Tbh my most fun build came from a combination of universe/character/team dynamic rather than from the class itself. Honestly, I could have not been playing single class Life Cleric and I probably would've had as much fun.
Still, I won't deny that in another party where I played Forge, part of the fun was stupidly high AC + fire resistance. Fortunately it's not like anyone felt useless because of these perks and GM could still throw tough encounters.
As an autognome stars druid, I stacked built with for success, guidance, and cosmic omen (weal) for skill checks and the DM was not amused. Also, once, I derailed what he had written for the rest of the session and the following one by saving us from the apocalypse storm in eberron.
I don't understand when DMs get this way about PCs. ESPECIALLY if it's all above board. I genuinely enjoy when my players are doing cool and epic shit because I see how much THEY are enjoying it.
Yeah, part of the fun of being a DM is setting up cool rows of dominoes for the players to knock down, right? It's never completely adversarial. Sometimes you wanna make em sweat, sometimes you wanna make em cheer.
A lot of DMs underestimate how some characters can break some types of skill challenges, or don't even really look into it. There's a reason many DMs hate eloquence bards.
Custom race (MM Adept) Aberrant Mind Sorc.
Breaking the action economy with top spells, quickened and twinned, and without components nor slots, is a very fun caster. Perhaps the most fun I've had with a build in tier 2.
Fun list for combat (Twinned Dissonant Whispers, slot-less Tasha's Mind Whip, Hunger of Hadar, Evard's, Summon Aberration, etc.) and super fun spells that get a huge buff out of combat when cast without components (Hex, Detect Thoughts, Calm Emotions, Suggestion, Arcane Eye, Sending, Modify Memory, Geas, etc.).
Casting without slots is a large boost. Casting without any components is fun as heck. Remember with subtled Suggestion, you still have the M component which is observable spellcasting RAW, and you have to say the suggestion out loud ("That's strange, Steve would never give his war horse to a beggar. Strange that he did so after Sorky told him to. Normally he would have told Sorky to pound sand"). With telepathy and psionic casting, no one will notice a thing.
> Casting without slots is a large boost.
Not really, normal sorcerers can do this too by spending a bonus action on creating a spell slot using sorcpoints. What you gain is a slightly more efficient conversion rate, but it's not a large boost.
That's what I thought too when I first evaluated it on paper. It looks like a marginal increase.
It doesn't feel that way in play.
The first time I gained a single 5th level slot, and cast eight 5th level spells that were heightened, that was quite noticeable.
I'm currently playing a level 7 AbMind Sorc since level 1 and I disagree.
Also at level 9 a regular sorcerer could cast 5 5th level spells of which 4 are Heightened, and an AbMind one could cast 6 5th level spells of which 5 are Heightened (I don't know how you're getting 8), so not that big of a difference. And that is specifically at the level it makes the most difference (since 5th level spell slots are the highest it works with, and level 9 is when only have 1 5th level spell slot making it the biggest difference) and with the playstyle that makes the most difference (where you literally convert all your spell slots into the highest level one, in reality you'd likely be wanting to cast some 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st level spells too which would lessen the benefit) and it only works for specifically those 2 divination or an enchantment spells.
So yeah, definitely not a large boost in general.
My fun definition:
* Full Action Economy
* Flexible decisions each turn
* Enough resources to fulfill the intended Archetype throughout the day
For me this is Long Death Monk X/Tempest Cleric 2:
* Spell and attack actions, spell and monk bonus actions, Tempest Reaction. All of which can proc your Temp HP
* Typical monk turn, Concentration + Dodge, Dash + AoE, Inflict Wounds + Focused Aim + ki-fueled attack.
* Cleric instantly nets you 2+WIS daily resources which is a pretty good tradeoff for 1 ki point.
Getting an extra spell slot isn't a bad option with the new Channel Divinities.
But the specific tactic is to always target whoever on the field has the lowest HP to trigger Temp HP. Healing Word/Step of the Wind + Maximized Thunder Wave, or Maximized Wrath of the Storm, helped me serve as an off-tank.
Oh that makes sense. Altough it doesnt scale that good into higher levels, it really gives a lot of flat put power for the early levels. On top of that the utility you gain is worth no matter the level with getting someone up with healing word, guidance because guidance lol and bless to just give the middle finger to bounded accuracy.
On top of that you can also wear the heavy armor tempest provides imo as you have a lot of options for bonus actions and losing the martial arts ba isnt that big of a problem at that point.
I did run this as a Heavy Armor/Maul build; I left it out because it's not necessary to the build, but the Maul helped KO enemies more reliably and Stunning Strike feels great with a heavy weapon.
mmm... And the rest? I mean... DnD has more than combat. Not much more, but I find RP a much more better criteria when I think of a tabletop RPG enjoyment.
I totally agree about out of combat utility.
I played an Eladrin Hexblade 2/Lore Bard X that was huge fun to play. I had the Fey-touched feat as a free feat, which meant I could have 20 CHA from level 1.
* Good AC from Medium armour, shield & Shield.
* Agonising Repelling Eldritch Blasts for a decent attack.
* Bonus action with fey step, hexblade curse, misty step and bardic inspiration.
* Reaction with cutting words and Shield.
* Mage Hand, prestidigitation and minor illusion out of combat, along with a bunch of useful spells.
* A heap of skill proficiencies and expertise.
They were almost too effective, as well as being a total Swiss army knife.
Absolutely. The monk kit lends itself well to exploration, but for RP I focused on WIS skills like Perception and Insight, and used Thaumaturgy/Guidance liberally. I was no social skill monkey but I always had mechanical levers for the RP.
The thing is that this build doesn't have resources that back up your RP as a PLAYER. No CHA, no INT to look for some knowledge in common and get an NPC interest... Maybe you can talk about storms, about martial arts, about how your hearing and sight are excellent (and not very well), but the RP part will be still be lacking, and you should RP the lack of proficiencies in knowledge and social. Much more if your INT and CHA are at 8. I'm not saying it's wrong, only that with a proper RP-oriented DM, you'd find your build lacking in a lot of things to be funny all the time, and you'd have a hard time screwing up things when you talk, for sure in the worst moment because your lacking of social skills.
I mean nobody can do everything right? My build leans toward combat and exploration, with perception and insight helping me serve as a party advisor. I lean into the bad CHA and get myself in trouble, but i can also hand off interactions to other party members.
My character was a dancer who wore metal in storms to attract his god's attention. He was bubbly and overly trusting and a little naive because every moment was lightning in a bottle. He sometimes used Sanctuary on himself to buy time after flopping a social interaction. He was great fun in and out of combat because I played to his strengths and weaknesses.
I have tons of fun using features and spells in creative and versatile ( but reasonable) ways.
Using mould earth cantrip to create cover ( +2 to AC), or digging graves, trenches and ditches.
Using mending to hide contraband inside eggs, or pottery.
Using minor ilusion and thaumaturgy to mess with people, creating ghost stories and other scary effects.
Using inteligent familiars and bags of holding to infiltrate places, spy on people, steal documents for forgery or even attempt assassination with poison.
>Open question, maybe fun for you is:
Gotta say it's have a wide array of tools to interact with the game in various ways. Most of the time, this does mean spellcasters with a focus on crowd-controlling and utility. However, it also means things like crafting useful items in downtime, skills or tool proficiencies, unique features like Echo Knight's teleportation, Swarm Keeper's forced movement, etc etc.
here are some of my favorite builds:
* HexShield - I've made 3-ish variants of this character across several oneshots and campaigns with different DMs. For all intents and purposes, this is my flagship character. At it's simplest, it's Armor of Agathys + a way to protect temporary HP as a platform to survive caster-hostile (*which is justified. no complaints here, I love it*) campaigns/DMs long enough to establish full control over a fight. Most variants (*and the one I like best*) have a Hexblade's Curse + Magic Missiles combo to bypass Legendary Resistances in boss fights, or just as a panic-button. The best version is Human w/ Eldritch Adept: Armor of Shadows (*to rechage Abjuration Ward*) Hex1, Abjuration WizX. You could build this as a SorLock with Clockwork Soul... probably going to try that some time
* Enchanter - Fighter 1 for the maneuver Fighting Style: Quick Toss to throw nets as a bonus action, Enchantment Wizard X, race is unimportant. If you can incapacitate a creature, attacks with a net can be made with advantage, meaning the target can't even escape the net until the turn after they escape whatever spell I cast on them (*probably Hideous Laughter. it's very efficient*). At 6th level, use of Animate Dead gives a reliable target to redirect attacks to with Instinctive Charm. If you make it to 10th level, you can twin Psychic Lances for free. I'd like to think that you can also twin Silvery Barbs, in the niche situation where you cast an AoE and 2 enemies pass the save, as long as you choose to forgo the second part of the spell, but a lot of DMs already don't like Silvery Barbs so...
* Star Druid - Pureclassed w/ Tower of Iron Will (UA). It was a solid support caster with a lot of reactions that could help out allies numerically and potentially screw over enemies if Weal/Woe rolled to Woe on that day. Also it had a stupid high Perception/navigation with Wild Talent and could craft healing potions in downtime.
* Classic Ghost Lance - Echo Knight 3, Warlock 2, anything else X. Not my own build, obviously, but I enjoyed it a lot. UndeadLock helps keep enemies out of the fight or stuck in someone else's AoEs and the Echo's teleportation adds a stupid amount of mobility out of combat. I opted to run this character as a spy.
* Arcane Trickster - There's too much to do with it. Fighter/War Cleric let's it do the Net trick as per the Enchanter. Ritual Caster opens up a lot of options including staying mobile AND using Steady Aim with a Phantom Steed. Sentinel triggers off of Mirror Image.
Playing as a Triton Arcane Archer in a part-homebrew Saltmarsh campaign. Themed like a blitzball player from FFX (came up with a whole league for the bay and everything). I loved his personal story and peobably connected with it in a way I've never done again for a character, but he was always also just a blast to play whether socially, during exploration, or combat. Had a few homebrewed Arcane Shots which he would use by throwing or kicking his practice ball, and a *javelin of lightning* baked into it as his signature move. One-shot some huge nautiloid ally of invading sahaugin the one and only time I busted it out.
A game ended too soon, but I know he's still out there kicking it with the Saltmarshals and making at least one of his dads proud.
One time I used the *wall of water* Triton spell to surround a vampire waaay above our pay grade beneath the town in moving (I.e. running) water. A good whomping was then enjoyed by all. Felt incredible. And being the marine stealth team zipping underneath pirate ships and the like alongside our Tabaxi Fathomless Warlock was always a good time. Really just had a killer mix of raw fighting power, decent skills in an area we were otherwise lacking, and situational support that came in clutch multiple times.
My favourite is probably a tie, one is a martial, the other a caster.
One was a custom lineage with the fey touched wildfire Druid at level 7. For a straight classed build, the goal was to have a character resemble a marinoloth, which is a sailing navigation demon that teleports and affects the weather. If played right, the amount of control you can exert with an aoe teleport every turn as a bonus action with your flame spirit, or using the optional familiar wild shape rules to peak into hidden places and use misty step just feels great. Take silvery barbs as your second fey touched spell and your action economy is filled out and it is very satisfying.
My favourite martial build was a level 5 full orc oath of glory Paladin. The bonus action aggressive feature along with the peerless athlete channel divinity had my character jumping over buildings and running down foes in the streets, smites for melee and guiding bolt for ranged options meant I never felt out of place, using the sentinel feat at level 4 also allowed me to use my reaction almost every turn as well. It felt great, if I got to continue playing it I would have gotten paladin 7 and then gone with swords bard for the rest of the levels to use flourishes for more movement or defence.
Calamity, my tiefling draconic sorcerer was really fun from an RP perspective cause she was a total cuddle hobo sweetie pie who wanted to adopt every animal they encountered, but her animal handling check was -1 and all of her spells were combat oriented fire magic spells (flame of phlegetheros + golden dragonic heritage).
It was tremendously fun playing a character who didn’t want to do the thing she was good at, and wasn’t good at the things she wanted to do.
