Series idea: Go through every subclass and optimize it without multiclassing. It would be a bit simpler and shorter, but it would help (new) people get an idea of how to build a simpler character.
I think this would also be an amazing comparison tool. All the numbers and graphs for his various builds are great, especially at comparing to one another, but most people dont know how much better the numbers are than a straight classed character potentially would have.
The best Suggestion I managed to pull off was suggesting that an Orc War Chief should spend the afternoon picking pretty flowers and creating a scrap book. By the end of the 8 hours, his tribe had splintered in 2, those that were loyal to the chief and also went flower picking, and those that weren't and left to go out on their own.
@@RPanda3S the annoying thing about the phrasing of the spell is that "reasonable" could be taken by strict DMs to mean nearly anything they don't want the character to naturally do, reducing the spell to the equivalent of a charisma check
Here’s WHY it worked: That’s exactly what the Orc War Chief WANTED to do! All that toxic war-chiefn’ masculinity is just a cover. (If I were the DM, I’d give it a percentage chance for “off the wall” things like that to work) That’s the overall beauty of the game.
Imagine an enchanter wizard whose racial is a warforged or some other option that doesn’t sleep. Use the gaze and if successful then just keep using the action till the end of creature dies from exhaustion.
Regarding suggestion - believe my favorite was tricking a satyr into revealing their true name using it. See, I had attempted to suggest that it just told us it's real name, which the DM ruled as clearly harmful to it which is completely fair. However, I also had Detect Thoughts. So I used mass suggestion instead to get around the concentration needed, and then suggested that it think about its name for 2 minutes. Now that it's name was a surface thought, I simply used detect thoughts and got control of the Satyr. Probably the most fun suggestion story I have.
Why does everyone forget about grease. A 1st level non-concentration spell that is great at controlling choke points. If your DM lets you set it on fire, even better.
Usually I enjoy Colby's videos for the neat/fun/powerful theory crafting he brings. But, today is one of those days when I just need the calming ASMR from old videos to help me focus on a busy day. ❤
Here is a nice trick if you want to turn Hypnotic Gaze into damage, especially if you are getting targeted by other melee creatures: Say to the charmed creature to come with you, and cast Thunder Step, teleporting 90 feet up. You let go of the charmed creature and then reaction cast Feather Fall. 9d6 damage, no save, prone. Pro tip: if you are Artificer 1 instead of Fighter 1, feather Fall can be one of your Artificer preps, which are usually best used on situational stuff like that.
This character seems like it would be a good travelling merchant or ally npc for the party maybe they are escorting... Every round he is more worried about his trade goods then anything/anyone else, rushing into battle yelling "no, no, no, no stay away from my goods" and controls/stops the attackers from moving /advancing and expects the team to take care of them for him.
Episode 62 already ! it's coming closer guys ! Will we have the best seductive bard build for episode 69 ? Excellent video as always, Colby. before watching more than the concept of the character, i'm betting on enchanter wizard, the level 2 feature is an infinite lock down of one opponent and is really sustainable.
For suggestion, I convinced a cultist we were members from another city who just came over and got him to tell us everything by playing the "new to the area, fill me in" card
Btw, you can use Hypnotic Gaze when you are invisible, it requires sight OR enemies to just hear your voice. Since you are not attacking or casting a spell, the Invisibility spell is not broken. AKA The God Wizard by Treatmonk - my favorite kind of Wizards! Enchanters are top tier. I loved the synergy between Daunting Roar bonus action and Hypnotic Gaze.
@@lonelywolf1784 search for treantmonk. He doesn't max dps as much as D4 but I think in many ways his build are more powerful. Problem is that very few of his build are martial and even fewer are melee.
I think I would forgo the extra levels in The Bard. Take extra levels into fighter just to get action surge since everything uses your action. Oh you're fighting a a big boss monster. Bonus Action reduce save, Action gaze, lock him. Action surge, wall of force around both of you. The rest of the party deals with the minions.
Often in a controller wizard build I'll start with a level 1 dip in artificer. Gets some INT spells that wizards wouldn't normally get, as well as armor and shield proficiency and CON saving throws.
I don't know what it's like in practice, but in theory with an Enchantment Wizard I love the idea of casting a big concentration control spell and then comboing Sanctuary (from the Artificer dip) on him/her self, Instinctive Charm, and Hypnotic Gaze for the rest of the fight.
