Making the best use of the Red Wizard Blade

[Yakmala]

So, I have a level 15 character in a long term campaign that may be getting killed off or otherwise exiting the campaign for plot reasons. Along the way, this character acquired a legendary item. It doesn't matter which. What matters is that, if/when I replace this character with a new one, the new character will be entering the campaign with their own, different legendary item of my choice. I have chosen the recently released Red Wizard Blade.

For those who are unfamiliar, its a legendary dagger. It has no bonus to hit. However, on a hit, you do an additional 3D12 necrotic damage. This extra damage can be used on multiple attacks per round. And if you kill a creature with this dagger, it's dead short of divine intervention or True Resurrection.

So given the following limitations: Level 15, point buy, only published 5e books set in the Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft universe, how would you optimize for use of the Red Wizard Blade?

Two initial options come to mind.

1: Twelve levels of fighter (subclass TBD) and three levels of Rogue (subclass TBD). Elf race of choice. Pick up Elven Accuracy and Sentinel. Get up close and personal, keep them from running via Sentinel and then stab away three times per round with triple advantage due to the Rogue's Steady Aim.

2: Kensei Monk: Get in three dagger attacks per round thanks to Ki Fueled attack, either using Focused Aim when you miss one of the first two strikes or Deft Strike when the first two strikes both hit. Get in your strikes and then move away using either the Mobile feat or Step of the Wind.

Any other ideas for ways to get the most out of this weapon?

[JNAProductions]

Note that Steady Aim only works on your NEXT attack, not all attacks in a turn.

[Chaos Jackal]

Yeah, Steady Aim is not gonna give you what you want. Here's an alternative.

Elf Samurai: Fighter is one of your best bets in the first place, thanks to the scaling Extra Attack, and Fighting Spirit will give you the double advantage you seek with Elven Accuracy, at least for once per combat. If the campaign goes to 20, you can stick to fighter for the additional Extra Attack, else you can fill in with whatever you like. Remember to pick Dueling as your Fighting Style.
Oh, and Action Surge can mean a boatload more attacks, incidentally.

Kensei: You already mentioned that one, so just throwing in one extra, excellent perk of this choice. Sharpen the Blade actually works with the Red Wizard Blade, for up to +3/+3 on attack and damage, making up for it not having a to-hit bonus on its own. Weapons with massive extra damage features, like this dagger and Oathbow, are favorites of Kensei builds for precisely this reason, shifting the power budget where it's fully useful to you. Just be careful with your ki. Oh, and the dagger's base damage die scales with Martial Arts, though that's not as big a boost.

[Dualight]

Elf Samurai: Fighter is one of your best bets in the first place, thanks to the scaling Extra Attack, and Fighting Spirit will give you the double advantage you seek with Elven Accuracy, at least for three times per short rest. If the campaign goes to higher levels, you can stick to fighter for the additional Extra Attack at lv17, else you can fill in with whatever you like. Remember to pick Dueling as your Fighting Style.

I do not have any new suggestions for OP, but I have to correct something here: Fighter's 4th attack is at 20th level, not 17th. That said, If you already have Advantage, Samurai 15 does give one more attack at the cost of having to make 1 attack without Advantage with the Samurai's Rapid Strike feature. This, plus Fighting Spirit(3/Long rest, not per Short, then 1/Initiative if you have at least 10 levels in Fighter) for Advantage (and temp. HP), and Action Surge, makes Samurai quite interesting if you want to get the most out of a really damaging weapon.
While I can't say if it is the best fit for your situation, but since you are already considering Fighter, it is worth looking into.

[Chaos Jackal]

I do not have any new suggestions for OP, but I have to correct something here: Fighter's 4th attack is at 20th level, not 17th.

Oh yeah, brain fart. Thanks for pointing it out.

[OptimizedAC]

JNA makes an important point. Starting at level 15 and considering fighter as your choice, you're better off considering what subclasses can do towards what you want those Rogue-levels to. Like half the fighter subclasses have some way to generate advantage at this point. Samurai would have been my first suggestion, if Chaos didn't preceed me. There's technically some antisynergy between Elven Accuracy and the 15th level feature, but not to signficant demerit for the build. It's more of like a little spice to your decision-making.

Other subclasses can still be great, also in regards to advantage. Rune knight let's you restrain amongst its many options (and gets a great bump at lvl 15), Psi warrior and Cavalier lets you knock prone and Eldritch knight have have plenty of spell-casting tools. While battle master is also on this list, obviously, I wouldn't personally recommend it. It won't be bad, but it's front-loaded - it seems more fun to take advantage of subclasses with interesting benefits in tier 3+ play.

