What's the best sorcerer melee build you can throw without using paladin?

[adb82]

The more I think about this thread I keep coming back to one subclass that exists at least as a comparable for what a full caster can do as a melee build: Bladesinger. Their 6th level multi-attack provides not just 1 additional attack compared to other characters using Blade cantrips, but in reality 2 extra (resourceless) attacks since their multi-attack triggers a bonus attack with the off hand. This is also true if they go XBE. And they are a full Wizard with the AC and other benefits from Bladesinging...

It's really hard to say any other (mostly) full caster build is good or 'best' in comparison here. At best everything else can really only be 'less worse'. This is particularly the case when the Paladin multi-attack + Smite option is removed for games that are more designed around Nova fights.

Talking about BS, i was thinking about something like BS x/paladin 2/ranger 3-4 (or fighter 2-4), two weapon fighting style and defense fighting style Vhuman with warcaster feat. Assuming the first lv is fighter if we choose it over ranger (and we probably do, also for the saves in CON and also WIS that is a stat that we probably need to dump, even horde breaker is really tempting), progression could be fighter 1/BS 6/paladin 2/BS 3/fighter 1/BS x. Feats @1, @5, @11, @16, @20, in order warcaster, +2 dex, +2 int, +2 dex, +2 int or whatever, hasted it make 4 attacks for round (one with BB or GFB) and can add smites and action surge. It's honestly terribly MAD (with point buy it's very hard to build it, an half elf with 13 str, 16 dex, 10 con, 16 int, 8 wis, 13 cha qualify for the MC, but 10 con is really low even for try it probably, you risk instant-kill very often), even with my rolled stats i can't go better than: str 13, dex 16, con 12, int 16, wis 11, cha 14 and have to be very carefull with resources, but maybe at the right conditions can give also nice satisfaction lol.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Talking about BS, i was thinking about something like BS x/paladin 2/ranger 3-4 (or fighter 2-4), two weapon fighting style and defense fighting style Vhuman with warcaster feat. Assuming the first lv is fighter if we choose it over ranger (and we probably do, also for the saves in CON and also WIS that is a stat that we probably need to dump, even horde breaker is really tempting), progression could be fighter 1/BS 6/paladin 2/BS 3/fighter 1/BS x. Feats @1, @5, @11, @16, @20, in order warcaster, +2 dex, +2 int, +2 dex, +2 int or whatever, hasted it make 4 attacks for round (one with BB or GFB) and can add smites and action surge. It's honestly terribly MAD, even with my rolled stats i can't go better than: str 13, dex 16, con 12, int 16, wis 11, cha 14 and have to be very carefull with resources, but maybe at the right conditions can give also nice satisfaction lol.

Sounds interesting. I'm thinking there might be a shorter list of classes to multi-class with Bladesinger 6+ that would make bad characters than the list of classes that would make good ones. Barbarian of course has issues with spellcasting and Monk just doesn't mesh well with others, but other than that... I think you could literally make a party of Bladesingers who multi-classed into other classes to cover various roles and not miss a beat.

[adb82]

Sounds interesting. I'm thinking there might be a shorter list of classes to multi-class with Bladesinger 6+ that would make bad characters than the list of classes that would make good ones. Barbarian of course has issues with spellcasting and Monk just doesn't mesh well with others, but other than that... I think you could literally make a party of Bladesingers who multi-classed into other classes to cover various roles and not miss a beat.

BS i think is good with fighter and rogue (maybe also artificer), with paladin and ranger is very MAD, with monk maybe you can build something as unarmored defense stack with bladesong (don't need 6 lv BS dip, 2 lv is enough, than all monk till the end), but again it's MAD, with point buy it's not a so easy class to MC and many people don't multiclass it also for keep the spell progression of the wizard, but im agree with you that we can build fun characters multiclassing. Probably the more viable ways are fighter (1-4 lv) or arcane trickester (7-9 lv. 7 if you want end te campaign being really powerful with simulacrum, 9 for a more tematic character with magical ambush). The 2 lv fighter are for CON saves, fighting style and action surge, while the Rogue have a more complicated route (for ex: rogue 1/BS 6/rogue 4/BS 3/rogue 2/BS x) and it can use Shadow Blade really well and with effectiveness (for this build i would consider SB, this is probably the best user of the spell in my opinion, or anyway one of the best), plus it have all the squishies things of rogue including especially evasion and uncanny dodge that for a melee BS are 100% gold. If you can get both warcaster and elven accuracy, so to be able to use SB and a shortsword, i wouldn't be too worry about INT being 18 or 16, but maximize both (Int and dex) with Vhuman is never wrong anyway.

