right now I have a clock soul 8 (would continue this) and hex 1 (armor and shield prof) with Orzhov background for Spirit Guardians. I'm trying to build something that completely locks down enemies to put their speed at 0 and keeps them locked, preferably multiple enemies. This being done at main combo using quicken SG + Ray of Frost (grid style play) and then either earth tremor, grease, or mold earth later.
I'm wondering if this is the most effective way to do this or is their other builds/ combos that would be better? I am fine with even going completely different classes/subclasses. Thanks in advance for the help.
Also an added important note is I want to do this without limiting my melee party members (difficult terrain being the most impediment to them max)
I thought your EB plan instead of Ray of Frost in the other thread was a good one. Warlocks can be more defensive than they first appear, with the ability to sit in the middle of a darkness bubble, get maximized healing with chainmaster invocations, etc. Concentration could be a bit of a limiter for keeping Spirit Guardians up yourself with other tricks... but honestly, if your party has a cleric who plans on casting Spirit Guardians regularly anyway, coming up with a stupid lockdown trick that assumes you run to the center of that effect and make the most of it (or, can cast it yourself in a pinch) is good synergy. Don't feel like your own character needs to bring every tool to the table for their combo.
I don't like Sorcerers that lean on metamagic, especially constant Quickened cantrips. It just doesn't feel sustainable to use 2 Sorcery Points per round, every round, for your core trick. I'm going to suggest throwing out your 8 sorcerer levels and just leaning into warlock more.
I usually dislike Hexblade for the same reason: the curse looks great on paper, but you only really get one per fight at most, until you're in Tier 3 and can slide it around. The level 10 is a great defensive feature, it's true, and medium armor is nice and all... but I think we can do better if you're rebuilding your character, and I think that Fathomless patron fits your lockdown concept much better.
Starting as a Fighter at level 1 gives you Heavy Armor and Shield prof., and taking it to level 2 gives you Action Surge. Action Surge is honestly so important for casters, who sometimes just need to get two different spells off in a round, that I think a Fighter 2/Warlock X is a good chassis. Especially since Warlocks don't care as much about full spell progression as some other casters might, who stand to lose more spell levels and slots over that compromise. Second Wind also will help you stand in place and accept punishment.
However, Sorcerer 2 does have a little bit of utility, if only for Careful Spell: as a Fathomless Warlock, you have the ability to be throwing around Evard's Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians, but if you're going to sit in it, you're going to need to be able to sculpt it to exempt yourself. Careful Spell can do that... but so could being a Wizard (Evocation) 2, which would be a little MAD, but require no limited resources. I think that the Wizard MC would be ok, because you could just use those Wizard slots to take non-attribute dependent spells like Sleep, Misty Step, rituals, etc etc. and never worry about having a crappy 13 Intelligence. There are plenty of useful Rituals to pick up even as a low level Wizard, so I think you get some decent utility off of that MC.
As a Fighter 2/Warlock (Fathomless) 7 with Pact of the Chain Master, and Agonizing Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Grasp of Hadar, and Lance of Lethargy, you're quite capable of sitting in the middle of your Spirit Guardians with an AC of 21, dragging enemies into your slowing vortex and dropping their speed 10 feet (which will then get further dropped as they struggle to move through the Spirit Guardians), and ocasionally surge to either throw out more Eldritch Blasts (though you can only slow and drag one per round) or do other important stuff. You can Bonus Action heal 12 HP with a Second Wind, and Bonus Action throw up a tentacle that does even more slowing and bonus damage. With a few more levels of Warlock under your belt, you'll start to unlock Warcaster, letting you do more reaction pull/slows as enemies try to escape your area of effect, and letting you wield a whip to make those Warcaster attacks at a more useful range.
The Wizard 2/Warlock 7 mostly does the same stuff, but is less defensive (you'll have to invest more heavily into Dex, and still only be able to hope to reach an AC 17), but more offensive (can freely use Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians for your AoE). I think the Fighter approach is probably better, but I'm a sucker for rituals and utility spells, so Wizard could be fun.
