An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[bendking]

Build 7: Hobgoblin Iron Wizard

Alright, so this one is gonna be a bit of a rip-off.

Hobgoblin Steel Sorcerer



TCE's ASI rules make Hobgoblin a good pick for Sorcerers now, and the Clockwork Soul gets access to both Armor of Agathys and Bastion of Law which lets him get more use out of his AoA.
On top of that, he gets access to an insane spell list and the ever-powerful (busted) Wall of Force. This is meaningful because (opinion alert), access to Wall of Force usually puts Wizards above Sorcerers in power level, but this Sorcerer lets us remain on par for a few more levels against a Wizard in our party (until they get access to shenanigans like Contingency, Simulacrum, and so on). Overall, this is one hell of a tanky caster, with some great Metamagic shenanigans thrown in to support the tank playstyle like Careful Hypnotic Pattern, Quickened Vampiric Touch, and more.

Stats
Race: Hobgoblin (+1 CON, +2 CHA)
Classes: Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 20
Stats (Point Buy): 8 STR / 15 DEX / 16 CON / 8 INT / 8 WIS / 17 CHA
ASIs: Moderately Armored (+1 DEX), Fey Touched (+1 CHA | Misty Step, Bless), +2 CHA, Warcaster, Resilient (WIS)
Progression: Sorcerer 20

Metamagics: Careful, Quickened, [10th Sorcerer - Transumted Spell)

Spell Progression

Cantrips
Booming Blade, Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Firebolt [Minor Illusion, Chill Touch]

Spells
1 - Sleep, Shield [Armor of Agathys, Protection from Evil and Good]
2 - Sleep, Shield, Grease [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements]
3 - Sleep, Shield, Grease | Web [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp]
4 - Sleep, Shield, Grease | Web, Blur [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp]
5 - Shield, Grease | Web, Blur | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic]
6 - Shield | Web, Blur | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Vampiric Touch, X [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic]
7 - Shield | Web, Blur | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Vampiric Touch | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp, Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape]
8 - Shield (FT: Bane) | Web, Blur, (FT: Misty Step) | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell, Blink | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape]
9 - Shield (FT: Bane) | Web, Blur (FT: Misty Step) | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door | Telekinesis, [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape | Wall of Force, Animate Objects]
10- Shield (FT: Bane) | Web, Blur (FT: Misty Step) | Hypnotic Pattern, Tidal Wave, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door | Telekinesis, Synaptic Static [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape | Wall of Force, Animate Objects]

Highlights
1. Armor of Agathys + Bastion of Law lets us deal a lot of damage to whoever dares attack us. Combined with Quickened Blade Ward we can squeeze a lot of value from AoA.
2. Quickened Spell is the bomb on this build. Let me explain. Vampiric Touch is rad - it lets us stay on the battlefield that much longer by stealing the life of our enemies. Quickened takes this spell to a whole other level. If you Quicken it you get two channels in a turn, and on subsequent turns, you can keep channeling it while Quickening other spells (Blade Ward, Armor of Agathys, and Blink are great non-concentration spells for this spot). Other amazing Quickened candidates are Earthen Grasp and Telekinesis.
3. We wouldn't be much of a tank if we didn't have battlefield control. Careful Spell takes care of that. Careful Hypnotic Pattern, Careful Sickening Radiance, and even Careful Web (if your DM isn't a JC fan) all provide unparalleled battlefield control.
4. Synaptic Static + Bane is awesome. Bane helps us keep Synaptic Static on our enemies, causing enemies to potentially reduce 1d6 + 1d4 from their attack rolls. Also, we got Mind Sliver up in this party as well.
5. Fantastic AC. Moderately Armored puts us at a cool 19 AC while wielding a shield. And of course, Shield to put us at 24 AC when needed.

Notes:
1. I would have liked Extended on this list to abuse Aid, but we just don't have enough metamagic known.
2. Blink is a flex spell. It isn't terribly synergistic with AoA, and is a bit counter to the whole point of drawing attention from your allies, but it can still come in handy. Still, feel free to change it to whatever you like.

Variants:
1. You can take a dip of Life Cleric for ultimate hilarity with Vampiric Touch. This would also mean you don't need Hobgoblin or Moderately Armored, and could possibly take V.Human/Custom Lineage for Metamagic Adept, but then the spell list would probably change drastically.
2. You can take Bless instead of Bane, I just found the idea of reducing -1d6-1d4 from attacks and other checks to be funny (and highly effective).

[Gignere]

Alright, so this one is gonna be a bit of a rip-off.

Hobgoblin Steel Sorcerer



TCE's ASI rules make Hobgoblin a good pick for Sorcerers now, and the Clockwork Soul gets access to both Armor of Agathys and Bastion of Law which lets him get more use out of his AoA.
On top of that, he gets access to an insane spell list and the ever-powerful (busted) Wall of Force. This is meaningful because (opinion alert), access to Wall of Force usually puts Wizards above Sorcerers in power level, but this Sorcerer lets us remain on par for a few more levels against a Wizard in our party (until they get access to shenanigans like Contingency, Simulacrum, and so on). Overall, this is one hell of a tanky caster, with some great Metamagic shenanigans thrown in to support the tank playstyle like Careful Hypnotic Pattern, Quickened Vampiric Touch, and more.

Stats
Race: Hobgoblin (+1 CON, +2 CHA)
Classes: Clockwork Soul Sorcerer 20
Stats (Point Buy): 8 STR / 15 DEX / 16 CON / 8 INT / 8 WIS / 17 CHA
ASIs: Moderately Armored (+1 DEX), Fey Touched (+1 CHA | Misty Step, Bless), +2 CHA, Warcaster, Resilient (WIS)
Progression: Sorcerer 20

Metamagics: Careful, Quickened, [10th Sorcerer - Transumted Spell)

Spell Progression

Cantrips
Booming Blade, Blade Ward, Mind Sliver, Firebolt [Minor Illusion, Chill Touch]

Spells
1 - Mage Armor, Sleep [Armor of Agathys, Protection from Evil and Good]
2 - Mage Armor, Sleep, Shield [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements]
3 - Mage Armor, Sleep, Shield | Web [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp]
4 - Sleep, Shield | Web, Blur, Suggestion [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp]
5 - Shield | Web, Blur, Suggestion | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic]
6 - Shield | Web, Blur | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Vampiric Touch, X [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic]
7 - Shield | Web, Blur | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Vampiric Touch | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp, Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape]
8 - Shield (FT: Bless) | Web, Blur, (FT: Misty Step) | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell, Blink | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape]
9 - Shield (FT: Bless) | Web, Blur (FT: Misty Step) | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door | Telekinesis, [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape | Wall of Force, Animate Objects]
10- Shield (FT: Bless) | Web, Blur (FT: Misty Step) | Hypnotic Pattern, Tidal Wave, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door | Telekinesis, Synaptic Static [Armor of Agathys, Absorb Elements | Aid, Earthen Grasp | Counterspell, Dispel Magic | Polymorph, Stone Shape | Wall of Force, Animate Objects]

Highlights
1. Armor of Agathys + Bastion of Law lets us deal a lot of damage to whoever dares attack us. Combined with Quickened Blade Ward we can squeeze a lot of value from AoA.
2. Quickened Spell is the bomb on this build. Let me explain. Vampiric Touch is rad - it lets us stay on the battlefield that much longer by stealing the life of our enemies. Quickened takes this spell to a whole other level. If you Quicken it you get two channels in a turn, and on subsequent turns, you can keep channeling it while Quickening other spells (Blade Ward, Armor of Agathys, and Blink are great non-concentration spells for this spot). Other amazing Quickened candidates are Earthen Grasp and Telekinesis.
3. We wouldn't be much of a tank if we didn't have battlefield control. Careful Spell takes care of that. Careful Hypnotic Pattern, Careful Sickening Radiance, and even Careful Web (if your DM isn't a JC fan) all provide unparalleled battlefield control.
4. Synaptic Static + Bane is awesome. Bane helps us keep Synaptic Static on our enemies, causing enemies to potentially reduce 1d6 + 1d4 from their attack rolls. Also, we got Mind Sliver up in this party as well.
5. Fantastic AC. Moderately Armored puts us at a cool 20 AC while wielding a shield. And of course, Shield to put us at 25 AC when needed.

