How to make a torturer

How very loosely? Severian would need to be pretty lethal with a two-handed sword - plus maybe simply a tool proficiency, Torturer's Tools. If only there were finesse 2-handed swords. But maybe you can use various sources of rerolls to fish for crits? Lucky, advantage ... and so on.

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There is a fundamental lore / mechanical problem in 5e w.r.t. torture, in that it is pretty much unnecessary because Zone of Truth exists. All you need to be a good interrogator, is Zone of Truth and maybe Charm Person or Suggestion, or perhaps if you want to be super deceptive Disguise Self. So basically, a level 3 Trickery Cleric is already by itself the best interrogator you can be, and they have no need to torture anyone at all - actually they're probably much more effective than any possible torture.

   You nailed it with all the spells and magic available torture would be useless and unnecessary unless the goal isn't to gain information and it's just being done because an evil NPC enjoys being pure evil.   If it's the later the spare the dying cantrip would be the most diabolical tool available.   I can see a captive being held in terrible conditions like that being an incentive a DM can use to encourage players to conduct a rescue as fast as possible, but a lot of tables don't like going that dark.  For actual interrogations I imagine the authorities would have magic items such as a chair that casts zone of truth and potions that would give advantage on insight and intimidation checks so that the interrogator doesn't even need to bother a busy cleric to burn spell slots.  This makes me think of the Martians from the expanse series bragging that they don't need to torture people to get information out of them.      

There is another purpose for torture in D&D and that's slavery. Lots of D&D villains are slavers, and torture can be effective to psychologically break slaves to prevent rebellion or to terrorize them into obedience. In these instances, you don't actually care about accuracy or honesty, you want to make the slave say what you want them to say regardless of the truth. Similar to the torture in 1984 or brutally used in oppressive regimes. Efficacy varies subject to subject though. One could make a decent character as an ex-torturer / ex-slaver who has become disillusioned with the oppression they used to work to maintain and is now seeking redemption or to over throw that system of oppression.

For this kind of torturer you'd want spells/abilities like Hold Person / Phantasmal Killer, or the Rune Knight's Fire Chains, also divination spells like Locate Creature, Scrying, or another good one would be Dream. Though other options include Transmute Rock, Spike Growth, Malestrom, Forecage, Sickening Radiance, Phantasmal Force, and especially Gaes. 

 If you're going down that route it would probably look more like Caribbean sugar plantations during the beginning of the slave trade when the average life expectancy of a slave was 5 years.  If it's a character concept they may have not even had a choice as the task of torturing slaves is often delegated to other slaves.  Magic isn't needed to inflict damage or restrain people, but magic is needed to heal people to be tortured more.  The animate dead spell would also be used by slavers.  Think Conan spending his lift turning that wheel to power a mill.  Condemned slaves could be set to do a repetitive task like turning a wheel for a millstone/sawmill, pumping bellows, or rowing oars in a galley and after they are animated the undead can be chained to their task and abandoned by the necromancer to go feral after the 24 hours of control expires.  Sure they would attack any living that gets to close so them but when no living are near them they would perform the task they are chained to.  Their primary job would be to demoralize the slaves reminding them that even if they die they are not free.   Between healing the tortured to be tortured more and turning feral undead that occasionally get loose a cleric would be the perfect slave to turn into a taskmaster.   

But it's fun

A death cleric seems to be a good match for an interrogator/torturer. They are evil, and have ray of sickness, blindness/deafness, ray of enfeeblement and animate dead (kill another prisoner in front of them and animate it) a. s domain spells, which can be usefull. plus, get revivify so you can kill the prisoner and bring him back (assuming it's worth the funds).

Or an inquisitor should be a good interrogator (can tell lies and find clues).

Or Bard: College of Whispers with words of terror. Give them intimidation and persuasion!

Hey, I know I'm a bit late, but I'm also building one and looking for some information for it too so... thought I'd share my opinion.

For the race I chose Mark of Detection Half-Elf, and for the class I'm doing College of Whispers bard. I believe a good torturer/interrogator has to also be a good investigator to some extent, and the Mark of Detection Half-Elf gives great utility in that regard with the extended spell list and its other traits. On the other hand, although the archetype is not great mechanically, its abilities work great into this magical rogish concept that I believe fits perfectly with the vibe of a morally gray character that benefits from other's pain. You've also got healing spells and can do everything a bard can, but you can always have your in character "twists" with all the illusions and all those roleplay heavy spells that bards get.

In my case, I want this character to be a skill monkey, focused on using a lot of different tool kits and stuff like that to be of use for the party as someone they can rely on, and so I took the Volstrucker Agent Background and the Skilled Feat at level 4, to spread my proficiencies through both skills and tools.

So... yeah, I'm basically making a worse Rogue in exchange for better spellcasting and more flavour towards the concept I wanna work on, so I believe I'll like it. 

Hope this helps!

The Street Justice feat from Adventures in Faerun might be close to what you are looking for.

Per 2024, Command has a fixed list of effects, and even without that you’re really stretching the spirit of the spell; the given examples are all basic physical actions- drop an item, assume a pose, move in that direction. Trying to get a cognitive response like answering a question seems outside the intended scope.

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Per 2024, Command has a fixed list of effects, and even without that you’re really stretching the spirit of the spell; the given examples are all basic physical actions- drop an item, assume a pose, move in that direction. Trying to get a cognitive response like answering a question seems outside the intended scope.

 

Gebuz. Of all the things to spend time and energy on, that was bottom of the list 

Would prefer they define "attack"

 They did. If you make an attack roll it’s an attack. If you don’t make the roll, it’s not an attack.