First off, I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum section. If not, please direct me to the right one.
So... I had this cool character idea, but I'm not sure what class and other stuff to pick. Here's the basis for the character. He's a Cad Bane-type bounty hunter but he's a robot. The only constraint is that my party needs me to be a full caster. So sort of like, a spellslinging cowboy robot bounty hunter with no morals. Any ideas will help.
auto-gnome and warforged seem to be robot options if you would like to play a robot without reflavoring as much.
Auto-gnome might be a better bounty hunter with the built for success feature 1d4 to various skill checks, attack rolls, or saves if necessary.
The armor casing feature of 13+dex is a nice feature, basically permanant mage armor or +1 studded leather.
mechanical nature granting disease immunity, poison resistance, and advantage on saves vs poison and paralyze conditions is wonderful.
being able to ignore the need for food, breathing, or drinking can mechanically advantageous and help with playing the role of a relentless bounty hunter.
2 tool proficiencies can help flesh out the bounty hunter role too with thieves tools and another choice to help. What ever you think might be more beneficial in your world setting.
wizard/sorcerer makes sense being for full casters for bounty hunter. Fast acting wand users emulating quickdraw gunslingers is usually a readily accepted foundation for a character. war wizard/chronurgy wizard grant bonuses to initiative and go well with the theme. proficiency in investigation skill with intelligence investment seems to synergize well. sorcerer being able to quicken or twin various spells can mechanically fulfill fast shots.
war wizards my favorite wizard so thats my vote for what its worth. normal benefits of warcaster feat is powerful but also you can dual wield wands or staves and cast with hands full kinda like balders gate 3 which is bad ass. maybe not mechanically advantageous but high cool factor.
Agreed with Bobby baker about autognome/warforged being the easy go-to races.
A bounty hunter is really a flavor thing. Any class can hunt down people for money. And morals are purely a role play choice; there might be a couple subclasses that make it challenging, but there’s plenty where it would be easy.
So, when you say full caster, what kind of full caster? The above poster gives good ideas for some. But I could easily see a cleric who hunts down religious heretics, or a Druid who hunts enemies of nature.
Warforged or AutoGnome would be options. Might want to discuss with your DM. As far as 'full caster' goes, you could be any of them. Honestly, if you wanted something like Cad Bane, you could go with a Warlock for the d8 hit dice if you want melee flavor, or a Sorceror if you wanted to stay back from combat. You could also do the 'wand blaster' for flavor for a 'firearm-like' aesthetic.
So, the world we are adventuring in is basically run by this "God-Sent" dictator that everyone thinks is awesome. Except for our party. This dictator uses robots to do his bidding and animals don't exist.
My DM decided that this would be a campaign full of humans. We can still pick other races, and we get the racial features from those races, except, we all look like humans. My DM also doesn't want me to play a druid because wild-shape in a world of non-organic matter would be weird and I can't be a transformer.
I figured it would be like a defective robot or something. Sorcerer and Warlock sound cool, Any subclass ideas?
Edit: Here's an AI-generated picture I thought kind of fit the aesthetic I'm going for. Figured I could get my DM to let me use a gun to cast spells. Use ammo as spell slots.
First, warlocks are not full casters. If you go in expecting to be primata caster, you can end up quite disappointed. I think of them as more like an archer (since ranged attacks are really their bread and butter) who can do a couple big tricks.
That said, if that’s on the table, it can definitely work for cad bane. Flavor your spell focus as pistol shaped, and start shooting EB like it’s a laser gun. Throw in the right invocations and it can definitely work. But, still not a full caster.
So if you need to go full caster, sorcerer is your choice.
I guess my question now would be, why does the party need a full caster? What are you trying to accomplish? If you can explain that a bit, we can better chime in on if a warlock can fill that role. Also, if you have any other ideas for what you want to be able to do, we can better advise on subclass.
Hey, So, there were supposed to be 5 in the party but we had a surprise 6th member so we're now up to 6. We currently have 2 fighters, a barbarian, a celestial warlock working as our healer, A rogue, and me. So we have one caster (sort of) and so I need and want to be a full caster so we have someone whose sole purpose is casting. Warlock should still work as long as I focus on casting and less on Hexblade, for example.
