Swarmkeeper with Arcana Cleric dip

[RogueJK]

I've been eyeing the new Swarmkeeper subclass from Tasha's. I love the flavor of the class, and want to give one a shot in a new campaign that's starting. I was thinking that if combined with a level (or more) of Arcana Cleric it might be able to take a page from the traditional straight classed Arcana Cleric Frontliner build from LudicSavant's thread: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...fective-Builds

Post-Tasha's, now there seem to be some nifty new ways to achieve similar effects now, along with some additional synergies with some abilities. The main things I was considering were:
-Ranger's Druidic Warrior fighting style as an alternative to the Magic Initiate: Druid feat to obtain Shillelagh for WIS-based melee.
-Swarmkeeper's Gathered Swarm as a means to add additional knockback on Booming Shillelagh hits on your turn, increasing the likelihood of triggering the BB rider.
-Telekinetic feat for Bonus Action added knockback.

You end up almost totally WIS SAD, needing only a moderate DEX and CON. And with a WIS-based Booming Shillelagh hit followed by a BA Telekinetic shove, and two failed STR saves, the enemy would find itself 20' away from you with the pending Booming Blade rider if they move. Even if they made one or the other save, they'd still be 5' to 15' away, and in the same boat.

Plus you'll have a higher WIS than a traditional Ranger, so you can make better use of save spells like Faerie Fire, Entangle, Web, etc.

I was thinking Swarmkeeper 3 > Arcana Cleric 1 > Swarmkeeper X. (Could also do Swarmkeeper Ranger 4 then Arcana Cleric X from there, if you wanted something more like the traditional Arcana Cleric Frontliner, just with delayed Cleric spells/abilities.)

Custom Lineage with Darkvision
STR 8
DEX 12+2
CON 14
INT 13
WIS 15+1 (Telekinetic)
CHA 10
Telekinetic WIS at 1st, Warcaster at 4th, then plan for WIS +2, WIS +2, and then player's choice.

Ranger Cantrips: Shillelagh, Produce Flame, Mage Hand (60' range thanks to Telekinetic)
Cleric Cantrips: Guidance, Mending, Thaumaturgy
Arcana Cantrips: Booming Blade, Ray of Frost/Chill Touch

Plus, since gathered Swarm's knockback works on all attacks, not just weapon attacks, it can be combined with a ranged attack roll cantrip like Ray of Frost/Produce Flame/Chill Touch for ranged knockback against distant enemies. Seems to pair nicely with Ray of Frost's 10 foot reduced movement, to shove distant enemies back 15 feet and then reduce their movement by 10, effectively subtracting 25' from their movement on their turn.

Seems like it'd potentially be better at lower levels than the straight Arcana Cleric, but weaker at higher levels. (As with most martial vs. full spellcaster comparisons.)

What do you think? Are the added abilities from Swarmkeeper Ranger worth going with over the standard Arcana Cleric Frontliner? Or to look at it through another lens, is a 1 level Arcana Cleric dip for Booming Blade and some additional spellcasting worth pursuing for a Swarmkeeper Ranger?

[Evaar]

Without considering the merits of the entire thing, I might point out that you could take Crusher instead of Telekinetic to get a similar 5 foot slide but without allowing a save or using your bonus action. You might need to rearrange your ability scores to make it work, though.

[nickl_2000]

Without considering the merits of the entire thing, I might point out that you could take Crusher instead of Telekinetic to get a similar 5 foot slide but without allowing a save or using your bonus action. You might need to rearrange your ability scores to make it work, though.

Although crusher only allows a boost to Str or Con as part of the ability bonus. Constitution is good on this build, but may not be the bonus RogueJK is looking for. Also, the only way you can get a bludgeoning weapon with Dex for level 1 is using a sling so the feat is less effective at that point. I think it would be a much better investment later on in the character progression.


As for the overall build, there isn't anything wrong with it. Although having Booming Blade does make your 2nd attack pretty pointless, which makes me wonder if it is really worth taking Ranger past level 4 verses more levels in Cleric? Also, you have some pretty stiff competition for your bonus action with shillelagh, hunter's mark, and the telekinesis feat.

[RogueJK]

Also, you have some pretty stiff competition for your bonus action with shillelagh, hunter's mark, and the telekinesis feat.

Shillelagh doesn't require BAs that often. 1x/combat at most, and can be precast sometimes.

I don't plan on utilizing Hunter's Mark. Since I'd only be making 1 attack per turn, it's not worth the spell slot and Concentration to just add ~3.5 damage per turn.

I'd still have Favored Foe, which wouldn't require a spell slot or Bonus Action, for times when I wanted to add similar damage (~2.5 per turn) and my Concentration isn't being used elsewhere.

you could take Crusher instead of Telekinetic to get a similar 5 foot slide but without allowing a save or using your bonus action. You might need to rearrange your ability scores to make it work, though.

Very true. That'd look something like:

STR 8
DEX 14
CON 13+1
INT 12
WIS 15+2
CHA 10

Potentially worth it for the lack of save on the 5' movement. And the 17 starting WIS means I can then take Telekinetic at 8th anyway, and end up with 25' total forced movement.

The only downside is the size restriction on Crusher's shove. I had originally envisioned the character as Small, so that wouldn't be ideal, being only able to shove Medium creatures using Crusher. But that's probably flexible, and being Medium won't affect the character concept much.

