I tried to keep this build free of spoilers, but if you've gotten this far, I should note that there comes a point in the game where you are able to change your character class, ability scores, etc. If you don't mind doing that, I would probably follow this build up until level 5. At that point, I would put all 5 levels into Monk, take one more, and grab Warlock 1 at level 7. It won't make a massive difference but level 5 and 6 will probably feel a bit smoother.

That being said, I think this build will probably be one of the better damage dealers and front-line combatants in your party for basically the entire game. Ranged combat might be somewhat problematic, though. Eldritch Blast is an option but against anything with a decent AC, you're probably better off with a bow and using your bonus actions to Hide or Dash around to make sure you're always getting Sneak Attack. It won't be as strong but these situations should be pretty rare.

There is a version of this build that goes with Strength for attacks instead of Dexterity and picks up the Tavern Brawler feat. Personally, I think that feat is WAY too strong in BG3 and I suspect it might be nerfed in an upcoming patch. I also like to keep my Monks DEX-based because it fits the theme of the class better. If you'd prefer going the STR route, there are plenty of guides online that you can follow.

Baldur's Gate 3 has changed some rules for Dungeons and Dragons 5E to make them more manageable in video game form. In doing so, they have opened up some options for characters that normally wouldn't be possible in the tabletop game. One notable difference is that they removed stat requirements for multiclassing. That alone makes for some interesting character options. However, several other class or subclass features interact in different ways that can make for some powerful characters. In this build, we'll be trying to create a character that takes advantage of these things to do something both novel and powerful in combat.

Another point that we're going to consider are the resting mechanics. In particular how easy it is to take a short rest. Long rests are easy as well, but short rests only have the limitation that they can occur twice between long rests. They happen immediately with no real downside. So abilities that recover on a short rest can be refreshed quite regularly.

Thankfully, Baldur's Gate 3 implemented the ability to move ability score bonuses from Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. That means that we really don't have to worry so much about what race to choose. With BG3 being a specific campaign, race can have a pretty big impact on story and other interactions. I would choose whatever interests you the most. We're not planning on using heavy weapons so even small-sized races are fair game.

Ability scores are an interesting consideration. As mentioned above, BG3 doesn't have requirements for multiclassing so we're pretty free here. We're going to probably want a high DEX and WIS while keeping our CON high enough to stay alive and maintain concentration. Here are my suggestions:

Planning

We're going to start out as a Monk. Monks are actually decently strong to start with because they get an extra bonus action attack each turn. They also do quite well without decent equipment so at the start of the game that works in our favor. They do tend to start to fall off quickly if you don't multiclass out or get things like Bracers of Defense to keep them hard to hit.

There isn't really any choice to be made here until level 3 at which point we will be taking the Way of the Open Hand subclass. This gives us some nice options to use along with our Flurry of Blows. Since we're planning on using Flurry of Blows quite often to burst down targets, this is icing on that cake. Use whichever option seems the most useful in the specific situation. Pushing enemies off cliffs is great and some enemies have powerful reaction abilities. However, here is where we come to a notable difference from the tabletop game. In traditional D&D, you need to make your attacks first with your action before you can use Flurry of Blows. In BG3, you can Flurry first. This makes the Flurry of Blows: Topple option very attractive because if they fail their save, your other attacks will have advantage. Unless one of the other scenarios above occur, I would default to the Topple option and always Flurry before my regular attacks.

Level 1 - 3

Here is where things get interesting. Even with an 8 CHA, we can multiclass into Warlock. I would take The Great Old One patron since the first level feature triggers on critical hits and we will be making a lot of attacks so it should happen surprisingly often. Fiend is also a decent choice giving temporary hit points any time you defeat an enemy. They get some nice spells and you could pick up the Eldritch Blast cantrip for those scenarios where you can't quite reach your enemies. Just remember that with a low CHA, the hit chance will be pretty low. But the main reason we're here is for the Hex spell. Hex will add 1d6 to each of our damage rolls. When we're making 3 attacks each turn (when we Flurry) that can add up quickly. Additionally, Hex can be reused throughout the day until the next long rest (another departure from the tabletop which only lasts an hour). And as a Warlock, our spell slots recover on a short rest. So we should have a couple to spare but nothing too special. I'd keep them in case we lose concentration.

We should spend the first round of combat casting Hex and making either melee or ranged attacks. The next round we can start pummeling our Hex target with Flurry of Blows and deal some very nice damage as long as we can maintain concentration.

Level 4

Next, we really want to increase our pool of Ki points and get Extra Attack. Two more levels in Monk will do a lot for us. At Monk 4 we should bump up our odd ability scores in DEX and WIS, increasing our attack bonus, AC, and ability DC. All great stuff. At Monk 5 we get Extra Attack and Stunning Strike which can be great but it's a CON save which most creatures are decent at. Use it in a pinch but be wary of blowing all your Ki which you need for other stuff.

Then Monk 6 gives us a few awesome features. First, there's the Ki-Empowered Strikes feature so our punches will rarely be resisted. Second, the Manifestation options give us additional damage on each attack with our unarmed strikes on top of Hex. This is a new feature that was added for BG3 and overall gives the Monk substantially more damage (unfortunately only for the Open Hand subclass). Finally, the Wholeness of Body feature is a nice little heal in the tabletop game but in BG3 has some amazing additions. We also get half of our Ki back instantly and for the next 3 rounds we get a Ki point AND an extra Bonus Action.

This makes us an absolute burst damage machine once per long rest. We probably want to just go without weapons from here on out unless we find a particularly great one. So when Wholeness of Body is active, we'll make two attacks with our action, and use Flurry of Blows twice for a total of 6 attacks which all get bonus damage from Hex and our Manifestation. And even when Wholeness of Body isn't active, we're going to have a lot of Ki available. Expect to be making a lot of attacks.

Levels 5 - 7

Once we have our Manifestation and Wholeness of Body , we are going to take a detour but it will absolutely be worth it. A few levels in Rogue are going to do wonders. Sneak Attack damage on prone enemies (if we find a good enough weapon to replace our fists) and Cunning Action options when we need them are both great. The best part about this, though, is the Thief subclass which, again differing from the tabletop, gives us an additional Bonus Action every turn. As of writing this, there is no limitation on what you can use this Bonus Action for, making it incredibly powerful. This means that when we have Wholeness of Body active, we can use Flurry of Blows three times and also use our two attacks with our action. That's 8 attacks per turn for 3 turns every long rest and 6 the rest of the time.

Importantly, this is reliable damage. We should be able to do this through most fights as long as we get a short rest in between. In cases where we might not be able to get a short or long rest between each fight, reducing it to one use of Flurry of Blows per turn is still going to be making more attacks than just about everyone else (5 total) while conserving resources.

Levels 8 - 10

Unfortunately, BG3 only gets up to level 12 but these last two levels aren't going to be game breaking anyway. I would suggest getting another level in Rogue, picking up another ASI boosting either DEX or WIS. Then you can get another level in any of these classes. Monk will get Evasion and Stillness of Mind (which actually does something in BG3). Rogue will get you Uncanny Dodge and increased Sneak Attack damage. Warlock will get you Eldritch Invocations and another spell slot. They're all great and I don't know which one I would choose, honestly. No wrong answer.