I also just wanted to thank all of ya'll for helping me with this. I would be stuck without you guys. (Or gals, or LGTBQIA+ folks)
If by casting, you mean eldritch blasting everything, and maybe throwing out a spell, then sure. But the warlock has a limited spell list (for example, fireball is not on the base class list, though some subclasses get it) and limited number of spells slots (dependent on getting lots of short rests, but with two warlocks in the party, you'll at least have two people wanting lots of short rests). And if you get to higher levels, those high level slots are very limited. If the party is looking for someone who can throw around AoEs one round and then cast fly the next, warlocks are hard-pressed to fill that role. But a sorcerer can do that, and as others have been saying, flavor your focus as a pistol, and just use firebolt a lot.
Another option could be a bard. They're full casters. Though they are more support types who don't easily fit cad bane's style. Though its pretty easy to go dark and brooding with a whispers bard, for example. And they get healing spells, so you could help out if the warlock goes down.
Genie Warlock could probably fill in for what I need. Whispers Bard sounds cooler except all of the creatures we're fighting are immune to psychic damage and can't be charmed or frightened because they're robots. Which sucks. Long rests are also harder to come by because we are actively being hunted by the aforementioned robots so staying in the same place drastically increases our chances of being "found" which results in a combat after the rest. Short rests do the same thing, we're just less likely to be found though.
Half casters are not defined in D&D half casters have been names such because a level x half caster has the spell slots of a level 2x "full caster". Warlocks don't fit into the spell slot system
I would disagree with Xaltu and say warlocks have a similar spell power output to other (full) casters as long as the party are getting a short rest most days and two (or more) a reasonable amount of the time.
For example at 7th level a standard full caster has 11 spells per day but 4 of these are 1st level, 3 are 2nd, 3 are 3rd and only 1 is fourth. With an average of 1.5 short rests per day the warlock gets 5 spells per day but thay are all at 4th level. I would therefore compare tham as follows:
A standard 7th level caster can cast a "powerful spells" of 3rd level or higher 4 times a day, only one of these can be at 4th level where the Warlock can cast 5 fouth level spells per day. Although the warlock can not cast more than two of these between rests unless the DM is regularly throwing encounters that use up most of the days resources that is Advantage Warlock
A standard 7th level caster can cast "less powerful" of 1st or 2nd level 7 times a day. The warlock might have an eldritch invocation to cast one or more 1st level spells an unlimited number of times (e.g .detect magic, silent image or mage armor) or otherwise will use eldtitch blast which has (almost certainly) been enhanced with invocations (advantage standard caster)
On resource intensive days after all spell slots are used the warlock has more powerful cantips available than other casters (advantage warlock)
All classes have a limited class spell list and while the wizard list is most extensive the warlock list is fine.
Spells known is an issue, but at most levels the warlock knows the same number of spells as a sorcerer (of a subclass that doesn't get extras) but the warlock is only casting spells at a single level and so doesn't need the same variety as a sorcerer (this does mean that a warlock nearly always replaces a spell as well as learns a new spell when they level up)
So here's what I think I'll do. I'll take Genie Warlock for the extra useful spells and Bottled Respite which will be good for short rests. I know I'll be taking a lot of bludgeoning damage so resistance at level ten could be useful if I take Dao. But, Efreeti gives me access to fireball. Which should I take?
As far as races go, I currently have MoTM, Sword coast guide, and all of the base races. From that list, what race would you recommend I take? I'm currently thinking either wood half-elf or changeling but there is probably a better option I'm not aware of. Also, what Eldritch invocations should I take?
So here's what I think I'll do. I'll take Genie Warlock for the extra useful spells and Bottled Respite which will be good for short rests. I know I'll be taking a lot of bludgeoning damage so resistance at level ten could be useful if I take Dao. But, Efreeti gives me access to fireball. Which should I take?
As far as races go, I currently have MoTM, Sword coast guide, and all of the base races. From that list, what race would you recommend I take? I'm currently thinking either wood half-elf or changeling but there is probably a better option I'm not aware of. Also, what Eldritch invocations should I take?