A subclass that doesn't provide its own source of advantage, but is weirdly worth mentioning is the Champion. That blade makes critical hits much more valuable than they otherwise are, making crit-fishing more appealing. With elven accuracy, your advantaged attacks have an almost 15 % chance of critting. At level 15, a champion would instead have an almost 40 % chance. That almost 25 % difference is a long shot from a 25 % increase in actual DPR, but it's worth noting when the least noteworthy subclass becomes noteworthy.

As you can probably tell, I think fighter is well worth going for. The Kensai doesn't get action surge, although it does get other great benefits. Doesn't mean those two classes are the only ones worth considering, if mostly to explore alternative flavours. A Horizon-walker Ranger 11+ can get 3 attacks out of the blade with decent regularity - at the steep cost of spreading that damage around (and gloom-stalker gets that benefit under other narrow conditions).
With that blade being called the Red Wizard Blade - have you considered being a wizard? While you won't get the full use out of it, a Bladesinger would supplement extra attack with 8th+ level spell-casting. A swords-bard could use their flourish every turn, and get full benefit from their regular class-features. It's definitely powerful, but possibly not the feel you're going for.

Besides (sub)class, there are some other decisions you need to make.
You have to choose between dex and strength as your main stat (or Cha). Dex is the obvious candidate - supporting plenty of relevant skills, initative, and making ranged attacks a more reliable backup. Strength has the advantage of supporting Athletics, however. If there's no other source of advantage, knocking something prone is great. Locking it down with a grapple is then even better. At level 15+, there's plenty of foes that makes that approach difficult however.
The choice is likely to be made for you by whether you go for options that locks down your stat - Elven accuracy being the obvious factor here, but here's another:

An alternative to Rogue 3 is Barbarian 2+, which offers advantage on all your attacks at a price. A 1-level dip gives a solid boost to your effective health pool, and subclasses like Totem Warrior or Ancestral Guardian can be good at 3.

Speaking of dips:
A one level dip into war-cleric could be good if your wisdom supports the investment. You won't really benefit from dual-wielding, but with your main weapon a couple of extra attacks a day are great in a clinch. Even 1st level cleric-spells are decent when you can't concentrate on anything else.

Hexblade 1 lets you up your crit-fishing game when you really need to down a sticky target. Spell-slots are nice. The next couple of levels can have decent benefit if progressing your main class is unappealing. Going for Cha as your main stat might be fun especially if there's no Cha-casters in the group.

I'm not sure if you should prioritize dipping. 13 is an off-putting, dead level to fighters, but afterwards it's pretty smooth sailing. I'd say it depends for fighter on how much you want the level 15 subclass feature, and how much you want further feats. Since you won't need GWM or Sharpshooter, and fighters get an extra feat by lvl 12, smooth sailing might be less appealing as much of its waters are ASIs. Maybe you wanna forego further feats for other classes features. I'm not sure that you should, as there are plenty to choose from. This is far from an extensive list:

Elven accuracy is amazing for what you want to do if you can get the necessary advantage. While it locks you to elven races, that's not a particularly steep cost - there's great options here.
EA also makes your main stat a slightly lower priority than it would otherwise be. Very little of your damage comes from the flat bonus from your stat when rolling 3d12 for weapon damage. With triple advantage, +1 to hit is more like a +2.5 percentage-point increase than a +5. 20 is still an appealing improvement over 18, but feats that otherwise wouldn't beat out an ASI become worth considering. Stacking three half-feats on your 15+2 might beat that out again, though:

Skill expert is excellent if you go strength, and still has interesting potential with Dex-skills

Piercer is curious third option. It feels kinda munchkiny to read it this way, but I'm not sure it's against RAW to apply it off a bonus 1d12 necrotic die. If your DM finds it agreable, your build gets as much out of it as anyone could.

Resilience also an obvious half-feat of choice, although wisdom is a higher priority than dexterity for it.

While not a half-feat, I want to particularly mention Ritual Caster. It gives similiar benefit to what you considered going Rogue 3 for. The (owl) familiar might die after a couple of advantaged attacks, but then you also get other ritual spells that are nice to have, if only to free up the spells known of the casters.

(Aberrant dragonmark would be amazing with its +1 con and free spell (fog cloud) per short(!) rest. That's a tip for whoever reads this and plays under the exact same conditions except for the region-lock on features, however)


You also need to choose a Fighting Style:
If you get a style, then dueling offers free damage. But as noted, flat bonuses are a smaller percentage of your damage output than for a normal build. Superiour technique provides opportunities to throw down those big extra dice on occasions where maybe you otherwise couldn't. Blind-fighting is potentially the strongest choice - CR15+ enemies are likely to have some supervision. But devilsight and truesight can't see through a Fog Cloud (or Pyrotechnics). Blind-fighting can. So there is potential for a semi-reliable source of advantage (and imposed disadvantage), but it faces the general problems of messing with sight-lines in a group game.

