As much as I LOVE all the applications, this was not supposed to be the best utility caster (Which Yurei's or Bramble's would've been), But the best solo character. I think that neither of those builds have enough DPR to keep up with your standard campaign, and they are both a little squishy. Narsea's was nice, as was LostWhileFishing's and Daryll's, but.... My vote is going with Bobbybaker's lone wanderer. He is a man (Or gal) After my own heart with that Pally multiclass, and I think it can do enough to get by as a single.....dude.
Yurei is right, anyone can vote in throwdowns, the only stipulation on submissions and voting is that if you submit a build you must vote in order for it to be a valid entry. This stems from the Throwdown's inception when I had a lot of people tossing entries in and forgetting about them, with build turn out far higher than voter turn out.
The OP has now been updated with the contestant list for easy perusal and voting reports in the coming days, great turn out as always from you folks :)
My vote goes toward good bovines second build entry
the dark angel.
The build trades out a small bit of skill versatility for the customization possible between picking amongst low level paladin preparation spells, the sorcerer known spell list, and the cleric spell list. While having the ability to further augment those spells via metamagics.
Focus on dexterity/charisma stats pay dividends as those are two power stats that can drastically alter many events in your favor.
Proficiency with all armor, weapons, and shields adds to versatility and bolsters AC quite a bit.
paladin investment ensures not only ensures on demand damage as needed in combat, the Charisma mid to saves spills over potentially into all pillars of play.
all of this may stem from the builds chassis being similar to my own, probably a bit of confirmation bias on my side.
OKAY. The actual vote-casting happens at the bottom of this post, but I promised folks I’d go over everybody’s entry and give at least a little feedback to everyone. So bear with me while I make with the Good Ghost vibes. Starting with...
JoeltheWalrus: Nomad the Tinkerer This one’s unfortunately a little thin, without much guidance on spell selection or strategies. It’s a neat idea, pulling in some artificer seasoning on the already pretty self-sufficient bard chassis, but I don’t see Battlesmith and Sword bard mixing quite properly and the bard already has access to healing magic. Not a terrible toe dip in the Throwdown pool, but I can’t let you have this one, Joel. Sorry.
OrtanFang: Jack the Swiss Not sure how this one started with 18s in both Dexterity and Intelligence, feel like that’s the endgame array. Ah well. Interesting to see someone use Crossbow Expert and then not just spam the handbow all day erry day but actually use it as an offhand for a melee weapon. Alchemist healing is acceptable, and the fighter and wizard chonks provide decent options for both combat and offensive spellcasting. Doesn’t quite feel like it has an overall unifying drive to it though, the fighter and wizard levels feel mostly like one got what one wanted out of artificer and went fishing for cool stuff. Heh, it also suffers heavily from the level 20 cap; this is a build that badly wants a level 21 to snag that extra fighter ASI without losing third-level wizard spells or the artificer’s extremely important tenth level. It’s a cool take and I’m glad to see artificers represented in the contest (almost made another one myself), but the balancing act is a little too tight for me on this one.
Daryll Goodfellow: Arwen Greycastle Okay...that happened. Not really sure what you were going for here, Daryll. Reasonably sure those are rolled stats, which the contest disallows. Beyond that, there’s almost nothing here beyond a cheeky story of the cleric that tried but mostly couldn’t. The god was indeed lazy when it created poor Arwen. Here’s hoping for a bit more effort in your next throwdown, Daryll.
GoodBovine: The Outlaw Here we go. All right. This one definitely feels the pain of all those multiclass splits early in its life, the Outlaw is hard-pressed to survive until its artificer levels start coming online. Rogue Expertise is always good to have, and a 4d6 sneak attack helps with getting out of scrapes. I do believe Winged Boots are a tenth-level infusion, not a sixth-level the way you have them listed, but you get to tenth-level artificer either way so technicalities. SSI means plenty of emergency Cure Wounds, aforementioned winged boots are a great escape mechanism, and rogues are difficult to pin down in the first place. Not a bad ending at all, even if it takes the poor boy some bumps and scrapes to get there. Took him long enough indeed, but he survived until the end regardless of how ugly it was doing it.