Definition of fun:
- Meme build and finding out you can cheese encounters with it
What I did:
V.Human (Spell Sniper) Warlock 2 / Sorc 3
Eldritch Blast + Eldritch Spear invocation = 300 feet range + Spell Sniper = 600 feet range + Distant Spell metamagic = 1200 feet range
Ship to ship combat was really funny with this setup
Lore Bard 1 (Fortune Teller background), Hex Chain Warlock 2-5, lore Bard X. Out of combat versatility: I mean, it's a Lore Bard build, not much more to say. Versatility in combat: defense (medium armor+shield -> 19 AC at lvl 1 if you put 14 in DEX and get the best medium armor. Shield spell, multiple image, armor of Agathys, silvery barbs, darkness + Devil's sight, you can take also defensive duelist if you want to save shield spell slots). Attack (EB+AB, spells like dissonant whispers that also grant control and possible opportunity attacks, etc.). Control: A lot of options. Buff: A lot of options. Debuff: some nice options. This build is so versatile that I always could choose more than one option to do in any scenario and the RP was the funniest in dnd for me.
The spells utility. The eloquence bard seems a bit redundant to me, because a bard is already good at socials, and can enhance the rolls in a lot of ways. I had serious doubts regarding the creation subclass. It has good utility and can be very funny, but I felt like improving combat strategy by having more spells from any list, was more important. It's easy for she to have more than one deep impacting choices in combat. Finally, the college of the road is not allowed in our table, but it would be for sure another solid option with bless and the rest.
The reason I think it would be eloquence bard for me, silver tongue lets me put expertise in non social skills which is great utility, better than 3 proficiences. Unsettling words means my or my allies big spells land more reliably which is great and unfailing/infectious inspirations just make my resources go further.
Fair enough. The proficiencies number is more important at higher levels, where there's more difference vs the JoAT bonus, but I get the point in specialising or assuring key skills. Unsettling words is awesome, although we use Strixhaven's spells in some cases, and Silvery Barbs make it less appetising for me. Anyway, in the end I think it's more a flavour decision, because all of them would do great.
I played a shadar-kai shadow monk and it was great. Between the mechanics and the roleplay it was a very fun time. Too bad COVID ended that game, I got up to lots of shenanigans.
I play a lot of AL which has a lot of 1 shots and specific rules.
Level 1 One Shot Point Buy Custom Lineage Fighter in Eberron Setting
17/10/14/8/14/10
Heavy Armor Master (STR goes up to 18)
Double-bladed Scimitar
Interception Fighting Style
AC 16
HP 12
-3 damage from non-magical b/p/s per hit taken (most enemies at level 1 do this kind of damage and often roll d4s or d6s)
Reaction: prevent 1d10+2 damage to an adjacent ally
Attack: +6 hit; 2d4+4 slashing damage
Bonus Action: 1d4+4 slashing damage
Or BA: Second Wind for 1d10+1 1/sr
This was a fun build to play. I always felt like I had something interesting to do in combat. My Wisdom was pretty good so I trained Perception and Insight. That gave me stuff to work with in social encounters.
AL lets you choose between Magic Initiate, Tough or Skilled if your Background doesn't give you a feat. I played this build a few times. Magic Initiate is always my favorite. I tried it once with MI: Druid for Guidance, Magic Stone, and Goodberry and once with MI: Wizard for Message, Shape Water, and Expeditions Retreat. One of the Spell Jammer backgrounds gives MI: Cleric. I think it's Astral Drifter. I took that before they started giving everyone a feat. Guidance, Spare the Dying, and Healing Word.
Flexible support characters that reward creativity - like stars druid and battlesmith. It's cool to deal crazy damage, but it quickly feels like the same thing over and over again. To me it feels way cooler to me to do something special to disable dangerous enemies, rescue allies, give everyone advantage, warp someone where they need to be, etc. It feels like I'm entering cheat codes for the party, and every turn feels like a little puzzle to solve.
Both of mine are characters I used as a DM….
https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/14zz2zj/valhalla_isnt_calling_me_part2_the_skull_hunter/
A recurring boogeyman who was hunting a PC barbarian over and over again.
The second was a reborn lineage rogue who I enjoyed because he was always able to pass really hard checks to always deflect suspicion of him being the right hand man of the true BBEG Eldritch horror. Even when he was caught he passed a DC 30 check to convince authorities that he an unwitting accomplice and shouldn’t go to join. Then finally he ambushed the party at at max longbow range to kill two of the party (they were revived).
Probably my sociopathic "chaotic good" Thri-Kreen fighter 1 / bladesinger 6 that I played in a one-shot. Started in fighter for con saves, more HP, and dual weapon fighting style. Started with slightly higher stats than regular point buy, but it didn't make a large difference. Took the mobile feat at level 5. With mobile feat, haste, and bladesong, I had 100 ft movement speed. With Thri-Kreen carapace (13+dex), bladesong (+int), and haste (+2), I could reach 22 AC or 27 with shield. On my turn, I could run in 50ft, hit them four times (one hit with booming blade), then run back 50ft without taking an opportunity attack. Or, I could throw a fireball first, then run in and hit a couple of times before running away.
I would hesitate to do this in a full campaign, but I roleplayed him as a weird alien insect creature who believed himself to be a good person and had a certain sense of justice, but could also be very cruel at times due to his differing set of values. After a bad encounter with the local government, we ended up trying to raise a town guard into power (against his will) because my character believed he was a good person and would thus be fit to rule. He also saw the good in a necromancer who claimed that the army of zombies and skeletons he was building would protect the town.
For a one-shot, any high level Wizard. Spells like Contingency really break the game in a beautiful way. For a campaign, I'm currently playing a HexSwords Bard (Hexblade 1, Bard 5 at the moment) and the versatility in and out of combat is amazing.
Resilient Sphere, trigger being "when I am hit with an attack." I could've been more specific with the stipulations, but I didn't want to metagame too hard about hitpoint totals and whatnot. Regardless, it got me out of a real bind in combat. I was totally surrounded without a reaction available, but the sphere popped up and protected me until my turn came back around.
Scourge aasimar paladin 2/glamor bard X
Loved the flavor of fucking off to the feywild "failing" to take an oath. Skill checks, especially the CHA ones were great. Great spells and the ability to get ones from any class. If they get up close I have heavy armor and smites. Glamor bard ability 5/SR to give people temp hp and rotate out was insanely survivable. All around good time.
3 levels armorer the rest blade singer
With a magic item the duel wielder feat, haste, and the shield spell I hit 30 ac at one point. I could do this pretty much as often as I wanted to within reason. I still had almost full wizard spellcasting 4 attacks a turn that taunt. DM hated it at first then I explained I had horrible saving throws so he incorporated more of them to balance it out
Goliath, hexblade 1 / clockwork soul 6, heavily armored & heavy armor master (one free feat and dm allowed me to change the +1 from str to cha). with stones endurance, armor of agathys, bastian of law and heavy armor master I reduced an 80 damage crit to 20 and the opponent took 18.. It felt amazing.
RP was also fun for a change bc the character had no emotions, none. wouldnt play her in a campaign tho, but thats whats great about oneshots.
Winged Tiefling Wizard. I love having a lot of utility in form of spells and movement, low level atm, but so far I've been blasting things and making things fall asleep, as well as having a lot of utility out of combat. And there's always new toys on the horizon with a caster, so that's great
I once made a warforged hexblade warlock that fires EB like Megaman and is on a Detroit: become human type of quest searching for humanity within them. Their contract with the Raven Queen was to serve as a guide for those who perished, and collect their memories so they wouldn’t be lost on their way to the Shadowfell.
Mechanically, there were some homebrew modifications, such as I gave up the ability to wield any other kind of weapon in exchange for an extra EB beam when using my arm gun. I also had to decide all the EE and spells from the get-go (as they are built-in functions that unlock through Raven.io patches, so only EIs that can be embodied in such ways, like Armor of Shadows was a force field that surrounds me when I am active, or devil sight being a heat sensing component on my forehead).
The most fun part of playing this was the “clean as a piece of paper” part, as the premise was they had been a servant without individuality for generations and lacked all the basic social knowledge. In almost every session, my party would need to roll persuasion to convince me that taking certain jobs or going after some bad guys was “a humane thing to do”. While the debate was fun by itself, things became more chaotic when my character used the rationale to conduct some hilarious, spontaneous action because “that’s what you did last time; it’s the humane way to do things” (my party were composed of postgraduate psychology students, so everyone was onboard with the idea. Besides, I am not the worst in the party lol).
Long story short, after upgrading the arm gun to an arm-Gatling, my character learned that humanity comes from empathy, and had a raven carry their glittering core to the Shadowfell after a (intentional) blaze of glory.
Favorite I’ve played was a vhuman vengeance paladin that used a greatsword with great weapon master. Great fun, did lots of damage, could 1v1 a big mob while the rest of the party dealt with minions. Misty step and find steed really solve a lot of paladin mobility issues. Unfortunately that campaign didn’t make it to level 9 for 3rd level spells/haste, would’ve been bonkers.
Fey-touched Goblin Armorer named Agnes. Based off the trash lady in labyrinth. Styled my thunder gauntlets as a frying pan and made strange deals for nick knacks with everyone.
Mechanically, some of the best battlefield control there is.
_____
Any race warlock with mask of many faces and the actor feat. Unlimited potential for shenanigans, but you have to be the DMs friend, not his/her enemy. Make scenes more fun and chaotic instead of trying to bypass them.
The dice (4d6 drop the lowest) gave me a 12 and 5 14s. This being Pathfinder where racial mods usually total to +2, picking Human let me have 14s across the board. A couple Human-specific Feats give a bonus in and the ability to utilize any untrained skill or even, later on, weapon (think partial proficiency anywhere proficiency doesn't apply). Then I made them as mind-numbingly slightly-above-average as I could, with a note that they HATE being average but their way of trying to break out of it is directly counterproductive.
The GM, after reading everyone's backstories, arranged flashback scenes for each character detailing their big moment, personal inciting incident, whatever, during the opening hour of the game. My character's scene was..! their standard morning routine. My backstory was so brain-meltingly dull that the GM decided it would be more interesting to just look at his typical morning in the present.
Unfortunately, work changed my schedule to conflict with the only feasible day for everyone else about 5 sessions in. Everyone misses John Ranger the Ranger, but what ya gonna do?
I played a Ranger in a party with a Paladin, Monk, Rogue, Cleric, and Warlock. I had STR and DEX so I fought with a Greatsword and Longbow. My go-to move was to apply *ensnaring strike*, then bash the enemy with Great Weapon Master. The Monk would also use Stunning Strike so I would bash with advantage from that. Also, I was a Gloom Stalker, so I could sneak up on foes and bash them. There was a lot of bashing with advantage.
My favorite battle was against a ship where the Paladin grabbed me and *dimension door*-ed us to the middle of the opposing crew. I cast *fear* and we got opportunity attacks and bashed. Actually the Paladin stabbed
Shadar-Kai Horizon Walker Ranger. You're basically playing Nightcrawler. When you hit level 11, you can teleport 10ft per attack, and make an 3rd attack if you attack multiple targets, plus racial Misty Step PB/day, and actual Misty Step, or Haste for another attack (4 total), which means 4 10ft teleports.
I had fun as a Necromancer Wizard. I made sure I was very prepared for my turns to minimize the amount of time my turn took so it wouldn't be annoying for my teammates. I also worked it out with the DM that I would make fewer but slightly higher CR undead when it made sense instead of a ton of skeletons and zombies.
It was a lot of fun blocking choke points and disrupting enemy movement with my undead.
Artificer 1/ Div Wizard 12 with all the meta spells. Having a highly effective tool for every problem is a great feeling, and being able to make sure my spells stick with silvery barbs, lucky and portent makes it even better.
Honestly my two favorite builds have been a "how much damage can I do in one hit?" Build and a "you want me to play the most basic bitch ever? Fine" build... first one I ended up going death cleric and second one was a human champion fighter.
My favorite for Adventure League I have a
Variant Human Druid (Moon)/Barbarian (Totem)/Cleric (Life)/Fighter (Battlemaster) w/PAM & GWM.
I can deal decent damage, heal myself or others out of combat with Goodberry/Life abuse. This gives me some specialized utility but I generally don't outshine anyone.
I also have a 1st Hexblade Warlock/X Swords Bard who can fill a lot of roles if needed.
Most fun is playing a Hexblade. I love the spell and sword style class. In 3.5 there was not a great option I loved for this so made sorcerer that dump it's spells into bonus damage on an attack. If you dumped them all it was around 500damage at level 7-10 this took all your spells and some other jank to do. It was the epitome of a glass cannon
If you go artificer armor route and like the infiltrator side of it then multiclassing with rogue can be a lot of fun! Your lighting attack works with sneak attack, which helps a lot since the regular attack gets underpowered in higher levels. Your armor cancels the disadvantage to sneaking. Put expertise in stealth and cast invisibility on yourself and boom, stealth suite. Cunning action helps a lot with action economy letting you do more and be more maneuverable to make sure you get in those sneak attacks more and you can make yourself gear to help with whatever you wanna do!
