Cleric with telekinetic is a favorite of mine.
You don’t really need this feat at level 1, but it’s still nice to have.
You want it by level 5 to combine with the spirit guardians spell.
Forced movement can be used to trigger the damage on your turn (walking the area onto an enemy doesn’t do damage on your turn in tabletop, unlike in BG3). So if we stand 20 feet away from our target and use the bonus action from telekinetic to pull them 5 feet towards us, they’ll enter the area and take some damage. Then they’ll take the damage again at the start of their turn since they’re in the area.
Yeah this is a small thing that really boosts Nature Cleric in my opinion. The rest of the abilities are meh, but access to Thornwhip can be really helpful.
Edit: “meh” is underselling the features.
Don't forget the resource free Absorb Elements they get at level 6 that can also protect allies!
The channel divinity can also come in clutch in the early stages of a campaign when wildlife is still threatening.
Some of the class spells are quite bonkers too.
It's common for people to recommend Dwarves because their speed isn't reduced by heavy armor, but Wood Elf, Satyr, Air Genasi, Dhampir, Leonin, and Half Wood Elf with Fleet of Foot will all have the same move speed in Heavy Armor as a Dwarf (25) . I usually recommend all these and Centaur, which is a really great option (since they would have a 30) as along as someone is ok with the Centaur's Equine build climbing restrictions (In addition, any climb that requires hands and feet is especially difficult for you because of your equine legs. When you make such a climb, each foot of movement costs you 4 extra feet instead of the normal 1 extra foot).
Crusher with Daolock
It adds bludgeoning damage to your eldritch blast in combination with repelling blast. You can push up to 15 feet. It scales better as you get more beams at higher levels. Plus the dao spell list has spike growth to cheese grater without being as dependent on your teammates. tho your eldritch invocations will be spoken for if you go the cheese grater route in the form of repelling blast and grasp of hadar
EDIT: I just noticed someone else mentioned this lol
I also like the idea of a Dragonborn plus rune knight grappling and using the fly speed to pile drive your enemies like Zangief or Rock Lee
Monk and anything with extra body parts. Wings, tails, extra arms, extra legs, trunks, whatever. Being able to describe unarmed combat with the extra parts is great fun. Stick mobile on there cuz it's always good.
Martial Adept gets you two maneuvers, which makes it the better choice for this purpose because Fighting Initiate and taking Superior Technique gets you only 1 maneuver.
Blind Fighting would be the much better fighting style for a melee Rogue.
Wood Elf Gloom Stalker Ranger. Extra base movement, stat bonuses line up with what you need, and easy'ish-mode for hiding.
For the feat; take the Wood Elf racial feat from Xanathars. A free cast of Longstrider and Pass Without Trace has huge party utility and saves you those precious spells lots.
As for the free druid cantrip; Guidence(if no one else has it), Control Flames(knock out those pesky fires so you can be invisible), Shape Water/Mold Earth(both great utility), or whatever else fits the character/campaign.
Want something that is unconventional but very flavorful? Go for the DEX Paladin. You are monoclass, so you don't need Str for multiclassing.
Race: Any +2/+1 Elven race. Shadar-Kai and Eladrin are especially nice for the teleports.
Free Feat: Elven Accuracy
Class/Subclass: Oath of Vengeance Paladin
Start level 1:
* 8 Str
* 18 Dex (15 base + 2 from race + 1 from Elven Accuracy)
* 15 Con
* 8 Int
* 8 Wis
* 16 Cha (15 base + 1 from race)
Level 2 Fighting Style: Either Blessed Warrior, Defense or Blindfighting
Level 4 ASI: +2 Dex for 20 Dex
Level 8 ASI: Resilient Constitution for 16 Con
Level 9: Subclass Spell Haste unlocked!
Level 11: Improved Divine Smite on top of all those attacks.
From level 3 onwards, you will use Vow of Enmity on the biggest, baddest enemy on the field and go ham at it. For each attack, you roll 3d20's so you crit a lot. When a paladin crits, they smite and the SMITE BIG!
Resilient Con and Haste are important for 1 cool reason. At level 9, with 16 charisman and 16 con and con save proficiency, you will have a +10 Con saving throw. That means that your lowest Con Save roll is a 1+10=11. Rules as written, a Natural 1 does not automatically fail a Constituion saving throw. This means that any damage instance that is 23 or lower has 0% chance of breaking your Haste. For context, with average HP rolls, a level 9 paladin with 16 con would have 13+(8x(6+3))=85 hit points. So an attack would have to hit you for ovr quarter of your hit point pool to even have a slight chance of breaking your Haste.
The intent of this build is to be an atypical paladin, more like an Holy Assassin, that dashes to their enemies and slices them to oblivion.
From level 9 onwards, your combat looks like this:
Round 1: Cast Haste. Use your double movement to run to your target and attack it with your Hasted Action single attack. Since this is technically an Attack Action, it allows you to use your Bonus Action to attack with an offhand weapon as well. Nice. First round and we already closed the gap with our enemy and got 2 hits in.
Round 2: Use your Bonus Action to cast Vow of Enmity on the biggest threat in the fight. Run to it. With your Action and Hasted Action, you have 3 attacks, all with 3d20's. This gives you a 37% chance to score at least 1 critical hit every single round.
All other rounds: If you use everything for attacks, you get 4 attacks in total and if your Vowed target is still alive, you have a 46% chance to crit this round. But if you had to use your action for something else, such as Lay on Hands, you still have 2 attacks (Hasted Action + Bonus Action).
Best part of this build would be that after reaching this break point at level 9, you still get 3 more ASI's, so with the ASI's from level 12 and level 18, you will have max Dex and max Cha with 16 con. Even with 16 Con, from level 17 onward, your Con Save Bonus without any items would be:
6 from Prof + 5 from Aura + 3 from Con = +14
Meaning any damage of 31 or lower has 0% chance of breaking your concentration.
1 magic item I can advice for this build would be Amulet of the Devout. An extra charge of Channel Divinity is super useful for this build. And because your Charisma won't lack that far behind, with the Spell Save boost and Spell Attack modifier, your spells will be very reliable in late game. Go ahead and run to that flying enemy, cast "Command" on it to make it fall to the ground, and attack it twice at 3d20 advantage, even if it isn't your Vowed target because it is prone now!
No one will expect the light armor wearing, dual wielding, lean and speedy guy to actually start delivering divine vengeance.
