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 cores, 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 move on to...…
Name: Silence the Mage.
Basic Info:
Race: High Elf.
Ability Scores: Str 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 13, Cha 8
Background: Hermit (taking Draconic as a bonus language).
Silence is an old/very old Elf, she has spent more years than most humans live for in quiet seclusion studying and meditating on the nature of magic and blade craft, her Weapon of choice is a rapier and she refers to her blade singing style as the Stirge Form. She isn’t mute but instead chooses to speak only when needed and lives by the motto “we have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak”. Civilisation seems a bit too hectic and crowded for her but now her hermitage has ended she feels the need to expose herself to new things in order to grow as a wizard.
Building and reasoning:
The goal of this character is to play a Wizard that relied on as few spells that dealt elemental damage as possible. To that end we need to poach a few spells from other class lists as we level up, these spells reflect spells that Silence was taught or created during her hermitage or that she has researched and eventually perfected. For this reason it is highly unlikely you’d be able to play it as shown below in any Adventurers League game and if you want to play it in your own game then make sure your DM is okay with it.
For the Hermit background we’ll be taking Draconic as a bonus language. This may or may not reflect training received from a Dragon.
For the free Cantrip we get from being a High Elf we’re taking True Strike, I know the consensus is that this is the single worst cantrip/spell in the game but we’re taking it for thematic reasons. The Stirge Form of Bladesinging that Silence practices is about using magic and mundane weapons and combining them in very precise ways, True Strike is/was the formation of this theory.
At low levels we’ll be using four combat spells for the most part; Booming Blade for melee, Catapult or Chill Touch for our Ranged attack and Cloud of Daggers for some low level battlefield control. As we level up we’ll try to focus more on the Catapult and Cloud of Daggers side of things with spell selections that show Silence has researched these two spells specifically as part of her Bladesinging style and has “evolved” them into more powerful effects.
Level 1 Wizard:
This will be a little bit “clunky” at level 1. For starting equipment we’re taking Spell book, Arcane Focus, Dagger and an Explorers Pack. This is to reflect the magic tuition Silence has received was conducted in the wilderness rather than in a formal academy.
Starting skills will be Arcana and Investigation to go with the Medicine, Religion and Herbalism Kits we get from the Hermit background.
For Starting Spells we’re going for:
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Chill Touch and Prestidigitation.
This spell selection is mostly for utility. Chill Touch is reflavoured a little, rather than sending out a spectral hand, the spell instead looks like a spectral Stirge which a fixes itself to the target. We’re taking Mage Armour as we do not have any armour proficiency yet so it just serves as early protection. As we adventure through level 1 we need to be on the look out for a suit of light armour, preferably studded leather, a quiver of javelins, a quiver of arrows and a rapier. As we have proficiency with short bows and long bows from our High Elf ancestry we could supplement our spells casting with a bow otherwise the javelins and arrows serve as ammunition for the catapult spell. Other catapult ammunition to look out for would be vials of acid or alchemist fire, as these break on impact you might be able to do some extra acid or fire damage on top of the bludgeoning damage the catapult spell deals.
Level 2 Wizard:
We get our first Bladesinger abilities which gives us proficiency with light armour, a martial melee weapon (which will be a Rapier) and the Performance skill. Assuming we have found a suit of studded leather Armour and a rapier by the time we reach level 2 we are almost set. We also get the Bladesinger ability which offers us a range of buffs and means we’d be halfway passable in melee.
Spell selection for level 2 is Absorb Elements and Grease. These offer a little more in terms of defence options as well as a little bit of battlefield control.
Level 3 Wizard:
When it comes to spell selection here we are taking Cloud of Daggers and our first foray into poaching a spell by taking Cordon of Arrows from the Ranger list. We take Cordon of Arrows as this is effectively a form of delayed Catapult effect and represents an evolution in Silence’s magecraft.
Level 4 Wizard:
We get two more spells and we’ll take Mirror Image and Misty Step to aid with defence and some light teleportation.
We also get an ASI or feat and we’ll take Elven Accuracy to get a bit of buff to our Intelligence and attacks with advantage. We also get an extra cantrip I’d go for a utility cantrip such as Minor Illusion but any cantrip works for this build.
Level 5 Wizard:
For one of our two free spells we’re poaching another spell from the Ranger list and taking Conjure Barrage, again, this functions as an extension of he Catapult spell progressing from launching 1 missile with catapult, through to several missiles with Cordon of Arrows to now being able to launch one missile and have it split into multiple missiles in flight. We’ll take Slow to aid with our combat prowess.
Level 6 Wizard:
We can now attack twice when we take the attack action and in addition we can substitute one attack for a cantrip so we can now cast Booming Blade and then also make an unaugmented attack with rapier.
For spells we’ll assume we have not found them on spell scrolls and take Counterspell and Dispel Magic.
Level 7 Wizard:
We open up level 4 spells and we’ll take Greater Invisibility and Fire Shield to aid with some more defensive options.
Level 8 Wizard:
For our next ASI or Feat we’ll take Warcaster. For our net two spells we’ll take Protection from Evil & Good and See Invisibility.