"Bestow Curse" at 5th Lv (so it no longer requires concentration) to give them disadvantage on the saving throw for Sanctuary works pretty well for lockdown, since there is almost no chance they succeed once your INT is at 20. Of course, if the DM lets you give them disadvantage on WIS saving throws, better is Bestow Curse/Hold Person or Hold Monster. They ain't breaking out of that at disadvantage, and your party mates get to do their thing.
ב"ה I would definitely ignore bard levels to have dexterity of 14 and constitution of 16 and wisdom 10. That will go well with taking 1 level as an artificer rather than a fighter. 1st level artificer give you constitution saves proficiency and medium armor and shields proficiency, which would leave you only 1 less AC than heavy armor an shield (but better hit points and concentration spells due to higher constitution), and the best thing about it is that you are actually doing pretty well in level 1 (unlike a fighter with 13 dex). That way, even though you are still 1 level behind in the highest level of spells you can prepare, you are still at the same level of a full caster with your spell slots. Having memorization slots for level 1 spells from your artificer spell list also free memorization slots for your higher level spells (and faerie fire is a good control spell even in high levels). The bard multiclass just doesn't worth delaying high level spells (mass suggestion and force cage are just really really powerfull, and 9th level spells even more so), especially when you can instead have better constitution (for HP and concentration) dexterity (for initiative) and wisdom (for perception and wis saves) in order to dump your charisma (just let someone else do the talking in your party).
if you chose artificer at level one i feel it waaay better optimized, since you dont delay your spell slots, still get midium armor and shild, and you can also chose sanctuary to use while using hypnotic gaze :) also guidance as a cantrip!
Huh. The point I was going for was to suggest magic initiate since that basically gives you level 1 in casting but this does let you keep the leonine roar thing.
Also, Cure Wounds as an Artificer pickup is nice and being less MAD so you can go 15 INT, 15 CHA and 15 CON to start if so inclined sounds pretty optimal. It would certainly make Resilient WIS feel less bad for shoring up the defenses if CHA is already that high. Wood Half-Elf starting with +2 INT for 17 INT, +1 CHA for 16 CHA, and +1 CON for 16 CON Lv1 with advantage against being charmed by magic? The infusions might be too good to pass up Artificer 2, but otherwise that's a battle plan.
Suggestion, the "You want to go home and rethink your life." Spell. Once played a magically inclined city-guard themed character. Perfect for bypassing crime-ring bouncers or so forth.
Artificer instead of Fighter gives you spell slot progression, medium instead of heavy armor. It also gives you Sanctuary, which can help your defense.
@@chacepassmore6474 Right - Artificers *do* get Con save proficiency. I thought about it, but in the end, wanted Fighter because, with a dex of 13 (couldn't get it to 14 without going half elf or dropping Con or Cha, which felt worse), when we get to Plate, that's +2 AC better, and with the Defense Fighting Style, it was +3. Felt worth sacrificing a single level of spell slot progress to me.
Just a funny little thing for Suggestion stories. During the end of the campaign of Rise of Tiamat, my party was attempting to interrupt the ritual to summon the titular Dragon Queen and in doing so was having a rough time with all the red wizards and Purple Robes. The rogue was taking pot shots from a distant part of the temple and was spotted by a red wizard who had cast greater invisibility on himself. After sneaking up on the rogue as Tiamat was coming through the portal he Suggested into his ear "Doesn't look like your friends' magic is working on the portal, maybe you should go close it manually." To which he proceeded to sprint towards the portal and tried to jump up and grab the edges of it so that he could tug it down. Was a big laugh for everyone as this little Grung is spending all his time leapfrogging off of things trying to close a magic gate with his bare hands.
This build is better than most rando- builds some players bring to the table. But this is not the most optimized enchantment wizard. initiative is too important to ignore, going first means winning with Wall of force or not. Custom linage + Fae Touched w/ gift of alacrity is just too good. +4.5 initiative and tarting with 18 INT is all gravy.
In another game (computer RPG City of Heroes), the usual nomenclature is "hard control" vs "soft control" to distinguish between effects that lock down enemies completely and those that "merely" interrupt enemies or affect their action economy. You might find the hard/soft dichotomy a useful shorthand.
It's worth noting that telekinetic can break grapples against allies as a bonus action without a save. Just give your ally a little tug and they're no longer grappled.
