Hello D&Dbeyond! For a while I have been trying to get the highest possible initiative on a character without using magic items to modify it. Here’s what I have so far,
Race: Harengon to add proficiency bonus
Class 1: Barbarian for seven levels to get advantage
Class 2: Battlemaster Fighter for 3 levels, pick up the ambush maneuver to add a superiority die
Class 3: Swashbuckler Rogue for 3 levels to add Charisma modifier
Class 4: Gloomstalker Ranger for 3 levels to add Wisdom modifier
Class 5: War Mage Wizard for 2 levels to add Intelligence modifier
Feat: Alert
Comment if I missed anything.
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Well, you missed how you're going to have a high enough charisma, wisdom, and intelligence scores to make all that multiclassing worthwhile. Because really, if any of them is less than 16 there's not much point in taking that dip instead of staying with just one of those classes and pumping up your dex and other ability score.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Well, you missed the fact that once you have any 2 of those bonuses you probably have more than enough to go first in almost every combat, and after the first round it doesn’t really matter anymore anyway unless you are specifically concerned about lair actions, and even then you’re likely to go before those most of the time too, so the rest of those bonuses are kinda pointless.
So going with your path on point buy, you end up with an initiative of 20. You can also get 20 just from barbarian and rogue. If you drop the wizard class, give the other classes an extra level to get the ASIs, and shift the starting points around, you can get to 22 and still have a playable character. Let's be honest though, you'll never use the ambush from the fighter class with initiative that high. So if you keep wizard and drop fighter, you can get to 23. Now the class that would benefit the most would be an assassin rogue. So changing that and dumping CHA brings you back to 22, but now you have a reason to want to go first and it's playable. That's what I came up with anyway.
How are do you doing ability scores? While you could say it is theoretically possible to roll 18s in everything it is not realistic. Point Buy is a much more sensible approach.
Your character requires 13 in str, dex, wis and Int, and to gat ANY benefit from swashbuckler a 12 in charisma, and no ASIs as you are taking Alert the only time you get an ASI/feat. So with sats something like Str 13, Dex 15+1, Con 8, Int 13+1, Wis 13+1, cha 13.
I am no expert in theorycrafting but how about:
2 Levels of War Mage: You can also get the Gift of alacrity spell for a 1d8 bonus to initiative
12 levels of Swashbucker for Rackish Audacity and Reliable talent
6 levels of Battlemaster for Ambush Manouver and 2 ASIs
Feat Alert
Reliable talent lets you treat any roll of 9 or less as a 10 for any ability check which you add your proficiency which, as a harengon includes initiative.
Starting stats Str 8, Dex 15+2, Con 8, Int 15+1, Wis 8, Cha 15 By level 20 You will have had 5 ASIs (+Alert) so at level 20 you can have 8, 20, 8, 20, 8, 18
Intitiative a d20 with a minimum score of 10 +:
Hare trigger +6
Alert +5
Dex +5
Int + 5
Cha +4
Gift of Alacrity 1d8
Ambush Manouver 1d8
Minimum initiative of 37 maximum of 61.
If you know you are going to enter initiative you could also cast guidance
This is of course pure theory it is almost unknown for monsters to be able to have initiative higher than 30 so anything over that is pointless.
Edit: If you replace the final two levels of fighter with two levels of War Wizard you can then cast Enhance abilty to get advantage (providing you are using the optional class features from Tasha's)
At 18th level, you’ll have had one feat, and you took alert. So no asi. Better roll really well. And sure, you’ll go first, (often, but if you roll an 1, all the pluses in the world won’t help you.) and you’ll have an array of low level abilities to choose from, but none of the mid or high level stuff. The action you take will be pretty anticlimactic.
harengon level 11 rogue has a minimum initiative of about 19 if they invest in dexterity. increased floor of 23-24 if they also have the alert feat.
almost no creatures have more than a +4 to initiative, so you almost a 100% chance to win initiative regardless of exhaustion or other disadvantageous conditions. especially with alert since you cant be surprised.
