The Swashbuckler Nova - D&D: Optimized #69

[Music] why hello there how's it going welcome everybody to another episode of d d optimized part of the d4 network this is the show where each week we take a deep dive into one sometimes two specific character builds for dungeons and dragons 5e we crunch numbers about them we theory craft about them not necessarily to tell you the right way or the best way to play a certain character but to explore one option for how to play a character in the hopes of creating something that is both very powerful but also very fun to play in-game so if you enjoy creating characters for dnd almost as much as you enjoy playing the actual game itself or if you're just looking for tips or ideas on how to build a particular character that you're looking at building then welcome home this is where you belong and i'm super happy to have you so thanks for being here my name is colby and i'll be your host before we jump in really quick just a reminder to um like the video uh down there that little thumbs up button and subscribe if you haven't subscribed yet that goes a long way to helping me and helping the channel to grow and helping the videos to do well so thank you also just a reminder i haven't reminded people about this for a while we do have a subreddit in case you didn't know there's a link to it that i post in each video description it's a fantastic little community it's up to almost i think 2500 users now that do a great job of sort of posting ideas and questions and thoughts on builds and sort of curating but it's it's a lot friendlier than most subreddits i think we don't currently have for those who are about to ask a discord channel yet i hope to get one one day when i have more time i'm not sure when that will be maybe when i can quit my day job one day but uh tales of an area does have a discord fyi in case you didn't know so if you haven't checked out our live play sessions we do record our game each week and post it in the tales of an area playlist so be sure to check those out and if you want to talk about the game the characters there or anything that we've got going on be sure to check out the discord that we've set up recently for that all right so there's something about rogues that not everyone realizes i don't think i know it took me some time to learn this little fact myself obviously you already knew this but for everybody else watching the damage that you get from sneak attack we're told is applicable once per turn now there is a big difference between once per turn and once on your turn or once per round so sure you can deal sneak attack once on your turn as a rogue but also if you make an attack against an enemy on someone else's turn you can apply sneak attack again assuming of course that you meet all of the prerequisites for sneak attack otherwise now when are you making attacks on an enemy during someone else's turn predominantly on an attack that you make with your reaction when you use your reaction to attack a creature it's typically on someone else's turn other than yours an opportunity attack for example is made when a creature moves out of your reach it happens then on the creatures turn as they are moving so if you're a rogue making an opportunity attack and you otherwise meet all the requirements for sneak attack right you have advantage on the attack or you have an ally within five feet of the enemy that you're attacking then you can add your sneak attack damage to the opportunity attack i have tried to take advantage of this neat little fact a couple of times so far in previous builds once in my rogue cleric team-up uh link to that there for those who don't know sometimes i will do like two character builds in a single episode meant to be played with like you and a friend where the the two builds are meant to synergize with each other right and that was one of those in that build the order clerk was giving the rogue an extra attack on the cleric's turn and also uh once in the wolf and coyote team-up build that i did another two builds in one episode where the rogue was ideally getting a reaction attack against an enemy who attacked their barbarian ally i have yet to try to take advantage of this little extra sneak attack as a reaction trick into a single character concept though and that's what we're going to do today because i love self-sufficient characters someone who can reliably trigger a reaction attack and therefore get sneak attack damage a second time in a round without depending on something happening to or from an ally now one note a few weeks ago i did an oath of vengeance paladin build i'm gonna run out of cards early today that i had a lot of fun with i i told this story then but i actually started to write the script for today's character several weeks ago and because i was building a burst damage melee character at a certain point i started adding paladin levels for smite damage like you do the problem was once i started with smite and particularly with vengeance paladin it was really hard to stop taking pally levels and before too long it wasn't really much of a rogue at all it was basically just a vengeance paladin with a rogue dip so i decided to scrap the rogue stuff all together and just build a vengeance paladin putting this on the shelf with the intent to come back to it soon and today is that day now like i've hinted at here because of the limited number of resources that we will have available that will allow us to reliably do this sneak attack as a reaction thing that we're gonna be doing i'm gonna be building this character today for nova damage or burst damage meaning that we won't be able to do the kinds of numbers that we'll be hitting every single round but when we do it will be really powerful with the intent to hopefully totally take out a single enemy or at least nearly so also i do want to emphasize that for me this character's primary function is to be a really