My favorite use of suggestion. I was DMing and the castor was a High Elf Divination Wizard. My players were trying to delay the construction of a keep on a lay line that was important to the Genasi that were petitioning to have their lands protected from the expansion of the near by empires. The party was begged because the Wizard was the bastard daughter of the nearest emperor. She decided she couldn’t get him to stop construction all together but she could delay him long enough for the Genasi to summon landslides that would appear natural so he would choose a different location for the keep. At a gala to celebrate the new impending expansion, my players basically set off a chain reaction of vomiting (one person with mildly poisoned food and nobles with weak tummies) to sequester the emperor and his family (wiz included) in their bunker while all the food was tested for poison. While left basically alone with her father, she *suggested* that he call off the escort of the construction team for a few more hours (due to leave in 2 hours) to close off all the exists to the palace to ensure the poisoner is apprehended. I would have given her advantage on the persuasion check with the work her and the party had done, but she wanted to use the spell to ensure it would work. She had a 3 as one of her daily portent rolls, which she used to replace his save roll. He fails and makes the call. No one questions it because A) he’s the emperor, B) catching a potential assassin in favor of leaving for a 4 month construction project 6 hours earlier is an obvious choice, and C) throughout the party, she had established that she was an oracle using detect thoughts. When the news of the land slides got to the castle maybe and hour later, everyone thought that she had foreseen the slides and protected the troops and her father in one fell swoop. When the spell wore off, she told her father that she thought he wouldn’t delay the troops she just told him and used the spell, which he made an insight check to believe her, and I rolled like crap, so he did. What the party gained: - MASSIVE increase in reputation with the emperor and the military. How they used it: -Call in the petition of the Genasi to make them basically a state of the empire (protected lands and access to additional resources as long as they provide troops, discounted trade, and taxes to the capital like the rest of the empire) -to the keep put on the other side of the Genasi state to add a road block between the state and the encroachment of the more agressive empire also gunning for the “unclaimed” land.
Was at work and the cat yowl during the character race talk caused me to spill coffee on myself lol. Love the build though 9/10 would spill coffee again
for the mind sliver, unsettling words combo, you'd need to mindsliver first and then unsettling words then action surging to get it to work, not saying it's a bad idea, just something to be aware of.
I’m expecting Chrono wizard. Playing a Rune Knight in a party with a Chrono Wizard and I cannot WAIT until I get my Storm Rune. It’s like an extension of the wizard’s 2nd level ability and it fits so well thematically and mechanically. So excited for the rest of the video! Edit: I’ve been wrong before!
Suggestion Story from tonight's game: My players (I'm the DM) have just escaped a collapsing Mind Flayer City (long story); as they caught their breath, the players noticed a dust-covered humanoid silhouette. Instantly the warlock casts Suggestion and says, "Show yourself, we are friendly," and my NPC Drow gloomstalker (nearly all Drow soldiers in my world take at least three levels of Gloomstalker, because... permanent invisibility in the Underdark is insane...) casts Dancing Lights and proceeds to have a pleasant conversation with the party about the drow culture before casting Darkness and disappearing. 😜
Suggestion experience: My group wandered into a pair of ogres, before they even noticed us I ran up and suggested to one of them that go for a long walk while and come back at night. It worked, he went for a while while the other one attacked us, was a fairly easy fight considering it was half as strong as it could have been. The DM didn't like my thoughtful use of spells though and started metagaming his ass off to shut me down constantly. When i tried to earth bind the flying mount of a monologuing BBEG he told me it was out or range. I asked how far was it, he asked what was the range of the spell? 300 feet! Yep he's out of range. I asked "he's monologuing from football field range?" lol I couldn't help myself
My friend and I were doing some post-session mock pvp he was a hexblade warlock and I was a divine soul sorcerer. We ended up having an hour long discussion on whats reasonable and not reasonable. I told him "drop everything you have on you and run away as fast as possible, and I'll let you live." He did a nat 1 on the wisdom save and tried to rule it as free action drop his shield and his sword, run away on MY turn, on his turn run back, free object interaction pickup Both the shield and the sword, misty step towards me and then attack. This is why you need a Dm folks
i havent been able to watch your show for a while, but i feel like ihave to watch them in sequence. i have to say this is by far one of my favorite episodes. keep doing what you are doiing and if you are having fun, its all good.
