Drakewarden Conclave (Ranger) Build Guide in D&D 5e - HDIWDT

what is up vill nerds and welcome back to the Dapper Snapper gaming channel and welcome back to how do I want to do this this is our Series where we take a look at all playable options available to players in Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition then we rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 and either build them or fix them depending on how they rank now today we finish up not only our talks on the Drake Warden Ranger but also just the ranger in general and while this class was a little bit shorter of a discussion than most of the others I think it is still very much worth talking about and worth mentioning I know that there are a lot of Ranger fans out there and a lot of Drake warten fans specifically there has been a really great response to uh just the subclass ranking video so I really appreciate all of you for for doing that uh it's been it's been really awesome getting a lot more interaction and that kind of thing so thank you all so much for that but today we're going to be building one and I am excited to show you what I have come up with today one of the more simple builds that I have done but still nonetheless going to be a lot of fun so I I am excited to show you that before we do that though make sure to leave a like on the video and subscribe if you haven't already as you can see most people who watch the channel are not subscribed so please don't be one of those people help us to reach our goal of what is now 3600 by the end of this year I think we can do it we got a couple weeks left but we can do it I just need your help in order to get there so make sure to share the video with your friends and click the Bell so you're notified when new videos are uploaded another great way to support the channel of course would be to become a member by clicking that join button down below you can become a member and just at the lowest tier you can become a member and get access to all of my build writeups so just today's is going to be up there of course all of my previous are going to be up there as well as well as all of my variety builds subass builds you name it it's there all my subass fixes there there everything's there so make sure to check that out of course and there's also the silver and gold tiers as well if you would like to support a little bit more and there are some even better perks on there as well so make sure to consider that one last little little announcement before I get started sorry I know this is taking forever but this is the last time that I will be in this office um we are moving it is it is happening and so come next time that we post on the channel I will be in a different office space so I thank you so much for your support as I have lived here it's been a few years but uh we are moving on and getting a new office space to record and make videos with so in that time we we don't move really until the middle of of January and so I was hoping to start videos back at the beginning of January but the closing is a little bit later and so we won't be posting any videos probably for about a month maybe a month and a half uh not because I don't want to but because the computer will not be set up and I might not have internet so uh I will not be posting really anything until then um unpl season 4 will be starting somewhat soon um I'm not sure how my recording schedule is going to go with that probably no face cam for a while uh and I'm probably going to be hotspotting my uh switch with my phone and that kind of thing it it just it's going to be rough for a few weeks uh but I thank you all so much for your patience but as soon as I can start posting again we will be starting with Rogue and we will be going from there so thank you all for your patience let's jump in so the Drake Warden right one of the community's favorite sub classes whether you rank it highly or not I did find this to be quite polarizing um I saw a lot of people saying this is a 10 out of 10 out of 10 and there are others that's like an a six at best right so I think a lot of people have differing opinions on this subass um do I stand by my nine yeah I I do I I but I can also see the arguments for it for it being different just because of how it does choose to buff your your animal companion or your dragon companion rather over you right I can see that but I think that when you think about this from a team building perspective in that you aren't necessarily just in it for yourself you are there as a team member I think that this offers a lot of really good stuff and so I think it's really cool so today I'm going to be building something different from what I've done in my entire Ranger series I haven't built a strength-based ranger at all so far and so I wanted to go ahead and jump back and actually do that for you today I think that this is the perfect time to do so and so we're going to be building a strength-based mounted uh Ranger because we of course can ride our ride our Dragon so we are going to do just that so let's see what I've got in store for today so starting off as always we have our race and we are going to be taking something I haven't taken in a really long time uh I love this race I think you all love this race and thematically it is questionable uh but I think it's going to be a lot of fun we're going with Cobalt today we are a little dragon who's going to have a pet dragon that is going to end up being much much larger than us by the end of this build uh this is a lot of fun being a