great rogue a roku does fantastic burst damage yes but a rogue sort of first and foremost what i mean by that is that i don't want to get too sidetracked from increasing my great stealth sleight of hand trap disarming lock picking abilities etc in the pursuit of more and more damage most parties and most campaigns in dnd can really really benefit from having a character with this specific skill set and while no it's true that you don't have to be a rogue in order to disarm a trap or pick a lock i think that they're generally best suited for the tasks or at the very least they're a very popular option for someone who really wants to play that type of character in game and take on that role in your party so among other things i am outlawing paladin levels for myself here smite is great for burst damage but i don't want to be as mad as multiple ability score dependent as i would need to be to pick up paladin levels for one thing and i just don't want to go down the paladin rabbit hole this time and so character concept complete i proudly present episode 69 the swashbuckler nova and yes big apologies to everyone who wanted me to do a like super seductive bard build for my 69th episode come on you guys know me better than that besides i mean i kind of already did that character concept with the skull monkey oh boy but you know if you really want something okay fine go glamor or eloquence barred take expertise and persuasion maybe dip fey wanderer ranger max your charisma and bam knock people's socks off pun intended but that's as much as you're going to get out of me for a super seducer my apologies also before we jump into the build really quickly i do want to tell you guys about the sponsor for this week's video son evoke game studios ttrpg city of mist if you love tabletop role-playing games but wouldn't mind a d d break once in a while then i think you really owe it to yourself to check out city of mist i don't have nearly enough time to tell you guys all about this really awesome rpg but let me give you a few highlights really quickly the setting for the game kind of reminds me of the dresden files a series of novels by jim butcher or maybe even like american gods by neil gaiman it's like high fantasy folk and fairy tales meet our modern day setting with a very healthy heaping of noir maybe you could almost say it's like one part dnd one part cyberpunk let me read from the creators themselves city of mist is a modern city where legends are real it's not as if knights and monsters walk down main street donning shining armor or breathing fire but rather that knights and monsters are reborn inside ordinary people these people known as rifts live out a modern version of their legends but they still have their ordinary lives on the occasions when they tap into their mythos a mysterious and mystical force hides their miraculous powers from those who have not awakened to the legend inside them the sleepwalking residents of the city it makes armor look like a flak vest and fire breathing like a party trick or a gas leak explosion so no one ever knows about the rifts except the rifts this mystical veil is the mist this is its city the look and feel alone of this game in this setting is amazing the art is stupendous as you guys are seeing it has a very sort of detective comic book feel to it which i really love i mean you can create your own character of course or if you're starting out you can pick from a dozen or so pre-generated characters that will help you just jump right in and really get a feel for the game quickly if you're nervous about learning a whole new system and creating an ideal character right off the bat and i really love some of those pre-generated characters actually anyway they've just recently launched a new 10 adventure campaign book called knights of pain town that looks like a really fun and like cinematic journey it's basically nine smaller adventures or cases that all get connected in a 10th overarching case if you're watching this video the day that i release it they're actually running a black friday sale that expires today so check that out for sure if you want to take advantage of some big savings but even if you're catching this video after the day that it releases there's still a sale on their products until the end of 2021 it's still a nice discount so do yourself a favor use the link in my video description to check out city of mist that's how they know that you heard about them here so i would appreciate it if you used that link but give city of mist a try it looks incredibly cool and like a lot of fun to play so big thanks to sun evoke game studios and let's jump into the build all right at level one i can see us starting two different ways here as far as our class goes at level one on the one hand if you value having more skill proficiencies your dexterity saving throw and in general having roguish utility right from the get-go i would start rogue here i'm going to start with fighter for a couple of reasons one better survivability at the point of the game when our character is at their most fragile two better equipment options and three i said couple okay fine few your constitution saving throw proficiency which is always good but will be especially important for us later on as most people know the three most important saving throws generally at most tables in most campaigns in dnd are constitution wisdom and dexterity those are the saving throws that we have to make more often than others right with this character we're going to be maxing our dexterity and we will get an ability to further buff our dexterity's saving throw eventually but our constitution will only likely ever be just okay so getting proficiency in that saving throw i think makes us a little better balanced plus i actually really like the story arc when starting fighter here so yes when we first meet our hero they're probably a soldier or maybe in the city guard they