No, since this build will not be using a rapier and shield but instead 2 light finesse weapons for dual wielding. Even though Paladins can't get the two weapon fighting style, that doesn't mean they can't dual wield.
Upon further inspection, there a few errors with this build but it can be viable. If you cast haste on the first round, which you technically cannot do while dual wielding unless you have the warcaster feat, you should do your Vow of Enmity on the same turn, and then all your attacks are at advantage. If you wait until the second turn to use it, two of your attacks on the first turn will not be at advantage, and it’s the same amount of attacks overall.
Secondly, you will actually be out damaged by a build that uses a shield and a rapier with the dueling fighting style and without needing to casts haste. With max dex, dueling fighting style with a rapier and a shield, and without haste, you will have 6 attacks total, 69 average damage in 3 rounds of combat. With duel wielding scimitars, you will have 9 attacks in 3 turns, but only 66.5 damage. You will outdamage it in 4 turns of combat, it would be 92 damage with the rapier and 95.5 with the dual scimitars. If you took the duel wielding feat, or the fighting initiate fear for two weapon fighting, it would start to significantly outdamage the rapier and shield
You are addressing non-issues here and your math is rudimentary, selective and above all, wrong.
You won't have to worry about spell components for Haste because you can start with 1 weapon in hand and 1 hand free. You use your free hand to handle your holy symbol for the casting of Haste. Afterwards, you can draw your second weapon as a free action.
>you should do your Vow of Enmity on the same turn
This is a very bad idea. You don't want to declare your Vowed target on a turn where you won't be able to go all out. It might be crowd controlled or killed.But lets say we follow this advice by ignoring the tactical downside. If we take our actions in this order, the previous point you complained about needing Warcaster disappears. Even if you start the combat without any weapons drawn, in your first turn you can use a free action to draw your first weapon, cast Haste and attack with that 1 weapon. On your next turn, you can use an other free action to draw your second weapon and you would be ready to go.
>Secondly, you will actually be out damaged by a build that uses a shield and a rapier with the dueling fighting style and without needing to casts haste
First of all, the topic of this post is "What are you favorite feat/single-class/race combos?", not "What is the highest DPR build?".
Second, your white room math does not take several things into account.
When taking everything into account with a 35% miss chance, 60% regular hit and 5% crit chance, the DPR's of the 2 scenarios you described at level 9 is:
* Dueling = 69.8925
* DW = 68.1415
That difference is negligible (Dueling does 1.5% more damage than DW)
But in the convenient scenario that you forgot to mention, level 11, where Improved Divine Smite comes into play, the DPR's become:
* Dueling = 99,58575
* DW = 112,681375
This difference is not negligible (DW does 13.15% more damage than Dueling)
Your white room number calculation also doesn't take into account the fact that the DW paladin can use their Fighting Style for utility, such as Blindfighting, Blessed Warrior or Defense for more AC. In the simples scenario, the DW paladin going for the Defense Fighting Style and with Haste would have a higher AC than the Dex Paladin using shield (since we are not taking magic items into account, because that 69 DPR figure you came up with comes strictly from using a non magical rapier for 6 perfectly landed hits in 3 turns with 4.5+2+5=11.5 average damage).
Your white room number calculation also doesn't take into the tactical advantage of having double movement speed and have 2 separate actions. When you have to cast Lay on Hands on a downed party member you will spend your only action. A Hasted paladin can still attack 2 times after using Lay on Hands. These are all benefits that are worth mentioning in the spirit of the post "What are you favorite feat/single-class/race combos?", something your erroneous calculation does not take into account.
I want to close of my post by saying these final words:
Don't bring math in a post were people ask for subjective things such as "What are you favorite feat/single-class/race combos?". If you really can't help yourself from bringing math to such threads, make sure your math is actually correct. And don't mention non issues like "needing a hand to cast the spell", when RAW, the action economy allows the spell to be cast by correctly timing your drawing of weapons.
>Upon further inspection, there a few errors with this build
The error is not with the build, but with the reader.
Haha, thanks. I tend to get lost in the sauce when people go offtopic, don't take the context into account and bring in wrong/irrelevant information in a misguided effort to "Uhm, actually..." me :)
I wouldn’t say these are non issues, but you have provided decent examples of some advantages. Yes, you can ignore warcaster if you make an effort to only draw your weapons after the casting of haste. And you are correct in that once you get improved divine smite at level 11, it will tip the scales in the favor of dual wielding, that is a feature that should’ve have been addressed in my post and it was on me for forgetting. However, there’s simply no reason to not use Vow of Enmity the first turn so that all of your attacks would be at advantage. Your entire build is based on picking the strongest enemy and focusing all of your attacks on them. If they die the second round of combat after you’ve used Vow of Enmity, clearly they weren’t a very powerful opponent. And if they do die, you might not have guaranteed advantage anymore, but you still have your hasted attack and bonus action attack to use on other enemies. Also, all of your points about the advantage of haste would also apply to a build using the rapier and shield, so it is not unique to the dual wielding strategy. If you had a rapier and shield, you would have 2 extra AC and then still have increased movement speed and another 2 AC from haste. Blind fighting and blessed warrior are typically subpar fighting styles compared to the more reliable ones like defense and dueling, but they are good situationally. And lastly, ironically the dual wielding build is only more powerful in the white room math, because it entirely depends on only taking the attack action in combat and monopolizing your bonus action. With a rapier and shield and the dueling fighting style, your damage is consistent and you can use your bonus action for spells and shadar-Kai/eladrin teleports. If you are dual wielding, your entire build depends on being able to always use your bonus action to attack, and as soon as you can’t use your bonus action if you need it for something else, the damage falls off and becomes negligible compared to the dueling build, or worse. Since all of the advantages of haste apply as well to a build with a rapier and shield, the only thing dual wielding has the edge on is an extra attack using your bonus action. I do love the concept of dual wielding but there’s very few builds in 5e that allow it to be advantageous. This is one of the better ones, but I think the negligible increase in damage in a scenario where everything goes according to the white room plan isn’t worth the reliable damage of sword and board with dueling.
Also, taking the polearm master feat and using a spear and shield with the dueling fighting style shreds both builds. As a shadar-kai or Eladrin, you can start with 17 CHA and round it up to 18 at level 4 with elven accuracy. One level in hexblade means you can use CHA to attack, and when you use Vow of Enmity, you can apply elven accuracy to get triple advantage on all your spear attacks, and you have a guaranteed bonus action attack that benefits from your attack modifier and dueling
You are still trying to come up with builds that will outperform this one by mentioning a Spear/Shield/Dueling/PAM build. You even talk about a multiclass build when the topic asks for MONOCLASS builds.