Levels 11 - 12

Initial

10th

The Hex Burst

This build can be very fun but, unfortunately, it takes a very long time to get to the best part. It could be done with just a couple levels in Cleric or even forego Cleric altogether, but I think the fun factor really hits the stratosphere once it gets the ability to push almost any enemy 10 feet every turn without a save.

I played this build in a level 20 one-shot and it blew away my expectations. I realize that is a very rare occurrence and a pretty small sample size, but in higher level play (probably level 11+), this character is going to be the MVP of every fight.

The only real weakness of this build is immunity or resistance to lightning and thunder damage. Surprisingly, resistance to both is actually not incredibly common. And the worst case scenario here is that you're just a full caster with plenty of other options available. Not too shabby.

I probably wouldn't try to build this character from level 1. But if a campaign started at level 7 or higher and I knew I would be able to hit at least level 11, I would definitely consider it. If you're doing a level 20 one-shot, look no farther.

An alternate approach to building this character would swap out Sorcerer for Wizard and go with the Order of Scribes Arcane Tradition. The Awakened Spellbook feature allows you to swap damage types of spells you cast without using a resource like Sorcery Points. However, if you read the feature closely, you will notice that it requires another spell of the same spell slot level that has the damage type you want to change to. This becomes tricky at higher levels because you'll need to be sure to have a spell the deals lightning damage at every spell level. You'll probably also want to cover thunder damage in case of immunities. I think the Sorcerer approach is more reasonable even though it uses a resource because it doesn't require you to fill up your spell list with spells you might never actually use and you can also use higher level Cleric spells using your Charisma for casting. But both builds are viable.

Since the Fizban's Treasury of Dragons book came out, I've been intrigued by the Ashardalon's Stride spell. It's a very unique spell but it's not immediately obvious how to get the most out of it. At first glance, it seems to be a mobility and escape spell with some minor damage added onto it. However, there are some interesting things to notice on closer inspection. First, there is no saving throw for the damage. Anyone adjacent to you as you move (unfortunately, this also applies to allies) just takes the damage. Second, it scales pretty well with higher level spell slots, adding another damage die per level AND more movement speed. Third, the wording of the damage states "A creature or object can take this damage only once during a turn." It's an important distinction that this says "a turn" and not "your turn" or "a round". This means that if you could manage to move during someone else's turn, then you can deal the damage at that time. A final minor point is that this is one of a small number of spells that can target objects. Try not to burn any buildings down... unless you want to.

The goal of this build is to take full advantage of the things that make Ashardalon's Stride unique and build around them. Not only can this create an incredibly effective damage dealer, but one that is nearly impossible to pin down and is amazingly mobile and durable. Also, I recognize that the name of this build is The Lightning Rod and the Ashardalon's Stride spell does fire damage. I'll get to that.

Since we are building around a spell, the first thing we need to look at is which classes have access to that spell. Ashardalon's Stride is available to Rangers, Sorcerers, Wizards, and Artificers. We want to be able to upcast it and have lots of spell slots for other things so that means the main considerations are Sorcerers and Wizards. Honestly, either one is viable here and I will go into further detail on this later. However, I think the better choice is Sorcerer for a few reasons. First, we will want to be able to succeed on our concentration checks so CON save proficiency is a huge bonus. Second, the versatility provided by Metamagic options is incredibly useful in a variety of ways. And third, there are some very nice Sorcerer subclass features that will be quite useful.

We'll want to make sure we stay highly mobile and lean into the speed boost from Ashardalon's Stride since the farther we move, the more enemies we can reach and the greater damage we can do. With that in mind, I suggest choosing Orc as our race. They can Dash as a bonus action proficiency bonus times per long rest which is probably all we'll need. They also have the nice benefit of being able to avoid dropping to zero health once per long rest.

Our primary spellcasting class will be Sorcerer so we will want a very high CHA score. We'll also want decent CON and WIS scores for saves and other things. The starting ability scores that I suggest are:

This starts us off with really good CHA and CON. Unfortunately, our AC will be pretty terrible to start with so play it safe.

We get to pick our Sorcerer subclass at level 1 and there are some good options, but I'd suggest Divine Soul. Divine Soul doesn't get as many spells as Clockwork Soul or Aberrant Mind, but we get Favored by the Gods which is an excellent defensive feature which we will almost certainly need. We also get a spell based on our affinity and I suggest Evil which gives us Inflict Wounds, a decent offensive spell. I prefer this option because the others are either competing for our concentration or giving us a mediocre-at-best healing spell.

For spells, definitely take Shield and Absorb Elements for level 1 spells and Fire Bolt or Mind Sliver for cantrips.

Level 1

For our next couple of levels as Sorcerer we start getting Metamagic features. Level 2 is relatively unremarkable with access to Sorcery Points but no Metamagic. And then at level 3 we get some Metamagic options. We definitely want to pick up Transmuted Spell. It may not come in handy just yet but we don't get to pick another one until level 10 so better to grab it now. Also, Quickened Spell is always useful to squeeze in some more value during a turn.

At level 3, we get 2nd level spells. I'd pick up something offensive since we're very lacking there outside of cantrips. Rime's Binding Ice is fun and could be useful. Unfortunately, it's a CON save but the large area means that if we're up against a mob of enemies, some of them will likely fail. Other good choices would be Vortex Warp, Tasha's Mind Whip or, the classic, Web. Pick whatever feels the most useful for your party.

Levels 2-3

Continuing with levels in Sorcerer, we get an ASI/Feat at 4 and 3rd level spells at 5. Since we have an odd CHA value, it's best to bump this up with a half feat. Probably the best option is Fey Touched (Charisma) and picking up the always useful Misty Step and choosing the (arguably overpowered) Silvery Barbs.

Level 5 is a big deal for this build because we can finally pick up the Ashardalon's Stride spell. It's pretty good right now because it will help us stay out of danger and allow us to deal some decent damage that does not get a save. The damage and movement both scale very well. Other spells I would suggest are Counterspell and Thunder Step.

Ashardalon's Stride is excellent against large numbers of enemies since it can only hit each once per turn. It does spread out your damage but it is incredibly reliable. We can also use our movement to deal damage, use our action to react to an enemy moving near us (or just about anything) and then move again, dealing damage again since Ashardalon's Stride says enemies can take damage only "once during a turn" and this would be on a different turn.

Just be careful about hitting your allies or burning down structures since Ashardalon's Stride does not discriminate against targets.

Levels 4-5

At this point we'll be taking a detour into Cleric. We get some very nice things for this but some are going to take a while. Thankfully, we do get some great stuff right away. We'll be taking the Tempest Domain and they get proficiency in heavy armor. We have too low STR to meet the requirements for any heavy armor. However, the penalty for not meeting those requirements is a reduction of speed by 10 feet. That's pretty insignificant when we have a spell that will more than offset that. It's an especially small price to pay when we can increase our AC from 10 to 20 if we are wearing plate armor and a shield.