I thought your EB plan instead of Ray of Frost in the other thread was a good one. Warlocks can be more defensive than they first appear, with the ability to sit in the middle of a darkness bubble, get maximized healing with chainmaster invocations, etc. Concentration could be a bit of a limiter for keeping Spirit Guardians up yourself with other tricks... but honestly, if your party has a cleric who plans on casting Spirit Guardians regularly anyway, coming up with a stupid lockdown trick that assumes you run to the center of that effect and make the most of it (or, can cast it yourself in a pinch) is good synergy. Don't feel like your own character needs to bring every tool to the table for their combo.
I don't like Sorcerers that lean on metamagic, especially constant Quickened cantrips. It just doesn't feel sustainable to use 2 Sorcery Points per round, every round, for your core trick. I'm going to suggest throwing out your 8 sorcerer levels and just leaning into warlock more.
I usually dislike Hexblade for the same reason: the curse looks great on paper, but you only really get one per fight at most, until you're in Tier 3 and can slide it around. The level 10 is a great defensive feature, it's true, and medium armor is nice and all... but I think we can do better if you're rebuilding your character, and I think that Fathomless patron fits your lockdown concept much better.
Starting as a Fighter at level 1 gives you Heavy Armor and Shield prof., and taking it to level 2 gives you Action Surge. Action Surge is honestly so important for casters, who sometimes just need to get two different spells off in a round, that I think a Fighter 2/Warlock X is a good chassis. Especially since Warlocks don't care as much about full spell progression as some other casters might, who stand to lose more spell levels and slots over that compromise. Second Wind also will help you stand in place and accept punishment.
However, Sorcerer 2 does have a little bit of utility, if only for Careful Spell: as a Fathomless Warlock, you have the ability to be throwing around Evard's Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians, but if you're going to sit in it, you're going to need to be able to sculpt it to exempt yourself. Careful Spell can do that... but so could being a Wizard (Evocation) 2, which would be a little MAD, but require no limited resources. I think that the Wizard MC would be ok, because you could just use those Wizard slots to take non-attribute dependent spells like Sleep, Misty Step, rituals, etc etc. and never worry about having a crappy 13 Intelligence. There are plenty of useful Rituals to pick up even as a low level Wizard, so I think you get some decent utility off of that MC.
As a Fighter 2/Warlock (Fathomless) 7 with Pact of the Chain Master, and Agonizing Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Grasp of Hadar, and Lance of Lethargy, you're quite capable of sitting in the middle of your Spirit Guardians with an AC of 20, dragging enemies into your slowing vortex and dropping their speed 10 feet (which will then get further dropped as they struggle to move through the Spirit Guardians), and ocasionally surge to either throw out more Eldritch Blasts (though you can only slow and drag one per round) or do other important stuff. You can Bonus Action heal 12 HP with a Second Wind, and Bonus Action throw up a tentacle that does even more slowing and bonus damage. With a few more levels of Warlock under your belt, you'll start to unlock Warcaster, letting you do more reaction pull/slows as enemies try to escape your area of effect, and letting you wield a whip to make those Warcaster attacks at a more useful range.
The Wizard 2/Warlock 7 mostly does the same stuff, but is less defensive (you'll have to invest more heavily into Dex, and still only be able to hope to reach an AC 17), but more offensive (can freely use Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians for your AoE). I think the Fighter approach is probably better, but I'm a sucker for rituals and utility spells, so Wizard could be fun.
Oh I'm digging this. This fighter move with fathomless would clear up my issue that arose with the fathomless warlock too. Thank you for the time on this too.
Question on the careful meta, I thought that only protected against the initial save of the spell not forever?
I know for the evoc wiz you can't protect yourself from your spells so that combo would be out sadly.
You did give me an idea using slasher feat with a whip and ging bladesinger though with Orzhov background for SG. Even going 2 level fighter dip for con and surge. SG 1st action then whip and ray of frost 2nd, and continue whip and ray. thatd keep 1 enemy stuck @ 10ft away from you long as their speed is 40ft or less.
Oh! also for the quicken part, Id mainly use that just to set up the SG initally.
I thought your EB plan instead of Ray of Frost in the other thread was a good one. Warlocks can be more defensive than they first appear, with the ability to sit in the middle of a darkness bubble, get maximized healing with chainmaster invocations, etc. Concentration could be a bit of a limiter for keeping Spirit Guardians up yourself with other tricks... but honestly, if your party has a cleric who plans on casting Spirit Guardians regularly anyway, coming up with a stupid lockdown trick that assumes you run to the center of that effect and make the most of it (or, can cast it yourself in a pinch) is good synergy. Don't feel like your own character needs to bring every tool to the table for their combo.