[Unoriginal]

Psi Warrior Fighter would be nice, I think, but regardless of the subclass I would really consider two levels of Barbarian alongside it.

[Gignere]

Psi Warrior Fighter would be nice, I think, but regardless of the subclass I would really consider two levels of Barbarian alongside it.

Barbarian doesn’t play well with Elven Accuracy. Barbarian’s advantage applies to attacking with strength. EA triple advantage only applies to attacks not using strength.

[RogueJK]

There are better ways to generate Advantage than being a Samurai... The 3 rounds per day part really hurts Fighting Spirit. Even once Tireless Spirit comes online, it's only an additional 1 round per combat. So you're only looking at a handful of rounds of Advantage per day.

Instead, consider an Eldritch Knight 11/Warlock 4. With the Darkness spell and the Devil's Sight invocation, you can have Advantage on all your attacks while you have Darkness running. An Eldritch Knight 12 can cast Darkness 3x per day. A Warlock 4 can cast Darkness 2x per Short Rest. Make your race Half Drow, and you can cast Darkness 1 more time per day, plus still access Elven Accuracy.

That's a total of ~6-10 total combats (not just rounds) per day where you can have Triple Advantage on most dagger attacks with Darkness. Plus, enemies have Disadvantage to attack you, unless they can see through magical darkness.

You have 4x 1st level slots too, for things like Shield/Absorb Elements/Silvery Barbs. And you'll have 3 Wizard cantrips and 3 Warlock cantrips, plus potentially another 3 any class cantrips if you go Tome Pact.

You also get a Warlock subclass, another Invocation, and a Pact. Eldritch Mind invocation is a good pick if you don't take Warcaster, otherwise something like Mask of Many Faces is always handy, or Improved Pact Weapon for a Bladelock can get your dagger a +1 to attack and damage. Pact of the Chain gets you a flying invisible Imp scout, Pact of the Tome gets you 3 additional cantrips, or Pact of the Blade would allow you to take the Improved Pact Weapon invocation to gain a +1 to attack and damage (since this Dagger doesn't already have that). Good options for patron include Hexblade for Hexblade's Curse (plus the option to use CHA to attack, though I'd likely still stick with DEX), Fathomless for a Bonus Action attack, or Fiend for a little Temp HP when you kill an enemy.

Something like this:
Half Drow Eldritch Knight Fighter 11/Hexblade Warlock 4
STR 8
DEX 15+2
CON 15+1
INT 8
WIS 12
CHA 13+1
ASIs: Elven Accuracy (18 DEX), Skill Expert (19 DEX, Stealth Expertise), Piercer (20 DEX), Warcaster
Skills: Stealth, Perception, Persuasion, Deception, Acrobatics
Dueling Fighting Style
Pact of the Blade
Invocations: Devil's Sight, Improved Pact Weapon
EK Cantrips: Booming Blade, Prestidigitation, Message
EK Spells: Find Familiar*, Absorb Elements, Mage Armor, Protection from Evil/Good, Magic Missile, Silvery Barbs*, Darkness, Warding Wind
Spell Slots: 4/3+2 Pact
Warlock Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion
Warlock Spells: Shield, Expeditious Retreat, Misty Step, Invisibility
Racial Cantrip: Dancing Lights
Racial Spells (1x/day): Faerie Fire, Darkness

Wear Light Armor and wield a shield and your Red Wizard Dagger. (Or when you want to be less obtrusive, between Mage Armor and your ability to summon/dismiss your Pact Weapon, you can be 99% as combat effective while appearing unarmed/unarmored.) Keep a longbow handy for times when you know you're going to be primarily attacking at range, otherwise you have Eldritch Blast as a backup for times when you need to make ranged attacks while still wielding your dagger and shield. Thanks to Warcaster, you can make Booming Blade opportunity attacks to help lock down enemies. You're a passable Party Face, and you're an excellent Scout thanks to a high Stealth, Invisibility, and access to a Familiar.

Your primary routine will be to Action Surge to cast Darkness and then Attack with 3x Triple Advantaged dagger attacks, and then continue making Triple Advantaged dagger attacks in subsequent rounds.

Between your high CON, CON save proficiency, Warcaster, Disadvantage on most incoming attacks, and the fact you can't be directly targeted by any spell that requires seeing you, you're very likely to be able to maintain Concentration on Darkness for long periods. Shield/Silvery Barbs/Absorb Elements help here too, by further mitigating incoming attacks or elemental damage.