Naresea: Syrina, Agent of the Summer Court Oh ho. I almost never see eladrin, let alone eladrin that actually bother with being from the Feywild. Sorlocks are a well known Power Combo and Divine Souls get to also be clerics without taking cleric levels. Cantrips are a little fight-heavy for my tastes, but I can see it. Chain Pact/Gift of the Ever-Living Ones really is hard to pass up for a Lone Wanderer build, what with getting an invisible flying scout that doubles your healing and all. Pretty punchy given the combination of Green Flame/Booming, Spirit Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and all the other junk a Divine Sorlock can stack up, so plenty of damage at need, and she manages the basics of avoiding notice and talking her way out of problems. Simple and well done. I like it.
GoodBovine: I’m Batman The Dark Angel Woof. Dark Angel here doesn’t bother with talking to things or sneaking away from fights. All damage, all the time, with a heavy emphasis on sorcadin smiting and crit fishing. Admittedly very good at crit fishing, and easily outdamages any other build thus far, but I can’t help but feel like this one is limited in its options. A high Charisma score does mean basic talking works, but low Dex and no Stealth -
Okay. Had to junk half that paragraph because I decided to see what the provided sheet said, and it contradicts half of what I’d written. The Dark Angel has semi-reasonable stealth for a platemail paladin and enough access to skulduggery to avoid conflicts, but it’s not real great at talking its way free. Very high armor class and a heavy emphasis on damage and fear tactics. A solid wrecking brute, but...I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like he’s missing something. We’ll have to see where the rest of the contest goes. The Dark Angel here is certainly well built for its purpose and can keep up, might just be a brain bug on my part.
Bobbybaker: the Lone Wanderer Hmm. While I’ve got a personal beef with the Eloquence bard, I’ll admit that this is a good place for it. Silver-Tongued means very reliable talky-talky, and anything someone can use to muck with saves tends to be stupid powerful. Ancient paladin gives pretty hefty defensive benefits to boot, and you’ve got enough spell slots to Smite as needed if Eldritch Blast doesn’t keep you in damage. Think the main trick here is definitely Eloquence Charisma checks and the ability to force save-or-suck spells with Unsettling Words. No Counterspell, which is a Problem, but the saves are high enough that it should be a fairly rare problem if the Wanderer avoids demigods, turboliches, or demilich turbogods. You get most of the palladalldingdong’s damage and effectively all of the bard’s skill versatility, along with enough spellcasting to get by. Not a bad take at all.
Lostwhilefishing: Peregrine the Surveyor First person here with the balls to monoclass, and they did it with an artificer. Nice. Peregrine feels like a character somebody would actually play in a campaign, taking care to have the tools he needs for survival at low levels and making choices simply because they’re fun rather than because they’re DA BESSU. Nobody needs banjo proficiency, but heck if they shouldn’t want banjo proficiency. With only one Expertise, no fancy Smites or other nonsense, no boosted healing (outside a Cure Wounds SSI, anyways), and only basic by-the-rules armor class, Peregrine probably doesn’t hold up to the paladin multiclass monsters at level 20. Given the nature of the contest I can’t let him have the V, but heck if I wouldn’t rather have Peregrine at my table than anyone else I’ve seen in the contest so far. You gain an Irritable Poultergeist Stamp of NICE JOBBU.
BramblefootDruid: Mask of the Mist A’ight, let’s see what you got for me, Bramble.
Hmm. All right. I do like a good cat man, and Trickery is a badly undervalued cleric domain. Blessing of the Trickster doesn’t do you any good as a Lone Wanderer, but Invoke Duplicity is pretty fantastic for skulduggery and general trickery. Just enough bard for some of that good low-level bard utility and enough skillmonkey to get by. This one also feels like a build somebody would actually play, though the stat spread is a little off for a Bard/Cleric. Build badly wants at least one more point of Dex and maybe a booster shot of Charisma if it can get one somehow. MADness hurts. Pretty low damage compared to the fightmonsters from earlier, but this one offsets that by getting all the way up to 9th-level magic. It feels hard for damage to matter as much when one can just N.O.P.E. out of a terribad situation with Gate, or upcast the shit out of a cleric shutdown spell. Definitely more of a trickster and thief than a murderbeast, but I’m honestly of the opinion that Murderbeasting is not the way to survive and thrive as a ‘Lone Wanderer’ character. Not bad, Bramble. Not bad at all.