dragon that has a dragon pet uh I I just I don't know thematically it's interesting it's it's questionable I guess um but mechanically it works pretty decently I I really like this thing especially because of the draconic Cry draconic Cry of course is a nice little bonus action that you can take yes you're taking a break from from giving uh an attack or or a command even to your dragon but it's kind of worth it because then every Ally including the Dragon will get advantage on future attacks which is really good uh and that's really the main the main draw for this it's it's not just for you but it's also for your dragon and so this makes your dragon that much more useful right we also get draconic sorcery here which gives us a free cantrip and we're going to take booming blade because why would we not booming blade is such a nice cantrip and of course we get to use wisdom instead of what it would normally be and so that's really cool as well I love that spell I think it works really well here and uh it's just going to get better as we go next up of course we have our stats and of course if you're using regular standard array Point by some other system whatever it happens to be your stats will probably look different than mine and that's totally fine just go in the order that I go from highest to lowest and just match up accordingly so for our top stat we're going to go with our strength like I said we're going to be strength based this time around next up is going to be wisdom for all those spells spell save DC all that good stuff we'll we'll get to why that's important later next dexterity because we have to have a 13 in dexterity in order to be a ranger then Constitution I hate having it so low but just kind of how it worked out then Charisma intelligence doesn't matter it can be really whatever you want for the new rules in the morn kindan presents Monsters of the Multiverse whatever uh you get a plus two and a plus one or three plus 1es I'm going to go with the plus two plus one option this time around just because of some things I'm going to mess around with a little bit later so I'm going to leave a couple of odd numbers and then and then Shore those up as we go so that's going to give me a 19 strength and a 14 dexterity I'm going to leave wisdom odd for now and uh we'll we'll fix that a little bit later I want that plus two to dexterity for now because with our equipment we're going to be taking medium armor I know we normally take the the light armor option because normally it's better but we're going to be working ourselves up and and using a little bit of heavier armor this time around because our dexterity isn't as good um I would also grab a long long sword or other weapon that has The Versatile property I I like versatile weapons in this case um we're going to be melee because we're going to be mounted and one thing about this build is that this subass really works both ranged and melee and so it it really can work both ways if you'd rather go Dex and and do the bow and that kind of thing more power to you I just wanted to give a strength based option cuz I really hadn't done that in my series and I wanted to make sure that I did it at least once and of course if you want a shield you can use it it's completely optional there's nothing about this build that specifically needs a shield um so if you want it or or if you want to do it sometimes when you're doing sematic components on spells you can put it away that's fine it's really whatever you want to do so it's really up to you so let's actually start taking some levels and at level one we're going to be a ranger now listen I know that I have a tendency a lot and I get comments about this a lot of saying you know this is a ranger build and then I go with something different or or even I'll go you know this is a a specific subass and I'll go 11 levels and then divert for the other I get it I understand but listen this subass mechanically speaking it's tough because mechanically speaking it's kind of okay to split off at level 11 but at the same time if I'm going to be basically the the main character of How to Train Your Dragon I want to have my big boy dragon so I need to take at least 15 levels to make this subass worth it and I need those to be the first 15 levels because I want that before I can do anything else I want my big boy large Dragon before I do anything else so my first 15 levels are locked in at Ranger I don't care last five we'll talk about it but so that's what we're going to do the first 15 levels are Ranger and and there's there's no alternative at least for me you can let me know in the comments below how you would do your first 15 levels but uh this is how I would do it personally so Ranger one we of course get favored Foe and de explore which gives us canny at this level like I always say favored foe is bad canny is really good just take a skill that you are already proficient in and make it even better uh stealth might be an option for you just because you're clanking around on the armor so that may uh may help you there in in kind of negating that but you're welcome to do whatever it is you want to do level two we are still Ranger and we are going to get a fighting style now I'll give you two options here it's really whatever you want um dueling is one option of course this is going to only work when you're using AAP weapon in one hand so got to be careful with that um of course because we are a Cobalt we are small so we can't take any two-handed or we can't take any heavy weapons rather uh or else we are just