Notes:
1. I would have liked Extended on this list to abuse Aid, but we just don't have enough metamagic known.
2. Blink is a flex spell. It isn't terribly synergistic with AoA, and is a bit counter to the whole point of drawing attention from your allies, but it can still come in handy. Still, feel free to change it to whatever you like.

Variants:
1. You can take a dip of Life Cleric for ultimate hilarity with Vampiric Touch. This would also mean you don't need Hobgoblin or Moderately Armored, and could possibly take V.Human/Custom Lineage for Metamagic Adept, but then the spell list would probably change drastically.
2. You can take Bless instead of Bane, I just found the idea of reducing -1d6-1d4 from attacks and other checks to be funny (and highly effective).

I like this concept and may well be my next character to play, I would probably skip mage armor as a spell known entirely, use rolled wealth and nab leather or studded leather if we roll high enough. Personally I am going to find some way to fit in meta magic Adept just to get twin and one other meta magic. Well done.

[bendking]

I like this concept and may well be my next character to play, I would probably skip mage armor as a spell known entirely, use rolled wealth and nab leather or studded leather if we roll high enough. Personally I am going to find some way to fit in meta magic Adept just to get twin and one other meta magic. Well done.

Good point, I'll switch it. And thank you :)

[Gignere]

Good point, I'll switch it. And thank you :)

I know it’s probably a little cliche this also screams out for a hexblade dip. I might even go as far as going vhuman/custom with resilient con and dip hexblade.

[bendking]

I know it’s probably a little cliche this also screams out for a hexblade dip. I might even go as far as going vhuman/custom with resilient con and dip hexblade.

Personally, I would take a level of Sorcerer first to save the feat for something else. You don't gain much from taking Hexblade first, since the armor and shield proficiency is a subclass feature.
I would then use my bonus feat for Metamagic Adept (Twinned, Subtle) and make room for Suggestion, Greater Invisibility, and possibly Haste in this list, and probably some other stuff. I might even take Warcaster at 4th level for this variant.

[maxwell_wolfen]

While Clockwork Sorcerer is a very good subclass...i believe Aberrant mind is a few lightyears ahead in terms of versatility and by extension in power.
I wish someone could make an optimized build here with the Aberrant mind subclass...

[Mitchellnotes]

While Clockwork Sorcerer is a very good subclass...i believe Aberrant mind is a few lightyears ahead in terms of versatility and by extension in power.
I wish someone could make an optimized build here with the Aberrant mind subclass...

While i don't have full builds ready, aberrent seems to multiclass well with cleric, order would be a good choice for the extra reactions. Pick up mind sliver with twinned and quickened metamagic. Twin buffs, or use quickened in conjunction with mindsliver as a debuff for your nice debuffs or control magic. You could also buff allies in a pinch, and give a good reaction as well.

Alternatively, you could go arcane trickster 9/aberrent 11 for magical ambush with the awesome subtles from aberrent (but it's a long way to go to make this happen)

As another build idea from tashas, unity cleric 1, eloquence bard. The unity cleric buff stacks with blesd plus you get amazing use out of bardic inspiration. Be the best buffer in the world!

[maxwell_wolfen]

While i don't have full builds ready, aberrent seems to multiclass well with cleric, order would be a good choice for the extra reactions. Pick up mind sliver with twinned and quickened metamagic. Twin buffs, or use quickened in conjunction with mindsliver as a debuff for your nice debuffs or control magic. You could also buff allies in a pinch, and give a good reaction as well.

Alternatively, you could go arcane trickster 9/aberrent 11 for magical ambush with the awesome subtles from aberrent (but it's a long way to go to make this happen)

As another build idea from tashas, unity cleric 1, eloquence bard. The unity cleric buff stacks with blesd plus you get amazing use out of bardic inspiration. Be the best buffer in the world!

i recently came up with a build but with hexblade dip for a campaign. But i would love to try aberrant mind with a cleric dip, yeah i dont have that eldritch blast dpr but in terms of utility and buffs its superior to that of hexblade. Also there is the possibility of heavy armor prof..or go tempest in order to maximize damage once per short rest combined with transmuted spell metamagic. yikes!!!

[Mitchellnotes]

i recently came up with a build but with hexblade dip for a campaign. But i would love to try aberrant mind with a cleric dip, yeah i dont have that eldritch blast dpr but in terms of utility and buffs its superior to that of hexblade. Also there is the possibility of heavy armor prof..or go tempest in order to maximize damage once per short rest combined with transmuted spell metamagic. yikes!!!

I'm honestly having a hard time not thinking of going Unity 1 as a dip for most full casters. The only tging that holds bless back is that eventually there are things that become better uses of concentration. A class resource based just on prof. bonus that does basically bless while also stacking with bless? Yikes! That 1d4 maintains relevency regardless of level, and that you csn just tack it on is sooo nice. Lots of other dips give you something nice, but that ability becomes an amazing "round two" ability that doesnt use any other resources.

[maxwell_wolfen]

I'm honestly having a hard time not thinking of going Unity 1 as a dip for most full casters. The only tging that holds bless back is that eventually there are things that become better uses of concentration. A class resource based just on prof. bonus that does basically bless while also stacking with bless? Yikes! That 1d4 maintains relevency regardless of level, and that you csn just tack it on is sooo nice. Lots of other dips give you something nice, but that ability becomes an amazing "round two" ability that doesnt use any other resources.

thats a good reason to go divine sorcerer then. I agree that its usefulness is top notch, but in my personal opinion everything depends on the playstyle that strikes your fancy, either that is RP either its powergaming etc. For me for example, sorcerers always made a good pair with warlocks because that eldrich blast/agonizing blast quicken spam is one of the best dpr available. So i would always have a hard time to avoid taking that road with the sorcerer. I love bless and thats why one of my favorite builds was hexblade 2 / divine sorcerer X....

[Darthnazrael]

@LudicSavant, you mentioned in another thread that Gunner Samurai are now quite good. I assume that build looks a lot like the Samurai Archer. If so, what all would you change to bring that build to life?

[LudicSavant]

@LudicSavant, you mentioned in another thread that Gunner Samurai are now quite good. I assume that build looks a lot like the Samurai Archer. If so, what all would you change to bring that build to life?

Might look something like this:

Ye olde Sharpshooter Samurai gets a newfangled weapon.

The Modern Gun-Kata Master

Like the ancient kyujutsu master, but with a tanegashima.

Shadar-Kai Samurai 20
Starting Point Buy: 17 Dex, 14 or 16 Con, other stats to taste (example: 17 Dex / 14 Con / 14 Wis / 12 Cha / 10 Str / 8 Int)
ASIs: Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy, Gunner, Piercer, Fey-Touched (+1 Wis, Hex), Skill Expert (+1 Wis, Athletics Expertise), Alert

This is basically a variant of the Ancient Kyujutsu Master build that takes advantage of the excellent synergy between Elven Accuracy, Samurai, and the new Tasha's feats (Gunner and Piercer). What makes that synergy so excellent, you ask?

It's because everything about Gunner and Piercer scales better with more attacks, more crit rate, and more accuracy... so basically everything the Samurai Sharpshooter does. They also synergize very well with each other, because both bullet points of Piercer scales well with a higher damage die size.

So let's talk about why these feats are so good.

