How would you build a CON based character?

[Heavenblade]

With the dhampir race from the new UA, you could pretty easily build a character whose main ability score is CON in the base chassis sense of the word.
Question is, what do we add on top of it?

My first though was a barbarian of some sort, since you can go dex/con+shield for AC and then take storm herald or wild magic path for extra mileage from your con modifier.
But then, you don't get the damage bonus etc.

What other cool things can be done here?

[DragonBaneDM]

My first though was a barbarian of some sort, since you can go dex/con+shield for AC and then take storm herald or wild magic path for extra mileage from your con modifier.
But then, you don't get the damage bonus etc.

What other cool things can be done here?

Oh yeah I can see your train of thought there! Losing out on Rage bonuses and Reckless Attack does hurt a lot.

How about Fighter? I feel like the best way to chain together that bite connecting over and over is going to be Extra Attacks and Action Surge.

My other idea is Circle of the Moon Druid. If you keep your Bite attack while Wildshaped, gain access to some multiattacks, and suddenly have a big attack/healing boost.

Plus like. Vampire Bear. I dig it. I know Wolf or Bat makes more sense. But like. Vampire Bear, though.

[heavyfuel]

I'd be looking for a way to deal more damage with the Bite.

Since we are already using UA, Brute might be the best choice. Hitting for 1d4+Con+1dX and gaining a 3rd attack in Tier 3 is really good.

I think both Battlemaster and Paladin are amazing choices if we wish to keep UA to a minimum. The Advantage on the Bite attack if you are at 50% HP is great for either, and they both have ways of increasing Bite damage (Sup Dice and Divine Smite) so that you can regain a LOT of HP when you use these abilities.

[MrStabby]

I couldn't pass up Rune knight on a Con focussed build. Genasi and/or Aberrant Dragonmark can also give con based attacks.

So probably Barbarian 2 Fighter X... and another barbarian level a bit later for a subclass.

[Unoriginal]

With the dhampir race from the new UA, you could pretty easily build a character whose main ability score is CON in the base chassis sense of the word.
Question is, what do we add on top of it?

My first though was a barbarian of some sort, since you can go dex/con+shield for AC and then take storm herald or wild magic path for extra mileage from your con modifier.
But then, you don't get the damage bonus etc.

What other cool things can be done here?

Beast Barbarian's enhanced bite combines with the Dhampir's.

[heavyfuel]

So probably Barbarian 2 Fighter X... and another barbarian level a bit later for a subclass.

Why Barb 2? I can see Barb 1 for Unarmored Defense, but you're not going to be using Reckless Attack with the Bite since it requires a Str-based weapon.

[da newt]

I'd think a grappler build - don't need free hands to bite, and spider climb too.

Probably barbarian w/ rogue dip for expertise and extra dash.

Grapple, bite, dash up the wall, drop ...

Maybe not the most effective, but the visual/theme is fun.

[OldTrees1]

1) The Bite does not bypass damage reduction against non magical damage. I don't know how to overcome this so expect the damage to be halved at some level.
2) 1d4 is not much base damage. So some class specializing in bonus damage would be better than one relying on a flurry of attacks. Especially since this natural attack would not be used multiple times per turn.

So I would go Dex/Con Rogue 1 / Barbarian 2 / Rogue +17.
Barbarian 2 gives unarmored defense and reckless attack. Unarmored Defense is a nice AC alternative to light armor. Reckless Attack gives you advantage while helping you get to under half health.
Rogue will be able to do a lot of damage with that single attack. They can even heal lots too.

[KorvinStarmast]

My first though was a barbarian of some sort, since you can go dex/con+shield for AC and then take storm herald or wild magic path for extra mileage from your con modifier.
But then, you don't get the damage bonus etc.

Your rage gives a damage strength bonus, and you don't have to go too short on strength. 14 STR until you get a giant's belt or ogre gaunts does OK damage if not great damage.

[heavyfuel]

1) The Bite does not bypass damage reduction against non magical damage. I don't know how to overcome this so expect the damage to be halved at some level.
2) 1d4 is not much base damage. So some class specializing in bonus damage would be better than one relying on a flurry of attacks. Especially since this natural attack would not be used multiple times per turn.