might be a mercenary or a caravan guard etc and let's be honest they're probably a little cocky they're quick they're sure footed they've got panache and style and maybe a little more bravado than is good for them as for our race i am going to recommend that we go custom lineage here there is a feat that is very powerful for us here that i would love to start the game with and so that's what i'm recommending as for what that free feat is i want to take magic initiate there are a couple of spells that we can really benefit from throughout our character's career and i don't want to spend a character level dipping into a caster class in order to get them because it would make us a lot more mad and further delay our rogue levels as well which as i've already said i really don't want to do so with the magic initiate feat we get two cantrips and one first level spell from any full casters spell list we're gonna choose the wizard spell list the two cantrips that we will pick will be message because i love being able to scout ahead for my party as a rogue and then telepathically message back what i'm seeing to my party without having to go all the way back to them the second can trip is going to be booming blade we will be using booming blade throughout our career and just in case you weren't familiar with this spell when you cast it you make a weapon attack and if the attack hits you will once we hit level 5 anyway do some extra damage on the attack and then if the character willingly moves before your next turn they take some thunder damage that's 1d8 for now as for the first level spell the first level wizard spell that we get yes we're gonna want to take find familiar this spell that we get from the magic initiate feed can only be cast once per long rest so we better get something that gives us big benefit and lasts a long time with find familiar you summon a spirit that takes an animal form and it lasts until you dismiss it or it gets killed it obeys your verbal command it acts on its own turn and we can use it for a number of things it can scout ahead for us we can even see and hear through its eyes and ears if it's within 100 feet of us it can't attack but yes it can take the help action among other things and that's of course the main reason that we want it so if you're familiar takes the help action they can potentially ideally grant you advantage on your next hit for a conversation on whether or not you get to choose who the familiar grants advantage to see our slide into my dm's episode there as usual yes i would recommend taking the owl as you're familiar because they get the flyby feature meaning they could fly in on their turn take the help action and fly away without taking an opportunity attack your familiar is super fragile they only have one hit point and you only get to summon them once per day as i've said so keeping them safe will be very important if you want to take another familiar and think you have a fancy way of keeping them safe or you want to re-flavor the owl to be a different creature or whatever that's great discuss it with your dm as for our ability scores using the point by system as always i'm going to recommend that we go with a 15 dexterity and take our plus 2 there so we have 17 decks a 14 constitution 14 wisdom and a 12 charisma i would have loved to get a higher charisma ability on this character but short of rolling stats and getting really good roles um this is the best that we can do to meet our needs as for the equipment that we start off with it's pretty straightforward stuff i would say um just take scale mail make sure you get a shield and a rapier for your marshall weapon i would go with heavy armor for now unless you want to be like a non-rogue rogue you know maybe you took a background that gives you proficiency with thieves tools or something and you want to be like scouting and stealthing even as a fighter in which case i would go the gold buy route here and pick up some studded leather instead of scale mail you'll have a slightly lower ac but you won't have disadvantage on your stealth checks and then as a fighter at level 1 we do get the second wind feature which allows us to as a bonus action once per short rest heal ourselves for 1d10 plus our fighter level that'll be really nice especially early on when we're really fragile like i said but we also then as a fighter at level 1 get a fighting style and on a character who is prioritizing burst damage i think dueling is going to be the best fighting style for us we could go to weapon fighting but we're not actually going to be taking the attack action because casting booming blade is not taking the attack action it's casting a spell that just happens to also grant you a weapon attack right and that means then that because we're not taking the attack action we would not be able to make an offhand weapon attack you know as a bonus action like you can do when you're doing two weapon fighting so no two weapon fighting style for us and you know that's okay i'm actually very content with the rapier and shield style for this character in fact i might even consider taking the defense fighting style here if you really wanted to like lean in to the tank aspect of this character more on that later but anyway dueling gives us a plus due to damage if you're using a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapon in your other hand it's not a huge bump but we'll take it at level 2 as a fighter we get action surge you know it you love it it gives us an extra action once per short rest we just get an extra action not an extra bonus action just an extra action two actions per turn is very nice especially on a nova or burst damage character and so that makes us happy at level three fighters get their subclass their martial archetype and i am going to recommend battlemaster i love battlemaster so much they're kind of like the jack of all trades of fighter subclasses there is a