Gunner vs Crossbow Expert
- Compared to a Hand Crossbow, a musket with Elven Accuracy is dealing about +3.5 average damage per attack (why +3.5 instead of +3? Because that die is multiplied on crits, and your crit rate is just that high). With Piercer, this advantage grows even further. And with a Samurai getting 3-9 attacks, that adds up quick.

- Gunner gives you the main reason I cared about Crossbow Expert in the previous build: Being able to fire unimpeded in melee range. This is not only good for ensuring that enemy melee foes can't muck you up, but also for allowing you to do take full advantage of prone or paralyzed foes.

- It's only half a feat! Which means you get to take it and Piercer for the same cost as Crossbow Expert and +2 Dex.

Piercer
- Piercer's first bullet point is mathematically really complex to give an exact figure for how much extra DPR it adds. Why's it so complex to calculate? Because of the element of player choice. If it you were rolling only one d12 damage die, it'd be very simple: Your average damage for that d12 goes from 6.5 to 8, for a gain of 1.5 damage. But you're not rolling only one d12 damage die, are you? You are rolling 3-9 attacks, and each attack has 1-3 damage dice (depending on whether you crit or not). Each time you have a below-average roll, you have to calculate the probability that one of your future rolls during the turn will be even lower in order to determine whether (from a standpoint of perfect optimization) you should reroll right now.

You can do that, but it's a complicated recursive algorithm that I won't get into just now (maybe later). The short version is that it's worth 1.5 average damage at a single d12 rolled, and approaches 5.5 average damage as the number of damage die rolls approaches infinity (where the chance of getting to reroll a 1 approaches 100%).

- Piercer's second bullet point is considerably simpler to calculate; it's the exact same formula as Brutal Criticals (see my DPR calculator). With a 14.2625% crit rate (from Elven Accuracy), you can think of it as 0.9270625 damage per attack (plus a little more, because of the synergy with the first bullet point).

- So (with Gunner and Elven Accuracy) about +1 damage per attack, plus somewhere between 1.5 and 5.5 damage per turn on top of that (depending on your accuracy, number of attacks, etc).

- It, too, is but half a feat. Between this and Piercer, you're basically getting the damage of Crossbow Expert's bonus action... without using a bonus action. Which gives us more space for things like Shadar-Kai teleportation, Misty Step, Hex, Second Wind, whatever.

___

There is one hiccup I have with this, and that's the fact that the fact that at 8-11, the original build will be ahead on Dexterity (with 20 instead of 19). But at every point after that it's a fairly considerable damage bump to an already highly damaging build.

After we finish off our damage feats (the better to shoot people in the face), we take Alert so that we can shoot people in the face with Fighting Spirit before they get to take a turn, every single combat of the day (since we have at least 1 Fighting Spirit per combat at that point). And we take Fey Touched so that we can shoot people in the face even harder with Hex and give our foe Disadvantage against being grappled/shoved by our teammates (the better to shoot them in the face point blank with triple advantage), and teleport even more often with Misty Step. And we take Skill Expert (Athletics) so that we can use one of our many, many attacks, combined with the Disadvantage to Strength checks provided by Hex, to shove someone prone and then point blank shoot them in the face even when we're not using Fighting Spirit (and also turn that +1 Wis we got from Fey-Touched into an even +2 Wis). Or just help us climb to a nice sniper perch.

___

Variants/Notes:
- You have a lot of leeway to switch up the last three feats. Skill Expert is just one of many possible paths you can take to get Advantage more often, and I would generally switch paths depending on my party's strategy. For example, if they're fond of vision blockers, consider picking up Fighting Initiate (Blind-Fighting) or Devil's Sight (heck, you could even be a Drow or Half-Drow and cast Darkness yourself). And of course familiar help from Ritual Caster works as well as it did for the first Samurai build I posted, and doesn't require you to be anywhere near the fight. Or if your party is just reliably good at triggering Rapid Attack for you, just grab Fey Touched (Gift of Alacrity) and/or Alert immediately. Speaking of which...
- Instead of Hex, you could take Gift of Alacrity with Fey Touched, which is kind of insane since it's practically like giving someone the initiative bonus of Alert for 8 hours. Except... it stacks with Alert. You can take both and waste enemies before they get a turn.
- Skill Expertise could just as easily be Persuasion (the Samurai bonus stacks with Expertise) or Stealth (especially if the rest of the party is also stealthy and/or you want to get Surprise).
- Everything I said about non-Tasha's feat choices in the Kyujutsu Master build still applies.

---

How's that look?

[Klorox]

Might look something like this:

Ye olde Sharpshooter Samurai gets a newfangled weapon.

The Modern Gun-Kata Master

Like the ancient kyujutsu master, but with a tanegashima.

Shadar-Kai Samurai 20
Starting Point Buy: 17 Dex, 14 or 16 Con, other stats to taste (example: 17 Dex / 14 Con / 14 Wis / 12 Cha / 10 Str / 8 Int)
ASIs: Sharpshooter, Elven Accuracy, Gunner, Piercer, Fey-Touched (+1 Wis, Hex), Skill Expert (+1 Wis, Athletics Expertise), Alert

This is basically a variant of the Ancient Kyujutsu Master build that takes advantage of the excellent synergy between Elven Accuracy, Samurai, and the new Tasha's feats (Gunner and Piercer). What makes that synergy so excellent, you ask?

It's because everything about Gunner and Piercer scales better with more attacks, more crit rate, and more accuracy... so basically everything the Samurai Sharpshooter does. They also synergize very well with each other, because both bullet points of Piercer scales well with a higher damage die size.

So let's talk about why these feats are so good.

Gunner vs Crossbow Expert
- Compared to a Hand Crossbow, a musket with Elven Accuracy is dealing about +3.5 average damage per attack (why +3.5 instead of +3? Because that die is multiplied on crits, and your crit rate is just that high). With Piercer, this advantage grows even further. And with a Samurai getting 3-9 attacks, that adds up quick.

- Gunner gives you the main reason I cared about Crossbow Expert in the previous build: Being able to fire unimpeded in melee range. This is not only good for ensuring that enemy melee foes can't muck you up, but also for allowing you to do take full advantage of prone or paralyzed foes.

- It's only half a feat! Which means you get to take it and Piercer for the same cost as Crossbow Expert and +2 Dex.

Piercer
- Piercer's first bullet point is mathematically really complex to give an exact figure for how much extra DPR it adds. Why's it so complex to calculate? Because of the element of player choice. If it you were rolling only one d12 damage die, it'd be very simple: Your average damage for that d12 goes from 6.5 to 8, for a gain of 1.5 damage. But you're not rolling only one d12 damage die, are you? You are rolling 3-9 attacks, and each attack has 1-3 damage dice (depending on whether you crit or not). Each time you have a below-average roll, you have to calculate the probability that one of your future rolls during the turn will be even lower in order to determine whether (from a standpoint of perfect optimization) you should reroll right now.

You can do that, but it's a complicated recursive algorithm that I won't get into just now (maybe later). The short version is that it's worth 1.5 average damage at a single d12 rolled, and approaches 5.5 average damage as the number of damage die rolls approaches infinity (where the chance of getting to reroll a 1 approaches 100%).

- Piercer's second bullet point is considerably simpler to calculate; it's the exact same formula as Brutal Criticals (see my DPR calculator). With a 14.2625% crit rate (from Elven Accuracy), you can think of it as 0.9270625 damage per attack (plus a little more, because of the synergy with the first bullet point).

- So (with Gunner and Elven Accuracy) about +1 damage per attack, plus somewhere between 1.5 and 5.5 damage per turn on top of that (depending on your accuracy, number of attacks, etc).

- It, too, is but half a feat. Between this and Piercer, you're basically getting the damage of Crossbow Expert's bonus action... without using a bonus action. Which gives us more space for things like Shadar-Kai teleportation, Misty Step, Hex, Second Wind, whatever.