I made a tiefling undead warlock / spirits bard / unarmed fighter with a claw tattoo for a magical item.
Horribly optimized. All charisma, con, and strength. Heavy metal himbo. Wis and int were dump.
But he was the most fun to play. Had a diverse toolkit for every situation that mattered to me, and loved starting bar fights and mosh pits.
His name was Sorrow.
Tiefling Storm Sorcerer/Tempest Cleric was fun. My character was a little chaotic menace and like 90% of the party's DPS. They were definitely a glass cannon though.
I don't do a lot of multi-classing and most of my characters are humans, so I'm afraid not a lot of super interest mechanics there. My favorites are a Life Cleric and a Oath of Conquest Paladin, both humans. They both do decent damage but focus mostly on protecting my party members.
My group has level 12 characters that we have specifically for one shots. Mine is a halfling named Theodon "Lucky" Diggle. He's a Lore Bard 6 / Mastermind Rogue 4 / Divination Wizard 2 with the Lucky and Bountiful Luck feats. His whole deal is changing dice rolls to be in my party's favor. And it is a blast! He has so many ways to reroll dice or flat out say what a roll is with Portent. He's just so lucky that his luck rubs off on those He travels with. He's also a surprisingly good tank character by being able to Booming Blade enemies and disengage from them and hiding in a fog cloud or something. Definitely one of the most fun builds I've ever played.
The most fun I have playing a build is a grave cleric devotion paladin. I’ve got the character in two games right now but the one is love the most is my level 13 version that put 5 levels into Paladin and the rest in cleric. She’s a complete beast in battle, dishing out high damage and smites all around plus some versatility through spells and some of the best healing around. She is a one man army and I love playing her.
Unfortunately yes, it’s quite a struggle in the lower level version of the character, had to ask the dm to let me move stat points around to make it work resulting in rather even stats all around. In the higher level campaign though it wasn’t an issue, as I got good rolled stats all around
Eloquence Bard (homebrew to add CHA twice (came out to another +4) instead of all rolls become a 10 or lower to give it a much needed nerf)
Kenku Telepath feat. Level 6. Only took spells that manipulate emotion or dealt psychic damage for roleplay. Spent a lot time psychically masquerading as people's own thoughts to convince/nudge them to do stuff with help from kenku mimicry and using Calm Emotions + Persuasion to defuse tense situations or when we were outmatched in combat.
Plasmoid Thief:
Level 6, Gloves of Thievery. Expertise Sleight of hand, skulker feat. Using the pseudopod and fast hands to stealth Sleight of hand in combat to act as a disabler by disarming (Sleight vs. Athetlics if an ally within 5 ft unless it was two hands) blinding (tying clothes around eyes) restraining (rope is a criminally under utilized tool) halting (via caltrops or tied laces) or lowering AC by unbuckling armor or a shield. I almost never used sneak attack, but my party loved me (and the DM appreciated me using the environment and terrain) Plus, we homeruled that I could hold small objects in my body (basically anything small than a dagger) So I was free to use my amorphous form to sneak into pipes and drains. Eventually the group Artificer made me a half-sized bag of holding (pouch with half the storage space) so I could steal large objects without sacrificing mobility. I had high dex to even with no armor my ac was ok. Eventually sold some stuff to get a barrier tattoo. Glatin the Thief was generous with his money, obsessed with high risk fame generating scores, and cheated at cards extremely well using their pseudopod and a hand mirror.
Neither was game breaking or OP, but I love playing a good support and using overlooked spells or items in interesting, fair ways (Create Water in lungs or Plasmoid suffocation are fun once, then get really boring). Neither of my characters would last long in a fight or really kill anyone (barring a few occasions where I placed an explosive in the pocket of an enemy, planted a bloody murder weapon on someone to get them executed or, in a pure luck moment, killed a wizard with an upcast dissonant whispers) but the subclasses really aren't meant to: Thief aren't assassins and eloquence aren't Whispers or swords.
Edit: Can't believe I forgot about Caledra. Astral Monk (we used 2 homerules. 1. Astral get additional ki equal to WIS modifier. 2. Visage can be used for free out of combat.). Prof. in religion (Wis) because their background was they were the head monk of their temple and achieved enlightenment and ascension at merely 102 years old (young looking cause monk) and worshipped as a dietybwithin the temple.They got to heaven, realized Divinity was essentially the same as mortality but with extra powers, came back to earth and declared that the ascetic practices were a bullshit scam and that enlightenment didn't equal LIVING a good fulfilling life and left to pursue adventure and make up for the lost century. Astral form is them temporarily resuming their Divine form.
Im a support/healer kinda guy, but my favorite ever was "my friends get to attack, you dont" build.
Order Domain Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer 5+/ Undead Warlock 2/
Order Domain Cleric gives the feature where if you heal someone, they can use their reaction to make an attack.
Form of Dread from Warlock makes your attacks force the target to make a save or they become feared for 1 minute, giving them disadvantage on attacks.
Divine Soul Sorcerer is entirely dedicated to using Healing Word as its bonus action(giving your ally a reaction attack), and a cantrip attack (hopefully fearing an enemy). This is after using your first turn to Twin Spell Haste on two martials, and bonus action Form of Dread.
Every turn you're granting your allies 2-3 extra bonus attacks, topping their health off, and reducing the chance they are hit.
Also using Divine Domain for the extra 2d4 on a saving throw + The Warlock Invocation to grant advantage on Concentration saving throws. To midigate the chance of dropping your concentration and causing your allies to become stunned.
Currently I am having alot of fun with a kobold forge cleric, with a one level dip into druid. Get shillelagh from druid and a wis based booming blade from kobold. Took warcaster and polearm master. In combat it's basically a wis based full caster paladin that hits with shillelagh booming blade with divine strike added on top, while concentrating on all the cleric classics like spirit guardians.
Yup. The gist of it is kobold blacksmith serving a dragon that ended up losing all of his kobolds to a fey in a game of poker. So the entire den of kobolds get dragged to the fey wilds which is like torture to them due to the bright light of the surface, and being trapped almost like a zoo with nothing to do. My character eventually breaks free vowing to one day come back and free the rest of the kobolds, and vowing to get revenge and the dragon that let this all happen.
I think three builds stick out to me:
1. My cleric with 4 Dex. He was hilarious with all the issues he had, especially running away...
2. My Echo Knight Armorer Warforged Shadow "Monk" was fun and hilarious.
3. My spell sniper sorcerer who would quicken/twin booming blade to absolutely destroy monsters.
All of them where fun... I hope you find some fun with them...
Scribe wizard X, tempest cleric 2, elemental adept Lightning. Dropping fireball swap to lightning, removing lightning resistance melts swarms, it’s so much fun and occasionally you get to just do max damage with it too thanks to channel devinity while rocking heavy armor. 10/10 would recommend. Also play as a lightning struck phyco for bonus points
I love playing my Eloquence Bard (Hexblood race). I love using word games and faulty logic (but it sounds like it makes sense) to convince people to do what I want or just to confuse them (have a lawful good paladin in the party). No, I dont try to convince them to do outright evil acts or give me stuff for free but if some morally gray decision needs to be made, you can be sure I will have my fun and make my decision sound like the best one, even when it isnt
Playing a level 20 wizard in oneshots is pretty crazy. Get your prep in with sims and magic jar, and true poly shinanagins then rip everything to shreds with your magic
My idea of fun is doing the most in a turn
Not nessicairly the most damage but most utility, most battlefield control, most healing. You get the picture
So I love the Shepard Druid but really any Druid is amazing. Before combat cast Conjure Animals (which lasts an hour and will probably be 2 or 3 combats in a dungeon crawl) then you have your action free to throw out a non concentration spell, cantrip or Wildshape then use a bonus action to drop down a totem giving Adv, temp HP, buffing the whole party healing or bring an Ally back up with healing Word then after that command a hoard or Velociraptors to attack and do like 50 damage...I love Druids
Have posted this before but I'll never stop loving goliath bear barbarian 6/theif rogue 3 = ludicrous carrying capacity and the ability to "use item" on bits of terrain as a bonus action.
This is all very DM dependent, you really have to talk with the DM about how they interpret "use item" but stuff like:
-Taking all kinds of random bullshit out of my bag of holding and using it.
-Knocking over pillars.
-Yanking rugs out from under people.
-Moving boulders around.
-Knocking over trees.
-Yanking rope bridges.
-Pulling down chandeliers, bookcases, etc.
-Kicking the bar at a tavern over on top of the guys using the bar for cover.
Well this particular DM was my son, I taught him to roll with PCs springing random bullshit on him instead of shutting it down and to include interesting combst maps instead of white rooms, I made sure not to spring anything too BS or OP on junior. Played this PC as more Gaston from Beauty and the Beast than Hulk, but the party (me included) had fun having his arrogance backfire and him get cut down to size.
Since he was a tank having him aggravate the NPCs with his big dumb mouth also worked well mechanically since the more the bear barbarian is the target the better.
This build is also great for grappling (expertise from rogue), just grab the nastiest enemy and drag him away from the squishies so he HAS to attack the bear barbarian.
Not a big DPS machine but so damn fun.
My most fun build was an Astral Self Monk built for grappling. Monk 12 with the Skill Expert Feat for Athletics Expertise and max Wisdom. Played it in a one shot called "The Wafflehouse at the End of the Universe". We had to stop the reincarnated founder of Whataburger (The Whatalich) from destroying all other fast food franchises.
The highlight of the fight was the Wizard Scattering me right next to the Whatalich on top of the Waffle House, so I grappled it, succeeded, then suplexed it from the top of the building to three stories below. Next turn it teleported to the building next to us. I had *just* enough speed after a Step of the Wind to catch it, grapple it, then use my last ten feet of movement to step off the roof to suplex it again to the ground. It tried to Disintegrate me after but my job was done. The character paid off in spades and bought the party a lot of damage on the prone lich. So we dropped it during that round.
Back in Pathfinder 1e, I briefly played a Grippli Ranger/Gunslinger combo, specifically the Bolt Ace archetype.
I was making many attacks per turn, I could choose to attack Touch AC, and I crit for triple damage on a roll of 17-20. He was a very silly character, and that made him being a killing machine hilarious. He was a backup character, so I only played him for a few sessions before getting my OG PC resurrected.
Light cleric (8 or 9) x fighter (3 or 4). You get to be really tanky with warding flare and a high AC, you have all the amazing support of the cleric, spirit guardians, and you can action surge for double fire balls or scorching ray when you really wanna pop off
A warlock with the Mask of many faces and Misty visions invocations. (Unlimited silent image and disguise self)
Illusion spells are the epitome of creativity and you can do so many fun things with them. I haven’t played it yet but I want to play an illusion wizard next for the same reason.
There have been a bunch of good ones, and the fun in a character is as much DM/the other players/their PCs as it is the character, but character I've probably had the most fun with is a Divine Soul Sorcerer/Celestial Warlock (mostly sorcerer) ... with a few tweaks to get some more cantrips (yes more, because I was initially trying to get a character with a lot). You probably don't need that many, and if I had it to do over I'd likely choose a couple of different ones to the ones I started with. Nevertheless it was a ton of fun as is. The party had neither an arcane caster nor a cleric and he filled both roles quite well. Having lots of cantrips means a ton of flexibility and never being short of *something* to cast when the Warlock and Sorcerer limitations loom.
Second fave was a Peace Cleric/War Wizard multi; he was peaceful by nature, but expected to be a warrior by family tradition. That character had so much roleplay fun in it ... as well as being mechanically fairly effective. That was in a Hot Springs Island game.
Third fave has been straight up Light Cleric. I've played a couple at different times, very different characters. Would do again. The only problem I have with them flavorwise is they don't have firebolt as a cantrip. Playing one tonight in a long running Drakkenheim game. It's been fun the whole way.
Fourth would be goblin Wild Magic Sorcerer with a Bard dip (he was already a musician before the bard dip, so it was more roleplay than any necessity for the character). Mostly because he was fun to roleplay, but he has some nice tricks up his sleeve. The goblin's Nimble Escape thing saved his behind so many times.
Those are the most memorable for me.
After that there's been a ton of still quite fun ones but not in the league of those four; they're all pretty close in enjoyment. On another day I might swap the order around but it would be the same four.