maneuver for almost every situation and we get to learn three of them three maneuvers from a pretty long list we can use these maneuvers to enhance combat in a variety of ways we do so by expending a superiority die and we get four superiority dice per short rest they are d8s and we use them with our maneuvers to add bonuses to whatever the maneuver does so as far as which maneuvers i think we ought to take i'm gonna recommend trip attack first of all which tells us that when we hit a creature with a weapon attack we can spend a superiority die that d8 add that to the damage roll and then the creature has to make a strength saving throw against our dexterity mod enhanced difficulty check it could be strength also but our strength is crap or the enemy is knocked prone unless they're a huge or greater creature the more important maneuver though for us here is going to be brace which i've never actually used in a build before so brace works sort of like one half of the pole arm master feat it's too bad there are no pull arms with the finesse property or we would have gone that route but when a creature moves into your melee weapon reach you can use your reaction to make an attack against them if it hits you add the superiority die in damage so like i said at the beginning because this is happening as a reaction on the enemy's turn you can add your sneak attack damage to this attack once we actually get sneak attack that is as for our third maneuver i'm going to recommend riposte riposte is great both because it feels like the perfect maneuver frankly for a rapier wielding character but also because it similarly allows you to use your reaction to make an attack but this time against a creature who misses you with a melee attack there are going to be times when for whatever reason you didn't get the chance to use brace but now you can still use your reaction for a post attack instead as long as you get missed with an attack so now we've got multiple options to make an attack with our reaction on someone else's turn and thus get sneak attack damage twice in a round speaking of sneak attack damage as much as i'd love to grab that ability score increase or feat at fighter 4 i think it's time for us to take our leave of the fighter class so our city watch hero or mercenary has really been leaning into their navish personality if they haven't yet i think they decide at this point that it's time to leave behind the organization that they cut their adventuring teeth on and strike out on their own or perhaps with a small group of friends or like-minded individuals maybe your talents have been noticed and you've been recruited to act as a scout for a smaller band of adventures whatever your reasons we are taking rogue levels now so as a rogue one we get thieves can't first of all a special coded written language for rogues and thieves and then we also get expertise and i do love expertise so basically you take two skills that you are proficient in you do get to pick up one more skill proficiency when you multi-class into rogue and now you get to double your proficiency bonus when you make a check with those skills or alternatively one skill and your proficiency bonus when you use thieves tools personally when i'm playing a rogue i like to go stealth and thieves tools first but you do what you think best here and then of course as a rogue one we get sneak attack so now once per turn if you have advantage on an enemy or an ally is within five feet of the enemy that you're attacking you can add extra damage to an attack so long as you make the attack with a finesse or ranged weapon this damage is a 1d6 for now but it increases by 1d6 for every 2 levels that you gain in rogue considering that we will ideally be getting this extra damage twice per round at least during our nova round it makes it that much harder to multi-class away from rogue at this point doesn't mean that we're not going to but it becomes a difficult decision and i really like difficult decisions so that's okay at level five we would be a rogue 2 and we get cunning action this is a pretty fantastic ability really as a bonus action we can now disengage dash or hide a lot of potential utility here and i imagine using this quite often don't forget also though that booming blade now does 1d8 damage on the initial hit and 2d8 damage if they move after they've been hit with it this is really important for our tactics with this build because at level six we are a rogue three and at level three rogues get their subclass their roguish archetype and of course we are going swashbuckler and here's what we read from the player's handbook on the swashbuckler you focus your training on the art of the blade relying on speed elegance and charm in equal parts while some warriors are brutes clad in heavy armor your method of fighting looks almost like a performance duelists and pirates typically belong to this archetype a swashbuckler excels in single combat alright you naive you now get to fulfill your wildest dread pirate roberts fantasy because you are basically wesley from the princess pride with a shield so as a swashbuckler we get a couple of nice little features first up rakish audacity this is going to give us a bonus to our initiative equal to our charisma modifier it's really nice it really makes me wish we could have afforded more points in charisma more importantly though here for us we can now qualify for sneak attack in a new way if we are within five feet of our enemy and there are no other creatures within five feet of you and you don't have disadvantage then you can also get sneak attack so you are a duelist indeed and you really should be able to use sneak attack pretty much every round just make sure you pick your targets wisely swashbucklers also at this level get fancy footwork and this is like the linchpin of our tactics with fancy footwork if you make a melee attack against a creature they can't make opportunity