Why not both? Use War Caster OA to cast Booming Bladeto really punish that enemy that dares flee from you! Weapon damage + xd8 + another (x+1)d8 if they keep moving.
That one level Hexblade dip also gets you Wrathful Smite as an option. Cast Wrathful Smite as your bonus action, cast Booming Blade as your action. They take psychic and thunder damage, get scared of you, turn to flee on their turn triggering BB and giving you another opportunity to BB them again. If they continue to flee, the would once again take that extra BB damage.
Nothing wrong with both but I do feel spells as op attacks will very rarely come up. If you are up against a melee enemy they are going to want to stay next to you, if they are intelligent as a caster you are probably high on their target list, if 5hey are not intelligent they will just attack the nearest target. A ranged martial enemy is likely to just pull out a rapier. So 5he only creatures likely to want to get away are spellcasters, they will make it hard for you to get in melee with them and are likely to have a defence against op attacks just in case (eg shocking grasp or misty step). Advantage on concentration saves is great, being able to cast a spell with your hands full on some builds/tables is almost compulsorary spells as an op attack is a very situational kicker.
I think a good question to ask is do you think you want extra attack or not? If not this might be decent.
2 levels of circle of stars druid. X levels of arcana domain cleric.
stars gives situationally useful guiding bolts, guidance cantrip, and bonus action transformation that can be a bonus action ranged attack or other super useful options such as concentration preservation or improved healing. The ranged spell attack option is activated as a part of the transformation so no bonus action clog or spellcasting limitation for your action since it’s not a spell. Primal savagery is a great melee option that scales in d10 damage die if you need it up close for some reason.
arcana domain gives two additional wizard cantrips that count as cleric cantrips so you can use wisdom to attack with fire bolt if necessary. Spell breaker can synergize with the healing boost from the star transformation a bit to end spell effects and boost healing simultaneously.
something to keep in mind is that the Tasha’s optional feature blessed strikes doesn’t limit the bonus damage die to “cleric” cantrips like the subclass features do. So the 1d8 radiant die would be added to primal savagery, thornwhip, or any damage dealing druid cantrip you’ve chosen.
It is the best gish, aside from maybe bladesinger. Maybe. Conquest Paladin isn't like the other paladins, you're not just some goody-two-shoes holy warrior. No no. Not at all.
You got an AOE fear effect to lock down and control the battlefield, and eventually a fear aura that radiats psychic damage to creatures feared by you and also drops their speed all the way to 0. So cool psychic AOE control powers, Check!
But that's not all, you also have Spiritual weapon on your spell list always prepared. So your Bonus Action is basically spoken for. Drop a magical spectral weapon into the battle and attack with it every round at range. Reliable ranged spell attack? Check.
And you're a paladin. Smack them with a sword and smite them. Melee? Check.
Best gish? Conquest Paladin.
Other fun stuff you can do besides vanilla conquest paladin:
Elf to snag a blade cantrip to enhance your melee options. Not needed, but fun at low levels.
Dip Sorcerer for the same reason, plus faster spell slot progression and subclass goodies. Divine is a go-to for the +2d4 per short rest ability but others could be good too. Slows your awesome paladin feature progression and really not optimal for this subclass but could still be good, especially with a higher level build.
Leonin, Assimar, or Metallic/Gem Dragonborn plus Dragon Fear feat. More ways to fear your enemies is a big win.
Shield, plus shield master feat. This means less spiritual weapon use, since you'll be knocking enemies prone with your BA instead. Good, and powerful.
Whip. Niche weapon, but this build can actually use it reasonable well, fear an enemy, lock them to 0 speed in your aura, fight them at 10ft away where they cannot retaliate. Situational, just carry it on your hip like your favorite treasure hunter for when you'll need it.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I think a good question to ask is do you think you want extra attack or not? If not this might be decent.
2 levels of circle of stars druid. X levels of arcana domain cleric.
stars gives situationally useful guiding bolts, guidance cantrip, and bonus action transformation that can be a bonus action ranged attack or other super useful options such as concentration preservation or improved healing. The ranged spell attack option is activated as a part of the transformation so no bonus action clog or spellcasting limitation for your action since it’s not a spell. Primal savagery is a great melee option that scales in d10 damage die if you need it up close for some reason.
arcana domain gives two additional wizard cantrips that count as cleric cantrips so you can use wisdom to attack with fire bolt if necessary. Spell breaker can synergize with the healing boost from the star transformation a bit to end spell effects and boost healing simultaneously.
something to keep in mind is that the Tasha’s optional feature blessed strikes doesn’t limit the bonus damage die to “cleric” cantrips like the subclass features do. So the 1d8 radiant die would be added to primal savagery, thornwhip, or any damage dealing druid cantrip you’ve chosen.