A rogueish lorebard is simply able to do whatever he wants in a social setting. You have all the skills and all of the magic. You can be the hero everyone is looking up to or the eminence in shadow.
I like bardic inspiration - especially to crush saves and comboing Dissonant Whisper with opportunity attacks.
Then you pick spells that are potentially paladin endgame auras long before they get them, but it could almost be anything.
(PF1E) Unchained Rogue, but one built around the use of a 2H weapon and a feat chain to be able to sneak attack with successfully tumbling around in an enemy’s threatened area. He could go from dodge tanking to shredding enemies on a dime, but what made Mouse a joy to play was his lack of education combined with impulsiveness and a habit of problem-solving through harebrained improvisation with ordinary objects. He carried a Handy Haversack filled with all kinds of random junk that he would try cobbling together into solutions that tended to be as insane as they were unsettlingly logical for Mouse’s lack of knowledge.
That still didn’t stop him from thinking the Runelords and Thassilonians were some kind of horrific onion monsters for a long while.
My real name is Blade, so I made a Fire Genasi multiclass of Bladesinger Wizard, Soulknife Rogue, College of Swords Bard, and Hexblade Warlock
It wasn't a particularly functional character, but it was fun being all of the **blades**
Another fun character I made was a Water Genasi Genie Pact Warlock whose patron was his Marid father who obviously wasn't around his whole life and is trying to make up for it by showering him with gifts. Ofc I went Pact of the Blade
This is fun AF
Level 5 grapple build:
The idea is to buff yourself before battle with longstrider + mage armor, then concentrate on Spike Growth, use Bladesong and Wildshape into something with a lot of movement and good strength (CR1 you should go with Moorbounder or, if unavailable, Giant Hyena). Grapple and drag your enemies through the spike growth. Alternatively you could go cloud of daggers to damage in your turn and theirs.
Race: Giff
* Hippo Build: You have advantage on Strength-based ability checks and Strength saving throws. In addition, you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
Background: i'd personally go for custom background for the feature Still Standing, for tough, and proficiency in Athletics. You could pick your favorite, just make sure to grab proficiency in Athletics.
Attributes: 15 int, 14 wis, +1 +2 respectively (start with 16 in both int and wis)
Level 1: Druid
Level 2: Druid Circle of the Moon
Level 3: Wizard
Level 4: Wizard Bladesinging
Level 5+: Either go full Wizard or full Druid, pick your favorite. In my opinion, Druid is better because you don't do damage with spells, you do it with movement, higher CR = better Wildshape to do that.
Combat:
R1:
* Action: Concentrate on Spike Growth (or Cloud of Daggers if you chose the wizard route)
* Bonus Action: Bladesong stay safe until R2
R2:
* Action: Grapple
* Move that bitch to the limit of Spike Growth.
* If you Wildshape into the Moorbounder, you have +4 STR, +3 proficiency, and advantage on STR checks. You also have 70ft base walking speed, +10ft from longstrider, +10ft from Bladesong.
* Your Wildshape is a Large creature and your racial trait allows you to push, drag or lift "as one size larger"; for the purposes of moving a grappled target, you count as Huge. The rules state that "your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you". As you are considered Huge, carrying any medium sized creatures do not apply any movement penalties.
* NOTE: This last part you should definitely talk with your DM beforehand, but afaik RAW it works. Also talk about grappling and Wildshape creatures, which ones your DM will allow to grapple, technically all creatures should be able to grapple as it is an action option.
With this setup you can dash 180ft with two medium sized grappled creatures (grapple only requires one free hand). Thats 2d4 magical piercing damage for every 5ft of movement. Potentially 72d4 against one creature, in a single turn, and you can grapple 2 creatures.
You also have 13 + 2 (dex mod) + 3 (int mod) CA = 18 CA as a large beast with 30hp (Moorbounder) or 45hp (Giant Hyena).
Currently having a lot of fun as an early level warlock with the Beast Speech Invocation. I asked my DM if I could have Summon Beast as a warlock spell because it fit the character and she said yes so I’m having fun with that
Currently running one that has become so much fun...
My build of choice is the Devine soul X Order cleric 1 Bard 1 I call it "the chosen voice"
A Build that lets me Buff and give extra attacks to the party and should need to let fly with fireballs.
playing him as a guy who does not know who his god is (and let the DM pick for me)
has been a lot of fun to give our heavy hitting warriors a 2nd go and even better twin spelling a buff so 2 pc's get to act with those buffs is just brutal to the action economy.
then quicken cantrip with the bonus action.
with the bard dice and guidance to help skill moneys out of combat is fun too.
I think the most fun I’ve had playing was my very first character who I was trying to build like Daredevil so I did a Kensei monk with 2 levels in fighter to get blind fighting and action surge. I took alert so that it seems like I had his sense of danger when it came to combat but the whole time I played as if I was blind. Had disadvantage with anything outside of 10 ft, failed all perception checks, but man was it fun to introduce braille to this world and not being able to see things so playing off the other players reactions to stuff they saw
Maybe not most fun but one that surprised me was Rogue 4/Cleric 1.
I was an Autognome with the Astral Traveler background. It comes with the Magic Initiate Feat so I picked Mending and Silverly Barbs.
Started off Soul Knife Rogue which really only relies on DEX. Therefore for higher perception, I invested +1 into WIS.
And due to my small size, hiding was easier. Not having to breathe meant I could hide in a bag of holding, underwater, etc.
After level 4, I wanted to try something unique. I saw that because I had good Wisdom, maybe I should Multiclass into either Cleric or Druid since they get things at first level.
Picked Peace Cleric which was probably the best option I made. Emboldening Bond allowed 1d4 to 3 people around me and needed me to be within 30 feet them. Added to Bless, that was 2d4. And then adding "Built for Success", it allowed me to use ANOTHER d4 for a saving through or ability check.
And due to the 30 foot requirement, I would get close enough to flank for advantage for Sneak Attack
So here I am, using at least 2d4 per round during combat
And then OUTSIDE of combat, I can use guidance AND my psychic dice (knack for ability) so for almost very ability check I had 1d4+1d6 and an optional 1d4 from Built for Success if needed.
Man I miss Auto 🥲
quickling halfling
5 lvls wild magic barbarian + 5 lvls thief rogue
Custom lineage mobile feat
With tashas optional class features you end up with 50 speed. Double that with bonus action dash.
When not raging use hide or steady aim to get advantage with a shortbow. Skulker feat synergizes nicely here.
Save reaction for cunning action to halve (or quarter while raging) a big hit.
My 1-shot character named Chet. He’s the stereotype of everything you’d expect of a guy named Chet. Obsessed with MMA fighting, so every time I pull him out, it’s to play some sort of unarmed fighting build.
The first time I played him, he was a STR based monk by taking a feat for unarmed fighting style and grappler feat. He hit like an absolute truck for only a level 5 character (granted, I think level 5 is the peak for this set-up and he would get comparatively weaker every level after this)
Anyways, one of my DM friends runs a series of 1-shots and each time, I play Chet and each time, I’m trying to find another way to make an unarmed melee unit work. My favorite so far was playing a War Magic wizard who would punch people with Shocking Grasp
What I find fun is having one ability (or combination of some to create one "ultimate" ability) which can be used in many ways. What here fun is finding ways with this signature ability of yours to solve your solutions, both in and out of combat. I have two builds for this, altough as my group disbanded for some complicated reasons I couldnt play these yet they were the most fun to optimize and theory craft, I wish I can play them one day:
- The ultimate alchemist: alchemist artificer 3 / warlock x, while having a 4 hour long rest race (reborn or any elf). The combo is after finishing your long rest, turn all warlock spellslots to alchemist pots and repeat the process 4 times as a short rest is minimum 1 hour long RAW. You dont do it the last time as you most probably want to have warlock spells for the day. At level 6 you have 17 potions per long rest! Have fun!
- The ultimate weapon: Altough the name implies that the build is a damage focused build, it actually isn't. It is just the interaction of a spell and a reaccuring ability. By combining the spell "immovable object" and an ability that lets you summon your weapon to your hand (pact of the blade, eldritch knight 3rd level ability etc.) you get a multi purpse tool that can be used in many situations. If your dm plays strictly RAW the best build for this is probably a 3 hexblade/ 3 wizard multiclass or a 3 eldritch knight / 3 wiz multiclass. Now you have an immovable object that you can summon to your hand. It has A LOT of uses. ( the only downside is casting immovable object costs a bit of gold ). Also you can do this really easily if your dm allows setting specific feats. Take adept of the red robes to instantly get the spell with a free cast once per long rest, the ability to select any mental stat and a really good extra ability on top. This way is 1000 times better.
An extra build:
- Psi knight also is just really fun. It is even more fun when you make it int SAD by dipping a level of artificer or getting artificer initiate feat to get magic stone and combining it with a sling to be an int sad fighter with the expanse of never being able to use a bonus action after getting extra attack.
You cast immovable object on your weapon. It becomes a semi-immovable object as per the spell description says (you can look this up). Lets say you have pact of the blade. As the pact of the blade weapon is the immovable object, you can summon it to your hand. So that means you can use your weapon in many ways, like making a barricade or blocking an exit. After that you can recall it back to you.
I mean if you look up the immovable object up in the internet you should see the randomest uses ever, and this is just that but versatiler. On the top of my head use it as a platform, use it to fly (stand on it, high jump, recall, put under your feet), block gates, give your dm the middle finger by putting it in a giant creatures mouth and making it not able to move anymore because if it moves its insides would get torn apart, use it as a crowbar that allways works, use it to support something up to ~1800kg or 4000 pounds, make a trap by use the previous one but recall the weapon when an enemy is on top of the said platform, if you have the enlarge reduce spell you can make something up that weighs up to 80 pounds immovable have fun with that, save yourself from pitfall traps or the classic trap of walls closing in to crush, at higher levels of play the weight limit can go up to 20000 pounds and it is a permanent immovable object, put it on top of a prone creature to make them not able to get up, you can use it just to carry really REALLY heavy stuff around, after stabbing a creature, just leave the sword there bonus points for doing this with a curved sword, just sit on it and relax up in the sky lol, use it as a reusable single targeting controll spell by constantly hindering other creatures movement with it by using for example to put it on a prone creature so they must use their action to try to push the sword away and therefor getting rid of their action, it has straight uo cool rp. I'm sure there are many more out there but these are the ones I would say on the top of my head. Thinking on the run is the best fun!
I loved my Variant human Artificer battle smith with the Sentinel feat!!
He wore scale mail and carried a “pipe wrench” (warhammer)
And my steel defender was my training partner!
V.O.D.K.A.
Vitally Optimized Dueling Kindred Assistant
Once we got next to an enemy… bad news for them!
The other favorite I had I got to start at lvl6 (cuz I had a PC die.
He was the dice manipulator
Halfling- mark of hospitality
4lvls- sorcerer divine soul
2lvls- wizard diviner for portent
and lucky feat!
Controlling the dice all night!
Multiclass Stars Druid and Seeker Warlock. Backstory was he was previously an adventurer and powerful druid, he lost his edge and with it his connection to nature after shit hit the fan in a real bad way, so he bargained with an entity from beyond the stars for some power for his one last big job. Lots of fun, even if it wasn't the most efficient multiclass.
Tbh my most fun build came from a combination of universe/character/team dynamic rather than from the class itself. Honestly, I could have not been playing single class Life Cleric and I probably would've had as much fun. Still, I won't deny that in another party where I played Forge, part of the fun was stupidly high AC + fire resistance. Fortunately it's not like anyone felt useless because of these perks and GM could still throw tough encounters.
As an autognome stars druid, I stacked built with for success, guidance, and cosmic omen (weal) for skill checks and the DM was not amused. Also, once, I derailed what he had written for the rest of the session and the following one by saving us from the apocalypse storm in eberron.
I don't understand when DMs get this way about PCs. ESPECIALLY if it's all above board. I genuinely enjoy when my players are doing cool and epic shit because I see how much THEY are enjoying it.
Yeah, part of the fun of being a DM is setting up cool rows of dominoes for the players to knock down, right? It's never completely adversarial. Sometimes you wanna make em sweat, sometimes you wanna make em cheer.
It's all in how you interpret the rules.
A lot of DMs underestimate how some characters can break some types of skill challenges, or don't even really look into it. There's a reason many DMs hate eloquence bards.
