The Devil's Grasp

Character Concept

Level 1

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:

• STR: 15 (+2)
• DEX: 14
• CON: 13 (+1)
• INT: 8
• WIS: 9
• CHA: 13

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).

Levels 2-3

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.

Levels 4-7

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.

Levels 8-12

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 13+

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.

Analysis

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:

1. Be wary about flying with grappled targets. They can grapple you back reducing your movement to 0 and causing you to plummet out of the sky.

2. Falling on an enemy splits the damage between you. (e.g. falling 20 ft. on top of an enemy causes 1d6 damage to you and 3d6 damage to the enemy).

3. Because of 1 and 2, you should fly ABOVE your enemy while you carry them in case you are grappled or otherwise forced to fall.

4. You can choose to stop flying and fall on purpose, essentially performing the ultimate suplex. Be prepared to take damage (but falling causes bludgeoning damage so if you have Hill Rune active it will be halved).

5. At some point, your DM will mention carrying capacity. You can drag 30 times your STR score (600 lbs at 20 STR). This amount is doubled each time you increase in size (1200 lbs at Large, 2400 lbs at Huge). This probably means you won't be able to drag creatures larger than you but should work in most other cases. If you can't drag, shove.

6. Suplexing flying enemies to the ground is a great way to support your melee allies.

7. Your fist attacks (unless you have some magic item) are non-magical and will do half or no damage against some enemies. Similarly, some enemies are immune to the Grappled or Prone conditions. In these cases, it's a good idea to keep a magic sword in your backpack.

8. A fun but often underutilized rule is that standing behind another creature provides half cover. Being Huge means that it's very easy for your entire party to stand behind you. Free +2 to AC and DEX saves for all!

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.