shooting ourselves in the foot there um so we really are going to want to use a weapon that we can use in one hand I like versatile because you can hold it with two hands if you want to but then you lose out on dueling but mathematically they're pretty close so it's really up to you if you want to take that or not um the alternative is the defense fighting style defense is never a bad option so if you don't want to bother with the dueling and worrying about whether or not you get the plus two to damage just take defense it's easy plus one AC not an issue there next up of course we get spell casting and we get the classics of absorb elements cure wounds Hunter's Mark searing Smite I normally don't recommend searing Smite but you know we're a Melee character you might as well at least think about it in most cases though our bonus action is going to be accounted for after we set up Hunter's Mark then we're pretty much just going to be telling our Dragon to do its thing so you probably won't be using searing spite all that much just wanted to mention it if for some reason your dragon is down at the time and and you would rather use a first level spell slot on this I'd probably use your first level spell on getting your dragon back but that's just me so it's really up to you uh but then at third level we get Primal awareness we of course get our draconic gift and our Drake companion which is great now I want to talk a little bit about the Drake companion because I didn't mention this on Tuesday but I wanted to mention it now it is a first level spell slot to bring this thing back right it's also a first level spell slot to cast cure wounds those are not equal amounts of HP um so the way that I would play this is I would pretty much never heal your Drake companion I would rather let it die and use the first level spell slot to get it back at full health rather than using cure wounds to top it off right it has its own hit dice so if you take a short rest it can heal itself so I would rather do that if you've got a Bard then you've got song of rest in there helping out like I I wouldn't really worry about healing it I would just let it die and bring it back so that's just me you know if you if you feel differently let me know but I I don't know I just don't think it's as worth it but that's just me whatever at Ranger 4 we of course get our first ASI or feet and we are going to go with the slasher feet this of course is going to boost our strength and of course we get a bonus to our crits with slashing weapons we can reduce people's speed which is great especially once we start riding our Dragon we're going to have that 40ft speed effectively and that's really really nice uh so we can really catch about anything especially if we reducing speed uh sometimes even if they Dash which is really cool so love that Ranger five extra attack always a great thing and second level spells I would take things like Aid enhance ability lesser restoration pass without Trace that's a big one because of course we're clanking around all the time and even summon Beast for a secondary summon that you've got out uh that can definitely be nice for having even more friends on the battlefield Ranger six we of course get de explore which gives us roving at this level that gives us a bonus to our movement speed which we probably aren't going to be using all that much because at level seven we get Bond of fang and scale and this is what allows us to ride our Dragon it is now a medium-sized creature which we could have rode anyway because of how the rules work in this subass but it's fine we can ride it now because it is a medium size this also of course boosts damage gives us a resistance it's really nice it gives us a lot of really nice features in there uh so that's really cool at Ranger 8 we get one other ASI or feat here just in time for us to be riding around our Dragon we can now take mounted combatant now I will admit mounted combatant is not as good on this build as it would be normally normally mounts are size large at this time right you're to looking at a warhorse or maybe even an axe beak or something like that uh you're you're looking at things that are typically large so that medium-sized creatures can ride them right this is a medium-sized creature so the advantage that you would get out of mounted combatant is only going to work if something is small or tiny so it is a little restrictive in that way where a normal Mount would be large and this isn't going to be fixed until we get perfected Bond at level 15 so just know yes it's not as good as normal but the ability to change the targeting and basically giving evasion on the deck saves that's still worth it to me and so that's why I went with it this way um if you'd rather do something else by all means I totally understand but that is what we are going to do despite the drawbacks that are associated Ranger N9 we don't get any features but we do get third level spells and a shardon stride right we got to take a shardon stride because it is Dragon based and it is a really nice movement option uh I love this spell it it's I think it's a lot of people's favorite ever since it came out um I I don't see a reason why we wouldn't take it revivify and then summon Fay there's another summon spell again having extra things on the field are always going to be nice and summon Fay has is a really potent uh helper for you in combat Ranger 10 we get another feature with Deft explore and that is tireless which helps with like exhaustion and that kind of thing it'll come up every