Changeling is very close to a shapeshifter so check with your DM on that one it might trivialize their man-hunt idea. Half-elves are always good. You might want to consider Variant Human to take Magic Initiate so you have some more cantrips for utility and can grab Find Familiar that way which frees you up to take a different pact boon. Shadar-kai is also very strong with it's really good teleportation ability that doesn't use your spell slots. Firbolg offers more utility options but overlaps with many of the best warlock invocations so maybe not the best choice. Alternatively, Bugbear is very powerful in a campaign with many smaller combats and their Sneak Attack option works with Eldritch Blast.
A couple of things. My DM doesn't allow feats. We are getting artifacts later in the campaign that let us get the same abilities as feats of our choice. Also, He doesn't allow Bugbear, because of 10 ft. Reach.
Shadar-Kai seems cool. I could find many uses for having damage resistance. For one, all the enemies we are fighting can self-destruct and do 3d10 force damage, so having resistance after TPing would be good. Aasimar damage resistance would be good because all slashing and piercing have turned into radiant damage. After all, we are fighting robots with laser weapons, and most of their attacks either do force damage or radiant, being resistant could be useful. Also flying is useful in general.
The problem with Firbolg is that all of the enemies we are fighting can see through invisibility automatically, which is annoying.
As far as Pact Boons go, I normally take the talisman, Is find familiar a better option?
A couple of things. My DM doesn't allow feats. We are getting artifacts later in the campaign that let us get the same abilities as feats of our choice. Also, He doesn't allow Bugbear, because of 10 ft. Reach.
Shadar-Kai seems cool. I could find many uses for having damage resistance. For one, all the enemies we are fighting can self-destruct and do 3d10 force damage, so having resistance after TPing would be good. Aasimar damage resistance would be good because all slashing and piercing have turned into radiant damage. After all, we are fighting robots with laser weapons, and most of their attacks either do force damage or radiant, being resistant could be useful. Also flying is useful in general.
The problem with Firbolg is that all of the enemies we are fighting can see through invisibility automatically, which is annoying.
As far as Pact Boons go, I normally take the talisman, Is find familiar a better option?
So.. what do you think?
Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets is good if you'll be able to get additional scrolls/spells for it. Tiny Hut, Psychic Bond, even Skywrite could be very useful. Find Familiar is again an animal so maybe not useful for you given the setting, Pact of the Chain is sometimes good, but if the enemies all see through invisibility, might not be as good for scouting, but still their extra action in combat can be very handy for setting off traps or feeding people potions, etc...
Though if most damage is radiant definitely go Aasimar. Hard to beat effectively doubling your HP.
Here's another predicament, I'm trying to decide if I take Dao or Efreeti, Efreeti gives me Fireball as a Warlock. Dao on the other hand, will give resistance to force damage because all bludgeoning damage has been turned into force damage for this campaign, combine that with Aasimar and I effectively have double HP. So do I take Dao or Efreeti?
So, warforged or atuognome. mechanically, I would go autognome stars druid (think of it like a cosmic droid but magical) and the racial and subclass abilities work well together. Maybe he was on a spelljammer ship that crashed or left him and now he collects bounties for funds.
If you just want to be wild and chaotic, how about a trickery domain cleric? Deceptive and magical. Just collecting bounties for the gold.
So, the problem is, I don't have access to Spelljammer. My DM also only uses "Base D&D" which for him means monster manual, PHB, and DM's guide are the only "real" D&D books we can use from without us showing him the stuff we want to use before-hand. He also is very much anti-Artificer.
So, the problem is, I don't have access to Spelljammer. My DM also only uses "Base D&D" which for him means monster manual, PHB, and DM's guide are the only "real" D&D books we can use from without us showing him the stuff we want to use before-hand. He also is very much anti-Artificer.
Have you talked to your DM about playing as a robot? It sounds like they have a very specific vision of what they want the game to be like, so they may not allow you to play as a robot if robots are the main enemies.
Since all the enemies are immune to fear/charm and psychic damage then you're only viable PHB warlock patron is Fiend, and the Talisman pact-boon is off the table so I'd highly recommend going Pact of the Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets. Bard is also completely out as all their good spells are fear/charm oriented.