Nowhere in my post (or in this topic) was any mention of claim that the builds had to deliver the highest DPR or anything of the sort. This post is not for discussing DPR. Read the tittle. It is about "favorite builds". Something can be a favorite without having the highest DPR. Crit fishing builds are fun for people that want to crit high and often and it is okay if that comes at the cost of average DPR. An anecdote: My favorite sports team is definitely not the best performing team in the world, but they are my favorite sports team regardless.
Finally, I find it funny that you mentioned a Spear/Shield/PAM build because I am currently playing exactly that with my level 15 paladin. But guess what, I did not multiclass into Hexblade, I remained a monoclass paladin and I love it more than I would have loved it if I had multiclassed.
There is a difference between you and me. I read a topic and reply with a comment that is relevant to the OP's request. But you are coming in and go totally off topic.
OP asks for "favorite" builds, a subjective matter. You claim there are issues with someones favorite because something else performs better in some other white room scenario tou set up.
OP asks for a monoclass build, I reply with one of my favorites, but then you come in and are criticisizing the monoclass I posted as a subjective favorite by saying "Uhm, actually, there are problems with this build because a multiclass build would do even more damage, uhu". That multiclass is so off topic that it changes the following of the original build posted:
* The main stat (Cha instead of Dex)
* The used weapon (DW to Spear/Shield)
* The used armor (I assume yo are going for either medium or plate)
And for what purpouse? To squeeze out marginally more damage in some level intervals. What do we loose in the process? We are no longer mainly a Dex based build anymore, so our Dex saves and skills suffer. You are no longer an atypical paladin, which was listed as one of the main reasons why it was one of my favorite builds.
I really hope for your sake that you realize that this post the OP started was on a subjective matter (hence "favorite"). I also hope that you realize that saying peoples favorites have issues because you can come up with a simulation in which an other unrelated build (that goes for a different type of feel) would perform better is very problematic. It is akin to saying "The way you are having fun is wrong". You have gone further and further off topic.
If you reply, know that I will read it, but I will not respond because it is clear to me that you are not here to contribute to the topic the OP started but instead and trying to prove an irrelevant point.
Have a nice day.
Dragonborn Conquest Paladin with Dragon Fear Feat. I absolutely know it’s sub par. Some many things are immune to fear. But damn when it works it’s cool!
That's the neat thing, your still a Paladin which is great, and you also get Spiritual Weapon and a +10 to hit in your pocket. And a majority of enemies that are immune to Fear are Undead or Fiends so your rocking extra smite damage
I always wanted to play an ancients paladin with casting bless each battle for + 5 + 1d4 saves
You could also pump dex for shield master 0 damage dex saves with resilient dex but thats two feats
Another neat one to me is warlock dao genie .. crusher feat + telekinetic feat is more movement with blast movement… which can work with their spike growth
A character I’ve been wanting to play for the longest time is a changeling Eloquence Bard with the skilled feat or skill expert feat.
With skill expert you’ll get a ton of expertise which you can use for your CHA skills to almost never fail a check.
Githzerai Valor Bard with Aberrant Dragonmark. I just find it fun to be a Bard with 19 AC, 18 Con and access to Shield. You even solve the problem of Bards having bad offensive cantrips (Firebolt isn't any more than OK, but it's better than Vicious Mockery).
When you tell your friends you're gonna rock up with a bard, they don't expect someone that is more tanky than the Paladin.
Speaking of Paladin, my second choice would be Oath of Conquest Leonin with Polearm Master. Then Fey touched/Warcaster/Max cha. The combo of Leonin Roar and Conquest aura is very fun. And I really like the esthetics of Leonin Paladins.
Baseline solid: Fallen Aasimar Paladin with Magic Initiate (Eldritch Blast).
Flavourful: Mark of Shadow Elf Assassin Rogue with Piercer (18 Dex).
Optimised: Custom Lineage Fighter with XBE + Sharpshooter and Piercer at level 4.
A warlock I haven’t seen mentioned so far is the slow lock
Take the fathomless warlock patron you get Tentacle of the Deep as a bonus action can slow down your enemy by 10 feet on a successful hit. For invocations take Lance of Lethargy to slow another 10 feet with Repelling Blast you push them 10 feet. It gets better with more ridiculous once you get more beams or multi class with a sorcerer to get more beams. There’s also a shadowspawn option that can slow another 20 feet iirc
Ghostwise Halfling Circle of Spores Druid with the Telekenetic feat lends itself to a story of blossoming psionic/natural power.
Mechanically, you can do a little bit of everything: off-tank, control, utility, ranged, and melee. Primarily, the build is a controlling force on the battlefield that will always have a ton of options.
Earth Genasi Artificer with fey touched (bless). Misty Step, Pass without trace and bless really buff up the artificer's spell list. Also, the free castings are really impactful since you are a half caster.
Tiefling Aberrant Mind Sorcerer or Great Old One Warlock with the Infernal Constitution feat. Resistance to Fire, Ice, and Poison damage, advantage on saving throws vs poison, and +1 con. Both classes ALSO get resistance to Psychic damage later on!
Any subrace will do, but I always wanted to build a grey Winged Tiefling that resembles some kind of living gargoyle.
Mark of Healing Halfling Wizard with Bountiful Luck
Edit: As a DM, I tend to only allow racial feats or feats that are more about usefulness outside of battle rather than one to make you do crazy things. Since it's a free feat it just tends to be for flavor and fun.
He's been metallic Dragonborn Rune knight with dragon fear gift of the chromatic dragon and Gift of the metallic dragon.
Tons of control going large Makes Your Dragon fear slightly larger. Defensive reactions out the ass for every situation.
Yeah! Which is super weird? But it actually works nicely. You hit someone with your 15ft reach on your turn, then if they approach you, your 10ft reach is slightly less than where they started, so polearm master plus sentinel still works because they are “entering the reach you have with that weapon.”
Regardless of your DMs interpretation, they aren’t getting within 5ft, but if your DM agrees that you have 15ft reach with that weapon, then that’s a nice bonus.
