Our table of 5 is about to start RotFM. I decided to wait and create my character to fill any gaps the party might have. We don't have a rogue (but a high DEX Artificer should be able to handle that). We also don't have a frontline fighter other than the Beastmaster Ranger"s pet and we're fairly limited on Arcane magic as well.
I've messed around with a number of builds to fit this party, but the one I'm settled on (now that I'm not concerned about rogue skills) is a STR/heavy armor based melee Psi Warrior Fighter, with a Wizard Dip.
This combination seems like it can be built to be a strong frontline defender while also giving the party access to the various 1st level information-gathering and utility ritual spells Wizards usually bring to the table.
We're starting at level 3 so I plan to go Fighter 2 / Wizard 1 to start with the first in-game level up going to the fighter to get the subclass online. As this campaign isn't expected to go past level 12 I originally planned to limit Wizard to level 1, but the benefits of going to level 2 and picking up the school of War Magic look like they would be worth it.
I explored numerous races for this, but ultimately decided on the Half-Orc for a little more survivability on the front line (though I am open to alternative ideas)
Additionally, a happy-go-lucky Halfling former innkeeper (the Ranger in the party) and I (haunted one Half-Orc) plan to team up via backstory as we love the image of the brooding 6'4" Half-Orc next to the always talking and smiling 3' tall Halfling.
What do you think about this combo? How would you build it at level 3 (assume point buy for now, though I'm pretty sure we'll be rolling stats)? What ideas for level progression, feats, and spell selection would you recommend I consider?
Lastly, we're being given a free feat, as well as 1 free uncommon and 1 free common magic item (they can't be armor or weapons) at the start. For the common item I took the Enduring Spellbook, which I think is especially useful considering the environment of the campaign. For the uncommon item, I asked for the Scaled Ornament (Slumbering) to improve my character's mental defenses (advantage on saves against being charmed or frightened) which will take the form of a white fur cloak. As for the Feat, I want to lean into the Psi feel so I took the Telekinetic (INT) feat. I also want the character to feel Psionic from the start and this feat (along with some cantrip choices) will help make it feel like the character's Psi abilities have always been there. Hopefully when he gains Fighter 3 and the subclass comes online it will feel like a natural progression of these abilities rather than new ones out of nowhere.
Background wise, I'm going with a troupe of not knowing his history. Found unconscious and near death in the snow by a Halfling of Good Mead he was taking back to town and nursed back to health. They have been friends ever since. This leaves his background mostly up to the DM to use in the campaign, or not, as she sees fit.
What do you think? What advice do you have? What tactics would you suggest for a character like this?
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Gideon Hawke Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
That seem like it could be a good combo. When planning to multi-class, and knowing when the campaign will end, it can be useful to walk backwards through it. In this case, it you're going to end at 12, taking a second level in wizard means losing fighter 11, which means losing 3 attacks per turn and an increase in your psi dice size. That's a tough trade. Going war wizard, you'll lose some offense and psi powers for some added defense, basically. But then you say, won't go past 12, which means you probably won't spend a lot of time at 12, so you might not have that 3rd attack for long, so maybe it won't really be much of a loss. It's going to be really hard to know if that will be worth it at this point. It's going to depend on how the campaign plays out. You might just keep it in mind as you level up a bit and see where it goes. Personally, at this point, I'd stick with fighter up through 5/wizard 1 for the second attack. By then you might have a better idea of what will be more useful. If I were to take a second wizard level, I'd do it there, then flip back to fighter.
With a free magic item, you could actually dump str, and take gauntlets of ogre power as your uncommon. That frees up putting better scores in int/con. Obviously, you'll want an odd number in int to make use of the bonus from the feat. It's a bit power game-y and kind of cheesy to have a str based fighter that's not actually very strong, but it's an option. And you do want a good int bonus for your psi warrior abilities. But you're also front line, so also con. So if you go with the gauntlets and use the standard array, you could do something like a 10/12/14/15/13/8. Then with the gauntlets, the str goes to 19, and your feat takes int to a 16. Assuming tasha's floating bonuses, put your 2 in con to take it to a 16, and the 1 in wis to round it up to a 14., so you're at a 19/12/16/16/14/8. Pretty solid stat line.