I don't like Sorcerers that lean on metamagic, especially constant Quickened cantrips. It just doesn't feel sustainable to use 2 Sorcery Points per round, every round, for your core trick. I'm going to suggest throwing out your 8 sorcerer levels and just leaning into warlock more.
I usually dislike Hexblade for the same reason: the curse looks great on paper, but you only really get one per fight at most, until you're in Tier 3 and can slide it around. The level 10 is a great defensive feature, it's true, and medium armor is nice and all... but I think we can do better if you're rebuilding your character, and I think that Fathomless patron fits your lockdown concept much better.
Starting as a Fighter at level 1 gives you Heavy Armor and Shield prof., and taking it to level 2 gives you Action Surge. Action Surge is honestly so important for casters, who sometimes just need to get two different spells off in a round, that I think a Fighter 2/Warlock X is a good chassis. Especially since Warlocks don't care as much about full spell progression as some other casters might, who stand to lose more spell levels and slots over that compromise. Second Wind also will help you stand in place and accept punishment.
However, Sorcerer 2 does have a little bit of utility, if only for Careful Spell: as a Fathomless Warlock, you have the ability to be throwing around Evard's Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians, but if you're going to sit in it, you're going to need to be able to sculpt it to exempt yourself. Careful Spell can do that... but so could being a Wizard (Evocation) 2, which would be a little MAD, but require no limited resources. I think that the Wizard MC would be ok, because you could just use those Wizard slots to take non-attribute dependent spells like Sleep, Misty Step, rituals, etc etc. and never worry about having a crappy 13 Intelligence. There are plenty of useful Rituals to pick up even as a low level Wizard, so I think you get some decent utility off of that MC.
As a Fighter 2/Warlock (Fathomless) 7 with Pact of the Chain Master, and Agonizing Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Grasp of Hadar, and Lance of Lethargy, you're quite capable of sitting in the middle of your Spirit Guardians with an AC of 20, dragging enemies into your slowing vortex and dropping their speed 10 feet (which will then get further dropped as they struggle to move through the Spirit Guardians), and ocasionally surge to either throw out more Eldritch Blasts (though you can only slow and drag one per round) or do other important stuff. You can Bonus Action heal 12 HP with a Second Wind, and Bonus Action throw up a tentacle that does even more slowing and bonus damage. With a few more levels of Warlock under your belt, you'll start to unlock Warcaster, letting you do more reaction pull/slows as enemies try to escape your area of effect, and letting you wield a whip to make those Warcaster attacks at a more useful range.
The Wizard 2/Warlock 7 mostly does the same stuff, but is less defensive (you'll have to invest more heavily into Dex, and still only be able to hope to reach an AC 17), but more offensive (can freely use Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians for your AoE). I think the Fighter approach is probably better, but I'm a sucker for rituals and utility spells, so Wizard could be fun.
Oh I'm digging this. This fighter move with fathomless would clear up my issue that arose with the fathomless warlock too. Thank you for the time on this too.
Question on the careful meta, I thought that only protected against the initial save of the spell not forever?
I know for the evoc wiz you can't protect yourself from your spells so that combo would be out sadly.
You did give me an idea using slasher feat with a whip and ging bladesinger though with Orzhov background for SG. Even going 2 level fighter dip for con and surge. SG 1st action then whip and ray of frost 2nd, and continue whip and ray. thatd keep 1 enemy stuck @ 10ft away from you long as their speed is 40ft or less.
Oh! also for the quicken part, Id mainly use that just to set up the SG initally.
If you are going wizard for bladesinger, getting EB with Lance of Lethargy and Grasp of Hadar would allow you to hit two targets to "slow" them, one being targeted by the lance and the other dragged back by the grasp. That would allow for three total between your whip and the EB. Agonizing Blast would be a nice thing to have, but could be dropped if you only wanted to dip two levels and you could go celestial instead of hexblade for more self sustain.