RAW there ar ea lot of problems with this though many tables ignore it because dealing with spell components is complicated and can slow the game down.
For a starts druid to know guiding bolt and guidance a stars druid needs to hold their star map. While this can act as a focus for your druid spells is can not for your cleric spells. Guiding bolt is a spell with somantic but not material components (I have been informed that the requirement of the star map does not mean that is a component) so you can only cast guiding bolt if you are holding the star map in one hand and nothing in the other. Warcaster requireds you to have a shield or weapon in one or both hands so you can not cast guiding bolt with your cleric focus in one hand and your star map in the other even with warcaster. You might be able to get by using your one object interaction pick up your focus if your DM allows you to attach your foci to your person and drop them for free but it is suboptimal.
I also wouldn't decribe this as a gish build. The OP did say they didn't care if the melee attacks were spells or not (which isn't the traditional definition of a gish) but all you have really said about melee is primal savagyas a melee attack it might be slightly better than toll the dead but toll the dead is far more versatile.
The problem with the "gish" bards and bladesinger is that you're a full caster and by level 6-7 your best spells are just a way better use of your action than anything you can do with your weapon, and the gap just widens the higher you go. Bard especially is looking at a choice between doing like 10 damage with their rapier or controlling the entire battlefield. These are really only gishes in the sense that they have a good resourceless option during the "mop up" phase of the fight.
The problem with the "gish" bards and bladesinger is that you're a full caster and by level 6-7 your best spells are just a way better use of your action than anything you can do with your weapon, and the gap just widens the higher you go. Bard especially is looking at a choice between doing like 10 damage with their rapier or controlling the entire battlefield. These are really only gishes in the sense that they have a good resourceless option during the "mop up" phase of the fight.
Hexblade 1, Devotion Paladin 2, Swords Bard X works really well to manage good melee damage while also having great spell selections. Being able to Divine Smite on top of applying the Bardic Inspiration dice to damage allows for some really powerful hits, and 1/day the character is adding 2x Charisma Modifier to attack rolls by using Channel Divinity (At L11, that's a +14 to hit, which is really good at landing blows).
My apologies, there is the rest of the spell lists to take into consideration too. Absorb elements, Spirit guardians, spiritual weapon, inflict wounds, protection from good and evil, sanctuary, shield of faith, guardian of faith.
I think the question of if the extra attack feature is wanted would help to nail things down a bit more. There have already been several posts about more traditional gish builds so I decided to try and focus more on the ranger spell attacks in a different way.
I do like the conquest paladin guidance that Rav suggested.
The problem with the "gish" bards and bladesinger is that you're a full caster and by level 6-7 your best spells are just a way better use of your action than anything you can do with your weapon, and the gap just widens the higher you go. Bard especially is looking at a choice between doing like 10 damage with their rapier or controlling the entire battlefield. These are really only gishes in the sense that they have a good resourceless option during the "mop up" phase of the fight.
Hexblade 1, Devotion Paladin 2, Swords Bard X works really well to manage good melee damage while also having great spell selections. Being able to Divine Smite on top of applying the Bardic Inspiration dice to damage allows for some really powerful hits, and 1/day the character is adding 2x Charisma Modifier to attack rolls by using Channel Divinity (At L11, that's a +14 to hit, which is really good at landing blows).
Its a little hard to go 2 levels of Devotion Paladin when it takes 3 levels of Paladin to pick a subclass. And if you do go this route you will not be getting your first ASI until level 8 and won't hit Extra Attack until level 10 which will make you a fairly inferior combatant for a large chunk of most campaigns.
Its a little hard to go 2 levels of Devotion Paladin when it takes 3 levels of Paladin to pick a subclass. And if you do go this route you will not be getting your first ASI until level 8 and won't hit Extra Attack until level 10 which will make you a fairly inferior combatant for a large chunk of most campaigns.
Some very fair points. Extra attack won't be as crucial if you attack using cantrips, but that takes away from the whole Gish bit.
Conquest Paladin is a nice option but I'm not sure if it fulfils the spellcasting aspect of a gish build since it's only a half caster. Sword bards with a Hexblade dip is more on point (pun intended) but I guess it comes down to how you define a gish and what you want it to do. I mean, if single class Conquest Paladins fit the bill then so should Battle Smith artificers. :)
IMO creating a gish by multiclass does not really work. If you dip spellcaster at moderate to high levels you only really have utility spells though something like bless can still be useful. If you dip martial you miss out on extra attack and if you take five levels of martial you are way down on the spell curve.
