An Optimizer's First Look at Xanathar's Subclasses

[Sception]

It was pointed out in another thread that the cha to attack and damage is extended to your pact weapon, but does not remove the initial feature, so you can potentially TWF with hexblade so long as you take the blade pact.

The original build was chainlock, not bladelock.

The sad part is PAM is almost universally better than TWF, in every case except pure dex characters.

Hence why I suggested PAM if switching to bladelock.

[Easy_Lee]

It was pointed out in another thread that the cha to attack and damage is extended to your pact weapon, but does not remove the initial feature, so you can potentially TWF with hexblade so long as you take the blade pact.

The sad part is PAM is almost universally better than TWF, in every case except pure dex characters.

The story of my life, I'll take this home, I'll work all night, to find a place in-siiide, for two weapon fightan...

Ahem. Anyway, let's try again.

Half-elf: 17 Charisma and 14 Dexterity and Constitution
Fighter 1: TWF
Hexblade 3: Devil's Sight and Agonizing Blast, Pact of the Tome, Shillelagh
Fighter (Samurai) 6: Elven Accuracy and Dual Wielder, Precision Attack, Charisma goes to 18
Hexblade X

You cast shillelagh on your offhand weapon and use your Hexblade feature on the main hand. You can use TWO QUARTERSTAVES! I mean, if you want to. Or carry a longsword (katana) in a wooden scabbard that's also a club, and cast shillelagh on said wooden scabbard so you're fightan with your katana and its scabbard - honorable weeaboo.

And of course pick up find familiar for your animal companion, so you're a Mary Sue magical girl princess weeaboo with fightan magic

[Finlam]

Edit: just realized that samurai get wisdom prof at 7 and their advantage feature at 3. In that case, if may not even be worth it to go to 7. Take them to 5 for extra attack and put the rest of your levels in warlock.

If your stats allow it (a big IF) a single level of revised ranger would also net you adv in the first round of combat and were a few other nice to haves. Between the 6 rounds of free advantage from Samurai and the free first round advantage from Ranger, you'd be set to have at least one full combat with advantage ... with 0 effort effort.

[miburo]

Hmm, so here's an idea: Fighter (Samurai) 7 / Chain-pact Hexblade X, Half-elf, Eleven Accuracy, Dual Wielder, TWF. Why do such a thing?

• SAD with 18 AC from medium armor (half-plate refluffed as Karuta or some other Japanese-sounding word)
• TWF: longsword / longsword = katana + wakazashi, Shadow Blade when you need to TWF even harder (special Shonen Anime form)
• Superior familiar for scouting and snarky side-conversation
• Since you barely need stats besides charisma, you can believably say your character is a skinny half-elven lass
• Create your own advantage with samurai feature, familiar, or by using the Darkness + Devil's Sight trick - reliable advantage to fully utilize Elven Accuracy
• Extra attack from fighter
• Action surge
• Good in melee or at range with agonizing EB
• Call yourself a Swordsage just because you can.

Did I just create a katana plonker weeaboo fightan magical girl Mary Sue with a demonic sidekick? Sorry guys, I had to.

Wouldn't you rather use a nodachi or zanbato (greatsword) with GWF feat and Defense fighting style? You'll get that bonus action attack whenever you kill someone, and you will be killing people with all those GWF +10 damage bonuses. You'd need blade pact instead of chain pact though.

Also waifish magical girl wielding a giant sword just seems way more hilarious and mary sue like.

[Sception]

I'm feeling this - though to be fair there is /also/ a fine tradition of magical girls with polearms of various kinds, so a bladelock version could work, but getting that all important animal guide gets harder then, requiring a feat (which in turn would probably require variant human), or else a third class in the build somewhere. A few levels of shadow sorcerer, perhaps, for find familiar and darkness you can see through without burning an invocation?

And, of course, paladin as always is a tempting substitute for samurai here. Less weeaboo, but with conquest or oathbreaker you can be even more edgy. Particularly oathbreaker, for the cha-to-damage aura? Find steed in place of find familiar for your animal friend? Or drop some of the edge and go for a typical paladin, maybe trade all-but-one hexblade level for celestial sorcerer, and go for a brighter, more traditional magical girl?