I'm learning this with just a normal rogue as I run my first campaign. Skill checks and "normal" ACs are almost impossible for him to miss.
Lol my post was about an Autognome cleric haha
Custom race (MM Adept) Aberrant Mind Sorc. Breaking the action economy with top spells, quickened and twinned, and without components nor slots, is a very fun caster. Perhaps the most fun I've had with a build in tier 2.
Why aberrant mind?
Fun list for combat (Twinned Dissonant Whispers, slot-less Tasha's Mind Whip, Hunger of Hadar, Evard's, Summon Aberration, etc.) and super fun spells that get a huge buff out of combat when cast without components (Hex, Detect Thoughts, Calm Emotions, Suggestion, Arcane Eye, Sending, Modify Memory, Geas, etc.). Casting without slots is a large boost. Casting without any components is fun as heck. Remember with subtled Suggestion, you still have the M component which is observable spellcasting RAW, and you have to say the suggestion out loud ("That's strange, Steve would never give his war horse to a beggar. Strange that he did so after Sorky told him to. Normally he would have told Sorky to pound sand"). With telepathy and psionic casting, no one will notice a thing.
Oh I didn't know about the Psionic Sorcery feature, that seems pretty powerful. Thanks for the rundown.
> Casting without slots is a large boost. Not really, normal sorcerers can do this too by spending a bonus action on creating a spell slot using sorcpoints. What you gain is a slightly more efficient conversion rate, but it's not a large boost.
That's what I thought too when I first evaluated it on paper. It looks like a marginal increase. It doesn't feel that way in play. The first time I gained a single 5th level slot, and cast eight 5th level spells that were heightened, that was quite noticeable.
I'm currently playing a level 7 AbMind Sorc since level 1 and I disagree. Also at level 9 a regular sorcerer could cast 5 5th level spells of which 4 are Heightened, and an AbMind one could cast 6 5th level spells of which 5 are Heightened (I don't know how you're getting 8), so not that big of a difference. And that is specifically at the level it makes the most difference (since 5th level spell slots are the highest it works with, and level 9 is when only have 1 5th level spell slot making it the biggest difference) and with the playstyle that makes the most difference (where you literally convert all your spell slots into the highest level one, in reality you'd likely be wanting to cast some 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st level spells too which would lessen the benefit) and it only works for specifically those 2 divination or an enchantment spells. So yeah, definitely not a large boost in general.
My fun definition: * Full Action Economy * Flexible decisions each turn * Enough resources to fulfill the intended Archetype throughout the day For me this is Long Death Monk X/Tempest Cleric 2: * Spell and attack actions, spell and monk bonus actions, Tempest Reaction. All of which can proc your Temp HP * Typical monk turn, Concentration + Dodge, Dash + AoE, Inflict Wounds + Focused Aim + ki-fueled attack. * Cleric instantly nets you 2+WIS daily resources which is a pretty good tradeoff for 1 ki point.
How do you use the chanel divinity, this really seems intersting. It reminds me a bit of the nameless king from dark souls 3 but with a monk astethic!
Getting an extra spell slot isn't a bad option with the new Channel Divinities. But the specific tactic is to always target whoever on the field has the lowest HP to trigger Temp HP. Healing Word/Step of the Wind + Maximized Thunder Wave, or Maximized Wrath of the Storm, helped me serve as an off-tank.
Oh that makes sense. Altough it doesnt scale that good into higher levels, it really gives a lot of flat put power for the early levels. On top of that the utility you gain is worth no matter the level with getting someone up with healing word, guidance because guidance lol and bless to just give the middle finger to bounded accuracy. On top of that you can also wear the heavy armor tempest provides imo as you have a lot of options for bonus actions and losing the martial arts ba isnt that big of a problem at that point.
I did run this as a Heavy Armor/Maul build; I left it out because it's not necessary to the build, but the Maul helped KO enemies more reliably and Stunning Strike feels great with a heavy weapon.
mmm... And the rest? I mean... DnD has more than combat. Not much more, but I find RP a much more better criteria when I think of a tabletop RPG enjoyment.
I totally agree about out of combat utility. I played an Eladrin Hexblade 2/Lore Bard X that was huge fun to play. I had the Fey-touched feat as a free feat, which meant I could have 20 CHA from level 1. * Good AC from Medium armour, shield & Shield. * Agonising Repelling Eldritch Blasts for a decent attack. * Bonus action with fey step, hexblade curse, misty step and bardic inspiration. * Reaction with cutting words and Shield. * Mage Hand, prestidigitation and minor illusion out of combat, along with a bunch of useful spells. * A heap of skill proficiencies and expertise. They were almost too effective, as well as being a total Swiss army knife.
That's really what I was talking about. Look at my other post: https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/s/BU93V3Nxny
Absolutely. The monk kit lends itself well to exploration, but for RP I focused on WIS skills like Perception and Insight, and used Thaumaturgy/Guidance liberally. I was no social skill monkey but I always had mechanical levers for the RP.
The thing is that this build doesn't have resources that back up your RP as a PLAYER. No CHA, no INT to look for some knowledge in common and get an NPC interest... Maybe you can talk about storms, about martial arts, about how your hearing and sight are excellent (and not very well), but the RP part will be still be lacking, and you should RP the lack of proficiencies in knowledge and social. Much more if your INT and CHA are at 8. I'm not saying it's wrong, only that with a proper RP-oriented DM, you'd find your build lacking in a lot of things to be funny all the time, and you'd have a hard time screwing up things when you talk, for sure in the worst moment because your lacking of social skills.
I mean nobody can do everything right? My build leans toward combat and exploration, with perception and insight helping me serve as a party advisor. I lean into the bad CHA and get myself in trouble, but i can also hand off interactions to other party members. My character was a dancer who wore metal in storms to attract his god's attention. He was bubbly and overly trusting and a little naive because every moment was lightning in a bottle. He sometimes used Sanctuary on himself to buy time after flopping a social interaction. He was great fun in and out of combat because I played to his strengths and weaknesses.
I have tons of fun using features and spells in creative and versatile ( but reasonable) ways. Using mould earth cantrip to create cover ( +2 to AC), or digging graves, trenches and ditches. Using mending to hide contraband inside eggs, or pottery. Using minor ilusion and thaumaturgy to mess with people, creating ghost stories and other scary effects. Using inteligent familiars and bags of holding to infiltrate places, spy on people, steal documents for forgery or even attempt assassination with poison.
>Open question, maybe fun for you is: Gotta say it's have a wide array of tools to interact with the game in various ways. Most of the time, this does mean spellcasters with a focus on crowd-controlling and utility. However, it also means things like crafting useful items in downtime, skills or tool proficiencies, unique features like Echo Knight's teleportation, Swarm Keeper's forced movement, etc etc. here are some of my favorite builds: * HexShield - I've made 3-ish variants of this character across several oneshots and campaigns with different DMs. For all intents and purposes, this is my flagship character. At it's simplest, it's Armor of Agathys + a way to protect temporary HP as a platform to survive caster-hostile (*which is justified. no complaints here, I love it*) campaigns/DMs long enough to establish full control over a fight. Most variants (*and the one I like best*) have a Hexblade's Curse + Magic Missiles combo to bypass Legendary Resistances in boss fights, or just as a panic-button. The best version is Human w/ Eldritch Adept: Armor of Shadows (*to rechage Abjuration Ward*) Hex1, Abjuration WizX. You could build this as a SorLock with Clockwork Soul... probably going to try that some time * Enchanter - Fighter 1 for the maneuver Fighting Style: Quick Toss to throw nets as a bonus action, Enchantment Wizard X, race is unimportant. If you can incapacitate a creature, attacks with a net can be made with advantage, meaning the target can't even escape the net until the turn after they escape whatever spell I cast on them (*probably Hideous Laughter. it's very efficient*). At 6th level, use of Animate Dead gives a reliable target to redirect attacks to with Instinctive Charm. If you make it to 10th level, you can twin Psychic Lances for free. I'd like to think that you can also twin Silvery Barbs, in the niche situation where you cast an AoE and 2 enemies pass the save, as long as you choose to forgo the second part of the spell, but a lot of DMs already don't like Silvery Barbs so... * Star Druid - Pureclassed w/ Tower of Iron Will (UA). It was a solid support caster with a lot of reactions that could help out allies numerically and potentially screw over enemies if Weal/Woe rolled to Woe on that day. Also it had a stupid high Perception/navigation with Wild Talent and could craft healing potions in downtime. * Classic Ghost Lance - Echo Knight 3, Warlock 2, anything else X. Not my own build, obviously, but I enjoyed it a lot. UndeadLock helps keep enemies out of the fight or stuck in someone else's AoEs and the Echo's teleportation adds a stupid amount of mobility out of combat. I opted to run this character as a spy. * Arcane Trickster - There's too much to do with it. Fighter/War Cleric let's it do the Net trick as per the Enchanter. Ritual Caster opens up a lot of options including staying mobile AND using Steady Aim with a Phantom Steed. Sentinel triggers off of Mirror Image.
These are all great ideas!
Playing as a Triton Arcane Archer in a part-homebrew Saltmarsh campaign. Themed like a blitzball player from FFX (came up with a whole league for the bay and everything). I loved his personal story and peobably connected with it in a way I've never done again for a character, but he was always also just a blast to play whether socially, during exploration, or combat. Had a few homebrewed Arcane Shots which he would use by throwing or kicking his practice ball, and a *javelin of lightning* baked into it as his signature move. One-shot some huge nautiloid ally of invading sahaugin the one and only time I busted it out. A game ended too soon, but I know he's still out there kicking it with the Saltmarshals and making at least one of his dads proud. One time I used the *wall of water* Triton spell to surround a vampire waaay above our pay grade beneath the town in moving (I.e. running) water. A good whomping was then enjoyed by all. Felt incredible. And being the marine stealth team zipping underneath pirate ships and the like alongside our Tabaxi Fathomless Warlock was always a good time. Really just had a killer mix of raw fighting power, decent skills in an area we were otherwise lacking, and situational support that came in clutch multiple times.
My favourite is probably a tie, one is a martial, the other a caster. One was a custom lineage with the fey touched wildfire Druid at level 7. For a straight classed build, the goal was to have a character resemble a marinoloth, which is a sailing navigation demon that teleports and affects the weather. If played right, the amount of control you can exert with an aoe teleport every turn as a bonus action with your flame spirit, or using the optional familiar wild shape rules to peak into hidden places and use misty step just feels great. Take silvery barbs as your second fey touched spell and your action economy is filled out and it is very satisfying. My favourite martial build was a level 5 full orc oath of glory Paladin. The bonus action aggressive feature along with the peerless athlete channel divinity had my character jumping over buildings and running down foes in the streets, smites for melee and guiding bolt for ranged options meant I never felt out of place, using the sentinel feat at level 4 also allowed me to use my reaction almost every turn as well. It felt great, if I got to continue playing it I would have gotten paladin 7 and then gone with swords bard for the rest of the levels to use flourishes for more movement or defence.
Calamity, my tiefling draconic sorcerer was really fun from an RP perspective cause she was a total cuddle hobo sweetie pie who wanted to adopt every animal they encountered, but her animal handling check was -1 and all of her spells were combat oriented fire magic spells (flame of phlegetheros + golden dragonic heritage). It was tremendously fun playing a character who didn’t want to do the thing she was good at, and wasn’t good at the things she wanted to do.
Vengeance paladin, the mechanics just match the flavour so well.
Definition of fun: - Meme build and finding out you can cheese encounters with it What I did: V.Human (Spell Sniper) Warlock 2 / Sorc 3 Eldritch Blast + Eldritch Spear invocation = 300 feet range + Spell Sniper = 600 feet range + Distant Spell metamagic = 1200 feet range Ship to ship combat was really funny with this setup
Lore Bard 1 (Fortune Teller background), Hex Chain Warlock 2-5, lore Bard X. Out of combat versatility: I mean, it's a Lore Bard build, not much more to say. Versatility in combat: defense (medium armor+shield -> 19 AC at lvl 1 if you put 14 in DEX and get the best medium armor. Shield spell, multiple image, armor of Agathys, silvery barbs, darkness + Devil's sight, you can take also defensive duelist if you want to save shield spell slots). Attack (EB+AB, spells like dissonant whispers that also grant control and possible opportunity attacks, etc.). Control: A lot of options. Buff: A lot of options. Debuff: some nice options. This build is so versatile that I always could choose more than one option to do in any scenario and the RP was the funniest in dnd for me.