We also get Wrath of the Storm which is an OK way to punish enemies for hitting us but we likely won't get a ton of use out of it. Pick whatever Cleric spells fill gaps in your spell list. But remember that anything offensive is going to use your WIS modifier to cast so best to stick with defensive spells.

At level 7 we'll take our second level in Cleric and pick up a truly great ability in Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath. This pairs very well with our Transmuted Spell Metamagic. We can make any spell deal lightning or thunder damage and then just take the maximum damage on that roll. This works best for area of effect spells that only have one damage roll. Thunder Step is an excellent candidate for this because we won't need to use Metamagic and it deals area damage while teleporting us out of danger. It is fantastic to say the least.

Level 6-7

We'll be sticking with Cleric up to level 11. There isn't a whole lot to get excited about on the way there other than higher level spell slots and some defensive or supportive Cleric spells. I don't think any Cleric spells are required but I'll suggest some to consider. Revivify, Motivational Speech, and Aid are all great spells to support your party and keep them alive.

We'll also get an ASI or Feat at Cleric 4. I suggest either Lucky or Resilient (Wisdom). Lucky is more versatile but is more limited use. I'd take Resilient (Wisdom) if you seem to be failing a lot of Wisdom saves.

Finally we reach Cleric 6 and we get the feature we came all this way for: Thunderbolt Strike. Use Transmuted Spell to turn Ashardalon's Stride into lightning damage and suddenly every enemy you run past gets pushed back 10 feet. They don't even get a save. The only limitation is it only works on enemies up to Large size. That will cover most enemies in the game. If you're fighting larger creatures, Ashardalon's Stride is probably not the way to go anyway. This creates some amazing synergy with the rest of your party and your area damage spells because you can force enemies into a tight group and then Thunder Step away, maximizing damage with Destructive Wrath. We also get a second use of Channel Divinity at this level so you can pull off this move twice per short rest.

Levels 8-11

To finish off this build, just go back to Sorcerer to get higher level slots, more Sorcery Points, and eventually permanent flight if you happen to reach level 20.

You'll also pick up a couple ASIs or Feats. Use one to cap your Charisma and the other one to get Resilient (Wisdom) or Lucky (whichever one you didn't already get).

Levels 12+

11th

The Lightning Rod

This build is fantastic at controlling the battlefield and supporting allies as they take down enemies one-by-one. It's very heavily dependent on the Frightened condition, though, so things like undead and dragons will probably require a different approach. Thankfully, you should have plenty of other spells available to cover those bases.

Survivability in encounters where some enemies might be dishing out high levels of damage is a real concern so I highly recommend using some Sorcery Points for Bastion of Law and trying to keep some temporary HP at all times. It shouldn't be too hard between Armor of Agathys and Form of Dread. In fact, against melee attacking enemies, going toe-to-toe and keeping a high level Armor of Agathys could be the right move.

If you're trying to play defensively, moving in and using Dragon Fear then escaping with Misty Step is a solid strategy that should keep you mostly out of danger, especially if some of the enemies fail their save.

Since you'll have really good coverage for Frightened (especially if you picked up Fear), focus spell selection on other conditions or focused damage. Be wary of area-of-effect damage because dealing damage to Dragon Fear-ed enemies will give them more saves. Try to keep them Frightened for as long as possible while you and your party wear down anyone who isn't affected.

Your party will love you as much as your enemies will fear you and try to work on strategies together that synergize.

Conditions in Dungeons and Dragons can be quite powerful when used effectively. The Frightened condition in particular strikes a solid balance of power and ease of use. Anyone affected by this condition has disadvantage on all attacks and ability checks while they can see the source of their fear and can't willingly move closer to it. There are plenty of ways to cause the Frightened condition and its effects can be enough to significantly turn the tides of battle if you can keep it up. The challenge then becomes keeping the Frightened condition active on as many enemies as possible for as long as possible. There is another substantial issue when building around this, or really any, condition. Condition immunities are a real thing and Frightened has plenty of enemies that cannot be affected by it. So you'll need a fallback plan so you can still be effective in those cases where you're fighting undead or similarly unshakeable foes.

We want to lean heavily toward Frightening opponents, but as a strategy, not a crutch. To get this level of flexibility, the best option is to be a full caster. Out of all the casters, there is really only one subclass that reliably can inflict the Frightened condition. That is the Undead patron Warlock. Unfortunately, Warlocks don't get a lot of spell slots and are especially limited with casting at higher levels, but a single level of Warlock is an incredibly low investment for what we're getting. We'll want at least 13 CHA to be able to multiclass Warlock. So we might as well go with a Charisma-based caster. I think there are several reasons to go with Sorcerer over Bard or even just sticking with Warlock. Generally, we will get more spell versatility through Metamagic and additional spells as we level.

There is one other way to cause the Frightened condition that I really want to include in this build and that is the feat Dragon Fear. This is quite strong in a number of ways, but I'll explain that when we get there.

If we want to use the Dragon Fear feat, that means that we have to choose Dragonborn as our race. There are several subrace options to choose from that were released in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. In addition, each subrace has a choice of color of Dragonborn. There are plenty of good options. The one option that is not recommended is the original Dragonborn from the Player's Handbook. That one has a Breath Weapon feature that functions differently and doesn't work well with our build. Ultimately, I would likely choose the Topaz Gem Dragonborn because it has resistance to necrotic damage, which I think is thematically fitting, and gets limited flight at level 5.

Since we will be focusing on CHA-based spellcasting, I suggest these starting ability scores:

This leaves us with a very low AC and not much way to increase it. Dropping WIS in exchange for DEX is an option, but, generally, failing WIS saving throws is much worse than getting hit by attacks or failing DEX saves. We will have plenty of defensive options and if we're causing enemies to be Frightened then they should have a harder time hitting us, but it's certainly something to be aware of. Play safe, especially at the early levels.

Our first level will be in Warlock and our patron will be Undead. This is sort of where this build gets its name and flavor-wise a dracolich would make an excellent patron. Just make sure your party Paladin doesn't find out. The first-level feature, Form of Dread, is excellent and scales quite well with Proficiency Bonus uses per day. It will also be our first method of causing the Frightened condition. When activated, one attack per round has a chance to Frighten an enemy! This is great and we also get some extra survivability on top of it in the form of temporary HP.

As for spells, definitely take the Eldritch Blast cantrip. We can use it to activate our Form of Dread's Frighten effect and it pairs very well since it adds additional attacks as we level, thus allowing more chances to hit if we happen to miss. Armor of Agathys doesn't stack HP with our Form of Dread but it will be a nice way to refresh those temporary HP when they run out and it scales very well. Since we might be getting hit a lot, it actually synergizes well with our low AC. And then I'd probably take Bane because it will help keep enemies from successfully saving against our fear effects.

If you're feeling bold, you can use your Breath Weapon. But be careful, you're a little squishy.

