An Eclectic Collection of Fun and Effective Builds

[Skylivedk]

Thank you, Ludic. This post and the thread about Out of Combat abilities for martials are my two favourite in a very long time.

For my next character(s), I've been theory craft brewing a bit on one of the following off-kilter tanks and would like your take on what you find most playable.
With prep (ie post Baleful Curse) calculations can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

1. The Stab of All Trades
Character concept is to leverage most of the different Cha-based classes for a character that can do pretty well across the board: skills, tanking and nova. Resources are on purpose spread to be always on, SR and LR.
Hexblade 5 (AB+Grasp of Hadar/Devil's Sight+Eldritch Smite)
Vengeance Paladin 6
(Lore) Bard 6
DS/Shadow/Dragon Sorc 3 for Quicken+Twin. There might be enough Bonus Actions for this to be redundant in which case more Bard levels or some Barb for the DMG resistance might be super kosher.
EDIT:
I tested burst with a Battlemaster. With Action Surge and Baleful Curse down and double smite, you're looking at 205 DPR without advantage and 277 with advantage at level 20 vs AC 19. Probably a bit higher since this is with only Precision Attack and no sup dice for damage.
Quickened Booming Blade is clearly worse with a DPR of 138 and 204. Hence Battlemaster is clearly better for burst.

Another variation is to go for:
Hexblade 5
Conquest Paladin 7
Whisper Bard 5
Battlemaster 3
You end up with pretty insane nuke (triple smite + Action Surge), good control from all the fear and lockdown that follows a decent amount of skills and spell slots.



2. The Tank of All Trades
Hexblade 1
Arcane Trickster 9
Whisper/Lore Bard 10
The idea here was for a tanking rogue (with Armour of Agathys + Uncanny Dodge) that has an extreme amounts of skills and expertise along with good saving throws (Wisdom Prof from Warlock, Res:Con + Evasion get you all major bases covered) plus some crazy control due to AT 9 + Bard spell list. Whisper deals out a bit more punishment whereas Lore further emphasises the skill monkeyness to absurd levels and adds cutting words (combos well with AT9 and is occasionally better for tanking than Uncanny Dodge).
DPR is less impressive, but you still have good rounds with 110 and 168 (Baleful Curse, Bardic Inspiration, Psychic Blades and Elven Accuracy all included)

3. The Never-Ending Ward
Either the neo-classic Hexblade 2/3 (for infinite Mage Armour charges of the Arcane Ward) + Abjurer X

OR, my variation:

Svifnerblin Gnome
Conquest Paladin 3
Abjuration Wiz X
The idea here being combining Smites with AoA with the sexiness of being a Wizard and the combined anti-magic might of abjuration wizards and gnomes. Extremely hard to get rid off, extremely hard to ignore. A bit too MAD for my taste, but could be fun.
14/10/14/16/8/13
15/10/13/16/8/13
15/10/14/15/8/13
as starting stats. Second array for those who'd like Res:Con, 3rd for those who start above level 8.
You want the Gnome Racial, Warcaster and/or RES:CON and Int. There's other possible cut off points at Conquest 4 and 6... even a case for 7 and 9.

... yeah, I know. AoA has stolen my heart. The damage potential of that spell is just crazy if you can mitigate the damage taken by the Temp HP.

EDIT:
The build works perfectly fine with Pala 2, Hexblade 1, Abjurer X.

I'd love to see your take on the Nuclear Wizard and your favourite version of the Iron Scoundrel build.