Party Leader fighter (Roy?)

[J-H]

Just add magic weapons, and you're good on that front. This is mostly a thought exercise to see what can be done to make a fighter who can contribute well outside of hitting things, without having to take X/day spell feats.

It's not super optimized, and for combat, relies mostly on Fighters already being pretty good at getting lots of attacks, and then getting magic weapons to make those attacks hit even harder. It's deliberately not specialized in any given weapon style so that it doesn't matter if you get a Rod of Lordly Might, a Flametongue, a Mace of Disruption, or a +3 Dragonbane Pike.

Feats and ASIs can be take in whatever order makes the most sense for a campaign.

Base:
Vuman, because we want lots of feats.
Str 15 + 1 human +4 from ASI = 20 by 20
Dex 10
Con 14 - a bit low, but that's what healers are for. Also, occasionally at high levels we don't mind going to 0.
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 13, +1 human +2 from feats = 16 by 20

Background whatever, it gives 2 skills and a tool.
Vuman, you get a skill. I like Perception.

Class: I went with Samurai. It's not super complicated, it gives 2 skills and Wisdom save proficiency, and the ability to self-generate advantage and, if reduced to 0, the ability to take an entire turn then and there, including popping Second Wind for a self-heal.
I like Defense because AC is always nice.

Feats: The meat of the "build" if you can call this a build, and this is why I went Fighter.

Inspiring Leader: Grant yourself and up to 5 party members or allies temp HP equal to your level + cha mod. At level 1, this is 5 temp HP. At level 20, it's 23 temp HP. For a 4 person party, that's just short of 100hp worth of temporary HP. If you end up in a social situation where you're leading the army of Azure City in their defense against the Hobgoblin Horde, you can take 4 hours and hand out 144 x 23 = 3312 temporary hit points to your minions. If the party doesn't fight in a vacuum and has prep time, this can help quite a bit. In a 2 short rest day, you can do this 3 times for the party, so potentially 276 temporary HP for a 4 person party at level 20. That's another PC's worth of health.

Strength increase: 2 ASIs into this, at whatever point seems good. We want Str 20 to support "hitting things reasonably hard pretty often."

Healer: Get some cheap healer's kits. You can heal each of your allies 1/sr for 1d6+4+their HD. At level 20, you can heal each party member for 1d6+24 hp once per short rest. For a 4 person party, that's a bit over 100hp in healing per short rest.
Between this and Inspiring Leader, at level 20 you can contribute almost 200hp to the party per short rest.

Mobile: I find the 33% speed boost handy. You can dash over difficult terrain at no penalty, and get a free disengage. It's nice to boost your battlefield movement.

Sentinel: Battlefield control to lock a few enemies down. Goes well with Mobile and can get you a few extra attacks per day.

Resilient: Charisma. You now have save proficiencies in everything except DEX and INT(corrected). 4/6 saves is pretty good! Charisma saves are always really bad when you fail them.

Skill Expert: Boost Charisma to get it to 16. I like taking Athletics to get better at shoving, grappling, etc. You get another skill proficiency.

By level 20 this has proficiency in 7/18 skills and expertise in one of them, which is ahead of most classes. You can cover a couple of social skills and have the stats to back them up, plus Athletics, plus Perception and whatever else you want.

And, whatever magic weapon you have, you get to hit enemies with it between 4 and 6 times per round all day long.

The same thing could be done with a Dex fighter. I happen to prefer heavy armor melee.

[JNAProductions]

Resilient: Charisma. You now have save proficiencies in everything except INT and CON. 4/6 saves is pretty good! Charisma saves are always really bad when you fail them.

INT and DEX.

Fighter grants Strength and Constitution naturally.

[LudicSavant]

Just add magic weapons, and you're good on that front. This is mostly a thought exercise to see what can be done to make a fighter who can contribute well outside of hitting things, without having to take X/day spell feats.

It's not super optimized, and for combat, relies mostly on Fighters already being pretty good at getting lots of attacks, and then getting magic weapons to make those attacks hit even harder. It's deliberately not specialized in any given weapon style so that it doesn't matter if you get a Rod of Lordly Might, a Flametongue, a Mace of Disruption, or a +3 Dragonbane Pike.

Feats and ASIs can be take in whatever order makes the most sense for a campaign.

Base:
Vuman, because we want lots of feats.
Str 15 + 1 human +4 from ASI = 20 by 20
Dex 10
Con 14 - a bit low, but that's what healers are for. Also, occasionally at high levels we don't mind going to 0.
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 13, +1 human +2 from feats = 16 by 20

Background whatever, it gives 2 skills and a tool.
Vuman, you get a skill. I like Perception.