Unfortunately, there isn't much left for us in Warlock. So we're jumping ship and taking levels in Sorcerer now. There are really only two options for subclass here, either Clockwork Soul or Aberrant Mind. Other subclasses get substantially less spells and while I would like to take the Draconic Bloodline, it just doesn't give us much. I would choose Clockwork Soul because the selection of spells is likely better and the abilities are quite defensive. In addition to the spells we get from Clockwork Soul (Alarm and Protection from Evil and Good), we should pick up Shield and Silvery Barbs. They're both going to help us stay alive and we'll probably need them. Keep in mind that we can swap out our Clockwork Spells for any Abjuration or Transmutation spells of the same level. We'll be doing that plenty later.

Restore Balance is also a great feature which we can use either offensively or defensively as needed.

Level 2

Next, we'll be Sorcerer 2 and get Sorcery Points. They're not really useful until next level, though. There's another spell we may want to take at this level, though. There is an oft-overlooked feature of the Frightened condition that can be utilized in combat and that is the disadvantage on ability checks. Generally ability checks aren't common in combat, but some spells require ability checks to overcome. Silent Image is one of these and it is actually really useful (depending on your DM). Targets need to make Investigation checks to determine that this image is an illusion and they'll have disadvantage on these checks if they're Frightened and can see us. They need to see us, though, so maybe making an illusory wall won't work. Check with your DM to see what they'll let you do with this.

At level 4 we will take Sorcerer 3 and get Metamagic. Of course, this changes a lot of things. We'll probably want to be making attacks (likely Eldritch Blast) with our action to trigger our Form of Dread so Quickened Spell will let us cast spells like Silent Image with our Bonus Action. Careful Spell is probably also a good option to protect our allies from some of our area spells. We'll also get 2nd level spells and I would recommend Web or Misty Step. Web also requires an ability check to escape so it gains the same synergies as Silent Image. Misty Step is just a great all-around mobility spell that will absolutely come in useful all the time. It's probably worth taking both of these here and we can do that if we trade Shield for one of them and then swap out Alarm for Shield since it's an Abjuration spell and thus applies for Clockwork Magic. We could have swapped Alarm for Shield last level, but we didn't have any other 1st level spells we really needed.

Levels 3 - 4

Level 5 is a great level for us and it's where this build starts to really come together. We get an ASI or Feat and we'll be picking up the Dragon Fear feat I mentioned earlier. This Feat was somewhat forgettable when it was first introduced, but has since gotten quite a lot better for a few reasons. First, the new Dragonborn variants have more reliable use of their Breath Weapon. Second, they can use it as one of their attacks when they take the Attack action. Third, the newer rules for ability scores at character creation make it easier to create a Dragonborn that works well as a CHA-based character.

Add all of these factors together and it's a very nice Feat. We won't be taking advantage of using it as part of an Attack action in this build but the other points are very nice. At this level, we will have 3 uses of our Breath Weapon per long rest. Depending on your table, that might mean it's usable in every combat but I would imagine at the very least it will be usable in MOST fights. 

One very nice part of the effect from Dragon Fear is that if the target fails the initial save, they are Frightened for an entire minute, 10 rounds, and only get to repeat the save if they take damage. If we can be strategic with our party and placement of your Dragon Fear, we can keep some enemies affected for entire encounters. It's incredible. The +1 CHA is icing on the cake.

On top of that, we get to fly for one minute per long rest. Nice for when we really need to be out of reach or get somewhere important. And we get one new spell. I would suggest Tasha's Mind Whip and probably swap out Silent Image for Phantasmal Force if you're getting some good mileage out of illusions. Tasha's Mind Whip can be absolutely debilitating to our enemies and, when combined with Frightened, pretty much makes most enemies completely useless. It also scales quite well and targets a very weak save for most enemies.

Level 5

Sixth level is where the base of this build ends. We get 3rd level spells and of course we're going to grab Fear. It's a solid spell for any build and perfectly fits our theme. If you already feel like you have enough coverage between your other abilities, I'd probably grab Hypnotic Pattern. It gives us coverage for when enemies are immune to the Frightened condition. There does tend to be some overlap between immunities to these two conditions, but versatility doesn't hurt.

Level 6

That's pretty much all there is to this build and these strategies stay effective against anything that's not immune to being Frightened all the way up to high level content. From here, I would suggest continuing with Sorcerer. At level 7, you'll get Bastion of Law which is a great defensive ability and there are plenty of other reasons to stick with Sorcerer. More Sorcery Points and higher level spells being the most important.

That being said, I could absolutely see going back for another level in Warlock to pick up some Eldritch Invocations. In particular, Misty Visions is quite nice, allowing you to cast Silent Image as often as you like. If your DM has given you a lot of creative freedom with this spell, I would probably go this route and then go back to Sorcerer.

I can't imagine taking any other classes unless you have a very particular build in mind like a College of Swords Bard to become more effective in melee, but that's beyond the focus of this build.

As for ASI / Feats, I'd try to get CHA to 20 and take Resilient (Wisdom) at some point. Beyond that, it's dealer's choice.

Levels 7+

Or how to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies

The Dracolich

Strike fear into the hearts of your enemies


There's some minor considerations here regarding the rules for mounted combat, but I suspect that most DMs will allow you to ride the mount, moving on your turn, and let it take its action right after your turn. I think this is the correct interpretation of how these rules interact. It's how I would rule it and it is how other DMs I've talked to would rule it. So that's how I'm counting it here.

The original inspiration for this build was actually an effort to make creative use of the rather unique spell Dragon's Breath. In the process, though, it sort of evolved into an exercise in economics and rule lawyering.

The Dragon's Breath spell is only available to Wizards and Sorcerers so we're pretty limited in our choice there. Even worse, Dragon's Breath uses a bonus action to cast and a full action to use the actual breath. This is the absolute opposite of action economics because Dragon's Breath is effectively about the same as Burning Hands but a higher spell slot and you can use it on subsequent turns without spending another slot. You also have to maintain concentration. All of these together actually make it a pretty suboptimal spell.

But... if we could somehow use our bonus action to activate Dragon's Breath, we would still have our action for casting spells. Even better, what if we could use Dragon's Breath every round without an action OR bonus action. That would make the spell much more worth using a high level spell slot and our concentration.

There are two ways we could get the most out of this spell (without asking one of our party members to use their action every round). First, we could cast the spell on a familiar. This is amazing if you can pull it off. Familiars cannot take the Attack action, but Dragon's Breath is explicitly not that. Jeremy Crawford has confirmed that familiars can activate Dragon's Breath, as well. Familiars take their own turn in combat, can fly if you want them to (pick the Owl), and commanding them is a free action! Keeping them alive can be tricky against most enemies, though, and if they die, there goes your action economy. I would only use Dragon's Breath on your familiar if you are confident they will not be attacked like if the enemies only have melee attacks and can't fly.

