heal. Take Dueling and use a rapier.

In combat you can use blade trips to reinforce your attacks in a scaling manner. Invocations can get a bit tight, so you may want to consider Eldritch Adept for some wiggle room. Recommended to pair with Cloak of Flies:

- Fiendish Vigor, this is a lot of temp hp over a day and really bolsters your durability.
- AFB and the name escapes me, the one that scales your familiar.
- Armor of shadows if you want an AC bump, armor works fine though and remember you can wear a shield if you want.

You'll be able to hand in melee just fine with your temp hp and healing (always use Second Wind first, since it's SR recharge). Your damage output is more than respectable and scales (throw Hex on if you want).

Stat wise I'd say make sure you start with 16s in Dex and Cha and at least a 14 in Con. You don't really need to boost Dex since bladetrips scale and magic weapons are a thing, so just pump Cha for your casting and making Cloak better/increasing your BA heal capacity.

[stoutstien]

Cloak of flies is an attrition tool but your table favors avoidance and action driven tactics. Not much you can do to rectify this.

**Based on how much unavoidable damage the party has incoming in relationships to the HP pool encounter resolution is going to occur 1-3 rounds where cloak of flies would take double that. If you could find ways to increase your avoidance to a point to cancel it out it could work but something tells me that you going to get hit regardless.**

[Rukelnikov]

5 damage a round ain't much, it's not even half the average of an AB beam, so whatever build you make is gonna have to try to include as many enemies in the aura as possible, this could mean you need to be very tanky in order to take the heat, or you can make yourself undesirable or hard to attack/hit, Armor of Agathys makes you a bit more tanky and a bit more undesirable to hit, but you don't seem to like that, so in order to optimize Cloak of Flies I'd try to optimize around Sanctuary or Invisibility, find stuff to do with your action and bonus action that don't break your chosen protective spell

Colby from dnd4 made a build around not getting out of invis a while back, he mainly centered on using the Enchanters lvl 2 feature to lock people in place, but there's other things you could do too, like taking Investment of the Chain Master so you can spend you action in having your familiar attack as a reaction then your BA in having your familiar attack on its turn and you'd remain invi.

Going Scourge Aasimar could also add some oomph to your aura for 1 combat per long rest, go with the Volo's Scourge if you don't mind making some concentration rolls in exchange for damage, and if you'd rather not then go Mord's Scourge and hope your DM reads that as you don't take damage from your aura. Take into accounts how many rounds of combat you tend to have, if you usually get 10 combat rounds per day, then something usable 5 times per LR is already covering half the action you are gonna take.

[icedraikon]

The best usage I've seen for Cloak of Flies was using it in conjunction with Skill Expert to really lock in Infernal Calling usage. Expertise, advantage, and high Cha vs some of the low Insight options is really good. Even then, it seemed a bit steep with other summon options available