attacks against you for the rest of your turn so it's like a free disengage so long as you at least try to hit them first don't forget that our sneak attack damage now goes up to a 2d6 as well at this level so at level 6 it's time for our first damage report and this is how our nova round works there's zero setup which i love you just pick a melee enemy who's not standing next to one of your allies and by the way you're going to want to discuss your tactics with your teammates to ensure that they don't run up and get within melee range of this enemy because we want this melee enemy to not have any available targets unless they move right so on your turn with advantage from your familiar you will use booming blade as an action dealing your rapier's 1d8 damage plus the extra 1d8 from booming blade plus use the trip attack maneuver here and get 1d8 from your superiority die plus 3 from your dexterity bonus plus 2 from the dueling fighting style plus 2d6 sneak attack damage you would then action surge and do it all over again not adding sneak attack the second time of course but obviously adding it now if you missed with that first attack i'm going to assume that the enemy failed their saving throw on your trip attack and are thus prone and therefore you have advantage on the second attack as well you would then step away without taking an opportunity attack thanks to fancy footwork and wait for their turn just outside of their reach on their turn assuming that they don't just stand there doing nothing which is a huge win for us and better than damage they in theory move up to attack you upon doing so they would take 2d8 damage of booming energy from booming blade and you would use the brace maneuver with your reaction when they enter your reach to make yet another weapon attack adding your sneak attacks to d6 at this point again since it's a new turn now it's the enemy's turn right plus your weapon damage plus 1d8 for your superiority die so we have made three attacks two with booming blade two with sneak attack damage all three with extra damage from a superiority die and the first two of those attacks with advantage for a total of 10 d8 plus 4d6 plus 15 damage now of course things aren't always going to play out perfectly for you in this way every time you want them to but as always i like to do calculations based on best case scenario and let you guys adjust accordingly if say you don't have a melee enemy to attack or there's just a single target and you have melee allies who are going to be standing next to them to make attack so they're not going to be moving etc assuming that you get to duel someone who will be pursuing you against an enemy with a 10 armor class you would do on average here 75 damage during this nova round and against an enemy with a 15 armor class it would be 65 damage on average this is very good nova damage putting us very near the top of the tier 1 nova builds if you missed the video that i did a couple of weeks ago where i broke down my nova builds into two tiers check it out here assuming i have cards left i think that might be my fifth and final one um what's really great is that this level of damage is doable per short rest and you are still left with one superiority die so you could even do this back up and brace tactic a couple of times per short rest or even more frequently if you decide to forego using trip attack on one or two of those initial attacks you were taking of course that would lower your nova damage a little bit but it would let you get your sneak attack twice per round a few times per short rest now instead of just a couple of times so just know your options and choose wisely the only resources that we're spending here are action surge and our superiority dice both of which reset on a short rest and that's fantastic at level seven we would be a rogue four and and we get an ability score increase or feed finally and i really want to take a half feet to bump our odd numbered dexterity score i think piercer is probably our best option to be honest i don't love the feet necessarily for this build anyway it's okay the plus one to dexterity or strength but dexterity for us is kind of the main draw here but in addition we do get to reroll the damage die from a piercing weapon once per turn so yes we could do this on our reaction attack as well as on our turn it's not going to be a huge bump to damage on average a little less than one point of damage on average but it will feel really nice when you turn that one or two that you rolled into you know a seven or an eight right also with piercer when we get a critical hit with our rapier we'll get to roll two more d8s instead of just one more d8 that you usually get on a critical so that's another nice little occasional bump at level eight we would be a rogue five and we get the uncanny dodge feature when an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack you can have the damage with your reaction this is a fantastic use of our reaction if we get hit with a massive hit or a critical or we're almost dead etc but just remember of course that we are depending on our reaction for our big nova round at least so use uncanny dodge wisely and also our sneak attack damage does go up to 3d6 at this point so at level nine there is one more class that i would like to take a dip into on this character and some of you may have guessed it already if you were paying attention to our abilities course while it is hard to break away from our sneak attack damage progression among other things now that we have our sneak attack up to 3d6 the numbers indicate that now is the time to take this break make this dip as it will give us a slight edge to our damage now on our nova round but it is an edge that will scale quite nicely throughout the rest of our career not to mention the increased utility that this dip will provide as well and support capability so yes something has happened to our