The second and likely more reasonable option, is to cast Dragon's Breath on a pet of some kind and command it with a bonus action. This limits our class options significantly unless we want to delve into MAD (Multiple Ability Dependence) territory. There are no Charisma-based classes that have constant pet companions aside from a Pact of the Chain Warlock and they just get a fancy version of a familiar which is about as easy to kill. I've heard some suggestions that an Imp's invisibility does not break from activating Dragon's Breath. That seems like a generous interpretation of the rules and even if it is true, technically just means your Imp gets attacked with disadvantage and can still only probably take one hit before dying. Technically, the College of Creation Bard does sort of get a pet with their Dancing Item but the Dragon's Breath spell specifies the target must have a mouth so that's probably a no-go unless your DM allows a statue or something to be a valid target. Seems unlikely.

This leaves us with the Intelligence-based classes. Unless your DM is willing to let your Order of Scribes Wizard's Manifest Mind ability to count (I wouldn't), then your only remaining option is the Battle Smith Artificer. There's a few reasons why this causes some issues, but it also opens up some nice opportunities for this build that we wouldn't have with most of the other options. CON save proficiency is going to be huge for keeping Dragon's Breath active and the basic infusions give some nice boosts to AC and attacks. Unfortunately, unless we are planning on taking a lot of Artificer levels, we are going to have a pretty weak companion that may not be much better than a familiar in terms of survivability. It's going to be a problem, but I have a solution, just wait.

OK, so if you're still with me, we are going to start as an Artificer and switch to Wizard once we get our pet. Then we will focus on Wizard to maximize our spell levels for maximum upcasting!

For race, I suggest Custom Lineage. This works really well for us for a few reasons. First, we can boost our Intelligence by 2. We only really care about INT and CON. And our CON doesn't need to be too high for us to maintain concentration for reasons that will become clear. Using point-buy stats, I suggest:

Our Custom Lineage feat will be Fey Touched (INT). This will put our INT at an 18 to start and give us access to Misty Step. More importantly, we can take Dissonant Whispers as a free once per day spell which we can then cast using spell slots. This will be important later. Also, we want to choose to be Small size.

For spells, pick whatever you prefer. Fire Bolt or Shocking Grasp will be our go-to spell in combat for a few levels, depending on where you want to stand. Guidance is great if no one else has it but otherwise take Mending.

At level 2, things start to kick off. Infusions are going to be a big deal for us but since we're only taking a few levels of Artificer, we won't get very many. Enhanced Weapon, Enhanced Defense, Enhanced Arcane Focus, and Mind Sharpener are my choices. You could probably swap out Enhanced Arcane Focus for something else if you need to but it might come in handy at low and high levels. Put Enhanced Arcane Focus on a wand and Enhanced Defense on your shield.

At level 3, we choose our Artificer subclass. We are taking Battle Smith as I've already explained. Just about everything here is perfect for us. Battle Ready allows us to use INT to attack with magic weapons (infused weapons count). Shield is a fantastic survivability spell that will keep us from having to make concentration checks. And we get the Steel Defender that this whole build revolves around. We are small size so we can ride our medium size Steel Defender.

We probably also want to take this opportunity to swap out our attack cantrip for Booming Blade. Swap out Enhanced Arcane Focus for Enhanced Weapon on a longsword or morning star. From now on, we're going to be a front-line fighter. If at some point in the future, you get a magic weapon, drop Mind Sharpener on your armor for free concentration checks.

Now we start taking Wizard levels. At level 4, we want Find Familiar. It's great for its versatility but also in some situations it will be even better than our Defender for Dragon's Breath. Also pick up the Mending cantrip if you don't have it because keeping our Defender healed may already be a problem.

At level 5, our survivability is going to get a boost because we are going to take the School of Abjuration tradition. Shield will activate our Arcane Ward and we'll get a decent pool of HP on top of our own. Oh, and if the damage doesn't break our Ward, we don't have to make a concentration check. Nice!

Level 6 will mark the point where we FINALLY get access to the Dragon's Breath spell. This is a game-changer for a few reasons. At the beginning of combat we can cast this on our Defender (or familiar) and ride them into combat. They can breathe whatever element we want on our enemies and as long as this hits at least 2 targets, the damage is quite nice. And that's only our bonus action. Then we can use whatever spell we want but my favorites are Booming Blade and Dissonant Whispers. It's important to remember that forced movement from Dissonant Whispers DOES cause opportunity attacks. Moving your Defender near an enemy that your ally is fighting and casting Dissonant Whispers on the enemy will trigger opportunity attacks from your Defender and your ally. It's a great way to boost your party's damage and they'll love you for it. You can also use it to try to group up enemies for your Dragon's Breath.

Level 7 is almost as big of a level as 6. You get an ASI/feat here and I can't take War Caster hard enough. This is action economy at its finest. Now when your melee opponent fails to save against Dissonant Whispers, you can attack them with Booming Blade, your Defender (and possibly ally) gets an attack, they have to move away, your Defender can move into range for Dragon's Breath, and they have to decide whether to sit there and take it or move to attack and take damage. This is huge. Really solid damage and control. Alternatively, drop Hold Person on them and stop them in their tracks for some guaranteed critical hits. It's like getting 3 actions on your turn.

Levels 4-7

At this point, the build is basically finished. There's only one other choice to make: How do you want to keep your Defender alive? At this level, their 21 HP is probably becoming a big problem. This is the biggest weakness of the build. Defenders are not very survivable even if you only take Artificer levels. Thy have a built-in heal and can be healed with the Mending spell between fights, but eventually you hit a wall where they're just getting annihilated in one hit. There's only so much that you can do to keep them out of harm's way.

The big question is: When is this adventure going to end? If you're not going to get to level 20 (of course you aren't), then I suggest picking up one last level of Artificer at level 8. This will give the Defender more HP, but more importantly you'll get another ASI/feat and you can take Mounted Combatant. This is why we chose to be small at level 1. This feat allows us to take attacks for the Defender and gives the Defender a chance to take no damage against a lot of spell effects and traps. In rare circumstances we also might get advantage on attacks but that's not going to happen very often with a medium size mount.

If you are certain that eventually this character will be level 20, then it's really difficult to justify missing out on 9th level spells for this. At 6th level Wizard, you can use your Ward to protect your Defender if you have to, but it takes your reaction. This will help, but expect your Defender to die a lot. It just takes a 1st level spell slot to bring them back, but you'll save that casting of Dragon's Breath.

Levels 8+

Or how to get the most bang for your buck

The Mechanist

I can't think of another build with the ability to cripple an enemy's saving throws better than this one. If your goal is to drop some powerhouse spells that will define combat, then this build is going to create some very memorable moments. You can also have some fun out of combat using Unsettling Words and other non-combat abilities like Charm Person. Major Image and Phantasmal Force also have some great utility that pairs nicely with Unsettling Words.

Some things to consider before trying this build:

Your Hound of Ill Omen is not very survivable. Make sure to use it when it's not likely to get taken out quickly by a dragon's breath attack or a Fireball spell.

Your fellow players might feel like you're hogging the spotlight both in and out of combat.

There's a lot of resources and lasting spell effects to keep track of (spell slots, sorcery points, Bardic Inspiration, Mind Sliver, etc.)

While the build doesn't really suffer at any level, the core build comes online rather late for most games.

