An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[LudicSavant]

The Underwater Basket Weaver

Note: this build was initially inspired by u/auxlang's gorgeous Underwater Basket Weaver Turned Adventurer, but because of the noble tradition of underwater basket weaving's reputation as a joke as well as its real-world cultural roots in Inuit artifice I decided Sokka was a more appropriate image for this character. Let's begin

Half Sea elf Artificer 2 / Thief 3 / Conjuror 3 / Alchemist X
Stats 8 Str, 13+1 Dex, 14 Con, 15+1 Int, 12 Wis, 10+2 Cha
ASIs: Int +2 @ 10, Int +2 @ 14, Warcaster @ 16, Lucky @ 20


What is this designed for: Underwater basket weaving has a memetic infamy in DnD second only to the Gazebo. With it bearing the ironic title of Most Broken Skill in DnD, I wanted to create a character who looked useless at first glance, and second, and third, but was in actuality quite broken in the hands of a clever player. More to the point, I wanted to create a character who embraced the concept as flavorfully as possible.

How it accomplishes that: From the start of his journey, Sokka (I'm not good with names) would be an experienced basket-weaver. Baskets are vital tools for coastal human communities as they're light, don't retain water, and are perfect for gathering shellfish and seaweed among other things. The willow switches used to make wicker baskets must be kept wet while crafting in order to keep them supple, but dry quickly when exposed to air. Someone like Sokka who can breath under water never needs to worry about their wicker breaking, so he has a distinct advantage over the land races.

Wicker as it happens is a utilitarian material. Being light, durable and flexible, Sokka can use it to make armor and shields which he's capable of using. Additionally it can make a functional weapon, and by applying his brains, Sokka use a basket on the end of pole as a better, more accurate sling that uses his Int modifier at low levels thanks to magic stone. It also means that as he takes levels of Rogue later, Sokka can apply his sneak attack damage to his attacks.

At level 2, Sokka gains access to arcane infusions, which he can use for Baskets of Holding and Alchemy Baskets. One might wonder how a basket could make a functional jug, and the secret it lining the inside with pitch or river clay, rendering the basket waterproof. He had to go through a lot of baskets before he figured that one out, but now it works wonders

Level 5 is where Sokka gets Fast Hands. This lets him extract items from his basket and use them as a bonus action, which is a pretty sweet deal considering the two baskets of acid he gets from his alchemy basket each day use the Use an Object action to throw rather than an attack action. He can also do a lot with the environment at this level. It's a sweet gig.

Now, let's talk about wizard for a minute. Everyone knows that wizards need spellbooks to record their spells in, but not every spellbook has to be a literal book. Sokka for example can weave colored thread through the outside of his baskets to write on them, making his basket function as a spellbasket. Weaving spells into an already potent infusion can make for some pretty useful enchantments, and by level 7 Sokka can conjure just about any tiny object he wants from his baskets and use them as a bonus action. That includes acid, but also tools like poisons, explosives, shattersitcks, lycanthrope blood, all sorts of things from various adventures and sourcebooks that are nonmagical. He'll take one more level of wizard for second level spells and the it's back to artificer

By level 9, Sokka can now create potions that he stores in his baskets. He can use these potions as a bonus action to get various concentration-free buffs. Neato.

Keep going now until we reach level 15. This is where things really kick off. Sokka can animate his ammo basket with Tiny Servant along as well as two of the pebbles in it at the start of every day and order them to follow him and throw the rocks his familiar touches at whoever it points to (I did mention the familiar right?) this means that every turn he can cast magic stone as a bonus action and get three free preprogrammed attacks from his tiny servants, all of which add his int modifier.

By the end of this, Sokka has proven his worth as an actually sort of capable adventurer. Now if only I knew how to progress him better. shame on me

Basket weaving is a time-honored D&D tradition!

How does he use potions as a bonus action at 9, though? Do they not count as a magic item for Fast Hands?

[ftafp]

Basket weaving is a time-honored D&D tradition!

How does he use potions as a bonus action at 9, though? Do they not count as a magic item for Fast Hands?

When I say potions I'm referring to Experimental Elixirs, which are kind of a grey area. The text says that you magically conjure them, but it doesn't say that the elixirs themselves are magical. Most DMs will rule favorably on this as the two abilities are otherwise pretty useless on their own and don't become unbalanced when combined

[piffle213]

Hopefully these help provide people with some ideas for fun and viable builds. Enjoy!

Build 1: Celestial Generalist
This is a jack of all trades build highlighting the versatility of the Celestial Warlock.

Hello, I stumbled across this guide while trying to figure out a Warlock/Sorcerer multi-class with either Celestial or Divine Soul and liked it so much I want to try that instead.

I'm doing a one shot campaign from level 5-7. The other two party members are a Barbarian and Fighter so we definitely need some spells/healing from me.

So my question is, in the level 5-7 range, what would you recommend I drop out? I was thinking the Charisma ASI at 4 would be better than the War Caster. But then I was wondering if it was better to take WC instead of the Armored feat at level 1 orrrr just go Half-Elf and skip the feats altogether?

Thoughts? Thanks, love your builds!

[Rakoa]

Just popping in to say that I love the thread and would love to see the Shifter Investigator.

[LudicSavant]

Thanks for everyone who is expressing interest in upcoming builds!

I'm currently (re)typing up the Soulknife. (The reason it got delayed is because I made an entire Eldritch Knight Guide size post, then... uhhh... GitP decided to tell me that the "token expired" and I lost it all. Whoops. That's what I get for not drafting it in Google Docs or something first!)

Hopefully will have that done tonight.

Hello, I stumbled across this guide while trying to figure out a Warlock/Sorcerer multi-class with either Celestial or Divine Soul and liked it so much I want to try that instead.

I'm doing a one shot campaign from level 5-7. The other two party members are a Barbarian and Fighter so we definitely need some spells/healing from me.

So my question is, in the level 5-7 range, what would you recommend I drop out? I was thinking the Charisma ASI at 4 would be better than the War Caster. But then I was wondering if it was better to take WC instead of the Armored feat at level 1 orrrr just go Half-Elf and skip the feats altogether?

Thoughts? Thanks, love your builds!

Hi piffle! I think it's best to get the armor first, then you can choose whether or not you want Warcaster or Cha boosts first after that, depending on your preferred playstyle.

Some posts you may find relevant to your decision:

https://forums.giantitp.com/showsing...&postcount=506
https://forums.giantitp.com/showsing...&postcount=508

[LudicSavant]

Edit Note: This build does not refer to the Soulknife subclass -- it was written before that was a thing that existed!

LudicSavant, would you mind your next writeup being that Soulknife (EK/War Magic Wiz) you mentioned before? The idea of that one really struck my fancy.

And the soulknife build, please! And Hieroneous in your god series.

You didn't need that free time, right? :)

I'd like to see that one or the Soulknife.

Here's a very tanky Dex Fighter that still gets to dish out more damage than many GWMers despite wielding a shield (and Shield, and ironclad saves, and etc). Best of both worlds. I've taken to calling this style of build a "Soulknife" build because they can summon all their weapons and armor, using Shadow Blade (or Weapon Bond) and Mage Armor.

If you ever wanted a hypertank Fighter who was ready for war to break out even while they were wearing their wedding dress, then this is for you! (What, you say it's weird to worry about how battle-ready you are at your wedding? Then why does a marriage Ceremony increase AC? Explain that!)

Like all my builds, this is designed to be effective at all levels, from 1-20.

Build 12: The Soulknife

Elf (Shadar Kai) Eldritch Knight 11 / War Wizard 2 / EK 1 / WW 6 (Total EK12 / WW 8)
Starting Stats: Dex 17 / Con 16 / Int 14 / Wis 10
ASIs: War Caster @4, Elven Accuracy (18 Dex) @6, 20 Dex @8, Lucky @14, Alert @16, Resilient (Wis) @20
Fighting Style: Dueling
Cantrips Known: Booming Blade, Control Flames, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Shape Water, Green-Flame Blade, Chill Touch
Spells Known (EK, Abjuration/Evocation): Shield, Absorb Elements, Protection from Evil and Good, Mage Armor, Warding Wind, Thunderwave
Spells Known (EK, Any School): Find Familiar @3, Shadow Blade@8. At level 12 you should put Find Familiar in your spellbook (so you can use it as a ritual); you can swap the EK spell known out at 14 for whatever you want; Misty Step or something.
Other Spells Known: After that, you get at least 20 more spells from Wizard, plus however many you purchase with gold. I offer some suggestions in the "Progression" section.
Spell slots at level 20: 4/3/3/3/2/1 + 4 spell levels from Arcane Recovery. Max sixth level slots.
(Optional) Ravnica Background: Dimir


A Very Well-Rounded Defense
You have 20 AC (from wearing mage armor and a shield), and then either Shield or Arcane Deflection on top of that. You can increase this even further with other defensive spells, like Protection from Evil and Good or Fire Shield, if necessary. And Alert means that unseen enemies don't even get advantage against you. Lucky means that you can negate Critical hits, too.

You have always-on Resistance to Necrotic damage, Resistance to 5 other elemental types with Absorb Elements, and Resistance to everything 1/day when you use your Shadar-Kai Teleport.

All of your saves are great because of Arcane Deflection + Indomitable + Lucky, which all stack. And advantage against Charms from being an Elf, too. What's that, someone wants to Dominate you? Well hope they can get through up to +10 to the save and up to 3 rerolls.

You can't be easily kited or locked down like most melee Fighters, thanks to your ability to teleport (either from your race, or from Misty Step). You can get out of that Wall of Force and kill the mage who cast it on the same turn.

And you can't be ignored, because you hit like a convoy of trucks and Shadow Blade + Booming Blade + Warcaster OAs are deadly.

Unbreakable Concentration
If an enemy can even hit you in the first place, you have Proficiency in Con saves, 16 Con, and Warcaster... all by level 4. Later, you can boost your saves even further with Arcane Deflection, Indomitable, and Lucky (which all stack). So you're looking at +9-+13 Con saves with up to 3 rerolls.

As if that weren't enough, you also frequently cut down the DCs of Concentration saves, because you have Absorb Elements, Shadar-Kai Resistance, and high saving throws across the board.

Oh, and even if the enemy does manage to break your Concentration? Shadow Blade is just a bonus action to recast.