Regarding when gish bard and bladesingers cease to use martial attacks it depends on the campaign. At level 6 or 7 they have 10 or 11 spell slots with 1 or 2 encounters per day you are likely to spend most of your turns casting levelled spells but on a dungeon crawl with 6 to 8 (or more) encounters spellcasters are likely to cast one concentration spell then use cantrips. A bladesingers is able to add a melee attack on top of the cantrip (though being limited to 3 bladesongs a day will mean the rest of the time th3y need to stand back) while a valor bard can do far more damage with a sword than cantrip. Vicious mockery is good if the enemy has one big attack, less good with multiattack and useless against a cleric casting save based spells.
IMO creating a gish by multiclass does not really work. If you dip spellcaster at moderate to high levels you only really have utility spells though something like bless can still be useful. If you dip martial you miss out on extra attack and if you take five levels of martial you are way down on the spell curve.
That's why you start out as a hexblade and then multiclass to bard at level 2. ;) And swords bards are much more gish-y than valor bards. :)
The problem with the "gish" bards and bladesinger is that you're a full caster and by level 6-7 your best spells are just a way better use of your action than anything you can do with your weapon, and the gap just widens the higher you go. Bard especially is looking at a choice between doing like 10 damage with their rapier or controlling the entire battlefield. These are really only gishes in the sense that they have a good resourceless option during the "mop up" phase of the fight.
Hexblade 1, Devotion Paladin 2, Swords Bard X works really well to manage good melee damage while also having great spell selections. Being able to Divine Smite on top of applying the Bardic Inspiration dice to damage allows for some really powerful hits, and 1/day the character is adding 2x Charisma Modifier to attack rolls by using Channel Divinity (At L11, that's a +14 to hit, which is really good at landing blows).
Its a little hard to go 2 levels of Devotion Paladin when it takes 3 levels of Paladin to pick a subclass. And if you do go this route you will not be getting your first ASI until level 8 and won't hit Extra Attack until level 10 which will make you a fairly inferior combatant for a large chunk of most campaigns.
Sorry, 2 levels of Paladin gives you Divine Smite, which allows you to use your nearly full-caster's worth of spell slots to smite, which compensates for not having the 2nd attack until later. The 3rd level of Paladin would let you take the Devotion subclass, and if you need that ASI badly, there's nothing preventing you from taking a 4th level in Paladin. You could even take 8 levels of Paladin to get your next ASI and add your Charisma Modifier to all of your saves, so your Charisma is maxed at L9, and you're adding it to your melee attack rolls and damage, saves, spell attack rolls, and spell save dcs. It's just that the more levels of Paladin you take, the fewer spell slots you have for smites.
The problem with the "gish" bards and bladesinger is that you're a full caster and by level 6-7 your best spells are just a way better use of your action than anything you can do with your weapon, and the gap just widens the higher you go. Bard especially is looking at a choice between doing like 10 damage with their rapier or controlling the entire battlefield. These are really only gishes in the sense that they have a good resourceless option during the "mop up" phase of the fight.
Hexblade 1, Devotion Paladin 2, Swords Bard X works really well to manage good melee damage while also having great spell selections. Being able to Divine Smite on top of applying the Bardic Inspiration dice to damage allows for some really powerful hits, and 1/day the character is adding 2x Charisma Modifier to attack rolls by using Channel Divinity (At L11, that's a +14 to hit, which is really good at landing blows).
Its a little hard to go 2 levels of Devotion Paladin when it takes 3 levels of Paladin to pick a subclass. And if you do go this route you will not be getting your first ASI until level 8 and won't hit Extra Attack until level 10 which will make you a fairly inferior combatant for a large chunk of most campaigns.
Sorry, 2 levels of Paladin gives you Divine Smite, which allows you to use your nearly full-caster's worth of spell slots to smite, which compensates for not having the 2nd attack until later. The 3rd level of Paladin would let you take the Devotion subclass, and if you need that ASI badly, there's nothing preventing you from taking a 4th level in Paladin. You could even take 8 levels of Paladin to get your next ASI and add your Charisma Modifier to all of your saves, so your Charisma is maxed at L9, and you're adding it to your melee attack rolls and damage, saves, spell attack rolls, and spell save dcs. It's just that the more levels of Paladin you take, the fewer spell slots you have for smites.
