Are there any good builds out there for a knife fighter? Preferably without magic involved.. ive come up with a few like Monk, Rogue and of course a Fighter.
It would be good if they brought back the Whisper Knife or Invisible Blade from 3.5
Okay, in order to optimize for daggers, we need to take into account it's special traits.
1d4 damage. This amount of damage is too low for builds that may depend on weapon damage, such as multiattack fighters. This means you probably want to focus on secondary sources of damage such as smite, sneak attack, or kensai monk damage die overwrite.
light. This means you can dual wield. This lowers the value of monk due to them already having a dual weild esque ability, and raises the value of rouge due to thier need for more chances for a sneak attack.
Finesse. This doesn't say much. Just allows dex builds
Thrown. Also means little. Can't smite, and monks may not want to throw their kensai weapon?
I would probably go for a kobold rogue, with 3 levels in fighter for optimal damage. You get free advantage from pack tactics.
Grab sentinel and the reaction attack battle-master abilitys to enable more off-turn sneak attacks to double your sneak attacks per round.
Use action surge if you miss on your turn for an extra chance at sneak attack.
Go thief for the bonus action potions drinking for getting a potion of haste in at the start of combat.
Some people argue the use of the kobold part, but the rest seems very valid for a knife fighter
You can totally throw your kensei weapons. Kensei monks don't bond to particular weapons, they learn to use a class of weapons. If they train to use daggers as their kensei weapons, any dagger will work.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm afraid you'll never find a dagger fighter build that is going to be great from a mechanical standpoint. When it comes to daggers, you're better off with other classes as has already been mentioned. The issue is that the fighter damage calculation is (weapon damage + ability modifier) * number of attacks. The smaller damage dice has a major impact on total damage and it only gets worse as the number of attacks increase. The rogue on the other hand can get away with using the dagger because so much of their damage comes from sneak attack. Also, the only weapon options for a rogue are a 1d4, 1d6, or 1d8 for damage and they only get 1 attack.
The fighter does get a lot of feats so you could offset this major deficit by taking things like lucky, sentinel, and others. However, those same feats with a higher damage weapon would still be a major increase in damage.
That being said, damage isn't everything. If you want to make a knife fighter, go for it. Maybe make a grappler?
I use the below homebrew fighter archetype for a knife fighter, trying to keep it inline with a gangs of new york style
Class Name: Fighter, Knife Fighter Archetype The Knife Fighter spends time in alleyways, taverns, cellars, wharfs and dockside "underground" fighting pits. Many come from gangs or the underclass. They utilise a variety of weapons which they universally refer to as Knives; Knives in this respect relates to: Daggers, Fighting Knife & Kukri (treat both as Short Sword but deals slashing damage not piercing), Stiletto (treat as Short Sword), Meat Hook (treat as Sickle) and Meat Cleaver (treat as Hand Axe). Any reference to Knives or Knife in the description below should relate to this list of weapons.
Two Weapon Defence: At 3rd level, you have honed Knife Fighting style. While using a Knife in each hand the Knife Fighter gains +2 Armour Class. In order to gain this bonus the Knife Fighter must be unarmoured or wearing Light or Medium Armour and cannot be holding or using a shield. Additionally, all Knives are considered Finesse weapons.
Blade Flurry: At 7th level, you have mastered quick stabbing attacks. Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn with a Knife, you can make two attacks with a knife as a bonus action. You can perform a Blade Flurry a number of times equal to your Dexterity Modifier (min 1). Your uses of Blade Flurry recharge after a Long Rest.
One with the Knife: At 10th level, you have mastered the art of using your knives in a dirty fighting style; striking low blows and verbally taunting an opponent during your fight. You can use a bonus action to start using a variety of tricks to deceive, distract and fluster your opponent, whilst doing this, as long as you are using only Knives, you gain: A bonus to your Armour Class equal to your Charisma modifier (min +1). Your Knifes score a critical hit on a natural roll of 19 or 20. You have advantage on Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks. One with the Knife lasts for 1 minute and you can use it twice per Short or Long Rest.
Flick of the Wrist: At 15th level you learn to parry incoming weapons with a deft flick of the wrist. As long as you are wielding only Knives you can use your reaction to perform an Uncanny Dodge as per Rogue.
Between the Ribs: At 18th level you learn the value of sinking a blade between the ribs to target internal organs. You can sneak attack in the same way as a rogue, if your sneak attack hits you deal an extra 3d6 damage.
I had a player who kind of wanted to do the same thing but eventually dropped the idea. However, we had talked about him being a Whisper Bard, but dropping spellcasting and instead getting Battlemaster Fighter maneuvers. Eventually he just went Battlemaster Fighter with swords, but the theme of the spell-less bard was really interesting.