There are a lot of intriguing gishy builds available these days, between sorcadin, sorlock, pallock, fighter multiclasses, etc, and Xanthar brings a ton of potentially relevant subclasses to the mix, between samurai, kensai, hexblade, sword bard, shadow sorcerer, celestial sorcerer, conquest paladin, etc etc etc. I could even see some sort of storm barbarian/sorcerer working out. You could probably get a whole party of differently themed and hued magical weeaboo girls together, each with more unnecessarily complicated & twinked out build than the last.

I would love to play in such a group. What would the requirements be?

* must be some sort of gish - able to cast at least a few spells, but reasonably skilled with a chosen weapon, whether melee or bow, which should be preferred at-will combat option.
* must have a magical animal friend (find familiar or similar)
* must be a tween-to-teen girl, duh. Maybe one tuxedo mask type boy, but that's probably better as a DMPC guest star.
* not sure if elf/half elf should be required?
* power of friendship a must
* cha favoritism heavily encouraged
* deconstructive swerve into existential horror optional

[Zalabim]

Haste is, indeed, a trap for many classes, especially those without CON save proficiency, but Swift Quiver is just as good as it gets for ranged Rangers/Bards. Bonus action casting and extra attacks on the same turn is not easy to complain of. The bad part is not being able to use Hunter's Mark along with it.

Swift Quiver doesn't actually give you the extra attacks on the turn it's cast. For a character already using their bonus action, Haste has a lot to recommend it over Swift Quiver, starting with its lower level.

Not sure how haste is waste for a martial. You cast the spell and it immediately takes effect giving you the bonus AC, bonus speed, adv on DEX saves AND an additional action that can make an attack. So if you are a ranger, you're only sacrificing one attack to cast the spell.

It's not the end all be all but it's still solid. Better than solid if cast on a rogue who can now sneak attack twice a round with little problem.

It's more a waste for a martial to self-cast it. For the Horizon Walker, you cast the haste spell then make 1 attack instead of 2 or 3 attacks. Next turn you get another attack from haste and you maybe break even. You don't realize an offensive benefit until round 3 or 4 and that's well offset by how much more valuable "damage right now" is compared to "damage three turns from now". A rogue that can self-cast haste loses basically nothing though risks just as much with concentration, and both Haste and Swift Quiver work better when you can cast them just before the fighting starts.

[Rogerdodger557]

Sneak attack is a "once per turn" ability, so I don't think Haste allows it to happen twice - despite the extra attack.

I believe they are referring the the Scout Rogues level 17 ability: Sudden Strike. Allows for a bonus action sneak attack, as long as it is used on a different target.

[CravenRaven]

I wish they hadn't done away with the Divine/Favored Soul's Blessed Countenance and the doubled Charisma skill proficiencies it had. I love social/trickster characters and I had so many ideas involving the Actor feat and Subtle Spell. A warlock dip with Mask of Many Faces? Yes, please.

ButI'm still excited for when this book shows up on my doorstep soon. New rules to help streamline things (and keep my DM from making strange houserules), new subclasses for making neat multiclasses, and new art (!!!).

[Vaz]

It's not. AL only cares about on demand flight at 1st level. Beyond that it's fine.

Why? Does AL not equip enemies with ranged attacls or put you through a height limited dungeon?

[DivisibleByZero]

I believe they are referring the the Scout Rogues level 17 ability: Sudden Strike. Allows for a bonus action sneak attack, as long as it is used on a different target.

Nope. Subclass doesn't matter if the Rogue is Hastened.
Use the Haste action to attack, apply sneak attack.
Use your Bonus action for whatever you want.
Use your Action to Ready an attack upon X criteria.
Your turn is over.
Use your reaction to attack with the Readied action, and apply sneak attack off turn.

[Biggstick]

I think an overlooked feature of the Cavalier is it's level 15 ability. It requires that the Cavalier simply move 10' in a straight line, make a weapon attack, and you as the Cavalier can decide to have it make a Strength save against your Strength DC. Most people might look at this and see it's use while wielding a melee weapon. I see it's use for a primarily Strength based Cavalier as being able to pull out a Longbow and shoot at a creature flying away from the party. Since the ability only specifies weapon attack, you can use this ability with any weapon you're wielding, including ranged ones. It can only be used once per turn, but other then that limitation, you can use it as many times as you want while only worrying about running out of arrows/bolts.