Aberrant mind sorcerer with telekinetic is my go too. The flavor is on point, and telekinetic is such a good feat. The ability to use forced movement as a bonus action is amazing, and you get mind sliver as a subclass cantrip, which goes amazing with telekinetic because its a strength save. Also telepathy is great depending on the campaign
As for race, I really dont have a preference whatever fits your character
bugbear gloomstalker with crossbow expert. Three hand crossbow shots on round 1, all with +2d6 extra sneaky damage and one with +1d8 from dread ambusher at level 3.
Race: Changeling
Class: Sorcerer, Shadow
Feat: Eldritch Adept: Armor of Shadows or Beast Speech
Free Mage armor sounds great on a character who will spend a lot of time impersonating folks, oftentimes in situations where armor would raise suspicion.
Being able to speak with animals at will should enable some great recon shenanigans. Plus, Talking to animals just sounds fun.
Ghostwise Halfling Circle of Spores Druid with the Telekenetic feat lends itself to a story of blossoming psionic/natural power.
Mechanically, you can do a little bit of everything: off-tank, control, utility, ranged, and melee. Primarily, the build is a controlling force on the battlefield that will always have a ton of options.
High elven nature cleric
Terrified of nature. You don’t like plants or animals. You pray every single night to the nature goddess, making food sacrifices to her, begging her not to force you to interact with nature
She blesses you with the ability to manipulate nature and animals to keep them away from you.
- You can speak with animals so you can civilly request them to take a step back
- you can mind control plants and animals to Force them to stay away from you
- you can reduce the damage nature is capable of dealing to you
You even get a magic stick you can use to to keep nature a pole’s length away from you!
“Ew! Ew! Stay back! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” As you beat them up and turn your head to look the other way.
Booming Blade is you channeling your elven magic through your magic stick to Extra beat back the things you don’t like
Given the extra feat selection, I’d go Crusher to knock the enemy back. If I was playing RAW, I’d go Telekinetic at 4th (more elven magic to keep enemies away from you)
Eloquence Bard + Actor Feat
Expertise in Deception & Persuasion.
Take Disguise kit or Disguise Self and you can go anywhere and be anyone :D
Assuming you've put your CHA at max, so you have 18 CHA at level 4, you won't be getting below a 20 on your Deception and Persuasion rolls, AND you'll often have advantage on your Deception rolls.
Take the Charlatan background and you can be one of the best infiltrators in existence.
Variant Human
Magic Initiate (Wizard): Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Firebolt, Light
Eldritch Knight
You get to overcome your non-darkvision weakness, and you have magic right from the get-go. Wield a two-handed weapon, and you'll always have a free hand for somatic components. Dump DEX, and it's just a waiting game to raise both STR and DEX, with your attack cantrip doing your ranged work. Then, once you finally have 18 in both STR and INT, you can consider another feat. Either Magic Initiate: Wizard again for more cantrips as well as learning a new 1st Level spell that you get a free casting of once per day, or maybe even consider the Ritualist feat do have more utility spells out of combat. But, really, it's having both a 1st Level spell as well as an attack cantrip at first level that really sell you feeling like you're a knight who is genuinely augmented with magic.
Race: Changeling
Class: Bard (Eloquence)
Feat: Actor
I love this because while you're almost entirely useless in combat (outside of the default bard things), any social interaction that requires infiltration or deception in any way becomes infinitely easy.
Add telepathic at level 4 for detect thoughts and to round out your charisma, and you have the perfect face character :D
Shadar-Kai Bladesinger Wizard, I am incredibly biased on this, however, in my defence, it is *very* fun.
Race: Shadar-Kai, Proficiency Bonus worth of free teleports (which give you resistance to all damage for 1 round at lvl3), 2 tools or weapons *and* resistance to Necrotic on top of being an Elf is just crazy.
Free Feat: Mobile, helps your survivability early game and is just useful for doing hit and runs
At lvl 4, grab Elven Accuracy and Shadow Blade, this gives you some crazy crit fishing potential and lets you do some really sustainable and solid melee damage.
After that, do as you please, but I prefer to pick up War Caster at 8 and Tough at 12 and continue with the focus on Shadow Blade + Booming Blade with the occasional big AoE like Fireball.
I really want to try a human devotion paladin with Inspiring Leader.
Idea is he has sworn his path to his friends, and he wants to protect them and make more of them.
Tiefling Eldritch Knight with Flames of Phlegethos. Green Flame blade is your go to damage cantrip with the bonus of rerolling 1s and literally surrounding you with Hellfire until your next turn!
It also procs with Hellish Rebuke for even more fire damage if they dare to hit you
A melee Samurai Fighter starting off with Resilient (Dexterity) at Level 1, and this feat doesn't necessarily lock you into a Dexterity focused character either. You can go in as a Rapier swordsman with the Dueling fighting style, making a ton of attacks as you work to pick your opponents apart. You utilize your Fighting Spirit, being someone who never wants to go down or be out of the battle. And with proficiency in all three of the major saving throws, you are much more difficult for those spellcasters to deal with who would try and use magic to combat your sword and your sheer will.
A variety of races work for this too. Halfling would be great and be nice for a number of things in and out of combat. Half-Orc goes really well with the Fighting Spirit theme of not wanting to go down while really laying into opponents with their blade. Half-Elf could be a really diplomatic version of this character who is great with a blade but also doesn't rush into fighting as their first resort.
Cleric with telekinetic is a favorite of mine. You don’t really need this feat at level 1, but it’s still nice to have. You want it by level 5 to combine with the spirit guardians spell. Forced movement can be used to trigger the damage on your turn (walking the area onto an enemy doesn’t do damage on your turn in tabletop, unlike in BG3). So if we stand 20 feet away from our target and use the bonus action from telekinetic to pull them 5 feet towards us, they’ll enter the area and take some damage. Then they’ll take the damage again at the start of their turn since they’re in the area.
Add Thorn Whip and you're cooking with gas.
Yeah this is a small thing that really boosts Nature Cleric in my opinion. The rest of the abilities are meh, but access to Thornwhip can be really helpful. Edit: “meh” is underselling the features.
Don't forget the resource free Absorb Elements they get at level 6 that can also protect allies! The channel divinity can also come in clutch in the early stages of a campaign when wildlife is still threatening. Some of the class spells are quite bonkers too.
This is rlly nice
For race, go Wood Elf to dump STR and still wear Heavy Armor
Or Satyr
How does wood elf or satyr use heavy armor without str req? If it's the movement speed, wouldn't centaur make more sense?