character at this point in their career that has really shaken them up something has put a little gravity into their usual light-hearted suave and charm it might have been a brush with death either a near-death experience themselves or perhaps a close friend or a family member has died one of your party members even maybe you even died but were brought back to life or alternatively you may have had a run-in with a particularly vile undead creature or group of creatures and the atrocities that the undead inflicted upon the living was so repulsive that you have found a passion kindled within to learn more about how you can stop the undead from ever ravaging others in the same way again whatever your reasons we are taking some cleric levels now yep we got religion so as a cleric at level 1 we get spells of course we get some cantrips we get some first level spells for cantrips i would be sure to at least take guidance this lets you as an action and with your concentration give someone including yourself the ability to add a d4 to a skill check in the next minute so obviously this is fantastic when you are about to stealth or pick a lock or disarm a trap etc a very nice little buff for all of your roguish skills so don't forget to use it on yourself whenever you're about to make a skill check if you can as for our first level spells i'd be sure to pick up cure wounds and or more importantly healing word i think i don't expect you to do a ton of healing on this character obviously but being a like backup in case of emergency option is a welcome boon for any party healing word is particularly great for us as it lets us heal for 1d4 plus our wisdom modifier from 30 feet away as a bonus action and we have a pretty flexible and available bonus action to bounce somebody up when they've gone unconscious without really suffering anything to our regular damage rotation i think the most important spell for us though is the blessed spell as i've said many times it is one of the best buffs in the game i think it gives a d4 to well us and two of our allies right up to three characters i'm assuming us on all of your attack rolls and all of your saving throws so long as you maintain concentration so it's a good thing we started fighter and thus have proficiency in constitution saving throws and thus our concentration checks and at this point we've got a decent armor class we can disengage very easily and we have a nice bonus to our concentration checks not to mention our uncanny dodge so maintaining concentration should be fairly easy for us i think and of course bless actually gives a bump to our concentration check too because it's a constitution saving throw right and now we get to add that d4 to our hit chance so it's actually a decent little bump to our damage as well and our companions are absolutely gonna love us for it and at level one cleric we do of course get our subclass our divine domain and we are going to go with the grave cleric hence our fixation with death and or the undead i think it will become fairly apparent why we're going this route next level but for now we do get a couple of nice little features first up we get circle of mortality this tells us that when we roll dice to restore hit points to a character who is unconscious we get to heal for the maximum amount instead of a roll of the dice it's a nice little bump to what will most likely just be a healing word spell for us not a big deal but a couple of extra hit points on average in that scenario never hurt especially since it's likely that the only time we'll be casting healing word on someone is after they've gone down to zero hit points we do also get the spare the dining can trip for free which is a pretty solid little can trip it lets you stabilize a creature who is making death saving throws and so in case you're out of spell slots and you don't have healing word as an option it can at least stabilize them and keep them from dying right even better for us we can cast spare the dying as a bonus action from 30 feet instead of as an action with touch just really bolstering our like backup healer support capabilities without impacting our damage we also do get the eyes of the grave feature here which is an occasionally useful utility feature basically lets you detect the presence of undead within 60 feet it's kind of like a weaker version of the paladin's divine sense you can do this wisdom modifier times per day so twice for us so for our damage report at level 9 not a lot has changed tactics wise we've simply picked up a plus 1d4 to our hit chance an extra point of dexterity the chance to reroll our rapier's damage once per turn and another d6 for our sneak attack damage that we are ideally getting twice in a round so against an enemy with a 10 armor class we would be doing 90 damage on average and against an enemy with a 15 armored class it would be 84 on average we've scaled just a bit over the last three levels but we have slipped a little bit when compared to other nova builds putting us at about in the middle of the pack of other t2 tier 2 builds at this point that said we have picked up some nice support and utility options and a great way to buff both ourselves and our allies and we are about to see a fairly significant bump to damage on our nova round because at level 10 we are a cleric two and this means we get channel divinity so all clerics get the channel divinity feature which they can use once per short rest to do a couple of different things all clerics can use it to turn undead which lets you as an action force undead within 30 feet to make a wisdom saving throw or spend one minute fleeing from you but for us the better use of our channel divinity will more often be to use path to the grave which is unique to grave clerics and is one of the main reasons that we dipped into cleric in the first place so with path to the grave as an action you curse a target you can see within 30 feet until the