First let me say I have never played a D&D game before so go easy on me! Recently I have been looking into the game but there is a lot to read/learn.
After some playing around with the character sheets (made a few characters just to have a look at what is possible.) I found that the one in the link is my favorite (so far as it goes on paper!)
I choose a Wood Elf, Bard and after having a look at multi classing I picked Sorcerer since these seem to compliment one another. After some reading and a bunch of video's I selected my cantips and spells, some that were recommended and a few that I found interesting or seemed handy to have. I was wondering if you have any tips or recommendations for cantrips or spells regarding to my choice. Also I did my best to sort out the ability scores, but not having played a game I don't have a clue how good or bad my picks are!
I do know for Bard and Sorcerer you want to have a high Charisma and dexterity so those were the main stats I put as high as possible. My idea for the character is to build it into a support for my team.
I picked Cure wounds as an option for out of combat healing, due to touch and Healing word since it can be used in range, which seems useful when you aren't close to your team members. Sleep for the purpose to control a situation better. Faerie Fire, was a recommendation and it seems useful to outline the enemies (if I read it correct it also helps against invisible enemies) Vicious Mockery and Prestidigitation also recommendations, where Prestidigitation felt like a good use for role playing purposes too. Mage hand felt like a nice thing to have to check anything safely without losing an actual hand to a trap! Mending so items can be repaired! Saves money! Minor Illusions felt like a great spell to trick or fool something in a sticky situation. It was either Ray of Frost or some other spell, but I could imagine Ray of Frost being handy to slow a pursuer down when needed too. Color Spray, obviously for a dazzling bard performance ;) but seriously it seems like a nice spell to blind a target! (changed) Mage Armor, which was a recommendation too, which seemed great for some extra protection for myself or a party member/ allies. For Feather Fall as you never know when that comes in handy :)
I'm looking forward to learn from you all and thank you for your time if you had a look!
First let me say I have never played a D&D game before so go easy on me! Recently I have been looking into the game but there is a lot to read/learn.
After some playing around with the character sheets (made a few characters just to have a look at what is possible.) I found that the one in the link is my favorite (so far as it goes on paper!)
I choose a Wood Elf, Bard and after having a look at multi classing I picked Sorcerer since these seem to compliment one another. After some reading and a bunch of video's I selected my cantips and spells, some that were recommended and a few that I found interesting or seemed handy to have. I was wondering if you have any tips or recommendations for cantrips or spells regarding to my choice. Also I did my best to sort out the ability scores, but not having played a game I don't have a clue how good or bad my picks are!
I do know for Bard and Sorcerer you want to have a high Charisma and dexterity so those were the main stats I put as high as possible. My idea for the character is to build it into a support for my team.
I picked Cure wounds as an option for out of combat healing, due to touch and Healing word since it can be used in range, which seems useful when you aren't close to your team members. Sleep for the purpose to control a situation better. Faerie Fire, was a recommendation and it seems useful to outline the enemies (if I read it correct it also helps against invisible enemies) Vicious Mockery and Prestidigitation also recommendations, where Prestidigitation felt like a good use for role playing purposes too. Mage hand felt like a nice thing to have to check anything safely without losing an actual hand to a trap! Mending so items can be repaired! Saves money! Minor Illusions felt like a great spell to trick or fool something in a sticky situation. It was either Ray of Frost or some other spell, but I could imagine Ray of Frost being handy to slow a pursuer down when needed too. Color Spray, obviously for a dazzling bard performance ;) but seriously it seems like a nice spell to blind a target! Last Mage Armor, which was a recommendation too, which seemed great for some extra protection for myself or a party member/ allies.
I'm looking forward to learn from you all and thank you for your time if you had a look!
Since you went Draconic Ancestry, you already have access to a "free mage armor" for yourself. If you have someone that regularly doesn't wear armor AND doesn't have an option to do better than 13 + their dex modifier for AC, you can keep mage armor. Otherwise, I'd consider another option. The rest of your options seem reasonable considering what your stated role and goals are. Perhaps consider trading out mage armor for magic missile (particularly if you have multiple allies that use Toll the Dead) so that you can automatically damage 1 or more creatures, or another utility or defensive spell to compliment the ones that you have, perhaps something like bane.
Oh I completely forgot about the Draconic Resilience, good call! Magic missile seemed like an interesting one too, might roll with that ;D Thank you for having a look!