Class: I went with Samurai. It's not super complicated, it gives 2 skills and Wisdom save proficiency, and the ability to self-generate advantage and, if reduced to 0, the ability to take an entire turn then and there, including popping Second Wind for a self-heal.
I like Defense because AC is always nice.

Feats: The meat of the "build" if you can call this a build, and this is why I went Fighter.

Inspiring Leader: Grant yourself and up to 5 party members or allies temp HP equal to your level + cha mod. At level 1, this is 5 temp HP. At level 20, it's 23 temp HP. For a 4 person party, that's just short of 100hp worth of temporary HP. If you end up in a social situation where you're leading the army of Azure City in their defense against the Hobgoblin Horde, you can take 4 hours and hand out 144 x 23 = 3312 temporary hit points to your minions. If the party doesn't fight in a vacuum and has prep time, this can help quite a bit. In a 2 short rest day, you can do this 3 times for the party, so potentially 276 temporary HP for a 4 person party at level 20. That's another PC's worth of health.

Strength increase: 2 ASIs into this, at whatever point seems good. We want Str 20 to support "hitting things reasonably hard pretty often."

Healer: Get some cheap healer's kits. You can heal each of your allies 1/sr for 1d6+4+their HD. At level 20, you can heal each party member for 1d6+24 hp once per short rest. For a 4 person party, that's a bit over 100hp in healing per short rest.
Between this and Inspiring Leader, at level 20 you can contribute almost 200hp to the party per short rest.

Mobile: I find the 33% speed boost handy. You can dash over difficult terrain at no penalty, and get a free disengage. It's nice to boost your battlefield movement.

Sentinel: Battlefield control to lock a few enemies down. Goes well with Mobile and can get you a few extra attacks per day.

Resilient: Charisma. You now have save proficiencies in everything except INT and CON. 4/6 saves is pretty good! Charisma saves are always really bad when you fail them.

Skill Expert: Boost Charisma to get it to 16. I like taking Athletics to get better at shoving, grappling, etc. You get another skill proficiency.

By level 20 this has proficiency in 7/18 skills and expertise in one of them, which is ahead of most classes. You can cover a couple of social skills and have the stats to back them up, plus Athletics, plus Perception and whatever else you want.

And, whatever magic weapon you have, you get to hit enemies with it between 4 and 6 times per round all day long.

The same thing could be done with a Dex fighter. I happen to prefer heavy armor melee.

You can get a lot more non-combat utility from Rune Knight or post-Tasha's Battle Master than Samurai.

Ritual Caster is also a good Fighter feat that comes with a lot of utility -- you have the ASI space to afford it, and nothing's going to be competing for your Concentration or anything anyway.

Your choice of primary attribute can also play a role here. Dexterity has more non-combat utility than Strength, as do all of the mental stats. A dip could get you Wis or Cha as a weapon-using stat.

I could post a utility-monkey Fighter build that's also really strong in-combat if there's interest.

[Atranen]

I could post a utility-monkey Fighter build that's also really strong in-combat if there's interest.

Interest :smallsmile:

[RogueJK]

You can get a lot more non-combat utility from Rune Knight or post-Tasha's Battle Master than Samurai.

I concur. However, if one wanted to try to make a Utility/Face Samurai, it could be something like this:

"Wise Wilderness Warrior"
Variant Human Samurai Fighter X
STR 8
DEX 13+1
CON 14
INT 8
WIS 15+1
CHA 13
ASIs: Magic Initiate Druid (Shillelagh, Magic Stone or Produce Flame, and Goodberry) at 1, 17 WIS/14 CHA at 4, Inspiring Leader or Skill Expert (18 WIS) at 6 and the other at 8, followed by stuff like 20 WIS, PAM, Lucky, etc.
Skills: Persuasion, Perception, Insight, Acrobatics, Stealth (Expertise), Survival, Animal Handling
Fighting Style: Defense, or even Superior Technique taking Commanding Presence or Ambush for +1d6 to either a Face Skill or Initiative/Stealth roll each short rest
Wear a Breastplate, wield a Staff and Shield

You've got:
19 AC (20 with Defense fighting style)
WIS-based melee and ranged attacks
Good WIS skills from high WIS and Proficiency and Guidance
Good WIS save from high WIS and Proficiency
Excellent Persuasion from high WIS, moderate CHA, and Proficiency (and another +1d6 if taking Superior Technique Commanding Presence)
Stealth Expertise and Guidance for infiltration (and another +1d6 if taking Superior Technique Ambush)
Emergency healing and food supply from Goodberry
Level+2 Temp HP to yourself and allies after each rest


(And if you have access to something like the Dragonlance or Planescape backgrounds, you could have access to an even better WIS-based ranged cantrip option.)