Warcaster is likely something you'll want, so you can still cast with your hands full (assuming your table follows component rules, which not everyone does). If you want to really keep going with mental feats, gift of the gem dragon uses mental powers, as does telepathic. You could try things like shadow touched or fey touched, and re-flavor the powers as mental, rather than being shadow or fey related. Lucky is always fun, and can, again, be flavored to be mental rather than luck based
If you're a STR melee fighter, you should look at feats that help your melee attacks, GWM or PAM if applicable. Your uncommon item, like said above should be either Gauntlets of Ogre or Headband of Intellect. Either one will help deal with the MADness of playing a Psi Warrior.
As for species, have you considered a Githyanki? They pretty much scream Psi-Warrior and have a reason for Psionics baked in. The trope of not knowing their history can still work as Githyanki live in the Astral plane. Also, having Mage Hand at first level could be Psi enough that you could start with a different feat at the beginning.
As for multi-classing, I wouldn't go more than 2 levels into War Wizard. Maybe one level after Fighter 2 or 3 and another Wizard level after Fighter 5 or 7. But if you get Wizard early, definitely get either the Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade cantrips to make up for the Extra Attack delay.
Most of the psi warrior features have a range of up to 30ft to activate. Strength and melee are find options, but perhaps some sort of weapon of returning could help squeeze some efficacy out of the offensive psi strike feature.
half orc is nice for tanking with the survival feature. Tue extra melee die in a crit can come in handy occasionally but I wouldn’t rely on it without a way to increase crits chance like advantage or paralysis.
the new thrikreen race has quite a bit of Psionic built in, and the extra hands can be quite useful.
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Our table of 5 is about to start RotFM. I decided to wait and create my character to fill any gaps the party might have. We don't have a rogue (but a high DEX Artificer should be able to handle that). We also don't have a frontline fighter other than the Beastmaster Ranger"s pet and we're fairly limited on Arcane magic as well.
I've messed around with a number of builds to fit this party, but the one I'm settled on (now that I'm not concerned about rogue skills) is a STR/heavy armor based melee Psi Warrior Fighter, with a Wizard Dip.
This combination seems like it can be built to be a strong frontline defender while also giving the party access to the various 1st level information-gathering and utility ritual spells Wizards usually bring to the table.
We're starting at level 3 so I plan to go Fighter 2 / Wizard 1 to start with the first in-game level up going to the fighter to get the subclass online. As this campaign isn't expected to go past level 12 I originally planned to limit Wizard to level 1, but the benefits of going to level 2 and picking up the school of War Magic look like they would be worth it.
I explored numerous races for this, but ultimately decided on the Half-Orc for a little more survivability on the front line (though I am open to alternative ideas)
Additionally, a happy-go-lucky Halfling former innkeeper (the Ranger in the party) and I (haunted one Half-Orc) plan to team up via backstory as we love the image of the brooding 6'4" Half-Orc next to the always talking and smiling 3' tall Halfling.
What do you think about this combo? How would you build it at level 3 (assume point buy for now, though I'm pretty sure we'll be rolling stats)? What ideas for level progression, feats, and spell selection would you recommend I consider?
Lastly, we're being given a free feat, as well as 1 free uncommon and 1 free common magic item (they can't be armor or weapons) at the start. For the common item I took the Enduring Spellbook, which I think is especially useful considering the environment of the campaign. For the uncommon item, I asked for the Scaled Ornament (Slumbering) to improve my character's mental defenses (advantage on saves against being charmed or frightened) which will take the form of a white fur cloak. As for the Feat, I want to lean into the Psi feel so I took the Telekinetic (INT) feat. I also want the character to feel Psionic from the start and this feat (along with some cantrip choices) will help make it feel like the character's Psi abilities have always been there. Hopefully when he gains Fighter 3 and the subclass comes online it will feel like a natural progression of these abilities rather than new ones out of nowhere.