Your other options would be Light Cleric (check with your DM if the robots can be blinded, if they cannot be then do no use this subclass), Tempest Cleric (they have some really nice utility spells that could be helpful for a "running for your life" situations), I'd probably lean towards Light Cleric because their CD Radiance of Dawn recharges on a short rest and is really really good.
Sorcerer has the problem of being extremely long-rest dependent so I wouldn't advise it for a long-rest starved campaign. Wizard would be a much better choice since they have ritual casting & Arcane Recovery to keep them useful when spell slots are in short supply (Transmutation would be my recommendation since their Transmuter's stone replicates many valuable feats).
So, the problem is, I don't have access to Spelljammer. My DM also only uses "Base D&D" which for him means monster manual, PHB, and DM's guide are the only "real" D&D books we can use from without us showing him the stuff we want to use before-hand. He also is very much anti-Artificer.
The only RAW robots I know are autognome (SJ) and war forged (eberron). Talk to your DM about wanting to be a robot and see if he can come up with something.
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Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
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First off, I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum section. If not, please direct me to the right one.
So... I had this cool character idea, but I'm not sure what class and other stuff to pick. Here's the basis for the character. He's a Cad Bane-type bounty hunter but he's a robot. The only constraint is that my party needs me to be a full caster. So sort of like, a spellslinging cowboy robot bounty hunter with no morals. Any ideas will help.
auto-gnome and warforged seem to be robot options if you would like to play a robot without reflavoring as much.
Auto-gnome might be a better bounty hunter with the built for success feature 1d4 to various skill checks, attack rolls, or saves if necessary.
The armor casing feature of 13+dex is a nice feature, basically permanant mage armor or +1 studded leather.
mechanical nature granting disease immunity, poison resistance, and advantage on saves vs poison and paralyze conditions is wonderful.
being able to ignore the need for food, breathing, or drinking can mechanically advantageous and help with playing the role of a relentless bounty hunter.
2 tool proficiencies can help flesh out the bounty hunter role too with thieves tools and another choice to help. What ever you think might be more beneficial in your world setting.
wizard/sorcerer makes sense being for full casters for bounty hunter. Fast acting wand users emulating quickdraw gunslingers is usually a readily accepted foundation for a character. war wizard/chronurgy wizard grant bonuses to initiative and go well with the theme. proficiency in investigation skill with intelligence investment seems to synergize well. sorcerer being able to quicken or twin various spells can mechanically fulfill fast shots.
war wizards my favorite wizard so thats my vote for what its worth. normal benefits of warcaster feat is powerful but also you can dual wield wands or staves and cast with hands full kinda like balders gate 3 which is bad ass. maybe not mechanically advantageous but high cool factor.
Agreed with Bobby baker about autognome/warforged being the easy go-to races.
A bounty hunter is really a flavor thing. Any class can hunt down people for money. And morals are purely a role play choice; there might be a couple subclasses that make it challenging, but there’s plenty where it would be easy.
So, when you say full caster, what kind of full caster? The above poster gives good ideas for some. But I could easily see a cleric who hunts down religious heretics, or a Druid who hunts enemies of nature.
Warforged or AutoGnome would be options. Might want to discuss with your DM. As far as 'full caster' goes, you could be any of them. Honestly, if you wanted something like Cad Bane, you could go with a Warlock for the d8 hit dice if you want melee flavor, or a Sorceror if you wanted to stay back from combat. You could also do the 'wand blaster' for flavor for a 'firearm-like' aesthetic.
Aut Inveniam Viam Aut Faciam (Find a way or make one) - Hannibal Allegedly
Lessons learned in blood are not soon forgotten. - Clyde Shelton
The truth is not what you want it to be; it is what it is and you must bow to it's power or live a lie. -Miyamoto Musashi
So, the world we are adventuring in is basically run by this "God-Sent" dictator that everyone thinks is awesome. Except for our party. This dictator uses robots to do his bidding and animals don't exist.
My DM decided that this would be a campaign full of humans. We can still pick other races, and we get the racial features from those races, except, we all look like humans. My DM also doesn't want me to play a druid because wild-shape in a world of non-organic matter would be weird and I can't be a transformer.