Thanks to Improved Pact Weapon and Dueling fighting style, your dagger attacks have an additional +1 attack bonus and +3 damage bonus, doing 3d10+1d4+8 damage.

If fighting enemies that can see through Darkness (like many Fiends) you're noticeably less effective, but you can still get occasional Triple Advantage by having your Familiar use the Help action or utilizing your racial Faerie Fire, and potentially impose Disadvantage on incoming attacks with Protection from Good/Evil.


Psi Warrior Fighter would be nice, I think, but regardless of the subclass I would really consider two levels of Barbarian alongside it.

Reckless Attack is an easy way to generate Advantage, but it can't be used alongside Elven Accuracy to get Triple Advantage. Reckless only works on STR attacks, and EA only works on DEX/INT/WIS/CHA attacks.

[da newt]

Can the artificer's returning weapon infusion be added to a magic item? I didn't see the restriction written out, but assume it's in there somewhere.

The old AG Barb Echo Knight Fighter MC might be a great vehicle for this weapon too, maybe add in Shadar Kai for a little more shenanigans ...

Or maybe BM for riposte and brace w/ sentinel for as many off turn attacks as possible.

[Yakmala]

Can the artificer's returning weapon infusion be added to a magic item? I didn't see the restriction written out, but assume it's in there somewhere.

The old AG Barb Echo Knight Fighter MC might be a great vehicle for this weapon too, maybe add in Shadar Kai for a little more shenanigans ...

Or maybe BM for riposte and brace w/ sentinel for as many off turn attacks as possible.

Alas, the returning weapon infusion can only be added to a non-magical weapon.

Echo Knight would be a great idea, but this campaign is limited to published 5e materials in the Forgotten Realms. No Mercer, MTG, Strixhaven, Dragonlance, Eberron or UA materials.

[Yakmala]

Thanks for the great ideas we have had so far!

Thanks for pointing out the limitation to once per round with Steady Aim. That does devalue the three level dip I was considering for that.

The Samurai is an interesting option as well, though the advantage that provides would be limited to three uses per day, plus an additional one use per fight after that.

I actually considered Champion, both for the double fighting styles and the increased crit chance, but every time I've ever built a crit-fishing build, my dice have taught me just how infrequently the benefits of such a build happen.

Battle Master was an obvious consideration for the trip attack, but our DM tends to through a lot of large or larger creatures at us, so there's going to be many times where trip is unavailable.

I'm a big fan of the Ritual Caster feat, which is another good way to get advantage via Find Familiar, though familiars tend to have a short lifespan at our level (15) due to the frequency of enemies with AoE capability.

Keep those ideas coming!

[Unoriginal]

Instead, consider an Eldritch Knight 11/Warlock 4. With the Darkness spell and the Devil's Sight invocation

I would take Blind Fighting as lvl 1 Fighting Style, rather than Devil's Sight. Blind Fighging works on everything from magic to physically losing your eyes.

That also means you can use other spells than Darkness to blind the opposition.



Reckless Attack is an easy way to generate Advantage, but it can't be used alongside Elven Accuracy to get Triple Advantage. Reckless only works on STR attacks, and EA only works on DEX/INT/WIS/CHA attacks.

True, but I don't think Elven Accuracy is a good investment here.

In fact, I think OP should go full STR regardless of if they multiclass into Barbarian or Warlock.

Full plate, shield and magic dagger is the way to go, IMO.

If multiclassing into Warlock, then you can go Blade Pact for Eldritch Smite and making it impossible to separate you from your weapon with ordinary means.

EDIT:

Pact of the Blade also allow to take Improved Pact Weapon, which does work on the Red Wizard Blade as it is a +0 weapon.

So going Blade Pact let you make your Red Wizard Blade a +1 weapon too.

As for Fighter, Eldritch Knight can return your bonded weapon to hand as a bonus action, meaning you can throw it twice in a turn if you want.

[RogueJK]

I would take Blind Fighting as lvl 1 Fighting Style, rather than Devil's Sight. Blind Fighging works on everything from magic to physically losing your eyes.

The big downside to relying on Blind Fighting is that it has a 10' range, while Darkness has a 15' radius. So you're still Blind to any attacks from outside 10' while inside your Darkness, which means enemy ranged/reach attacks won't have Disadvantage (they can't see you but you can't see them, so it cancels out to a straight attack roll). You also couldn't make Advantaged ranged attacks outside your Darkness, since you can't see past 10' within the 15' Darkness.