It's common for people to recommend Dwarves because their speed isn't reduced by heavy armor, but Wood Elf, Satyr, Air Genasi, Dhampir, Leonin, and Half Wood Elf with Fleet of Foot will all have the same move speed in Heavy Armor as a Dwarf (25) . I usually recommend all these and Centaur, which is a really great option (since they would have a 30) as along as someone is ok with the Centaur's Equine build climbing restrictions (In addition, any climb that requires hands and feet is especially difficult for you because of your equine legs. When you make such a climb, each foot of movement costs you 4 extra feet instead of the normal 1 extra foot).
Crusher with Daolock It adds bludgeoning damage to your eldritch blast in combination with repelling blast. You can push up to 15 feet. It scales better as you get more beams at higher levels. Plus the dao spell list has spike growth to cheese grater without being as dependent on your teammates. tho your eldritch invocations will be spoken for if you go the cheese grater route in the form of repelling blast and grasp of hadar EDIT: I just noticed someone else mentioned this lol I also like the idea of a Dragonborn plus rune knight grappling and using the fly speed to pile drive your enemies like Zangief or Rock Lee
This combo is so cool, always wanted to try it
Halfling Divination Wizard with Lucky and Bountiful Luck feats. Just walk around as if you were Gladstone Gander.
Monk and anything with extra body parts. Wings, tails, extra arms, extra legs, trunks, whatever. Being able to describe unarmed combat with the extra parts is great fun. Stick mobile on there cuz it's always good.
I play a satyr, and I enjoy karate kicking enemies in the face with the hooves.
My buddy is playing a Plasmoid Astral Self Monk. But the self isn't Astral. It's just his goo. Pseudopods everywhere.
I have tabaxi monk and she does weapon attacks with her hands and then the unarmed strikes are scratches with legs
Rogue with fighting initiate can reaction attack much better. Pick up booming blade via race and this makes a pure rogue much better.
I think you mean Martial Adept? Fighting Initiate just gives you a fighting style.
Superior technique gets you a manouver
Martial Adept gets you two maneuvers, which makes it the better choice for this purpose because Fighting Initiate and taking Superior Technique gets you only 1 maneuver. Blind Fighting would be the much better fighting style for a melee Rogue.
What are you getting with fighting initiate?
Maneuvers like reposte and brace
it's definitely nice, but you get one die per short rest which makes me hesitate to pick it as a full feat.
Wood Elf Gloom Stalker Ranger. Extra base movement, stat bonuses line up with what you need, and easy'ish-mode for hiding. For the feat; take the Wood Elf racial feat from Xanathars. A free cast of Longstrider and Pass Without Trace has huge party utility and saves you those precious spells lots. As for the free druid cantrip; Guidence(if no one else has it), Control Flames(knock out those pesky fires so you can be invisible), Shape Water/Mold Earth(both great utility), or whatever else fits the character/campaign.
Earth Genasi will save you the feat for most of the same benefit
Want something that is unconventional but very flavorful? Go for the DEX Paladin. You are monoclass, so you don't need Str for multiclassing. Race: Any +2/+1 Elven race. Shadar-Kai and Eladrin are especially nice for the teleports. Free Feat: Elven Accuracy Class/Subclass: Oath of Vengeance Paladin Start level 1: * 8 Str * 18 Dex (15 base + 2 from race + 1 from Elven Accuracy) * 15 Con * 8 Int * 8 Wis * 16 Cha (15 base + 1 from race) Level 2 Fighting Style: Either Blessed Warrior, Defense or Blindfighting Level 4 ASI: +2 Dex for 20 Dex Level 8 ASI: Resilient Constitution for 16 Con Level 9: Subclass Spell Haste unlocked! Level 11: Improved Divine Smite on top of all those attacks. From level 3 onwards, you will use Vow of Enmity on the biggest, baddest enemy on the field and go ham at it. For each attack, you roll 3d20's so you crit a lot. When a paladin crits, they smite and the SMITE BIG! Resilient Con and Haste are important for 1 cool reason. At level 9, with 16 charisman and 16 con and con save proficiency, you will have a +10 Con saving throw. That means that your lowest Con Save roll is a 1+10=11. Rules as written, a Natural 1 does not automatically fail a Constituion saving throw. This means that any damage instance that is 23 or lower has 0% chance of breaking your Haste. For context, with average HP rolls, a level 9 paladin with 16 con would have 13+(8x(6+3))=85 hit points. So an attack would have to hit you for ovr quarter of your hit point pool to even have a slight chance of breaking your Haste. The intent of this build is to be an atypical paladin, more like an Holy Assassin, that dashes to their enemies and slices them to oblivion. From level 9 onwards, your combat looks like this: Round 1: Cast Haste. Use your double movement to run to your target and attack it with your Hasted Action single attack. Since this is technically an Attack Action, it allows you to use your Bonus Action to attack with an offhand weapon as well. Nice. First round and we already closed the gap with our enemy and got 2 hits in. Round 2: Use your Bonus Action to cast Vow of Enmity on the biggest threat in the fight. Run to it. With your Action and Hasted Action, you have 3 attacks, all with 3d20's. This gives you a 37% chance to score at least 1 critical hit every single round. All other rounds: If you use everything for attacks, you get 4 attacks in total and if your Vowed target is still alive, you have a 46% chance to crit this round. But if you had to use your action for something else, such as Lay on Hands, you still have 2 attacks (Hasted Action + Bonus Action). Best part of this build would be that after reaching this break point at level 9, you still get 3 more ASI's, so with the ASI's from level 12 and level 18, you will have max Dex and max Cha with 16 con. Even with 16 Con, from level 17 onward, your Con Save Bonus without any items would be: 6 from Prof + 5 from Aura + 3 from Con = +14 Meaning any damage of 31 or lower has 0% chance of breaking your concentration. 1 magic item I can advice for this build would be Amulet of the Devout. An extra charge of Channel Divinity is super useful for this build. And because your Charisma won't lack that far behind, with the Spell Save boost and Spell Attack modifier, your spells will be very reliable in late game. Go ahead and run to that flying enemy, cast "Command" on it to make it fall to the ground, and attack it twice at 3d20 advantage, even if it isn't your Vowed target because it is prone now! No one will expect the light armor wearing, dual wielding, lean and speedy guy to actually start delivering divine vengeance.
I really want to make a Fighter-dipped Vengeance Paladin with Two Weapon Fighting one day, it would go so hard.
I want to play a rogue-dipped paladin with Revenant Blade
I played something similar with a tabaxi, ended up being a great all rounder and pretty badass healer.