Offense

A Shadar-Kai teleports right through an invisible Wall of Force and uses Booming Shadow Blade on the one who cast it.

To get an idea of how good our DPR is (especially for sword and board that's keeping its bonus action free on most rounds), we'll want to have a baseline to compare to, so here's one: A basic level 19 GWM/GWF Fighter has ~30.6 DPR vs AC19, or ~51.4 if they get Advantage on all their attacks. With Action Surge, that gets bumped up to ~61.1 and ~101.7. (If you're curious why I'm picking 19 instead of 20 for the example, it's because 19 is more representative of what you'll be doing throughout tier 3 and 4 as a Fighter. 20 is an outlier that won't be relevant for long, so is a less representative demonstration).

So if we're doing that or better on a full tank sword and board build, we can assume we're doing quite well for ourselves indeed. Essentially getting the best of both worlds.

We get enough spell slots to not only cast but upcast Shadow Blade in every single encounter of a 6-encounter adventuring day. So what's our DPR with that at level 19? Let's take a look. (All calculations are against AC19, and results are rounded to nearest tenth. Accuracy, crit rate, etc are all accounted for)

Level 5-6 Shadow Blade (3/day):
Normal: 51.45 DPR (~168% of baseline GWM)
Advantage: ~79.5 DPR (~155% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge: 102.9 DPR (~168% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge Advantage: ~159 DPR (~156% of baseline GWM)
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack: 38.3 DPR (yes, your no-Advantage opportunity attack really is worth more DPR than 3 basic GWM/GWF attacks)
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack w/Advantage: ~58.6 DPR

Level 3-4 Shadow Blade (7/day):
Normal: 42 DPR (~137% of baseline GWM)
Advantage: ~64.6 DPR (~126% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge: 84 DPR (~136% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge Advantage: ~129.3 DPR (~127% of baseline GWM)
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack: ~35.2 DPR
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack w/ Advantage: ~53.6 DPR

So as we can see we are beating a basic GWM/GWF Fighter by a fair amount. Even more than this shows, actually, since we'll have an easier time getting Advantage than they will (from dim light and darkness, not to mention our familiar). And of course our Shadow Blade / Booming Blade opportunity attacks are far deadlier than a normal Fighter's.

An enemy decides you're too tanky and wants to walk away from you to melee your back line? That's when you get to say "So you have chosen death."

Note that all of this is leaving your bonus action open on rounds 2+. So you can totally resummon a dispelled or thrown shadow blade, or use Second Wind, or teleport, or whatever else you want with that bonus action, and still keep all your DPR!

And you know what else? Unlike that GWM/GWF Fighter, we have a +12 initiative thanks to 20 Dex, Alert, and Tactical Wit, which means that we not only have a higher DPR but more rounds in which to apply our DPR. Oh, and we're stealthy too, which means we might be able to get Surprise and get two turns before the enemy goes... which often means they are dead and don't go at all. Eat your heart out, Assassin.

(If you're curious what it's like before you get Shadowblade, see "Progression")

Stealth, Initiative, and Utility
We have +12 initiative due to max Dex, Alert, and Tactial Wit, and eventually we can even reroll our initiative with Lucky. This is a big deal, because winning initiative is effectively an extra turn relative to Team Monster.

We have +11 Stealth, Darkvision, and things like Invisibility and (if Dimir) Pass Without Trace on our spell list, which means you're a Stealthy Boi.

Minor Illusion, Control Flames, Shape Water, and Mold Earth all share the rare distinction of lacking verbal components, which means you can get up to various shenanigans without revealing yourself. For example, one fun trick is to animate the guardsmens' torches with Control Flames so that it looks like they're naturally sputtering out in the wind, then eviscerate them with darkness-buffed Shadow Blade while they're fumbling for their flint and steel.

You're smart and dextrous, so you can also pick up skills like Thieves Tools, Arcana, or Investigation to help you clear traps and such, if you're so inclined. And your owl will have 120 foot Darkvision and 18 Passive Perception (with Keen Senses).

You're also a pretty safe scout; if you're discovered odds are you can face-tank whatever they throw at you, then teleport away to safety.

Anyways, you have all the tools you need for a decent chance at getting Surprise. Combine that with your whopping +12 initiative and you're looking at getting 1-2 turns before the enemy on a regular basis. Combine that with your high damage potential and Team Monster may not even get a turn at all.

And with all those utility cantrips and an assortment of Wizard spells and rituals, you actually have things to do out of combat, unlike a stereotypical Fighter.

The Pressure Game
If an enemy survives your initial onslaught, they're still between a rock and a hard place, because now they're standing in melee against you and their decision tree probably looks something like this:

- Attack the Soulknife! But that's bad, because they're really tanky and you'll probably waste your attack.
- Move away from the Soulknife to attack their friends! But that's bad, because that Shadow Booming Blade OA will hit like a GWM Fighter's entire turn.
- Make ranged attacks at the Soulknife's allies! But that's bad, because you get Disadvantage on ranged attack rolls while an enemy's within 5 feet of you, and you can't move to get a better firing angle on those allies in cover.
- Use Misty Step to get away from the Soulknife! But that's bad, because even if you don't get counterspelled, you just used up your 1 leveled spell per turn.
- Use your cone-shaped AoE! But you can't move to line up that many party members in the AoE or get around cover.

See what I mean? Just existing in melee as a tanky character with a hard-hitting OA puts a lot of (not all) monsters between a rock and a hard place.

Always Ready
It doesn't matter if you have to leave your weapons and armor at the door, because you can just wear Mage Armor and summon your weapon as a bonus action. The only thing you can't just take with you everywhere is your shield (since, bizarrely, Weapon Bond won't let you summon one -- though ask your DM about that, there's a solid chance they think it doesn't make sense either).

1-20 Progression

Spoiler: Progression

Show

As with all my builds, this one is designed to be effective at all levels, from 1-20.

tl;dr version is that you switch your main DPR strategy as you level up. You use Familiar Advantage + Booming Blade at 3-4, Extra Attack at 5-6, War Magic at 7-10, and Extra Attack at 11+. And when Fighter damage scaling drops off at level 11, we circumvent that by hopping over into Wizard and scaling up with Shadow Blade. And your Warcaster Booming Blade OA will keep you sticky throughout the whole thing.

You wear Medium Armor + shield until you max Dex, at which point you start wearing light armor or casting Mage Armor and sneaking around.

Your defensive toolkit just sort of steadily scales up throughout the whole thing. You're always tanky, and you always hit hard.

Level 1-2:
Shadar-Kai gives you a bunch of things... charm and Necrotic resistance, darkvision, and a bonus action teleport that is not only a teleport, but gives you Resistance to all damage for a turn. All of these things will be great throughout your entire career.

Aside from that, standard low level Fighter stuff. Which is a good thing; Fighter has a strong 1-2.

Level 3
Booming Blade is a direct upgrade to your basic attack at levels 3-4 and 7-10. And getting a Familiar to grant Advantage is an upgrade to your DPR at any level, but especially early (don't underestimate how much a difference the Help action makes to DPR when you have just 1 attack!)

Your other cantrip should be something with utility; I recommend Minor Illusion or one of the Shape element cantrips.

These things alone are better than the all-day benefit of a Champion, but on top of it you get a couple of spells. Your first should always be Shield, which you can think of as a solid extra chunk of effective hit points bolted onto your tank. Your second can be any of the other level 1 spells I listed at the top, depending on the needs of your campaign, except for Mage Armor (which you shouldn't take until you have 20 Dex). I usually take Absorb Elements first, but PFG&E is just stupid good if you know you're going to be fighting a ton of those creature types, and and Thunderwave is good if you have a bunch of hazards to knock people into.

Level 4
Warcaster makes components cease to be a hassle for you, renders your Concentration ironclad (especially since you already have Con proficiency), and gives you a mean opportunity attack.

People who want to move away from you now will not only trigger the 1d8 rider from your normal attack, but also trigger a Warcaster OA, which will do another 2d8+5 damage, for a grand total of 4d8+10 in a round that they want to walk away from you.

That opportunity attack is what makes you sticky, and it'll scale throughout the entirety of your progression. It will never cease to be a powerful and punishing deterrent to enemy movement.

It's basically a win/win scenario for you, either they stay and fight you, the impregnable tank that's going to shrug off their attacks, or they try to move away, and have their lifespans considerably shortened. This not only helps protect your allies, but likely can help them dish out more damage too (since it makes it more troublesome for them to get out of hazard spells like Sickening Radiance or what-have-you).

Level 5-6
Extra Attack replaces Booming Blade as your 'default' attack for 2 levels, but Booming Blade continues to be relevant for that great Opportunity Attack (which just became greater, scaling to 4d8+Dex+2).

Elven Accuracy and 18 Dex just makes you better at everything you're already doing.

Also, Weapon Bond helps your ability to use thrown weapons. You can drop your rapier, object interaction to draw a throwing weapon, attack, bonus action to summon the throwing weapon back, throw it again. Then bonus action to pick up your rapier again next turn, wherever you might be.

Level 7
War Magic means Booming Blade because a straight upgrade to your regular attack again, from now until level 10. People who move now take up to 9d8+18 (58.5) damage from your initial assault + OA. More if you use Action Surge.

You also get 2nd level spells. There's not a huge selection of great ones from the Abjuration/Evocation list for us; I usually take Warding Wind, though you might also like Darkness or even another level 1 spell.

Warding Wind does a bunch of things, but the most important is that it gives Disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks against you and everyone behind you for a generous ten minutes (enough for multiple encounters in a dungeoneering scenario), while creating difficult terrain around yourself. It basically makes it even harder for enemies to engage with you or your allies.

However, you might not want to take Warding Wind if your allies are very dependent on ranged weapon attacks themselves. Note that ranged spell attacks like Eldritch Blast have no issue firing through Warding Wind.

Level 8-10
And now your Dex maxes out and that becomes "up to 9d8+21, more if you use Action Surge." Or "up to 12d8+21, more if you use Action Surge" with Shadow Blade.

With your Dexterity maxed out, it's time to throw away your Medium Armor and start wearing Light, or even casting Mage Armor (you can swap one of your previous spells known for it). This'll boost your ability to be stealthy, just in time for Shadow Blade.