About barbarian/spellcaster i tryed a barblock (barb 3/bladelock x, barb 1/lock 9/barb 2/lock x) that was effective and very fun to play (even it's probably one of the few combination barbarian /spellcaster that can work) with armor of agathys, fire shield, big weapon with GWM and the riduction in practice to any sort of damage (bear totem), of course you have to cast all your spells before going rage, so you should have AoA always precasted (with 1 hour of duration is normally possible), it's not the strongest character in the world but it work just fine and it's, in my opinion, fun to play, despite to be MAD anyway (that time i rolled very good stats, better than what i rolled now, now with hexblade is much less MAD i suppose, but i never tryed it) and to have a very busy action economy (especially when you are not able to precast AoA, in that case it's better to change tactic maybe and spam eldricht blast from far away or the darknes devil sight combo, it's very versatile but of course you can't use rage always, even mostly of time you' ll be raging, also becouse probably your one concentration spell will be darkness and you'll use it only when you can't use AoA precasted). Rackless attack also work very well with the fact that you want to be hitted, at least the first 2 rounds.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

BS i think is good with fighter and rogue (maybe also artificer), with paladin and ranger is very MAD, with monk maybe you can build something as unarmored defense stack with bladesong (don't need 6 lv BS dip, 2 lv is enough, than all monk till the end), but again it's MAD, with point buy it's not a so easy class to MC and many people don't multiclass it also for keep the spell progression of the wizard, but im agree with you that we can build fun characters multiclassing. Probably the more viable ways are fighter (1-4 lv) or arcane trickester (7-9 lv. 7 if you want end te campaign being really powerful with simulacrum, 9 for a more tematic character with magical ambush). The 2 lv fighter are for CON saves, fighting style and action surge, while the Rogue have a more complicated route (for ex: rogue 1/BS 6/rogue 4/BS 3/rogue 2/BS x) and it can use Shadow Blade really well and with effectiveness (for this build i would consider SB, this is probably the best user of the spell in my opinion, or anyway one of the best), plus it have all the squishies things of rogue including especially evasion and uncanny dodge that for a melee BS are 100% gold. If you can get both warcaster and elven accuracy, so to be able to use SB and a shortsword, i wouldn't be too worry about INT being 18 or 16, but maximize both (Int and dex) with Vhuman is never wrong anyway.

About barbarian/spellcaster i tryed a barblock (barb 3/bladelock x, barb 1/lock 9/barb 2/lock x) that was effective and very fun to play (even it's probably one of the few combination barbarian /spellcaster that can work) with armor of agathys, fire shield, big weapon with GWM and the riduction in practice to any sort of damage (bear totem), of course you have to cast all your spells before going rage, so you should have AoA always precasted (with 1 hour of duration is normally possible), it's not the strongest character in the world but it work just fine and it's, in my opinion, fun to play, despite to be MAD anyway (that time i rolled very good stats, better than what i rolled now, now with hexblade is much less MAD i suppose, but i never tryed it) and to have a very busy action economy (especially when you are not able to precast AoA, in that case it's better to change tactic maybe and spam eldricht blast from far away or the darknes devil sight combo, it's very versatile but of course you can't use rage always, even mostly of time you' ll be raging, also becouse probably your one concentration spell will be darkness and you'll use it only when you can't use AoA precasted). Rackless attack also work very well with the fact that you want to be hitted, at least the first 2 rounds.

I think Barbarian with BS is more of a no-go than with other part casters due to your default action including a Blade Cantrip. If you go this route you lose a big advantage of BS over things like Swords or Valor Bard, Paladin, etc. Other multi-classes you can build around to cast spells like Aid, Mirror Image, etc, and don't lose anything from your multi-attack