Hmm, good point. Magic Weapon or Elemental Weapon spells would both work. Going Blade Warlock is probably the best way to do it consistently: Have someone use Magic Weapon (either twice or once with Extend Spell Metamagic) to make your Bite magical, which means you can now use a Short Rest to make it your Pact Weapon. Now that it is your Pact Weapon, pick Improved Pact Weapon to make it permanently magical.

Also, is there a rule that you cannot use a natural attack more than once per turn?

[DragonBaneDM]

1) The Bite does not bypass damage reduction against non magical damage. I don't know how to overcome this so expect the damage to be halved at some level.

Oo! Oo! Moon Druid might help here! Run this by your DM first, but hit six, get your magic teeth!

[heavyfuel]

Oo! Oo! Moon Druid might help here! Run this by your DM first, but hit six, get your magic teeth!

This does work by RAW. You can still use any racial features while wild shaped.

[Lavaeolus]

Dhampir's Bite counts as a simple melee weapon, so one way around its low damage die would be to be a Monk. This feels a bit of a waste of getting a CON-weapon, though; you're still going to want to put points in both Dexterity and Wisdom for AC, and if you're doing that, insisting on using Constitution is making yourself MADer than you need to be. Still, Spider Climb + Monk's mobility might make for a fun combination. Not a bad race/class mix, then, but maybe not what we want for this thread.

How about Barbarian? So, I've heard an argument that -- the general rules are "The ability modifier used for a melee weapon attack is Strength" and "When attacking with a weapon, you add your ability modifier ... to the damage." Dhampir does not, specifically, override this; it simply states "You add your Constitution modifier to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with your bite."

If your DM runs with the bite doing d4+Str+Con, then Barbarian is unsurprisingly a great option. You're basically a standard Barbarian, except you prioritise Con over Str during the early levels. You don't lose out on Reckless Attack or bonus Rage damage, as you're still using Strength.

...But I'm not sure that's the intent of the Dhampir's Bite feature, and I don't think you should take it for granted your DM will run it that way. Assume that Strength doesn't apply, and features other than Reckless Attack and the damage bonus from Rage still apply. Not an option without merit, and you might consider how much you could get out of a Barbarian 1 dip since the resistance from Rage is still nice; but standard-Barbarians tend to have high Con anyway and Unarmored Defense is likely to be outdone by actual armour (depending on your level and Dex stat).

What about other frontliners? A Fighter tends to balance Con and an attack stat; a Paladin, those and Charisma. You might want Str 15 or Dex 14 for armour purposes, but other than that neither class is generally going to have an issue with features demanding Strength. You should be aware, e.g. Battle Master maneuvers have a save that keys off Str/Dex. (Rune Knight's save, meanwhile, keys off your Constitution modifier, conveniently enough here.)

The low-damage-die will hurt your overall DPS here, so I wouldn't want to make it a focus. Others have mentioned grappling, and it's not a bad route: it gives you an excuse for keeping a hand free, it encourages an enemy to go for you, and it offers some utility. So long as your Strength is decent you should be able to get decent grappling-odds.

Thematically, though, I think a semi-vampire Paladin is fun. Whether you RP it as a curse inflicted upon enterring Ravenloft, a holy knight waylaid by vampires and beginning to change, or just go the full dark-knight route. Or, you know, play it up for comedy. Would you consider damage added by Divine Smite to be "damage dealt by the bite"? If so, the Dhampir's bite can benefit from Paladin's ability to nova -- and it'll help emphasise the tankiness that, assumedly, you'd want emphasised on a full-Con build.

This does work by RAW. You can still use any racial features while wild shaped.

So, the crux here: "You retain the benefit of any features from your class, race, or other source and can use them if the new form is physically capable of doing so."

There's not a strict marking of which features stem from biological facts and which don't (beyond the darkvision the text cites), so it's ultimately up to the DM to decide. And they can be pretty generous; I remember Crawford saying he'd let a Wild Shaped Druid use Dragonborn's breath weapon so long as a creature could exhale at all, something I don't think would fly at a lot of tables I've been at.