(Side note: I have no idea where that art comes from. I know half the builds here are League of Legends references but I don’t play that game so I can’t recognize shit. But that art is fantastic and I wish we could all get art more like it).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ALL RIGHT. Errybuddy’s gotten their words, time to figure out who’s gonna take the V.
Think I’m going to give this round to Bobbybaker’s Lone Wanderer. I am firmly of the opinion that a single character wandering the world and adventuring by themselves needs to have options outside of FYTE TYME and has to be able to avoid all debilitating effects – a single Hold Person can be Game Over for a Solo Tour character. Bobby’s palabard manages the best blend of Expert-style utility and sheer paranoia of the lot in my view, with Ancient magic defense and excellent saves alongside rock-solid social talents and enough damage to get by.
Naresea’s Syrina, Agent of the Summer Court is also an excellent option with access to the absolutely critical Counterspell to boot, but Bobby’s Wanderer simply adds too much Expert for me to ignore. Eloquence bard putting a (very high) floor roll on Charisma checks and sabotaging enemy saves is worth more than Counterspell’s paranoia salve, especially on a character with enhanced saves. So Lone Wanderer it is.
Nice first run back, everybody. Heh, clearly I flubbed this one, but it’s good to see a diversity of ideas for handling the criteria, and also so much buy-in on the artificer class. GO SCIENCE BROS.
Lostwhilefishing: Peregrine the Surveyor First person here with the balls to monoclass, and they did it with an artificer. Nice. Peregrine feels like a character somebody would actually play in a campaign, taking care to have the tools he needs for survival at low levels and making choices simply because they’re fun rather than because they’re DA BESSU. Nobody needs banjo proficiency, but heck if they shouldn’t want banjo proficiency. With only one Expertise, no fancy Smites or other nonsense, no boosted healing (outside a Cure Wounds SSI, anyways), and only basic by-the-rules armor class, Peregrine probably doesn’t hold up to the paladin multiclass monsters at level 20. Given the nature of the contest I can’t let him have the V, but heck if I wouldn’t rather have Peregrine at my table than anyone else I’ve seen in the contest so far. You gain an Irritable Poultergeist Stamp of NICE JOBBU.
Well, if needs be, Peregrine can easily boost his AC to 20+ and then add the Shield spell and disadvantage from Samantha on top of that. The point is that he's ready for everything with a bit of preparation. Thanks for your input and the invite ,though. Let us know if you arrange a game online and Peregrine will gladly join. :)
My own vote goes to Joel's Nomad. A bard is always up to do a bit of everything and Sword bard is perfect since you can use your bardic inspiration to benefit yourself. A few artificer tricks won't go awry either and it's one of the few builds that I feel is really viable all the way through. Half-elf gives an extra edge against magic which never hurts. A very solid build.
Daryll Goodfellow: Arwen Greycastle Okay...that happened. Not really sure what you were going for here, Daryll. Reasonably sure those are rolled stats, which the contest disallows. Beyond that, there’s almost nothing here beyond a cheeky story of the cleric that tried but mostly couldn’t. The god was indeed lazy when it created poor Arwen. Here’s hoping for a bit more effort in your next throwdown, Daryll.
OKAY. The actual vote-casting happens at the bottom of this post, but I promised folks I’d go over everybody’s entry and give at least a little feedback to everyone. So bear with me while I make with the Good Ghost vibes. Starting with...
JoeltheWalrus: Nomad the Tinkerer This one’s unfortunately a little thin, without much guidance on spell selection or strategies. It’s a neat idea, pulling in some artificer seasoning on the already pretty self-sufficient bard chassis, but I don’t see Battlesmith and Sword bard mixing quite properly and the bard already has access to healing magic. Not a terrible toe dip in the Throwdown pool, but I can’t let you have this one, Joel. Sorry.