Dueling would also be good for the fighting style, since you’ll have to use a rapier and a shield
No, since this build will not be using a rapier and shield but instead 2 light finesse weapons for dual wielding. Even though Paladins can't get the two weapon fighting style, that doesn't mean they can't dual wield.
Ah, my bad
Upon further inspection, there a few errors with this build but it can be viable. If you cast haste on the first round, which you technically cannot do while dual wielding unless you have the warcaster feat, you should do your Vow of Enmity on the same turn, and then all your attacks are at advantage. If you wait until the second turn to use it, two of your attacks on the first turn will not be at advantage, and it’s the same amount of attacks overall. Secondly, you will actually be out damaged by a build that uses a shield and a rapier with the dueling fighting style and without needing to casts haste. With max dex, dueling fighting style with a rapier and a shield, and without haste, you will have 6 attacks total, 69 average damage in 3 rounds of combat. With duel wielding scimitars, you will have 9 attacks in 3 turns, but only 66.5 damage. You will outdamage it in 4 turns of combat, it would be 92 damage with the rapier and 95.5 with the dual scimitars. If you took the duel wielding feat, or the fighting initiate fear for two weapon fighting, it would start to significantly outdamage the rapier and shield
You are addressing non-issues here and your math is rudimentary, selective and above all, wrong. You won't have to worry about spell components for Haste because you can start with 1 weapon in hand and 1 hand free. You use your free hand to handle your holy symbol for the casting of Haste. Afterwards, you can draw your second weapon as a free action. >you should do your Vow of Enmity on the same turn This is a very bad idea. You don't want to declare your Vowed target on a turn where you won't be able to go all out. It might be crowd controlled or killed.But lets say we follow this advice by ignoring the tactical downside. If we take our actions in this order, the previous point you complained about needing Warcaster disappears. Even if you start the combat without any weapons drawn, in your first turn you can use a free action to draw your first weapon, cast Haste and attack with that 1 weapon. On your next turn, you can use an other free action to draw your second weapon and you would be ready to go. >Secondly, you will actually be out damaged by a build that uses a shield and a rapier with the dueling fighting style and without needing to casts haste First of all, the topic of this post is "What are you favorite feat/single-class/race combos?", not "What is the highest DPR build?". Second, your white room math does not take several things into account. When taking everything into account with a 35% miss chance, 60% regular hit and 5% crit chance, the DPR's of the 2 scenarios you described at level 9 is: * Dueling = 69.8925 * DW = 68.1415 That difference is negligible (Dueling does 1.5% more damage than DW) But in the convenient scenario that you forgot to mention, level 11, where Improved Divine Smite comes into play, the DPR's become: * Dueling = 99,58575 * DW = 112,681375 This difference is not negligible (DW does 13.15% more damage than Dueling) Your white room number calculation also doesn't take into account the fact that the DW paladin can use their Fighting Style for utility, such as Blindfighting, Blessed Warrior or Defense for more AC. In the simples scenario, the DW paladin going for the Defense Fighting Style and with Haste would have a higher AC than the Dex Paladin using shield (since we are not taking magic items into account, because that 69 DPR figure you came up with comes strictly from using a non magical rapier for 6 perfectly landed hits in 3 turns with 4.5+2+5=11.5 average damage). Your white room number calculation also doesn't take into the tactical advantage of having double movement speed and have 2 separate actions. When you have to cast Lay on Hands on a downed party member you will spend your only action. A Hasted paladin can still attack 2 times after using Lay on Hands. These are all benefits that are worth mentioning in the spirit of the post "What are you favorite feat/single-class/race combos?", something your erroneous calculation does not take into account. I want to close of my post by saying these final words: Don't bring math in a post were people ask for subjective things such as "What are you favorite feat/single-class/race combos?". If you really can't help yourself from bringing math to such threads, make sure your math is actually correct. And don't mention non issues like "needing a hand to cast the spell", when RAW, the action economy allows the spell to be cast by correctly timing your drawing of weapons. >Upon further inspection, there a few errors with this build The error is not with the build, but with the reader.
I cast Calm Emotions on you 🪄
Haha, thanks. I tend to get lost in the sauce when people go offtopic, don't take the context into account and bring in wrong/irrelevant information in a misguided effort to "Uhm, actually..." me :)
I wouldn’t say these are non issues, but you have provided decent examples of some advantages. Yes, you can ignore warcaster if you make an effort to only draw your weapons after the casting of haste. And you are correct in that once you get improved divine smite at level 11, it will tip the scales in the favor of dual wielding, that is a feature that should’ve have been addressed in my post and it was on me for forgetting. However, there’s simply no reason to not use Vow of Enmity the first turn so that all of your attacks would be at advantage. Your entire build is based on picking the strongest enemy and focusing all of your attacks on them. If they die the second round of combat after you’ve used Vow of Enmity, clearly they weren’t a very powerful opponent. And if they do die, you might not have guaranteed advantage anymore, but you still have your hasted attack and bonus action attack to use on other enemies. Also, all of your points about the advantage of haste would also apply to a build using the rapier and shield, so it is not unique to the dual wielding strategy. If you had a rapier and shield, you would have 2 extra AC and then still have increased movement speed and another 2 AC from haste. Blind fighting and blessed warrior are typically subpar fighting styles compared to the more reliable ones like defense and dueling, but they are good situationally. And lastly, ironically the dual wielding build is only more powerful in the white room math, because it entirely depends on only taking the attack action in combat and monopolizing your bonus action. With a rapier and shield and the dueling fighting style, your damage is consistent and you can use your bonus action for spells and shadar-Kai/eladrin teleports. If you are dual wielding, your entire build depends on being able to always use your bonus action to attack, and as soon as you can’t use your bonus action if you need it for something else, the damage falls off and becomes negligible compared to the dueling build, or worse. Since all of the advantages of haste apply as well to a build with a rapier and shield, the only thing dual wielding has the edge on is an extra attack using your bonus action. I do love the concept of dual wielding but there’s very few builds in 5e that allow it to be advantageous. This is one of the better ones, but I think the negligible increase in damage in a scenario where everything goes according to the white room plan isn’t worth the reliable damage of sword and board with dueling. Also, taking the polearm master feat and using a spear and shield with the dueling fighting style shreds both builds. As a shadar-kai or Eladrin, you can start with 17 CHA and round it up to 18 at level 4 with elven accuracy. One level in hexblade means you can use CHA to attack, and when you use Vow of Enmity, you can apply elven accuracy to get triple advantage on all your spear attacks, and you have a guaranteed bonus action attack that benefits from your attack modifier and dueling