You'd have to see what the tradeoffs would be to work that in. You wouldn't have to work it in early, since going Fighter 1 (or 2), Wizard 6 would be paramount for combo to fully come online. Maybe fighter 1, wizard 6, fighter (2nd level). At that point, you could sneak in the warlock levels. The drawback to that plan is you'd be MAD, needing strength or dexterity, intellect, and charisma all at 13 just to mc and wanting those higher in order to hit frequently enough. You'd also want the higher con scores for HP. To make it efficient from a stat standpoint, you'd have to get the warlock levels in before the wizard ones so that you could cap your intellect at 13. Another option would be to go with a Battlesmith or an Armorer. The armored would be to get the heavy armor and not stress about the strength requirement slowing you down as well as some defensive options. The Battlesmith would allow you to use your intelligence score for attacks with a magic weapon, which you could create with an infusion. This would allow for your dex to stay at 14 and you could bump your intelligence and charisma scores. Even better, you could start your dex at 13, use slasher to get it to 14. You'd have a few infusions to overcome the other losses from fighter (if you chose to forgo it) and battlesmith would also give you the steel defender to clutter up the escape routes.
Going 4 classes would water you down quite a bit, though. You'd have to be happy with that as your trick.
An EK to 7 would give you a bonus action attack with a Whip after casting a cantrip. The defensive abilities of the EK would be a nice compliment, but it would come online late (level 13 at the earliest) allowing the bladesinger extra attack to give you one Whip attack and the slowing cantrip, which would enable the bonus action whip attack.
I thought your EB plan instead of Ray of Frost in the other thread was a good one. Warlocks can be more defensive than they first appear, with the ability to sit in the middle of a darkness bubble, get maximized healing with chainmaster invocations, etc. Concentration could be a bit of a limiter for keeping Spirit Guardians up yourself with other tricks... but honestly, if your party has a cleric who plans on casting Spirit Guardians regularly anyway, coming up with a stupid lockdown trick that assumes you run to the center of that effect and make the most of it (or, can cast it yourself in a pinch) is good synergy. Don't feel like your own character needs to bring every tool to the table for their combo.
I don't like Sorcerers that lean on metamagic, especially constant Quickened cantrips. It just doesn't feel sustainable to use 2 Sorcery Points per round, every round, for your core trick. I'm going to suggest throwing out your 8 sorcerer levels and just leaning into warlock more.
I usually dislike Hexblade for the same reason: the curse looks great on paper, but you only really get one per fight at most, until you're in Tier 3 and can slide it around. The level 10 is a great defensive feature, it's true, and medium armor is nice and all... but I think we can do better if you're rebuilding your character, and I think that Fathomless patron fits your lockdown concept much better.
Starting as a Fighter at level 1 gives you Heavy Armor and Shield prof., and taking it to level 2 gives you Action Surge. Action Surge is honestly so important for casters, who sometimes just need to get two different spells off in a round, that I think a Fighter 2/Warlock X is a good chassis. Especially since Warlocks don't care as much about full spell progression as some other casters might, who stand to lose more spell levels and slots over that compromise. Second Wind also will help you stand in place and accept punishment.
However, Sorcerer 2 does have a little bit of utility, if only for Careful Spell: as a Fathomless Warlock, you have the ability to be throwing around Evard's Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians, but if you're going to sit in it, you're going to need to be able to sculpt it to exempt yourself. Careful Spell can do that... but so could being a Wizard (Evocation) 2, which would be a little MAD, but require no limited resources. I think that the Wizard MC would be ok, because you could just use those Wizard slots to take non-attribute dependent spells like Sleep, Misty Step, rituals, etc etc. and never worry about having a crappy 13 Intelligence. There are plenty of useful Rituals to pick up even as a low level Wizard, so I think you get some decent utility off of that MC.
As a Fighter 2/Warlock (Fathomless) 7 with Pact of the Chain Master, and Agonizing Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Grasp of Hadar, and Lance of Lethargy, you're quite capable of sitting in the middle of your Spirit Guardians with an AC of 20, dragging enemies into your slowing vortex and dropping their speed 10 feet (which will then get further dropped as they struggle to move through the Spirit Guardians), and ocasionally surge to either throw out more Eldritch Blasts (though you can only slow and drag one per round) or do other important stuff. You can Bonus Action heal 12 HP with a Second Wind, and Bonus Action throw up a tentacle that does even more slowing and bonus damage. With a few more levels of Warlock under your belt, you'll start to unlock Warcaster, letting you do more reaction pull/slows as enemies try to escape your area of effect, and letting you wield a whip to make those Warcaster attacks at a more useful range.