Since you can't see any of the other enemies - or your allies - outside the 10' Blind Fighting radius, it makes it awkward to use, with you having to cast Darkness on an object and then use your Object Interactions in multiple rounds to cover/uncover the object to repeatedly turn the Darkness effect on/off while hunting for additional enemies, or finding where that ally went down so you can rush over to administer a potion to save them.

Though I guess you could go the "belt and suspender" route and just take both. But an EK11/W4 doesn't get access to any other sight-blocking spells, other than potentially spending one of your Any School picks from EK on Fog Cloud. A mobile 15' radius Darkness is much more useful than a static 20' radius Fog Cloud, plus you run into the same issue described above with the 10' Blind Fighting and 20' radius Fog Cloud, without even the ability to turn Fog Cloud on and off like you could with Darkness. So I don't think that's worth investing in here. Darkness + Devil's Sight is significantly better in every way.



If multiclassing into Warlock, then you can go Blade Pact for Eldritch Smite and making it impossible to separate you from your weapon with ordinary means.

Eldritch Smite isn't available until Warlock 5, which on a 15th level PC means giving up your 3rd Fighter attack. You'd be giving up a potential 3d10+1d4+8 every turn just to gain +4d8 twice per short rest (and fewer Darkness castings). Not a good trade off at all.


Skipping EA and going full STR is definitely an option, with something like a Rune Knight 11/Bear Barbarian 4 potentially being a good choice.




As for Fighter, Eldritch Knight can return your bonded weapon to hand as a bonus action, meaning you can throw it twice in a turn if you want.

True, but you could only throw it twice for one turn.

Round 1:
Start with dagger in hand
Attack throw dagger
BA summon dagger back
Extra Attack throw dagger
Dagger is now in an enemy and you are unarmed

Round 2+:
Start unarmed
BA summon dagger
Attack throw dagger
Dagger is now in an enemy and you are unarmed

[tokek]

Kensai Monk feels awesome for this

Sharpen the Blade does work on this weapon as it has no bonus to hit. So you can spend Ki to give it a bonus to hit and damage of up to +3

Then you can use Focused Aim to give yourself up to another +6 to hit. By spending Ki you open up having a BA attack with the weapon for a 3rd attack.

You have advantage to hit stunned targets. Just saying.

The poor base dagger damage does not matter, you will use your martial arts dice of 1d8. With shapen the blade you will be doing 1d8+3+dex mod+3d12. Very tasty. But more importantly most of those will hit and you will be spending ki either to boost the damage or make an attack hit so you will get the BA ki fuelled attack each turn.

If you progress to 18th level then you get one attack reroll per turn at 17 and then at 18 you can more or less turn invisible (with damage resistance) when you like to give you reliable advantage that still has a once per turn reroll on top.

[Unoriginal]

If you want to start with 3 attacks, fair, not great. But Improved Pact Weapon definitively is worth it on a character built around this weapon.

3 levels of Genie Bladelock on top of 12 levels of Eldritch Knight or Psi Knight? That is one *hurting* dagger.

EDIT:

Does Sharpen the Blade work with Improved Pact Weapon? Don't think it does, but man, if it did it would be neat.

[RogueJK]

But Improved Pact Weapon definitively is worth it on a character built around this weapon.

Agreed, which is one of the primary reasons why I went Bladelock in my initial suggested build. Devil's Sight, 2x additional Darkness casting per short rest, and Improved Pact Weapon all combine to seriously boost the deadliness of this particular dagger.



3 levels of Genie Bladelock on top of 12 levels of Eldritch Knight or Psi Knight? That is one *hurting* dagger.

Genie Warlock gets +PB damage to one hit per turn. Hexblade's Curse adds +PB damage to every hit against one target per short rest, plus doubles your Crit range, which combines quite well with frequent Advantage/Triple Advantage if going that route. I think Hexblade wins out here, especially considering that at Level 15+ you tend to be facing fewer bigger enemies during combats, as opposed to hordes of weaker enemies.



Does Sharpen the Blade work with Improved Pact Weapon? Don't think it does, but man, if it did it would be neat.

Correct, it does not. "This feature has no effect on a magic weapon that already has a bonus to attack and damage rolls."

Improved Pact Weapon is a magic weapon that has a bonus to attack and damage rolls.

[Unoriginal]

Genie Warlock gets +PB damage to one hit per turn. Hexblade's Curse adds +PB damage to every hit against one target per short rest, plus doubles your Crit range, which combines quite well with frequent Advantage/Triple Advantage if going that route. I think Hexblade wins out here, especially considering that at Level 15+ you tend to be facing fewer bigger enemies during combats, as opposed to hordes of weaker enemies.