Level 9 Wizard:
For spells we’re taking our penultimate dip, again dipping into Ranger, and taking Conjure Volley which is the final stage of evolving the Catapult spell. For our other spell we’ll nab Steel Wind Strike as one of the more potent aspects of the Blade Singers craft.
Level 10 Wizard:
For spells we’re taking Thunder Step and Far Step if we haven’t already found them on scrolls to bolster our teleportation shenanigans. We also get our 5 and final Cantrip but it is completely open at this stage so we’ll end up taking something that aids us in whatever endeavours we’re doing.
Level 11-20 Wizard:
From here on the only spell we want is one we’ll poach from the Cleric list and that would be Blade Barrier, this will represent an evolution in our magecraft from the Cloud of Daggers spell.
When it comes to further ASI or Feats we’ve got a lot of options, if you have quite a high power game then buffing Dex and Int to increase your AC, spell save DC and attack bonuses would be prudent but otherwise you can take whatever is appropriate to your game.
There are certainly other spells you could take under the guise of “a wizard creating their own spells” for the Bladesinger style, you could look at any of the Smite spells from the Paladin/Ranger list. From a DM point of view if there was not a Paladin in the party then I’d allow a Bladesinger to research them and take them as they level up, however, I have not put them into this build for the same reason I have left our Shadow Blade. I wanted to try and keep this to as few damage types as possible and focus more on the martial damage types of Bludgeoning, Slashing and Piercing.
There is some thing to remember: if you use the bladesinging ability you cannot fire a bow (because it requires two hands to fire a bow) so any spell that requires some form of ammunition as part of the casting will need to rely on using a javelin.
In Summary:
If you could take this to level 20 and assuming average HP each level and assuming the final three ASI went into buffing Dex, Cons and Int we could have the following: Ability Scores: Str 10, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 13, Cha 8, our AC would be 16 in studded leather armour or 20 whilst bladesinging (or if we’re prepared to burn the spell slot it could be 17 using mage armour or 21 with mage armour & bladesinging). We’d have a +10 spell and weapon attack bonus, a Spell Save DC of 18.
Multiclassing could be an option but you would lose out on the higher level spell slots, spell mastery and signature spell options for Wizard as well as potentially an ASI /Feat. If you were looking to multiclass then I’d likely try to get to level 14 Wizard first to fully take advantage of the build and Bladesinger abilities and then take the remaining 6 levels in something else, Ranger or Rogue could work quite nicely.
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
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 cores, 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 move on to...…
Name: Silence the Mage.
Basic Info:
Race: High Elf.
Ability Scores: Str 10, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 13, Cha 8
Background: Hermit (taking Draconic as a bonus language).
Class: Wizard (Bladesinger) lvl 20.
Feats: Elven Accuracy, Warcaster, + 3 undecided AS/feats.
Bio:
Silence is an old/very old Elf, she has spent more years than most humans live for in quiet seclusion studying and meditating on the nature of magic and blade craft, her Weapon of choice is a rapier and she refers to her blade singing style as the Stirge Form. She isn’t mute but instead chooses to speak only when needed and lives by the motto “we have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak”. Civilisation seems a bit too hectic and crowded for her but now her hermitage has ended she feels the need to expose herself to new things in order to grow as a wizard.
Building and reasoning:
The goal of this character is to play a Wizard that relied on as few spells that dealt elemental damage as possible. To that end we need to poach a few spells from other class lists as we level up, these spells reflect spells that Silence was taught or created during her hermitage or that she has researched and eventually perfected. For this reason it is highly unlikely you’d be able to play it as shown below in any Adventurers League game and if you want to play it in your own game then make sure your DM is okay with it.
For the Hermit background we’ll be taking Draconic as a bonus language. This may or may not reflect training received from a Dragon.
For the free Cantrip we get from being a High Elf we’re taking True Strike, I know the consensus is that this is the single worst cantrip/spell in the game but we’re taking it for thematic reasons. The Stirge Form of Bladesinging that Silence practices is about using magic and mundane weapons and combining them in very precise ways, True Strike is/was the formation of this theory.
At low levels we’ll be using four combat spells for the most part; Booming Blade for melee, Catapult or Chill Touch for our Ranged attack and Cloud of Daggers for some low level battlefield control. As we level up we’ll try to focus more on the Catapult and Cloud of Daggers side of things with spell selections that show Silence has researched these two spells specifically as part of her Bladesinging style and has “evolved” them into more powerful effects.
Level 1 Wizard:
This will be a little bit “clunky” at level 1. For starting equipment we’re taking Spell book, Arcane Focus, Dagger and an Explorers Pack. This is to reflect the magic tuition Silence has received was conducted in the wilderness rather than in a formal academy.
Starting skills will be Arcana and Investigation to go with the Medicine, Religion and Herbalism Kits we get from the Hermit background.
For Starting Spells we’re going for:
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Chill Touch and Prestidigitation.
Level 1 Spells: Catapult, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Mage armour, Shield and Unseen Servant.
