Disclaimer: What follows is a rough build of a character I want to play at some point but likely won't as I DM more often than not, so if you like what you see, feel free to play it and tweak it. A few things to bear in mind: 1) I don't tend to build up my characters in a min/max sense so you won't see many ability scores maxed out. 2) I use the standard array to generate ability scores, this is mostly just for ease of reference when mulling over a build. 3) There may be some homebrew material mentioned so if you play adventurers league then this may not be a legal build. 4) I've a back catalogue of these so I'll post them as and when i cobble my notes into something that makes sense. 5) I won't be referencing many optional things from Tasha's Cauldron of Whatnot. 6) As always, feel free to post any questions, comments, feedback or general berating of my errors in rules or how abilities work.
Right, now that's out the way, lets start with this one......
Name: Pavise Hightower a.k.a The Shield.
Basic info:
Race: Variant Human (Starting feat: Tavern Brawler, taking +1 Cons and taking +1 Str, +1 Cons for Human ability score buffs).
Ability Scores: Str 16, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 12
Background: Entertainer (Gladiator).
Class: Ranger (Hunter)
Bio:
Pavise Hightower found fame in the arena and pit fighting scene where his casual bravado and ability to put on a good show were honed over several years by the empresario Vincenzo Macmarni. Unbeknownst to those who watched these events, all the fights were staged with pre-decided out comes. Pavise left the arena in search of love and is a showman at heart and has never quite got out of the “gladiatorial entertainment” way of fighting and is fond of the occasional intense outburst, a throw back to his promo days in front of the arena fans.
Building and reasoning:
So this may seem like a wierd one. From a roleplay point of view think of this as a modern day pro wrestler or prize fighter, you are a big, loud, bombastic individual. It is important to remember that this build uses the Ranger class for its abilities not its connection to nature or any sense of being an outdoorsman, I took the view that the Hunter achetype lent itself rather well to various styles of gladiatorial combat. This build is starting off with a fairly unique combat style as Pavise Hightower uses two shields in combat which, due to the Tavern Bralwer feat, deal d4 damage when you hit with them. They are strength based and when Pavise levels up we'll be looking for ways to cultivate this comabt style. Important Note: the goal of this build is to use Two Weapon Fighting with shields but htis does not happen until level 4, from level 1, 2 & 3 you are using a shield on your off hand as a conventional shield and the shield on your main hand as an improvised wepaon. Ideally we'd need to get him into Half Plate Armour as well. For anyone curious about the name, Pavise and Tower are both types of shield (and Hightower is also a reference to one of my favourite characters from the Police Academy series of films). Just to reiterate, this build is not going to be doing huge amounts of damage every round of combat, its more a knock down, drag out and (to quote a famous wrestling commentator) Slobberknocker style of combat, also bear in mind that you won't be able to stack the AC for using two shields unless your DM is very accomodating.
Lvl1 Ranger:
Favoured Enemy: So to start we need to flavour How Pavise' career in the pts flavoured his fighting style. I would take Humanoid as his favoured Enemey and taking Humans and Orcs although you could take whatever Humanoids are common in the arenas of your camapaign or go for Beasts or Monstrosities as bouts with such creatures would common as a spectacle event in most large arena's.
Natural Explorer: This is a little tricky, I would bat my eyes lovingly at the DM and ask them very nicely if you can take Urban for this. It isn't an official option but given as a pit fighter you would have spent all your time in towns and cities it would be thematically appropriate to be at home in an urban environment, finding the back alley bars and taverns for low key fights or just the quiet alleyways to escape the groupies etc.
Lvl 2 Ranger:
Fighting Style: Nice and easy, its going ot be Two Weapon fighting, not much use yet but we're building something special.
Spell Casting: This is where we have to be a bit careful. As Pavise uses two shields in combat you won't have a free hand for spell casting. Fortunately we have options for "In Combat" spell casting. Ensnaring Strike, Hunters Mark and Zephyr's Strike are all level 1 spells that only have a verbal component and these all enhance Pavise' prowess with his shields, sadly though, they all require concnetration so we cannot layer these. As we get two spells, I'd go for Hunter Mark and either Cure Wounds or Goodberry.
Lvl 3: Ranger:
Primeval Awreness: Its a little odd for this build but could be explained away as you just have an uncanny sense when something not quite normal is around, either that or you are turning into the Undertaker.....