The Wizard 2/Warlock 7 mostly does the same stuff, but is less defensive (you'll have to invest more heavily into Dex, and still only be able to hope to reach an AC 17), but more offensive (can freely use Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians for your AoE). I think the Fighter approach is probably better, but I'm a sucker for rituals and utility spells, so Wizard could be fun.
Oh I'm digging this. This fighter move with fathomless would clear up my issue that arose with the fathomless warlock too. Thank you for the time on this too.
Question on the careful meta, I thought that only protected against the initial save of the spell not forever?
I know for the evoc wiz you can't protect yourself from your spells so that combo would be out sadly.
You did give me an idea using slasher feat with a whip and ging bladesinger though with Orzhov background for SG. Even going 2 level fighter dip for con and surge. SG 1st action then whip and ray of frost 2nd, and continue whip and ray. thatd keep 1 enemy stuck @ 10ft away from you long as their speed is 40ft or less.
Oh! also for the quicken part, Id mainly use that just to set up the SG initally.
If you are going wizard for bladesinger, getting EB with Lance of Lethargy and Grasp of Hadar would allow you to hit two targets to "slow" them, one being targeted by the lance and the other dragged back by the grasp. That would allow for three total between your whip and the EB. Agonizing Blast would be a nice thing to have, but could be dropped if you only wanted to dip two levels and you could go celestial instead of hexblade for more self sustain.
You'd have to see what the tradeoffs would be to work that in. You wouldn't have to work it in early, since going Fighter 1 (or 2), Wizard 6 would be paramount for combo to fully come online. Maybe fighter 1, wizard 6, fighter (2nd level). At that point, you could sneak in the warlock levels. The drawback to that plan is you'd be MAD, needing strength or dexterity, intellect, and charisma all at 13 just to mc and wanting those higher in order to hit frequently enough. You'd also want the higher con scores for HP. To make it efficient from a stat standpoint, you'd have to get the warlock levels in before the wizard ones so that you could cap your intellect at 13. Another option would be to go with a Battlesmith or an Armorer. The armored would be to get the heavy armor and not stress about the strength requirement slowing you down as well as some defensive options. The Battlesmith would allow you to use your intelligence score for attacks with a magic weapon, which you could create with an infusion. This would allow for your dex to stay at 14 and you could bump your intelligence and charisma scores. Even better, you could start your dex at 13, use slasher to get it to 14. You'd have a few infusions to overcome the other losses from fighter (if you chose to forgo it) and battlesmith would also give you the steel defender to clutter up the escape routes.
Going 4 classes would water you down quite a bit, though. You'd have to be happy with that as your trick.
An EK to 7 would give you a bonus action attack with a Whip after casting a cantrip. The defensive abilities of the EK would be a nice compliment, but it would come online late (level 13 at the earliest) allowing the bladesinger extra attack to give you one Whip attack and the slowing cantrip, which would enable the bonus action whip attack.
Thanks for the thought out ideas for it, but this one would probably be far to MAD for this mad lad. Looking for the simplest, most efficient manner to make this work. I appreciate your input.
I did miss the "other creatures" part of Sculpt Spells/Careful Spell, good catch.
I'll throw one more contender into the pile, which isn't much help for finding a combo at level 9, but would maybe work with a theorycrafted 20: Conquest Paladin. The ability to not only fear everyone within 30 feet for a minute (hard control on them moving towards you), but also to drop their speed to 0 while within 10 feet of you while Frightened at 7, has some real potential for a ranged lockdown build. Melee enemies could be stuck in the AOE unable to move in either direction while you poke them to death, and able drag any single enemy that passes its save to shake off the fear back into the effect with pull/slow EB shennanigans. Paladin 7/Warlock 13 isn't even that MAD, or could be bumped to 8/12 without too much lost Warlock utility.
That conquest does make for a fancy 1/rest big hitter and it does keep your allies safe while they can poke from out of the aura radius. That's clever. I like that.
Also looking over another spell, albeit it deals no dmg. Plant growth. I never realized just how dirty that spell is. A fighter 2/ druid or sorc with golgari background or the like using plant growth-->surge-->erupting earth will lock enemies down in a grid play completely.
And if you get Land's Stride via Ranger or Land Druid, Plant Growth doesn't hinder you at all.
