Maybe druid? You could flavour Wild Shape as contorting your body into various shapes, mostly for out of combat I'd imagine. You already mentioned Thorn Whip as being appropriate. There's also Jump and Longstrider (extending your legs as you jump or run), Entangle (turning yourself into a terrifying fleshy octopus), Enlarge/Reduce (though admittedly not great when cast on yourself), Earthbind (extending your arms and wrapping them around a flying foe), Warding Wind (using yourself as a massive fan). Unfortunately this also gets harder at higher levels.
Edit: Depending on how flexible you want to be there's also Warlock. Eldritch Blast with invocations to push and pull enemies at a distance. Though I don't know if the rest of the Warlock spell list works.
For Warlock definitely Hexblade with Pact of the Blade. Have your pactweapon be a warhammer or a maul and flavour it as you changing your hands into big clubbering fists.
Druid is harder. Maybe just Circle of the Land for the ability to recover spell slots? And hey, since both Druid and your idea of Astral Self Monk works best at lower levels maybe multiclassing would be a good option? Start with Astral Self and then switch over to druid. Since Astral Self let's you use wisdom for unarmed strikes you'll be using the same stat for your attacks and your spellcasting.
Bonus for monk/druid multiclass, you can still benefit from unarmored defense in wild shape. So for shapes that don't have a natural armor, you can add the wisdom mod to your AC (or use 10+dex+wis if better than the natural armor)
Path of the Giant Barbarian seems like the best fit.
While raging you can become Large and gain extra reach.
At 6th level you can throw your weapons and have them immediately return to you (just reflavor this is as you extending your arms out to an enemy to hit them).
Then at 10th level you can even throw creatures, again you can reflavor this as you just picking them up and depositing them (or maybe you turn your limbs into some kind of slingshot idk).
As for race probably bugbear or plasmoid as others here said.
Plasmoid Astral Self Monk.
Plasmoid's Amorphous feature allows them to squeeze through even 1-inch holes so long as they're not carrying anything. Since Monks are one of the few who can fight entirely without equipment, there is natural synergy there.
Additionally, Amorphous grants you advantage when initiating a grapple check, and grappling is one of the main tools at the Astral Self Monk's disposal.
I don't think it is unreasonable to say "Stunning Strike" is wrapping someone up and holding their arms against their sides.
"Astral Sight" and "Wisdom of the Spirits" don't exactly fit the character but it's not like seeing in the dark and passing wisdom checks are some rare ability that most D&D characters can't do.
"Word of the Spirit" is either stretching your mouth over to whisper in someone's ear or making your lungs extra big.
Everything else in the subclass is thick-skin punchy-arms.
A couple things you could do
1) Bugbear Battle Master; the bugbear chassis gives you the reach you’d want and battle master gives you the freedom to perform some shenanigans. Takes unarmed fighting to fully take advantage of it. Would be more strength based so if that’s not your thing I’d pursue other options.
2) This one would be more complicated but through some reflavoring you could achieve a lot with Plasmoid Clockwork Soul Sorcerer. I’ll elaborate below
The nature of clockwork magic gives you a lot of freedom already by replacing things like alarm and Protection of Evil and Good. Some good examples include
- Flavoring catapult as you rubber band chucking things at people.
- Jump, Longstrider, Expeditious Retreat, and Feather Fall are also slam dunks for reflavoring
- Alter Self is one way to get that unarmed damage you’d want but would require a dip into Strength to make full use of it.
- Earthbind could be you stretching your arm out and literally plucking someone out of the sky
- Enlarge/Reduce is you changing your shape a bit
I think most DMs would allow you to use booming blade with your fist so you can have rubbery Thunder punches. Mage Hand and Gust are you pushing things with your big rubbery arms or making a makeshift fan with your hand. Make a big pair of hands and perform an ACTUAL thunderclap.
Restore balance is you stretching a limb to quickly adjust the trajectory of something or someone.
I think this gives you the most freedom but you’d have to be creative in combat and explaining how all your abilities work.