I present a number of simpler universal methods than class bonuses:
1. Cast guidance (Initiative check is a check on dexterity, so guidance will work)
2. Use Bardic inspiration from ally bard
3. Jack of all trades also give bonus to initiative check (look in point 1)
4. Cast gift of alacrity
5. Cast ceremony. Choose option "Coming of age" and use this 1d4 for initiative check
6. Cleric of Twilight domain can give advantage on initiative check
7. Enhanced ability also work, if caster will give you advantage on dexterity
8. You can use feat lucky
9. Warlock`s Feature "Dark One's Own Luck" also work on Dexterity checks
10. Flash of Genius of artificial also work on initiative
You can use all features, feats and spells, which work on ability checks, because initiative check is a Dexterity check
Edit: Also, you can give disadvantage on initiative roll, if you give disadvatage on dexterity checks (example, you can cast Hex on Dexterity and give disadvantage on initiative)
Assuming point buy then there is no reason to have all three of Gloomstalker, Swashbuckler and War mage. These add wis, cha and int to initiative but any stat you boost means there is a different one that you don't unless you plan to get magic items of some sort. As a result, you'd probably want to boost whichever stat is most relevant to the primary class and not bother multiclassing into the others. On the other hand, having a headband of intellect suddenly makes a level of war mage more useful since that becomes a +4 to initiative with the magic item.
From a practical perspective, you probably don't want to start with 8 con ... which means that the other stats are likely 16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8 or maybe 16,16,14, 12, 8, 8 ... either way, with a 10 or 12 in con (which might work for a ranged damage character) it leaves 14 for either int or cha for either L2 war mage or L3 rogue swashbuckler to add the extra +2 to initiative.
Likely the most feasible option would be something like Harengon Gloomstalker ranger - starting with 16 dex and wis using point buy - pick up one level in twilight cleric for advantage on initiative then either a 2 level dip in war mage for the spells or a 3 level dip in rogue swashbuckler for the sneak attack and skills (in addition to the +2 initiative).
Bard Jack of All Trades isn't useful since it only applies to rolls that don't get your proficiency already and a Harengon adds proficiency to initiative. Bardic inspiration and other options will boost initiative but it only last 10 minutes which means you have to know you will be rolling initiative to make it worthwhile. If you know you are rolling initiative then someone could toss guidance into the mix anyway.
Stone of Good Luck would add a +1 to initiative if attuned.
The Gift of Alacrity spell may not be available in your game since it is from Wildemount. It is also restricted to Chronurgy Magic and so might not be available to every mage.
If you picked up the Alert feat at level 4 then you could have:
L5 Gloomstalker Harengon Ranger + L1 Twilight cleric + L2 War mage for advantage on initiative with a +13 at level 8 or
L5 Gloomstalker Harengon Ranger + L1 Twilight cleric + L3 Swashbuckler rogue for advantage on initiative with a +13 at level 9
Both would be pretty fun, practical builds .. the rogue might have a bit more synergy with sneak attack, cunning action, an additional skill and skill expertise ... but the wizard dip has a lot of spell utility with things like a familiar and the Gift of Alacrity spell if available.
There are various other magic items that could be used to boost initiative a bit more. If you had high rolled stats then the mage and rogue dips might be worthwhile but most of the time probably not.
I came across this thread while looking at a Quick Draw Build for a Gloomstalker, and the one key component missing (since this appears to be a 2014 Build discussion), is:
Background: Ruined
You get to start first level with Alert.
So my build is: Harengon Ranger: Gloom stalker; Level 6: Cleric Twilight 1, Level 7 & 8: Fighter 2 (for Action Surge), Levels 9-12 Rogue: Assassin (I'm also doing a high mobility build with this, so I have a Con 12, Str 14 to amplify jumping, climbing, etc. So, you could get even high init by stripping those for more Wis)
After that, you can go back and clean up with Cleric 2 for the Twilight's temp hp boost, Fighter 3+ for Battle Master (ambush), and finally, 17-20, rogue or ranger, your choice.
The key with this build is that it only relies on Dex & Wis, so not all that MAD. It's not only fast, but it does crazy damage in round 1 and is still very strong in subsequent rounds. Also, there's a sustained Initiative victory. It's not just amazing starting at level 4 or 8 or 20. It's great from day 1.
Level 1: Init +10 (11-30), Level 3 +12, Level 4 +13 (Gunner or Athlete for Dex 18) Level 5 +14, Level 6 +14+d4 (guidance) +advantage, Level 7 14+d4+d6 (ambush) +advantage, etc. and Maxes out at Level 17 with +17+d8+d4 +advantage. (By level 6, your average remains a consistent 15 points above just about every initiative in the game, regardless of level and CR.