Fewer bigger enemies still means you have quite a few turns of damage dealing between Short Rests.

I think if there is two or more fights between SR, Genie wins out. At least, if there are five or more enemies in total between SR, Genie wins out (keeping in mind that fewer enenies means the teammates are most likely also helping, meaning that the one enemy you're Hexblade Cursing may die before you got to unleash many attacks on it).

Plus there the versatility of still being able to use the feature at top efficiency even if it is one of the less common "hordes of weaker enemies".

[OptimizedAC]

Since devilsight+darkness is being repeatedly pushed for in this thread (and because the poster doing the primary pushing generally provides advice that merits consideration in my esteem), an elaboration might be in order for why the game is likely progressed too far for that to pay off.

Disclaimer: The following is a statistical analysis based on white room assumptions. Ymmw for your particular table. Furthermore, it is based on a database I probably shouldn't link, with it's default material and only cr&vision tweaked (thus no attempts have been made to adjust for OPs setting).

There are 403 creatures at CR 10 or higher. Of these only 95 have no form of blindssight, superior darkvision, tremorsense or true sight.

That means devilsight + darkness only helps a melee build against a quarter of those creatures.

The odds worsen against the deadlier of these threats. CR 15+ has 33 out of 207 creatures without such senses.

While warlock can have interesting benefits as an extended dips, based on OP's description, going for darkness+devilsight is likely to be a frustrating mistake.

Pyrotechnics + blind fighting is not perfect. 54 CR 15+ creatures and 99 CR10+ ones have either blindsight or tremorsense. But that leaves much better odds for a much lower investment. It's highly competitive against other fighting styles assuming fog or some such effect can cheaply and reliably be provided.

[Yakmala]

There are 403 creatures at CR 10 or higher. Of these only 95 have no form of blindssight, superior darkvision, tremorsense or true sight.

That means devilsight + darkness only helps a melee build against a quarter of those creatures.

The odds worsen against the deadlier of these threats. CR 15+ has 33 out of 207 creatures without such senses.

This was a something I'd considered. Plus I'm typically not inclined towards builds that have the potential to hinder the success of other party members.

[Unoriginal]

This was a something I'd considered. Plus I'm typically not inclined towards builds that have the potential to hinder the success of other party members.

In that case, a couple level of Barbarian is your best bet for Advantage generation.

Heck, you can go Psi Knight Fighter 12/Ancestor Barbarian 3, that would make you very tanky *and* let you protect your teammates.

[tokek]

If you are open to dumbass builds

Fairy, Kensai Monk 15
Feat Athlete (Dex), ASI Dex, ASI Wis
Starting with 17 Dex and 16 Wis you now have 20 Dex and 18 Wis. Con is the next priority and how hard you dump the other 3 scores is a matter of taste

The gimmick is to use the move of 60 while flying to drop onto things, then use your monk Slow Fall to take no damage. You still make them take a Dex save or go prone. Then because you took Athlete feat you only need 5' of move to stand back up and have advantage on your attacks. This only uses your movement not any part of your action economy.

All the goodness of Kensai Monk for making your dagger +3/+3 and still having the option of boosting either your hit roll or your damage roll - when you use Ki you get the BA attack.

Simple, reasonably effective. Funny. But gimmicky.

(Just imagine it as the worlds most extreme drop kick followed by stabby action. Also I went Fairy rather than another flying race partially because I just think its a great fun race to play but also because Faerie Fire is an alternate source of advantage and Enlarge/Reduce is sneakily one of the best out of combat utility spells)

[Dork_Forge]

Kensei Monk feels like an easy winner here imo:

- Monk's speed/mobility means you don't really need to care about ranged attacks most of the time, so returning is moot
- Sharpen the Blade and the Martial Arts Die scaling make an already formidable weapon even better
- Martial Arts gives you a reliable bonus attack(s) to mix in, Ki-Fueled Attack brings in BA dagger attacks
- Stunning Strike crit fishing/source of advantage
- Focused Aim to make sure you're landing that damage and getting those bonus action dagger swipes
- Deft Strike to dump more damage into crits
- If you do find yourself in a situation where you need real ranged attacks, you can just whip out a +3 longbow and throw extra d4s onto the damage.

I'd probably suggest Monk 14/Fighter 1, so you can grab Dueling for some extra damage and so you can take care of your own HP a bit without burning Ki. It also sets you up for a 2nd level for Action Surge and 3rd level for Battle Master, making you a pretty insane SR martial combo.

[tokek]

I'd probably suggest Monk 14/Fighter 1, so you can grab Dueling for some extra damage and so you can take care of your own HP a bit without burning Ki. It also sets you up for a 2nd level for Action Surge and 3rd level for Battle Master, making you a pretty insane SR martial combo.