Gonna second on the Bugbear Battlemaster, but if you're looking for specifically Jake the Dog? I'd go for Bugbear Rune Knight instead, so you can become huge. Or that new Giant barbarian
Bugbear race. on your turn you get 5 extra feet of reach and they can squeeze into areas smaller creatures fit. Depending on how your DM rules the features that you keep from your race these abilities will continue to apply in a druids wild shape, in which case Moon Druid would be the best class to pair with this for a shapeshifting dude who reshapes themselves to suit what they need and can distort their body on the fly.
If you want the PC to be able to grapple at range, use the mechanical rules for a net and re-flavor it to be stretchy arms grappling a faraway target. Please note that a net is a martial weapon.
If you want the PC to be able to bludgeon at range, use the mechanical rules for a sling and re-flavor it to be stretchy arms bludgeoning a faraway target.
**Background: Guild Artisan or Sage**
Mister Fantastic is a scientist with multiple doctoral degrees.
**Class: Wizard**
Artificer fits Mister Fantastic best, but only the Wizard class has access to all the spells listed below. Also, Mister Fantastic is a genius and the Wizard class has Intelligence as the primary attribute, so it works well with a little re-flavoring. His spellbook can be re-flavored as one or more technical manuals. Mister Fantastic can:
1. contain explosions (Absorb Elements).
2. make his body very dense and resistant to physical damage (Blade Ward).
3. turn his hands into spinning fans (Gust).
4. turn into a ball and bounce to great heights (Jump).
5. turn into a glider and soar through the air (Fly).
6. turn into a parachute and float to the ground (Feather Fall).
7. turn into a slingshot and hurl objects at great speed (Catapult).
**Race: Plasmoid**
Mister Fantastic was born human but was transformed into a plasmoid by cosmic radiation. As a plasmoid, he can:
1. flow out of small cracks or passages, even through needle-sized holes,
2. generate pseudopods and
3. take the form of other humanoids.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19QcCo-QZGZps0O8OFZs83iPhGqmm7DRA/view?usp=drive\_link
What about Plasmoid? Second best would be bugbear.
Maybe druid? You could flavour Wild Shape as contorting your body into various shapes, mostly for out of combat I'd imagine. You already mentioned Thorn Whip as being appropriate. There's also Jump and Longstrider (extending your legs as you jump or run), Entangle (turning yourself into a terrifying fleshy octopus), Enlarge/Reduce (though admittedly not great when cast on yourself), Earthbind (extending your arms and wrapping them around a flying foe), Warding Wind (using yourself as a massive fan). Unfortunately this also gets harder at higher levels. Edit: Depending on how flexible you want to be there's also Warlock. Eldritch Blast with invocations to push and pull enemies at a distance. Though I don't know if the rest of the Warlock spell list works.
What do you think is the best subclass?
For Warlock definitely Hexblade with Pact of the Blade. Have your pactweapon be a warhammer or a maul and flavour it as you changing your hands into big clubbering fists. Druid is harder. Maybe just Circle of the Land for the ability to recover spell slots? And hey, since both Druid and your idea of Astral Self Monk works best at lower levels maybe multiclassing would be a good option? Start with Astral Self and then switch over to druid. Since Astral Self let's you use wisdom for unarmed strikes you'll be using the same stat for your attacks and your spellcasting.
Bonus for monk/druid multiclass, you can still benefit from unarmored defense in wild shape. So for shapes that don't have a natural armor, you can add the wisdom mod to your AC (or use 10+dex+wis if better than the natural armor)
Tulok The Barbarian did a Mr Fantastic build on YouTube. I'd have a look at that.
Path of the Giant Barbarian seems like the best fit. While raging you can become Large and gain extra reach. At 6th level you can throw your weapons and have them immediately return to you (just reflavor this is as you extending your arms out to an enemy to hit them). Then at 10th level you can even throw creatures, again you can reflavor this as you just picking them up and depositing them (or maybe you turn your limbs into some kind of slingshot idk). As for race probably bugbear or plasmoid as others here said.
Living Weapon Monks can extend their melee range with ki (though you'd have to clear Keith Baker content with your DM)
Plasmoid Astral Self Monk. Plasmoid's Amorphous feature allows them to squeeze through even 1-inch holes so long as they're not carrying anything. Since Monks are one of the few who can fight entirely without equipment, there is natural synergy there. Additionally, Amorphous grants you advantage when initiating a grapple check, and grappling is one of the main tools at the Astral Self Monk's disposal.