That's a Level 1 average initiative of 20.5 and maxes at an average of 40.5 with a range of 20-49, which pretty much means you're going to go first in about 98% of combats in a 20 level career (depending on the number of initiative rolls per level), and most of the rolls you'll lose are going to be in levels 1 and 2, when you don't get much advantage for going first. (I did the math, and you lose about 17% of the time, on average, at levels 1 and 2, which assuming a consistent number of combats per level is about 1.8% all combats in the character's career, and then, after that, your odds of losing fall to about 7% at level 3, about 2% at level 4, and from 5 on, it's a statistical oddity to lose at all, because you're still getting 15 on a roll of 1.
So, long story short. You don't need higher initiative in later levels. If you're looking to build a better initiative winner, the real problem with these builds is in Tier 1, mainly levels 1 and 2. So, if you can find a better level 1 or level 2 builds, that's what would make the difference (unless you GM deliberately tries to undermine PC strengths).
That said, I'm still working on this build, because I would like to get Fey Touched in, in part for the added movement, and with that, probably Gift of Alacrity (and maybe a way to get Wis to +3).
Hello D&Dbeyond! For a while I have been trying to get the highest possible initiative on a character without using magic items to modify it. Here’s what I have so far,
Race: Harengon to add proficiency bonus
Class 1: Barbarian for seven levels to get advantage
Class 2: Battlemaster Fighter for 3 levels, pick up the ambush maneuver to add a superiority die
Class 3: Swashbuckler Rogue for 3 levels to add Charisma modifier
Class 4: Gloomstalker Ranger for 3 levels to add Wisdom modifier
Class 5: War Mage Wizard for 2 levels to add Intelligence modifier
Feat: Alert
Comment if I missed anything.
If it’s because you want to go first, and always go first: here is the feat:
Alert
Origin Feat
You gain the following benefits.
Initiative Proficiency. When you roll Initiative, you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the roll.
Initiative Swap. Immediately after you roll Initiative, you can swap your Initiative with the Initiative of one willing ally in the same combat. You can’t make this swap if you or the ally has the Incapacitatedcondition.
Just initiative swap, with the party members. Mostly likely it would be someone with Alert. Just throwing this out there, so you don’t have to over complicate things
Given that the question was asked in May of 2023, the 2024 rules are not applicable to this build discussion. If we're looking for the highest initiative under the 2024 rules, we should probably have a new thread.
INT as highest stat followed by DEX. Chronurgy Wizards Temporal Awareness at level 3 adds INT mod to initiative bonus. Alert Feat level 1 or 4. As much as +10 or more as early as level 3 depending on stat generation and species.
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Hello D&Dbeyond! For a while I have been trying to get the highest possible initiative on a character without using magic items to modify it. Here’s what I have so far,
Race: Harengon to add proficiency bonus
Class 1: Barbarian for seven levels to get advantage
Class 2: Battlemaster Fighter for 3 levels, pick up the ambush maneuver to add a superiority die
Class 3: Swashbuckler Rogue for 3 levels to add Charisma modifier
Class 4: Gloomstalker Ranger for 3 levels to add Wisdom modifier
Class 5: War Mage Wizard for 2 levels to add Intelligence modifier
Feat: Alert
Comment if I missed anything.
I’m a decent DM and an above average rules lawyer
I have several complete Pokedexes | I may be stupid, but at least I’m not smart!
Stay Paranoid!! My Drummer given title is… Swift as the Dragon
May the dice roll ever in your favor
Well, you missed how you're going to have a high enough charisma, wisdom, and intelligence scores to make all that multiclassing worthwhile. Because really, if any of them is less than 16 there's not much point in taking that dip instead of staying with just one of those classes and pumping up your dex and other ability score.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Well, you missed the fact that once you have any 2 of those bonuses you probably have more than enough to go first in almost every combat, and after the first round it doesn’t really matter anymore anyway unless you are specifically concerned about lair actions, and even then you’re likely to go before those most of the time too, so the rest of those bonuses are kinda pointless.
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So going with your path on point buy, you end up with an initiative of 20. You can also get 20 just from barbarian and rogue. If you drop the wizard class, give the other classes an extra level to get the ASIs, and shift the starting points around, you can get to 22 and still have a playable character. Let's be honest though, you'll never use the ambush from the fighter class with initiative that high. So if you keep wizard and drop fighter, you can get to 23. Now the class that would benefit the most would be an assassin rogue. So changing that and dumping CHA brings you back to 22, but now you have a reason to want to go first and it's playable. That's what I came up with anyway.