Background wise, I'm going with a troupe of not knowing his history. Found unconscious and near death in the snow by a Halfling of Good Mead he was taking back to town and nursed back to health. They have been friends ever since. This leaves his background mostly up to the DM to use in the campaign, or not, as she sees fit.
What do you think? What advice do you have? What tactics would you suggest for a character like this?
Gideon Hawke
Just a Valor Bard trying to find his way through D&D after a 20+ year "break". Enjoying being back and sharing with my RL family.
That seem like it could be a good combo. When planning to multi-class, and knowing when the campaign will end, it can be useful to walk backwards through it. In this case, it you're going to end at 12, taking a second level in wizard means losing fighter 11, which means losing 3 attacks per turn and an increase in your psi dice size. That's a tough trade. Going war wizard, you'll lose some offense and psi powers for some added defense, basically. But then you say, won't go past 12, which means you probably won't spend a lot of time at 12, so you might not have that 3rd attack for long, so maybe it won't really be much of a loss. It's going to be really hard to know if that will be worth it at this point. It's going to depend on how the campaign plays out. You might just keep it in mind as you level up a bit and see where it goes. Personally, at this point, I'd stick with fighter up through 5/wizard 1 for the second attack. By then you might have a better idea of what will be more useful. If I were to take a second wizard level, I'd do it there, then flip back to fighter.
With a free magic item, you could actually dump str, and take gauntlets of ogre power as your uncommon. That frees up putting better scores in int/con. Obviously, you'll want an odd number in int to make use of the bonus from the feat. It's a bit power game-y and kind of cheesy to have a str based fighter that's not actually very strong, but it's an option. And you do want a good int bonus for your psi warrior abilities. But you're also front line, so also con. So if you go with the gauntlets and use the standard array, you could do something like a 10/12/14/15/13/8. Then with the gauntlets, the str goes to 19, and your feat takes int to a 16. Assuming tasha's floating bonuses, put your 2 in con to take it to a 16, and the 1 in wis to round it up to a 14., so you're at a 19/12/16/16/14/8. Pretty solid stat line.
Warcaster is likely something you'll want, so you can still cast with your hands full (assuming your table follows component rules, which not everyone does). If you want to really keep going with mental feats, gift of the gem dragon uses mental powers, as does telepathic. You could try things like shadow touched or fey touched, and re-flavor the powers as mental, rather than being shadow or fey related. Lucky is always fun, and can, again, be flavored to be mental rather than luck based
If you're a STR melee fighter, you should look at feats that help your melee attacks, GWM or PAM if applicable. Your uncommon item, like said above should be either Gauntlets of Ogre or Headband of Intellect. Either one will help deal with the MADness of playing a Psi Warrior.
As for species, have you considered a Githyanki? They pretty much scream Psi-Warrior and have a reason for Psionics baked in. The trope of not knowing their history can still work as Githyanki live in the Astral plane. Also, having Mage Hand at first level could be Psi enough that you could start with a different feat at the beginning.
As for multi-classing, I wouldn't go more than 2 levels into War Wizard. Maybe one level after Fighter 2 or 3 and another Wizard level after Fighter 5 or 7. But if you get Wizard early, definitely get either the Booming Blade or Green Flame Blade cantrips to make up for the Extra Attack delay.
Most of the psi warrior features have a range of up to 30ft to activate. Strength and melee are find options, but perhaps some sort of weapon of returning could help squeeze some efficacy out of the offensive psi strike feature.
half orc is nice for tanking with the survival feature. Tue extra melee die in a crit can come in handy occasionally but I wouldn’t rely on it without a way to increase crits chance like advantage or paralysis.
the new thrikreen race has quite a bit of Psionic built in, and the extra hands can be quite useful.