While it might go a bit against the spirit of the ability, I think it's great to build in the capability to "bring a Dragon down" from flight on your standard Fighter without magic. It really adds to the defensive flavored abilities of the Cavalier by giving it a strong offensive option that can be used with both melee weapons and ranged weapons. It's also awesome in that it is on top of a bevy of other neat defensive-minded features that actually encourage a Player to play a Fighter beyond level 11 or 12 (where I see on these boards as being the highest people ever go when multiclassing Fighter with something else).

[rooneg]

Why? Does AL not equip enemies with ranged attacls or put you through a height limited dungeon?

They don't want to write low level adventures under the assumption that the party will have easy access to flight, because it tends to make a lot of stuff really easy. This isn't a hard and fast rule (i.e. there are adventures that hand out Winged Boots or Brooms of Flying in tier 1), but they don't want it to be as easy as "you just make a character who has a fly speed because it's a racial ability". That's why aarakocra aren't allowed as a PC race (at least not without some sort of special campaign certificate that says you can use one), and why the winged tieflings are banned, etc.

Once you get out of Tier 1 it's less of a big deal, since Wizards pick up Fly at 5th level people writing adventures for level 5 and up are used to having PCs with access to flight.

[Zene]

Why? Does AL not equip enemies with ranged attacls or put you through a height limited dungeon?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Asking “why” for AL restictions only leads to pain and frustration

[Grod_The_Giant]

Inquisitive strikes me as tailor-made for archers-- Swashbuckler might be better at landing sneak attacks in melee, but Insightful Fighting is near-guaranteed SA damage, and unlike a melee type you're not as likely to use your bonus action to Disengage.

[History_buff]

I've had great fun playing College of Swords (as UA but updated to Xanathar's)/fighter.

Currently level 10, 7 Bard 3 fighter (eldritch knight)

And let me tell you, I think I've made a viable bard tank. Between defensive flourish, shield (spell), defensive fighting style, and a cloak of protection he's got 20 AC base (21 after next ASI) with a top potential AC of 33.

We used to have a barbarian that had to leave due to scheduling issues so my character became tankish by necessity. It's worked out very well. It's a pretty fun gish build.

[Zene]

Inquisitive strikes me as tailor-made for archers-- Swashbuckler might be better at landing sneak attacks in melee, but Insightful Fighting is near-guaranteed SA damage, and unlike a melee type you're not as likely to use your bonus action to Disengage.

I guess it's useful in situations where you can't bonus action Hide (which gives advantage, so is strictly better when it works). But then are you taking Expertise in both Stealth and Insight? Or just hoping enemies' Deception checks are low enough it won't matter?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I guess it's useful in situations where you can't bonus action Hide (which gives advantage, so is strictly better when it works). But then are you taking Expertise in both Stealth and Insight? Or just hoping enemies' Deception checks are low enough it won't matter?

Depends on how often you can hide mid-fight, I guess; I can't imagine it's possible all that often. You really don't need Expertise in Insight; an awful lot of monsters have crappy Cha scores, and even the ones with decent values generally don't have any ranks in Deception.

[Gnomes2169]

To me, the Monk's ranged option with the Kensei is just so you can take the Longbow as your second weapon (with a versatile weapon as the other one, probably the Longsword), so that when the party decides to fight at range, you can still contribute instead of standing there impotently, waiting for someone to close to melee (like the monk in our last campaign had to a few times).

It's just an option to help you keep up a little bit. Not a bank breaker in the slightest, but the ability to get a +3 longbow (for 3 ki for 1 minute) that deals a little extra damage (gotta get that extra monk die and damage progression, since kensei weapons are monk weapons, you know) is much better than what monks have now.

... The kensei still belongs in melee if it can reach it, though. No arguing there at all.

[Biggstick]

To me, the Monk's ranged option with the Kensei is just so you can take the Longbow as your second weapon (with a versatile weapon as the other one, probably the Longsword), so that when the party decides to fight at range, you can still contribute instead of standing there impotently, waiting for someone to close to melee (like the monk in our last campaign had to a few times).

It's just an option to help you keep up a little bit. Not a bank breaker in the slightest, but the ability to get a +3 longbow (for 3 ki for 1 minute) that deals a little extra damage (gotta get that extra monk die and damage progression, since kensei weapons are monk weapons, you know) is much better than what monks have now.