From now on, Shadow Blade is what we're going to be spending a lot of our L2+ spell slots on. It makes us get triple Advantage more easily, and boosts all our damage considerably. It also lets you throw it, use a bonus action to re-summon it, and throw it again... giving you a ranged option (and also meaning the shadows you stand in don't need to be right next to someone).

Level 11
Now that you have 3 attacks, you're usually going to be using that instead of War Magic.

Level 12 (WW 1)
Extra Attack marks the last time the Fighter kit gets a big damage boost until aaaall the way at level 20... so we circumvent that by jumping into Wizard instead, accelerating our spell slot progression, which in turn gives us fat damage boosts via Shadow Blade, which upcasts very well when you have 3 attacks and triple advantage.

We should immediately start picking up rituals, including Find Familiar (we can finally cast it without slots!)

Longstrider and Feather Fall are useful spells to grab. A vision blocker would be good too, like Silent Image or Fog Cloud.

Level 13 (WW 2)
+2 to initiative from Tactical Wit, and an at-will reaction for +2 AC or (more importantly) +4 to saves. That, combined with Indomitable and Fey Ancestry, gives you a solid chance of succeeding on any crucial save, regardless of what stat it's in.

You hardly even care about the 'can't cast spells until your next turn' penalty, since you'll be Attacking most of the time anyway.

Level 14 (EK 12)
Due to the way multiclassing works in 5e, Eldritch Knight 11 / War Wizard 9 and EK 12 / War Wizard 8 would have the exact same spell slots... so we might as well grab that last level of EK for a feat.

Here I like either Alert (to all but guarantee you go first with a +12) or Lucky (which synergizes very well with Arcane Deflection and Indomitable to make it even harder to make you fail a save. And can reroll initiative too; you've got a +7 after all). Pick one, then take the other at 16.

We also can take this opportunity to swap out our "Find Familiar" spell known (since we now have it as a ritual, and no longer need to have it as an Eldritch Knight) for any other spell you want. Say... Misty Step, for more teleporting.

Level 15-20 (WW 3-8)
From here on out you just keep scaling up your spell slots for more and higher level Shadow Blades, which will keep your damage going up and up. And you keep expanding your spell list with a larger utility toolbox for dealing with any situation.

Arcane Recovery will keep scaling, which is just great because every extra level 1 slot is another Shield or Absorb Elements.

Some particularly noteworthy spells are Counterspell (because enemy spells are bad) and Phantom Steed (which can dash 200 feet to deliver you to the enemy when combat starts, making it even more difficult to kite you).

There's also a bunch of useful non-Concentration tools, like Pyrotechnics, See Invisibility, Fire Shield, Dispel Magic, Dimension Door, etc.

Spoiler: Some level 2 spell suggestions

Show

I like Pyrotechnics as a Concentration-free vision blocker.

See Invisibility is a Concentration-free way to, well, see invisible things.

Invisibility can help out with your infiltration/ambush skills.

Mirror Image is Concentration-free too, but I think it's pretty situational. See, Mirror Images can get hit even if an enemy misses you, so they might not actually block many hits at all.

You might also consider a save-or-be-screwed spell to go with Eldritch Strike. Though I'd usually rather just hit them again; 'dead' is a really good status effect.

Spoiler: Some level 3 spell suggestions

Show

Counterspell is Counterspell, and will help you tank / negate spells. Take it.

Dispel Magic is useful too.

Phantom Steed and Leomund's Tiny Hut are important rituals that you should absolutely get.

Thunder Step lets you take a friend with you when you teleport.

Fireball might not be what it was 13 levels ago, but it is still relevant for clearing mook swarms. Mooks never actually stop mattering in 5e.

Bestow Curse doesn't take Concentration if upcast to 5th. Major Image becomes permanent if upcast to 6th.

Sleet Storm can lock down a huge area of effect, but eats Concentration.

Spoiler: Some level 4 spell suggestions

Show

Fire Shield is Concentration-free elemental resistance and retribution damage for 10 minutes.

Dimension Door is a teleport that can take someone with you (like Thunder Step, but longer).

Otiluke's Resilient Sphere can shelter an ally in an emergency.

Banishment is a good save-or-lose to go with Eldritch Strike.

Greater Invisibility is an alternative to Shadow Blade for some situations.

Analysis of Eldritch Knight spells

Spoiler: Analysis of Eldritch Knight spells

Show

Spoiler: Color Key

Show

Better
Gold
Light Blue
Blue
Green
Orange
Red
Worse

Abjuration/Evocation Spell Choices

Shield
You should take this spell on every Eldritch Knight you build, with zero exceptions.

The thing that makes Shield so much better than most defensive reactions is it's guaranteed to be worth the full damage value of at least one hit (since you decide to use it AFTER the hit is confirmed), plus it lasts for the rest of the round, thus helping to protect you from multiattack, mook swarms, or the like. Also, remember that the more AC you already have, the more valuable each additional point of AC is in terms of effective health. This chart should give you a rough idea of what I mean:


Chart leaves out crits since the way they affect the curve is monster-specific, but this should give a general idea.

Anyways, don't just spam it all the the time; think about how much effective hit points it's likely to be worth on a given round. You only have so many spell slots, particularly early on.

Absorb Elements
This does the most important thing that a Bear-barian does; cut the big burst damage of things like dragon breath and the like by half. The fact that it boosts your melee damage afterward is a cherry on top.

This isn't quite as valuable as Shield, but it's still a must-have at later levels where elemental damage bursts can be quite large (thus giving this spell a high value in effective hit points).

Burning Hands
Fighters don't usually have AoEs, so that gives this a niche, but the damage is modest enough at the level you get it that it's fairly situational; you need to make sure enough enemies are clustered in order for it to be worth using.

Make sure to remember that cones and cubes don't follow the 50% coverage rule. The image on the left is the area you cover, not the right.


Chromatic Orb Don't cast this spell as an Eldritch Knight. Just make an attack instead. Throw your weapon if you have to.

Earth Tremor
Friendly fire potential and negligible damage, but on the other hand at least it knocks down everyone around you and makes some difficult terrain, and if you're the sole frontliner the friendly fire isn't too likely.

Still, too situational for my tastes. You don't have that many spells known as an EK.

Mage Armor
"Mage Armor? Are you kidding? But I already have all the armor proficiencies!"
Yes, Mage Armor. There's basically 2 ways you can see Mage Armor; either comparing it to light armor or full plate (you won't even consider half-plate because you'll be using 20 Dex).
If you're comparing to Light Armor, this spell grants +1 AC and for 8 hours. That's like half a Divine Shield, except it lasts 48x as long, and doesn't take Concentration.
If you're comparing to Full Plate, this spell allows you to remove Disadvantage on Stealth for 8 hours... and reap the benefits of investing in Dex instead of Strength.

I think either of those are decent uses of a spell. Not something I'd cast before maxing Dex, but yeah. Unless of course you have some slick magic armor that makes this obsolete.

Also, it allows you to be ready for a fight even if you're in a ballgown at a noble gala or something. An Eldritch Knight is like a Monk in that they don't care that much if they're caught unprepared.

Magic Missile
So as far as single target direct damage spells go, Magic Missile is the best for you. It doesn't care about your Intelligence score at all, hits automatically, and deals the best damage type.

The only trouble is that single target direct damage spells aren't very good for you. But if you take one, you take this one.

Protection from Evil and Good
If you're fighting a creature type that this applies to (almost half the creature types in the game), this is a much better version of the second level spell Blur. It lasts 10 times as long, provides the same defense against Attacks, and additional defenses against nasty status effects.

This should basically be used as a pre-cast if you're planning to fight a bunch of demons or something. Rating depends on how likely you are to fight the relevant creature types in the campaign, and how likely you are to know you're fighting them before you actually do (so you can pre-cast it).

Thunderwave
When it comes to AoEs, it's a choice between this and Burning Hands. This one has a larger area, better damage type, and a useful rider, but does a bit less damage. I personally prefer Thunderwave, since I'm often using it for its knockback as much as anything else. But you can go with whichever suits you better.

Aganazzar's Scorcher, Snilloc's Snowball Swarm
You're better off with an upcast Thunderwave or Burning Hands than these.

Witch Bolt, Melf's Acid Arrow
Just mathematically terrible.

Scorching Ray
An upcast Magic Missile will outdamage this unless an enemy's AC is particularly low, or you have Advantage. And it's a worse damage type. Generally speaking if you want to roll attack rolls at something, use a weapon.

Arcane Lock
The best combat use for this spell is basically to use it to lock a dungeon door, then have your party move back and forth through it and closing it after themselves, using it kind of like an unusually low level "Wall" spell that your allies can pass through. The trouble of course being that you can only use it in places where there's already a door, and that it costs 25hp. *Really* situational. But not totally worthless.

Continual Flame I once heard someone say "why would you cast this if you could just take the Light cantrip?" Well, two reasons:
1) If you upcast it to 3rd level, it illuminates magical Darkness (as all lights created by a third level slot or higher do)
2) 50gp and a spell slot on a downtime day you're not adventuring is cheaper than a cantrip known slot.

That said, you don't exactly have a lot of spells known to toss around; it's much better to have the party Cleric or something use this for you. There's no point to having it if anyone else in the party has it.

Warding Wind
I wrote a whole thread about this one.

Lots of little situational uses that add up to it being quite good overall, and it's better on a frontliner than on a backline Wizard (since it impedes ranged attacks against everyone behind you). It can, however, be problematic if your teammates are particularly reliant on Ranged Weapon Attacks (Eldritch Blast and the like won't mind), so keep your party comp in mind.

Darkness
Darkness is a good spell that sometimes gets a bad rap because some people *misuse it* in a way that is actively detrimental to their party.

So let me lay out how it works. First thing: if someone can't see you, you get Advantage against them. If you can't see them, you get Disadvantage against them. So if both sides can't see each other, it cancels out.

So you might be wondering "what's the point?" Well, let me give you a few ideas.

Some uses for Darkness are...
- Many spells and abilities require being able to see the target in order to target them at all. Beholder eye rays, for example.
- You can use it to cancel Advantage and Disadvantage. For example, a Barbarian ally in Darkness won't give anyone Advantage when they use Reckless Attack.
- When allies have things like Alert, Devil's Sight, True Sight, or the like, Darkness doesn't cancel out, it gives them an edge.
- When you have allies who can Hide as a bonus action on your side.
- Enemies can't make Opportunity Attacks against things they can't see.