OrtanFang: Jack the Swiss Not sure how this one started with 18s in both Dexterity and Intelligence, feel like that’s the endgame array. Ah well. Interesting to see someone use Crossbow Expert and then not just spam the handbow all day erry day but actually use it as an offhand for a melee weapon. Alchemist healing is acceptable, and the fighter and wizard chonks provide decent options for both combat and offensive spellcasting. Doesn’t quite feel like it has an overall unifying drive to it though, the fighter and wizard levels feel mostly like one got what one wanted out of artificer and went fishing for cool stuff. Heh, it also suffers heavily from the level 20 cap; this is a build that badly wants a level 21 to snag that extra fighter ASI without losing third-level wizard spells or the artificer’s extremely important tenth level. It’s a cool take and I’m glad to see artificers represented in the contest (almost made another one myself), but the balancing act is a little too tight for me on this one.
Daryll Goodfellow: Arwen Greycastle Okay...that happened. Not really sure what you were going for here, Daryll. Reasonably sure those are rolled stats, which the contest disallows. Beyond that, there’s almost nothing here beyond a cheeky story of the cleric that tried but mostly couldn’t. The god was indeed lazy when it created poor Arwen. Here’s hoping for a bit more effort in your next throwdown, Daryll.
GoodBovine: The Outlaw Here we go. All right. This one definitely feels the pain of all those multiclass splits early in its life, the Outlaw is hard-pressed to survive until its artificer levels start coming online. Rogue Expertise is always good to have, and a 4d6 sneak attack helps with getting out of scrapes. I do believe Winged Boots are a tenth-level infusion, not a sixth-level the way you have them listed, but you get to tenth-level artificer either way so technicalities. SSI means plenty of emergency Cure Wounds, aforementioned winged boots are a great escape mechanism, and rogues are difficult to pin down in the first place. Not a bad ending at all, even if it takes the poor boy some bumps and scrapes to get there. Took him long enough indeed, but he survived until the end regardless of how ugly it was doing it.
Naresea: Syrina, Agent of the Summer Court Oh ho. I almost never see eladrin, let alone eladrin that actually bother with being from the Feywild. Sorlocks are a well known Power Combo and Divine Souls get to also be clerics without taking cleric levels. Cantrips are a little fight-heavy for my tastes, but I can see it. Chain Pact/Gift of the Ever-Living Ones really is hard to pass up for a Lone Wanderer build, what with getting an invisible flying scout that doubles your healing and all. Pretty punchy given the combination of Green Flame/Booming, Spirit Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and all the other junk a Divine Sorlock can stack up, so plenty of damage at need, and she manages the basics of avoiding notice and talking her way out of problems. Simple and well done. I like it.
GoodBovine: I’m Batman The Dark Angel Woof. Dark Angel here doesn’t bother with talking to things or sneaking away from fights. All damage, all the time, with a heavy emphasis on sorcadin smiting and crit fishing. Admittedly very good at crit fishing, and easily outdamages any other build thus far, but I can’t help but feel like this one is limited in its options. A high Charisma score does mean basic talking works, but low Dex and no Stealth -
Okay. Had to junk half that paragraph because I decided to see what the provided sheet said, and it contradicts half of what I’d written. The Dark Angel has semi-reasonable stealth for a platemail paladin and enough access to skulduggery to avoid conflicts, but it’s not real great at talking its way free. Very high armor class and a heavy emphasis on damage and fear tactics. A solid wrecking brute, but...I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like he’s missing something. We’ll have to see where the rest of the contest goes. The Dark Angel here is certainly well built for its purpose and can keep up, might just be a brain bug on my part.
Bobbybaker: the Lone Wanderer Hmm. While I’ve got a personal beef with the Eloquence bard, I’ll admit that this is a good place for it. Silver-Tongued means very reliable talky-talky, and anything someone can use to muck with saves tends to be stupid powerful. Ancient paladin gives pretty hefty defensive benefits to boot, and you’ve got enough spell slots to Smite as needed if Eldritch Blast doesn’t keep you in damage. Think the main trick here is definitely Eloquence Charisma checks and the ability to force save-or-suck spells with Unsettling Words. No Counterspell, which is a Problem, but the saves are high enough that it should be a fairly rare problem if the Wanderer avoids demigods, turboliches, or demilich turbogods. You get most of the palladalldingdong’s damage and effectively all of the bard’s skill versatility, along with enough spellcasting to get by. Not a bad take at all.