Magic Missile is nice when you need just a little more damage against creatures that are either low HP and swarming, have high AC, are running and you're concerned that they might bring reinforcements, or when you have some teammates with Toll the Dead that normally does 1d8 damage against undamaged creatures but 1d12 against damaged ones and you want to damage multiples. There are other ways to accomplish each roll, but that's a lot of utility into one attack spell. The fact that you can send each dart to a different creature or focus them onto the same one gives even more flexibility.
Message is a neat spell if you think you're going to be sneaking around a lot. It's limited spammable telepathy, which is good when you need to be stealthy. Color spray is a neat spell, but since the blindness only lasts for a single round it isn't anywhere near as good as sleep, despite hitting a larger hp pool. Dissonant Whispers is good because it can trigger multiple attacks of opportunity if the target is surrounded by multiple allies, as well as dealing rarely resisted psychic damage.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter is an extremely powerful debuff that targets Wisdom, which most monsters won't have high scores in. Once a creature is prone, your melee allies can whale on it with advantage, all the while the monster is incapacitated so if they just leave it alone it probably won't be able to do anything.
Fire bolt is the quintessential damage spell for non-warlocks. Dancing lights lets you keep those without darkvision (which can include your allies, be careful!) in the dark while illuminating things for those with it (which can include your enemies).
Detect magic is a nice utility spell that can help to identify magical traps and items while you dungeon crawl or explore the BBEG's lair. Fog Cloud can be used to disorient enemies while you bombard them with AoEs or surround them (or run away). Shield is always good to have on hand, you can't help anyone if you're unconscious.
I would recommend dropping Cure Wounds, since it's more or less redundant with Healing Word. Yes, Cure Wounds has a better die, but the best use of healing is to bring an ally who's unconscious back on their feet, which Healing Word is the king of.
Just a note, multiclassing is extremely fun and can add a lot of flavor to a class, but if your goal is to be a formidable foe in combat, your best bet is to stick with one class until certain milestones (generally whenever you get to pick your subclass or level 5). However, there's nothing wrong with any character build, min-maxed or the opposite. Play what you want and play whatever works with the adventure.
That's an interesting way to look at color spray vs sleep. Of course, sleep can't affect undead or creatures that are immune to charm, and causing damage to a sleeping character can actually make sheep's duration shorter than color spray. The fact that a DM can actually use actions to wake sleeping creatures can also be a disadvantage. Overall, I'd say your analysis is spot on, but there are situations where color spray is the superior spell.
For the OP, consider the strengths and weaknesses of each spell, include whether another character has access to one of the spells and isn't using spell slots on other options on the regular, and decide which will be more useful more frequently. Picking up both down the line may be an option, depending on what other options that you are considering.
I'll second the opinion on cure wounds vs healing word. Due to the action economy, range, and availability of spell slots at lower levels, healing word is the superior spell since it can be cast at range (preventing you from having to get in range of whatever just beat your buddy senseless and letting you effectively cover more of the battlefield), uses a bonus action to cast, meaning you can do something like vicious mockery the creature that knocked your buddy out or one that's trying to knock you out plus get your buddy back in the fight and prevent death saving throws from needing to occur on the same turn. Plus, neither bard nor sorcerer have a short rest option to recover spell slots and hit dice are available for healing on short rests.
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Hello all!
First let me say I have never played a D&D game before so go easy on me!
Recently I have been looking into the game but there is a lot to read/learn.
After some playing around with the character sheets (made a few characters just to have a look at what is possible.)
I found that the one in the link is my favorite (so far as it goes on paper!)
I choose a Wood Elf, Bard and after having a look at multi classing I picked Sorcerer since these seem to compliment one another.
After some reading and a bunch of video's I selected my cantips and spells, some that were recommended and a few that I found interesting or seemed handy to have.
I was wondering if you have any tips or recommendations for cantrips or spells regarding to my choice.
Also I did my best to sort out the ability scores, but not having played a game I don't have a clue how good or bad my picks are!
I do know for Bard and Sorcerer you want to have a high Charisma and dexterity so those were the main stats I put as high as possible.
My idea for the character is to build it into a support for my team.
I picked Cure wounds as an option for out of combat healing, due to touch and Healing word since it can be used in range, which seems useful when you aren't close to your team members.
Sleep for the purpose to control a situation better.
Faerie Fire, was a recommendation and it seems useful to outline the enemies (if I read it correct it also helps against invisible enemies)
Vicious Mockery and Prestidigitation also recommendations, where Prestidigitation felt like a good use for role playing purposes too.
Mage hand felt like a nice thing to have to check anything safely without losing an actual hand to a trap!
Mending so items can be repaired! Saves money!
Minor Illusions felt like a great spell to trick or fool something in a sticky situation.
