So me and my buddy are going starting a Descent into Avernus adventure. We are a 2 people party starting at second level. My buddy is a sorcadin. I am not sure to what to pick with it. But I prefer dealing melee dmg with a tanky character. However I dont want to be useless too. So I am open to a caster multiclass with can go good with a possible Echo Knight. Can anyone give me ideas?
Starting with Backgrounds, are you allowed to take the Strixhaven backgrounds? The ability to take Goodberry is amazing, even on an otherwise non-caster, since it removes the need to find food or water, and that's ten hit points that can be restored, and you can generate them at the start of the day and keep them like weak healing potions.
For Races, some things to consider would be Fire Resistance (like Tieflings, Fire Genasi, or Red Chromatic Dragonborn), or Flight (like Aarakocra, Owlin, Fairies, etc). If you're allowed to take the Winged Tiefling, that gives you both the resistance and the fly speed.
For classes, there are several good options, but one is sort of obviously stands above the rest (in my opinion), so I'll explain that one first.
1 level of Hexblade Warlock, then 8 levels of Devotion Paladin, then the rest of your levels in Swords Bard. Charisma is your best stat, being added to your attack rolls, damage, and all saves (including death saves), and your Channel Divinity lets you add it to your attack rolls a second time, so by L9, for that minute, your attack bonus is +14, without a magic weapon bonus. You get plenty of spell slots for Smites, and you can use your Bardic Inspirations to add to your damage. Combine this with the Witherbloom Student Background, and this character is about as close to unstoppable as you can get. It may be closer to what your friend is doing than you want to go, unless you two talk and decide that two Paladins storming the gates of Hell is what you want to go for.
If you play a Life Cleric with the Witherbloom or Quandrix Student background (or if you're a Hospitality Halfling, with a different background), taking the Goodberry spell, you now have the ability to create potion facsimiles that reliably heal 4 hit points per dose consumed as an action. If you spend your left-over spells at the end of an adventuring day on more Goodberries, they'll last you the whole next day, in which you'll have your spells back.
Rogues are great in 5th edition. Even taking just your first level in Rogue gives you several skill proficiencies and a couple Expertises. If you stick with it for at least three levels, the Swashbuckler gives you a lot of versatility, with new ways to use your Bonus Actions, and the ability to almost always qualify for Sneak Attack (still limited to once per turn). If you do, I'd go at least 4 levels for the ASI. You can also multiclass into Fighter to add a lot of versatility to the character. I personally multiclassed my Swashbuckler Rogue into Echo Knight Fighter for the teleportation and being able to attack at range with my melee weapons, but Battle Master is an amazing Fighter subclass as well.
A Creation Bard could make just about anything you need, including expensive material components for spells, and the Bards diversity in their spell selection is amazing. and if you started with Hexblade 1, Devotion Paladin 2, that gives you a huge amount of spell slots for casting or smiting, and the extremely good melee attacks when it's most needed.
A High-Elf Bladesinger Wizard is also surprisingly good at melee combat, though I'd call it more of a striker than a tank. You definitely want to avoid hits with Mage Armor, Shield, Silvery Barbs, etc as much as you can, and probably always have Absorb Elements on hand to halve incoming elemental damage, even if your enemies are immune to the damage type, negating the other half of the spell's utility.
I played DIA with a Human Bladesinger and she was an awesome Tank-type character.
Melee and tanky can mean a lot of things - if melee includes booming blade and tanky includes just not getting hit at all then a Bladesinger is awesome in this adventure. Just load up on defensive spells and wade into melee.
I took Fey Touched at 1st level with Hex which boosted my damage when I did not need to throw up PEG or Blur.
Beware of Vrocks though. They suck for bladesingers.
A High-Elf Bladesinger Wizard is also surprisingly good at melee combat, though I'd call it more of a striker than a tank. You definitely want to avoid hits with Mage Armor, Shield, Silvery Barbs, etc as much as you can, and probably always have Absorb Elements on hand to halve incoming elemental damage, even if your enemies are immune to the damage type, negating the other half of the spell's utility.
The mechanics make it work better as a tank I think, especially at high levels.
For DIA the one spell you missed is protection from good and evil because of all the fiends running around. Also at high levels upcast false life and contingency. Running Mage Armor, Bladesong, Protection From Good and Evil and shield my bladesinger was nearly unhittable with a well of temp hps if the enemy got lucky and more under a contingency if he got really lucky. Late in the game the sorcerer would haste me driving AC even higher. She went toe-to-toe with Bel and he had a tough time doing significant damage to me.
Our DIA party was a Barbarian, Ranger, Monk, Sorcerer and me. Of those I was by far the tankiest, although the Barbarian had a lot more hps, he lost them a lot quicker too.
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. Sadly our campaign started until I got an answer from anyone. And again sadly I chose tempest cleric as a multiclass for my echo knight fighter. Did I chose poorly :( ?
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. Sadly our campaign started until I got an answer from anyone. And again sadly I chose tempest cleric as a multiclass for my echo knight fighter. Did I chose poorly :( ?