Lostwhilefishing: Peregrine the Surveyor First person here with the balls to monoclass, and they did it with an artificer. Nice. Peregrine feels like a character somebody would actually play in a campaign, taking care to have the tools he needs for survival at low levels and making choices simply because they’re fun rather than because they’re DA BESSU. Nobody needs banjo proficiency, but heck if they shouldn’t want banjo proficiency. With only one Expertise, no fancy Smites or other nonsense, no boosted healing (outside a Cure Wounds SSI, anyways), and only basic by-the-rules armor class, Peregrine probably doesn’t hold up to the paladin multiclass monsters at level 20. Given the nature of the contest I can’t let him have the V, but heck if I wouldn’t rather have Peregrine at my table than anyone else I’ve seen in the contest so far. You gain an Irritable Poultergeist Stamp of NICE JOBBU.
BramblefootDruid: Mask of the Mist A’ight, let’s see what you got for me, Bramble.
Hmm. All right. I do like a good cat man, and Trickery is a badly undervalued cleric domain. Blessing of the Trickster doesn’t do you any good as a Lone Wanderer, but Invoke Duplicity is pretty fantastic for skulduggery and general trickery. Just enough bard for some of that good low-level bard utility and enough skillmonkey to get by. This one also feels like a build somebody would actually play, though the stat spread is a little off for a Bard/Cleric. Build badly wants at least one more point of Dex and maybe a booster shot of Charisma if it can get one somehow. MADness hurts. Pretty low damage compared to the fightmonsters from earlier, but this one offsets that by getting all the way up to 9th-level magic. It feels hard for damage to matter as much when one can just N.O.P.E. out of a terribad situation with Gate, or upcast the shit out of a cleric shutdown spell. Definitely more of a trickster and thief than a murderbeast, but I’m honestly of the opinion that Murderbeasting is not the way to survive and thrive as a ‘Lone Wanderer’ character. Not bad, Bramble. Not bad at all.
(Side note: I have no idea where that art comes from. I know half the builds here are League of Legends references but I don’t play that game so I can’t recognize shit. But that art is fantastic and I wish we could all get art more like it).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ALL RIGHT. Errybuddy’s gotten their words, time to figure out who’s gonna take the V.
Think I’m going to give this round to Bobbybaker’s Lone Wanderer. I am firmly of the opinion that a single character wandering the world and adventuring by themselves needs to have options outside of FYTE TYME and has to be able to avoid all debilitating effects – a single Hold Person can be Game Over for a Solo Tour character. Bobby’s palabard manages the best blend of Expert-style utility and sheer paranoia of the lot in my view, with Ancient magic defense and excellent saves alongside rock-solid social talents and enough damage to get by.
Naresea’s Syrina, Agent of the Summer Court is also an excellent option with access to the absolutely critical Counterspell to boot, but Bobby’s Wanderer simply adds too much Expert for me to ignore. Eloquence bard putting a (very high) floor roll on Charisma checks and sabotaging enemy saves is worth more than Counterspell’s paranoia salve, especially on a character with enhanced saves. So Lone Wanderer it is.
Nice first run back, everybody. Heh, clearly I flubbed this one, but it’s good to see a diversity of ideas for handling the criteria, and also so much buy-in on the artificer class. GO SCIENCE BROS.
Thank you for the detailed analysis of all the builds. :-)
To confirm Yurei, the stats shown for my entry are the final stats.
I think I made a good call in choosing an artificer core -- it is always nice to think "ah yes, that is a smart idea, and I was the first one to post it."