And I do like that Telekinetic's shove is independent of the BB attack. Stacking all my tricks onto one single attack roll per turn may end up being frequently disappointing. With Telekinetic, even if the attack misses, I still have something useful to do with my bonus action. Or I could shove more than one enemy per round, if needed. Luckily, going the Crusher route would just delay that, but not eliminate it completely.

[nickl_2000]

I don't plan on utilizing Hunter's Mark. Since I'd only be making 1 attack per turn, it's not worth the spell slot and Concentration to just add ~3.5 damage per turn.

I'd still have Favored Foe, which wouldn't require a spell slot, for times when I wanted to add a little damage and my Concentration wasn't being used elsewhere.

In that case you are in better shape using what you have planned and a single level in arcana cleric can really add a lot any group. Even a level 20 group is happy to have bless cast on them, and having an additional PC with Healing Word is always amazing.


One thing I would consider if I were you is taking Thorn Whip as your second fighting style cantrip. Your whole build works better if you are within melee reach of someone else. That helps with that and dragging people into dangerous places. If you are worried about lack of darkvision you can grab light as a cleric or arcana cleric spell.

[RogueJK]

One thing I would consider if I were you is taking Thorn Whip as your second fighting style cantrip. Your whole build works better if you are within melee reach of someone else. That helps with that and dragging people into dangerous places. If you are worried about lack of darkvision you can grab light as a cleric or arcana cleric spell.

Custom Lineage allows Darkvision. Produce Flame was more about having a WIS-based ranged cantrip to utilize until Arcana's Ray of Frost/Chill Touch came online. You're right that, once I have that covered, Thorn Whip makes more sense. At Ranger 4, I can swap out Produce Flame for Thorn Whip.

[nickl_2000]

Custom Lineage allows Darkvision. Produce Flame was more about having a WIS-based ranged cantrip to utilize until Arcana's Ray of Frost/Chill Touch came online. You're right that, once I have that covered, Thorn Whip makes more sense. At Ranger 4, I can swap out Produce Flame for Thorn Whip by "changing fighting style" (going from Druidic Warrior S/PF to Druidic Warrior S/TW).

I completely forgot about that. My table doesn't allow custom lineages, so that isn't something I think about. You had a feat at level 1, therefore variant human in my mind :)

Produce Flame
Attack range of 30 ft.
Provides Light
1d8 fire
Ranged Spell Attack


Thorn Whip
Attack range of 30 feet.
1d6 piercing + move
Melee Spell Attack


So, the range between the two is actually exactly the same in early levels.

[poopyloop]

I have been thinking about a similar build myself but wasn't sure how to make all the pieces fit together the best. I was planning on taking crusher feat and the spike growth spell to add extra mileage out of the pushes. I had also considered taking some rogue levels to add to the single big attack, but another possibility I had considered was taking monk levels for more hits for possible crusher usage as well as each hit getting hunters mark damage. I was specifically planning on astral self monk for the flavor angle of having the swarm double as your astral arms, and it also comes with the bonus of having the range to hit someone you've already pushed away for the turn and having the mobility to be able to get in and out of their range

[ATHATH]

Booming Blade doesn't gain any benefit from a high spellcasting ability score modifier- why are you dipping Arcana Cleric to get it instead of just getting it from a feat, your race, a Warlock dip, etc.?

[Verble]

So my question is how you could possibly flavor your swarm if you also have some levels in arcana cleric?

[RogueJK]

Booming Blade doesn't gain any benefit from a high spellcasting ability score modifier- why are you dipping Arcana Cleric to get it instead of just getting it from a feat, your race, a Warlock dip, etc.?

Because Arcana Cleric is the most straightforward way for this character to gain Booming Blade, without spending a precious feat. You're already pretty ASI-starved, needing Warcaster ASAP, and wanting to max WIS. So that's your first 3 ASIs/feats.

Yes, it's also doable as something like a High Half Elf with racial BB, but that eliminates the 1st level feat. Or you could take something like Magic Initiate Wizard as your 1st level feat, but that doesn't get you a stat boost.

Being WIS SAD dovetails nicely with a Cleric multiclass. Plus you get other useful benefits from just 1 level of Arcana Cleric, like another longer ranged WIS-based attack roll cantrip (Ray of Frost/Chill Touch) that can also benefit from your swarm abilities at 60'/120' range. Plus other useful 1st level spellcasting, like Bless.

A Warlock dip does get you BB, but also requires a 13+ CHA, and the Warlock spellcasting will be CHA-based. So you wouldn't be able to benefit from something like Eldritch Blast, since your CHA wouldn't be competitive with your WIS.

While the original concept was just a 1 level Cleric dip, I'm now leaning more towards Ranger 4/Cleric X, to benefit from things like Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians. And Booming Blade could benefit from your WISMOD if you were to go 8+ levels of Arcana Cleric. (The original Arcana Cleric Frontliner banks on eventually adding WISMOD to BB too.)

So my question is how you could possibly flavor your swarm if you also have some levels in arcana cleric?

The character concept is a quasi-Fairy/Fey adventurer, accompanied by a swarm of Pixies, who's a worshipper of the god of magic, out searching for knowledge on all aspects of magic: arcane, divine, and natural.