now and then uh but nothing too crazy then Nature's Veil gives us some limited invisibility not too bad I like it it's pretty decent it's not going to make a huge difference when you know we're on our Dragon people are going to be able to figure out exactly where we are if we're sitting on our Dragon but it can be useful for sure as long as your dragon is uh not causing a huge uh amount of noise or distraction and that kind of thing at level 11 we are going to get Drake's breath and this is pretty cool gives us the ability to spit that 30 foot cone either from us or from our Dragon so if you're on your dragon that's great if you're split apart you can fire it from either spot which is pretty cool uh it deals a lot of damage it's a fireball pretty much um so you know it it is late for us to be getting it at level 11 but I mean you know it is what it is we got third level spells two levels earlier um so yeah but you know it does get buffed at level 15 though to where it does 10 D6 which makes it even more worth a third level spell slot if we need to do it again so don't be shy with using this feature it's pretty good damage uh and of course choosing whichever damage type you want that makes it even more useful at Ranger 12 we get one more ASI or feat here and I'm going to go with Fay touched this not only is going to buff up our wisdom to get that off of an odd number but it also gives us Misty step which a is is a great get out of jail free card if we need it if we get stuck with a Melee character that we can't handle um then that allows us to get out of there and we also of course silvery barbs gets put to on our list and uh yeah you knew that I had to do that it's it's just too good it's too good not to I got to put silvery barbs on here it's just an amazing spell is it broken maybe but I still like it and so as long as it's allowed at your table I would take it at Ranger 13 we get no features but we do get four level spells I would take things like dominate Beast freedom of movement and another summon spell summon Elemental uh is it flavorful not really but having a a feature that gives you another companion is always going to be a good thing just like at each of our previous spell levels so if you want it take it if you don't like it that's fine it's really whatever you want to do there Ranger 14 we get vanish it's it's fine R Rogues have been doing this since level two so eh who cares then Ranger 15 Prof Ed Bond we finally got the big boy the biggest of dragons at size large there um of course boosting our damage that we're dealing as well uh just a really cool feature it's really cool what you can do with this and of course now you can say that you did learn how to train your dragon Your Dragon is now fully trained which is really cool so at this point we of course have a few ways that we can go we can go straight to 20 in Ranger and that makes complete sense to me I get it but mechanically speaking I don't feel the the late game features of Ranger are really all that gamechanging especially for this subass and so I think it'd be worth it to actually multiclass at this point of course 95% of people who play this game are never going to get to this point so this is completely irrelevant for most people but of course I'm here to give the theoretical character that makes it to level 20 if you ever do a level 20 one shot which I don't recommend but if you want to go for it you know uh this gives you a way to you know have have a completed build so by all means go for it we're going to take a cleric dip here and by dip I mean the rest of the way uh cleric is a really nice complimentary uh class here of course there are others and we'll talk about that here in a little bit um but this this works really well and there are several sub classes that work nicely here of course at level one we're going to have to pick which one we want and I'm going to go with the Twilight cleric thematically it it's may it might be a little difficult to to justify it but mechanically speaking it works really well so you could come up with some kind of story about why the Twilight cleric uh works really well with this let me know down below but we get spellcasting and uh this gives us things like the guidance cantrip spare the dying toll the dead which is a really great cantrip because that scales on our overall level so that's dealing some massive damage which is huge uh and of course we get things like fairy fire and sleep for free we can take bless healing word inflict wounds all that good stuff that's really really cool we also get some bonus proficiencies now so we can actually wear heavy armor at this point which is really cool I would definitely do that uh so at this point I would get the best heavy armor that you possibly can now that you're level 16 hopefully you are rich and famous and you can get some amazing armor so do that uh we get eyes of KN which is just amazing dark vision which we can share with our Dragon which is great and Vigilant blessing which is really cool so we now get Advan AG on our initiative roles because our dexterity isn't that great so this helps it out a lot which is really really nice at cleric 2 we of course get channel Divinity which gives us three options turn Undead eh you're probably not using that at this level like ever because the C is too low uh but harness divine power and Twilight Sanctuary are both great so either one of those is fine if you don't know what either of those do up in the iard above I will put my Twilight cleric video for you to check out it's an awesome