5e Throwdowns #5: Queso Fresco

[Dork_Forge]

Wow, we're five into these already, I'm very happy at the warm response to these contests and theirs been some truly inspirational builds so let's keep em coming!

The concept: Queso Fresco

This times theme is a suggestion that seemed fun, the idea is simple: Queso Fresco, the freshest cheese of the summer! The aim of this is to highlight some of the cheesey and overpowered things you can come up with using the newest supplements, as such your build must include something from either Explorer's Guide to Wildemount or the Mythic Odysses of Theros (no supernatural boons or hollow one) and it must be more than just a background (race/sublcass etc.). Let's see how cheesey we can get!

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Some rules for guidance:

-No UA, only officially published materials

-You must include a stat array (Point Buy or Standard Array)

-Build to 20 with insights on how the build hands at levels 5, 11, 17 and 20 (include hp and AC at each point for each of reading)

-Multiclassing and feat optional rules in play

-Variants for races available (V. Human, Dragonmarks, SCAG variants)

-No magic items unless you have a way to create them from a class feature

-Normal starting items and gold, mundane armor upgrades be assumed to happen during tier 2 (so you can mention Plate/Half Plate in your commentary but you can only include it in snapshots for levels 11,17 and the final 20).

-Catchy names and fluff are not a requirement but are always nice to read

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Suggested format:

Level 20 level split:

Race:

Stats: Str x Dex x Con x Int x Wis x Cha x

Background:

Starting level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 5th level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 11th level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 17th level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 20th level and final thoughts:

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Voting:

To sort the wheat from the chaff we'll vote on builds and declare a 'winner' (a concept that will hopefully continue in future threads and put the contest into this), to vote simply make a post quoting the build you want to vote for (snipping the content to keep things getting out of hand) and say something that indicates you're voting e.g. +1, get's my vote etc.

-Each user only gets one vote but you can edit your post at any time before the deadline to change your mind.

-If you submit a build, you must vote for someone for your entry to be considered valid

-A user can submit more than one build but they must be in separate posts (and not back to back to respect forum rules)

-You cannot vote for yourself

-Each throwdown thread will run for 7 days after which no new builds will be accepted for contention, when the build deadline has closed votes will be accepted. The voting deadline will be five days after the build deadline, votes will be tallied and the winner announced (any vote edits after the deadline has passed will also not be counted, if the original vote cannot be seen the vote will be null and void).

Queso build deadline/Voting opens: 29/06/2020 @ 9pm BST/4pm ET

Voting deadline: 04/07/2020 @ 9pm BST/4pm ET

PLEASE NOTE THAT VOTING IS NOW ONLY ONCE THE BUILD DEADLINE HAS PASSED.


I'm looking forward to what all the optimisers around here come up with so without further ado, let's THROWDOWN

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Previous winners:

Throwdown #1: The Gish - Sithlordnergal's 'The Undying Barbarian'

Throwdown #2: The Terminator - Ludic Savant's 'The Regenerator'

Throwdown #3: The Solo Tour - Ftafp's 'The Hex Spoon'

Throwdown #4: Powergamer's Potluck - BobtheWizard's 'The Shadow Knight'

[SociopathFriend]

I take it then the recent Legends of Runeterra reveal is not on the table?

[Zonugal]

Mythic Odysseys of Theros isn't even out, physically, is it?

[Dork_Forge]

I take it then the recent Legends of Runeterra reveal is not on the table?

As it's not official content it's not valid in this throwdown unfortunately.

Mythic Odysseys of Theros isn't even out, physically, is it?

Physically no, but it's been out online for a few weeks now.

[Bobthewizard]

@spiritchaser and I have both submitted builds using the echo knight in previous contests. Could we update those builds since they both seem better suited to this contest, or are you just looking for new builds?

[Dork_Forge]

@spiritchaser and I have both submitted builds using the echo knight in previous contests. Could we update those builds since they both seem better suited to this contest, or are you just looking for new builds?

You can use previously submitted builds as long as they aren't completely the same, just mix it up a little and it'll be okay.

[Bobthewizard]

I changed my mind and am going to submit something new. So if you want to see my Templar of Time you can see it here or here but I'm not submitting it for this contest.

[ftafp]

ooh, this is going to be a fun contest. i hope we can see something that's well and truly broken on the level of the coffeelock

[Spiritchaser]

Edit: given that Bobthewizard is going to delve into something new, I’m going to take a shot at echo knight hexblade.