Archetype: As mentioned above, we're taking Hunter. I'd go for Colossus Slayer as this is rather representative of wearing your arena opponents down with repeated shiled bashes.
Lvl 4:
ASI or Feat?: I'd go for the Dual Wielder Feat at level 4, this just means you get an extra point of AC and both shileds now count as weapons for two weapon fighting so your shield bashing fighting style is now online. If you have Half Plate Armour at this stage, you'll have a rather nice AC of 20 (15 for armour, +2 for Dex, +2 for a shield, +1 for the Dual Wielder Feat).
Level 5 onwards:
From here on, its largely unknown as your adventures will likely colour how you build from here. For the Ranger achetype I'd take Escape the Horde at level 7, Whirlwind Attack at level 10 and Evasion at level 15 as these would all be enacements to the arena/pit fighting combat style. If you were looking to multiclass then FIghter or Barbarian are likely the two most complementary classes you could go for. Multiclassing to Bard could also be worth doing but only to the College of Lore, you use your bardic isnpiration and cutting word abilities as ways of distracting your enemies and ways of hyping up your allies, as side benefit for Bard is that it would open up a few useful spells which only require a verbal component such as Viscious Mockery, Healing Word and, if you were to invest the levels, Dimension Door. Depending on how your adventures colour your roleplay taking the build to level 15 Ranger to get Evasion may be a little redundant, capping out Ranger at level 10 and then moving to multiclassing might be more prudent.
Feat wise I would look at things such as Charger, Shield Master and Tough to flesh out the fighting style.
There are some things you could have a chat with your DM about.
It would be worth asking them to make a ruling on whether you can stack the magical bonuses to AC if you dual wield two magic shields. You could also say in advnace that you'd be on the look out for "special" shields, not specifically magical ones but ones made form unusual material. For instnace a shield made form mithril may have the finesse property or a shield made form Adamantine may have the heavy property, these may then flavour how you build the character. Using the adamantine shield might open up taking the Great Weapon Fighting Style at a later stage or the Mithril shield may make multiclassing to rogue a viable option.
Disclaimer: What follows is a rough build of a character I want to play at some point but likely won't as I DM more often than not, so if you like what you see, feel free to play it and tweak it. A few things to bear in mind: 1) I don't tend to build up my characters in a min/max sense so you won't see many ability scores maxed out. 2) I use the standard array to generate ability scores, this is mostly just for ease of reference when mulling over a build. 3) There may be some homebrew material mentioned so if you play adventurers league then this may not be a legal build. 4) I've a back catalogue of these so I'll post them as and when i cobble my notes into something that makes sense. 5) I won't be referencing many optional things from Tasha's Cauldron of Whatnot. 6) As always, feel free to post any questions, comments, feedback or general berating of my errors in rules or how abilities work.
Right, now that's out the way, lets start with this one......
Name: Pavise Hightower a.k.a The Shield.
Basic info:
Race: Variant Human (Starting feat: Tavern Brawler, taking +1 Cons and taking +1 Str, +1 Cons for Human ability score buffs).
Ability Scores: Str 16, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 12
Background: Entertainer (Gladiator).
Class: Ranger (Hunter)
Bio:
Pavise Hightower found fame in the arena and pit fighting scene where his casual bravado and ability to put on a good show were honed over several years by the empresario Vincenzo Macmarni. Unbeknownst to those who watched these events, all the fights were staged with pre-decided out comes. Pavise left the arena in search of love and is a showman at heart and has never quite got out of the “gladiatorial entertainment” way of fighting and is fond of the occasional intense outburst, a throw back to his promo days in front of the arena fans.