I figured it would be like a defective robot or something. Sorcerer and Warlock sound cool, Any subclass ideas?
Edit: Here's an AI-generated picture I thought kind of fit the aesthetic I'm going for. Figured I could get my DM to let me use a gun to cast spells. Use ammo as spell slots.
First, warlocks are not full casters. If you go in expecting to be primata caster, you can end up quite disappointed. I think of them as more like an archer (since ranged attacks are really their bread and butter) who can do a couple big tricks.
That said, if that’s on the table, it can definitely work for cad bane. Flavor your spell focus as pistol shaped, and start shooting EB like it’s a laser gun. Throw in the right invocations and it can definitely work. But, still not a full caster.
So if you need to go full caster, sorcerer is your choice.
I guess my question now would be, why does the party need a full caster? What are you trying to accomplish? If you can explain that a bit, we can better chime in on if a warlock can fill that role. Also, if you have any other ideas for what you want to be able to do, we can better advise on subclass.
Hey, So, there were supposed to be 5 in the party but we had a surprise 6th member so we're now up to 6. We currently have 2 fighters, a barbarian, a celestial warlock working as our healer, A rogue, and me. So we have one caster (sort of) and so I need and want to be a full caster so we have someone whose sole purpose is casting. Warlock should still work as long as I focus on casting and less on Hexblade, for example.
I also just wanted to thank all of ya'll for helping me with this. I would be stuck without you guys. (Or gals, or LGTBQIA+ folks)
If by casting, you mean eldritch blasting everything, and maybe throwing out a spell, then sure. But the warlock has a limited spell list (for example, fireball is not on the base class list, though some subclasses get it) and limited number of spells slots (dependent on getting lots of short rests, but with two warlocks in the party, you'll at least have two people wanting lots of short rests). And if you get to higher levels, those high level slots are very limited. If the party is looking for someone who can throw around AoEs one round and then cast fly the next, warlocks are hard-pressed to fill that role. But a sorcerer can do that, and as others have been saying, flavor your focus as a pistol, and just use firebolt a lot.
Another option could be a bard. They're full casters. Though they are more support types who don't easily fit cad bane's style. Though its pretty easy to go dark and brooding with a whispers bard, for example. And they get healing spells, so you could help out if the warlock goes down.
Genie Warlock could probably fill in for what I need. Whispers Bard sounds cooler except all of the creatures we're fighting are immune to psychic damage and can't be charmed or frightened because they're robots. Which sucks. Long rests are also harder to come by because we are actively being hunted by the aforementioned robots so staying in the same place drastically increases our chances of being "found" which results in a combat after the rest. Short rests do the same thing, we're just less likely to be found though.
Half casters are not defined in D&D half casters have been names such because a level x half caster has the spell slots of a level 2x "full caster". Warlocks don't fit into the spell slot system
I would disagree with Xaltu and say warlocks have a similar spell power output to other (full) casters as long as the party are getting a short rest most days and two (or more) a reasonable amount of the time.
For example at 7th level a standard full caster has 11 spells per day but 4 of these are 1st level, 3 are 2nd, 3 are 3rd and only 1 is fourth. With an average of 1.5 short rests per day the warlock gets 5 spells per day but thay are all at 4th level. I would therefore compare tham as follows:
All classes have a limited class spell list and while the wizard list is most extensive the warlock list is fine.
Spells known is an issue, but at most levels the warlock knows the same number of spells as a sorcerer (of a subclass that doesn't get extras) but the warlock is only casting spells at a single level and so doesn't need the same variety as a sorcerer (this does mean that a warlock nearly always replaces a spell as well as learns a new spell when they level up)
So here's what I think I'll do. I'll take Genie Warlock for the extra useful spells and Bottled Respite which will be good for short rests. I know I'll be taking a lot of bludgeoning damage so resistance at level ten could be useful if I take Dao. But, Efreeti gives me access to fireball. Which should I take?
As far as races go, I currently have MoTM, Sword coast guide, and all of the base races. From that list, what race would you recommend I take? I'm currently thinking either wood half-elf or changeling but there is probably a better option I'm not aware of. Also, what Eldritch invocations should I take?