[J-H]

I picked Samurai specifically for the Wisdom save proficiency and granting of a couple of social skills to better support the party face role.

[RogueJK]

I picked Samurai specifically for the Wisdom save proficiency and granting of a couple of social skills to better support the party face role.

Good things, for sure. But your build didn't do much to capitalize on those. +PB to WIS saves is better than +0 to WIS saves, but you could have achieved even better WIS saves (and higher Persuasion rolls) by investing in a high WIS stat like my example build. Or you could have similar WIS saves by going with a different Fighter subclass and just taking the Resilient WIS feat.

The bonus Persuasion proficiency (Samurai gives 1 skill proficiency, not 2) is likewise nice, but not something that by itself is necessarily worth forgoing a different Fighter subclass. There are a number of ways to snag Persuasion proficiency via race/feat/background.


Even if you don't have Proficiency in all of the face skills, Rune Knight runes could grant you Advantage on 3/4 of them. That's very roughly equivalent to +5, which is better than Proficiency in Tiers 1 and 2, and equivalent in Tier 3 into Tier 4.

Or, you could have something like a Battlemaster with Commanding Presence, which can be used to gain +d8/d10/d12 to CHA Face skill checks. Even if you don't have Proficiency in that Face skill, that Superiority dice is even better than Proficiency at equivalent levels, on average.

Level 3: +2 PB vs. +4.5 Superiority Dice
Level 10: +4 PB vs. +5.5 Superiority Dice
Level 18: +6 PB vs. +6.5 Superiority Dice

(And if you are proficient, it's certainly better than your Samurai's +0 WIS bonus to Persuasion, from which it's gaining zero benefit.)

You'll eventually have access to 6 Superiority Dice anyway, and can grab another dice via Superior Technique Fighting Style and two more dice via Martial Adept, for a total of 9 dice per short rest. So even if you're using some combat maneuvers, you'll have a few dice to spare for out of combat use with maneuvers like Ambush, Tactical Assessment, or Commanding Presence.



One of Ludic's older builds in the first post here, the "Wood Elf Commando", could be a good basis for an example of a high utility Battlemaster build: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?583957-An-Eclectic-Collection-of-Fun-and-Effective-Builds

It's DEX-based, which frees up more of your stats to be able to have a decent WIS and CHA, and DEX/WIS/CHA covers a large number of the utility skill options. It also has additional magical utility from Ritual Caster Wizard.

Just keep in mind that this build was published before Tasha's and many of the other newer books, so it could be built even better these days, especially by taking advantage of the newer BM maneuvers like Ambush, Tactical Assessment, and Commanding Presence. I'd also trade out Wood Elf for something like Half Elf for extra stat bonus and skill proficiencies, skip the Wood Elf Magic feat in favor of Inspiring Leader, ditch Shield Master, etc. Maybe grab a Planescape background for free Guidance to aid your skills.

For example:

"Half Elf Commando"
Standard Half Elf Battlemaster Fighter X
STR 8
DEX 15+2
CON 14
INT 9+1
WIS 13
CHA 13+1
Starting Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion, Insight, Acrobatics, Stealth, Deception, Perception
ASIs: Skill Expert (18 DEX, Intimidation Proficiency, Stealth Expertise) at 4, Ritual Caster Wizard at 6, Resilient WIS (14 WIS) at 8, Inspiring Leader at 12, 20 DEX at 14, 16 WIS or 16 CHA at 16 and the other at 19
Fighting Style: Superior Technique (Ambush)
Maneuvers: Ambush*, Commanding Presence, Tactical Assessment, Trip Attack to start, and eventually 6 others
Gate Warden Background (Guidance)

You've got a 19 AC with Studded Leather and a Rapier and Shield. Your moderate WIS and CHA combined with your high DEX mean you're good at a variety of skills. Your Stealth is quite high, especially with Expertise + Ambush dice. Your Face Skills get a boost from Commanding Presence dice. Guidance can grant another +d4 to a skill when feasible. And you and your team get Level+2 Temp HP each rest.

If you don't care about the utility of the Wizard rituals and would rather have more skills, you can take the Prodigy feat instead, to grab Persuasion Expertise and another proficiency, like Survival or Sleight of Hand.