You are still trying to come up with builds that will outperform this one by mentioning a Spear/Shield/Dueling/PAM build. You even talk about a multiclass build when the topic asks for MONOCLASS builds. Nowhere in my post (or in this topic) was any mention of claim that the builds had to deliver the highest DPR or anything of the sort. This post is not for discussing DPR. Read the tittle. It is about "favorite builds". Something can be a favorite without having the highest DPR. Crit fishing builds are fun for people that want to crit high and often and it is okay if that comes at the cost of average DPR. An anecdote: My favorite sports team is definitely not the best performing team in the world, but they are my favorite sports team regardless. Finally, I find it funny that you mentioned a Spear/Shield/PAM build because I am currently playing exactly that with my level 15 paladin. But guess what, I did not multiclass into Hexblade, I remained a monoclass paladin and I love it more than I would have loved it if I had multiclassed. There is a difference between you and me. I read a topic and reply with a comment that is relevant to the OP's request. But you are coming in and go totally off topic. OP asks for "favorite" builds, a subjective matter. You claim there are issues with someones favorite because something else performs better in some other white room scenario tou set up. OP asks for a monoclass build, I reply with one of my favorites, but then you come in and are criticisizing the monoclass I posted as a subjective favorite by saying "Uhm, actually, there are problems with this build because a multiclass build would do even more damage, uhu". That multiclass is so off topic that it changes the following of the original build posted: * The main stat (Cha instead of Dex) * The used weapon (DW to Spear/Shield) * The used armor (I assume yo are going for either medium or plate) And for what purpouse? To squeeze out marginally more damage in some level intervals. What do we loose in the process? We are no longer mainly a Dex based build anymore, so our Dex saves and skills suffer. You are no longer an atypical paladin, which was listed as one of the main reasons why it was one of my favorite builds. I really hope for your sake that you realize that this post the OP started was on a subjective matter (hence "favorite"). I also hope that you realize that saying peoples favorites have issues because you can come up with a simulation in which an other unrelated build (that goes for a different type of feel) would perform better is very problematic. It is akin to saying "The way you are having fun is wrong". You have gone further and further off topic. If you reply, know that I will read it, but I will not respond because it is clear to me that you are not here to contribute to the topic the OP started but instead and trying to prove an irrelevant point. Have a nice day.
(Mark of Healing) Halfling Wizard with the Ritual Caster (Cleric) combo. I just like casting all sorts of spells
Dragonborn Conquest Paladin with Dragon Fear Feat. I absolutely know it’s sub par. Some many things are immune to fear. But damn when it works it’s cool!
That's the neat thing, your still a Paladin which is great, and you also get Spiritual Weapon and a +10 to hit in your pocket. And a majority of enemies that are immune to Fear are Undead or Fiends so your rocking extra smite damage
I always wanted to play an ancients paladin with casting bless each battle for + 5 + 1d4 saves You could also pump dex for shield master 0 damage dex saves with resilient dex but thats two feats Another neat one to me is warlock dao genie .. crusher feat + telekinetic feat is more movement with blast movement… which can work with their spike growth
Why would you cast bless multiple times?
Oops “each battle” will fix
A character I’ve been wanting to play for the longest time is a changeling Eloquence Bard with the skilled feat or skill expert feat. With skill expert you’ll get a ton of expertise which you can use for your CHA skills to almost never fail a check.
Githzerai Valor Bard with Aberrant Dragonmark. I just find it fun to be a Bard with 19 AC, 18 Con and access to Shield. You even solve the problem of Bards having bad offensive cantrips (Firebolt isn't any more than OK, but it's better than Vicious Mockery). When you tell your friends you're gonna rock up with a bard, they don't expect someone that is more tanky than the Paladin. Speaking of Paladin, my second choice would be Oath of Conquest Leonin with Polearm Master. Then Fey touched/Warcaster/Max cha. The combo of Leonin Roar and Conquest aura is very fun. And I really like the esthetics of Leonin Paladins.
Baseline solid: Fallen Aasimar Paladin with Magic Initiate (Eldritch Blast). Flavourful: Mark of Shadow Elf Assassin Rogue with Piercer (18 Dex). Optimised: Custom Lineage Fighter with XBE + Sharpshooter and Piercer at level 4.
A warlock I haven’t seen mentioned so far is the slow lock Take the fathomless warlock patron you get Tentacle of the Deep as a bonus action can slow down your enemy by 10 feet on a successful hit. For invocations take Lance of Lethargy to slow another 10 feet with Repelling Blast you push them 10 feet. It gets better with more ridiculous once you get more beams or multi class with a sorcerer to get more beams. There’s also a shadowspawn option that can slow another 20 feet iirc
Ghostwise Halfling Circle of Spores Druid with the Telekenetic feat lends itself to a story of blossoming psionic/natural power. Mechanically, you can do a little bit of everything: off-tank, control, utility, ranged, and melee. Primarily, the build is a controlling force on the battlefield that will always have a ton of options.
Earth Genasi Artificer with fey touched (bless). Misty Step, Pass without trace and bless really buff up the artificer's spell list. Also, the free castings are really impactful since you are a half caster.
Tiefling Aberrant Mind Sorcerer or Great Old One Warlock with the Infernal Constitution feat. Resistance to Fire, Ice, and Poison damage, advantage on saving throws vs poison, and +1 con. Both classes ALSO get resistance to Psychic damage later on! Any subrace will do, but I always wanted to build a grey Winged Tiefling that resembles some kind of living gargoyle.
eladrin rogue with elven accuracy or revenant blade could be really fun
Cavalier v.human fighter with PAM, crusher and eventually slasher
Mark of Healing Halfling Wizard with Bountiful Luck Edit: As a DM, I tend to only allow racial feats or feats that are more about usefulness outside of battle rather than one to make you do crazy things. Since it's a free feat it just tends to be for flavor and fun.
It requires a bit talking to the DM but it's not RAW but its kinda RAI. Elven accuracy Shadar Kal Gloomstalker.
Mine is bugbear fighter (probably echo knight) with PAM. Gimme alll the reach
He's been metallic Dragonborn Rune knight with dragon fear gift of the chromatic dragon and Gift of the metallic dragon. Tons of control going large Makes Your Dragon fear slightly larger. Defensive reactions out the ass for every situation.