My vote goes to Lostwhilefishing's Peregrine the Surveyor
Also, thanks for the in-depth descriptions of all the builds. But my pun-laden character name goes unmentioned :(
You are 100% right, I forgot the lvl 20 split. Editing.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I'm gonna need that list, this is a very hard decision.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
I know.I have been over all the builds three times
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
This choice isn't too hard
1. I don't really want yurei to win again
2. I already voted for good bovine before accidently
: Systems Online : Nikoli_Goodfellow Homebrew : My WIP Homebrew Class :
(\_/)
( u u)
o/ \🥛🍪 Hey, take care of yourself alright?
Thanks, but poor Yurei.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Honestly though,Yurei's submission was good but he won two times already.
: Systems Online : Nikoli_Goodfellow Homebrew : My WIP Homebrew Class :
(\_/)
( u u)
o/ \🥛🍪 Hey, take care of yourself alright?
I vote for the mask, because I like the trickery feeling with a tabaxi. :-)
As much as I LOVE all the applications, this was not supposed to be the best utility caster (Which Yurei's or Bramble's would've been), But the best solo character. I think that neither of those builds have enough DPR to keep up with your standard campaign, and they are both a little squishy. Narsea's was nice, as was LostWhileFishing's and Daryll's, but.... My vote is going with Bobbybaker's lone wanderer. He is a man (Or gal) After my own heart with that Pally multiclass, and I think it can do enough to get by as a single.....dude.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Wait do only the people who enter submissions vote or can anybody vote?
: Systems Online : Nikoli_Goodfellow Homebrew : My WIP Homebrew Class :
(\_/)
( u u)
o/ \🥛🍪 Hey, take care of yourself alright?
only submitters I think...
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
Anyone can vote. People just can't submit new builds.
I'll be going over the submissions and assembling a voting/feedback post when I can. Work kinda sucks this week -_-.
Also OIY. What'd I do to you, Daryll?! DX
Please do not contact or message me.
Yurei is right, anyone can vote in throwdowns, the only stipulation on submissions and voting is that if you submit a build you must vote in order for it to be a valid entry. This stems from the Throwdown's inception when I had a lot of people tossing entries in and forgetting about them, with build turn out far higher than voter turn out.
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The OP has now been updated with the contestant list for easy perusal and voting reports in the coming days, great turn out as always from you folks :)
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My vote goes toward good bovines second build entry
the dark angel.
The build trades out a small bit of skill versatility for the customization possible between picking amongst low level paladin preparation spells, the sorcerer known spell list, and the cleric spell list. While having the ability to further augment those spells via metamagics.
Focus on dexterity/charisma stats pay dividends as those are two power stats that can drastically alter many events in your favor.
Proficiency with all armor, weapons, and shields adds to versatility and bolsters AC quite a bit.
paladin investment ensures not only ensures on demand damage as needed in combat, the Charisma mid to saves spills over potentially into all pillars of play.
all of this may stem from the builds chassis being similar to my own, probably a bit of confirmation bias on my side.
OKAY. The actual vote-casting happens at the bottom of this post, but I promised folks I’d go over everybody’s entry and give at least a little feedback to everyone. So bear with me while I make with the Good Ghost vibes. Starting with...
JoeltheWalrus: Nomad the Tinkerer
This one’s unfortunately a little thin, without much guidance on spell selection or strategies. It’s a neat idea, pulling in some artificer seasoning on the already pretty self-sufficient bard chassis, but I don’t see Battlesmith and Sword bard mixing quite properly and the bard already has access to healing magic. Not a terrible toe dip in the Throwdown pool, but I can’t let you have this one, Joel. Sorry.
OrtanFang: Jack the Swiss
Not sure how this one started with 18s in both Dexterity and Intelligence, feel like that’s the endgame array. Ah well. Interesting to see someone use Crossbow Expert and then not just spam the handbow all day erry day but actually use it as an offhand for a melee weapon. Alchemist healing is acceptable, and the fighter and wizard chonks provide decent options for both combat and offensive spellcasting. Doesn’t quite feel like it has an overall unifying drive to it though, the fighter and wizard levels feel mostly like one got what one wanted out of artificer and went fishing for cool stuff. Heh, it also suffers heavily from the level 20 cap; this is a build that badly wants a level 21 to snag that extra fighter ASI without losing third-level wizard spells or the artificer’s extremely important tenth level. It’s a cool take and I’m glad to see artificers represented in the contest (almost made another one myself), but the balancing act is a little too tight for me on this one.