I think you could quantify the effectiveness of an enemy controller by the number of enemy turns wasted in any given fight. Say, for instance, you had two adult red dragons. You put a wall of force around one, kill the first, release the wall of force, then kill the second. Then ⅓ of enemy turns are wasted. Say you cast hypnotic pattern and ⅔ of enemies fail. Say your party can eliminate 1 enemy per turn. Then you waste the turns of ⅔ of the enemies. And so on and so forth. You can provide different calculations with a low number of enemies, medium number of enemies, and high level of enemies. You can then calculate for an average saving throw and a high saving throw. This would be six measurements total. This seems pretty objective to me
Suggestion is SO powerful. On a high AC wizard, I cast suggestion on a baddie with flying in decent into avernus with my divination wizard, and foretold the failed save. We WOULD NOT have won against the flyer. I told them "This fight is lost, you are no match for mortals like us. Flee to fight another day." Every enemy in the combat turned on me to break my concentration, but I burned all my level 1 spell slots casting shield and avoiding every hit while my allies mowed them down.
Something that's really cool about this build is that if you reflavor your Leonin race to be tiger based, a lot of your control spells and abilities could very convincingly also be reflavored to be the tiger's natural ability to paralyze with their infrasonic roars. If I were playing a build like this (and the game was likely to go to 20) I'd want to fill in those last three levels with sorcerer or use a feat for subtle spell just to lean into that. Perhaps you have some rakshasa blood in you and it's part of what fuels your desire for control. I'd at least take one level of Clockwork Soul for their ability to cancel an enemy's advantage on saving throws for proficiency bonus times per long rest. Rakshasa were traditionally /lawful/ evil, after all! ;)
Having thought about it more, if I knew the campaign would make it to level 20, for the Bard ASI at level 15 I'd probably take the Metamagic Adept feat instead of bumping CHA by 2 and pick up Subtle Spell and Distant Spell for fun hijinks. Then I'd take Clockwork Soul Sorcerer for three levels, starting at level 17 instead of Wizard 11, and take Extended Spell and most importantly Heightened Spell! With 5 sorcery points per long rest I'd be able to use Heighten Spell once per day on an important enemy and still be able to use any of the other options twice. My capstone would be Fighter 2 for Action Surge. Enemy has advantage to save against your spells? Restore Balance. Big important boss about to win? Action Mind Sliver, Bonus Action Unsettling Words, Action Surge Heightened = Disadvantage -1d8 -1d4! YOU CANNOT PASS!
If you play a Bard, try whatever you can to get any Instrument of the Bards. 3 of them are Uncommon magic items, so with a little convincing your GM should allow you to get one. Assuming you are now 5th of any subclass, although CoE for Unsettling Words is ideal, and take the spell Hypnotic Pattern. The text of any Instrument of the Bards reads, and I quote, "You can play the instrument while casting a spell that causes any of its targets to be charmed on a failed saving throw, thereby imposing disadvantage on the save. This effect applies only if the spell has a somatic or a material component." This turns Hypnotic Pattern from a really good battlefield control spell, into a combat changing spell. They are making Wisdom saves at disadvantage, and if you can identify the BBEG or the leader of that group of mobs, you can pretty much guarantee they are going to fail their save by adding an Unsettling Words on top of that so they are taking a minimum of -1d6 from their save which is made at disadvantage. At later levels, you will come across more creatures that are imune to charm, but by then you have other control spells available to you. As a Bard with Magical secrets you will always be able have your choice of best in class control spells from the list. You just have to be careful in your spell choices. One of the best single target control spells in the game is Eyebite. It causes unconsciousness on a failed save, and very few monsters below about CR20 are immune to the unconscious condition in 5e. Again, being able to hit them with Unsettling Words, so that even if they have magic resistance and save with advantage, by then they are -1d8 or -1d10 from their save, which can often make a fail.
Ok, let's start with a definition. Every Action has an "Impact Value". Impact is how much closer the other side is brought to a state of losing the fight when it is taken. Impact Value is a relative number assigned that represents how much Impact that action has. Losing an action reduces the Impact Value to zero. OK, so a good Battlefield Control spell is a spell that reduces the maximum possible Total Impact Value of the enemy forces for as long as possible by removing actions or negating impact. This might entail locking up one opponent who has actions with a high impact value(Banishment), or it might distribute the loss to many creatures by taking away many actions from each thereby reducing a creatures total potential impact (think Slow spell). Buffs are spells that increase an impact value for some type of action. Debuffs reduce it. That's how I see it. TL;DR Control spells attack your effective action economy. Debuffs reduce the effectiveness of your action economy but keep it intact. Buffs increase it.
I love it! I love it so much. Help your friends slaughter everything! Saving throw attacks can be so daunting, so adding ways to increase them is awesome. Thanks again for a great video!