This spell selection is mostly for utility. Chill Touch is reflavoured a little, rather than sending out a spectral hand, the spell instead looks like a spectral Stirge which a fixes itself to the target. We’re taking Mage Armour as we do not have any armour proficiency yet so it just serves as early protection. As we adventure through level 1 we need to be on the look out for a suit of light armour, preferably studded leather, a quiver of javelins, a quiver of arrows and a rapier. As we have proficiency with short bows and long bows from our High Elf ancestry we could supplement our spells casting with a bow otherwise the javelins and arrows serve as ammunition for the catapult spell. Other catapult ammunition to look out for would be vials of acid or alchemist fire, as these break on impact you might be able to do some extra acid or fire damage on top of the bludgeoning damage the catapult spell deals.
Level 2 Wizard:
We get our first Bladesinger abilities which gives us proficiency with light armour, a martial melee weapon (which will be a Rapier) and the Performance skill. Assuming we have found a suit of studded leather Armour and a rapier by the time we reach level 2 we are almost set. We also get the Bladesinger ability which offers us a range of buffs and means we’d be halfway passable in melee.
Spell selection for level 2 is Absorb Elements and Grease. These offer a little more in terms of defence options as well as a little bit of battlefield control.
Level 3 Wizard:
When it comes to spell selection here we are taking Cloud of Daggers and our first foray into poaching a spell by taking Cordon of Arrows from the Ranger list. We take Cordon of Arrows as this is effectively a form of delayed Catapult effect and represents an evolution in Silence’s magecraft.
Level 4 Wizard:
We get two more spells and we’ll take Mirror Image and Misty Step to aid with defence and some light teleportation.
We also get an ASI or feat and we’ll take Elven Accuracy to get a bit of buff to our Intelligence and attacks with advantage. We also get an extra cantrip I’d go for a utility cantrip such as Minor Illusion but any cantrip works for this build.
Level 5 Wizard:
For one of our two free spells we’re poaching another spell from the Ranger list and taking Conjure Barrage, again, this functions as an extension of he Catapult spell progressing from launching 1 missile with catapult, through to several missiles with Cordon of Arrows to now being able to launch one missile and have it split into multiple missiles in flight. We’ll take Slow to aid with our combat prowess.
Level 6 Wizard:
We can now attack twice when we take the attack action and in addition we can substitute one attack for a cantrip so we can now cast Booming Blade and then also make an unaugmented attack with rapier.
For spells we’ll assume we have not found them on spell scrolls and take Counterspell and Dispel Magic.
Level 7 Wizard:
We open up level 4 spells and we’ll take Greater Invisibility and Fire Shield to aid with some more defensive options.
Level 8 Wizard:
For our next ASI or Feat we’ll take Warcaster. For our net two spells we’ll take Protection from Evil & Good and See Invisibility.
Level 9 Wizard:
For spells we’re taking our penultimate dip, again dipping into Ranger, and taking Conjure Volley which is the final stage of evolving the Catapult spell. For our other spell we’ll nab Steel Wind Strike as one of the more potent aspects of the Blade Singers craft.
Level 10 Wizard:
For spells we’re taking Thunder Step and Far Step if we haven’t already found them on scrolls to bolster our teleportation shenanigans. We also get our 5 and final Cantrip but it is completely open at this stage so we’ll end up taking something that aids us in whatever endeavours we’re doing.
Level 11-20 Wizard:
From here on the only spell we want is one we’ll poach from the Cleric list and that would be Blade Barrier, this will represent an evolution in our magecraft from the Cloud of Daggers spell.
When it comes to further ASI or Feats we’ve got a lot of options, if you have quite a high power game then buffing Dex and Int to increase your AC, spell save DC and attack bonuses would be prudent but otherwise you can take whatever is appropriate to your game.
There are certainly other spells you could take under the guise of “a wizard creating their own spells” for the Bladesinger style, you could look at any of the Smite spells from the Paladin/Ranger list. From a DM point of view if there was not a Paladin in the party then I’d allow a Bladesinger to research them and take them as they level up, however, I have not put them into this build for the same reason I have left our Shadow Blade. I wanted to try and keep this to as few damage types as possible and focus more on the martial damage types of Bludgeoning, Slashing and Piercing.
There is some thing to remember: if you use the bladesinging ability you cannot fire a bow (because it requires two hands to fire a bow) so any spell that requires some form of ammunition as part of the casting will need to rely on using a javelin.
In Summary:
If you could take this to level 20 and assuming average HP each level and assuming the final three ASI went into buffing Dex, Cons and Int we could have the following: Ability Scores: Str 10, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 13, Cha 8, our AC would be 16 in studded leather armour or 20 whilst bladesinging (or if we’re prepared to burn the spell slot it could be 17 using mage armour or 21 with mage armour & bladesinging). We’d have a +10 spell and weapon attack bonus, a Spell Save DC of 18.
Multiclassing could be an option but you would lose out on the higher level spell slots, spell mastery and signature spell options for Wizard as well as potentially an ASI /Feat. If you were looking to multiclass then I’d likely try to get to level 14 Wizard first to fully take advantage of the build and Bladesinger abilities and then take the remaining 6 levels in something else, Ranger or Rogue could work quite nicely.