Daryll Goodfellow: Arwen Greycastle
Okay...that happened. Not really sure what you were going for here, Daryll. Reasonably sure those are rolled stats, which the contest disallows. Beyond that, there’s almost nothing here beyond a cheeky story of the cleric that tried but mostly couldn’t. The god was indeed lazy when it created poor Arwen. Here’s hoping for a bit more effort in your next throwdown, Daryll.
GoodBovine: The Outlaw
Here we go. All right. This one definitely feels the pain of all those multiclass splits early in its life, the Outlaw is hard-pressed to survive until its artificer levels start coming online. Rogue Expertise is always good to have, and a 4d6 sneak attack helps with getting out of scrapes. I do believe Winged Boots are a tenth-level infusion, not a sixth-level the way you have them listed, but you get to tenth-level artificer either way so technicalities. SSI means plenty of emergency Cure Wounds, aforementioned winged boots are a great escape mechanism, and rogues are difficult to pin down in the first place. Not a bad ending at all, even if it takes the poor boy some bumps and scrapes to get there. Took him long enough indeed, but he survived until the end regardless of how ugly it was doing it.
Naresea: Syrina, Agent of the Summer Court
Oh ho. I almost never see eladrin, let alone eladrin that actually bother with being from the Feywild. Sorlocks are a well known Power Combo and Divine Souls get to also be clerics without taking cleric levels. Cantrips are a little fight-heavy for my tastes, but I can see it. Chain Pact/Gift of the Ever-Living Ones really is hard to pass up for a Lone Wanderer build, what with getting an invisible flying scout that doubles your healing and all. Pretty punchy given the combination of Green Flame/Booming, Spirit Weapon, Spirit Guardians, and all the other junk a Divine Sorlock can stack up, so plenty of damage at need, and she manages the basics of avoiding notice and talking her way out of problems. Simple and well done. I like it.
GoodBovine: I’m Batman The Dark Angel
Woof. Dark Angel here doesn’t bother with talking to things or sneaking away from fights. All damage, all the time, with a heavy emphasis on sorcadin smiting and crit fishing. Admittedly very good at crit fishing, and easily outdamages any other build thus far, but I can’t help but feel like this one is limited in its options. A high Charisma score does mean basic talking works, but low Dex and no Stealth -
Okay. Had to junk half that paragraph because I decided to see what the provided sheet said, and it contradicts half of what I’d written. The Dark Angel has semi-reasonable stealth for a platemail paladin and enough access to skulduggery to avoid conflicts, but it’s not real great at talking its way free. Very high armor class and a heavy emphasis on damage and fear tactics. A solid wrecking brute, but...I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but it feels like he’s missing something. We’ll have to see where the rest of the contest goes. The Dark Angel here is certainly well built for its purpose and can keep up, might just be a brain bug on my part.
Bobbybaker: the Lone Wanderer
Hmm. While I’ve got a personal beef with the Eloquence bard, I’ll admit that this is a good place for it. Silver-Tongued means very reliable talky-talky, and anything someone can use to muck with saves tends to be stupid powerful. Ancient paladin gives pretty hefty defensive benefits to boot, and you’ve got enough spell slots to Smite as needed if Eldritch Blast doesn’t keep you in damage. Think the main trick here is definitely Eloquence Charisma checks and the ability to force save-or-suck spells with Unsettling Words. No Counterspell, which is a Problem, but the saves are high enough that it should be a fairly rare problem if the Wanderer avoids demigods, turboliches, or demilich turbogods. You get most of the palladalldingdong’s damage and effectively all of the bard’s skill versatility, along with enough spellcasting to get by. Not a bad take at all.