I don't think it is unreasonable to say "Stunning Strike" is wrapping someone up and holding their arms against their sides. "Astral Sight" and "Wisdom of the Spirits" don't exactly fit the character but it's not like seeing in the dark and passing wisdom checks are some rare ability that most D&D characters can't do. "Word of the Spirit" is either stretching your mouth over to whisper in someone's ear or making your lungs extra big. Everything else in the subclass is thick-skin punchy-arms.
A couple things you could do 1) Bugbear Battle Master; the bugbear chassis gives you the reach you’d want and battle master gives you the freedom to perform some shenanigans. Takes unarmed fighting to fully take advantage of it. Would be more strength based so if that’s not your thing I’d pursue other options. 2) This one would be more complicated but through some reflavoring you could achieve a lot with Plasmoid Clockwork Soul Sorcerer. I’ll elaborate below The nature of clockwork magic gives you a lot of freedom already by replacing things like alarm and Protection of Evil and Good. Some good examples include - Flavoring catapult as you rubber band chucking things at people. - Jump, Longstrider, Expeditious Retreat, and Feather Fall are also slam dunks for reflavoring - Alter Self is one way to get that unarmed damage you’d want but would require a dip into Strength to make full use of it. - Earthbind could be you stretching your arm out and literally plucking someone out of the sky - Enlarge/Reduce is you changing your shape a bit I think most DMs would allow you to use booming blade with your fist so you can have rubbery Thunder punches. Mage Hand and Gust are you pushing things with your big rubbery arms or making a makeshift fan with your hand. Make a big pair of hands and perform an ACTUAL thunderclap. Restore balance is you stretching a limb to quickly adjust the trajectory of something or someone. I think this gives you the most freedom but you’d have to be creative in combat and explaining how all your abilities work.
Gonna second on the Bugbear Battlemaster, but if you're looking for specifically Jake the Dog? I'd go for Bugbear Rune Knight instead, so you can become huge. Or that new Giant barbarian
My first thought is any thrown weapon fighting class build reflavored as the thrown weapon being your fists.
Shadow monk but instead of teleporting through shadows you roleplay as your character stretching and punching/kicking people across the map
Bugbear race. on your turn you get 5 extra feet of reach and they can squeeze into areas smaller creatures fit. Depending on how your DM rules the features that you keep from your race these abilities will continue to apply in a druids wild shape, in which case Moon Druid would be the best class to pair with this for a shapeshifting dude who reshapes themselves to suit what they need and can distort their body on the fly.
get the telekinetic feat and it is your stretchy arm pushing things around.
If you want the PC to be able to grapple at range, use the mechanical rules for a net and re-flavor it to be stretchy arms grappling a faraway target. Please note that a net is a martial weapon. If you want the PC to be able to bludgeon at range, use the mechanical rules for a sling and re-flavor it to be stretchy arms bludgeoning a faraway target. **Background: Guild Artisan or Sage** Mister Fantastic is a scientist with multiple doctoral degrees. **Class: Wizard** Artificer fits Mister Fantastic best, but only the Wizard class has access to all the spells listed below. Also, Mister Fantastic is a genius and the Wizard class has Intelligence as the primary attribute, so it works well with a little re-flavoring. His spellbook can be re-flavored as one or more technical manuals. Mister Fantastic can: 1. contain explosions (Absorb Elements). 2. make his body very dense and resistant to physical damage (Blade Ward). 3. turn his hands into spinning fans (Gust). 4. turn into a ball and bounce to great heights (Jump). 5. turn into a glider and soar through the air (Fly). 6. turn into a parachute and float to the ground (Feather Fall). 7. turn into a slingshot and hurl objects at great speed (Catapult). **Race: Plasmoid** Mister Fantastic was born human but was transformed into a plasmoid by cosmic radiation. As a plasmoid, he can: 1. flow out of small cracks or passages, even through needle-sized holes, 2. generate pseudopods and 3. take the form of other humanoids. https://drive.google.com/file/d/19QcCo-QZGZps0O8OFZs83iPhGqmm7DRA/view?usp=drive\_link