Some of the most fun spells in the game are what are commonly referred to as "save-or-suck" spells. If you aren't aware, these spells are named as such because when the enemy fails the save against them they are amazing. But if they make the save they suck. Examples of these are Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Suggestion, and Hypnotic Pattern. Many of them remove an enemy from combat altogether for some time and others effectively win combat encounters. The trade-off, of course, is that they don't work all the time.

So what if you could significantly improve the likelihood of these spells succeeding and in many cases almost guarantee it. That is what we are trying to do with The Mind Thief. We want to gain access to some great save-or-suck spells and then boost their chances of shutting down our enemies.

There are actually surprisingly few abilities or spells in the game that hurt the target's ability to succeed on saving throws. They are generally reserved for concentration spells or specific class abilities. Since most save-or-suck spells also require concentration, we are going to have to lean heavily on class abilities and the few non-concentration spells that fit this category.

In terms of non-concentration spells, there are none better than Mind Sliver. It takes an action, but it requires an INT save (generally the worst save for monsters) and it's a cantrip. Plus the effect lasts until the end of your next turn, making it perfect for setting up a spell the following round.

There are a few abilities scattered around multiple classes but here are the highlights: Unsettling Words (College of Eloquence Bard), Hound of Ill Omen (Shadow Magic Sorcerer), and Cosmic Omen (Circle of Stars Druid). Cosmic Omen is nice but requires a 6 level investment for something that will only reduce enemy save rolls 50% of the time. Not to mention it is the only WIS-based caster of the 3 and the other two are CHA-based. So we're better off focusing on the other two classes and trying to get the most out of them. Unsettling Words scales well with Bardic Inspiration dice so that's something to consider, but we get the ability pretty early so we may be better off focusing on Sorcerer to get more high level spells.

A lot of our main spells are going to be concentration-based so we want to get CON save proficiency as soon as possible. There's no easier way than starting as a Sorcerer at level 1. As for race, we want to get our CHA as high as possible to get our spell DC up. The best way to do this is to take Custom Lineage and take a half-feat that will boost CHA. None of the options are essential for the build, but I suggest Fey Touched (CHA) and taking Bane as our level 1 spell. This can potentially help if we have a non-concentration spell that we really want to land or if we need one of our allies' save abilities to land. If that doesn't sound like something that will be useful, take one of the other options instead (maybe Telekinetic or Telepathic, both are very useful).

With our half-feat bonus, we will have 18 CHA at level one. For spells, take Mind Sliver and pretty much anything else you'd like. We won't have any of our save-or-suck spells until level 3 so just try to stay alive until then. Shield is a good option that remains useful forever.

At level 2, we'll get sorcery points. These are very important for our build but right now they can only be used to create spell slots.

Level 3 is where we start to get some fun stuff. First, we get metamagic which can be immensely useful. We only get to pick two out of the many metamagic options but there are two options that are perfect for our build so it's an easy choice. First, Quickened Spell is going to be situationally useful if we want to cast Mind Sliver on the same turn as a save-or-suck spell that costs an action. This will probably happen when the enemy saves against Mind Sliver on the previous round and we have nothing better to do with our bonus action. Second, Heightened Spell is a nice debuff but it is expensive and only lasts for the first save against a spell and only for one target. Probably best to avoid using this on spells that allow multiple saves or have multiple targets.

At level 3 we also get our first powerful save-or-suck spell, Hold Person. If we're fighting humanoids, this is going to be our go-to spell for a long time. Giving your melee allies automatic critical hits against a target is incredibly strong. Unfortunately, it only works against humanoids so if you're fighting anything else, you'll want a backup. Phantasmal force is a fun option. Crown of Madness is fun, too, but also only affects humanoids.

We're goind to stick with Sorcerer all the way to 6. This will give us access to level 3 spells and the subclass feature we're really here for. At level 4, we get an ASI and can boost our CHA to 20. Our save DC is going to be as high as it can get now.

At level 5, we get access to level 3 spells. Our best option here is Hypnotic Pattern. This can be a combat-ending spell if enough enemies fail the save against it. Other great options are Major Image and Slow. These all affect multiple creatures so they won't always work on every target, but you can increase the odds of a single target being affected with Mind Sliver. You can also use Quickened Spell with Mind Sliver to reduce the saves on two different enemies before casting one of these.

Finally, at level 6 we get the feature we came for, Hound of Ill Omen. This allows us to give one enemy target disadvantage on all saving throws against our spells. This includes the initial save and any follow-up saves. It's also only a bonus action and doesn't count as a spell so we can use it on the same turn as a big spell. Unfortunately, the hound is relatively weak and easy to kill otherwise so make the most of it while you have it. It also costs 3 sorcery points which is half of our max. Use it sparingly and only against high threat enemies that you really need to lock down.

Levels 4-6

Now we are going to dip into Bard to get our last essential ability. Along the way, we'll pick up some nice spells to add to our toolkit. At level 7, we get Bardic Inspiration which is nice for boosting our allies if we have nothing better to do with our bonus action. We can also pick up the spells Dissonant Whispers and Tasha's Hideous Laugher. Dissonant Whispers is a really great spell that can give our allies attacks of opportunity and adds some battlefield control. Tasha's Hideous Laughter is a decent save-or-suck spell to remove almost any enemy from combat (it doesn't work if their INT is 4 or lower).

At level 8, we get Jack of All Trades and Song of Rest. They're nice for utility but nothing amazing for this build.

Finally, at level 9 we get our Bardic College and we are going College of Eloquence. The level 3 features for this subclass are amazing. First, Silver Tongue: any Persuasion or Deception roll can't be lower than a 10. Since we're probably the party face, that will come in handy quite often (about 45% of the time). But more importantly, we get Unsettling Words which allows us to use Bardic Inspiration to reduce an enemy's saving throw roll by our Bardic Inspiration die. You should also pick up some nice level 2 spells we didn't already get like Heat Metal and Suggestion.

At this point, we can collectively reduce an enemy's saving throw by 1d4 (Mind Sliver) + 1d6 (Unsettling Words) and give them disadvantage on the roll. With disadvantage, the average roll on a d20 goes from 10.5 to 7.17 effectively reducing the roll by more then 3 on average. Total it together and we get an average of 9.33 penalty to an enemy's save! With our save DC of 17 at level 9, assuming a +4 save (which is generous at this level for most saves) we have an 80% chance of landing our big spell. That's really quite good when you take into account how often this will make combat significantly easier or trivialize it altogether.

Levels 7-9

There's a question we need to answer to determine how we spend the rest of our levels. Do we want to gain access to higher level spells? Or would we rather boost our save reduction capabilities. If we want higher level spells, just take sorcerer levels the rest of the way. Otherwise, increasing our Bardic Inspiration die is the best way to keep our enemies rolling low. There's a middle option of taking two more levels in Bard to get Font of Inspiration and a d8 Inspiration die and then stick to Sorcerer.

I would probably go with Sorcerer from here on out for the higher level spells and sorcery points but make the choice that is right for you.