So, maybe? I'm not sure. When you attack with the bite, you're attacking with a specific natural weapon (a "fanged bite") that's part of your body. Let's say your DM looks at the Dhampir, reads the feature: they decide your bear form won't have said natural weapon (although they'll have a bite of their own), and decide using it is then off-limits. It's probably how I'm inclined to rule, but in any case I think it's a fair ruling to make.

[Unoriginal]

1) The Bite does not bypass damage reduction against non magical damage. I don't know how to overcome this so expect the damage to be halved at some level.
2) 1d4 is not much base damage. So some class specializing in bonus damage would be better than one relying on a flurry of attacks. Especially since this natural attack would not be used multiple times per turn.

Both of those things can be solved by being a Beast Barbarian.


Not sure how the Bite works with Monk, but if it is an unarmed strike being a Monk would help too.

[OldTrees1]

Hmm, good point. Magic Weapon or Elemental Weapon spells would both work. Going Blade Warlock is probably the best way to do it consistently: Have someone use Magic Weapon (either twice or once with Extend Spell Metamagic) to make your Bite magical, which means you can now use a Short Rest to make it your Pact Weapon. Now that it is your Pact Weapon, pick Improved Pact Weapon to make it permanently magical.

Also, is there a rule that you cannot use a natural attack more than once per turn?

I don't think you can cast Magic weapon on your natural weapons. There is something about Magic Weapon "targeting weapons, not body parts".

However I think I was wrong about extra attack. I am not finding any limitation on that front.

Both of those things can be solved by being a Beast Barbarian.


Not sure how the Bite works with Monk, but if it is an unarmed strike being a Monk would help too.

The bite is not an unarmed strike (I checked that immediately after Druid).

Beast Barbarian only affects the beastial bite not your vampiric bite. This is the oddest interaction because you now have 2 bites (that can both heal ... interesting). I suspect most DMs would merge the two bites into a single Str/Con 1d8 Piercing bite that overcomes DR.


Also I was wrong about Rogue. The vampiric bite can't benefit from Sneak Attack because it is not called out as finesse.


Of course the OP should ask their DM. Personally I would probably houserule some thing for Druid, Monk, Beast Barbarian, Warlock, etc Dhampirs.

[Rukelnikov]

The Dhampir's bite is a simple melee weapon, and thus a monk weapon, as other have said, you can use this to improve the damage die a lil bit, and if you go Kensei you can make it count as magical.

There are a couple more ways:

• Artificer's Infusion Enhaced Weapon
• Forge Cleric's Blessing of the Forge (*)
• Bladelock's IPW

(*)"At the end of a long rest, you can touch one nonmagical object that is a suit of armor or a simple or martial weapon." I mean, you can't touch your bite, you can touch your teeth, which you use for your bite... This probably doesn't work RAW, but maybe you can get your DM to allow it.

NOTE: Devotion Paladin's channel divinity probably wouldn't work since you aren't "holding" your weapon, and even if it did it would be temporarily magical.

So, the things we wanna address are, making the weapon count as magical, have it be competitive damage wise with one handed weapons (since we are going for a tank build not a DPR), have a good AC, have Con be our main stat.

Now, I also thought at first, well Con main stat means we can make good use of the Barbarians Unarmored Defense for Con to increase your AC, right? Well... the thing is for unarmored defense to give us a good AC we also need to increase our Dex in order to get a really high AC, and if you have a really good Dex then the main benefit of the bite is lost (attacks tied to Con). To compete with a breastplate you need Con 20, or Con 18, Dex 16 which is already kind of a heavy investment in Dex, you could swap Dex 18 Con 16 for the same AC the same bonus to att & dam and a higher damage die (plus other benefits like much easier to find magic weaponry). Thus I'd advice against overly relying on Dex to improve your AC if you want to truly benefit from your Con attack.

Also, since the attack deals only 1d4 base damage we should look for ways to increase this damage that aren't reliant on just number of attacks since that would multiply our low damage. Spirit Shroud is one such way, and it can be cast by Cleric, Paladins, Wizards and Warlocks.