[CTurbo]

I was also thinking Battle Master. Looking through the long list of maneuvers you'll find several options that fit the "leader" role.

Commander's Presence, Tactical Assessment, Rally, Maneuvering Attack, Commander's Strike, Goading Attack, and Bait and Switch are all great options.

Inspiring Leader, Ritual Caster(Wiz), Magic Initiate(Cleric for Bless and Guidance), Healer, and even Chef would be good feat options.



The hated Banneret subclass was made for this kind of role.

[Dork_Forge]

For your specific build, you really should be boosting Wis more than you're giving it credit for. Elegant Courtier gives a bonus to Persuasion checks equal to your Wis modifier, so you're not capitalising on that at all and still have pretty mediocre Wis saves with a +0 modifier.

Generally speaking, Battle Master (with added dice and maneuvers from the style and feat) is probably going to serve this kind of thing best with the sheer versatility and short rest recharge. I'd also generally say pick either Inspiring Leader or Healer, not both, because it's stretching your feats and stats (I prefer Healer).

Building Roy is hard because he's so MAD, which doesn't always yield game results. IIRC his mentals aren't as individually high as the associated caster, Cha not as high as the Bard's for example, but his mentals are all decently high, rather than one spiking stat. I've always interpreted that to be +3s in his mentals, but that's a bit high for 5e, so probably minimum +2s. Between that and dependence on the other stats, Roy doesn't strike me as frail or not dextrous, you're basically shooting for a high array all around.

You could maybe do this with three +1s spread about, but vanilla Human's 6 +1s are really clutch for making that kind of array feasible, unless you just roll really well.

Using your build as a base to reflect this:

Dumping Charisma to a 10 seems essential and is doable because the Wis modifier will do the lifting instead, just dump inspiring leader. That let's you get this array as a Human:

14 14 14 14 14 11

Which is a little behind the curve for your primary stat, but is more 'Roy.' Taking some liberties with the depiction, if you go Dex-based you can shift some of the Str burden to Athletics prof and still start with a 16 in Dex. Given the comic is Monty Haul with magic marts, you could pretty much expect some form of Str boosting item at some point.



Though the notion of a fighter that does stuff outside of hitting things without taking X spell/day feats is best served by other subclasses probably. I like my Jedi build for this, a Dex-based Githyanki, you're hyper mobile, can move stuff and your allies, reduce team damage, can teleport. Adding additional functionality onto that with feats is pretty trivial.

[LudicSavant]

Rune Knights learn nearly all runes (5 out of 6 of them) over the course of their progression. So while they won't get 100% of the stuff I mention, they get most of it.

They get... let's see...
A bonus tool proficiency and language.
Expertise in all of your tool proficiencies, of which you should have at least 3, and can totally get stuff like Thieves' Tools.
Surprise immunity,
120 foot super-Darkvision,
Advantage on Arcana,
Advantage on Insight,
Advantage on Deception,
Advantage on Sleight of Hand,
Advantage on Animal Handling,
Advantage on Intimidation,
Buff for Advantage on Strength checks,
+2 buff on ability checks for Strength
+2 buff on ability checks for Constitution,
Ability to give people (including allies!) Advantage on any ability check,
Ability to give anyone Disadvantage on any ability check,
Can get big,
Later on, can get real big.


Not to mention that they have a lot of in-combat utility that goes beyond just hitting things, some of which can be reframed as commander-style stuff if you like. For example, Storm Rune's "prophetic state" could just as easily be said to be that you're inspiring / directing allies to be better at those attack rolls, saving throws, and checks. Runic Shield could be tactically directly allies to evade attacks, or foiling enemy actions with cutting words, or the like. Though obviously stuff like growing big will still be outright supernatural.

Their ability to get big also means that shoving and grappling is no longer a situational strategy (especially if you've got Enlarge/Reduce or a potion of Growth in the party's back pocket), and thus you can invest in it more fully than other Fighters can, making dragging enemies around into hazards pretty much your entire thing if you so choose.

You also have the room to invest ASIs in stuff like Ritual Caster, Inspiring Leader, or Skill Expert if you want to.

This also means that Rune Knights fit better with a Rogue dip than many a Fighter. 1 level gets you Expertise in two skills (which can totally synergize with that Advantage), 2 levels covers the Fighter's biggest shortcoming compared to other martials (mobility) and improves your ability to drag things through hazards, and 3 levels gives you the Soul Knife, which gives +4.5 to skill checks an extremely spammable number of times per day that scales with proficiency, not class level. And a great telepathy feature.