... The kensei still belongs in melee if it can reach it, though. No arguing there at all.

The Monk is still completely viable at range, as they can all use Shortbows. Range on those is 80/320? I can't quite remember the long range number, either way, it's long enough for the Monk to be useful/contribute when engaging in ranged combat. A Monk could be argued to be an extremely efficient long-ranged combatant, as they eventually gain proficiency in all saving throws, Evasion, the ability to remove fear/charm effects, and the ability to reduce incoming missile damage. Even though a Shortbow is a decent enough ranged weapon, if a Monk somehow gains proficiency in Longbows (and grabs the Sharpshooter feat, though it's not necessary), they can be peppering damage throughout a fight without EVER being at risk of taking damage or being effectively removed from combat.

[BrusLi]

Making potentially 11 attacks a round at level 20 is pretty game breaking.

I think you miscalculated how many attacks,can a Samurai do at level 20.
That's because you forgot that Fighting Spirit is a bonus action like extra attack from GWM is.
Thus leaving you with 4 base + 4 action surge + 1 rapid strike + 1 reaction AoO(if we count in situational) ..making it= 10,not eleven.
But 9 reliable attacks, 8 are made with Advantage and 1 regular.

And if we take a look at Battlemaster at lvl 20 can achieve the same thing,but his advantage becomes a little bit more situational,since he must knock the target prone on his first attack,so the rest with action surge can have advantage.
So he can make 1 regular without advantage, 3 with advantage against prone, + 4 more with AS and bonus 1 from GWM(crit),= 9 total,8 with adv,1 regular.
But if creature is larger than what trip attack allows,he cant make them with advantage with his kit and samurai can,regardless of creature SIZE.
Downside is,samurai doesn't have Superiority dices to add to his damage if he wants to go all in above regular AS combo ...but they each have their own pros/cons..situational stuff.

Samurai looks like he is more DMG oriented and definitely has less utility than the BM,but has more reliable DMG on demand,if you will and much better capstone than BM.

Now the question is to Multiclass or not..since small percent of campaigns ever reach level 20,should you MC with samurai?
Bearbarian comes to mind,because of Resistance to all,or maybe zealot..all extend your life.. no more than a 3 levels in those.

But at what point? Fighter lvl 11 gives you third attack,level 15 gives you rapid strike..all of which are great..hmm

[PeteNutButter]

I think you miscalculated how many attacks,can a Samurai do at level 20.
That's because you forgot that Fighting Spirit is a bonus action like extra attack from GWM is.
Thus leaving you with 4 base + 4 action surge + 1 rapid strike + 1 reaction AoO(if we count in situational) ..making it= 10,not eleven.
But 9 reliable attacks, 8 are made with Advantage and 1 regular.

And if we take a look at Battlemaster at lvl 20 can achieve the same thing,but his advantage becomes a little bit more situational,since he must knock the target prone on his first attack,so the rest with action surge can have advantage.
So he can make 1 regular without advantage, 3 with advantage against prone, + 4 more with AS and bonus 1 from GWM(crit),= 9 total,8 with adv,1 regular.
But if creature is larger than what trip attack allows,he cant make them with advantage with his kit and samurai can,regardless of creature SIZE.
Downside is,samurai doesn't have Superiority dices to add to his damage if he wants to go all in above regular AS combo ...but they each have their own pros/cons..situational stuff.

Samurai looks like he is more DMG oriented and definitely has less utility than the BM,but has more reliable DMG on demand,if you will and much better capstone than BM.

Now the question is to Multiclass or not..since small percent of campaigns ever reach level 20,should you MC with samurai?
Bearbarian comes to mind,because of Resistance to all,or maybe zealot..all extend your life.. no more than a 3 levels in those.

But at what point? Fighter lvl 11 gives you third attack,level 15 gives you rapid strike..all of which are great..hmm

I may have miscalculated, but I'm not actually wrong. You don't technically need to use the fighting spirit as your bonus action and could have advantage form another source. So 11 is feasible. I suppose 12 is if someone hasted you, but that's just silly.

You're right. In practice 9 is probably what you'll get. Overall I feel the class is a middle ground between the simplicity of the champion and the usefulness of the battlemaster. It's power level is probably also somewhere in between those two.