An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[Atomicwraith]

Spriteclock Mage


This build centers around three things: the impressive power of a Chainlock’s buffed Sprite familiar, the synergy between a level 3 Warlock and the abilities of a Clockwork Sorcerer, and the fantastic spell list of the Clockwork sorcerer itself. I hadn’t seen something like this posted here (bit maybe I didn't search hard enough); please critique to improve it!

Summary
• Hexbalde Chainlock 3, Clockwork Soul Sorcerer X
• Action Economical: a strong Bonus Action debuff: Invisible sprite spreading poison/unconsciousness at DC 16 (by level 11) and twinned debuff spells.
• Tanky: Start every day with +54-82% more "free" Hit Points: +5 Max HP from Aid, +~18 HP Bastion of Law, +15 THP from Inspiring Leader, and optional +20 Armor of Agathys. AC 21, and the Shield spell, advantage on Wisdom Saves.
• Debuffy: with ~7 L2 spell slots per day of twined Blindness, Levitate, Phantasmal Force, and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. Great shut-down options including Banishment, Polymorph, subtle Counterspell, and Dispel Magic
• Face-y: Cha of 18, Disguise Self, subtle Detect Thoughts and Suggestion
• Tricksy: Dex of 16 with +1d4 to Thieves’ tools, Knock, Gaseous Form, Disguise Self, Feather Fall, Minor Illusion, Mage Hand.
• We can hold our concentration decently with advantaged DC 16 Con saves

Backstory
Your skills with Navigators Tools and Cartography made you the ships navigator. But your sorcerous ability to Prestidigitate and Shape Water, plus your Vedalken ability to breathe underwater made you an ideal crewmate to swab decks and remove barnacles. At least they took you ashore occasionally thanks to your excellent investigation and lockpicking skills; tomb raiding was never what you aimed for, but you were good at it. When the pirates struck, you washed ashore next to a mysterious hexblade. You wandered to the nearest settlement, beguiled by the dark void powers of the blade but eager to pursue your meditations on the clockwork realm of beautiful order from whence you learned your sorcerous powers…

Build
We’ll go to 11 and see how things look. Begin as a Vedalken with expertise in Thieves’ Tools and Investigation, advantage in I/W/C saves, and the ability to breathe underwater for an hour. Ability scores are 8/16/14/8/10/17 using Tasha’s +2 to Cha and +1 to Dex. Skills are Stealth, Deception, Perception, and Persuasion. We are a dexterous Face who can break into things… and just happens to be a spell caster. Hey, we're a sorcerer; it just kind of erupted from within!

Start as a Clockwork Sorcerer with Prestidigitation, Mage hand, Shape Water, and Firebolt. Level 1 spells include Disguise Self and Sleep, plus CS spells of Alarm and Prot f/Good/Evil.

At level 2, we decide to spend more time with this mysterious blade, picking up one level of Hexblade Warlock (importantly Medium armor and shield, and less importantly Hexblade’s curse and +CHA to a melee weapon—useful for opportunity attacks, but this won’t be the focus of this build). Pick up Toll the Dead and Minor Illusion. Why not Eldritch Blast? Because it cannot be twinned, and we don't have room for the juicy invocations to make EB sing. Pick up Hex and Shield.

Level 3 is more Warlock: get Comprehend Languages to help with the tomb raiding, plus Eldritch Mind and… anything temporary for your invocations.

Level 4: our warlock capstone. Swap the “anything” invocation for Investment of the Chain Master, because we just declared for Chainlock. Comp Langs falls away in favor of Detect Thoughts and Suggestion. Now we have a Sprite familiar. It can scout for us. It likely gives us regular surprise rounds, or at least starting a fight when we decide to. It lets us do something really useful on every bonus action (+6 to shortbow 40/160 ranged attacks, causes poison upon Con save vs 13 for 1 minute upon hit, or unconsciousness if the target misses its save by 5). This little guy will be putting out poison arrows every round until the end of the campaign.

Level 5: impressed but repulsed by the dark void powers of our semi-sentient sword, we return to the clockwork perfection of sorcery. Take Detect Magic. Swap Protection from Good/Evil for Armor of Agathys. Swap Sleep for Magic Missile. Cry a bit as your teammates get awesome L3 spells and you, admittedly, do not.

Level 6: Sorcerer 3; Your metamagics are Subtle and Twin. You pick up Blindness and Aid and Lesser Restoration, and swap Alarm for Expeditious Retreat. Every morning, you take the last watch. You cast Aid on yourself, your Sprite, and one other ally. Then you short rest the slots back, but you have 7-8 hours of HP buff.

Level 7: Sorcerer 4: You obtain the Inspiring Leader Feat. And Misty Step. And Mind Sliver. You swap Lesser Restoration for Knock. Because, after all, you are a tomb raider. Now, each morning as your comrades awake, you give them some Inspiring Leadership for [level]+3 temporary hit points. With Aid and this, your Sprite has 1+5+10=16 HP, so its not as fragile as it once was.

Level 8: Sorcerer 5. Ah, finally level 3 spells: Dispel Magic and Protection from Energy (immediately swapped for Counterspell) and Gaseous Form add to your spell list (again… we are a tomb raider, and this can be twinned). 1 Sorcery Point (we have 5 now) can be used to reroll an ability check… very helpful for Dispel Magic or Counterspelling.

Level 9: Sorcerer 6 and Bastion of Law. We pick up Major Image. Now, our morning routine is to cast a level 2 Aid, a 4 SP Bastion of Law on ourselves, and Inspiring Leader the whole party, and short rest so that we start fully ready to go by breakfast. We gain 5 max hp, 18 hp of Bastion ward, and 12 temporary hit points. That is +35 hp on top of our otherwise unremarkable 64 hp, for 99. By contrast, the 16 Con L9 Barbarian has 115 hp. We can beat him with Armor of Agathys if we want to. And after this buff-fest, we are still a really strong control caster.

Level 10: Sorcerer 7: we gain Dimension Door, Polymorph (from the immediately swapped-out Summon Construct) and Freedom of Movement.

Level 11: We gain Wall of Fire as our sorcerer 8 spell, and swap Freedom of Movement for Banishment. As a level 8 sorcerer, we take Fey Touched and get a bonus Misty Step and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and +1 Cha (to 18), and swap our previous Misty Step for Phantasmal Force.

So by level 11, we have a really tanky, facey, tricksy, near-full spellcaster, with great action economy, a spell-list that looks like a strong wizard’s, and a boatload of debuff/incapacitation spells (many better than a Wizard, as they are twinned and numerous due to warlock recharging L2 spell slots).

The level 11 loadout looks like this (with “(t)” designating a twinnable spell):
• Cantrips: Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Shape Water, Firebolt(t), Toll the Dead (t), Minor Illusion, Mind Sliver (t)
• Level 1: Disguise Self, Hex (t), Detect Magic, Shield, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter 1/LR (t)
• Level 2: Detect Thoughts, Suggestion (t), Levitate (t), Blindness (t), Aid, Knock, Phantasmal Force (t), Misty Step 1/LR
• Level 3: Dispel Magic, Gaseous Form (t), Counterspell, Major Image
• Level 4: Dimension Door, Polymorph (t), Banishment (t), Wall of Fire

This is a stunning spell list! And with a spell DC of 15, 2 short-rest-recharging L2 spell slots, subtle and twin metamagics backed up by plus 8 sorcery points, and 4/3/3/2 spells by character level 11, we are pretty good at casting them.

Yes, we are three levels behind a straight sorcerer. But in exchange for this, we get a big AC boost, 2 recharging short-rest slots, a smattering of good spells, a “free” big HP buff to ourself and a small one to one one ally, and most importantly, a super-helpful debuff on every bonus action ever (unless the Beefy Invisible Sprite is killed, which is not automatic the way we are buffing him to 21 HP by level 11).

Ideally we start the fight with a surprise round from our Sprite who debuffs the biggest threat. Maybe we can get a round in too with a twinned Phantasmal Force, or a Banishment, or a Polymorph. Or just a Mind Sliver so that we can take out the big bad more effectively in the next round. With great defenses we can mix it up and hold concentration better than most. Our side is so buffed by hit points, and their side is so debuffed with status effects, that our party should be able to handle much more threatening foes.

Could we give up the Vedalken for Variant Human and +2 CHA? Yes, we could. And maybe that’s just my bit of flavor and latent love for the dranei race from some other game. But I do enjoy the tomb raider vibe, and the +1d4 to Thieves Tools and Investigation, not to mention the Wisdom save advantage, are so much more flavorful.

I really like the way a near-full spellcaster can be so non-wimpy, and a very effective controller. What do you all think? Would love to make this build better. Thanks for the thoughts!