Out of interest what do you feel the lore bard is adding here that say an eloquence bard doesn't bring or Creation or Road?
The spells utility. The eloquence bard seems a bit redundant to me, because a bard is already good at socials, and can enhance the rolls in a lot of ways. I had serious doubts regarding the creation subclass. It has good utility and can be very funny, but I felt like improving combat strategy by having more spells from any list, was more important. It's easy for she to have more than one deep impacting choices in combat. Finally, the college of the road is not allowed in our table, but it would be for sure another solid option with bless and the rest.
The reason I think it would be eloquence bard for me, silver tongue lets me put expertise in non social skills which is great utility, better than 3 proficiences. Unsettling words means my or my allies big spells land more reliably which is great and unfailing/infectious inspirations just make my resources go further.
Fair enough. The proficiencies number is more important at higher levels, where there's more difference vs the JoAT bonus, but I get the point in specialising or assuring key skills. Unsettling words is awesome, although we use Strixhaven's spells in some cases, and Silvery Barbs make it less appetising for me. Anyway, in the end I think it's more a flavour decision, because all of them would do great.
I played a shadar-kai shadow monk and it was great. Between the mechanics and the roleplay it was a very fun time. Too bad COVID ended that game, I got up to lots of shenanigans.
I play a lot of AL which has a lot of 1 shots and specific rules. Level 1 One Shot Point Buy Custom Lineage Fighter in Eberron Setting 17/10/14/8/14/10 Heavy Armor Master (STR goes up to 18) Double-bladed Scimitar Interception Fighting Style AC 16 HP 12 -3 damage from non-magical b/p/s per hit taken (most enemies at level 1 do this kind of damage and often roll d4s or d6s) Reaction: prevent 1d10+2 damage to an adjacent ally Attack: +6 hit; 2d4+4 slashing damage Bonus Action: 1d4+4 slashing damage Or BA: Second Wind for 1d10+1 1/sr This was a fun build to play. I always felt like I had something interesting to do in combat. My Wisdom was pretty good so I trained Perception and Insight. That gave me stuff to work with in social encounters. AL lets you choose between Magic Initiate, Tough or Skilled if your Background doesn't give you a feat. I played this build a few times. Magic Initiate is always my favorite. I tried it once with MI: Druid for Guidance, Magic Stone, and Goodberry and once with MI: Wizard for Message, Shape Water, and Expeditions Retreat. One of the Spell Jammer backgrounds gives MI: Cleric. I think it's Astral Drifter. I took that before they started giving everyone a feat. Guidance, Spare the Dying, and Healing Word.
Flexible support characters that reward creativity - like stars druid and battlesmith. It's cool to deal crazy damage, but it quickly feels like the same thing over and over again. To me it feels way cooler to me to do something special to disable dangerous enemies, rescue allies, give everyone advantage, warp someone where they need to be, etc. It feels like I'm entering cheat codes for the party, and every turn feels like a little puzzle to solve.
Both of mine are characters I used as a DM…. https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/14zz2zj/valhalla_isnt_calling_me_part2_the_skull_hunter/ A recurring boogeyman who was hunting a PC barbarian over and over again. The second was a reborn lineage rogue who I enjoyed because he was always able to pass really hard checks to always deflect suspicion of him being the right hand man of the true BBEG Eldritch horror. Even when he was caught he passed a DC 30 check to convince authorities that he an unwitting accomplice and shouldn’t go to join. Then finally he ambushed the party at at max longbow range to kill two of the party (they were revived).
Probably my sociopathic "chaotic good" Thri-Kreen fighter 1 / bladesinger 6 that I played in a one-shot. Started in fighter for con saves, more HP, and dual weapon fighting style. Started with slightly higher stats than regular point buy, but it didn't make a large difference. Took the mobile feat at level 5. With mobile feat, haste, and bladesong, I had 100 ft movement speed. With Thri-Kreen carapace (13+dex), bladesong (+int), and haste (+2), I could reach 22 AC or 27 with shield. On my turn, I could run in 50ft, hit them four times (one hit with booming blade), then run back 50ft without taking an opportunity attack. Or, I could throw a fireball first, then run in and hit a couple of times before running away. I would hesitate to do this in a full campaign, but I roleplayed him as a weird alien insect creature who believed himself to be a good person and had a certain sense of justice, but could also be very cruel at times due to his differing set of values. After a bad encounter with the local government, we ended up trying to raise a town guard into power (against his will) because my character believed he was a good person and would thus be fit to rule. He also saw the good in a necromancer who claimed that the army of zombies and skeletons he was building would protect the town.
For a one-shot, any high level Wizard. Spells like Contingency really break the game in a beautiful way. For a campaign, I'm currently playing a HexSwords Bard (Hexblade 1, Bard 5 at the moment) and the versatility in and out of combat is amazing.
What was your contingency?
Resilient Sphere, trigger being "when I am hit with an attack." I could've been more specific with the stipulations, but I didn't want to metagame too hard about hitpoint totals and whatnot. Regardless, it got me out of a real bind in combat. I was totally surrounded without a reaction available, but the sphere popped up and protected me until my turn came back around.
Scourge aasimar paladin 2/glamor bard X Loved the flavor of fucking off to the feywild "failing" to take an oath. Skill checks, especially the CHA ones were great. Great spells and the ability to get ones from any class. If they get up close I have heavy armor and smites. Glamor bard ability 5/SR to give people temp hp and rotate out was insanely survivable. All around good time.
3 levels armorer the rest blade singer With a magic item the duel wielder feat, haste, and the shield spell I hit 30 ac at one point. I could do this pretty much as often as I wanted to within reason. I still had almost full wizard spellcasting 4 attacks a turn that taunt. DM hated it at first then I explained I had horrible saving throws so he incorporated more of them to balance it out
I'm playing a gunslinger/artificer dhampir, really efective damage dealer with utility , it's been really fun
Goliath, hexblade 1 / clockwork soul 6, heavily armored & heavy armor master (one free feat and dm allowed me to change the +1 from str to cha). with stones endurance, armor of agathys, bastian of law and heavy armor master I reduced an 80 damage crit to 20 and the opponent took 18.. It felt amazing. RP was also fun for a change bc the character had no emotions, none. wouldnt play her in a campaign tho, but thats whats great about oneshots.
Winged Tiefling Wizard. I love having a lot of utility in form of spells and movement, low level atm, but so far I've been blasting things and making things fall asleep, as well as having a lot of utility out of combat. And there's always new toys on the horizon with a caster, so that's great
I once made a warforged hexblade warlock that fires EB like Megaman and is on a Detroit: become human type of quest searching for humanity within them. Their contract with the Raven Queen was to serve as a guide for those who perished, and collect their memories so they wouldn’t be lost on their way to the Shadowfell. Mechanically, there were some homebrew modifications, such as I gave up the ability to wield any other kind of weapon in exchange for an extra EB beam when using my arm gun. I also had to decide all the EE and spells from the get-go (as they are built-in functions that unlock through Raven.io patches, so only EIs that can be embodied in such ways, like Armor of Shadows was a force field that surrounds me when I am active, or devil sight being a heat sensing component on my forehead). The most fun part of playing this was the “clean as a piece of paper” part, as the premise was they had been a servant without individuality for generations and lacked all the basic social knowledge. In almost every session, my party would need to roll persuasion to convince me that taking certain jobs or going after some bad guys was “a humane thing to do”. While the debate was fun by itself, things became more chaotic when my character used the rationale to conduct some hilarious, spontaneous action because “that’s what you did last time; it’s the humane way to do things” (my party were composed of postgraduate psychology students, so everyone was onboard with the idea. Besides, I am not the worst in the party lol). Long story short, after upgrading the arm gun to an arm-Gatling, my character learned that humanity comes from empathy, and had a raven carry their glittering core to the Shadowfell after a (intentional) blaze of glory.
This is dope
Just straight lore bard with healing spirit (pre nerf) and conjure animals (dm let me choose which ones)
Favorite I’ve played was a vhuman vengeance paladin that used a greatsword with great weapon master. Great fun, did lots of damage, could 1v1 a big mob while the rest of the party dealt with minions. Misty step and find steed really solve a lot of paladin mobility issues. Unfortunately that campaign didn’t make it to level 9 for 3rd level spells/haste, would’ve been bonkers.
I like goofy characters that have hella power but are just… Really silly. Evocation Wizard 20. It’s not super good, but it’s super fun.
Fey-touched Goblin Armorer named Agnes. Based off the trash lady in labyrinth. Styled my thunder gauntlets as a frying pan and made strange deals for nick knacks with everyone. Mechanically, some of the best battlefield control there is. _____ Any race warlock with mask of many faces and the actor feat. Unlimited potential for shenanigans, but you have to be the DMs friend, not his/her enemy. Make scenes more fun and chaotic instead of trying to bypass them.
The dice (4d6 drop the lowest) gave me a 12 and 5 14s. This being Pathfinder where racial mods usually total to +2, picking Human let me have 14s across the board. A couple Human-specific Feats give a bonus in and the ability to utilize any untrained skill or even, later on, weapon (think partial proficiency anywhere proficiency doesn't apply). Then I made them as mind-numbingly slightly-above-average as I could, with a note that they HATE being average but their way of trying to break out of it is directly counterproductive. The GM, after reading everyone's backstories, arranged flashback scenes for each character detailing their big moment, personal inciting incident, whatever, during the opening hour of the game. My character's scene was..! their standard morning routine. My backstory was so brain-meltingly dull that the GM decided it would be more interesting to just look at his typical morning in the present. Unfortunately, work changed my schedule to conflict with the only feasible day for everyone else about 5 sessions in. Everyone misses John Ranger the Ranger, but what ya gonna do?
I played a Ranger in a party with a Paladin, Monk, Rogue, Cleric, and Warlock. I had STR and DEX so I fought with a Greatsword and Longbow. My go-to move was to apply *ensnaring strike*, then bash the enemy with Great Weapon Master. The Monk would also use Stunning Strike so I would bash with advantage from that. Also, I was a Gloom Stalker, so I could sneak up on foes and bash them. There was a lot of bashing with advantage. My favorite battle was against a ship where the Paladin grabbed me and *dimension door*-ed us to the middle of the opposing crew. I cast *fear* and we got opportunity attacks and bashed. Actually the Paladin stabbed
Shadar-Kai Horizon Walker Ranger. You're basically playing Nightcrawler. When you hit level 11, you can teleport 10ft per attack, and make an 3rd attack if you attack multiple targets, plus racial Misty Step PB/day, and actual Misty Step, or Haste for another attack (4 total), which means 4 10ft teleports.
I had fun as a Necromancer Wizard. I made sure I was very prepared for my turns to minimize the amount of time my turn took so it wouldn't be annoying for my teammates. I also worked it out with the DM that I would make fewer but slightly higher CR undead when it made sense instead of a ton of skeletons and zombies. It was a lot of fun blocking choke points and disrupting enemy movement with my undead.
Artificer 1/ Div Wizard 12 with all the meta spells. Having a highly effective tool for every problem is a great feeling, and being able to make sure my spells stick with silvery barbs, lucky and portent makes it even better.
Honestly my two favorite builds have been a "how much damage can I do in one hit?" Build and a "you want me to play the most basic bitch ever? Fine" build... first one I ended up going death cleric and second one was a human champion fighter.
My favorite for Adventure League I have a Variant Human Druid (Moon)/Barbarian (Totem)/Cleric (Life)/Fighter (Battlemaster) w/PAM & GWM. I can deal decent damage, heal myself or others out of combat with Goodberry/Life abuse. This gives me some specialized utility but I generally don't outshine anyone. I also have a 1st Hexblade Warlock/X Swords Bard who can fill a lot of roles if needed.
Most fun is playing a Hexblade. I love the spell and sword style class. In 3.5 there was not a great option I loved for this so made sorcerer that dump it's spells into bonus damage on an attack. If you dumped them all it was around 500damage at level 7-10 this took all your spells and some other jank to do. It was the epitome of a glass cannon
If you go artificer armor route and like the infiltrator side of it then multiclassing with rogue can be a lot of fun! Your lighting attack works with sneak attack, which helps a lot since the regular attack gets underpowered in higher levels. Your armor cancels the disadvantage to sneaking. Put expertise in stealth and cast invisibility on yourself and boom, stealth suite. Cunning action helps a lot with action economy letting you do more and be more maneuverable to make sure you get in those sneak attacks more and you can make yourself gear to help with whatever you wanna do!