Some bad times to use Darkness are...
- When your ally needs to see something in order to target it with a key spell or ability.
- When your team has the Advantage or the enemy has the Disadvantage, and you cancel it out.
- When your enemy has a positioning disadvantage and is locked down by the threat of OAs.

Don't be that guy who uses Darkness to wreck their own party. Think before you cast it.

Gust of Wind
I like Warding Wind better.

Shatter
Does the same damage as an upcast Thunderwave, but farther away and without the rider. It damages objects, so it's good for breaking floors and such.

Pass Without Trace
If you decided to cheese out with a Ravnica background, you can take this as an Abjuration spell to give +10 to Stealth for your entire party, which makes it easy to get Surprise.

Non-Evocation/Abjuration spells:
Find Familiar
Okay, so you can't get this as a ritual until you start taking Wizard levels, but I still think it's worth it. The familiar you want in the majority of situations is the owl.

An owl can swoop in, use the Help action to give you Triple Advantage on your Booming Blade, then swoop out to a safe position using Flyby (remember, you don't need to stay next to the enemy after using Help!). You want to have them falling back to someplace with 3/4 or full cover, far enough away from PCs that they won't get hit from AoEs, or at least flying out of melee height. Basically, don't make it 'cheap' to kill your familiar, make it as inconvenient as possible.

Your familiar can also use their actions for things other than Help, such as dropping ball bearings, or feeding a downed teammate a potion (you can make them for just 25gp a pop with XGtE Herbalism rules). They're just extra action economy and that's great.

Your owl familiar also increases your detection abilities, with 120 foot darkvision and 18 passive perception (w/ Keen Senses). It also can carry a Control-Flames-enahnced Hooded or Bullseye Lantern in combat, so that enemies are lit up but your less expendable party members aren't (you know, basically the reason Treantmonk has an entire video about Dancing Lights, except without you actually using Dancing Lights).

Important Note: When you get your first Wizard level, you should learn this spell again, but as a ritual. Then you can retrain the Eldritch Knight spell known for Misty Step or something when you take your final EK level.

Shadow Blade
Unless you happen upon some sick Legendary magic weapon that doesn't stack with this, this is where you're getting your big damage from. Note that Shadow Blade only really starts picking up steam in a big way once you get your third attack; before that your bread and butter is going to be War Magic Booming Blade with Flyby Triple Advantage.

Misty Step
A good thing to always have prepared, since you're a melee character and that means you don't like being kited of controlled. This'll let you get through Plant Growth or Walls of Force or other such pesky things that are between you and the guy you want to stab in the face.

You can already do this with your Shadar-Kai feature of course, but this lets you do it more times.

Variants:
- You can take the Defense style instead of Dueling to get even tankier. (The squishier your party is relative to you, the more I value the offense to demand enemy attention. And vice versa)
- Any elf subrace will do well, Shadar-Kai is just a particularly nice one.
- Mark of Shadows is another particularly nice elf subrace which will crank your stealth game up to 11 with pseudo-Expertise in Stealth, Invisibility, Pass Without Trace, and an extra no-Verbal-components cantrip. Fluff lines up well, too.
- EK 11/WW 9 will lose you a feat, and won't gain you any more base slots, but it'll give you +1 Arcane Recovery and 5th level spells known (but only at exactly level 20).
- You can take Lucky, Alert, and Resilient in any order.
- If you want a Ravnica background, Dimir is a powerful choice here, as it gives you Pass Without Trace to make you a really stealthy boi. Better yet, PWT gets added to your Abjuration/Evocation list.
- Since none of the Eldritch Knight spells we picked really depend on Intelligence, you can actually invest in a different mental stat and go off into all kinds of different spellcasting classes after level 11, not just Wizard. In fact, I might be posting some builds in that vein in the future... Edit: Earlier, I spoke a bit about other versions of this build that multiclass into things other than the Wizard here.

[Skylivedk]

Big fan of the Soulknife!

Some questions:

1) what considerations are you making since you prefer the extra feat to knowing level 5 spells? - ironically, the gif is only possible with a split of 11/9 (to get Wall of Force) instead of 12/8. If you did go for 11/9 which feat would you rather miss?

- and sooooo many of the level 5 spells are tasty (and flavorful in a mind over matter kind of way)!
Rary's Telepathic Bond (ritual)
Synaptic State (especially as a Sorcerer, see below)
Scrying
Planar Binding
Animate Objects
Bigby's Hand
Wall of Force
Dream
Farstep

2) I really like the War Wizard's added tankiness... But I can't help, but look at 9 Sorcerer's level 5 spells with Quicken and potentially 6 enemies with disadvantage to their saves twice (from Eldritch Strike + action surge + quicken). As a Divine Soul, you'd also have some boost to saves, the very nice tanking ability of Spirit Guardians and a way to fill out those bonus actions (with Quicken and sometimes Spiritual Weapon).

[LudicSavant]

Big fan of the Soulknife!

If you did go for 11/9 which feat would you rather miss?

Hmm. Maybe Resilient? You have +4 to wis, indomitable, lucky, and fey ancestry... you're fairly resistant to domination without it. Dropping Alert seems like a possibility too -- you'd still have +7 initiative and the ability to reroll it.

I really like Lucky here because it + Arcane Deflection means you have a solid chance of making an important save with any stat.

ironically, the gif is only possible with a split of 11/9 (to get Wall of Force) instead of 12/8.

My intention was to represent an EK escaping a Wall of Force (usually something that outright shuts down Fighters) rather than casting one themselves. I shall edit the caption to make that clearer.

I feel one of the strengths of the build is its relative lack of weaknesses and counters compared to 'typical' melee Fighters, who often find themselves kited or locked down.

1) what considerations are you making since you prefer the extra feat to knowing level 5 spells?.

If I went for the level 5 spells known, I wouldn't get them until exactly level 20. I'd rather just have the feat early, especially since we get so much use out of those upcast slots anyways (Shadow Blade upcasts very well when you have a lot of attacks).

I really like the War Wizard's added tankiness... But I can't help, but look at 9 Sorcerer's level 5 spells with Quicken and potentially 6 enemies with disadvantage to their saves twice (from Eldritch Strike + action surge + quicken). As a Divine Soul, you'd also have some boost to saves, the very nice tanking ability of Spirit Guardians and a way to fill out those bonus actions (with Quicken and sometimes Spiritual Weapon).

Oh yeah. There are a lot of multiclass possibilities here, precisely because you don't really need Intelligence all that much (though it certainly helps for landing a Counterspell).

I mention a few non-War-Wizard possibilities in this thread.

[Lysimarchos]

...The Soulknife...

Very interesting build. I'm definitely going to play it. Eventually. One day. God I have too many builds I want to play.

Would it be a good idea to take a few levels of War Wizard before getting Eldritch Knight 11? Like 2 levels of War Wizard at level 5. Or is it better to get to level 11 as quickly as possible for that sweet third attack?

EDIT: Where is the gif from, by the way?

[Klorox]

Here's a very tanky Dex Fighter that still gets to dish out more damage than many GWMers despite wielding a shield (and Shield, and ironclad saves, and etc). Best of both worlds. I've taken to calling this style of build a "Soulknife" build because they can summon all their weapons and armor, using Shadow Blade (or Weapon Bond) and Mage Armor.

If you ever wanted a hypertank Fighter who was ready for war to break out even while they were wearing their wedding dress, then this is for you! (What, you say it's weird to worry about how battle-ready you are at your wedding? Then why does a marriage Ceremony increase AC? Explain that!)

Like all my builds, this is designed to be effective at all levels, from 1-20.

Build 12: The Soulknife

Elf (Shadar Kai) Eldritch Knight 11 / War Wizard 2 / EK 12 / WW 8
Starting Stats: Dex 17 / Con 16 / Int 14 / Wis 10
ASIs: War Caster @4, Elven Accuracy (18 Dex) @6, 20 Dex @8, Lucky @14, Alert @16, Resilient (Wis) @20
Fighting Style: Dueling
Cantrips Known: Booming Blade, Control Flames, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Shape Water, Chill Touch, Prestidigitation
Spells Known (EK, Abjuration/Evocation): Shield, Absorb Elements, Protection from Evil and Good, Mage Armor, Warding Wind, Thunderwave
Spells Known (EK, Any School): Find Familiar @3, Shadow Blade@8. At level 12 you should put Find Familiar in your spellbook (so you can use it as a ritual); you can swap the EK spell known out at 14 for whatever you want; Misty Step or something.
Other Spells Known: After that, you get at least 20 more spells from Wizard, plus however many you purchase with gold. I offer some suggestions in the "Progression" section.
Spell slots at level 20: 4/3/3/3/2/1 + 4 spell levels from Arcane Recovery. Max sixth level slots.
(Optional) Ravnica Background: Dimir


A Very Well-Rounded Defense
You have 20 AC (from wearing mage armor and a shield), and then either Shield or Arcane Deflection on top of that. You can increase this even further with other defensive spells, like Protection from Evil and Good or Fire Shield, if necessary. And Alert means that unseen enemies don't even get advantage against you. Lucky means that you can negate Critical hits, too.

You have always-on Resistance to Necrotic damage, Resistance to 5 other elemental types with Absorb Elements, and Resistance to everything 1/day when you use your Shadar-Kai Teleport.

All of your saves are great because of Arcane Deflection + Indomitable + Lucky, which all stack. And advantage against Charms from being an Elf, too. What's that, someone wants to Dominate you? Well hope they can get through up to +10 to the save and up to 3 rerolls.

You can't be easily kited or locked down like most melee Fighters, thanks to your ability to teleport (either from your race, or from Misty Step). You can get out of that Wall of Force and kill the mage who cast it on the same turn.

And you can't be ignored, because you hit like a convoy of trucks and Shadow Blade + Booming Blade + Warcaster OAs are deadly.

Unbreakable Concentration
If an enemy can even hit you in the first place, you have Proficiency in Con saves, 16 Con, and Warcaster... all by level 4. Later, you can boost your saves even further with Arcane Deflection, Indomitable, and Lucky (which all stack). So you're looking at +9-+13 Con saves with up to 3 rerolls.