Levels 10+

The Mind Thief

Normally martial character builds tend to be less complex than caster builds. This one is obviously an exception. Personally, I love martial builds but sometimes they come down to just saying "I'm gonna hit 'em" on our turn. This build is not going to have that problem. We have a wealth of options on how to use every part of our turn and depending on the combat scenario will always have something fun to do. This build is not going to be topping the damage for our party, but we will be a fantastic tank and will be great at locking down high priority targets. There are some fun, important things to remember though:

One final note regarding enemy Athletics checks. You may think that it will be difficult to grapple an Ancient Dragon. But no Ancient Dragon nor Tiamat are proficient in Athletics or Acrobatics and have no more than a +10 bonus to the check. You will have advantage and a +12 or +13 to the check by the time you can become Huge. You will have a much better chance of successfully grappling and shoving them than failing.


Grappling in 5e has always been a fascinating subject for me. Rushing into combat with no weapons in hand and locking down a strong opponent while your allies mop up the other enemies or help defeat the big bad sounds so fun. But mechanically it's a little more complex than grabbing a sword and shield and swinging away. So if I'm going to play a grappler, I want to do it right. I want to make sure I'm an effective member of my team while taking an unorthodox approach to combat. There are a few hurdles to overcome:

How can we boost our chances of successfully grappling?

What can we do while grappling that is more useful than just keeping an enemy in place?

Once we have a target grappled, how can we keep them from kicking our butt?

Since we can only grapple enemies that are one size larger than us, how can we increase our size to effectively grapple anything?

These are some tough questions to answer and until recently some of them didn't have great answers. But newer official content has given us everything we need to create an interesting and fun grappler that is going to be a useful part of any adventuring party.



There's some tough questions that we need to answer at character creation, but some things are obvious. We need a high Athletics score because that is what you roll to grapple. We are going to need a high AC and high HP so we don't end up being the target of the enemy just to immediately go down. We want to plan ahead and figure out how we're going to grow in size to allow us to grapple bigger enemies.

The easiest way to increase AC is to be proficient in heavier armor and the easiest way to increase HP is to play a class with a high hit die. Both of these problems are best addressed by starting as a Fighter. It's also great that the Rune Knight Fighter subclass allows us to grow to Large size (this detail is important) a number of times equal to our proficiency bonus per long rest. Athletics is also a class skill and while we are Large we have advantage on Athletics checks. This ticks almost all of our boxes. Being Large is great, but we technically need to be Huge to grapple Gargantuan creatures. We can solve that problem later, though.

The only remaining question is: What can we do once we have a target grappled? We can pummel someone with our fists, head, knees, or a weapon if we have a spare hand. But that's not incredibly interesting. We can do that without grappling.

Shoving a grappled enemy to the ground is great because prone creatures attack with disadvantage and attacks against them from 5 ft. away are made with advantage. Creatures can stand up from prone using half their movement but since they're grappled, their movement speed is 0. This means they can either make attacks with disadvantage or spend their action to try to escape the grapple and stand up. Both of these are great for us. However, attacks against prone enemies from further than 5 ft. are made with disadvantage. This means the shove strategy is really good for the melee fighters in your party but bad for anyone attacking from range. It's a fantastic option but we'll need to think before we use it.

A fun part of grappling is that we can drag creatures with us while we move. So one option is to move them into some dangerous area if there happens to be one. But why only think in two dimensions? What if we could fly? Then we could carry a grappled creature into the sky and then, assuming they can't also fly, they will just fall if they happen to escape our grapple (or if we drop them). Fall damage doesn't come up a lot in D&D but in short it is 1d6 for every 10 feet up to a maximum of 20d6 at 200 feet.

Flying races are pretty sparse so we are short on options if that is our goal. Even rarer are races that can fly while wearing anything more than light armor. Some races have once per long rest abilities that apply, but it would be great if we could fly all the time. There's really only one race that fits that bill: The Winged Variant Tiefling. As long as they aren't wearing heavy armor, they have a flying speed of 30 ft. We also get resistance to fire damage (the most common elemental damage in the game) as a nice bonus.

If you're fine with not flying most of the time, two great options are the Gem Dragonborn and the Protector Aasimar. Gem Dragonborn get a breath weapon, resistance to one of the more difficult resistances to obtain in the game, psychic party communication, and at level 5 they can fly once per long rest for 1 minute. Protector Aasimar get two resistances and a similar flight at level 3 that gives a minor damage boost. There are no limitations on this so it opens the possibility of heavy armor. I prefer to have flying always available but you do you.

So with that, we're ready to start our build.

As I explained above, we're going to start as a Winged Variant Tiefling Fighter. Obviously, our primary stats are going to be STR and CON to maximize our Athletics and survivability. We should keep in mind, though, that we are going to be wearing medium armor so DEX is still useful for boosting our AC. Nothing else really matters for us but we are going to also need at least 13 CHA for a reason that will become apparent later. These are my suggested starting stats:

We're putting our racial stat bonuses into STR and CON. Our CON is a little lower than I'd like but we will address that later on. At Fighter level 1, make sure to get proficiency in Athletics and the Unarmed Fighting Style. We will almost never need to use a weapon on this character because 1d6 (1d8 if we aren't using a shield) unarmed damage is decent, but if you would rather use a shield and longsword for the first few levels, you can take the Dueling Fighting Style and swap it for Unarmed Fighting at level 4 (assuming your DM allows the optional rule for this).

Level 2 is a good level because we get Action Surge (which is incredible) but not really anything else.

At level 3, as so often happens, we get some awesome stuff. First, we can choose our Martial Archetype which is going to be Rune Knight. With this we get a few things:

First, we get some bonus proficiencies which are nice but very situational.

Second, we get the Rune Carver feature and we get to pick two runes that we can carve onto our equipment. The Cloud Rune is amazing and pretty much never stops being amazing. Redirecting enemy attacks to other enemies is hilarious and useful. Our second rune is a little less obvious. The Fire Rune may seem tempting until you notice that it can only be triggered by an "attack using a weapon". The Frost Rune does give a nice +2 bonus to Strength checks which includes Athletics. It's not a bad choice but it takes a bonus action to activate and we probably will have better things to do with that. The Stone Rune is probably the best remaining option. We can activate it as a reaction and potentially charm and incapacitate a creature. Mildly useful but probably more useful than the other options.

Finally, and most importantly, we get Giant's Might. This allows us to become Large size (amazing), have advantage on Strength checks and saving throws (awesome), and deal an extra 1d6 with an attack every turn (nice bonus). Right now we can only do this two times per long rest so using it every fight might not work so keep that in mind.

We now have advantage on grapples and can grapple up to Huge creatures while Giant's Might is active. Our grapple check is good but is about to get a lot better. Keep in mind that while grappling, you can drag creatures at half your move speed unless they are two or more sizes smaller than you. Small creatures can get carried 60 ft. into the air if you dash. 90 ft. if you dash twice using Action Surge. You're probably better off just pummeling them while you fly higher and higher until you decide to drop them. Keep in mind that if you're only grappling one creature, you can keep your shield up for the AC bonus.