For a one-shot I would totally agree with you there

For introduction to an ongoing campaign I don't think its worth delaying Empty Body by a level. I would certainly not take 3 levels of fighter because that would mean never getting Empty Body and that would be a real shame.

Two fighter levels after you get to Monk 18 I could definitely get onboard with. Although there are other options, with a Wis of 20 you could go for Cleric or Druid

The cleric dip is well known and obviously good, a couple of levels to have Spores Druid really leans into the necrotic damage theme of the build with another 1d6 necrotic damage on each hit.

[Dork_Forge]

For a one-shot I would totally agree with you there

For introduction to an ongoing campaign I don't think its worth delaying Empty Body by a level. I would certainly not take 3 levels of fighter because that would mean never getting Empty Body and that would be a real shame.

Whilst Empty Body is good, it's 18th level and OP gave no indication of how long the game will go on and level up tend to be slow at higher levels.

And then there's the reality of Empty Body, it takes an action and 4 Ki to set up, with only a minute duration making 'precasting' an unreliable proposition. Compare that to not giving up your first turn, the SR spike of Action Surge, and the +2 on all your dagger attacks with Dueling and going straight Monk for Empty Body really doesn't look appealing. And that's not even considering the power of a Fighter subclass.

I just don't see Empty Body being worth it for the desired outcome.


Two fighter levels after you get to Monk 18 I could definitely get onboard with. Although there are other options, with a Wis of 20 you could go for Cleric or Druid

The cleric dip is well known and obviously good, a couple of levels to have Spores Druid really leans into the necrotic damage theme of the build with another 1d6 necrotic damage on each hit.

Both of those options are pretty bad for this though? Cleric is a decent-ish dip on a Monk generally but the only one that really adds to the dagger is War Cleric's Wis mod bonus action attacks.

Druid is worse, besides needing two levels to come online, Spore Druid dips are abysmal because the temp HP is based on your number of Druid levels and the benefits of Symbiotic Entity go away if you lose those temp HP. Dipping Ranger for Hunter's Mark would be a much better damage boost and open up Gloom Stalker for a significant damage boost.

[da newt]

I like BM fighter 11 / Gloomstalker 3 / X and I'd add Blind FS, Alert, (maybe sentinel too) and either Shadar Kai w/ EA for added mobility and resistance (and theme) or Bugbear for the sweet sweet first round nova and the 10' melee reach is fun too (and theme and it works great w/ brace).

With trip, riposte, brace and precision you can generate ADV via prone, opp attacks, and making sure you hit when you need to.

A full BB nova first round would be 8 attacks for 8d4+24d12+2d8+8(dex/st)+16d6+ any BM moves + crits = about 280 damage for all hits no crits no extra BM damage.

Add in a friend who can greater invisibility you and enjoy (or shadow of moil if it wasn't self only) .





Of note RAW tremor-sense and blind sight do not let you see your target so unseen attackers and targets apply (yes this is stupid, but RAW - I don't encourage anyone to rule strict RAW on this).

[Gignere]

I like BM fighter 11 / Gloomstalker 3 / X and I'd add Blind FS, Alert, (maybe sentinel too) and either Shadar Kai w/ EA for added mobility and resistance (and theme) or Bugbear for the sweet sweet first round nova and the 10' melee reach is fun too (and theme and it works great w/ brace).

With trip, riposte, brace and precision you can generate ADV via prone, opp attacks, and making sure you hit when you need to.

A full BB nova first round would be 8 attacks for 8d4+24d12+2d8+8(dex/st)+16d6+ any BM moves + crits = about 280 damage for all hits no crits no extra BM damage.

Add in a friend who can greater invisibility you and enjoy (or shadow of moil if it wasn't self only) .





Of note RAW tremor-sense and blind sight do not let you see your target so unseen attackers and targets apply (yes this is stupid, but RAW - I don't encourage anyone to rule strict RAW on this).

I think tremorsense is true, but it’s common RAI to rule blindsight can “see” invisible.

[Witty Username]

Instead, consider an Eldritch Knight 11/Warlock 4. With the Darkness spell and the Devil's Sight invocation, you can have Advantage on all your attacks while you have Darkness running. An Eldritch Knight 12 can cast Darkness 3x per day. A Warlock 4 can cast Darkness 2x per Short Rest. Make your race Half Drow, and you can cast Darkness 1 more time per day, plus still access Elven Accuracy.

A quick caution with this is that it also shuts down your allies capacity to to gain advantage, if that is important. since this is a dagger build it is required to go into melee to function so the normal ways of mitigating your impact on the party won't work as well.