As if that weren't enough, you also frequently cut down the DCs of Concentration saves, because you have Absorb Elements, Shadar-Kai Resistance, and high saving throws across the board.

Oh, and even if the enemy does manage to break your Concentration? Shadow Blade is just a bonus action to recast.

Offense

A Shadar-Kai teleports right through an invisible Wall of Force and uses Booming Shadow Blade on the one who cast it.

To get an idea of how good our DPR is (especially for sword and board that's keeping its bonus action free on most rounds), we'll want to have a baseline to compare to, so here's one: A basic level 19 GWM/GWF Fighter has ~30.6 DPR vs AC19, or ~51.4 if they get Advantage on all their attacks. With Action Surge, that gets bumped up to ~61.1 and ~101.7. (If you're curious why I'm picking 19 instead of 20 for the example, it's because 19 is more representative of what you'll be doing throughout tier 3 and 4 as a Fighter. 20 is an outlier that won't be relevant for long, so is a less representative demonstration).

So if we're doing that or better on a full tank sword and board build, we can assume we're doing quite well for ourselves indeed. Essentially getting the best of both worlds.

We get enough spell slots to not only cast but upcast Shadow Blade in every single encounter of a 6-encounter adventuring day. So what's our DPR with that at level 19? Let's take a look. (All calculations are against AC19, and results are rounded to nearest tenth. Accuracy, crit rate, etc are all accounted for)

Level 5-6 Shadow Blade (3/day):
Normal: 51.45 DPR (~168% of baseline GWM)
Advantage: ~79.5 DPR (~155% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge: 102.9 DPR (~168% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge Advantage: ~159 DPR (~156% of baseline GWM)
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack: 38.3 DPR (yes, your no-Advantage opportunity attack really is worth more DPR than 3 basic GWM/GWF attacks)
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack w/Advantage: ~58.6 DPR

Level 3-4 Shadow Blade (7/day):
Normal: 42 DPR (~137% of baseline GWM)
Advantage: ~64.6 DPR (~126% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge: 84 DPR (~136% of baseline GWM)
Action Surge Advantage: ~129.3 DPR (~127% of baseline GWM)
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack: ~35.2 DPR
Booming Blade Opportunity Attack w/ Advantage: ~53.6 DPR

So as we can see we are beating a basic GWM/GWF Fighter by a fair amount. Even more than this shows, actually, since we'll have an easier time getting Advantage than they will (from dim light and darkness, not to mention our familiar). And of course our Shadow Blade / Booming Blade opportunity attacks are far deadlier than a normal Fighter's.

An enemy decides you're too tanky and wants to walk away from you to melee your back line? That's when you get to say "So you have chosen death."

Note that all of this is leaving your bonus action open on rounds 2+. So you can totally resummon a dispelled or thrown shadow blade, or use Second Wind, or teleport, or whatever else you want with that bonus action, and still keep all your DPR!

And you know what else? Unlike that GWM/GWF Fighter, we have a +12 initiative thanks to 20 Dex, Alert, and Tactical Wit, which means that we not only have a higher DPR but more rounds in which to apply our DPR. Oh, and we're stealthy too, which means we might be able to get Surprise and get two turns before the enemy goes... which often means they are dead and don't go at all. Eat your heart out, Assassin.

(If you're curious what it's like before you get Shadowblade, see "Progression")

Stealth, Initiative, and Utility
We have +12 initiative due to max Dex, Alert, and Tactial Wit, and eventually we can even reroll our initiative with Lucky. This is a big deal, because winning initiative is effectively an extra turn relative to Team Monster.

We have +11 Stealth, Darkvision, and things like Invisibility and (if Dimir) Pass Without Trace on our spell list, which means you're a Stealthy Boi.

Minor Illusion, Control Flames, Shape Water, and Mold Earth all share the rare distinction of lacking verbal components, which means you can get up to various shenanigans without revealing yourself. For example, one fun trick is to animate the guardsmens' torches with Control Flames so that it looks like they're naturally sputtering out in the wind, then eviscerate them with darkness-buffed Shadow Blade while they're fumbling for their flint and steel.

You're smart and dextrous, so you can also pick up skills like Thieves Tools, Arcana, or Investigation to help you clear traps and such, if you're so inclined. And your owl will have 120 foot Darkvision and 18 Passive Perception (with Keen Senses).

You're also a pretty safe scout; if you're discovered odds are you can face-tank whatever they throw at you, then teleport away to safety.

Anyways, you have all the tools you need for a decent chance at getting Surprise. Combine that with your whopping +12 initiative and you're looking at getting 1-2 turns before the enemy on a regular basis. Combine that with your high damage potential and Team Monster may not even get a turn at all.

And with all those utility cantrips and an assortment of Wizard spells and rituals, you actually have things to do out of combat, unlike a stereotypical Fighter.

The Pressure Game
If an enemy survives your initial onslaught, they're still between a rock and a hard place, because now they're standing in melee against you and their decision tree probably looks something like this:

- Attack the Soulknife! But that's bad, because they're really tanky and you'll probably waste your attack.
- Move away from the Soulknife to attack their friends! But that's bad, because that Shadow Booming Blade OA will hit like a GWM Fighter's entire turn.
- Make ranged attacks at the Soulknife's allies! But that's bad, because you get Disadvantage on ranged attack rolls while an enemy's within 5 feet of you, and you can't move to get a better firing angle on those allies in cover.
- Use Misty Step to get away from the Soulknife! But that's bad, because even if you don't get counterspelled, you just used up your 1 leveled spell per turn.
- Use your cone-shaped AoE! But you can't move to line up that many party members in the AoE or get around cover.

See what I mean? Just existing in melee as a tanky character with a hard-hitting OA puts a lot of (not all) monsters between a rock and a hard place.

Always Ready
It doesn't matter if you have to leave your weapons and armor at the door, because you can just wear Mage Armor and summon your weapon as a bonus action. The only thing you can't just take with you everywhere is your shield (since, bizarrely, Weapon Bond won't let you summon one -- though ask your DM about that, there's a solid chance they think it doesn't make sense either).

1-20 Progression

Spoiler: Progression

Show

As with all my builds, this one is designed to be effective at all levels, from 1-20.

tl;dr version is that you switch your main DPR strategy as you level up. You use Familiar Advantage + Booming Blade at 3-4, Extra Attack at 5-6, War Magic at 7-10, and Extra Attack at 11+. And when Fighter damage scaling drops off at level 11, we circumvent that by hopping over into Wizard and scaling up with Shadow Blade. And your Warcaster Booming Blade OA will keep you sticky throughout the whole thing.

You wear Medium Armor + shield until you max Dex, at which point you start wearing light armor or casting Mage Armor and sneaking around.

Your defensive toolkit just sort of steadily scales up throughout the whole thing. You're always tanky, and you always hit hard.

Level 1-2:
Shadar-Kai gives you a bunch of things... charm and Necrotic resistance, darkvision, and a bonus action teleport that is not only a teleport, but gives you Resistance to all damage for a turn. All of these things will be great throughout your entire career.

Aside from that, standard low level Fighter stuff. Which is a good thing; Fighter has a strong 1-2.

Level 3
Booming Blade is a direct upgrade to your basic attack at levels 3-4 and 7-10. And getting a Familiar to grant Advantage is an upgrade to your DPR at any level, but especially early (don't underestimate how much a difference the Help action makes to DPR when you have just 1 attack!)

Your other cantrip should be something with utility; I recommend Minor Illusion or one of the Shape element cantrips.

These things alone are better than the all-day benefit of a Champion, but on top of it you get a couple of spells. Your first should always be Shield, which you can think of as a solid extra chunk of effective hit points bolted onto your tank. Your second can be any of the other level 1 spells I listed at the top, depending on the needs of your campaign, except for Mage Armor (which you shouldn't take until you have 20 Dex). I usually take Absorb Elements first, but PFG&E is just stupid good if you know you're going to be fighting a ton of those creature types, and and Thunderwave is good if you have a bunch of hazards to knock people into.

Level 4
Warcaster makes components cease to be a hassle for you, renders your Concentration ironclad (especially since you already have Con proficiency), and gives you a mean opportunity attack.

People who want to move away from you now will not only trigger the 1d8 rider from your normal attack, but also trigger a Warcaster OA, which will do another 2d8+5 damage, for a grand total of 4d8+10 in a round that they want to walk away from you.

That opportunity attack is what makes you sticky, and it'll scale throughout the entirety of your progression. It will never cease to be a powerful and punishing deterrent to enemy movement.

It's basically a win/win scenario for you, either they stay and fight you, the impregnable tank that's going to shrug off their attacks, or they try to move away, and have their lifespans considerably shortened. This not only helps protect your allies, but likely can help them dish out more damage too (since it makes it more troublesome for them to get out of hazard spells like Sickening Radiance or what-have-you).

Level 5-6
Extra Attack replaces Booming Blade as your 'default' attack for 2 levels, but Booming Blade continues to be relevant for that great Opportunity Attack (which just became greater, scaling to 4d8+Dex+2).

Elven Accuracy and 18 Dex just makes you better at everything you're already doing.

Also, Weapon Bond helps your ability to use thrown weapons. You can drop your rapier, object interaction to draw a throwing weapon, attack, bonus action to summon the throwing weapon back, throw it again. Then bonus action to pick up your rapier again next turn, wherever you might be.

Level 7
War Magic means Booming Blade because a straight upgrade to your regular attack again, from now until level 10. People who move now take up to 9d8+18 (58.5) damage from your initial assault + OA. More if you use Action Surge.

You also get 2nd level spells. There's not a huge selection of great ones from the Abjuration/Evocation list for us; I usually take Warding Wind, though you might also like Darkness or even another level 1 spell.

Warding Wind does a bunch of things, but the most important is that it gives Disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks against you and everyone behind you for a generous ten minutes (enough for multiple encounters in a dungeoneering scenario), while creating difficult terrain around yourself. It basically makes it even harder for enemies to engage with you or your allies.

However, you might not want to take Warding Wind if your allies are very dependent on ranged weapon attacks themselves. Note that ranged spell attacks like Eldritch Blast have no issue firing through Warding Wind.

Level 8-10
And now your Dex maxes out and that becomes "up to 9d8+21, more if you use Action Surge." Or "up to 12d8+21, more if you use Action Surge" with Shadow Blade.