Lostwhilefishing: Peregrine the Surveyor
First person here with the balls to monoclass, and they did it with an artificer. Nice. Peregrine feels like a character somebody would actually play in a campaign, taking care to have the tools he needs for survival at low levels and making choices simply because they’re fun rather than because they’re DA BESSU. Nobody needs banjo proficiency, but heck if they shouldn’t want banjo proficiency. With only one Expertise, no fancy Smites or other nonsense, no boosted healing (outside a Cure Wounds SSI, anyways), and only basic by-the-rules armor class, Peregrine probably doesn’t hold up to the paladin multiclass monsters at level 20. Given the nature of the contest I can’t let him have the V, but heck if I wouldn’t rather have Peregrine at my table than anyone else I’ve seen in the contest so far. You gain an Irritable Poultergeist Stamp of NICE JOBBU.
BramblefootDruid: Mask of the Mist
A’ight, let’s see what you got for me, Bramble.
Hmm. All right. I do like a good cat man, and Trickery is a badly undervalued cleric domain. Blessing of the Trickster doesn’t do you any good as a Lone Wanderer, but Invoke Duplicity is pretty fantastic for skulduggery and general trickery. Just enough bard for some of that good low-level bard utility and enough skillmonkey to get by. This one also feels like a build somebody would actually play, though the stat spread is a little off for a Bard/Cleric. Build badly wants at least one more point of Dex and maybe a booster shot of Charisma if it can get one somehow. MADness hurts. Pretty low damage compared to the fightmonsters from earlier, but this one offsets that by getting all the way up to 9th-level magic. It feels hard for damage to matter as much when one can just N.O.P.E. out of a terribad situation with Gate, or upcast the shit out of a cleric shutdown spell. Definitely more of a trickster and thief than a murderbeast, but I’m honestly of the opinion that Murderbeasting is not the way to survive and thrive as a ‘Lone Wanderer’ character. Not bad, Bramble. Not bad at all.
(Side note: I have no idea where that art comes from. I know half the builds here are League of Legends references but I don’t play that game so I can’t recognize shit. But that art is fantastic and I wish we could all get art more like it).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ALL RIGHT. Errybuddy’s gotten their words, time to figure out who’s gonna take the V.
Think I’m going to give this round to Bobbybaker’s Lone Wanderer. I am firmly of the opinion that a single character wandering the world and adventuring by themselves needs to have options outside of FYTE TYME and has to be able to avoid all debilitating effects – a single Hold Person can be Game Over for a Solo Tour character. Bobby’s palabard manages the best blend of Expert-style utility and sheer paranoia of the lot in my view, with Ancient magic defense and excellent saves alongside rock-solid social talents and enough damage to get by.
Naresea’s Syrina, Agent of the Summer Court is also an excellent option with access to the absolutely critical Counterspell to boot, but Bobby’s Wanderer simply adds too much Expert for me to ignore. Eloquence bard putting a (very high) floor roll on Charisma checks and sabotaging enemy saves is worth more than Counterspell’s paranoia salve, especially on a character with enhanced saves. So Lone Wanderer it is.
Nice first run back, everybody. Heh, clearly I flubbed this one, but it’s good to see a diversity of ideas for handling the criteria, and also so much buy-in on the artificer class. GO SCIENCE BROS.
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Well, if needs be, Peregrine can easily boost his AC to 20+ and then add the Shield spell and disadvantage from Samantha on top of that. The point is that he's ready for everything with a bit of preparation. Thanks for your input and the invite ,though. Let us know if you arrange a game online and Peregrine will gladly join. :)
My own vote goes to Joel's Nomad. A bard is always up to do a bit of everything and Sword bard is perfect since you can use your bardic inspiration to benefit yourself. A few artificer tricks won't go awry either and it's one of the few builds that I feel is really viable all the way through. Half-elf gives an extra edge against magic which never hurts. A very solid build.
Yea, this wasn't my best work
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Thank you for the detailed analysis of all the builds. :-)
To confirm Yurei, the stats shown for my entry are the final stats.
I think I made a good call in choosing an artificer core -- it is always nice to think "ah yes, that is a smart idea, and I was the first one to post it."
My vote goes to Lostwhilefishing's Peregrine the Surveyor
Also, thanks for the in-depth descriptions of all the builds. But my pun-laden character name goes unmentioned :(
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I actually really like Yurei's. That's my vote. Also, the art is a skin for the character kindred.
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