Let’s look more closely at that - Hex 1, Pal 2 effectively means that at character level 4 you are now a bard 1 and you have to go at least 3 more levels (as a Paladin, or 5 as a bard) to get 2 attacks. Similarly you have to go either 3 (Hex), 2 (Pal) or 4 (bard) levels to get your first ASI and you will always be basically 1 ASI behind. Further your warlock level doesn’t add much towards your spells and slots so at level 4 you are now a L2 caster (1/2*2L Pal + 1L Bard) with 4 L1 slots (3 from the L2 multi caster and 1 from the L1 warlock).you select spells as a L1 bard, L1 warlock and L2 Paladin none of which know many spells. Nor are your slots going to last long if used for smites. This is the problem with complex multiclass builds. Especially if the campaign doesn’t go past L12.
Not a traditional gish but fits being able to cast spells at range and attack (spell or not) in melee. In wildshape form you can not cast spells (until level 18) but a common tactics is to cast a spell with concentration and then wildshape. At level 2 and 3 you will be by far the most effective melee attacker in the group and as you progress you will want to spend more time spell casting but wildshape is always available to do OK damage (for example if your humanoid form is low on hp).
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Nothing wrong with both but I do feel spells as op attacks will very rarely come up. If you are up against a melee enemy they are going to want to stay next to you, if they are intelligent as a caster you are probably high on their target list, if 5hey are not intelligent they will just attack the nearest target. A ranged martial enemy is likely to just pull out a rapier. So 5he only creatures likely to want to get away are spellcasters, they will make it hard for you to get in melee with them and are likely to have a defence against op attacks just in case (eg shocking grasp or misty step). Advantage on concentration saves is great, being able to cast a spell with your hands full on some builds/tables is almost compulsorary spells as an op attack is a very situational kicker.
I think a good question to ask is do you think you want extra attack or not? If not this might be decent.
2 levels of circle of stars druid.
X levels of arcana domain cleric.
stars gives situationally useful guiding bolts, guidance cantrip, and bonus action transformation that can be a bonus action ranged attack or other super useful options such as concentration preservation or improved healing. The ranged spell attack option is activated as a part of the transformation so no bonus action clog or spellcasting limitation for your action since it’s not a spell. Primal savagery is a great melee option that scales in d10 damage die if you need it up close for some reason.
arcana domain gives two additional wizard cantrips that count as cleric cantrips so you can use wisdom to attack with fire bolt if necessary. Spell breaker can synergize with the healing boost from the star transformation a bit to end spell effects and boost healing simultaneously.
something to keep in mind is that the Tasha’s optional feature blessed strikes doesn’t limit the bonus damage die to “cleric” cantrips like the subclass features do. So the 1d8 radiant die would be added to primal savagery, thornwhip, or any damage dealing druid cantrip you’ve chosen.
Conquest Paladin.
It is the best gish, aside from maybe bladesinger. Maybe. Conquest Paladin isn't like the other paladins, you're not just some goody-two-shoes holy warrior. No no. Not at all.
You got an AOE fear effect to lock down and control the battlefield, and eventually a fear aura that radiats psychic damage to creatures feared by you and also drops their speed all the way to 0. So cool psychic AOE control powers, Check!
But that's not all, you also have Spiritual weapon on your spell list always prepared. So your Bonus Action is basically spoken for. Drop a magical spectral weapon into the battle and attack with it every round at range. Reliable ranged spell attack? Check.
And you're a paladin. Smack them with a sword and smite them. Melee? Check.
Best gish? Conquest Paladin.
Other fun stuff you can do besides vanilla conquest paladin:
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
RAW there ar ea lot of problems with this though many tables ignore it because dealing with spell components is complicated and can slow the game down.
For a starts druid to know guiding bolt and guidance a stars druid needs to hold their star map. While this can act as a focus for your druid spells is can not for your cleric spells. Guiding bolt is a spell with somantic but not material components (I have been informed that the requirement of the star map does not mean that is a component) so you can only cast guiding bolt if you are holding the star map in one hand and nothing in the other. Warcaster requireds you to have a shield or weapon in one or both hands so you can not cast guiding bolt with your cleric focus in one hand and your star map in the other even with warcaster. You might be able to get by using your one object interaction pick up your focus if your DM allows you to attach your foci to your person and drop them for free but it is suboptimal.
I also wouldn't decribe this as a gish build. The OP did say they didn't care if the melee attacks were spells or not (which isn't the traditional definition of a gish) but all you have really said about melee is primal savagyas a melee attack it might be slightly better than toll the dead but toll the dead is far more versatile.