With your Dexterity maxed out, it's time to throw away your Medium Armor and start wearing Light, or even casting Mage Armor (you can swap one of your previous spells known for it). This'll boost your ability to be stealthy, just in time for Shadow Blade.

From now on, Shadow Blade is what we're going to be spending a lot of our L2+ spell slots on. It makes us get triple Advantage more easily, and boosts all our damage considerably. It also lets you throw it, use a bonus action to re-summon it, and throw it again... giving you a ranged option (and also meaning the shadows you stand in don't need to be right next to someone).

Level 11
Now that you have 3 attacks, you're usually going to be using that instead of War Magic.

Level 12 (WW 1)
Extra Attack marks the last time the Fighter kit gets a big damage boost until aaaall the way at level 20... so we circumvent that by jumping into Wizard instead, accelerating our spell slot progression, which in turn gives us fat damage boosts via Shadow Blade, which upcasts very well when you have 3 attacks and triple advantage.

We should immediately start picking up rituals, including Find Familiar (we can finally cast it without slots!)

Longstrider and Feather Fall are useful spells to grab. A vision blocker would be good too, like Silent Image or Fog Cloud.

Level 13 (WW 2)
+2 to initiative from Tactical Wit, and an at-will reaction for +2 AC or (more importantly) +4 to saves. That, combined with Indomitable and Fey Ancestry, gives you a solid chance of succeeding on any crucial save, regardless of what stat it's in.

You hardly even care about the 'can't cast spells until your next turn' penalty, since you'll be Attacking most of the time anyway.

Level 14 (EK 12)
Due to the way multiclassing works in 5e, Eldritch Knight 11 / War Wizard 9 and EK 12 / War Wizard 8 would have the exact same spell slots... so we might as well grab that last level of EK for a feat.

Here I like either Alert (to all but guarantee you go first with a +12) or Lucky (which synergizes very well with Arcane Deflection and Indomitable to make it even harder to make you fail a save. And can reroll initiative too; you've got a +7 after all). Pick one, then take the other at 16.

We also can take this opportunity to swap out our "Find Familiar" spell known (since we now have it as a ritual, and no longer need to have it as an Eldritch Knight) for any other spell you want. Say... Misty Step, for more teleporting.

Level 15-20 (WW 3-8)
From here on out you just keep scaling up your spell slots for more and higher level Shadow Blades, which will keep your damage going up and up. And you keep expanding your spell list with a larger utility toolbox for dealing with any situation.

Arcane Recovery will keep scaling, which is just great because every extra level 1 slot is another Shield or Absorb Elements.

Some particularly noteworthy spells are Counterspell (because enemy spells are bad) and Phantom Steed (which can dash 200 feet to deliver you to the enemy when combat starts, making it even more difficult to kite you).

There's also a bunch of useful non-Concentration tools, like Pyrotechnics, See Invisibility, Fire Shield, Dispel Magic, Dimension Door, etc.

Spoiler: Some level 2 spell suggestions

Show

I like Pyrotechnics as a Concentration-free vision blocker.

See Invisibility is a Concentration-free way to, well, see invisible things.

Invisibility can help out with your infiltration/ambush skills.

Mirror Image is Concentration-free too, but I think it's pretty situational. See, Mirror Images can get hit even if an enemy misses you, so they might not actually block many hits at all.

You might also consider a save-or-be-screwed spell to go with Eldritch Strike. Though I'd usually rather just hit them again; 'dead' is a really good status effect.

Spoiler: Some level 3 spell suggestions

Show

Counterspell is Counterspell, and will help you tank / negate spells. Take it.

Dispel Magic is useful too.

Phantom Steed and Leomund's Tiny Hut are important rituals that you should absolutely get.

Thunder Step lets you take a friend with you when you teleport.

Fireball might not be what it was 13 levels ago, but it is still relevant for clearing mook swarms. Mooks never actually stop mattering in 5e.

Bestow Curse doesn't take Concentration if upcast to 5th. Major Image becomes permanent if upcast to 6th.

Sleet Storm can lock down a huge area of effect, but eats Concentration.

Spoiler: Some level 4 spell suggestions

Show

Fire Shield is Concentration-free elemental resistance and retribution damage for 10 minutes.

Dimension Door is a teleport that can take someone with you (like Thunder Step, but longer).

Otiluke's Resilient Sphere can shelter an ally in an emergency.

Banishment is a good save-or-lose to go with Eldritch Strike.

Greater Invisibility is an alternative to Shadow Blade for some situations.

Analysis of Eldritch Knight spells

Spoiler: Analysis of Eldritch Knight spells

Show

Spoiler: Color Key

Show

Better
Gold
Light Blue
Blue
Green
Orange
Red
Brown
Worse

Abjuration/Evocation Spell Choices

Shield
You should take this spell on every Eldritch Knight you build, with zero exceptions.

The thing that makes Shield so much better than most defensive reactions is it's guaranteed to be worth the full damage value of at least one hit (since you decide to use it AFTER the hit is confirmed), plus it lasts for the rest of the round, thus helping to protect you from multiattack, mook swarms, or the like. Also, remember that the more AC you already have, the more valuable each additional point of AC is in terms of effective health. This chart should give you a rough idea of what I mean:



Anyways, don't just spam it all the the time; think about how much effective hit points it's likely to be worth on a given round.

Absorb Elements
This does the most important thing that a Bear-barian does; cut the big burst damage of things like dragon breath and the like by half. The fact that it boosts your melee damage afterward is a cherry on top.

This isn't quite as valuable as Shield, but it's still a must-have at later levels where elemental damage bursts can be quite large (thus giving this spell a high value in effective hit points).

Burning Hands
Fighters don't usually have AoEs, so that gives this a niche, but the damage is modest enough at the level you get it that it's fairly situational; you need to make sure enough enemies are clustered in order for it to be worth using.

Make sure to remember that cones and cubes don't follow the 50% coverage rule. The image on the left is the area you cover, not the right.


Chromatic OrbDon't cast this spell as an Eldritch Knight. Just make an attack instead. Throw your weapon if you have to.

Earth Tremor
Friendly fire potential and negligible damage, but on the other hand at least it knocks down everyone around you and makes some difficult terrain, and if you're the sole frontliner the friendly fire isn't too likely.

Still, too situational for my tastes. You don't have that many spells known as an EK.

Mage Armor
"Mage Armor? Are you kidding? But I already have all the armor proficiencies!"
Yes, Mage Armor. There's basically 2 ways you can see Mage Armor; either comparing it to light armor or full plate (you won't even consider half-plate because you'll be using 20 Dex).
If you're comparing to Light Armor, this spell grants +1 AC and for 8 hours. That's like half a Divine Shield, except it lasts 48x as long, and doesn't take Concentration.
If you're comparing to Full Plate, this spell allows you to remove Disadvantage on Stealth for 8 hours... and reap the benefits of investing in Dex instead of Strength.

I think either of those are decent uses of a spell. Not something I'd cast before maxing Dex, but yeah. Unless of course you have some slick magic armor that makes this obsolete.

Also, it allows you to be ready for a fight even if you're in a ballgown at a noble gala or something. An Eldritch Knight is like a Monk in that they don't care that much if they're caught unprepared.

Magic Missile
So as far as single target direct damage spells go, Magic Missile is the best for you. It doesn't care about your Intelligence score at all, hits automatically, and deals the best damage type.

The only trouble is that single target direct damage spells aren't very good for you. But if you take one, you take this one.

Protection from Evil and Good
If you're fighting a creature type that this applies to (almost half the creature types in the game), this is a much better version of the second level spell Blur. It lasts 10 times as long, provides the same defense against Attacks, and additional defenses against nasty status effects.

This should basically be used as a pre-cast if you're planning to fight a bunch of demons or something. Rating depends on how likely you are to fight the relevant creature types in the campaign, and how likely you are to know you're fighting them before you actually do (so you can pre-cast it).

Thunderwave
When it comes to AoEs, it's a choice between this and Burning Hands. This one has a larger area, better damage type, and a useful rider, but does a bit less damage. I personally like Thunderwave more but take whichever you feel fits you.

Aganazzar's Scorcher, Snilloc's Snowball Swarm
You're better off with an upcast Thunderwave or Burning Hands than these.

Witch Bolt, Melf's Acid Arrow
Just mathematically terrible.

Scorching RayAn upcast Magic Missile will outdamage this unless an enemy's AC is particularly low, or you have Advantage. And it's a worse damage type.

Arcane Lock
The best combat use for this spell is basically to use it to lock a dungeon door, then have your party move back and forth through it and closing it after themselves, using it kind of like an unusually low level "Wall" spell that your allies can pass through. The trouble of course being that you can only use it in places where there's already a door, and that it costs 25hp. *Really* situational. But not totally worthless.

Continual Flame I once heard someone say "why would you cast this if you could just take the Light cantrip?" Well, two reasons:
1) If you upcast it to 3rd level, it illuminates magical Darkness (as all lights created by a third level slot or higher do)
2) 50gp and a spell slot on a downtime day you're not adventuring is cheaper than a cantrip known slot.

That said, you don't exactly have a lot of spells known to toss around; it's much better to have the party Cleric or something use this for you. There's no point to having it if anyone else in the party has it.

Warding Wind
I wrote a whole thread about this one.

Lots of little situational uses that add up to it being quite good overall, and it's better on a frontliner than on a backline Wizard (since it impedes ranged attacks against everyone behind you). It can, however, be problematic if your teammates are particularly reliant on Ranged Weapon Attacks (Eldritch Blast and the like won't mind), so keep your party comp in mind.

Darkness
Darkness is a good spell that sometimes gets a bad rap because some people *misuse it* in a way that is actively detrimental to their party.

So let me lay out how it works. First thing: if someone can't see you, you get Advantage against them. If you can't see them, you get Disadvantage against them. So if both sides can't see each other, it cancels out.

So you might be wondering "what's the point?" Well, let me give you a few ideas.

Some uses for Darkness are...
- Many spells and abilities require being able to see the target in order to target them at all. Beholder eye rays, for example.
- You can use it to cancel Advantage and Disadvantage. For example, a Barbarian ally in Darkness won't give anyone Advantage when they use Reckless Attack.
- When allies have things like Alert, Devil's Sight, True Sight, or the like, Darkness doesn't cancel out, it gives them an edge.
- You have folks who like to bonus action Hide on your side.