How are do you doing ability scores? While you could say it is theoretically possible to roll 18s in everything it is not realistic. Point Buy is a much more sensible approach.
Your character requires 13 in str, dex, wis and Int, and to gat ANY benefit from swashbuckler a 12 in charisma, and no ASIs as you are taking Alert the only time you get an ASI/feat. So with sats something like Str 13, Dex 15+1, Con 8, Int 13+1, Wis 13+1, cha 13.
I am no expert in theorycrafting but how about:
Reliable talent lets you treat any roll of 9 or less as a 10 for any ability check which you add your proficiency which, as a harengon includes initiative.
Starting stats Str 8, Dex 15+2, Con 8, Int 15+1, Wis 8, Cha 15
By level 20 You will have had 5 ASIs (+Alert) so at level 20 you can have 8, 20, 8, 20, 8, 18
Intitiative a d20 with a minimum score of 10 +:
Minimum initiative of 37 maximum of 61.
If you know you are going to enter initiative you could also cast guidance
This is of course pure theory it is almost unknown for monsters to be able to have initiative higher than 30 so anything over that is pointless.
Edit: If you replace the final two levels of fighter with two levels of War Wizard you can then cast Enhance abilty to get advantage (providing you are using the optional class features from Tasha's)
At 18th level, you’ll have had one feat, and you took alert. So no asi. Better roll really well.
And sure, you’ll go first, (often, but if you roll an 1, all the pluses in the world won’t help you.) and you’ll have an array of low level abilities to choose from, but none of the mid or high level stuff. The action you take will be pretty anticlimactic.
Facts
Drow Shadowblades are so good! Give them a Google!
There is no critical fumble on initiative, a 1 + bonus. In this above cals that give em ~23 so ... still a good shot at going first.
harengon level 11 rogue has a minimum initiative of about 19 if they invest in dexterity. increased floor of 23-24 if they also have the alert feat.
almost no creatures have more than a +4 to initiative, so you almost a 100% chance to win initiative regardless of exhaustion or other disadvantageous conditions. especially with alert since you cant be surprised.
I present a number of simpler universal methods than class bonuses:
1. Cast guidance (Initiative check is a check on dexterity, so guidance will work)
2. Use Bardic inspiration from ally bard
3. Jack of all trades also give bonus to initiative check (look in point 1)
4. Cast gift of alacrity
5. Cast ceremony. Choose option "Coming of age" and use this 1d4 for initiative check
6. Cleric of Twilight domain can give advantage on initiative check
7. Enhanced ability also work, if caster will give you advantage on dexterity
8. You can use feat lucky
9. Warlock`s Feature "Dark One's Own Luck" also work on Dexterity checks
10. Flash of Genius of artificial also work on initiative
You can use all features, feats and spells, which work on ability checks, because initiative check is a Dexterity check
Edit: Also, you can give disadvantage on initiative roll, if you give disadvatage on dexterity checks (example, you can cast Hex on Dexterity and give disadvantage on initiative)
Assuming point buy then there is no reason to have all three of Gloomstalker, Swashbuckler and War mage. These add wis, cha and int to initiative but any stat you boost means there is a different one that you don't unless you plan to get magic items of some sort. As a result, you'd probably want to boost whichever stat is most relevant to the primary class and not bother multiclassing into the others. On the other hand, having a headband of intellect suddenly makes a level of war mage more useful since that becomes a +4 to initiative with the magic item.
From a practical perspective, you probably don't want to start with 8 con ... which means that the other stats are likely 16, 16, 14, 10, 10, 8 or maybe 16,16,14, 12, 8, 8 ... either way, with a 10 or 12 in con (which might work for a ranged damage character) it leaves 14 for either int or cha for either L2 war mage or L3 rogue swashbuckler to add the extra +2 to initiative.
Likely the most feasible option would be something like Harengon Gloomstalker ranger - starting with 16 dex and wis using point buy - pick up one level in twilight cleric for advantage on initiative then either a 2 level dip in war mage for the spells or a 3 level dip in rogue swashbuckler for the sneak attack and skills (in addition to the +2 initiative).
Bard Jack of All Trades isn't useful since it only applies to rolls that don't get your proficiency already and a Harengon adds proficiency to initiative. Bardic inspiration and other options will boost initiative but it only last 10 minutes which means you have to know you will be rolling initiative to make it worthwhile. If you know you are rolling initiative then someone could toss guidance into the mix anyway.