Of note RAW tremor-sense and blind sight do not let you see your target so unseen attackers and targets apply (yes this is stupid, but RAW - I don't encourage anyone to rule strict RAW on this).

Frankly, at least with darkness + Devil's sight, it doesn't usually matter. You will either have allies in the darkness with you, which can be attacked without disadvantage as they are blinded in the darkness, or are outside of the effect and can be attacked for possibly advantage if done correctly.

This is a dagger build so you do get some melee punish for that kind of thinking.

I personally use Tremorsense, and Blindsense as sight mechanics, I mean, similar arguments with RAW could conclude dark vision doesn't let you see targets in darkness it just lets you know their locations. Which doesn't read as stupid so much as a category error.

[da newt]

My point being tremor-sense and blindsight both specifically do not allow you to SEE anything, darkvison and devil's sight specifically do allow you to SEE. Unseen targets and attackers specifically requires things to be SEEN.

RAW a grimlock and purple worms etc. always attack at DISADV and are attacked at ADV because they can't SEE anything.


Strangely the Blind Fighting FS gives you blindsight and then also adds that 'you can effectively SEE anything that isn't behind total cover even if you are blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can SEE invisible creatures unless they successfully hide from you.' which grants WAY more than blindsight does alone.

But that is not the point of the OP.

[Yakmala]

Whilst Empty Body is good, it's 18th level and OP gave no indication of how long the game will go on and level up tend to be slow at higher levels.

This particular game has been going on for nearly two years. We started at level 3, have been working our way up and there is no particular end point (we have party goals, but they tend to evolve as the party does).

As for Short Rest vs Long Rest. A typical four hour session tends to have a lot of roleplay and investigation usually leading to a large scale difficult fight in the end followed by travel/returning to whatever amounts to our base of operations at the time (currently Sigil). Which is to say, it's not the type of campaign where we are getting into multiple battles in a row that are forcing us to carefully ration resources. So something like a Kensei Monk can go ham with Ki and probably be ok, especially if they pick up something like a Dragonhide Belt.

[Witty Username]

My point being tremor-sense and blindsight both specifically do not allow you to SEE anything, darkvison and devil's sight specifically do allow you to SEE. Unseen targets and attackers specifically requires things to be SEEN.

RAW a grimlock and purple worms etc. always attack at DISADV and are attacked at ADV because they can't SEE anything.


Strangely the Blind Fighting FS gives you blindsight and then also adds that 'you can effectively SEE anything that isn't behind total cover even if you are blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can SEE invisible creatures unless they successfully hide from you.' which grants WAY more than blindsight does alone.

But that is not the point of the OP.

It is called blindsight though.

[da newt]

Blindsight
A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.
Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.
If a monster is naturally blind, it has a parenthetical note to this effect, indicating that the radius of its blindsight defines the maximum range of its perception.


A creature with blindsight cannot see anything with their blindsight. (for that matter a Rogue w/ blindsense can't see anything with it either)

[JNAProductions]

Blindsight
A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.
Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.
If a monster is naturally blind, it has a parenthetical note to this effect, indicating that the radius of its blindsight defines the maximum range of its perception.


A creature with blindsight cannot see anything with their blindsight. (for that matter a Rogue w/ blindsense can't see anything with it either)

How many DMs play by that ruling, though?

[Dork_Forge]

Blindsight
A monster with blindsight can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight, within a specific radius.
Creatures without eyes, such as grimlocks and gray oozes, typically have this special sense, as do creatures with echolocation or heightened senses, such as bats and true dragons.
If a monster is naturally blind, it has a parenthetical note to this effect, indicating that the radius of its blindsight defines the maximum range of its perception.


A creature with blindsight cannot see anything with their blindsight. (for that matter a Rogue w/ blindsense can't see anything with it either)

Hard to argue with the RAW, the RAI is questionable since the Invisible conditions specifically calls out special senses (plural, when only Truesight uses the word see) as letting a creature see something invisible, JC has also tweeted out support that blindsight let's you 'spot' a creature. I don't think many DMs would go for the RAW because it makes blindsight utterly pointless a lot of the time, since you basically know where creatures are without hiding regardless of your vision. Then there's also it being called Blindsight...

Also, Blindsense is an awful ability, Rogues should have just gotten a blindsight range.



Separately, I wouldn't put all my eggs in the Darkvision/Devil's Sight basket for an adv trick, it does nothing for you for things like Fog Cloud, an Eversmoking bottle, other spells or weather which cause obscurement. Blindsight is just more reliable, and with Darkvision at least, there's no real reason to not have both.