___

There is one hiccup I have with this, and that's the fact that the fact that at 8-11, the original build will be ahead on Dexterity (with 20 instead of 19). But at every point after that it's a fairly considerable damage bump to an already highly damaging build.

After we finish off our damage feats (the better to shoot people in the face), we take Alert so that we can shoot people in the face with Fighting Spirit before they get to take a turn, every single combat of the day (since we have at least 1 Fighting Spirit per combat at that point). And we take Fey Touched so that we can shoot people in the face even harder with Hex and give our foe Disadvantage against being grappled/shoved by our teammates (the better to shoot them in the face point blank with triple advantage), and teleport even more often with Misty Step. And we take Skill Expert (Athletics) so that we can use one of our many, many attacks, combined with the Disadvantage to Strength checks provided by Hex, to shove someone prone and then point blank shoot them in the face even when we're not using Fighting Spirit (and also turn that +1 Wis we got from Fey-Touched into an even +2 Wis). Or just help us climb to a nice sniper perch.

___

Variants/Notes:
- You have a lot of leeway to switch up the last three feats. Skill Expert is just one of many possible paths you can take to get Advantage more often, and I would generally switch paths depending on my party's strategy. For example, if they're fond of vision blockers, consider picking up Fighting Initiate (Blind-Fighting) or Devil's Sight (heck, you could even be a Drow or Half-Drow and cast Darkness yourself). And of course familiar help from Ritual Caster works as well as it did for the first Samurai build I posted, and doesn't require you to be anywhere near the fight. Or if your party is just reliably good at triggering Rapid Attack for you, just grab Fey Touched (Gift of Alacrity) and/or Alert immediately. Speaking of which...
- Instead of Hex, you could take Gift of Alacrity with Fey Touched, which is kind of insane since it's practically like giving someone the initiative bonus of Alert for 8 hours. Except... it stacks with Alert. You can take both and waste enemies before they get a turn.
- Skill Expertise could just as easily be Persuasion (the Samurai bonus stacks with Expertise) or Stealth (especially if the rest of the party is also stealthy and/or you want to get Surprise).
- Everything I said about non-Tasha's feat choices in the Kyujutsu Master build still applies.

---

How's that look?

This is just awesome. I love it.

[Nod_Hero]

Might look something like this:

Ye olde Sharpshooter Samurai gets a newfangled weapon.

The Modern Gun-Kata Master

How's that look?

[CMCC]

I worry a bit about the primary four feats in that build. You don’t come online until 12 and you don’t even get gunner until 8.

If you go with one of the feat races, you lose eleven accuracy but come fully online at 6. Definitely weaker post lvl 11, but you have gunner, sharpshooter, and piercer by 6, which should feel awesome.

[Gignere]

I worry a bit about the primary four feats in that build. You don’t come online until 12 and you don’t even get gunner until 8.

If you go with one of the feat races, you lose eleven accuracy but come fully online at 6. Definitely weaker post lvl 11, but you have gunner, sharpshooter, and piercer by 6, which should feel awesome.

I tried building one and I think it works better if you get gunner at 4 so once extra attack comes on at 5 you can just keep shooting with musket. Elven Accuracy at 6 and SS at 8. Piercer is nice to have but I think that can come later.

[LudicSavant]

I worry a bit about the primary four feats in that build. You don’t come online until 12 and you don’t even get gunner until 8.

If you go with one of the feat races, you lose eleven accuracy but come fully online at 6. Definitely weaker post lvl 11, but you have gunner, sharpshooter, and piercer by 6, which should feel awesome.

I wouldn't say that you're "not online until 12." I mean, would you say a level 4 Shadar-Kai with Archery and Sharpshooter is "offline"? Just because you can stack on more things later doesn't mean that the combo you have right then isn't good.

A level 6 VHuman is going to have the same Dex and Sharpshooter as the Shadar-Kai, but trade in Elven Accuracy and great Shadar-Kai racial features for Piercer+Gunner. Those both look like good characters to me.

That said, with Custom Lineage, you have the option of sneaking in a 3rd half-feat at 8, picking an alternative to Elven Accuracy. This presents a few interesting opportunities.

Skill Expert: Make yourself a party face, scout/ambusher, or shover.
Athlete: People tend to overlook this half-feat because they mostly just think of the 'stand up from prone' line in terms of responding to an enemy knocking you prone. But what if you do it yourself? You can run up walls with the climb speed and then drop prone, kiting melee foes and inflicting Disadvantage on ranged foes.
Res(Dex): Since you don't need to take Res(Wis) as a Samurai, you can just grab proficiency in all 3 main saving throws.

[Mitchellnotes]

I wanted to do something with the Rune Knight and I think I found a build I like! I didn't see much else rune knight wise, but apologize if others were thinking along a similar line...

The Rune Knight Bully

Mountain Dwarf Rune Knight 20
Point buy starting stats: Str: 17 (15+2) Dex: 10 Con: 17 (15+2) Int: 10 Wis: 14 Cha: 8
ASIs: Great Weapon Master, Skill expert (con+1, Athletics expertise), Slasher (str +1), Polearm master, Str +2, Con +2, Res Wis?

Rune choices: Frost, Stone, (at 7th, drop Stone for Hill, and also pick up Storm), Stone, Cloud

Use Glaive for the reach with slashing, and use heavy armor

This build utilizes the synergy in the rune knight between Giant's Might with shoving prone, and shoving prone with slasher. Giant's might gives advantage on athletics checks to shove prone, and because it increases a character's size, means that there would be few enemies who this strategy wouldn't work on. Once prone, you also can attack with advantage, making GWM hits easier to make.

Additionally, slasher reduces movement speed by 10. So once an enemy is prone, they spend half of their movement standing up, and have 10 less movement to use to move away. For an enemy with 30 speed, this means that they would only be able to move 5', still potentially within threat range.

Additionally, later on, Giant's might Also increases your reach, which means that you have a huge area that you can threaten with polearm mastery, and again, inflict the slasher -10 feet penalty (as it is once per turn). This may be annoying once you have an enemy within reach, but as a rune knight, you have so many things that you can do with your reaction, losing out on opportunity attacks isn't the worse thing in the world.

Rune Knights do have a lot of competition for bonus actions and reactions, so polearm mastery bonus attacks can be nice when you don't have anything else to use your bonus action on, but are likely more for the option than something to do every single round.

Runes have some flexibility, and all are really nice. Given the shoving actions, prioritized frost (though there may come a point where the extra bonus isn't as needed). Storm and Hill are great, and since you have good Con, you can also make good use of Stone and/or Fire (Stone was prioritized as the effect seems a little better overall, though the damage early on with Fire is a nice rider). Honestly, there really isn't a bad option.

This character can be a tactical powerhouse, knocking multiple enemies prone, locking people down, doing damage, and protecting teammates. It also comes online fairly early (feats could also be moved around depending upon your specific priority), but with GWM, expertise, and slasher, you'd have 18's in both Str and Con and have the most relevant feats online by level 8.

[RingoBongo]

I have been looking hard at rogue synergy with champion, especially with new rogue feature steady aim available. It seems that with this feature + magic initiate find familiar we can reasonably squeeze 2 attacks with advantage and even with a 19-20 crit range. Is it possible that this set up can compete with the samurai archer for dpr? Of course taking similar feats (ss, eleven accuracy, piercer, etc...)

[Gignere]

I have been looking hard at rogue synergy with champion, especially with new rogue feature steady aim available. It seems that with this feature + magic initiate find familiar we can reasonably squeeze 2 attacks with advantage and even with a 19-20 crit range. Is it possible that this set up can compete with the samurai archer for dpr? Of course taking similar feats (ss, eleven accuracy, piercer, etc...)

You can save a feat if you go arcane trickster.

[Klorox]

I can really see that samurai gunslinger working for a mandalorian (like, the main character on the tv show) build.

[bendking]

Alright, here's a new one. I will only be updating this post on my own thread for the sake of not keeping the posts synchronous every time I make a change.