The problem with the "gish" bards and bladesinger is that you're a full caster and by level 6-7 your best spells are just a way better use of your action than anything you can do with your weapon, and the gap just widens the higher you go. Bard especially is looking at a choice between doing like 10 damage with their rapier or controlling the entire battlefield. These are really only gishes in the sense that they have a good resourceless option during the "mop up" phase of the fight.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Hexblade 1
, DevotionPaladin 2, Swords Bard X works really well to manage good melee damage while also having great spell selections. Being able to Divine Smite on top of applying the Bardic Inspiration dice to damage allows for some really powerful hits, and 1/day the character is adding 2x Charisma Modifier to attack rolls by using Channel Divinity (At L11, that's a +14 to hit, which is really good at landing blows).My apologies, there is the rest of the spell lists to take into consideration too. Absorb elements, Spirit guardians, spiritual weapon, inflict wounds, protection from good and evil, sanctuary, shield of faith, guardian of faith.
I think the question of if the extra attack feature is wanted would help to nail things down a bit more. There have already been several posts about more traditional gish builds so I decided to try and focus more on the ranger spell attacks in a different way.
I do like the conquest paladin guidance that Rav suggested.
Its a little hard to go 2 levels of Devotion Paladin when it takes 3 levels of Paladin to pick a subclass. And if you do go this route you will not be getting your first ASI until level 8 and won't hit Extra Attack until level 10 which will make you a fairly inferior combatant for a large chunk of most campaigns.
Some very fair points. Extra attack won't be as crucial if you attack using cantrips, but that takes away from the whole Gish bit.
Conquest Paladin is a nice option but I'm not sure if it fulfils the spellcasting aspect of a gish build since it's only a half caster. Sword bards with a Hexblade dip is more on point (pun intended) but I guess it comes down to how you define a gish and what you want it to do. I mean, if single class Conquest Paladins fit the bill then so should Battle Smith artificers. :)
IMO creating a gish by multiclass does not really work. If you dip spellcaster at moderate to high levels you only really have utility spells though something like bless can still be useful. If you dip martial you miss out on extra attack and if you take five levels of martial you are way down on the spell curve.
Regarding when gish bard and bladesingers cease to use martial attacks it depends on the campaign. At level 6 or 7 they have 10 or 11 spell slots with 1 or 2 encounters per day you are likely to spend most of your turns casting levelled spells but on a dungeon crawl with 6 to 8 (or more) encounters spellcasters are likely to cast one concentration spell then use cantrips. A bladesingers is able to add a melee attack on top of the cantrip (though being limited to 3 bladesongs a day will mean the rest of the time th3y need to stand back) while a valor bard can do far more damage with a sword than cantrip. Vicious mockery is good if the enemy has one big attack, less good with multiattack and useless against a cleric casting save based spells.
That's why you start out as a hexblade and then multiclass to bard at level 2. ;) And swords bards are much more gish-y than valor bards. :)
Sorry, 2 levels of Paladin gives you Divine Smite, which allows you to use your nearly full-caster's worth of spell slots to smite, which compensates for not having the 2nd attack until later. The 3rd level of Paladin would let you take the Devotion subclass, and if you need that ASI badly, there's nothing preventing you from taking a 4th level in Paladin. You could even take 8 levels of Paladin to get your next ASI and add your Charisma Modifier to all of your saves, so your Charisma is maxed at L9, and you're adding it to your melee attack rolls and damage, saves, spell attack rolls, and spell save dcs. It's just that the more levels of Paladin you take, the fewer spell slots you have for smites.
Let’s look more closely at that - Hex 1, Pal 2 effectively means that at character level 4 you are now a bard 1 and you have to go at least 3 more levels (as a Paladin, or 5 as a bard) to get 2 attacks. Similarly you have to go either 3 (Hex), 2 (Pal) or 4 (bard) levels to get your first ASI and you will always be basically 1 ASI behind. Further your warlock level doesn’t add much towards your spells and slots so at level 4 you are now a L2 caster (1/2*2L Pal + 1L Bard) with 4 L1 slots (3 from the L2 multi caster and 1 from the L1 warlock).you select spells as a L1 bard, L1 warlock and L2 Paladin none of which know many spells. Nor are your slots going to last long if used for smites. This is the problem with complex multiclass builds. Especially if the campaign doesn’t go past L12.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Unless your DM consistently makes all the monsters immune to fear, charm, and paralyzed :)
That was an accident!
Going in a different direction, Moon Druid
Not a traditional gish but fits being able to cast spells at range and attack (spell or not) in melee. In wildshape form you can not cast spells (until level 18) but a common tactics is to cast a spell with concentration and then wildshape. At level 2 and 3 you will be by far the most effective melee attacker in the group and as you progress you will want to spend more time spell casting but wildshape is always available to do OK damage (for example if your humanoid form is low on hp).