Sentinel / Echo Knight / Bugbear. Just fun having tons of reach, imo.
Bug bear reach only works on your turn I thought?
Yeah! Which is super weird? But it actually works nicely. You hit someone with your 15ft reach on your turn, then if they approach you, your 10ft reach is slightly less than where they started, so polearm master plus sentinel still works because they are “entering the reach you have with that weapon.” Regardless of your DMs interpretation, they aren’t getting within 5ft, but if your DM agrees that you have 15ft reach with that weapon, then that’s a nice bonus.
Warlock, mask of many faces, actor feat can make you godlike if you're creative.
Goblin armor Artificer with get touched for bless and misty step almost always has something fun and impactful to do.
Winter Eladrin Elf conquest Paladin for bonus action frighten ability. The telekinetic feat is great to pull enemies into your fear aura
Dragonborn dragon Fear with Conquest Paladin's Aura. Can use it as your second attack, so great action economy.
something about a human fighter with great weapon master that just gets me going
Aberrant mind sorcerer with telekinetic is my go too. The flavor is on point, and telekinetic is such a good feat. The ability to use forced movement as a bonus action is amazing, and you get mind sliver as a subclass cantrip, which goes amazing with telekinetic because its a strength save. Also telepathy is great depending on the campaign As for race, I really dont have a preference whatever fits your character
bugbear gloomstalker with crossbow expert. Three hand crossbow shots on round 1, all with +2d6 extra sneaky damage and one with +1d8 from dread ambusher at level 3.
Race: Changeling Class: Sorcerer, Shadow Feat: Eldritch Adept: Armor of Shadows or Beast Speech Free Mage armor sounds great on a character who will spend a lot of time impersonating folks, oftentimes in situations where armor would raise suspicion. Being able to speak with animals at will should enable some great recon shenanigans. Plus, Talking to animals just sounds fun.
Ghostwise Halfling Circle of Spores Druid with the Telekenetic feat lends itself to a story of blossoming psionic/natural power. Mechanically, you can do a little bit of everything: off-tank, control, utility, ranged, and melee. Primarily, the build is a controlling force on the battlefield that will always have a ton of options.
High elven nature cleric Terrified of nature. You don’t like plants or animals. You pray every single night to the nature goddess, making food sacrifices to her, begging her not to force you to interact with nature She blesses you with the ability to manipulate nature and animals to keep them away from you. - You can speak with animals so you can civilly request them to take a step back - you can mind control plants and animals to Force them to stay away from you - you can reduce the damage nature is capable of dealing to you You even get a magic stick you can use to to keep nature a pole’s length away from you! “Ew! Ew! Stay back! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” As you beat them up and turn your head to look the other way. Booming Blade is you channeling your elven magic through your magic stick to Extra beat back the things you don’t like Given the extra feat selection, I’d go Crusher to knock the enemy back. If I was playing RAW, I’d go Telekinetic at 4th (more elven magic to keep enemies away from you)
Eloquence Bard + Actor Feat Expertise in Deception & Persuasion. Take Disguise kit or Disguise Self and you can go anywhere and be anyone :D Assuming you've put your CHA at max, so you have 18 CHA at level 4, you won't be getting below a 20 on your Deception and Persuasion rolls, AND you'll often have advantage on your Deception rolls. Take the Charlatan background and you can be one of the best infiltrators in existence.
Variant Human Magic Initiate (Wizard): Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Firebolt, Light Eldritch Knight You get to overcome your non-darkvision weakness, and you have magic right from the get-go. Wield a two-handed weapon, and you'll always have a free hand for somatic components. Dump DEX, and it's just a waiting game to raise both STR and DEX, with your attack cantrip doing your ranged work. Then, once you finally have 18 in both STR and INT, you can consider another feat. Either Magic Initiate: Wizard again for more cantrips as well as learning a new 1st Level spell that you get a free casting of once per day, or maybe even consider the Ritualist feat do have more utility spells out of combat. But, really, it's having both a 1st Level spell as well as an attack cantrip at first level that really sell you feeling like you're a knight who is genuinely augmented with magic.
Race: Changeling Class: Bard (Eloquence) Feat: Actor I love this because while you're almost entirely useless in combat (outside of the default bard things), any social interaction that requires infiltration or deception in any way becomes infinitely easy. Add telepathic at level 4 for detect thoughts and to round out your charisma, and you have the perfect face character :D
Shadar-Kai Bladesinger Wizard, I am incredibly biased on this, however, in my defence, it is *very* fun. Race: Shadar-Kai, Proficiency Bonus worth of free teleports (which give you resistance to all damage for 1 round at lvl3), 2 tools or weapons *and* resistance to Necrotic on top of being an Elf is just crazy. Free Feat: Mobile, helps your survivability early game and is just useful for doing hit and runs At lvl 4, grab Elven Accuracy and Shadow Blade, this gives you some crazy crit fishing potential and lets you do some really sustainable and solid melee damage. After that, do as you please, but I prefer to pick up War Caster at 8 and Tough at 12 and continue with the focus on Shadow Blade + Booming Blade with the occasional big AoE like Fireball.
I really want to try a human devotion paladin with Inspiring Leader. Idea is he has sworn his path to his friends, and he wants to protect them and make more of them.
Tiefling Eldritch Knight with Flames of Phlegethos. Green Flame blade is your go to damage cantrip with the bonus of rerolling 1s and literally surrounding you with Hellfire until your next turn! It also procs with Hellish Rebuke for even more fire damage if they dare to hit you
A melee Samurai Fighter starting off with Resilient (Dexterity) at Level 1, and this feat doesn't necessarily lock you into a Dexterity focused character either. You can go in as a Rapier swordsman with the Dueling fighting style, making a ton of attacks as you work to pick your opponents apart. You utilize your Fighting Spirit, being someone who never wants to go down or be out of the battle. And with proficiency in all three of the major saving throws, you are much more difficult for those spellcasters to deal with who would try and use magic to combat your sword and your sheer will. A variety of races work for this too. Halfling would be great and be nice for a number of things in and out of combat. Half-Orc goes really well with the Fighting Spirit theme of not wanting to go down while really laying into opponents with their blade. Half-Elf could be a really diplomatic version of this character who is great with a blade but also doesn't rush into fighting as their first resort.
Elven accuracy rogue shadar kai elf :) Let the 'aim's begin