I once built a support character who had a bit of focus in locking down opponents. Not as focused as this video, but few character rarely are. She was a Glamour Bard who had figured out the best way to use Enthralling Performance in battle. Since it takes 1 minute to setup most people think it isn't something that can be done in battle. She decided to always be performing. I made it a point to the DM that no matter the situation she is either singing, playing an instrument, cracking jokes, etc. Anything that can be considered a performance. There was no option for sneaking. The enemies will hear the party coming from down the street. By the time anybody will ill intent for the party was in combat range, they had been listening to her for over 1 minute. DM calls for initiative, then pop, they are my character's loyal fans.
New homebrew spell for the control freak entitled marriage. It brings a whole new level of restriction to all actions, and not just the battlefield = ) I love what you do Colby. Keep it up brother!
One of the most powerful uses of suggestion i have seen (in context of it being a sentient creature with int above 8) was: "Did you have some time for self reflection recently? I hear its good for the soul. If not i suggest you reflect on your life choices."
My first baldurs gate run was a version of this with bard. Man I LOVED it. Not that used to regular dnd, is a Bard a lot worse? I love watching people Otto-dance and Tasha-laugh
Do you think a scribe wizards awakened spell book could be combined with a tome lock book of shadows to give the caster dozens of ritual spells that could be cast in one round? I am making a caster with the most spells ready to cast. So far this is the build. 5 hexblade warlock pact of the tome with book of shadows 2 scribe wizard 13 clockwork sorcerer I think I can get 13 cantrops and 60 spells ready to cast each morning.
Only thing to remember is that it still takes the spells original casting time when you use the order of scribes feature. So while you may well have a huge amount of potential spells, many of the best ritual spells take a minute to cast already anyway. Just something to keep in mind, really like the concept
Forgot to share my own fave controller build in my other comment. Level 10 theorycraft as usual but surprise no fighter 2 (well not until i hit tier 3): "The Microwave" clockwork soul 9, celestial lock 1 race: winter eladrin (shadar-kai works too) asi: feytouched, +2 cha metamagic: quicken spell, subtle spell tactics: pre-combat: create spare spell slots after elf trance long rests using pact slots and font of magic. cast aid on the party. bastion of law on self. Create 3 tiny servants. Standing orders to pick up magic stones you drop and throw it at a target you point at. Walk around continuous casting magic stone.. 1st round: bonus action: quickened wall of force the bbeg action: sacred flame the bbeg free action: drop magic stones and point at other targets on the field tiny servant 1-3: throws magic stones 2nd round onwards: action: sacred flame the bbeg until it dies. bonus action: magic stone free action: drop magic stone and point at other targets on the field tiny servant 1-3: throws magic stones Wall of force is my fave control spell as legendary resistance doesnt work against it nor is it reliant on any checks. Sacred flame just works great with wall of force as its one of the few ways to cause dmg through wall of force.
I suggested that the bandit captain kneel and pray for forgiveness for the blood he is about to make us spill. Divination wizard, so he failed his save. We killed or chased off all of his companions. The subsequent encounter was two White Wyrmlings. We had outmaneuvered some crazed brown bears a couple of rooms back. My character speaks draconic and told one wyrmling to go hunting for dinner. Again, using a portent for guaranteed failure. Two wyrmlings against our level 3 party would have been rough, especially since the first breath attack dropped our paladin and nearly one-shotted our sorcerer.
I know this is an old video but: Diviner Wizard x / Sorcerer 3 with Metamagic Adept feat = > will be more powerful then this because of the 5 metamagic points with twinned, quickened, subtle(for the subtle counterspell, domination spells or illusion) and heightened. With the portents and the metamagics - heightened you will make them fail saving throw after saving throw. Quickened will get you out of trouble because you can disengage and cast a spell and twinned is just extra power.
Best suggestion I've used: having a mid-level boss brag about the evil mastermind plan. We learned a ton and the hilariously annoyed DM couldn't deny that the bad guys love to monologue
I love this character idea so much! But I’ll do one small change, instead of starting as a fighter I would go Artificer! It’ll give me the same benefits as fighter but will keep my spell slot level!
I wonder if you can use the telekinetic hand to shove yourself 5' every turn when not in combat so you can keep pace with the 30' move speed allies. It says shove a creature you can see (your a creature) 5' toward or AWAY from you (your shoving yourself 5' away from where you were) Just a thought..