subass and this feature is of course really really good very much worth your channel Divinity usage at cleric 3 we don't get any features but we get second level spells we get Moonbeam and C invisibility for free eh I probably wouldn't really use those uh but hold person that's not bad hold person is pretty nice because then you can hold uh your person in place if you are fighting a humanoid and then your dragon can go nuts so that's pretty cool cleric 4 we of course get one more ASI feat our last one for the build I'd probably just bump my wisdom here I would just make sure that that spell casting modifier is as high as possible so that's probably what I would do there are plenty of other options which we'll talk about in the honorable mentions and finally level 20 cleric 5 no features but we do get third level spells and this is really cool we get some really good stuff Ora Vitality not bad and we also get Liam's tiny Hut also not bad hopefully your wizard has had that since level five but if not then here at level 20 you can make your little your little Hut and and do your thing uh but we also get things like Mass healing word and then then either Spirit guardians or Spirit shroud both of those I really like for this Melee character and so I think it works really well as a Capstone to get something like that which of course we can upcast if we want to which is a really cool way to end it off so what do you think of this build let me know down below I really like it because you get a dragon companion what's cooler than that right that's that's just so fun and you get to ride it into battle and just smack people with a sword or whatever weapon you happen to choose uh it's it's a lot of fun I really really like this so let's take a look at some honorable mentions that I have here as far as other classes that I would consider going into or sub classes in this first one uh peace cleric peace cleric is insanely good I would probably only take the one level and then maybe go with like Rog after that uh but this thing is really really good because you get your balm of peace right this allows you to basically have bless on steroids for creatures around you and of course you and your Dragon are going to be two of them and that is just really really great right that that little D4 makes a huge difference at all levels it makes a huge difference and so I absolutely love that we also have things like the ascendant Dragon monk I I don't know I think it's fun to have both the dragon sub classes together all the multiclassing lines up as far as have what stats you need to have at certain numbers all of it's really cool so thematically it's cool and mechanically it works just a really cool option there definitely consider that as far as Feats go I really like the piercer Crusher slasher combo there right so I would take one of the other two if I wasn't taking a slashing weapon all of them are nice here you know Crusher is great for being able to push people back um so that's never going to be one that I'm going to you know not consider I really like it of course warcaster is another great one just for the sematic components alone at that point I definitely would take a shield um it also allows us to use the booming blade on opportunity attacks which I definitely would use at higher levels um so that's a really great option I wanted to fit that in and definitely it could go there at cleric 4 if you wanted to um but I don't know it's it's really up to you on that one and finally for other races to be honest with you there's not really a specific race that's like the best here right the aladon of course comes to mind but I like the aladon just a ton anyway it's one of my favorite races um just just the seasonal type of of thing is really cool you can change your dragon to like match the season that you're in which I think could be really interesting of course this this build would love Elven accuracy and that kind of thing as well if you want to do something with a bow uh there there's plenty of options there as far as what's viable I also would consider something like a centaur one because it's funny two because it actually mechanically isn't bad the Centaur is a really cool race um and it's underutilized just because it's kind of weird um but it's interesting and I I kind of like it so there's also the Sader which again is one that a lot of people kind of tend to ignore especially on like a ranger type of thing most people go with that for like a Bard that kind of thing which makes sense but I think the Sader actually could work here pretty decently so definitely consider that so let me know what you thought down below of course we're taking a break after this it will be a while before I post any more videos at least D andd related I'm going to try to get one more video out before the end of the year so be looking forward to that um I'm I'm looking forward to it I'm actually working with someone who's going to edit it for me so that it'll actually be a little bit more more fancy and and look nicer uh so that's going to be really cool so be looking forward to that and then we'll start on Rogue sometime next year so if I don't see you before then I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas I hope you have a Happy New Year and we will see you whenever we see you until then stay safe out there stay healthy we'll see you later bye-bye [Music] a

Channel: DapperSnapper Gaming

Views: 2,842

Keywords:

Id: v-CPtd2hEy0

Length: 26min 15sec (1575 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2023