You could also do a Rogue/Barbarian build to still get rage damage and sneak attack.
I use the below homebrew fighter archetype for a knife fighter, trying to keep it inline with a gangs of new york style
Class Name: Fighter, Knife Fighter Archetype
Blade Flurry:
At 7th level, you have mastered quick stabbing attacks. Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn with a Knife, you can make two attacks with a knife as a bonus action. You can perform a Blade Flurry a number of times equal to your Dexterity Modifier (min 1). Your uses of Blade Flurry recharge after a Long Rest.
With Tasha's it is now somewhat viable. At level 1 I would go Variant Human fighter, right off the bat take the Tasha's feat that grants you an additional fighting style, so starting off you have the Archery and the Thrown Weapon fighting style. At third level take Battle Master and cross class because you really need a third fighting style to pull this off or my choice for this Champion. Level 4, Sharp Shooter feat. Level 6, Dual Wielder feat. Now if you took Battle Master cross into Ranger, pick up Two-Weapon Fighting, fighting style at level 8. Level 9 ranger Hunter but instead of picking up Colossus Slayer, take Horde Breaker instead so you dont "miss out" on all the attacks with daggers since we end up go the rest of the way with Fighter. So end build is 17th level Battle Master fighter/3rd Level Hunter Ranger. If you went Champion you get to stay on pace level 8 you bump dexterity and pick up that third fighting style, Two-Weapon Fighting, at level 10. With champion you max Dex at level 12, then feel free to take things like Skilled, or Prodigy, or other skill feats to finish off the build or just bump constitution the rest of the way.
With Tasha's it is now somewhat viable. At level 1 I would go Variant Human fighter, right off the bat take the Tasha's feat that grants you an additional fighting style, so starting off you have the Archery and the Thrown Weapon fighting style. At third level take Battle Master and cross class because you really need a third fighting style to pull this off or my choice for this Champion. Level 4, Sharp Shooter feat. Level 6, Dual Wielder feat. Now if you took Battle Master cross into Ranger, pick up Two-Weapon Fighting, fighting style at level 8. Level 9 ranger Hunter but instead of picking up Colossus Slayer, take Horde Breaker instead so you dont "miss out" on all the attacks with daggers since we end up go the rest of the way with Fighter. So end build is 17th level Battle Master fighter/3rd Level Hunter Ranger. If you went Champion you get to stay on pace level 8 you bump dexterity and pick up that third fighting style, Two-Weapon Fighting, at level 10. With champion you max Dex at level 12, then feel free to take things like Skilled, or Prodigy, or other skill feats to finish off the build or just bump constitution the rest of the way.
I would go with Custom Lineage for the Feat, fighter take Two weapon fighting, and for the Feat Fighting Initiate take Thrown Weapon Style, as the Archery Fighting style wont work with Daggers they do not have the ranged property, they have the Thrown property. But Archery will work with Darts though.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hello,
Are there any good builds out there for a knife fighter? Preferably without magic involved.. ive come up with a few like Monk, Rogue and of course a Fighter.
It would be good if they brought back the Whisper Knife or Invisible Blade from 3.5
Any More?
Thanks.
I found this post on reddit that is useful, but even mroe useful is the part I will actually quote:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/7he756/5e_whats_the_best_dagger_wielding_build/
Okay, in order to optimize for daggers, we need to take into account it's special traits.
1d4 damage. This amount of damage is too low for builds that may depend on weapon damage, such as multiattack fighters. This means you probably want to focus on secondary sources of damage such as smite, sneak attack, or kensai monk damage die overwrite.
light. This means you can dual wield. This lowers the value of monk due to them already having a dual weild esque ability, and raises the value of rouge due to thier need for more chances for a sneak attack.
Finesse. This doesn't say much. Just allows dex builds
Thrown. Also means little. Can't smite, and monks may not want to throw their kensai weapon?
I would probably go for a kobold rogue, with 3 levels in fighter for optimal damage. You get free advantage from pack tactics.
Grab sentinel and the reaction attack battle-master abilitys to enable more off-turn sneak attacks to double your sneak attacks per round.
Use action surge if you miss on your turn for an extra chance at sneak attack.
Go thief for the bonus action potions drinking for getting a potion of haste in at the start of combat.
Some people argue the use of the kobold part, but the rest seems very valid for a knife fighter
Full of rice, beans, and bad ideas.
Interesting stuff there.. it seems most people go down the road of Rogue or Monk for this - thanks.