Some bad times to use Darkness are...
- When your ally needs to see something in order to target it with a key spell or ability. Don't be that guy.

Gust of Wind
I like Warding Wind better.

Shatter
Does the same damage as an upcast Thunderwave, but farther away and without the rider. It damages objects, so it's good for breaking floors and such.

Pass Without Trace
If you decided to cheese out with a Ravnica background, you can take this as an Abjuration spell to give +10 to Stealth for your entire party, which makes it easy to get Surprise.

Non-Evocation/Abjuration spells:
Find Familiar
Okay, so you can't get this as a ritual until you start taking Wizard levels, but I still think it's worth it. The familiar you want in the majority of situations is the owl.

An owl can swoop in, use the Help action to give you Triple Advantage on your Booming Blade, then swoop out to a safe position using Flyby (remember, you don't need to stay next to the enemy after using Help!). You want to have them falling back to someplace with 3/4 or full cover, far enough away from PCs that they won't get hit from AoEs, or at least flying out of melee height. Basically, don't make it 'cheap' to kill your familiar, make it as inconvenient as possible.

Your familiar can also use their actions for things other than Help, such as dropping ball bearings, or feeding a downed teammate a potion (you can make them for just 25gp a pop with XGtE Herbalism rules). They're just extra action economy and that's great.

Your owl familiar also increases your detection abilities, with 120 foot darkvision and 18 passive perception (w/ Keen Senses). It also can carry a Control-Flames-enahnced Hooded or Bullseye Lantern in combat, so that enemies are lit up but your less expendable party members aren't (you know, basically the reason Treantmonk has an entire video about Dancing Lights, except without you actually using Dancing Lights).

Important Note: When you get your first Wizard level, you should learn this spell again, but as a ritual. Then you can retrain the Eldritch Knight spell known for Misty Step or something when you take your final EK level.

Shadow Blade
Unless you happen upon some sick Legendary magic weapon that doesn't stack with this, this is where you're getting your big damage from. Note that Shadow Blade only really starts picking up steam in a big way once you get your third attack; before that your bread and butter is going to be War Magic Booming Blade with Flyby Triple Advantage.

Misty Step
A good thing to always have prepared, since you're a melee character and that means you don't like being kited of controlled. This'll let you get through Plant Growth or Walls of Force or other such pesky things that are between you and the guy you want to stab in the face.

You can already do this with your Shadar-Kai feature of course, but this lets you do it more times.

Variants:
- You can take the Defense style instead of Dueling to get even tankier.
- Any elf subrace will do well, Shadar-Kai is just a particularly nice one.
- You can take Lucky, Alert, and Resilient in any order.
- If you want a Ravnica background, Dimir is a powerful choice here, as it gives you Pass Without Trace to make you a really stealthy boi. Better yet, PWT gets added to your Abjuration/Evocation list.
- Since none of the Eldritch Knight spells we picked really depend on Intelligence, you can actually invest in a different mental stat and go off into all kinds of different spellcasting classes after level 11, not just Wizard. In fact, I might be posting some builds in that vein in the future...

So, I thought this whole "soul knife" sounded kinda cool when it was teased a few times earlier in this thread, but I had no idea what it actually was.

I've also been working on a character concept of an eldritch knight that dips war wizard. LMFAO!

You put things together so much more eloquently than I ever could have, and I love it. Great job.

Do you think this is superior to a straight classed bladesinger though (or something like fighter 2/bladesinger X)? That was my debate.

[Quietus]

So, I thought this whole "soul knife" sounded kinda cool when it was teased a few times earlier in this thread, but I had no idea what it actually was.

I've also been working on a character concept of an eldritch knight that dips war wizard. LMFAO!

You put things together so much more eloquently than I ever could have, and I love it. Great job.

Do you think this is superior to a straight classed bladesinger though (or something like fighter 2/bladesinger X)? That was my debate.

I suspect it depends on what you want out of your build. A straight classed bladesinger, or one that has a minor fighter dip, will rely more on its casting, using melee as a fallback. The soul knife build here is primarily martial, using some magical abilities to bolster its weapon attacks and defenses. Different approaches.

[Evaar]

Build 12: The Soulknife

Big fan of this particular build and similar EK/WW Dex tanks. I've been toying around with a variant of my own, likely not as optimal as this one, but I think it can compete solidly at any table that allows the options.

Instead of Elf, you go Tiefling, taking the Feral stats (+2 Dex +1 Int) AND the Lineage of Levistus options. You can do both of these per Crawford, so you've got good stats, inherent fire resistance, and access to Armor of Agathys. You start with an odd Constitution score because, as soon as you can afford it, you're picking up Infernal Constitution so you add poison and cold to your list of resistances, plus you get advantage on saving throws against the poisoned condition. Sadly Flames of Phlegethos isn't likely to provide sufficient value; though you get some synergy with your Greenflame Blade, the half stat going to Int or Cha just isn't going to be a useful investment. If you like, you can start with a 17 Dex and take Resilient (Dex) at 6 or 8.

Otherwise, you're following Ludic's instructions. Will probably have a bit less DPR and more vulnerability to certain crowd control spells, but will do better mitigating blasters without expending resources. In my experience, fire, cold, and poison all come up a lot so they are valuable resistances to have.

AND Levistus is a fencer. So having his lineage and being a dex fighter with a rapier works extra well!

[LudicSavant]

Build 12b: House Phiarlan Soulknife

One of these clowns is going to manifest a Shadow Blade and assassinate you.

If you want to play the Soulknife in Eberron, you've got a fantastic and very thematic option: the Mark of Shadows Elf.

Why is this race so fitting? Well, in addition to the fluff lining up perfectly and all the usual reasons elves are strong, it gives you an extra cantrip known (Minor Illusion), a free casting of Invisibility 1/day, +1d4 to all Stealth checks, and Pass Without Trace as an Abjuration spell on your spell list, which means you can get it as an Eldritch Knight spell. Oh, and +1d4 to Perform, so that you can be a very scary clown.

What this means is that your stealth game goes up to 11. +1d4 to stealth checks is nearly as valuable as Expertise, Invisibility will give you Advantage on stealth for an hour, and Pass Without Trace is... well, it gives the entire party +10 to Stealth. Everything I said about the usefulness of stealth and surprise for the Soulknife, you do, but much better. You're basically a better assassin than the Assassin, while being a full tank.

You build it pretty much like the Soulknife described above, with the following alterations:

Starting Stats: Str 8 / Dex 17 / Con 14 / Int 14 / Wis 12 / Cha 9
Spells: Take Pass Without Trace as your first Abjuration spell known at 7th

That's it. Now you get to do all your Soulknife stuff, except with +21+1d4 to Stealth. And giving all your allies +10 to Stealth. And an extra slot for Invisibility. Enjoy killing things before they get a turn.

[Evaar]

Build 12b: House Phiarlan Soulknife

You can also play a House Orien Courier. If something absolutely must get where it's going, no one's better.

+2 Dex +1 floating, 35 base movement speed, access to Pass Without Trace, one free Misty Step per long rest and, eventually, access to Freedom of Movement. You don't get the 1d4 to Stealth rolls, but you do get it for Acrobatics for when you need to backflip through a Death Course.

[LudicSavant]

You can also play a House Orien Courier. If something absolutely must get where it's going, no one's better.

+2 Dex +1 floating, 35 base movement speed, access to Pass Without Trace, one free Misty Step per long rest and, eventually, access to Freedom of Movement. You don't get the 1d4 to Stealth rolls, but you do get it for Acrobatics for when you need to backflip through a Death Course.

That's a great way to take it for a non-Elf version.

[DevanAvalon]

Build 12b: House Phiarlan Soulknife

One of these clowns is going to manifest a Shadow Blade and assassinate you.

If you want to play the Soulknife in Eberron, you've got a fantastic and very thematic option: the Mark of Shadows Elf.

Why is this race so fitting? Well, in addition to the fluff lining up perfectly and all the usual reasons elves are strong, it gives you an extra cantrip known (Minor Illusion), a free casting of Invisibility 1/day, +1d4 to all Stealth checks, and Pass Without Trace as an Abjuration spell on your spell list, which means you can get it as an Eldritch Knight spell. Oh, and +1d4 to Perform, so that you can be a very scary clown.

What this means is that your stealth game goes up to 11. +1d4 to stealth checks is nearly as valuable as Expertise, Invisibility will give you Advantage on stealth for an hour, and Pass Without Trace is... well, it gives the entire party +10 to Stealth. Everything I said about the usefulness of stealth and surprise for the Soulknife, you do, but much better. You're basically a better assassin than the Assassin, while being a full tank.

You build it pretty much like the Soulknife described above, with the following alterations:

Starting Stats: Str 8 / Dex 17 / Con 14 / Int 14 / Wis 13 / Cha 10
Spells: Take Pass Without Trace as your first Abjuration spell known at 7th

That's it. Now you get to do all your Soulknife stuff, except with +21+1d4 to Stealth. And giving all your allies +10 to Stealth. And an extra slot for Invisibility. Enjoy killing things before they get a turn.

Why the boost to Wis compared to the non-Marked version?

[LudicSavant]

Why the boost to Wis compared to the non-Marked version?

Because you can't boost Con from 15 to 16 with a +1 from your race, you lower it to 14, and then spend the points elsewhere.

[DevanAvalon]

Because you can't boost Con from 15 to 16 with a +1 from your race, you lower it to 14, and then spend the points elsewhere.

Ah, that's fair. I have rolled stats, so that's less of a concern for me and thought something major changed, aha.

Can I make another build request of you, perhaps? Some sort of Sorcerer gish that isn't Sorcadin. I have a Hex 3/Shadow Sorc 17 build that I theory crafted, but I was wondering what a master like you would come up with.

[Draz74]

Are you still planning to detail the Sharp Shooter Samurai, eventually, Ludic?

[Lysimarchos]

Ah, that's fair. I have rolled stats, so that's less of a concern for me and thought something major changed, aha.

Can I make another build request of you, perhaps? Some sort of Sorcerer gish that isn't Sorcadin. I have a Hex 3/Shadow Sorc 17 build that I theory crafted, but I was wondering what a master like you would come up with.