Stone of Good Luck would add a +1 to initiative if attuned.
The Gift of Alacrity spell may not be available in your game since it is from Wildemount. It is also restricted to Chronurgy Magic and so might not be available to every mage.
If you picked up the Alert feat at level 4 then you could have:
L5 Gloomstalker Harengon Ranger + L1 Twilight cleric + L2 War mage for advantage on initiative with a +13 at level 8 or
L5 Gloomstalker Harengon Ranger + L1 Twilight cleric + L3 Swashbuckler rogue for advantage on initiative with a +13 at level 9
Both would be pretty fun, practical builds .. the rogue might have a bit more synergy with sneak attack, cunning action, an additional skill and skill expertise ... but the wizard dip has a lot of spell utility with things like a familiar and the Gift of Alacrity spell if available.
There are various other magic items that could be used to boost initiative a bit more. If you had high rolled stats then the mage and rogue dips might be worthwhile but most of the time probably not.
I came across this thread while looking at a Quick Draw Build for a Gloomstalker, and the one key component missing (since this appears to be a 2014 Build discussion), is:
Background: Ruined
You get to start first level with Alert.
So my build is: Harengon Ranger: Gloom stalker; Level 6: Cleric Twilight 1, Level 7 & 8: Fighter 2 (for Action Surge), Levels 9-12 Rogue: Assassin (I'm also doing a high mobility build with this, so I have a Con 12, Str 14 to amplify jumping, climbing, etc. So, you could get even high init by stripping those for more Wis)
After that, you can go back and clean up with Cleric 2 for the Twilight's temp hp boost, Fighter 3+ for Battle Master (ambush), and finally, 17-20, rogue or ranger, your choice.
The key with this build is that it only relies on Dex & Wis, so not all that MAD. It's not only fast, but it does crazy damage in round 1 and is still very strong in subsequent rounds. Also, there's a sustained Initiative victory. It's not just amazing starting at level 4 or 8 or 20. It's great from day 1.
Level 1: Init +10 (11-30), Level 3 +12, Level 4 +13 (Gunner or Athlete for Dex 18) Level 5 +14, Level 6 +14+d4 (guidance) +advantage, Level 7 14+d4+d6 (ambush) +advantage, etc. and Maxes out at Level 17 with +17+d8+d4 +advantage. (By level 6, your average remains a consistent 15 points above just about every initiative in the game, regardless of level and CR.
That's a Level 1 average initiative of 20.5 and maxes at an average of 40.5 with a range of 20-49, which pretty much means you're going to go first in about 98% of combats in a 20 level career (depending on the number of initiative rolls per level), and most of the rolls you'll lose are going to be in levels 1 and 2, when you don't get much advantage for going first. (I did the math, and you lose about 17% of the time, on average, at levels 1 and 2, which assuming a consistent number of combats per level is about 1.8% all combats in the character's career, and then, after that, your odds of losing fall to about 7% at level 3, about 2% at level 4, and from 5 on, it's a statistical oddity to lose at all, because you're still getting 15 on a roll of 1.
So, long story short. You don't need higher initiative in later levels. If you're looking to build a better initiative winner, the real problem with these builds is in Tier 1, mainly levels 1 and 2. So, if you can find a better level 1 or level 2 builds, that's what would make the difference (unless you GM deliberately tries to undermine PC strengths).
That said, I'm still working on this build, because I would like to get Fey Touched in, in part for the added movement, and with that, probably Gift of Alacrity (and maybe a way to get Wis to +3).
If it’s because you want to go first, and always go first: here is the feat:
Alert
Origin Feat
You gain the following benefits.
Initiative Proficiency. When you roll Initiative, you can add your Proficiency Bonus to the roll.
Initiative Swap. Immediately after you roll Initiative, you can swap your Initiative with the Initiative of one willing ally in the same combat. You can’t make this swap if you or the ally has the Incapacitatedcondition.
Just initiative swap, with the party members. Mostly likely it would be someone with Alert. Just throwing this out there, so you don’t have to over complicate things
Given that the question was asked in May of 2023, the 2024 rules are not applicable to this build discussion. If we're looking for the highest initiative under the 2024 rules, we should probably have a new thread.
INT as highest stat followed by DEX. Chronurgy Wizards Temporal Awareness at level 3 adds INT mod to initiative bonus. Alert Feat level 1 or 4. As much as +10 or more as early as level 3 depending on stat generation and species.