You can totally throw your kensei weapons. Kensei monks don't bond to particular weapons, they learn to use a class of weapons. If they train to use daggers as their kensei weapons, any dagger will work.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm afraid you'll never find a dagger fighter build that is going to be great from a mechanical standpoint. When it comes to daggers, you're better off with other classes as has already been mentioned. The issue is that the fighter damage calculation is (weapon damage + ability modifier) * number of attacks. The smaller damage dice has a major impact on total damage and it only gets worse as the number of attacks increase. The rogue on the other hand can get away with using the dagger because so much of their damage comes from sneak attack. Also, the only weapon options for a rogue are a 1d4, 1d6, or 1d8 for damage and they only get 1 attack.
The fighter does get a lot of feats so you could offset this major deficit by taking things like lucky, sentinel, and others. However, those same feats with a higher damage weapon would still be a major increase in damage.
That being said, damage isn't everything. If you want to make a knife fighter, go for it. Maybe make a grappler?
I use the below homebrew fighter archetype for a knife fighter, trying to keep it inline with a gangs of new york style
Class Name: Fighter, Knife Fighter Archetype
The Knife Fighter spends time in alleyways, taverns, cellars, wharfs and dockside "underground" fighting pits. Many come from gangs or the underclass. They utilise a variety of weapons which they universally refer to as Knives; Knives in this respect relates to: Daggers, Fighting Knife & Kukri (treat both as Short Sword but deals slashing damage not piercing), Stiletto (treat as Short Sword), Meat Hook (treat as Sickle) and Meat Cleaver (treat as Hand Axe). Any reference to Knives or Knife in the description below should relate to this list of weapons.
Two Weapon Defence:
At 3rd level, you have honed Knife Fighting style. While using a Knife in each hand the Knife Fighter gains +2 Armour Class. In order to gain this bonus the Knife Fighter must be unarmoured or wearing Light or Medium Armour and cannot be holding or using a shield. Additionally, all Knives are considered Finesse weapons.
Blade Flurry:
At 7th level, you have mastered quick stabbing attacks. Immediately after you take the Attack action on your turn with a Knife, you can make two attacks with a knife as a bonus action. You can perform a Blade Flurry a number of times equal to your Dexterity Modifier (min 1). Your uses of Blade Flurry recharge after a Long Rest.
One with the Knife:
At 10th level, you have mastered the art of using your knives in a dirty fighting style; striking low blows and verbally taunting an opponent during your fight. You can use a bonus action to start using a variety of tricks to deceive, distract and fluster your opponent, whilst doing this, as long as you are using only Knives, you gain:
A bonus to your Armour Class equal to your Charisma modifier (min +1).
Your Knifes score a critical hit on a natural roll of 19 or 20.
You have advantage on Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics) checks.
One with the Knife lasts for 1 minute and you can use it twice per Short or Long Rest.
Flick of the Wrist:
At 15th level you learn to parry incoming weapons with a deft flick of the wrist. As long as you are wielding only Knives you can use your reaction to perform an Uncanny Dodge as per Rogue.
Between the Ribs:
At 18th level you learn the value of sinking a blade between the ribs to target internal organs. You can sneak attack in the same way as a rogue, if your sneak attack hits you deal an extra 3d6 damage.
I had a player who kind of wanted to do the same thing but eventually dropped the idea. However, we had talked about him being a Whisper Bard, but dropping spellcasting and instead getting Battlemaster Fighter maneuvers. Eventually he just went Battlemaster Fighter with swords, but the theme of the spell-less bard was really interesting.
You could also do a Rogue/Barbarian build to still get rage damage and sneak attack.
With Tasha's it is now somewhat viable. At level 1 I would go Variant Human fighter, right off the bat take the Tasha's feat that grants you an additional fighting style, so starting off you have the Archery and the Thrown Weapon fighting style. At third level take Battle Master and cross class because you really need a third fighting style to pull this off or my choice for this Champion. Level 4, Sharp Shooter feat. Level 6, Dual Wielder feat. Now if you took Battle Master cross into Ranger, pick up Two-Weapon Fighting, fighting style at level 8. Level 9 ranger Hunter but instead of picking up Colossus Slayer, take Horde Breaker instead so you dont "miss out" on all the attacks with daggers since we end up go the rest of the way with Fighter. So end build is 17th level Battle Master fighter/3rd Level Hunter Ranger. If you went Champion you get to stay on pace level 8 you bump dexterity and pick up that third fighting style, Two-Weapon Fighting, at level 10. With champion you max Dex at level 12, then feel free to take things like Skilled, or Prodigy, or other skill feats to finish off the build or just bump constitution the rest of the way.
I would go with Custom Lineage for the Feat, fighter take Two weapon fighting, and for the Feat Fighting Initiate take Thrown Weapon Style, as the Archery Fighting style wont work with Daggers they do not have the ranged property, they have the Thrown property. But Archery will work with Darts though.