It doesn't state that you can shove a creature 5' towards or away from where you are standing but 5' towards or away from you. Moving yourself 5 feet away from yourself is just impossible unfortunately, and afaik all forced movement in the game that can be used on yourself says so specifically.
@@RPanda3S devil's in the details. A permissive DM would probably allow it, but getting a guaranteed bonus action disengage on a non rouge definitely isn't the intent of the feat.
@@OnlyTheBestx I agree, rules as written, after looking into it more. But I feel that if you can shove a creature at all, it makes sense you could shove yourself. I don't thinks it a big deal as a bonus action use out of combat. But I also understand the need for rules.
It's really fun seeing you make a build that has the same goal as one that I built but doing it entirely differently. I just finished creating a build designed around some of the same control spells you have but I started it with Shadow Sorcerer 6 before going College of Eloquence Bard 3. So I combined Hound of Ill Omen's disadvantage with Unsettling Words and Mind Sliver. It doesn't have Hypnotic Gaze or, more importantly, Split Enchantment but it is absolutely debilitating to enemy saves.
Two hill giants had ambushed my character while I was trying to rescue trapped animals when I ran out from the barn I told one that he fell into my trap “flee” and he failed his save and ran. I also love the idea of a control blade singer
Another option instead of fighter for similar benefits early on is artificer 1 with medium armor, shields, cure wounds, con save prof., guidance, thieves tools, and maybe best normal spell slot progression! Just an idea love your videos (:
I have two builds similar to this, start with enchantment wizard X, artificer 1. Notable comments: 1) Raulothim's psychic lance is bonkers and broken on an enchantment wizard. Twinning that spell for no extra resources is ridiculous! 2) artificer dip in lieu of fighter keeps spell progression, gives medium armor, gives con save proficiency, but most importantly, you get the spell sanctuary and it's intelligence based. As a bonus action, you can cast this on yourself or allies while holding a hypnotic gaze. - other notable bonus action uses are dragons breath on your familiar, or magic stones to give to tiny servants to throw. Now the elloquence bard. My build is Divine soul sorcerer 1, elloquence bard X. Divine soul gives you mind sliver, and your bread and butter opener is the bane spell. Combine that with unsettling words and as long as you have a party member who likes saves, you can wreck enemies and their legendary resistances. You monk's stunning strikes won't ever miss... Your DM will start burning legendary resistances to block bane (a 1st level spell) chewing through them fast so you can unleash the nasty stuff by turn 2. I went fairy on the elloquence bard to help stay alive.
Starting with variant human/custom lineage would let you get the heavy armor to start with and let you use magic initiate to make you basically a level 1 mage to start with.
I was thinking Fighter 2. "All eyes on me, all eyes on me!" Round 1 throw up your concentration spell. Round 2 use Hypnotic Gaze, Action Surge...do it again! Doesn't read like there's an inherent restriction of charming a second baddy. Then on subsequent turns you can just use one action to keep two statues. "Use your action to maintain this effect, extending its duration until the end of your next turn". Probably want to check with your DM first if they think the same. The nice thing about this is it comes back on a short rest, and your spells are mostly concentration so this could help you disable the last target you need. Big boost to control when you have fewer spell slots. It of course would probably want to be used for casting two bigger spells later on. Bestow Curse upcast to level 5 comes to mind since that is then non-concentration. Obviously there's plenty of great combo options. Cost efficient dual Dissonant Whispers/Mind Whip is always a nice fallback. Second Wind will be welcome since you're going to be an enemy magnet. Love the ideas here to otherwise go Artificer 1 for similar proficiencies and SANCTUARY. Game changer. Fighter 3 for Rune Knight also could help be quite helpful. You may have great AC, but if anyone comes up and Shoves you, Gaze goes down. Gain Advantage on Str Saves/Checks, large size to reach more Gaze targets. BE a bigger target. Literally all 4 early Runes are in line with this build, but probably want the Frost for +2 Str & Con saves & checks. Better concentration and less damage from Con saves that deal half. The other way you'll likely drop. Cloud Rune to literally control any enemy attack within range. Doesn't rely on a save. Another thought was Sorcerer instead of Bard/Wizard at the end. Quicken and Subtle spell to get your ball rolling sooner and more reliably. Metamagic Adept Feat to add Heightened and Careful spell for potency and ignore friendly fire. Divine Soul to pick up Sanctuary, Healing Word. Honestly want Twinned Spell still for these low level banger spells and some more debilitating non-enchantment combos, like Bestow Curse. Lots of extra spell slots/sorc points to play with with conversions and Arcane Recovery. A little less dependent on pumping a secondary ASI. Cantrips aside from Mind Sliver that sound nice: Blade Ward and Minor Illusion. Blade Ward if you're out of spell slots but still want to tank and Gaze next round once approached. Or if another ally has Mind Slivered our target...could easily happen! Minor Illusion to create cover for allies from range. Control their getaway. Eventually Chill Touch for the range and niche disable riders. Really embraces the pacifist motif.