Changeling is very close to a shapeshifter so check with your DM on that one it might trivialize their man-hunt idea. Half-elves are always good. You might want to consider Variant Human to take Magic Initiate so you have some more cantrips for utility and can grab Find Familiar that way which frees you up to take a different pact boon. Shadar-kai is also very strong with it's really good teleportation ability that doesn't use your spell slots. Firbolg offers more utility options but overlaps with many of the best warlock invocations so maybe not the best choice. Alternatively, Bugbear is very powerful in a campaign with many smaller combats and their Sneak Attack option works with Eldritch Blast.
A couple of things. My DM doesn't allow feats. We are getting artifacts later in the campaign that let us get the same abilities as feats of our choice. Also, He doesn't allow Bugbear, because of 10 ft. Reach.
Shadar-Kai seems cool. I could find many uses for having damage resistance. For one, all the enemies we are fighting can self-destruct and do 3d10 force damage, so having resistance after TPing would be good. Aasimar damage resistance would be good because all slashing and piercing have turned into radiant damage. After all, we are fighting robots with laser weapons, and most of their attacks either do force damage or radiant, being resistant could be useful. Also flying is useful in general.
The problem with Firbolg is that all of the enemies we are fighting can see through invisibility automatically, which is annoying.
As far as Pact Boons go, I normally take the talisman, Is find familiar a better option?
So.. what do you think?
Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets is good if you'll be able to get additional scrolls/spells for it. Tiny Hut, Psychic Bond, even Skywrite could be very useful. Find Familiar is again an animal so maybe not useful for you given the setting, Pact of the Chain is sometimes good, but if the enemies all see through invisibility, might not be as good for scouting, but still their extra action in combat can be very handy for setting off traps or feeding people potions, etc...
Though if most damage is radiant definitely go Aasimar. Hard to beat effectively doubling your HP.
Here's another predicament, I'm trying to decide if I take Dao or Efreeti, Efreeti gives me Fireball as a Warlock. Dao on the other hand, will give resistance to force damage because all bludgeoning damage has been turned into force damage for this campaign, combine that with Aasimar and I effectively have double HP. So do I take Dao or Efreeti?
I'd go for Dao, if the robots are resistant to fire then Fireball will be pretty useless.
So, warforged or atuognome. mechanically, I would go autognome stars druid (think of it like a cosmic droid but magical) and the racial and subclass abilities work well together. Maybe he was on a spelljammer ship that crashed or left him and now he collects bounties for funds.
If you just want to be wild and chaotic, how about a trickery domain cleric? Deceptive and magical. Just collecting bounties for the gold.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.
So, the problem is, I don't have access to Spelljammer. My DM also only uses "Base D&D" which for him means monster manual, PHB, and DM's guide are the only "real" D&D books we can use from without us showing him the stuff we want to use before-hand. He also is very much anti-Artificer.
Have you talked to your DM about playing as a robot? It sounds like they have a very specific vision of what they want the game to be like, so they may not allow you to play as a robot if robots are the main enemies.
Since all the enemies are immune to fear/charm and psychic damage then you're only viable PHB warlock patron is Fiend, and the Talisman pact-boon is off the table so I'd highly recommend going Pact of the Tome + Book of Ancient Secrets. Bard is also completely out as all their good spells are fear/charm oriented.
Your other options would be Light Cleric (check with your DM if the robots can be blinded, if they cannot be then do no use this subclass), Tempest Cleric (they have some really nice utility spells that could be helpful for a "running for your life" situations), I'd probably lean towards Light Cleric because their CD Radiance of Dawn recharges on a short rest and is really really good.
Sorcerer has the problem of being extremely long-rest dependent so I wouldn't advise it for a long-rest starved campaign. Wizard would be a much better choice since they have ritual casting & Arcane Recovery to keep them useful when spell slots are in short supply (Transmutation would be my recommendation since their Transmuter's stone replicates many valuable feats).
The only RAW robots I know are autognome (SJ) and war forged (eberron). Talk to your DM about wanting to be a robot and see if he can come up with something.
Food, Scifi/fantasy, anime, DND 5E and OSR geek.