No. That is workable.
With Echo Knight I would recommend the Sentinel feat. Action surge with a couple attacks and then a maximum thunderwave can be pretty powerful.
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So me and my buddy are going starting a Descent into Avernus adventure. We are a 2 people party starting at second level. My buddy is a sorcadin. I am not sure to what to pick with it. But I prefer dealing melee dmg with a tanky character. However I dont want to be useless too. So I am open to a caster multiclass with can go good with a possible Echo Knight. Can anyone give me ideas?
Starting with Backgrounds, are you allowed to take the Strixhaven backgrounds? The ability to take Goodberry is amazing, even on an otherwise non-caster, since it removes the need to find food or water, and that's ten hit points that can be restored, and you can generate them at the start of the day and keep them like weak healing potions.
For Races, some things to consider would be Fire Resistance (like Tieflings, Fire Genasi, or Red Chromatic Dragonborn), or Flight (like Aarakocra, Owlin, Fairies, etc). If you're allowed to take the Winged Tiefling, that gives you both the resistance and the fly speed.
For classes, there are several good options, but one is sort of obviously stands above the rest (in my opinion), so I'll explain that one first.
1 level of Hexblade Warlock, then 8 levels of Devotion Paladin, then the rest of your levels in Swords Bard. Charisma is your best stat, being added to your attack rolls, damage, and all saves (including death saves), and your Channel Divinity lets you add it to your attack rolls a second time, so by L9, for that minute, your attack bonus is +14, without a magic weapon bonus. You get plenty of spell slots for Smites, and you can use your Bardic Inspirations to add to your damage. Combine this with the Witherbloom Student Background, and this character is about as close to unstoppable as you can get. It may be closer to what your friend is doing than you want to go, unless you two talk and decide that two Paladins storming the gates of Hell is what you want to go for.
If you play a Life Cleric with the Witherbloom or Quandrix Student background (or if you're a Hospitality Halfling, with a different background), taking the Goodberry spell, you now have the ability to create potion facsimiles that reliably heal 4 hit points per dose consumed as an action. If you spend your left-over spells at the end of an adventuring day on more Goodberries, they'll last you the whole next day, in which you'll have your spells back.
Rogues are great in 5th edition. Even taking just your first level in Rogue gives you several skill proficiencies and a couple Expertises. If you stick with it for at least three levels, the Swashbuckler gives you a lot of versatility, with new ways to use your Bonus Actions, and the ability to almost always qualify for Sneak Attack (still limited to once per turn). If you do, I'd go at least 4 levels for the ASI. You can also multiclass into Fighter to add a lot of versatility to the character. I personally multiclassed my Swashbuckler Rogue into Echo Knight Fighter for the teleportation and being able to attack at range with my melee weapons, but Battle Master is an amazing Fighter subclass as well.
A Creation Bard could make just about anything you need, including expensive material components for spells, and the Bards diversity in their spell selection is amazing. and if you started with Hexblade 1, Devotion Paladin 2, that gives you a huge amount of spell slots for casting or smiting, and the extremely good melee attacks when it's most needed.
A High-Elf Bladesinger Wizard is also surprisingly good at melee combat, though I'd call it more of a striker than a tank. You definitely want to avoid hits with Mage Armor, Shield, Silvery Barbs, etc as much as you can, and probably always have Absorb Elements on hand to halve incoming elemental damage, even if your enemies are immune to the damage type, negating the other half of the spell's utility.
I played DIA with a Human Bladesinger and she was an awesome Tank-type character.
Melee and tanky can mean a lot of things - if melee includes booming blade and tanky includes just not getting hit at all then a Bladesinger is awesome in this adventure. Just load up on defensive spells and wade into melee.
I took Fey Touched at 1st level with Hex which boosted my damage when I did not need to throw up PEG or Blur.
Beware of Vrocks though. They suck for bladesingers.
The mechanics make it work better as a tank I think, especially at high levels.
For DIA the one spell you missed is protection from good and evil because of all the fiends running around. Also at high levels upcast false life and contingency. Running Mage Armor, Bladesong, Protection From Good and Evil and shield my bladesinger was nearly unhittable with a well of temp hps if the enemy got lucky and more under a contingency if he got really lucky. Late in the game the sorcerer would haste me driving AC even higher. She went toe-to-toe with Bel and he had a tough time doing significant damage to me.
Our DIA party was a Barbarian, Ranger, Monk, Sorcerer and me. Of those I was by far the tankiest, although the Barbarian had a lot more hps, he lost them a lot quicker too.
Thank you very much for your detailed answer. Sadly our campaign started until I got an answer from anyone. And again sadly I chose tempest cleric as a multiclass for my echo knight fighter. Did I chose poorly :( ?
Thank you too for your reply mate. But as I said above, I already chose tempest cleric/echo knight. I can use any advice for that though :)
No. That is workable.
With Echo Knight I would recommend the Sentinel feat. Action surge with a couple attacks and then a maximum thunderwave can be pretty powerful.