Hands down the best use of polymorph on an enemy is turning them into a killer whale or something loads of hit points but no land move speed so they just lay there doing nothing
I don't know how to suggest builds, but well, I really wanted to show a bit of my work. I'm currently playing in a campaign from level 1 with my friend. Before learning exactly what everyone else was playing(I had the basic level 1 class, but just that), I had a few ideas, most of them being made around the idea of Astral Self Monk, as our team was nearly entirely lacking for wisdom, especially since our only other wisdom user was a druid that barely showed up. This wasn't the build I ended up going with, as it turned out our druid was going to pick up something that was essential to the mid game of that build, but even then. There were also some homebrews that made this stronger, but I do think, especially for the early game, this build is still quite solid (extra attack features stack in this homebrew) We were somewhat lacking damage, and having always loved martial arts I wanted to make a high damage unarmed monk, which is usually quite hard to do, and to explain some of the multiclasses I was going to pick up later, as well as the flavor of Astral self monk, I made my character pretty much just a stand user, with all their powers being related to their stand (which I had named Corpse Flower). The finished planning for the build was, as far along as I went : Fighter 1/ AS Monk 5 (Or you could skip the 2 last levels for now and grab the next class for some more burst damage, but less sustained damage, and get to monk 5 just after the next class) / Spores Druid 2 / Fey Wanderer Ranger 3 / Echo Knight Fighter 3. If your DM allows for smites with unarmed strikes, paladin would make for a great complement to this build, especially with divine favor or (especially if a friendly paladin does it for you) Crusader's Mantle,, the vows of Devotion and Vengeance especially. If they do not, Blood Hunter Order of the Lycan can help squeeze out every last drop of damage, if you have the ability scores for any of those, or your dm allows for multiclassing without requirements, So, if *everything* could be done and my math isn't wrong, you'd be dealing 7d8+7d6+7d6+?d4(with ? Being the number of enemies)+7d4+15d8+35+14+7, to an average burst of 223 damage without a crit, and then a dpr of (give or take +1 attack from unleash incarnation) 4d8+4d6+4d6+?d4+4d4+20+8+4, which is around 90 dpr, all of those from 40 feet away. I know this build is still waaay suboptimal, but I trust you could take what I made and turn it into something quite powerful.
Hey, I love the challenge around quantifying a battlefield controller. One idea might be to measure it by how many actions per round the enemy has available to them. Like a variant of your rounds to death metric you use for tanks, take different scenarios (5 monsters of similar CR, 1 boss monster, etc.) and calculate how many actions the badguys have per round, taking into consideration saving throws and such. The lower the number is, the better the controller. If you are measuring against a boss monster, that number could be a percentage, meaning the liklihood the boss was able to do an action.
Two things on Earthen Grasp. As an action you can either move it OR try and grasp again. Thus making that weaker. Second thing is that it is a strength check to escape. So can be paired up well with someone else casting Hex or the like.
I find it quite simple to justify fighter 1 -> wizard in game. I mean, wizards are, though magicians, kind of mundane. They study, practise, study, parctise. So, maybe your level 1 fighter is walking around, adventuring away, and lugging with a them a spellbook. They've been practising for a long time and managed to cast a few spells a few times but they haven't quite got it to the point where they can reliably cast their spells in combat. Every evening when the fighting's done they unpack their books and scrolls and keep studying and practising. "Hey Die'Roll, what are you mumbling again? "Nothing Cri t'Faille! ... Oh heck it's Levi-OH-sa, not Levio-SAA!" Then one day boom! It all kind of clicks together and bam! They're a Fig 1 / Wiz 1. And so on.