Psychic Master



I've seen numerous people asking for an Aberrant Mind build/guide, so I decided to step up to the plate. However, I usually try to make my builds capitalize on the strengths of a certain mechanic and theme, instead of being just generally strong.
In this case, I'll be making the Aberrant Mind the ultimate social manipulator, capable of destroying nations in a heartbeat and no consequences for him, while not forgoing combat effectiveness.

Stats
Race: Custom Lineage (+2 CHA, Actor)
Classes: Aberrant Mind Sorcerer 20
Stats (Point Buy): 8 STR / 14 DEX / 14 CON / 8 INT / 12 WIS / 18 CHA
ASIs: Fey Touched (+1 CHA, Gift of Alacrity), Skill Expert (+1 CHA, Deception), Resilient (WIS), Eldritch Adept: Mask of Many Faces, X
Metamagics: Careful, Subtle, [10th Sorcerer - Quickened Spell)

Starting with 18 CHA is always great. The downside is starting with 14 DEX / 14 CON, but it's worth it. This will allow our CHA progression to be on-time as we take Skill Expert and Fey Touched to make ourselves even better at cajoling our way through life.
Fey Touched gives us Misty Step for when we're in a bind, and Gift of Alacrity is an incredibly potent spell.

Spell Progression
As opposed to the Clockwork Soul we can't get two of the three 1st level spell taxes (Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements) as a part of our bonus spell list, but that's just how it is.

Cantrips
Fire Bolt, Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth [Prestidigitation, Chill Touch]

Spells
1 - Mage Armor, Shield, [Sleep, Dissonant Whispers]
2 - Mage Armor, Shield, Disguise Self [Sleep, Dissonant Whispers]
3 - Mage Armor, Shield, Disguise Self | Phantasmal Force [Sleep, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion]
4 - Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | Phantasmal Force [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion]
5 - Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | - | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance]
6 - Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | - | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance]
7 - Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | - | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance, Black Tentacles, Charm Monster]
8 - Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | - | Hypnotic Pattern, Fireball, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance, Black Tentacles, Charm Monster]
9 - Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | - | Hypnotic Pattern, Tidal Wave, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door | Synaptic Static [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance, Black Tentacles, Charm Monster, Modify Memory, Telekinesis]
10- Mage Armor, Shield, Absorb Elements, Disguise Self | - | Hypnotic Pattern, Tidal Wave, Counterspell | Sickening Radiance, Dimension Door | Synaptic Static, Animate Objects [Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Suggestion, Hunger of Hadar, Clairvoyance, Black Tentacles, Charm Monster, Modify Memory, Telekinesis]

Highlights
1. Disguise Self in concert with Actor is going to be extremely useful in deception and manipulation. Just imagine the possibilities.
You can even use it while hiding behind cover in combat: appear a few inches shorter, and use that to peek above the cover you're using to be able to Counterspell even while in full-cover. You can also create your own cover for ambushes with Mold Earth (thanks to TheUser for this trick).
2. Careful Spell pulls its weight. Careful Hypnotic Pattern is your bread and butter in combat. Hypnotic Pattern is a bit of an overtuned spell, and being able to cast it on your allies without repercussions is great. For Charmed immune enemies, you have Careful Sickening Radiance or Hunger of Hadar and Black Tentacles.
3. You can cast Suggestion without any verbal, somatic, or even material components using Psionic Sorcery. This is an upgrade over Subtle Spell, which still requires material components and thus can still give you away. Casting Suggestion completely unnoticed is one hell of a trick.
4. Completely subtle Modify Memory. Mother of God. This is the big one. In conjunction with Telepathic Speech (which will allow you to speak to the target without talking out loud), you can literally walk up to anyone, and plant/erase any memory you like. This is how nations are unmade. Play out your wildest Inception dreams.
5. A plethora of ways to screw with people. Hex, Dissonant Whispers, Detect Thoughts, Telekinesis... What more could you ask for?

Notes:
1. Make sure to take Disguise Kit as one of your proficiencies.
2. You can replace Detect Thoughts with Calm Emotions. One is better for social manipulation, the other for combat.

Variants:
1. If you don't care about social manipulation, Goblin is a fantastic choice for almost any caster. Bonus Action Hide every turn to keep yourself hidden while manipulating the battlefield is highly effective. The reasons I didn't go with Goblin are that being small and a Goblin are going to be obstacles to social engineering.
2. By the same token, Skill Expert (Deception) isn't absolutely mandatory either. You could simply take +2 CHA instead of Skill Expert and Fey Touched.
3. Finally, you can instead start with Half-Elf if you're concerned about starting with 16 DEX and 16 CON, but you would be forgoing Fey Touched and Skill Expert in return, and dumping WIS.

This build was posted on the 4th of January, 2021

[Sol0botmate]

@BendKing Rune Knight build with Simic Hybrid got me into a lot of thinking about grappling RK. However Symic Hybrid is sub-optimal race in my opinion due to tons of stuff that messes combos up: like havin to use whole action to use their additional "arms" to attack something, and only THEN using Bonus Action to grapple something. Considering that Bonus Action is quite busy with RK I didn't like this.

@Benny89 posted some RK build using Sharpshooter using Darts, using Grappler feat for advantage generation with Grappling. Fun stuff but again - it wasn't optimal for me and it required taking feat (XBE/Gunner) that is pretty much wasted in my opinion.

However - both gave me idea and clues of how to make it work with different race so kudos to them for giving me whole idea :). So... I went through races and found combo that gets best of both.

"The Trunk Tank"



Race: Loxodon!
Class: 1 Peace Cleric/Rune Knight 19
Attributes (Tank Version): STR 16, DEX 10, CON 17, INT 8, WIS 14, CHA 8
Attributes (Heavy Damage Version): STR 17, DEX 10, CON 16, INT 8, WIS 14, CHA 8.
ASI (Tank Version): Skill Expert (Athletics) +1 CON, +2 CON, +2 STR, +2 STR, Lucky, "Open Slot"
ASI (Heavy Damage Version): Skill Expert (Athletics) +1 STR, Grappler (optional, skip if you don't like!), GWM, +2 STR, +2 CON, +2 CON, Lucky
Fighting Style: BLIND FIGHTING or Defense

Class Progression:

Rune Knight 5/1 Peace Cleric for CON save to keep Bless or Shield of Faith up and get Heavy Armor. Then continue with Rune Knight. I think level 5 is best level for dip because it's just after ASI and with Skill Expert you can already do Shove->Grapple with Trunk with Extra Attack and already use your Cleric Bond and spells. After that every level is something nice, another ASI, 7th level Runes, 8th level another ASI. All good stuff.

Loxodon has advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened. With Loxodon advantage + 14 WIS + Storm Rune + Emboldening Bond + potentially Bless + Lucky + Indomitable we already have good arsenal to protect our martial mind. But let's not forger Shield of Faith +2 AC for 10 minutes. Especially great for our GWM version to bumb it's sub optimal AC. Choice is yours. 2/Long Rest Bless/Shielf of Faith combined with Bond is also a very strong combo, especially if your table do 2-4 encounters per adventure day. Bless also supports your team!

Build Highlights:

Thanks to Blind Fighting we also have 10 feet Blindsight so we can

1. "See" in both darkness and magical darkness in 10 feet range, which means our attacks won't be affected in any negative way.
2. We can't be blinded
3. We can fight invisible creatures without any issues, which helps a lot with both attacking and grappling them without disadvantage.

But since Stone Rune will give us 120 feet Darkvision later – you can go Defense +1 AC instead. But I think Blind Fighting is worth considering.


Thanks to Emboldening Bond, which scales with our proficiency, we also can give our selfs 10 minutes buff that will give us once per turn extra d4 to either: ability check (Grapple!), attack (GWM!) or saving throw (always good!). As Cleric we also know Guidance cantrip which will add another d4 to our next skill check (Grapple!). Or we can use Bless, which also stacks with Bond so one attack will have 2d4 to hit per turn!

