An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[NCat]

Alright, so, you like adding dice to your damage, don't you? We all do. And what better classes to do this than the Paladin and the Rogue. Just getting that one good hit and telling your DM 'Yeah, im putting a million dice on this one'. Nothing tops that


What if we could have both of those feelings at the same time?


I present to you,

The OathBlade




So whats the build?

Well, its essentially a mix of paladin 3 and Arcane Trickster Rogue 17
(Stat pre-req's are str13, cha 13, dex 13. Stat prioritization should be dex, con or int, cha, str, wis)

The idea of this, is that you play primarily as a rogue, with a standard hit and run style of gameplay, but you can deal large bursts of damage on top of your Sneak Attack damage using your spell slots, aswell as a general increase to versatility out of combat as a spell caster


While spell options are very much a personal choice, there is 1 that I consider mandatory on this build: Booming Blade

Booming Blade as a cantrip is very strong since it can often match the damage output progression of a full fighter or a EB+Agonizing blast warlock, with its 2d8 per cantrip increase scaling. On a rogue, since you only ever will get one attack per round, you might aswell make that melee attack using booming blade so as to get a whole lot of extra damage at no cost.


As for races and feats, they're primarilly up to user preference, but my personal recommendations would be as follows:


For race, theres no better option for a rogue than an Elf. Darkvision, Fey ancestry and a perception proficiency are generally helpful, and trance is good if you want to scout ahead of time around your party. But even better are subracial features, such as shadar kai's Blessing of the Raven Queen, which is a strong escape feature, The mark of Shadow Elf gets a d4 to stealth rolls aswell as the option to take the spell Pass without a Trace, and wood elves get a speed increase aswell as the ability to hide while only lightly obscured by natural terrain.

But the absolute best thing of elf, is not any of their traits. Its the feat that everyone should know I was building up to: Elven Accuracy. Turn that advantage from 2 dice rolls to 3 dice rolls. A generally useful trait on most builds, but an absolute must have for rogues since it dramatically increases their chance of hitting an enemy with an attack each turn.

So yes, take elf and take elven accuracy, because elven accuracy is just nutty


As for other feats, Id recommend mobile next. a +10 to movement speed is quite strong on its own, but its actually its secondary feature that makes it better, that being that when you attempt an attack against a creature with a melee weapon, you dont provoke opportunity attacks from them for the rest of your turn. Using this increases your effectiveness in a melee fight dramatically aswell, since you no longer need to worry about the disengage action, and can run in, attack, run away and hide to your hearts content.

Those two would be the key essential feats id say. Less mandatory would be feats like Slasher, which is generally quite good if you chose the scimitar as your weapon of choice.
Medium Armor Master, in combination with the defense fighting style, a shield and half plate will grant you an Armor class of 21 (15+3+2+1) which is quite impressive, especially when accounting for the fact that you can add the shield spell on top of this for an even higher

Oh and lucky, i guess. But thats a boring recomendation since anyone can take lucky and it will be good. So lucky works, I guess? But its a kinda boring recommendation to make

Ah! Eldritch adept is a fun feat aswell. Darkness + devils sight is a very efficient way to generate free advantage aswell as protecting yourself if you center it on yourself. The cost is your friends wont really like you that much if you do it though. Mask of many faces is also fun if you plan to use disguises alot and want to avoid spending your spell slots on disguise self.




And now that feats and such are out of the way, lets bring ourselves to the topic of Paladin archetype. Because honestly I kinda forgot about it.

Your subclass in paladin isnt that meaningful for this build, with it just being a channel divinity. You could honestly skip paladin 3 and stop at 2 if you really wanted to, but I say against this for the sole reason of 'I like having features because having a bunch of stuff is fun'

So what paladin subclasses are most optimal? overall, the best options are:


Conquest: Good spell options, Armor Of Agathys is one of my favourite spells, and command has a lot of creativity to how it can be used. Conquering presence is a kinda not great channel divinity, but guiding strike is very good as a once per day ability, granting you a +10 to an attack roll. Very helpful when you want to make sure an attack hits.

Glory: Spell selection is ok, temp HP is nice from heroism and guiding bolt is sorta useful (but not really). Its channel divinities dont offend me, and could be fairly helpful in some circumstances. Inspiring smite its a decent support ability, even if it doesnt scale too well. But my interest is caught on Peerless Athlete, since it could pottentially apply as a utility feature if you are say, Oceans 12 laser dancing through a room, free advantage and bonus's to jumping distance can help out with the active parts of your adventuring day. But it is fairly DM dependent on if you will get these kinds of moments, and if you do, it probably wont be that often.


Redemption: Spells arent that great, but Emmisary of peace is a very fun utility channel divinity, being able to add a +5 to your persuasion checks is very helpful, especially if you ended up with a decent charisma score or chose to expertise persuasion. The other channel divinity option is a fairly alright support feature, aswell as granting additional damage. In fact, depending on what can happen, you can make it so when those horrible moments happen where your DM does half a billion damage to a party member in one attack (aka every one of my parties encounters :/ ), you can turn that around as damage against the enemy.

Vengeance: Bane and hunters mark are decent spells, with bane being pretty useful defensively and supportively, and hunters mark is kinda unimpressive in terms of damage comparing to everything else you have (but still pretty good), Abjure enemies is a interesting channel divinity, but Vow of Enmity? Oh I like vow of Enmity. Takes up an action and has short range, yes, but in exchange you have guaranteed advantage on that enemy for a whole minute. This is an amazing way of getting advantage in a fight if you have the time to activate it. Carries this entire subclass straight to 5/5

Watchers Alarm and detect magic are okay spells. Abjure the extraplanar is an eh channel divinity, but watchers will is a very good channel divinity, giving you and a few allies advantage on all mental saves for a minute. Good support power

Oathbreaker: Hellish rebuke is a good spell, inflict wounds is ok but not great for your character. Both of its channel divinities are good. Control undead is a situational but useful power to have, and Dreadful aspect is, unlike the rest of the fear and turn effects, probably quite helpful. No repeat saves while they are within 30 feet of you, and multiple targets. Its a decently inspiring ability to me that could probably have a good few uses if creative

Treachery (UA): Charm person is a generally useful spell, though expeditious retreat is a little bit useless on a rogue. Both of its channel divinity options are quite powerful. Conjure duplicate is similiar to vow of enmity as a free source of advantage, though its a bit harder to use in exchange for being more versatile in its use as an illusion feature, aswell as being able to apply it to new creatures after they die. It does suffer from the fact it requires your concentration though. Poison strike is amazing on an assassin character, with you being able to apply a 23 bonus to damage on a suprise attack against an enemy

overall, treachery and vengeance are the best of the lot imo



So yeah, overall, an elven rogue/paladin, with the treachery oath, a scimitar and a shield, protection fighting style, mobile, elven accuracy, medium armor master in half plate and booming blade. A strong assassin and combatant, a fast, speedy and well armoured attacker with devestating blows that strikes from the shadows.




I also find this a very flavorful multiclass, as swearing an oath is a very fun bit of background to your character. Are you an arm of a church, an assassin who serves the church in the dark where a paladin or cleric of the light has no place in? Are you a servent of a mafia or crime gang, swearing your alligience to your family? Are you an assassin who vows vengeance against a group who killed a friend, or an anarchist who swore an oath against the nobility and royalty of the country you live in. A stalker of the night imbued with divine magic. The oathblade

(: