An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[ftafp]

The Ghallanda Innkeeper: A Fun and Effective Chef Build

Race: Halfling, Mark of Hospitality
Class: Divine Soul 1, Life Cleric 1, Dao Warlock 18
Progression: Divine Soul 1, Life Cleric 1, Dao Warlock 1 -> 18
Base Stats: 8 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 9 Int, 13 Wis, 17 Cha
ASI: Fey Touched(Gift of Alacrity, +1 Cha)@6, +2 Cha@10, Inspiring Leader@14, Resilient(+1 Wisdom)@18
Pact Boon: Pact of the Tome
Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Book of Ancient Secrets, Aspect of the Moon, Eldritch Mind, Grasp of Hadar
Spells of Note: Catapult, Ceremony, Gift of Alacrity, Goodberry, Aid, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Creation, Wall of Stone
Tools: Chef's Utensils
Important Background Details: Must have seen Primal Fruits and Magic Mushrooms from TCE as part of backstory

Cliff Notes:

• The core of this build revolves around using as many short rests as you can get away with to buff your allies and then recover the slots. At low levels this will mostly be Gift of Alacrity and Aid (you can refluff these spells as being in the food) and Goodberries (which are further buffed by upcasting with Disciple of Life), but at higher levels, Creation replaces goodberry
• Creation is normally a useless spell, but RAW Creation can replicate magic items you've seen as long as they're a single object are made only of the materials in the spell's description. Magic Mushrooms and Primal Fruits, being vegetable matter, last 24 hours and have some awesome effects. I suggest making a whole uprooted shrub of Primal fruits for 6 fruits with each casting, and making liberal use of the Death Ward fruit, as this spell can be stacked. For instantaneous effects, cook them into dishes, as RAW it's only an action if you eat the raw fruit. If it's cooked into food you can use your item interaction
• Aspect of the moon lets you stay awake your whole long rest, allowing you divide up your free hour of spellcasting to take short rests during the night. Now you get 8 full sessions out of one long rest
• Ceremony offers a lot of one-time buffs that you can refluff as foods with fancy edible silver garnish, but you might want to make a habit of cooking up wedding cake. Just leave one humanoid enemy alive after the battle to shotgun-marry them to every humanoid memeber of the party before finishing them off. Being widowed, your allies can now benefit from Wedding Cakes of +2 AC whenever they want.
• Ceremony and many other divination rituals can be copied to your Cookbook of Shadows and be refluffed as more magic food, while Leomund's Tiny Hut can serve as a temporary inn for your allies
• Make your genie vessel a House Ghallanda Manor Key since they basically do the same thing anyway. Inside is a staging site for your own personal restaurant that you can retreat into in combat after casting a concentration spell
• While inside you can set up a real restaurant/hotel (I advise a maze like the one from the Shining) with Wall of Stone which you get back on a short rest. You can later catapult your Manor key to have it summon Hotel California into the real world around your enemies to trap them inside
• Limited Wish and Wish are great for giving your whole party a free Heroes Feast, though you can really use it for whatever
• Last but not least, when flying in combat, remember to go prone in mid air at the end of your turn so attacks against you have disadvantage. You can stand up at the start of your next turn to EB then lie down again. It's just good sense.

Variant: The Ghallanda Barkeeper

Class: Alchemist 3, Dao Warlock 17
Progression: Artificer 1, Dao Warlock 1, Alchemist 2 -> 3, Dao Warlock 2 -> 17
Base Stats: 8 Str, 14 Dex, 14 Con, 13 Int, 9 Wis, 17 Cha
ASI: Fey Touched(Gift of Alacrity, +1 Cha)@7, +2 Cha@11, Inspiring Leader@15, Resilient(+1 Wisdom)@19
Infusions: Spellwrought Tattoo(1st level)x2, Homunculus Servant
Equipment: A sled dog (listed in Icewind Dale), or failing that a Mastiff, a Chest of Preserving, and a Chest of Preserving

Cliff Notes:

• This variant trades spell progression and raw healing for a few neat artificer tricks, the first of which is using warlock rest slots to brew drinks. A canine mount is recommended for this build, both because a mount can use its action to drink some fizzy lifting drink with their action (just give it one of those barrels of brandy they put on Saint Bernards to drink from), and because most people like dogs and won't have an issue with you bringing them into a castle, tavern, or store. In addition, a dog can easily grapple allies with its mouth once you get flight of your own. Just remember you can't get on until its drank its fill or else it can't use its action to do so. Either way it's good to have a mount, flying or otherwise
• Homunculus Servant may seem like an odd choice, but RAW it's capable of speaking. The text may be vague, but all other instances of of creatures who can understand but not speak a language specify explicitly that they cannot speak), which means it can say the command word for your spellwrought tattoo and concentrate on it for you. In addition, being intelligent and being able to have hands means you can sleep in the saddle and tell your homunculus to wake you and feed you an coffee of boldness if it looks like the party is about to get into a fight. Both of these work since both taking its own action and administering experimental elixirs are allowed if you are incapacitated, such as from being asleep. Finally, the homunculs can carry a small party member (including yourself) into the air which is allowed according to Crawford's twitter
• If your DM doesn't allow any of the tricks with homunculus servant, see if you can double up on spellwrought tattoos. RAW this is actually allowed as long as you take replicate magic item for the same item multiple times (you have to know it twice, not just use it twice). If this is allowed, a Gift of Alacrity tattoo can be used to buff the whole party (the tattoo doesn't disappear until the spell you cast with it ends) so you can choose a different spell like Command for your spellwrought tattoo
• You can get a chest of preserving as an infusion but it's a common magic item so it's best to just put down the money for it. Keep your beverages and berries in here for long-term storage. It's just nice to have around