unfortunately Earthen Grasp only lets you move the hand OR grab a new target with the same action (it reads: "As an action, you can cause the hand to reach for a different creature or to move to a different unoccupied space within range. The hand releases a restrained target if you do either."), you cant do both so unfortunately its much harder to make Earthen Grasp grab new targets (or grab the same target a second time) after a target escapes because unless you've already locked an enemy down (perhaps via an ally with the sentinel feat) enemies will usually try to move to escape this thing this is why i prefer Web because you can restrain LOTS of enemies with the same spell and you dont need enemies to conveniently stand still for a round to use earthen grasp on them though maybe earthen grasp shines if you have one big enemy that you want to restrain and the martials fighting that enemy are able to keep the enemy from moving or have some exceedingly dangerous opportunity attacks (perhaps those of a rogue?) that can be unleashed if the enemy tries to move away from the hand before it tries to grab them again
what i did with this concept is make its primary class bard. I put 3 levels into bard to get eloquence college for a great Face PC and unsettling words to make the save or suck spells more relabable. I feel like wizard is already good with defense because of absorb elements, shield, and rest casting mage armour
This was a super interesting and fun build! I really want to play this!! 👏👏👏 Not just cause it is so powerful but also cause I have so many ideas for the backstory!!
I once used a suggestion spell on a sorcerer with subtle spell to convince a high ranking wizard of Thay to put on a cursed ring of stupidity that my party had found (and painstakingly gone through the whole process of getting it removed from our paladin who was the one who originally found it and put it on) in front of his entire court. The suggestion spell worked, but it turns out that unfortunately due to the fact that Red Wizards of Thay are magic users who are apparently kinda knowledgable about magic, the surrounding wizards immediately knew what had happened and attacked us. It uhh, wasn’t exactly one of our best laid out plans
Had a great old one Warladin that went so hard on control. 3 attacks per round with sword and heavy armor or casting hypnotic pattern,Tasha’s hideous laughter, etc.
Good to see change of pace. Wizard with Fighter dip who does not go for dmg surprised me as I was expected Artificer dip (1lv for armor/shield/Cure Wound or 2 for Concentration saver) I wasnt surprised Enchanter is chosen but I have some soft spot for Abjuration (recommend to gain access to Agathys' Armor spell) and War Mage (faster Initiative, Arcane Deflection and +2 AC on concentration on 10 lv)
Weird. I made a comment, but I think that my phone crashed and did not submit the comment. Two comments: GREAT build. I love it. I would suggest adding **blindness** and **synaptic static** to the spell list. The 1st is concentration free, which is welcome to a concentration heavy build. The latter is the only way to add -1d6 to enemy attacks, no concentration required. I'm playing a similar build, but instead of Wizard, I went shadow sorcerer. We really want to land the save or suck spells, so the hound of ill omen is a little better than the bard and it comes online earlier, like as early as lvl 6. The problem is that sorcerer lacks some nice spells like bestow curse :-(
The best suggestion in a game we had was not from me, but from our Warlock "Emeria". She told a guy who was about to enter a brothel that empyinga sack of "love enhancers" into the bed before they start will enhance his feelings and stamina through the night. The sack contained bed bugs. Shorty after, the brothel was closed down. And that is the story how we go rid of the brothel, that betrayed our group.
Great build Colby! But I don't think it's overpowered. It has some weaknesses: 1) You don't have a good way to boost your save DC until level 12, and when this happens the monsters are starting to get more and more legendary resistances. For me, getting spells of higher levels that can deal with it, like force cage, is very important. 2) As you have said, wisdom saving throws are important, especially on higher levels. 3) Maybe an artificer dip could be a little better than a figther one: you don't slow your spell slot progression, get INT based spells, CON saving throws, medium armor and shield proficiencies.
I would recommend a Starting Level of Cleric over fighter. Take your 13 in wisdom vs dex. Saves vs control or charm are already much higher with stat and prof. Most domains give you martial weapons and Heavy Armor. It's a full caster class that goes with all the wizard, take a cure wounds to combat the fighters d10 heal. And if you go twilight have advantage on initiative improving chance to go first, gaining control before any enemy.
I had a similar concept for one of my characters, but I went with a Naga, high(ish) strength, and 1 level in War Domain cleric to start. He was inspired by Kaa from the Jungle Book. My tactics were similar, I would do a concentration control spell, then attack and restrain someone with my tail on later turns, then Hypnotic Gaze yet another target, or the one restrained by my tail. It may have been a little less optimized, but it was soooooo much fun.
I’ve got a request/challenge for ya :) How would you build around crown of madness if you wanted that as your signature spell? How would you get around the awkwardness of it?
I'm surprised that you didn't mention Tasha's Mind Whip as a possible pick at 2nd Level. The damage that spell does to a single target in terms of action economy is similar to what Slow does later at 3rd level.