Now as Loxodon we have trunk. And that trunk is a terrifying weapon! We can use it to grapple someone in 5 feet range. Which means we have both of our hands free. Which will allow us to use them to wield Heavy weapon and benefit from GWM or wield both weapon and shield to still benefit from higher AC. You can also grapple 3 targets if you want with GWM version or 2 with Tank version (as shield requires action to drop)

Grappler feat gives us advantage on attacks vs creature that is grappled by us. Therefore - we can grapple boss/enemy with trunk and attack him with advantage using GWM + Emboldening Bond extra d4 once per turn. We also naturally attack with advatage in magical darkness. You can add Bless with extra d4 on top of that. Even if you won't go GWM route- you will still have advantage on all your attacks vs grappled target. So even with Sword n Shield variant – your DPR will still go up and be solid. The advantage on Sword n Shield is not only higher AC. You can use any magical weapon you will find during your campaign and advantage will always help. But GWM gets most benefit out of advantage. Grappler feat can also use action to pink down enemy and restrain him (and yourself). Very niche, but you could pin down boss and give everyone in your party advantage on hitting him (including range characters unlike shove), so it still can have it's uses.

Shoving + Grapple instead of Grappler Feat: Grappler speeds up advantage setup for you but it may not be the best if you try to setup Boss/Enemy for whole team instead of just for yourself. Without feat you do Shove first to get enemy to Prone, then Grapple which blocks him from standing. Of course we do it with our trunk :) so our hands are free to hold bigger weapon or SnS. Just rembmer that without Grappler you won't be able to do Grapple+Advantage+Fire Rune combo till you are level 12 or you will have to use Action Surge for it. But you can skip Grappler feat. Advantage of Shove + Grapple is that enemy will have disadvantage on attacks vs everyone and your whole team has advantage against that enemy in melee! As you can see there are ways to get same result without it. Then you have faster ASI but you need 2 attacks for full setup vs one. Something for something.

Instead of Grappler feat: For Tank Version you could could maximize STR or CON faster. You can skip Grappler for both builds and focus on CON and STR first. You could also get Alert to boost your initiative so you can start CC faster. There is quite a lot of options here while still getting the core of the build to work!

Skill Expert gives us Expertise in Athletics, so double proficiency!

AC: Tank Version gives us potentially solid 21 AC with Plate Armor + shield. Heavy Damage version can go up to 19 AC. Obviously one is meant for being mainly tank/control/support while other one heavy damage/control/support mix. Shield of Faith +2 AC can boost it up to 23 AC for Tank or 21 AC for Heavy Damage so very very solid. Enemy Big Boss will have hard time with you. You not only grapple him and force him to stand there with you, but you also have advantage on all attacks against him and he will have to go through your high AC + some of your nasty runes like Cloud and Storm + Runic Shield. If you go Shove + Grapple combo then you will also force Boss to have disadvantage on all attacks against everyone!


Runes wonders

Our Runes DC scales with CON so it's important to level up that CON. Tank Version gets 20 CON by level 8 ( level 6 if you skip Grappler feat), giving us max DC for Fire and Stone Rune. Heavy damage will get max CON late at level 12 (level 8 if you skip Grappler).

The Runes that we want the most are:

1. Fire Rune
2. Stone Rune
3. Storm Rune
4. Hill Rune
5. Cloud Rune

Fire Rune gives you CC vs enemy casters. It targets Strength saving throw, something casters tend to have very low. It also restrain them, reducing their speed to 0, giving everyone advantage on attacks against them and giving them disadvantage on Dexterity saving throws. On top of that each turn target suffers 2d6 fire damage if he can't break free.

Fire Rune takes your attack action and it's best to use it with some range throwing weapon so you can target caster from distance, because usually they are not at front lines.

Stone Rune – when a creature you can see ends its turn within 30 feet of you, you can use your reaction to invoke the rune and force the creature to make a Wisdom saving throw. Unless the save succeeds, the creature is charmed by you for 1 minute. Great vs melee enemies who most likely will have weaker WIS saving throw. It's also great because damage does not end charm effect here! So enemy can still be hacked while dreaming :). Using your reaction. Rune also gives passive advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks, and you have darkvision out to a range of 120 feet

Storm Rune - a God Rune. Using bonus action you give yourself a 1 minute effect during which, using your reactions, you can give enemy disadvantage on attack rolls, saving throws on ability checks. Or give your allies advantage on same things. It's soooo gooood I can't even start! You take it ASAP on level 7 RK! Also it combos well with your Fire and Stone Rune as you can give enemies disadvatage every turn with your reaction to keep them under your Rune effect. Givng your allies advantage on saving throw or attack is also priceless. This Rune also gives you passive advantage on Intelligence (Arcana) checks, and you can't be surprised as long as you aren't incapacitated, which is super good.

Hill Rune - for 1 minute as bonus action you get resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. As passive you also get advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance against poison damage, which is good as many monsters have poison or poison attacks.

Cloud Rune – when you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to invoke the rune and choose a different creature within 30 feet of you, other than the attacker. No more critical hits on allies. Reason we take it as last rune is because it can only redirect one single attack. It becomes much better when we get RK 15th level feature and we can use it twice. Hence why it's best to take it around that level.

Rune Knight wonders

Giant's Might:

At 3rd level, you have learned how to imbue yourself with the might of giants. As a bonus action you get: You become Large, along with anything you are wearing. You have advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws. Once on each of your turns, one of your attacks with a weapon or an unarmed strike can deal an extra 1d6 damage to a target on a hit. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.
With Giant's Might on you can now grapple Huge enemies. Your party Wizard or Sorcerer can also cast Enlarge Reduce on you, making you Huge, which will allow you to grapple Gargantual creatures. Advantage on Strength checks means we can grapple better and extra dmg (scalling up to 1d10) is always nice bonus.

Runic Shield:
At 7th level, you learn to invoke your rune magic to protect your allies. When another creature you can see within 60 feet of you is hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to force the attacker to reroll the d20 and use the new roll. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

We can already give allies advantage on saving throws or give enemies disadvantage on attacks. We can redirect deadly/critical hits from our allies to our enemies. On top of that we can force enemy to reroll his hit, which can mitigate critical hit again or even cause enemy to miss. We can do so much as Fighter that my head starts to spin.

Master of Runes:
At 15th level, you can invoke each rune you know from your Rune Carver feature twice, rather than once, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.
Now we are talking. Double enemies restrained, double enemies charmed, double damage resistance per short rest, double hit redirecting, double 1 minute Storm Rune God Hood.

Runic Juggernaut:
During Giant's Might your size can increase to Huge, and while you are that size, your reach increases by 5 feet. What can I say. Now you grapple with 10 feet reach, attack with 10 feet reach and you can grapple Gargantual enemies. Go and wrestle that Ancient Red Dragon! Chances are low you will ever get here but it's still nice.

Full CC/Support Potential, aka: Action Overload!

The amount of bonus actions, actions, reactions you can make as RK is simply staggering. Never more there is nothing you can't do on your turn. But let's take a look at how we can make it all work.
So if we know we are getting into hostile territory – we use our Emboldening Bond on ourselves. We also keep Guidance up or Shield of Faith since it's 10 minutes.

During combat

If we can get close to priority target in first turn:

So first of all as bonus action we use Giant's Might, especially if there is a Big Boss in that fight or very mean melee enemy in general.
With one of our attacks we throw a weapon on enemy caster and activate fire rune on hit. Enemy needs to make a Strength saving throw or be restrained. We can your our bond + d4 to attack here if needed but casters don't usually have very high AC.
With our second attack we use our trunk to grapple biggest/meaniest enemy on battlefield (the Big Boss). We have expertise, advantage, d4 from Bond and potentially extra d4 from Guidance. Let's say we are level 9. That is +11, +2.5, +2.5 and +4.5 from advantage. On average you will get +20.5 to that first roll.
With our reaction we activate Stone Rune and charm another melee goon.