Edit again:

Because of the title of this challenge, I’m going to take a straight RAW interpretation of vision and advantage when considering attacks from the echo’s space: that being:

Strictly by the book, it doesn’t matter if your target can see your echo or not. It is vision of your character that matters for advantage. If that runs counter to the spirit of the challenge, please let me know!

Bah. Too much work

I fail at this deadline. Good luck all

[Bobthewizard]

ooh, this is going to be a fun contest. i hope we can see something that's well and truly broken on the level of the coffeelock

I would say Arcane Abeyance with Leomunds Tiny Hut is pretty broken. Being able to cast Tiny Hut as an action before combat begins is insane. Nothing can attack the party and the party can attack out. It's hard to submit that build here though. "Just take Chronurgy Wizard to 20" isn't all that exciting to present.

[Bobthewizard]

The Shadow Blade (I love making Batman, what can I say)




Shadar Kai Echo Knight 11 / Shadow Sorcerer 9

The pale, strange looking elf moved closer to its target. While still several feet away, it manifested a blade of shadow in its right hand, swinging it through the air in an attack motion. At that instant, his shadow leapt out, attacking its prey and standing guard, protecting its master.

This is a twist on the classic Eldritch Knight/Shadow Sorcerer utilizing shadow blade. It gives up some spell slots in exchange for the resource free bonus action teleport and melee ranged attack of the echo knight. Reflavor the echo to be your shadow, moving it around the room, attacking through it, and trading places with it. I like Shadar-Kai for the theme, the ASIs to Dex and Con, and the free misty step for emergencies. You won’t need its misty step as often being an echo knight, but sometimes they destroyed your echo and you need to get out of dodge.

Point Buy 8/15/15/8/10/14 Shadar-Kai +2 Dex, +1 Con
Starting Stats 8,17,16,8,10,14

Level 5

At level 5 you are a straight Dex-based echo knight. Elven accuracy is great when you can get advantage but mostly it just rounded out our dexterity. Extra attack, action surge and unleash incarnation x2 can be combined to give you 6 attacks in one round if you absolutely need it.

After level 5, you switch to sorcerer. At level 8 you get metamagic and access to shadow blade. For your sorcerer spells other than shadow blade, remember you will be casting and concentrating on shadow blade most combats and using your action to attack, so take out of combat utility or non-concentration buffs you can set up if you have time. Reflavor spells as your shadow. Mirror Image might encase you in shadow and makes 3 other shadows appear around you.

Level 11

At level 11, you’ll be a 6th level sorcerer, and so will have three 2nd and three 3rd level slots to use on shadow blade. You’ll now be able to nova for 7 attacks (quicken BB, attack, extra attack, unleash incarnation, action surge attack, action surge extra attack, action surge unleash incarnation) but now at 3d8 per attack.

Level 17

After level 11, take sorcerer to level 9. This gets three 4th and a 5th level spell slot (4d8 per attack with shadow blade). Once you reach sorcerer 11 at character level 16, switch back to fighter for the rest. So by level 16 you’ll have a nova of 7 attacks at 4d8+5 each.

Level 20

Level 20 gets you the third attack from fighter. Now you can nova for 9 attacks for 4d8+5 each, plus you’ll have the spellcasting of a 9th level sorcerer.

Level by level build

1 F1 Second Wind, Fighting Style (dueling or defense)
2 F2 Action Surge
3 F3 Manifest Echo, Unleash Incarnation
4 F4 ASI – Elven Accuracy (Dex to 18)
5 F5 Extra Attack
6 S1 Shield, Absorb elements, Booming Blade, GFB, Eyes of the Dark, Strength of the Grave
7 S2 Disguise Self
8 S3 Shadow Blade, Darkness, Metamagic – Quicken, Empowered
9 S4 Mirror Image, ASI – Dex to 20
10 S5 Invisibility
11 S6 Counterspell, Hound of Ill Omen
12 S7 Dimension Door
13 S8 Banishment, ASI – Tough
14 S9 Teleportation Circle
15 F6 ASI – Con to 18
16 F7 Echo Avatar for scouting so no need for Arcane Eye
17 F8 ASI – Con to 20
18 F9 Indomitable
19 F10 ASI – Whatever you want
20 F11 Extra attack 2

[Dork_Forge]

Food for thought for this competition, Leonin get a bonus action frighten ability which would sync very nicely with Conquest Paladins, discuss!

[Zonugal]

I don't have the book, so I can't discuss!

The only idea I had was something featuring a Centaur, but only because its stats are printed else-where.