Putting the above together, a Bladelock can make the bite magical and improve its damage via Spirit Shroud while also having medium armor and shield proficiency if Hexblade, it also gets access to Extra Attack in the form of Thirsting Blade. The Hexblade's Curse also works pretty well with the bite.

Forge Cleric, if you can get your DM to allow Blessing of the Forge to apply to your bite, then you have a magical attack from lvl 1 AND proficiency in Heavy Armor on a class that also gets access to Spirit Shroud. If you MC this with Paladin or Eldritch Knight you can get decent lvl spirit shroud while also having extra attack, and is pretty much playable from lvl 1.

Forge Cleric 8/Paladin 12

15 (14 +1 Racial)
9
20 (15 +2 Racial +1 Resilient +2 ASI)
8
13
13

ASIs: Resilient (Con), +2 Con, 3 Free

HP = 215
AC = 22 (18 Plate + 1 Defensive Style + 1 Soul of the Forge + 2 Shield)
Attack = +12 1d4+1d8+6 (+3d8 SS) (+1d8 1/turn)

You can smite, you have spells slots as a 14th lvl caster, including Aid and Death Ward for extra tankiness, and of course, Spirit Shroud and Smites for extra damage.

[NCat]

Monk probably. using that tashas rule to make it into a monk weapon and then that lets you use con for your damage and attack rolls... but then monk relies heavilly on like, dex and wis... Barrier tattoo maybe? monk subclass that doesnt necessitate stunning strike?

iuno

[Greywander]

I'd think a grappler build - don't need free hands to bite, and spider climb too.

A grappler was my first thought as well. Grapplers are a type of tank, and one that can "draw aggro" without dealing a lot of damage. Grapplers can really mess up someone's day without dealing any damage, actually. Anyone you grab and shove prone is in a very bad position and can't escape unless they can either shake you off (you'll just grab them again next round) or they defeat you. It's perfect for a CON build. You top priorities are (a) be an effective grappler (not hard to do), and (b) don't die. Pure damage is not your job.

Rune Knights make excellent grapplers (the only thing they're missing is a source of expertise in Athletics, but the Skill Expert feat or a rogue dip solves this), but for increased survivability you might be better off with a bear barbarian. Max out CON and grab the Tough feat for good measure. Perhaps consider certain multiclass dips that would increase survivability; features like Evasion or Aura of Protection will further boost your defenses.

I suppose another important thing is to make sure you can do something else when grappling isn't an option. So, have a decent DEX and a rapier/longbow, or a decent spellcasting stat and some offensive spells, or control/support spells that don't care about your spellcasting stat.

[Sherlockpwns]

If your DM will allow it, death cleric could be fun and thematic. You can throw out your channel divinity for a super bite when you need that HP boost and throw around necrotic spells and such, as well as the extra d8 melee dmg at level 8.

[ragnorack1]

If using UA for a CON based character, I would go Loxodon (storm) Giant soul sorcer with the aberrant dragon soul feat choosing shocking graps and thunder wave as my CON based spells.
It get 12+ CON for AC, and focuses on spamming shocking grasp by using the twin and quicken metamagics (will require sacrificing some higher level spell slots for SP. Each time you use shocking grasp you also inflict CON damage to up to 3 near by targets (potentially up to 3 or 4 times depending on if they ake warcaster and how your DM rules on the extra CON damage applying to the twinned shocking grasp).
To help woth survivability you may want to take a level in warlock for AoA as you will be in melee range alot and can quicken bladeward and use absorb elements to help stretch it out if taking alot of heat.

If using Dhampir my ideal would be the popular and well thought of Pugilist homebrew. It gets to use CON instead of DEX for AC, and as your bite is a simple melee weapon it will count as a pugilst weapon and potentially scale up to a D12. Choose your subclass as feels fit, personally I enjoy the square ring focusing on grappling but this build usong CON for defence and attack will make those that normally use a third stat like Piss and vinegar much easier to build. As always with the Pugilist a 1-3 level dip in barbarian helps tough up their class canon nature.

[PattThe]

You want to abuse con? Con save dc's.
>Wild Magic Barbarian and Rune Knight.