1st Turn Best Case Scenario: one enemy grappled against whom we have advantage on all our attacks till he is dead (or frees himself but good luck with that :D ), one enemy restrained who takes 2d6 dmg per turn if he fails to free himself and one enemy charmed who can still be damaged. Remember that if you grapple creature like Dragon etc. - no fly for them. They bound to stand in front of you, grappled by your trunk and you can just tank them and attack them with advantage. If we did Shove + Grapple then that enemy also has now disadvantage vs everyone and your whole party has advantage against him in melee. All good stuff.

If we don't have Grappler feat then we go with Attack Action shove, then Attack Action Grapple (enemy can't get up), both of course with our trunk and once we are level 12 - our Third attack will go towards Fire Rune or attack if you don't have enemy to target.

With Action Surge we also start doing attacks with advantage vs grappled enemy turn 1.

Once we are level 15 we can also use Fire Rune again with Action Surge. With Grappler feat and level 12 we can go grapple and 2x Fire Runes throw if we want to without using Action Surge.

Next turn we activate our Storm Rune as we can start giving enemies disadvantage on saving throws or giving advantage to our allies or negating critical hits with Runic Shield. If we fight single enemy (The Big Boss) we can use Hill Rune to get resistances to tank him better since he is grappled by us.

We can of course do it the other way around and start with Storm Rune to give ourselfs advantage on Fire Rune attack or give enemy disadvantage against it. But then we can't use Stone Rune or Giant's Might. But generally use your features according to situation. Maybe your ally already got him by some nasty spell so giving him advantage on his next save seems like good idea. Maybe your ally was already attacked by enemy critical sneak attack so using Runic Shield or Cloud Rune may be better idea first.

What you have to realize is that you are absolutely Action Packed Hero. You have so many things you can do with your bonus actions, reaction and action that it is no joke. You also have very good DPR (great with GWM) against single target that you grappled. You can potentially grapple up to 3 enemies but I think that is not optimal in most scenarios. You want to grapple and tank the biggest one in the room, giving your self advantage. If you can however combo with your team that uses hazard spells like Spike Growth, Wall of Fire, Moon Beam, Sickening Radiance etc. then grappling 3 targets and keeping them inside hazard might be great idea. Either way you can tank 1 big target, boosting your DPR vs it or grapple multiple targets and drag them into hazard spells. You are very versitile.


Short Rest and Proficiency Madness + Cantrips

All your runes refresh on short rest. Which synergizes with 2x Action Surges. Your EMBOLDENING BOND scales with proficiency. Your Runic Shield scales with proficiency. Your Giant's Might uses scales with proficiencies. You have tons of features to use and choose from.

Long Rest spells you have are your Cleric Spells, which are 2/Long Rest.

You also get Cleric Cantrips like Guidance (d4 to grapple!), Toll the Dead and Light.

To GWM or not to GWM:

Honestly it depends on your team. If you are the only frontliner in your team then it might be better idea to go Tank Version and focus on CC multiple targets, Big Boss control and using Storm Rune/Bond + Bless to help your allies. A great mix of support/CC and tank. You still get advantage on attacks vs grappled target so if you can get good magical weapon like Flame Tongues etc. then your DPR will still be very solid vs single target. Our DC for Runes will be maxed out much faster here which helps with control. I would actually skip Grappler here

However if your front line is already strong (you have Paladin or Barbarian or Moon Druid or both, or all etc.) it's hard to pass free Advantage on GWM. But since we need to pack our Strength to 20 – our DC will drag behind for some tume. Storm Rune can mitigate that in some way but it's still hurts. But when you grapple that enemy with one attack and you can use Action Surge then in 2 turns on level 12 using simple Greatsword +1 you pack a whooping 5x (2d6) + 50 + 25 + 5 + 2d8 damage. Potentially extra attack on bonus action if you crit. If you fight Big Boss then the more fight last- the more damage you will do. If you skip Grappler feat then you can still go shove + grapple with your Trunk so GWM is still open to you.

Also with access to both Bond and Bless you can really mitigate a lot of that -5 to hit. Shield of Faith + Defense style can also get you to nice 21 AC when using GWM, which is very nice. Since you can generate advantage so easy + have bond + maybe Bless up - you could keep STR 18 for longer and rush 20 CON faster if you prefer.

Both versions are very fun to play in my opinion and totally viable.

[bendking]

@BendKing Rune Knight build with Simic Hybrid got me into a lot of thinking about grappling RK. However Symic Hybrid is sub-optimal race in my opinion due to tons of stuff that messes combos up: like havin to use whole action to use their additional "arms" to attack something, and only THEN using Bonus Action to grapple something. Considering that Bonus Action is quite busy with RK I didn't like this.

While grappling with the extra arms is an entire action, I'm not sure why you think it's an entire action attack with them.
They are simply an extra natural weapon you have that you can mix in with your other weapons when attacking, as per usual when you have multiple weapons, but I'm open to the idea that I'm missing something.

More importantly, though, it does seem as though you can grapple with the trunk in addition to attacking/shoving as a part of your Extra Attack, which is definitely extremely appealing, especially for the Rune Knight.
I'm half the mind to take this race as a pick for my Ruin Knight build, would you mind?

Great job overall, I like it.

[LudicSavant]

@BendKing Rune Knight build with Simic Hybrid got me into a lot of thinking about grappling RK. However Symic Hybrid is sub-optimal race in my opinion due to tons of stuff that messes combos up: like havin to use whole action to use their additional "arms" to attack something, and only THEN using Bonus Action to grapple something. Considering that Bonus Action is quite busy with RK I didn't like this.

This is hilarious because I was just chatting with BendKing, suggesting a "Nonmedium Elephantman" for a Rune Knight as an alternative to Simic, using similar reasoning to that which you suggest.

Why do I call the Loxodon Rune Knight the Nonmedium Elephantman? Well because I've always made a habit of referring to Loxodons as "mysteriously medium elephantmen" and now they can grow to regular size sometimes! Hooray!

My first impression of the Rune Knight is that it's really strong. Runic Shield not only gets quite a few uses, but lets you reroll after seeing the roll, and can negate crits. Your resources are plentiful, and your runes are more powerful than maneuvers (and, eventually, more plentiful than them too, with a whopping 10 invokes at 15+, on top of your Runic Shield and Giant's Might). And Peace Cleric is, of course, an excellent dip for just about everything nowadays.

[Sol0botmate]

I'm half the mind to take this race as a pick for my Ruin Knight build, would you mind?

Great job overall, I like it.

Sure go ahead. It's best for everyone to improve their builds :)

This is hilarious because I was just chatting with BendKing, suggesting a "Nonmedium Elephantman" for a Rune Knight as an alternative to Simic, using similar reasoning to that which you suggest.

Why do I call the Loxodon Rune Knight the Nonmedium Elephantman? Well because I've always made a habit of referring to Loxodons as "mysteriously medium elephantmen" and now they can grow to regular size sometimes! Hooray!

My first impression of the Rune Knight is that it's really strong. Runic Shield not only gets quite a few uses, but lets you reroll after seeing the roll, and can negate crits. Your resources are plentiful, and your runes are more powerful than maneuvers (and, eventually, more plentiful than them too, with a whopping 10 invokes at 15+, on top of your Runic Shield and Giant's Might). And Peace Cleric is, of course, an excellent dip for just about everything nowadays.

It was a matter of time people will see Loxodon combo :). Loxodons were skipped a lot due to not optimal Attirbutes bonuses but with Tasha it doesn't matter now :).