I just learned about that last night too! I was surprised Land's stride worked that way since it was a spell, but its technically non magical plants, and being able to sculpt it around party members for their ease is fantastic. Sure the plants stay there forever but that could be circumvented someway.
right now I have a clock soul 8 (would continue this) and hex 1 (armor and shield prof) with Orzhov background for Spirit Guardians. I'm trying to build something that completely locks down enemies to put their speed at 0 and keeps them locked, preferably multiple enemies. This being done at main combo using quicken SG + Ray of Frost (grid style play) and then either earth tremor, grease, or mold earth later.
I'm wondering if this is the most effective way to do this or is their other builds/ combos that would be better? I am fine with even going completely different classes/subclasses. Thanks in advance for the help.
Also an added important note is I want to do this without limiting my melee party members (difficult terrain being the most impediment to them max)
I thought your EB plan instead of Ray of Frost in the other thread was a good one. Warlocks can be more defensive than they first appear, with the ability to sit in the middle of a darkness bubble, get maximized healing with chainmaster invocations, etc. Concentration could be a bit of a limiter for keeping Spirit Guardians up yourself with other tricks... but honestly, if your party has a cleric who plans on casting Spirit Guardians regularly anyway, coming up with a stupid lockdown trick that assumes you run to the center of that effect and make the most of it (or, can cast it yourself in a pinch) is good synergy. Don't feel like your own character needs to bring every tool to the table for their combo.
I don't like Sorcerers that lean on metamagic, especially constant Quickened cantrips. It just doesn't feel sustainable to use 2 Sorcery Points per round, every round, for your core trick. I'm going to suggest throwing out your 8 sorcerer levels and just leaning into warlock more.
I usually dislike Hexblade for the same reason: the curse looks great on paper, but you only really get one per fight at most, until you're in Tier 3 and can slide it around. The level 10 is a great defensive feature, it's true, and medium armor is nice and all... but I think we can do better if you're rebuilding your character, and I think that Fathomless patron fits your lockdown concept much better.
Starting as a Fighter at level 1 gives you Heavy Armor and Shield prof., and taking it to level 2 gives you Action Surge. Action Surge is honestly so important for casters, who sometimes just need to get two different spells off in a round, that I think a Fighter 2/Warlock X is a good chassis. Especially since Warlocks don't care as much about full spell progression as some other casters might, who stand to lose more spell levels and slots over that compromise. Second Wind also will help you stand in place and accept punishment.
However, Sorcerer 2 does have a little bit of utility, if only for Careful Spell: as a Fathomless Warlock, you have the ability to be throwing around Evard's Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians, but if you're going to sit in it, you're going to need to be able to sculpt it to exempt yourself. Careful Spell can do that... but so could being a Wizard (Evocation) 2, which would be a little MAD, but require no limited resources. I think that the Wizard MC would be ok, because you could just use those Wizard slots to take non-attribute dependent spells like Sleep, Misty Step, rituals, etc etc. and never worry about having a crappy 13 Intelligence. There are plenty of useful Rituals to pick up even as a low level Wizard, so I think you get some decent utility off of that MC.
As a Fighter 2/Warlock (Fathomless) 7 with Pact of the Chain Master, and Agonizing Blast, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, Grasp of Hadar, and Lance of Lethargy, you're quite capable of sitting in the middle of your Spirit Guardians with an AC of 21, dragging enemies into your slowing vortex and dropping their speed 10 feet (which will then get further dropped as they struggle to move through the Spirit Guardians), and ocasionally surge to either throw out more Eldritch Blasts (though you can only slow and drag one per round) or do other important stuff. You can Bonus Action heal 12 HP with a Second Wind, and Bonus Action throw up a tentacle that does even more slowing and bonus damage. With a few more levels of Warlock under your belt, you'll start to unlock Warcaster, letting you do more reaction pull/slows as enemies try to escape your area of effect, and letting you wield a whip to make those Warcaster attacks at a more useful range.
The Wizard 2/Warlock 7 mostly does the same stuff, but is less defensive (you'll have to invest more heavily into Dex, and still only be able to hope to reach an AC 17), but more offensive (can freely use Black Tentacles instead of Spirit Guardians for your AoE). I think the Fighter approach is probably better, but I'm a sucker for rituals and utility spells, so Wizard could be fun.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Oh I'm digging this. This fighter move with fathomless would clear up my issue that arose with the fathomless warlock too. Thank you for the time on this too.