end of your next turn the next time you or an ally hits the enemy with an attack the enemy has vulnerability to all of the attacks damage that is really strong vulnerability is too infrequently used in 5th edition in my opinion but if you're vulnerable it means you take double damage from whatever you're vulnerable to and in this case it's to all of the damage from an attack now we gave up 1d6 of sneak attack to get this right we took two levels of cleric instead of potentially two levels of rogue so among other things we've sacrificed some sneak attack damage was it worth it path to the grave can be a little tricky to really take advantage of if you're trying to bolster your own damage with the feature i did use it in my um death knight build that i did a few months ago and i don't have cards to link to it so if you're curious look it up but the problem the big problem is of course that it takes your action to use path to the grave so if you want to take advantage of it yourself you really need either a super powerful bonus action attack i guess or action search okay we have action surge but then the question becomes is it worth giving up an entire action worth of attacks just so you can do double damage on your next attack right a lot of the times maybe not but in our case where we don't have extra attack we won't be getting it and we can only use our sneak attack one time on our turn anyway one of our attacks even when we action surge is doing a lot more damage than the other so if we can double the damage from that one big sneak attack damage attack then yes i think it is better to use path to the grave here than just get a second attack that's less powerful now the drawback to going this route is that even though it does improve damage on our nova round delaying our sneak attack damage scaling like we've done does worsen our like sustained damage a little bit we've picked up some nice utility and support from cleric though not to mention the blast spell and i am building this character with nova damage in mind so i think it's worth it but i don't think that you would be wrong necessarily for deciding to stick with rogue and foregoing cleric levels especially if you've got someone else in your party that's consistently casting bless also though one other thing that i really love about using path to the grave for our action surge here is that it is increasing our damage while lowering our number of attacks meaning that we can save on our superiority dice allowing for even more brace or repost maneuvers between short rests but at level 11 i think that our foray into the realm of the grave probably comes to an end we had a brief goth phase but we're over it or maybe more accurately we probably feel that we've learned enough to become a disciple of our chosen deity but realize that the best way to serve them will be to continue honing our roguish skills it's time to return to rogue now i think so we would be a rogue six at level 11 and we would get another round of expertise always fantastic i would probably pick up either perception or sleight of hand and then persuasion here personally and we'll discuss why in a minute don't forget that our booming blade damage goes up to 2d8 on a hit and 3d8 when they move at level 11. and i love it with this character built almost every single level we get both utility and a damage increase and that feels really nice at level 12 we would be a rogue level 7 and our sneak attack damage goes up to 4d6 which is fantastic and then we get the evasion ability so with evasion when we have to make a dexterity saving throw to take half damage against a spell or a trap or something like it we now take half damage if we fail the save and no damage if we succeed it's really too bad that we don't have dexterity saving throw proficiency here but with our high dexterity and the blessed spell active we should be succeeding on our dexterity saving throws much more often than not and even if we fail only taking half damage is super nice at level 13 then we would be a rogue 8 and we get another ability score increase or feat so speaking of our dexterity we definitely want to bump our dexterity here so that we can hit more hit harder get an armor class bump and be better at all of our rogue utility skills so for a damage report at level 13 now our tactics have changed somewhat now and ever since we were level 10 really on our nova round we are using our action to curse our target with path to the grave then using action surge and with advantage thanks to our familiar plus a d4 to hit thanks to bless we are making one massive booming blade attack on our enemy that we should very rarely miss if we hit we do 1d8 for our weapon 2d8 for booming blade and 1d8 for the trip attack maneuver plus 4d6 in sneak attack damage plus 5 for our dexterity plus 2 for the dueling fighting style re-rolling the rapier damage if it's bad all of which gets doubled thanks to path to the grave then again we would move away from ideally our melee enemy who isn't near any of our allies and so on their turn they would hopefully move up to us taking 3d8 from booming blade now and letting us make a brace maneuver attack for 1d8 from our rapier plus 1d8 for the superiority die plus 7 plus 4 d6 for our sneak attack damage again for a grand total of 10 d8 plus 12 d6 plus 21 and so against an enemy with a 10 armor class we would do 130 damage on average and against an enemy with a 17 armor class it would be 124 damage on average alright that's almost a 50 damage increase since last we checked very nice and again we have some fantastic utility and support functionality and still have a couple of superiority dice left per short rest allowing us to get our sneak attack damage off an extra time per round once in a while giving us a couple of like mini burst rounds which is wunderbar alright at level 14 we would be a rogue nine our sneak attack damage goes up to 5d6 now and we get