The other path for this build could be 1 Life/Twilight/Forge etc. Cleric that gives you Heavy Armor + shield and then you can go with Runic Knight. Forge Cleric + Shield of Faith + Defense Style would give GWM version of this build a whooping 22 AC and 24 AC to Tank Version.

Cleric would also give us WIS/CHA saves instead which boost Fighter weakness. But CON save is actually quite good here. But it's worth to mention.

[Mitchellnotes]

@sol0botmate

I like your build! Rune knight just hasn't been getting enough love. I still like the idea of combining slasher with shove prone, though you only get advantage if you are within 5'. It is sticky since many enemies wont be able to move far after standing up. It's also a bit more dependent on turn order (if they stand up right after being shoved prone, allies won't get the benefit). However, starting at level 5, you can shove prone and hit with advantage, and use the fire rune on top of it.

With runes, (and this is more about my post on the bully), i'm going to revise my thoughts and would start with fire and cloud (stone if darkvision is a concern) and at 7 go cloud (unless no darkvision, then id go with stone), hill, and storm. Later picks would be fire then stone. Frost's effect is nice, but is just so limited compared to other choices.

[Sol0botmate]

@sol0botmate

I like your build! Rune knight just hasn't been getting enough love. I still like the idea of combining slasher with shove prone, though you only get advantage if you are within 5'. It is sticky since many enemies wont be able to move far after standing up. It's also a bit more dependent on turn order (if they stand up right after being shoved prone, allies won't get the benefit). However, starting at level 5, you can shove prone and hit with advantage, and use the fire rune on top of it.

With runes, (and this is more about my post on the bully), i'm going to revise my thoughts and would start with fire and cloud (stone if darkvision is a concern) and at 7 go cloud (unless no darkvision, then id go with stone), hill, and storm. Later picks would be fire then stone. Frost's effect is nice, but is just so limited compared to other choices.

Thanks! Rune Knight is the only Fighter that I really really want to play as. I should have new Eberron campaign this year with my DM so I hope I will be able to play Trunk Tank there. In my opinion Rune Knight is first Fighter subclass that allows you to play something different than just "I hit him, then I hit him little bit different, then I hit him with little hidden mechanic". Even EK was all about saving slots for Shadow Blade and Shield, so not much options there too. But RK has so much stuff he can do to change battle that I am really excited to play him!

And Storm Rune is in my opinion one the strongest features in game currently on part with Paladin Aura. 1 minute of giving enemies disadvantages to saving throws/attacks or giving allies advantages to saving throws/attacks 1/short rest and later 2/short rest is just mind blowing. Finally Fighter has something truly awesome.

[Mitchellnotes]

Thanks! Rune Knight is the only Fighter that I really really want to play as. I should have new Eberron campaign this year with my DM so I hope I will be able to play Trunk Tank there. In my opinion Rune Knight is first Fighter subclass that allows you to play something different than just "I hit him, then I hit him little bit different, then I hit him with little hidden mechanic". Even EK was all about saving slots for Shadow Blade and Shield, so not much options there too. But RK has so much stuff he can do to change battle that I am really excited to play him!

And Storm Rune is in my opinion one the strongest features in game currently on part with Paladin Aura. 1 minute of giving enemies disadvantages to saving throws/attacks or giving allies advantages to saving throws/attacks 1/short rest and later 2/short rest is just mind blowing. Finally Fighter has something truly awesome.

Not to mention that hill rune is essentially "rage light," and with 3 short rests a day, a rune knight can use it almost as much as a barbarian can rage

[ftafp]

The Heavy Artillerist

Race: Warforged
Class: Artificer 1/Graviturgist 9/Artillerist 3/Graviturgist X
Stats: STR 8, DEX 14, CON (13+1), INT (15+2), WIS 10, CHA 12
Infusions: Bag of Holding
ASI: Fey Touched(Dissonant Whispers, INT +1) @5, INT +2 @9

As subclasses go, the Artillerist is a conundrum. Despite advertising itself as a blasty archetype with many blasty abilities to match, the majority of the Artillerist's cool toys – most notably their flamethrower that serves as an at-will bonus action AoE – are overshadowed by the defensive capabilities of the Protection Turret. This build aims to fix that and bring the Artillerist back to artillery, using a little bit of battlefield control and a lot of flamethrowers.

This starts off slow at level 1 as with most builds. Warforged gets you an extra point of AC. Combined with scale mail and a shield your AC's going to be sitting pretty at 19. Not much to go over here but at this level I advise using magic stone as your cantrip over fire bolt. The damage is just better until you hit level 5. Wizard 1 will give you plenty of nice spells to work with. Shield is always a fan favorite, though you'll get more use out of it at higher levels. What you're going to want to focus on for now is AoE spells. This IS a blaster after all and we're going to be good at it. At Wizard 2 we take Graviturgist, which will open up the dunamancy spell list that offers all those sweet blaster spells, but you won't get you first real taste of power until Wizard 3 where you can take Immovable Object. This a spell with a whole mess of uses thanks to the fact that it can target worn or carried objects, but for us the best use is casting it on our shoes to create Immovable Boots, which we can lock in place at will allowing us concentration-free flight for an hour at the cost of 25 gp. At this level I like spells like Web, Phantasmal Force, Hold Person, Tasha's Mind Whip, Suggestion and Blindness/Deafness but the choice is yours. Wizard 4 will give us dissonant whispers and misty step as well as a free cast of each and an ASI to INT.

Wizard 5 is where things start happening (as they tend to do at level 5). Spells like Fireball and Counterspell open up, but Pulse Wave is great to have, especially if we're above our enemies thanks to our immovable boots. This means your 30-foot cone becomes a 30-foot diameter, and can be used to lift enemies up in the air and then drop them 15-20 feet, dealing fall damage and knocking them prone, which is sweet. Lastly Glyph of Warding is going to reward us handsomely soon enough. At Wizard 6 we get Gravity Well, the best battlefield control ability in the game hands-down. This lets you move every creature you cast a spell on 5 feet as long as they get hit, fail a save or just agree to it. Most of the time you're going to be using this to cluster enemies tightly together so you can keep blasting them, but using it on yourself when you cast shield or absorb elements can also be nice (assuming you're being melee attacked that is). Wizard 7 opens up 4th level spells. Wall of Fire is the one we want most but Gravity Sinkhole, Polymorph, Sickening Radiance and so many others are great additions. Wizard 8 gives us another ASI, so let's max out our INT. Wizard 9 gives us fifth level spells of which my favorites are synaptic static, transmute rock and hold monster, and then finally we're going to switch back to Artificer and this is where the pieces start coming together

First create a bag of holding and then step into it. As a warforged you can be there indefinitely but really all you need is an hour. While in there, bring a clipboard and some scrolls and start writing down some glyphs of warding. These are going to be 4th level spell glyphs that contain Wall of Fire. The glyph triggers on a command word that doesn't require an action and surrounds you in an inward-facing ring 20 feet in diameter. Leave the ward in your bag of holding since while it's in an extradimensional space it's technically not moving, and then when the battle begins you can walk into the fray say the command word to surround yourself, then step into the sky and start using AoE spells to drag enemies into your hate circle. They'll take damage every time they cross the edge and every time they end their turn inside which is nice on its own, but because the spell doesn't require concentration since it was cast by glyph of warding, you can drop another AoE effect inside such as Sickening radiance, turning your hate circle into a pit of despair. It's worth noting that you can do all this three levels early if you have a bag of holding or other extradimensional storage space, which most players should have by that point, but this is just the earliest you can get it as an artificer

Finally, we get to Artificer 3, Artillerist. When I first started this build, the flamethrower turret was what I wanted to optimize. Admittedly I now realize that a bonus action spell-free 15-foot cone of fire damage is just the cherry on top, but all the same with your other spells clustering your enemies for you and the ability to fly turning your 15-foot cone into a 15-foot diameter circle, you're still going to get some meat out of this