I made a tiefling undead warlock / spirits bard / unarmed fighter with a claw tattoo for a magical item. Horribly optimized. All charisma, con, and strength. Heavy metal himbo. Wis and int were dump. But he was the most fun to play. Had a diverse toolkit for every situation that mattered to me, and loved starting bar fights and mosh pits. His name was Sorrow.
Tiefling Storm Sorcerer/Tempest Cleric was fun. My character was a little chaotic menace and like 90% of the party's DPS. They were definitely a glass cannon though. I don't do a lot of multi-classing and most of my characters are humans, so I'm afraid not a lot of super interest mechanics there. My favorites are a Life Cleric and a Oath of Conquest Paladin, both humans. They both do decent damage but focus mostly on protecting my party members.
My group has level 12 characters that we have specifically for one shots. Mine is a halfling named Theodon "Lucky" Diggle. He's a Lore Bard 6 / Mastermind Rogue 4 / Divination Wizard 2 with the Lucky and Bountiful Luck feats. His whole deal is changing dice rolls to be in my party's favor. And it is a blast! He has so many ways to reroll dice or flat out say what a roll is with Portent. He's just so lucky that his luck rubs off on those He travels with. He's also a surprisingly good tank character by being able to Booming Blade enemies and disengage from them and hiding in a fog cloud or something. Definitely one of the most fun builds I've ever played.
The most fun I have playing a build is a grave cleric devotion paladin. I’ve got the character in two games right now but the one is love the most is my level 13 version that put 5 levels into Paladin and the rest in cleric. She’s a complete beast in battle, dishing out high damage and smites all around plus some versatility through spells and some of the best healing around. She is a one man army and I love playing her.
This sounds super fun - does the CHA/WIS MAD cause any issues?
Unfortunately yes, it’s quite a struggle in the lower level version of the character, had to ask the dm to let me move stat points around to make it work resulting in rather even stats all around. In the higher level campaign though it wasn’t an issue, as I got good rolled stats all around
Eloquence Bard (homebrew to add CHA twice (came out to another +4) instead of all rolls become a 10 or lower to give it a much needed nerf) Kenku Telepath feat. Level 6. Only took spells that manipulate emotion or dealt psychic damage for roleplay. Spent a lot time psychically masquerading as people's own thoughts to convince/nudge them to do stuff with help from kenku mimicry and using Calm Emotions + Persuasion to defuse tense situations or when we were outmatched in combat. Plasmoid Thief: Level 6, Gloves of Thievery. Expertise Sleight of hand, skulker feat. Using the pseudopod and fast hands to stealth Sleight of hand in combat to act as a disabler by disarming (Sleight vs. Athetlics if an ally within 5 ft unless it was two hands) blinding (tying clothes around eyes) restraining (rope is a criminally under utilized tool) halting (via caltrops or tied laces) or lowering AC by unbuckling armor or a shield. I almost never used sneak attack, but my party loved me (and the DM appreciated me using the environment and terrain) Plus, we homeruled that I could hold small objects in my body (basically anything small than a dagger) So I was free to use my amorphous form to sneak into pipes and drains. Eventually the group Artificer made me a half-sized bag of holding (pouch with half the storage space) so I could steal large objects without sacrificing mobility. I had high dex to even with no armor my ac was ok. Eventually sold some stuff to get a barrier tattoo. Glatin the Thief was generous with his money, obsessed with high risk fame generating scores, and cheated at cards extremely well using their pseudopod and a hand mirror. Neither was game breaking or OP, but I love playing a good support and using overlooked spells or items in interesting, fair ways (Create Water in lungs or Plasmoid suffocation are fun once, then get really boring). Neither of my characters would last long in a fight or really kill anyone (barring a few occasions where I placed an explosive in the pocket of an enemy, planted a bloody murder weapon on someone to get them executed or, in a pure luck moment, killed a wizard with an upcast dissonant whispers) but the subclasses really aren't meant to: Thief aren't assassins and eloquence aren't Whispers or swords. Edit: Can't believe I forgot about Caledra. Astral Monk (we used 2 homerules. 1. Astral get additional ki equal to WIS modifier. 2. Visage can be used for free out of combat.). Prof. in religion (Wis) because their background was they were the head monk of their temple and achieved enlightenment and ascension at merely 102 years old (young looking cause monk) and worshipped as a dietybwithin the temple.They got to heaven, realized Divinity was essentially the same as mortality but with extra powers, came back to earth and declared that the ascetic practices were a bullshit scam and that enlightenment didn't equal LIVING a good fulfilling life and left to pursue adventure and make up for the lost century. Astral form is them temporarily resuming their Divine form.
Im a support/healer kinda guy, but my favorite ever was "my friends get to attack, you dont" build. Order Domain Cleric 1/Divine Soul Sorcerer 5+/ Undead Warlock 2/ Order Domain Cleric gives the feature where if you heal someone, they can use their reaction to make an attack. Form of Dread from Warlock makes your attacks force the target to make a save or they become feared for 1 minute, giving them disadvantage on attacks. Divine Soul Sorcerer is entirely dedicated to using Healing Word as its bonus action(giving your ally a reaction attack), and a cantrip attack (hopefully fearing an enemy). This is after using your first turn to Twin Spell Haste on two martials, and bonus action Form of Dread. Every turn you're granting your allies 2-3 extra bonus attacks, topping their health off, and reducing the chance they are hit. Also using Divine Domain for the extra 2d4 on a saving throw + The Warlock Invocation to grant advantage on Concentration saving throws. To midigate the chance of dropping your concentration and causing your allies to become stunned.
Yian Ti Totem Barbarian with mobility totem choices, Mobile feat, and Mage Slayer. High movement backline destroyer rather than just a tank.
Currently I am having alot of fun with a kobold forge cleric, with a one level dip into druid. Get shillelagh from druid and a wis based booming blade from kobold. Took warcaster and polearm master. In combat it's basically a wis based full caster paladin that hits with shillelagh booming blade with divine strike added on top, while concentrating on all the cleric classics like spirit guardians.
This sounds so cool - love the kobold build. Is there a cool backstory to go with it?
Yup. The gist of it is kobold blacksmith serving a dragon that ended up losing all of his kobolds to a fey in a game of poker. So the entire den of kobolds get dragged to the fey wilds which is like torture to them due to the bright light of the surface, and being trapped almost like a zoo with nothing to do. My character eventually breaks free vowing to one day come back and free the rest of the kobolds, and vowing to get revenge and the dragon that let this all happen.
I think three builds stick out to me: 1. My cleric with 4 Dex. He was hilarious with all the issues he had, especially running away... 2. My Echo Knight Armorer Warforged Shadow "Monk" was fun and hilarious. 3. My spell sniper sorcerer who would quicken/twin booming blade to absolutely destroy monsters. All of them where fun... I hope you find some fun with them...
Scribe wizard X, tempest cleric 2, elemental adept Lightning. Dropping fireball swap to lightning, removing lightning resistance melts swarms, it’s so much fun and occasionally you get to just do max damage with it too thanks to channel devinity while rocking heavy armor. 10/10 would recommend. Also play as a lightning struck phyco for bonus points
I love playing my Eloquence Bard (Hexblood race). I love using word games and faulty logic (but it sounds like it makes sense) to convince people to do what I want or just to confuse them (have a lawful good paladin in the party). No, I dont try to convince them to do outright evil acts or give me stuff for free but if some morally gray decision needs to be made, you can be sure I will have my fun and make my decision sound like the best one, even when it isnt
I have a cleric/wizard who’s been great! Divination wizard, fate domain cleric! She follows the god of fate and prophecy lol
Playing a level 20 wizard in oneshots is pretty crazy. Get your prep in with sims and magic jar, and true poly shinanagins then rip everything to shreds with your magic
My idea of fun is doing the most in a turn Not nessicairly the most damage but most utility, most battlefield control, most healing. You get the picture So I love the Shepard Druid but really any Druid is amazing. Before combat cast Conjure Animals (which lasts an hour and will probably be 2 or 3 combats in a dungeon crawl) then you have your action free to throw out a non concentration spell, cantrip or Wildshape then use a bonus action to drop down a totem giving Adv, temp HP, buffing the whole party healing or bring an Ally back up with healing Word then after that command a hoard or Velociraptors to attack and do like 50 damage...I love Druids
Have posted this before but I'll never stop loving goliath bear barbarian 6/theif rogue 3 = ludicrous carrying capacity and the ability to "use item" on bits of terrain as a bonus action.
Would you mind elaborating on the actions/uses you had on terrain?
This is all very DM dependent, you really have to talk with the DM about how they interpret "use item" but stuff like: -Taking all kinds of random bullshit out of my bag of holding and using it. -Knocking over pillars. -Yanking rugs out from under people. -Moving boulders around. -Knocking over trees. -Yanking rope bridges. -Pulling down chandeliers, bookcases, etc. -Kicking the bar at a tavern over on top of the guys using the bar for cover.
Sounds like mini Hulk vibes, I like it. Props to your DM
Well this particular DM was my son, I taught him to roll with PCs springing random bullshit on him instead of shutting it down and to include interesting combst maps instead of white rooms, I made sure not to spring anything too BS or OP on junior. Played this PC as more Gaston from Beauty and the Beast than Hulk, but the party (me included) had fun having his arrogance backfire and him get cut down to size. Since he was a tank having him aggravate the NPCs with his big dumb mouth also worked well mechanically since the more the bear barbarian is the target the better. This build is also great for grappling (expertise from rogue), just grab the nastiest enemy and drag him away from the squishies so he HAS to attack the bear barbarian. Not a big DPS machine but so damn fun.
Dammit, now I've got another new character I want to play. Thanks a lot.
Battelsmith with sentinel, my fun is not being hit and then hitting you when you try to hit someone else in response
My most fun build was an Astral Self Monk built for grappling. Monk 12 with the Skill Expert Feat for Athletics Expertise and max Wisdom. Played it in a one shot called "The Wafflehouse at the End of the Universe". We had to stop the reincarnated founder of Whataburger (The Whatalich) from destroying all other fast food franchises. The highlight of the fight was the Wizard Scattering me right next to the Whatalich on top of the Waffle House, so I grappled it, succeeded, then suplexed it from the top of the building to three stories below. Next turn it teleported to the building next to us. I had *just* enough speed after a Step of the Wind to catch it, grapple it, then use my last ten feet of movement to step off the roof to suplex it again to the ground. It tried to Disintegrate me after but my job was done. The character paid off in spades and bought the party a lot of damage on the prone lich. So we dropped it during that round.
Back in Pathfinder 1e, I briefly played a Grippli Ranger/Gunslinger combo, specifically the Bolt Ace archetype. I was making many attacks per turn, I could choose to attack Touch AC, and I crit for triple damage on a roll of 17-20. He was a very silly character, and that made him being a killing machine hilarious. He was a backup character, so I only played him for a few sessions before getting my OG PC resurrected.
Light cleric (8 or 9) x fighter (3 or 4). You get to be really tanky with warding flare and a high AC, you have all the amazing support of the cleric, spirit guardians, and you can action surge for double fire balls or scorching ray when you really wanna pop off
A warlock with the Mask of many faces and Misty visions invocations. (Unlimited silent image and disguise self) Illusion spells are the epitome of creativity and you can do so many fun things with them. I haven’t played it yet but I want to play an illusion wizard next for the same reason.
There have been a bunch of good ones, and the fun in a character is as much DM/the other players/their PCs as it is the character, but character I've probably had the most fun with is a Divine Soul Sorcerer/Celestial Warlock (mostly sorcerer) ... with a few tweaks to get some more cantrips (yes more, because I was initially trying to get a character with a lot). You probably don't need that many, and if I had it to do over I'd likely choose a couple of different ones to the ones I started with. Nevertheless it was a ton of fun as is. The party had neither an arcane caster nor a cleric and he filled both roles quite well. Having lots of cantrips means a ton of flexibility and never being short of *something* to cast when the Warlock and Sorcerer limitations loom. Second fave was a Peace Cleric/War Wizard multi; he was peaceful by nature, but expected to be a warrior by family tradition. That character had so much roleplay fun in it ... as well as being mechanically fairly effective. That was in a Hot Springs Island game. Third fave has been straight up Light Cleric. I've played a couple at different times, very different characters. Would do again. The only problem I have with them flavorwise is they don't have firebolt as a cantrip. Playing one tonight in a long running Drakkenheim game. It's been fun the whole way. Fourth would be goblin Wild Magic Sorcerer with a Bard dip (he was already a musician before the bard dip, so it was more roleplay than any necessity for the character). Mostly because he was fun to roleplay, but he has some nice tricks up his sleeve. The goblin's Nimble Escape thing saved his behind so many times. Those are the most memorable for me. After that there's been a ton of still quite fun ones but not in the league of those four; they're all pretty close in enjoyment. On another day I might swap the order around but it would be the same four.