[BDS`]

Hmm not sure if the thread unfortunately got lost in the shuffle. Or just not many people have Theros yet and/or Echo Knight builds have been done and maybe straight Wiz didn't appeal to people? Only 2 builds this go around though is a bummer.

Guess I'll vote for the Shadow Blade.

[Lavaeolus]

Hmm not sure if the thread unfortunately got lost in the shuffle. Or just not many people have Theros yet and/or Echo Knight builds have been done and maybe straight Wiz didn't appeal to people? Only 2 builds this go around though is a bummer.

Guess I'll vote for the Shadow Blade.

This was it for me, yeah. I'd love to get them at some point, but as-is I don't have Wildemount or Theros. Otherwise I probably would've taken the bait and thrown together some sort of fright-based Conquest Paladin. Or maybe tried out the new Paladin Oath.

Feel a little bad about that, but ah well. Hopefully the next throwdown, if/whenever that is, gets a bit more attention.

[Bobthewizard]

I'll vote for the AG/Echo. It's a nice twist on the last one we saw, focusing more on the AG side. It's a great control build. Nice job, saucerhead.

As one of the entrants, if we don't get any more entries, I'm ok if we skip this one and call the next one #5. I think the books are too new to get enough people to enter, but I love the idea of these build contests, so maybe we should move on.

[Wizard_Lizard]

All these look so cool, not particularly good at optimizing myself, but uh... keep up the good work!.
Only thing I can submit is play max charisma and be a satyr bard (Probably the new subclass) and be super charismatic. Coz that's the total level of cheese I think I can pull off.

[Dork_Forge]

It was a fun idea but unfortunately the new-ness of the books appears to have tanked this round! I'm personally inclined to follow Bobthewizard's suggestion to start a new throwdown with a new theme, but what do you all think of that?

[Waazraath]

I'll vote for the AG/Echo. It's a nice twist on the last one we saw, focusing more on the AG side. It's a great control build. Nice job, saucerhead.

As one of the entrants, if we don't get any more entries, I'm ok if we skip this one and call the next one #5. I think the books are too new to get enough people to enter, but I love the idea of these build contests, so maybe we should move on.

It came to early for me. I ordered a paper copy of Myths, still waiting for it... moving on is fine.

[Bobthewizard]

@dork_forge I'd like to see a full caster contest, only using full caster classes in order to focus on spell selection. Either including warlock or not. You'll get a lot of hexblade dips if you include it, but that's fine and there could be other interesting combos with warlock.

Sometimes it can be harder to find synergy in full caster multiclass builds. But even a straight wizard would be interesting to see the builds' spell selections.

[Dork_Forge]

So based on the turnout and feedback we'll be abandoning this particular concept, I may come back to it once Mythos is available physically and some time has passed for everyone that wants to take part to have a chance to pick the books up.

Look out today for the replacement Throwdown #5!

[ftafp]

Yeah, I probably should have clarified this much, much earlier, but since I only skimmed the opening post and haven't really been on in like two weeks I didn't really get a chance. When I proposed the Queso Fresco challenge the point wasn't supposed to be "builds using new books" but rather "builds exploiting new and unheard of forms of cheese to break the game"

One of the differences between 5e and 3.5's optimization cultures is that 5e has a much lower bar for what it considered cheese, and with the exception of the coffeelock or simulacrum chain, most 5e builds don't really break the game. The idea behind this challenge was finding the next coffeelock or simulacrum chain, but now that I think of it, that seems an even higher bar than optimizing the new books.

That said, we should probably link 5e.tools next time we do something like this so we can at least make sure competitors have access to the content

[Dork_Forge]

Yeah, I probably should have clarified this much, much earlier, but since I only skimmed the opening post and haven't really been on in like two weeks I didn't really get a chance. When I proposed the Queso Fresco challenge the point wasn't supposed to be "builds using new books" but rather "builds exploiting new and unheard of forms of cheese to break the game"

One of the differences between 5e and 3.5's optimization cultures is that 5e has a much lower bar for what it considered cheese, and with the exception of the coffeelock or simulacrum chain, most 5e builds don't really break the game. The idea behind this challenge was finding the next coffeelock or simulacrum chain, but now that I think of it, that seems an even higher bar than optimizing the new books.

That said, we should probably link 5e.tools next time we do something like this so we can at least make sure competitors have access to the content

I believe linking (and maybe even talking) about resources like that would be against the forum rules, I could be wrong but best to err on the side of caution.