Speaking of Sorcerer gish builds, I was thinking of maybe making a Fighter 2/Divine Soul Sorcerer 18 build to make a sort of Final Fantasy Red Mage. It can use both Black and White Magic (Sorcerer and Cleric spells), and Action Surge, Twinned Spell and Quickened Spell replicate the Dualcast ability.

[Quietus]

Ah, that's fair. I have rolled stats, so that's less of a concern for me and thought something major changed, aha.

Can I make another build request of you, perhaps? Some sort of Sorcerer gish that isn't Sorcadin. I have a Hex 3/Shadow Sorc 17 build that I theory crafted, but I was wondering what a master like you would come up with.

I've been toying mentally with the idea of a Dwarven melee sorcerer - I'm sure there's someone who can refine this, but I'll put out the skeleton of the build below. Note I am going to use the recent UA feat Shield Training, but you could do this just as easily flexing your point buy a little and going two handed instead.

Mountain dwarf : Medium armor, +2 str/con, other Dwarf traits. Starting stats 16/10/16/10/10/14
Dragon bloodline sorcerer; take average HP each level, for 8 HP every left after 1st. I'd grab one of the fire related dragons to synergize with Green-Flame Blade.
Feats : At 4, grab Shield Master. At 8, grab Heavily Armored. Bump Str with each feat, you now have the ability to wear plate + shield. From there, consider War Caster and +cha.
If you don't have access to UA, I'd still grab Heavily Armored, then it just pulls the other feats/ASIs forward, still perfectly viable.
Metamagic : Twin and Quicken are the key to what you're trying to do.

Your main offense is Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade, burning spell slots for the ability to Twin or Quicken these. Even as early as level 3, if you burn all your SP, you can attack three times in a turn if you have two opponents next to each other, for a standard hit + BB on each, plus a standard hit on one and charisma worth of fire damage to the other. Your offense only goes up from there. You'll rely on Twin as often as possible at lower levels, as it's the cheaper option, but the higher level you get, the more freedom you have to spam attacks.

Your primary consideration for spells will be defense and buffs. Shield, Absorb Elements, Blur/Mirror Image, etc - all very viable options. Haste is there, but you get less from it than anyone else. If you do get Warcaster, however, then it may be a worthwhile pick if you have other people in your party who can really make use of it. Twinning Haste is expensive, but if you have a Paladin and a Rogue in the party, they'll love you for it. Cantrips, I'd pick up something for a ranged attack (Firebolt is good here), and Blade Ward for the purpose of Quickening in a pinch, plus of course Booming and Green-Flame blades.

If you have access to Xanathar's as well as SCAG, Shadow Blade is really good. You can potentially tag two enemies with it the turn you cast it (Twin BB), and three every turn after that. I'd been considering this build for AL, so I wasn't planning on combining these, but it's definitely an option if you have a permissive home game.

Note that you can vary this build considerably, as well. For Race, you can go with anything that would either bump Dex (in which case you want Mage Armor) or provides you armor proficiency. Drow would be ideal for the dex build, giving you +2 dex/+1 cha and proficiency with rapiers. Hobgoblins allow you to do an "iron wizard" take on this, grabbing you proficiency with martial weapons of your choice, bumping Con, and opening you up to Moderately Armored at level 4 to grab both medium armor and shields while bumping your str or dex to 16. You can also change up the subclass, losing the HP and fire damage bump in exchange for access to a whole range of additional spells, including several that will allow you to use your bonus action without Quicken. Twinning Shield of Faith, for instance, is never a bad move, and Spiritual Weapon is always valuable. Spirit Guardians is also an excellent pick for this setup, even if your save DC isn't terribly high. It's still automatic damage every turn, and you're potentially a heavily armored, extremely durable combatant capable of weathering and deflecting blows while encouraging opponents to keep attacking you.

::Edit:: I may have gotten a little tunnel-visioned on this one, as well. My original thought when I created this was to make a single classed melee sorcerer. However, this build would benefit greatly from a two level Hexblade dip, as so many do. Medium armor, shields, martial proficiency, and Charisma-SAD makes this an obscenely good pick and opens up a lot of additional options to you.

[ftafp]

I just realized I never posted Lung Wang here although given that he's more of a Pun-Pun build than a playable one I don't know if he applies.

Maybe some day soon I'll post Lung Wang the Bureaucrat here (AKA Lung Wang the significantly less cheesy) along with Moseph Dwarfington of Moseph Dwarfington's Ancient Dwarven Artifacts

[LudicSavant]

Are you still planning to detail the Sharp Shooter Samurai, eventually, Ludic?

Yep! It's still on the 'to-do' list.

[Corran]

Yep! It's still on the 'to-do' list.

What about your other idea about maddening darkness and mind blank? That sounded interesting.

Spoiler: half baked thoughts

Show

I had totally missed the synergy there before I see you mention this, and you got me thinking about it. The radius is good enough that the only thing you need to make this work well imo, is:
1) having a party with good ranged attacks, and
2) have a way for the pc's to see through the darkness
Funnily enough you can solve these two problems by simply having enough characters take 2 levels of warlock, but I was thinking of other ways to go around this and thus make the tactics work well. And the only thing I could come up with was glyph of warding and true seeing (a bit iffy, but I think it works). So this whole thing probably becomes part of some scry and die tactics, where after scrying enough beforehand, you buff your allies with true seeing (from glyph of warding), teleport into the location you've been scrying beforehand, and if they are not devils you are good to go. And by the time you cast it you are down only one 7th and one 8th level slot. Which is a bit underwhelming now that I think of it, as being an evoker simply reduces the time and gold needed to pull this off. So I am wondering if you've found a better way to pull this off, ideally without all this preparation time and without relying on rulings of glyph of warding. Probably some familiar (maybe even go up to 3 warlock levels for an imp, that would be good, so we can keep it safe-ish inside the darkness) would allow us to see through the spell easily enough, but what we'd really need would be a way to provide sight for our allies too. Ideally one that does not take too much set up time, cause if we could pull this off on the spot, that would be grand.

Anyway, really curious to see what you'll come up with regarding maddening darkness.

[LudicSavant]

What about your other idea about maddening darkness and mind blank? That sounded interesting.

Oh, I was basically just mentioning something my Evoker Wizard was doing in my Saturday game. She just picked up 8th level spells, so she picked Maddening Darkness.

Maddening Darkness creates a massive 120 foot diameter area of darkness, plus a healthy 8d8 psychic damage per round (+5 on the first one from Empowered Evocation). And with Sculpt Spells, I can just put my whole party in it... except for myself (since Sculpt Spells technically only lets you target OTHER creatures). However, since it's psychic damage, I can just use Mind Blank on myself, and then hang out in there with the party.

It's one of the many reasons why I keep telling people that Evokers are an unusually strong control subclass, not just a raw damage class.

The other party members include a Hexblade/Echo Knight archer (with Devil's Sight), a Lore Bard, and a 3rd party Monk subclass.

[Klorox]

Oh, I was basically just mentioning something my Evoker Wizard was doing in my Saturday game. She just picked up 8th level spells, so she picked Maddening Darkness.

Maddening Darkness creates a massive 120 foot diameter area of darkness, plus a healthy 8d8 psychic damage per round (+5 on the first one from Empowered Evocation). And with Sculpt Spells, I can just put my whole party in it... except for myself (since Sculpt Spells technically only lets you target OTHER creatures). However, since it's psychic damage, I can just use Mind Blank on myself, and then hang out in there with the party.

It's one of the many reasons why I keep telling people that Evokers are an unusually strong control subclass, not just a raw damage class.

The other party members include a Hexblade/Echo Knight archer (with Devil's Sight), a Lore Bard, and a 3rd party Monk subclass.

Next chance I get to play a wizard, if I decide against Bladesinger, I very well may go evoker. You, and others in this thread, have really opened my eyes on them.

Back to the Soul Knife: Why not take the 2 war wizard levels after getting to EK 5? The wizard levels really give you such a bonus on defense and I'd hate to wait until after reaching fighter 11 to gain them.

JMO.

Side note: clear some PM's @LudicSavant. I tried to PM you and your box is full.

[LudicSavant]

clear some PM's @LudicSavant. I tried to PM you and your box is full.

You guys send me so many! Okay, cleared some space.

Next chance I get to play a wizard, if I decide against Bladesinger, I very well may go evoker. You, and others in this thread, have really opened my eyes on them.

Yeah. They have a lot more going for them than just sculpting Fireballs.

Back to the Soul Knife: Why not take the 2 war wizard levels after getting to EK 5? The wizard levels really give you such a bonus on defense and I'd hate to wait until after reaching fighter 11 to gain them.

EK progression is just really good up to level 11. By the time you get EK 5 / Wizard 2, an EK 7 would have had 2nd level spells, War Magic (which is quite good at 7-10), a Dex bump, and Elven Accuracy. And they'd get full Dex and their third attack earlier.

[Evaar]

Back to the Soul Knife: Why not take the 2 war wizard levels after getting to EK 5? The wizard levels really give you such a bonus on defense and I'd hate to wait until after reaching fighter 11 to gain them.

I could see a case for doing it after 8. That's when you can learn Shadow Blade, and you've also picked up War Magic which means your cantrip/attack damage will continue to grow when you hit character level 11 even though you're only Fighter 9.

Fighter 9 and Fighter 10 are okay but not incredible individually, so you don't miss much by delaying them. Fighter 11 gets your 3rd attack which is a big deal, but you're mitigating that a little bit by continuing to use War Magic.

[LudicSavant]

I could see a case for doing it after 8. That's when you can learn Shadow Blade, and you've also picked up War Magic which means your cantrip/attack damage will continue to grow when you hit character level 11 even though you're only Fighter 9.

Fighter 9 and Fighter 10 are okay but not incredible individually, so you don't miss much by delaying them. Fighter 11 gets your 3rd attack which is a big deal, but you're mitigating that a little bit by continuing to use War Magic.

That could work.

[ftafp]

Ludic, I'm curious how you personally would go about building a "Master Delegator" who focuses entirely on getting others to fight their battles for them.

Right now I'm toying around with an Order Cleric 1/Glamour Bard X concept focused around support, enchantment and minionmancy. Hypothetically, if you can use Suggestion to convince an enemy to switch sides in the middle of a battle, they should be able to make an attack with their reaction as they're now an ally