Building and reasoning:
So this may seem like a wierd one. From a roleplay point of view think of this as a modern day pro wrestler or prize fighter, you are a big, loud, bombastic individual. It is important to remember that this build uses the Ranger class for its abilities not its connection to nature or any sense of being an outdoorsman, I took the view that the Hunter achetype lent itself rather well to various styles of gladiatorial combat. This build is starting off with a fairly unique combat style as Pavise Hightower uses two shields in combat which, due to the Tavern Bralwer feat, deal d4 damage when you hit with them. They are strength based and when Pavise levels up we'll be looking for ways to cultivate this comabt style. Important Note: the goal of this build is to use Two Weapon Fighting with shields but htis does not happen until level 4, from level 1, 2 & 3 you are using a shield on your off hand as a conventional shield and the shield on your main hand as an improvised wepaon. Ideally we'd need to get him into Half Plate Armour as well. For anyone curious about the name, Pavise and Tower are both types of shield (and Hightower is also a reference to one of my favourite characters from the Police Academy series of films). Just to reiterate, this build is not going to be doing huge amounts of damage every round of combat, its more a knock down, drag out and (to quote a famous wrestling commentator) Slobberknocker style of combat, also bear in mind that you won't be able to stack the AC for using two shields unless your DM is very accomodating.
Lvl1 Ranger:
Favoured Enemy: So to start we need to flavour How Pavise' career in the pts flavoured his fighting style. I would take Humanoid as his favoured Enemey and taking Humans and Orcs although you could take whatever Humanoids are common in the arenas of your camapaign or go for Beasts or Monstrosities as bouts with such creatures would common as a spectacle event in most large arena's.
Natural Explorer: This is a little tricky, I would bat my eyes lovingly at the DM and ask them very nicely if you can take Urban for this. It isn't an official option but given as a pit fighter you would have spent all your time in towns and cities it would be thematically appropriate to be at home in an urban environment, finding the back alley bars and taverns for low key fights or just the quiet alleyways to escape the groupies etc.
Lvl 2 Ranger:
Fighting Style: Nice and easy, its going ot be Two Weapon fighting, not much use yet but we're building something special.
Spell Casting: This is where we have to be a bit careful. As Pavise uses two shields in combat you won't have a free hand for spell casting. Fortunately we have options for "In Combat" spell casting. Ensnaring Strike, Hunters Mark and Zephyr's Strike are all level 1 spells that only have a verbal component and these all enhance Pavise' prowess with his shields, sadly though, they all require concnetration so we cannot layer these. As we get two spells, I'd go for Hunter Mark and either Cure Wounds or Goodberry.
Lvl 3: Ranger:
Primeval Awreness: Its a little odd for this build but could be explained away as you just have an uncanny sense when something not quite normal is around, either that or you are turning into the Undertaker.....
Archetype: As mentioned above, we're taking Hunter. I'd go for Colossus Slayer as this is rather representative of wearing your arena opponents down with repeated shiled bashes.
Lvl 4:
ASI or Feat?: I'd go for the Dual Wielder Feat at level 4, this just means you get an extra point of AC and both shileds now count as weapons for two weapon fighting so your shield bashing fighting style is now online. If you have Half Plate Armour at this stage, you'll have a rather nice AC of 20 (15 for armour, +2 for Dex, +2 for a shield, +1 for the Dual Wielder Feat).
Level 5 onwards:
From here on, its largely unknown as your adventures will likely colour how you build from here. For the Ranger achetype I'd take Escape the Horde at level 7, Whirlwind Attack at level 10 and Evasion at level 15 as these would all be enacements to the arena/pit fighting combat style. If you were looking to multiclass then FIghter or Barbarian are likely the two most complementary classes you could go for. Multiclassing to Bard could also be worth doing but only to the College of Lore, you use your bardic isnpiration and cutting word abilities as ways of distracting your enemies and ways of hyping up your allies, as side benefit for Bard is that it would open up a few useful spells which only require a verbal component such as Viscious Mockery, Healing Word and, if you were to invest the levels, Dimension Door. Depending on how your adventures colour your roleplay taking the build to level 15 Ranger to get Evasion may be a little redundant, capping out Ranger at level 10 and then moving to multiclassing might be more prudent.
Feat wise I would look at things such as Charger, Shield Master and Tough to flesh out the fighting style.
There are some things you could have a chat with your DM about.
It would be worth asking them to make a ruling on whether you can stack the magical bonuses to AC if you dual wield two magic shields. You could also say in advnace that you'd be on the look out for "special" shields, not specifically magical ones but ones made form unusual material. For instnace a shield made form mithril may have the finesse property or a shield made form Adamantine may have the heavy property, these may then flavour how you build the character. Using the adamantine shield might open up taking the Great Weapon Fighting Style at a later stage or the Mithril shield may make multiclassing to rogue a viable option.