[DragonBaneDM]

[*]Artificer's Infusion Enhaced Weapon
[

(*)"At the end of a long rest, you can touch one nonmagical object that is a suit of armor or a simple or martial weapon." I mean, you can't touch your bite, you can touch your teeth, which you use for your bite... This probably doesn't work RAW, but maybe you can get your DM to allow it.

*Banging two pots together*

MAGIC BRACES MAGIC BRACES MAGIC BRACES

[whateew]

If the dhampirs bite is an unarmed strike (not much of a stretch imo) the unarmed fighting style would let you deal d8's of damage, which is better. So that suggests either ranger, fighter or paladin. Like many people said, fighter has rune knight, so makes a ton of sense to stick with that:
Point buy, start with 17 con 16 str, skill expert to reach 18 con and athletics expertise, and grapple and bite?

[Nagog]

Con based character? Blood Hunter comes to mind first and foremost, and leans into the Vampire theme/style heavily. Beyond that, Giant Soul Sorcerer has a ton of abilities built around using your Con, so there's that too. Beyond all those, there's the typical choices like Barbarian and Fighter. I've got a Battle Smith Artificer that has max Con and Int, which is a very fun combo. Also he is the UA Dhampir so it works really well (I should look into somehow making his bite a magic weapon, then I could use Arcane Jolt with it...).

I've wanted to make a Dhampir Monk for a while, and have them be armless. Like, not repairable by magic, either because it was a birth defect, or perhaps a curse (I'd lean towards the former personally) and have them use their Bite attack as all of their Unarmed Strikes. Since it's technically an unarmed strike (being a natural weapon), it could use the Martial Arts die for damage and increase your returns when you imbue it with the healing and extra stuff, as well as using it with Flurry of Blows to bite somebody 4 times in a round. Stunning Strike could even be flavored as the enemy having to stop because they're still processing that this armless dude just sprinted 50 feet and bit you.
Also all of the parkour bits without arms, on top of things like Deflect Missiles, using nothing but your teeth, sounds both supremely ridiculous and amazingly bad A.

[xyianth]

If I was only trying to make a con based character, I wouldn't use the dhampir race. I'd make a loxodon storm giant soul sorcerer with an aberrant dragonmark(shocking grasp and thunderwave). By 6th level, you have a character with an AC of 12 + your Con modifier, two spells that use Con to determine attack/save DC, and a lovely rider effect that lets you deal automatic Con modifier lightning damage to up to 3 creatures within 30' every time you cast either of them. Combining this with 8 levels of tempest cleric and using the blessed warrior alternate feature gives you full caster slot progression, cleric spells (many of which don't care what your spellcasting modifier is), +1d8 radiant damage with shocking grasp and all the best tempest cleric abilities. Dipping 3-4 levels into swarmkeeper ranger adds an extra 1d6 piercing damage to shocking grasp as well as granting a fighting style, a skill expertise, and favored foe features. Depending on your stats, you can try and grab the warcaster and sentinel feats as well.

However, if I was to make a dhampir character specifically, I'd recommend combining stone sorcerer 14 with a 3 level dip into horizon walker ranger and a 3 level dip into rune knight fighter. The idea is to increase the damage you deal with your bite so that when you choose to empower yourself you heal for quite a bit. Combining booming blade, giant's might, planar warrior, stone's edge, and stone aegis with your Con based bite gives you high force damage hits that can heal you. Added bonus of two fighting styles, an AC of 13 + Con that works with shields, and access to the smite style spells and rune knight runes and hunter's mark if you want it.

If the only UA you are allowed is the dhampir though, the best builds that are con based are essentially supportive tank type characters. One that looks interesting to me is wild magic barbarian 14 with a 1 level dip in peace cleric, a 3 level dip in cavalier fighter, and a 2 level dip in moon druid. You get all the utility of wild shape; you can stack emboldening bond and bolstering magic; you can combine the interception fighting style with the unwavering mark ability to protect your melee allies, and you get all the fun wild magic abilities.

Of course you can just go full twilight cleric too, that subclass is nuts and almost doesn't care what your wisdom is. (only limits how many characters you can share darkvision with)