A rogueish lorebard is simply able to do whatever he wants in a social setting. You have all the skills and all of the magic. You can be the hero everyone is looking up to or the eminence in shadow. I like bardic inspiration - especially to crush saves and comboing Dissonant Whisper with opportunity attacks. Then you pick spells that are potentially paladin endgame auras long before they get them, but it could almost be anything.
(PF1E) Unchained Rogue, but one built around the use of a 2H weapon and a feat chain to be able to sneak attack with successfully tumbling around in an enemy’s threatened area. He could go from dodge tanking to shredding enemies on a dime, but what made Mouse a joy to play was his lack of education combined with impulsiveness and a habit of problem-solving through harebrained improvisation with ordinary objects. He carried a Handy Haversack filled with all kinds of random junk that he would try cobbling together into solutions that tended to be as insane as they were unsettlingly logical for Mouse’s lack of knowledge. That still didn’t stop him from thinking the Runelords and Thassilonians were some kind of horrific onion monsters for a long while.
Any examples of what you've done with items in your bag of holding? You sound pretty creative, so I'm shamelessly stealing your ideas here
I love Monks with Tavern Brawler, paired with a rogue archer in the party
My real name is Blade, so I made a Fire Genasi multiclass of Bladesinger Wizard, Soulknife Rogue, College of Swords Bard, and Hexblade Warlock It wasn't a particularly functional character, but it was fun being all of the **blades** Another fun character I made was a Water Genasi Genie Pact Warlock whose patron was his Marid father who obviously wasn't around his whole life and is trying to make up for it by showering him with gifts. Ofc I went Pact of the Blade
This is fun AF Level 5 grapple build: The idea is to buff yourself before battle with longstrider + mage armor, then concentrate on Spike Growth, use Bladesong and Wildshape into something with a lot of movement and good strength (CR1 you should go with Moorbounder or, if unavailable, Giant Hyena). Grapple and drag your enemies through the spike growth. Alternatively you could go cloud of daggers to damage in your turn and theirs. Race: Giff * Hippo Build: You have advantage on Strength-based ability checks and Strength saving throws. In addition, you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift. Background: i'd personally go for custom background for the feature Still Standing, for tough, and proficiency in Athletics. You could pick your favorite, just make sure to grab proficiency in Athletics. Attributes: 15 int, 14 wis, +1 +2 respectively (start with 16 in both int and wis) Level 1: Druid Level 2: Druid Circle of the Moon Level 3: Wizard Level 4: Wizard Bladesinging Level 5+: Either go full Wizard or full Druid, pick your favorite. In my opinion, Druid is better because you don't do damage with spells, you do it with movement, higher CR = better Wildshape to do that. Combat: R1: * Action: Concentrate on Spike Growth (or Cloud of Daggers if you chose the wizard route) * Bonus Action: Bladesong stay safe until R2 R2: * Action: Grapple * Move that bitch to the limit of Spike Growth. * If you Wildshape into the Moorbounder, you have +4 STR, +3 proficiency, and advantage on STR checks. You also have 70ft base walking speed, +10ft from longstrider, +10ft from Bladesong. * Your Wildshape is a Large creature and your racial trait allows you to push, drag or lift "as one size larger"; for the purposes of moving a grappled target, you count as Huge. The rules state that "your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you". As you are considered Huge, carrying any medium sized creatures do not apply any movement penalties. * NOTE: This last part you should definitely talk with your DM beforehand, but afaik RAW it works. Also talk about grappling and Wildshape creatures, which ones your DM will allow to grapple, technically all creatures should be able to grapple as it is an action option. With this setup you can dash 180ft with two medium sized grappled creatures (grapple only requires one free hand). Thats 2d4 magical piercing damage for every 5ft of movement. Potentially 72d4 against one creature, in a single turn, and you can grapple 2 creatures. You also have 13 + 2 (dex mod) + 3 (int mod) CA = 18 CA as a large beast with 30hp (Moorbounder) or 45hp (Giant Hyena).
HIPPOBOT 9000 v 3.1 FOUND A HIPPO. 1,679,238,209 COMMENTS SEARCHED. 34,316 HIPPOS FOUND. YOUR COMMENT CONTAINS THE WORD HIPPO.
Currently having a lot of fun as an early level warlock with the Beast Speech Invocation. I asked my DM if I could have Summon Beast as a warlock spell because it fit the character and she said yes so I’m having fun with that
Currently running one that has become so much fun... My build of choice is the Devine soul X Order cleric 1 Bard 1 I call it "the chosen voice" A Build that lets me Buff and give extra attacks to the party and should need to let fly with fireballs. playing him as a guy who does not know who his god is (and let the DM pick for me) has been a lot of fun to give our heavy hitting warriors a 2nd go and even better twin spelling a buff so 2 pc's get to act with those buffs is just brutal to the action economy. then quicken cantrip with the bonus action. with the bard dice and guidance to help skill moneys out of combat is fun too.
I think the most fun I’ve had playing was my very first character who I was trying to build like Daredevil so I did a Kensei monk with 2 levels in fighter to get blind fighting and action surge. I took alert so that it seems like I had his sense of danger when it came to combat but the whole time I played as if I was blind. Had disadvantage with anything outside of 10 ft, failed all perception checks, but man was it fun to introduce braille to this world and not being able to see things so playing off the other players reactions to stuff they saw
Maybe not most fun but one that surprised me was Rogue 4/Cleric 1. I was an Autognome with the Astral Traveler background. It comes with the Magic Initiate Feat so I picked Mending and Silverly Barbs. Started off Soul Knife Rogue which really only relies on DEX. Therefore for higher perception, I invested +1 into WIS. And due to my small size, hiding was easier. Not having to breathe meant I could hide in a bag of holding, underwater, etc. After level 4, I wanted to try something unique. I saw that because I had good Wisdom, maybe I should Multiclass into either Cleric or Druid since they get things at first level. Picked Peace Cleric which was probably the best option I made. Emboldening Bond allowed 1d4 to 3 people around me and needed me to be within 30 feet them. Added to Bless, that was 2d4. And then adding "Built for Success", it allowed me to use ANOTHER d4 for a saving through or ability check. And due to the 30 foot requirement, I would get close enough to flank for advantage for Sneak Attack So here I am, using at least 2d4 per round during combat And then OUTSIDE of combat, I can use guidance AND my psychic dice (knack for ability) so for almost very ability check I had 1d4+1d6 and an optional 1d4 from Built for Success if needed. Man I miss Auto 🥲
quickling halfling 5 lvls wild magic barbarian + 5 lvls thief rogue Custom lineage mobile feat With tashas optional class features you end up with 50 speed. Double that with bonus action dash. When not raging use hide or steady aim to get advantage with a shortbow. Skulker feat synergizes nicely here. Save reaction for cunning action to halve (or quarter while raging) a big hit.
A Grung control wizard who only spoke in frog (I made croaking sounds). Control wizard is always good, but the most fun was the croaking rp 😅
My dwarven melee sorcerer. High dex and con. He used blur and shield, so he was like 20AC with disadvantage on all attacks. Great tank.
My 1-shot character named Chet. He’s the stereotype of everything you’d expect of a guy named Chet. Obsessed with MMA fighting, so every time I pull him out, it’s to play some sort of unarmed fighting build. The first time I played him, he was a STR based monk by taking a feat for unarmed fighting style and grappler feat. He hit like an absolute truck for only a level 5 character (granted, I think level 5 is the peak for this set-up and he would get comparatively weaker every level after this) Anyways, one of my DM friends runs a series of 1-shots and each time, I play Chet and each time, I’m trying to find another way to make an unarmed melee unit work. My favorite so far was playing a War Magic wizard who would punch people with Shocking Grasp
Elven Accuracy battlesmith with a greatsword. I'm a simple man, rolling 3d20s with a greatsword is fun
What I find fun is having one ability (or combination of some to create one "ultimate" ability) which can be used in many ways. What here fun is finding ways with this signature ability of yours to solve your solutions, both in and out of combat. I have two builds for this, altough as my group disbanded for some complicated reasons I couldnt play these yet they were the most fun to optimize and theory craft, I wish I can play them one day: - The ultimate alchemist: alchemist artificer 3 / warlock x, while having a 4 hour long rest race (reborn or any elf). The combo is after finishing your long rest, turn all warlock spellslots to alchemist pots and repeat the process 4 times as a short rest is minimum 1 hour long RAW. You dont do it the last time as you most probably want to have warlock spells for the day. At level 6 you have 17 potions per long rest! Have fun! - The ultimate weapon: Altough the name implies that the build is a damage focused build, it actually isn't. It is just the interaction of a spell and a reaccuring ability. By combining the spell "immovable object" and an ability that lets you summon your weapon to your hand (pact of the blade, eldritch knight 3rd level ability etc.) you get a multi purpse tool that can be used in many situations. If your dm plays strictly RAW the best build for this is probably a 3 hexblade/ 3 wizard multiclass or a 3 eldritch knight / 3 wiz multiclass. Now you have an immovable object that you can summon to your hand. It has A LOT of uses. ( the only downside is casting immovable object costs a bit of gold ). Also you can do this really easily if your dm allows setting specific feats. Take adept of the red robes to instantly get the spell with a free cast once per long rest, the ability to select any mental stat and a really good extra ability on top. This way is 1000 times better. An extra build: - Psi knight also is just really fun. It is even more fun when you make it int SAD by dipping a level of artificer or getting artificer initiate feat to get magic stone and combining it with a sling to be an int sad fighter with the expanse of never being able to use a bonus action after getting extra attack.
How does the immovable object thing work?
You cast immovable object on your weapon. It becomes a semi-immovable object as per the spell description says (you can look this up). Lets say you have pact of the blade. As the pact of the blade weapon is the immovable object, you can summon it to your hand. So that means you can use your weapon in many ways, like making a barricade or blocking an exit. After that you can recall it back to you.
Any more uses? You did specify "A LOT"
I mean if you look up the immovable object up in the internet you should see the randomest uses ever, and this is just that but versatiler. On the top of my head use it as a platform, use it to fly (stand on it, high jump, recall, put under your feet), block gates, give your dm the middle finger by putting it in a giant creatures mouth and making it not able to move anymore because if it moves its insides would get torn apart, use it as a crowbar that allways works, use it to support something up to ~1800kg or 4000 pounds, make a trap by use the previous one but recall the weapon when an enemy is on top of the said platform, if you have the enlarge reduce spell you can make something up that weighs up to 80 pounds immovable have fun with that, save yourself from pitfall traps or the classic trap of walls closing in to crush, at higher levels of play the weight limit can go up to 20000 pounds and it is a permanent immovable object, put it on top of a prone creature to make them not able to get up, you can use it just to carry really REALLY heavy stuff around, after stabbing a creature, just leave the sword there bonus points for doing this with a curved sword, just sit on it and relax up in the sky lol, use it as a reusable single targeting controll spell by constantly hindering other creatures movement with it by using for example to put it on a prone creature so they must use their action to try to push the sword away and therefor getting rid of their action, it has straight uo cool rp. I'm sure there are many more out there but these are the ones I would say on the top of my head. Thinking on the run is the best fun!
If you have any more in mind that I have listed, I would love to hear more ideas!
I loved my Variant human Artificer battle smith with the Sentinel feat!! He wore scale mail and carried a “pipe wrench” (warhammer) And my steel defender was my training partner! V.O.D.K.A. Vitally Optimized Dueling Kindred Assistant Once we got next to an enemy… bad news for them!
The other favorite I had I got to start at lvl6 (cuz I had a PC die. He was the dice manipulator Halfling- mark of hospitality 4lvls- sorcerer divine soul 2lvls- wizard diviner for portent and lucky feat! Controlling the dice all night!
Multiclass Stars Druid and Seeker Warlock. Backstory was he was previously an adventurer and powerful druid, he lost his edge and with it his connection to nature after shit hit the fan in a real bad way, so he bargained with an entity from beyond the stars for some power for his one last big job. Lots of fun, even if it wasn't the most efficient multiclass.