New Character Concept Ideas/Opinions

[Saw516]

I have a character I’ve made for a game we are playing pretty happy with the concept though I’m sure it’s not optimised, but that’s not of interest to me really I’m more bothered about it being fun and fitting the idea I’m thinking of. was just wondering what people thought, any alterations I could make while keeping the idea largely the same.

I’m wanting to be a battlefield control type of character, he was the leader of a street gang prior to adventuring and has taken on a similar mantle with the party, looking to protect and direct them during fights.

The dm wants this game to go to pretty high levels and we are starting at lv5 (we just completed lost mines and he’s basically said we can either carry over characters or start a new one)

My plan is to be a bard/fighter multi-class, going for glamour bard and battle master fighter. I’m playing a levistus bloodline tiefling but allowing for ability modifiers to be put into our choices of stats (see below)

We rolled for stats and I did pretty well, with 15+2 str / 14 dex / 15 con / 10 int / 12 wis / 17+1 cha

My current plan is to end up with fighter 6/ bard 14 if we make it all the way to 20 (as planned). I’m planning to take cartomancer (for background reasons), polearm master, sentinel, +1 str / +1 con, and +2 cha as my asi/feat selections as I level.
I’d love to throw warcaster in there but not sure what I’d drop, potentially the str/con boosts as I’m not looking to be a major damage threat just to control the battlefield as much as I can.

I am starting fighter 1 bard 4 and the cartomancer feat as this fits in with who the character is to start but it’s from this point onwards I’d like to see what people think, current thinking is 1 more bard level for 3rd level casting. Then take the 5 fighter levels to get to fighter 6, picking up polearm master and sentinel along the way. Then back to bard for the rest of the campaign, picking up the stat improvements along the way. It does mean the stat boosts are a long way down the line but as stated before damage output isn’t my main goal. Im just hoping 18 cha is enough to last until 14th level which is when I’d be putting my first asi into stats.

Im thinking bump cha first for my spellcasting to bump my save dc for the control spells I plan to take.

Apologies for the long rambley post and if anyone made it this far I’d love to hear your thoughts 😊

[Mastikator]

Rogue mastermind also fits. You could start with 3 levels of rogue to grab mastermind, allowing you to bonus action help your allies. Then multiclass into bard.

With variant human you can pick up the Inspiring Leader feat, letting you hand out temporary hitpoints to the whole party after every long/short rest. (it adds up to a lot of temp hp/damage mitigation)

Your stats could be
10 str
15+1 dex
15 con
15 int
12 wis
17+1 cha
starting at rogue3/bard2.

IMO glamour is probably the right choice, mantle of inspiration is quite nifty. Another option is lore bard for cutting words to protect your allies from attacks, or swords bard if you want to lean into the fighty bits (I'd grab dueling and leave your off-hand free for battlefield control spells)

Spells to look into:
heroism, command and faerie fire are great at 1st level
heat metal, invisibility, blindness/deafness, phantasmal force for 2nd
slow and hypnotic pattern for 3rd level are absolute beasts when it comes to battlefield control. Attacking the enemy's action economy can turn the tide on a deadly battle.

[Derges]

I'm finalising a Cartomancer Bard to join a campaign at level 6 next week myself. I also ran a battlefield controller glamour bard/ rune knight fighter (think WWE-style wrestler) for a few sessions last year.

It sounds like you're looking mainly to control using PAM/sentinel which is great for locking down a single target, less so against multiple unless you get tunnel fighter (which isn't showing on my preferred lookup tool - did it get killed?). You probably already know but Sentinel's 3rd bullet point doesn't synergize well with this playstyle (you can only react to protect from attacks coming within 5ft).

Outside of this, you'll can also be able to do martial control by optimising for athletics, enlarging yourself and grappling the heck out of targets.

Cartomancer is cool but shines if you can take spells outside of your class or pick up extra spell lists (RAW ruling but check with your DM). Sneaking a sorcerer level in will greatly expand your options for what can be carded. Lore bard also means you can pick up some wacky spells and card the vanilla bard options.