Question on the careful meta, I thought that only protected against the initial save of the spell not forever?
I know for the evoc wiz you can't protect yourself from your spells so that combo would be out sadly.
You did give me an idea using slasher feat with a whip and ging bladesinger though with Orzhov background for SG. Even going 2 level fighter dip for con and surge. SG 1st action then whip and ray of frost 2nd, and continue whip and ray. thatd keep 1 enemy stuck @ 10ft away from you long as their speed is 40ft or less.
Oh! also for the quicken part, Id mainly use that just to set up the SG initally.
If you are going wizard for bladesinger, getting EB with Lance of Lethargy and Grasp of Hadar would allow you to hit two targets to "slow" them, one being targeted by the lance and the other dragged back by the grasp. That would allow for three total between your whip and the EB. Agonizing Blast would be a nice thing to have, but could be dropped if you only wanted to dip two levels and you could go celestial instead of hexblade for more self sustain.
You'd have to see what the tradeoffs would be to work that in. You wouldn't have to work it in early, since going Fighter 1 (or 2), Wizard 6 would be paramount for combo to fully come online. Maybe fighter 1, wizard 6, fighter (2nd level). At that point, you could sneak in the warlock levels. The drawback to that plan is you'd be MAD, needing strength or dexterity, intellect, and charisma all at 13 just to mc and wanting those higher in order to hit frequently enough. You'd also want the higher con scores for HP. To make it efficient from a stat standpoint, you'd have to get the warlock levels in before the wizard ones so that you could cap your intellect at 13. Another option would be to go with a Battlesmith or an Armorer. The armored would be to get the heavy armor and not stress about the strength requirement slowing you down as well as some defensive options. The Battlesmith would allow you to use your intelligence score for attacks with a magic weapon, which you could create with an infusion. This would allow for your dex to stay at 14 and you could bump your intelligence and charisma scores. Even better, you could start your dex at 13, use slasher to get it to 14. You'd have a few infusions to overcome the other losses from fighter (if you chose to forgo it) and battlesmith would also give you the steel defender to clutter up the escape routes.
Going 4 classes would water you down quite a bit, though. You'd have to be happy with that as your trick.
An EK to 7 would give you a bonus action attack with a Whip after casting a cantrip. The defensive abilities of the EK would be a nice compliment, but it would come online late (level 13 at the earliest) allowing the bladesinger extra attack to give you one Whip attack and the slowing cantrip, which would enable the bonus action whip attack.
Thanks for the thought out ideas for it, but this one would probably be far to MAD for this mad lad. Looking for the simplest, most efficient manner to make this work. I appreciate your input.
I did miss the "other creatures" part of Sculpt Spells/Careful Spell, good catch.
I'll throw one more contender into the pile, which isn't much help for finding a combo at level 9, but would maybe work with a theorycrafted 20: Conquest Paladin. The ability to not only fear everyone within 30 feet for a minute (hard control on them moving towards you), but also to drop their speed to 0 while within 10 feet of you while Frightened at 7, has some real potential for a ranged lockdown build. Melee enemies could be stuck in the AOE unable to move in either direction while you poke them to death, and able drag any single enemy that passes its save to shake off the fear back into the effect with pull/slow EB shennanigans. Paladin 7/Warlock 13 isn't even that MAD, or could be bumped to 8/12 without too much lost Warlock utility.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
That conquest does make for a fancy 1/rest big hitter and it does keep your allies safe while they can poke from out of the aura radius. That's clever. I like that.
Also looking over another spell, albeit it deals no dmg. Plant growth. I never realized just how dirty that spell is. A fighter 2/ druid or sorc with golgari background or the like using plant growth-->surge-->erupting earth will lock enemies down in a grid play completely.
And if you get Land's Stride via Ranger or Land Druid, Plant Growth doesn't hinder you at all.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I just learned about that last night too! I was surprised Land's stride worked that way since it was a spell, but its technically non magical plants, and being able to sculpt it around party members for their ease is fantastic. Sure the plants stay there forever but that could be circumvented someway.
I didn't see it mentioned, but you get sorcery points at level 2, but metamagic (such as Careful Spell) at Sorcerer 3.