At level 4, we get our first ASI and we are going to take the half-feat Skill Expert and increase our STR by one, putting it up to 18. Obviously, the skill we want expertise in is Athletics. Choose any skill you want for the new proficiency. This should significantly boost the odds of us starting and maintaining a grapple.

At level 5, we get Extra Attack and now we can grapple two targets on the same turn without using Action Surge. Or just grapple one and hit them once or even shove them to the ground. Either way, it's great.

We get another ASI at 6 and it's tempting to max out our STR but I doubt most enemies will be escaping our grapples at this point so I think we're better off increasing our survivability. I suggest we take the feat Infernal Constitution, gaining +1 CON, resistance to cold and poison, and advantage against being poisoned. It's not a huge help unless we're dealing with cold or poison, but this is a decent time to pick it up. And now we resist 3 types of common elemental damage.

Level 7 is a really great level. We get Runic Shield which allows us to use a reaction to force allies or enemies to reroll d20's. It's great support or defense, however you want to use it. We also get one more rune from the Rune Carver feature and get access to two runes that weren't available before level 7. These are both runes we want so we can swap out our mediocre Stone Rune for one of them and get the other one as our new rune.

The Hill Rune gives us resistance to poison and advantage on saves against poison (this is unfortunately worthless since we picked up Infernal Constitution) and we can activate it to get resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. When this is active, we have resistance to three common elemental damage types and the three most common damage types in the game. Between this and our d10 hit die and decent CON, we can take a lot of hits.

The Storm Rune is bafflingly strong. When active, we can use our reaction to add advantage or disadvantage to any roll within 60 feet. Amazing for offense or defense. There's some overlap between this and Runic Shield but they're both limited use so you should have one of them available most of the time.

Here's where we take a turn. The reason why we wanted at least a 13 in CHA at level 1 was so that we could start taking levels in Sorcerer right now. Somewhere in this level range, you should take one more level in Fighter to get another ASI and cap out your STR at 20 probably. Decide whatever level is best for you. However, level 3 Sorcerer is going to allow us to grapple ancient dragons and other gargantuan creatures. So think about whether that is likely to happen soon. I expect between advantage and expertise in Athletics, we're still probably fine on our grapple checks so I'd probably delay capping STR.

Anyway, so at level 8 we are taking our first level of Sorcerer and our Sorcerous Origin will be Divine Soul. For the Divine Magic feature, choose Law affinity. It's sort of a strange concept... a Tiefling having a divine spark inside of them and having an affinity for lawfulness. But evil gods are still gods and some of them are Lawful Evil including Tiamat and Surtur (who fits well with this character because they are the god of fire giants). Also Tieflings can be any alignment (but dropping people from the sky seems delightfully evil). So don't @ me! With Law affinity we get Bless because who doesn't want Bless? We probably will only use it very rarely, but it could be nice when we need it.

We also get the Favored by the Gods feature at Sorcerer level 1. When you really need it, this can add 2d4 to a failed attack or saving throw. It's once per short rest so we can use it quite often. Grapple attacks and shoves are technically special attacks but do not involve an attack roll so unfortunately they are not eligible for this bonus. The best way to use this is probably for saving throws since our INT and WIS are quite low and there are some very nasty spells with those saving throws. This is also useful if you are about to fail a concentration check since that is technically a CON save.

For spells, we want to keep in mind that both of our hands will often be busy so using them to cast spells will often be difficult. That means that anything requiring any more than Verbal components should be scrutinized heavily. The one exception to this is the Create Bonfire cantrip. This is a rarely used spell but if you can control where your enemy moves, it becomes significantly more useful. While grappling an enemy (with only one hand because we need one free to cast this) cast it underneath them engulfing them in flame. They get a save for half damage. But we can drag them out and back into the fire forcing the save again once per turn. Then, during their turn, they can either use their action to try to escape our grapple (and probably fail) or attack us and not move. Even better if they're prone from being shoved. If they end their turn inside the bonfire, they take damage again. We get some great mileage every round out of 20 ft. of movement, pulling them out of the fire and pushing them back in. It doesn't even take an action. It does require our concentration, though, so we'll have to decide whether another concentration spell (like Bless or later on Enlarge/Reduce) is more useful based on the situation.

One additional consideration is Absorb Elements. It requires a free hand so it will be situational but potentially invaluable in certain scenarios. If we are grappling a single powerful enemy that deals lightning, thunder, or acid damage we will be glad to have this. Otherwise, it's not likely to get much use.

At level 9 we take our second level of Sorcerer and get sorcery points. We can turn them into spell slots and that's useful, I guess.

At level 10 (Sorcerer 3) we get metamagic. Our sorcery points will be quite limited, but I'd probably take Quickened Spell and Subtle Spell. Subtle spell in particular will be useful for casting spells that require Somatic components if both our hands are full. Quickened Spell takes 2 sorcery points so we should only use it if it is absolutely necessary.

At Sorcerer level 3 we also get second level spells. This is huge for us, pun intended. We can cast Enlarge/Reduce after we use Giant's Might to become Huge. It's weird but we have to cast it AFTER using Giant's Might because Giant's Might specifically states that your size becomes Large and Enlarge/Reduce allows you to grow one size. Being Huge allows us to grapple any creature in the game including ancient dragons! Of course, that's going to put a massive target on our back so be ready for the follow-up. Casting Shield with Subtle Spell is going to be a life-saver in these scenarios. Rules-as-written, you might not be able to gain the 1d4 extra damage with unarmed strikes... but I can't imagine a DM saying bigger fists don't hurt more.

Levels 11 and 12 are reserved here to reach level 8 Fighter and level 4 Sorcerer to pick up ASIs. We should use one to cap our STR and the other to even out our CON and CHA. If it feels like survivability is an issue, you could take the Tough feat but I think boosting CON and CHA gives us a bit more usefulness. If you feel like you're failing a lot of WIS saving throws, definitely pick up Resilient (Wisdom) because a bad WIS save can be the difference between a victory and a total party kill. These ASIs can be picked up anywhere in this level range but it's hard to put off level 3 Sorcerer any longer.

Levels 8-12

If we're still playing at this point, we have a few interesting options. Taking more Sorcerer levels will give higher level spells, more spell slots, and more sorcery points. Taking a few more fighter levels will give us the often coveted Extra (Extra) Attack for three attacks per action. And there are some other classes we could pick up that give us nice benefits as well. Rogue, in particular, has some good options. The Soulknife subclass allows you to use your pool of psionic dice to boost your (rarely) failed Athletics checks. The Scout subclass lets you use your reaction to move so you can either move higher into the sky or move enemies into and out of your bonfire triggering damage. Keep in mind, though, that you'll never get Sneak Attack damage because it requires a finesse or ranged weapon and unarmed attacks don't count.

If I were playing this character, I would probably get 3 more levels in Fighter to get an additional attack and then take more Sorcerer levels to get sorcery points. At level 5 Sorcerer, there is an optional rule called Magical Guidance that allows you to use one sorcery point to reroll a failed skill check. Most games don't go to level 17 but it would be nice if you want to grapple and shove Tiamat prone. Watch out for that acid and lightning damage, though.

Select a build