It was either Ray of Frost or some other spell, but I could imagine Ray of Frost being handy to slow a pursuer down when needed too.
Color Spray, obviously for a dazzling bard performance ;) but seriously it seems like a nice spell to blind a target!
(changed)
Mage Armor, which was a recommendation too, which seemed great for some extra protection for myself or a party member/ allies.
For Feather Fall as you never know when that comes in handy :)I'm looking forward to learn from you all and thank you for your time if you had a look!
Link to my character below;
https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/Kitsumeo/characters/16394871
Wish you all great adventures!
Kitsu¬
Since you went Draconic Ancestry, you already have access to a "free mage armor" for yourself. If you have someone that regularly doesn't wear armor AND doesn't have an option to do better than 13 + their dex modifier for AC, you can keep mage armor. Otherwise, I'd consider another option. The rest of your options seem reasonable considering what your stated role and goals are. Perhaps consider trading out mage armor for magic missile (particularly if you have multiple allies that use Toll the Dead) so that you can automatically damage 1 or more creatures, or another utility or defensive spell to compliment the ones that you have, perhaps something like bane.
Oh I completely forgot about the Draconic Resilience, good call! Magic missile seemed like an interesting one too, might roll with that ;D Thank you for having a look!
Magic Missile is nice when you need just a little more damage against creatures that are either low HP and swarming, have high AC, are running and you're concerned that they might bring reinforcements, or when you have some teammates with Toll the Dead that normally does 1d8 damage against undamaged creatures but 1d12 against damaged ones and you want to damage multiples. There are other ways to accomplish each roll, but that's a lot of utility into one attack spell. The fact that you can send each dart to a different creature or focus them onto the same one gives even more flexibility.
Message is a neat spell if you think you're going to be sneaking around a lot. It's limited spammable telepathy, which is good when you need to be stealthy. Color spray is a neat spell, but since the blindness only lasts for a single round it isn't anywhere near as good as sleep, despite hitting a larger hp pool. Dissonant Whispers is good because it can trigger multiple attacks of opportunity if the target is surrounded by multiple allies, as well as dealing rarely resisted psychic damage.
Tasha's Hideous Laughter is an extremely powerful debuff that targets Wisdom, which most monsters won't have high scores in. Once a creature is prone, your melee allies can whale on it with advantage, all the while the monster is incapacitated so if they just leave it alone it probably won't be able to do anything.
Fire bolt is the quintessential damage spell for non-warlocks. Dancing lights lets you keep those without darkvision (which can include your allies, be careful!) in the dark while illuminating things for those with it (which can include your enemies).
Detect magic is a nice utility spell that can help to identify magical traps and items while you dungeon crawl or explore the BBEG's lair. Fog Cloud can be used to disorient enemies while you bombard them with AoEs or surround them (or run away). Shield is always good to have on hand, you can't help anyone if you're unconscious.
I would recommend dropping Cure Wounds, since it's more or less redundant with Healing Word. Yes, Cure Wounds has a better die, but the best use of healing is to bring an ally who's unconscious back on their feet, which Healing Word is the king of.
Just a note, multiclassing is extremely fun and can add a lot of flavor to a class, but if your goal is to be a formidable foe in combat, your best bet is to stick with one class until certain milestones (generally whenever you get to pick your subclass or level 5). However, there's nothing wrong with any character build, min-maxed or the opposite. Play what you want and play whatever works with the adventure.
That's an interesting way to look at color spray vs sleep. Of course, sleep can't affect undead or creatures that are immune to charm, and causing damage to a sleeping character can actually make sheep's duration shorter than color spray. The fact that a DM can actually use actions to wake sleeping creatures can also be a disadvantage. Overall, I'd say your analysis is spot on, but there are situations where color spray is the superior spell.
For the OP, consider the strengths and weaknesses of each spell, include whether another character has access to one of the spells and isn't using spell slots on other options on the regular, and decide which will be more useful more frequently. Picking up both down the line may be an option, depending on what other options that you are considering.
I'll second the opinion on cure wounds vs healing word. Due to the action economy, range, and availability of spell slots at lower levels, healing word is the superior spell since it can be cast at range (preventing you from having to get in range of whatever just beat your buddy senseless and letting you effectively cover more of the battlefield), uses a bonus action to cast, meaning you can do something like vicious mockery the creature that knocked your buddy out or one that's trying to knock you out plus get your buddy back in the fight and prevent death saving throws from needing to occur on the same turn. Plus, neither bard nor sorcerer have a short rest option to recover spell slots and hit dice are available for healing on short rests.