from swashbucklers the panache feature this is a really fun feature that i think a lot of people actually expected me to use when i did my rogue tank build a few months ago that i don't have any cards to link to but i thought it was a cool build the problem with panache i think is that it comes on so late and it's reliant on our charisma to work well and it requires our action to use so it's just not a really great feature to build a tank character around i don't think but it does have its uses and especially on this character that's that's doing most of their damage in a big nova round and then on subsequent rounds it's kind of okay if they're maybe not doing damage once in a while and they want to heal or in our case tank so with panache as an action you can make a persuasion check against an enemy's insight check not typically particularly high for most enemies in d d and if you succeed on that persuasion check which you most likely will if you took expertise in persuasion that's why i wanted to do that if the enemy is hostile to you you basically taunt them right in other words you give them disadvantage if they attack anyone but you for the next minute or if you get more than 60 feet away from them or if one of your allies hits them with an attack or a spell that's a really strong taunt and it kind of opens up like i say yet another role for our character to play that of a tank although i would consider us at this point to be a little bit more of like an off tank and that's that's mostly a video game term i think but essentially it means that you can fill that protect your allies by encouraging the enemy to attack you instead of them roll decently well once in a while kind of thing if you really need to get an enemy off of your squishier more vulnerable friends i mean at this point assuming no magic items with our dexterity score at 20 studded leather armor and a shield we're sitting on a 19 armor class right now with some decent saving throws assuming less okay health and a way to as a reaction reduce damage dealt to us by half and realistically we probably do have some decent magic items currently maybe like a plus one shield magic armor maybe a cloak of protection etc so there is a very strong chance that we're gonna have over 20 armor class right now we can take a hit or two and if we're not going nova on an enemy being able to peel a bad guy off of your wizard ally will be a great additional tool to have in your bag of tricks also if the creature isn't hostile to you by the way then if you succeed on your persuasion check they're going to be charmed by you for a minute so some nice potential out of combat utility at level 15 we would be a rogue level 10. unlike most classes rogues get an extra ability score increase or feet at level 10 which is fantastic and i think there are a lot of good options here i think there are strong arguments to maybe bump charisma to improve our new panache feature as well as our initiative among other things i think bumping constitution is a great idea for this character especially if we want to lean into our new ability to function as an off tank i can see going resilient wisdom here to improve that very important saving throw i think of all of our options i like the sentinel feet best for this build sentinel feat's great because it gives us a number of benefits it lets us make an opportunity attack against an enemy even if they disengage it also lets us reduce an enemy speed to zero when we hit them with an opportunity attack and then best of all i think it lets us use our reaction to make an attack against an enemy who attacks one of our allies if the enemy is within five feet of us it's just more ways to reliably get attacks with our reaction and thus potentially get our sneak attack damage off especially if you know we're out of superiority dice or maybe you're in a fight against a single big bad boss that your melee allies are going to be standing next to and meaning the big bad doesn't need to move and chase you to hit somebody right or even if our dm is just not being nice and not making the enemies move up to try and get a hit against us thus giving us a chance to use brace so sentinel a level 16 we would be a rogue 11 our sneak attack damage goes to 68 and we get the reliable talent feature this is another reason why bumping charisma maybe wouldn't have been the best option i think last level because with reliable talent anytime you make an ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus you can treat any role lower than a 10 as a 10. that means we're very rarely going to be failing any ability check on a skill that we're proficient in especially if we also have expertise there so panache should work pretty much every time we might want to use it unless of course you're going up against an enemy with a really high insight bonus but even then you've got a really high likelihood of succeeding and then finally for us at level 17 we would be a rogue 12 and we get another ability score increase or feat i think there are still a lot of great options here i'd probably just bump constitution i think for more hit points better saving throw but like i said resilient wisdom i think would be a great potential option or actually now that we have the reliable talent feature i would even consider taking the skilled feet which just gives us three more skill proficiencies and thus three more things to potentially almost never fail at you pick whatever you think is best do keep in mind that at level 17 booming blade goes to 3d8 on hit and 4d8 if they move and so for our final damage report not a lot has changed for us tactics wise but we have picked up an additional 2d6 damage to our sneak attack and another d8 of damage on our booming blade hit and movement not to mention the additional tankiness and utility that we've gained of course and so against an enemy with a 10 armor class we would during our nova round do on average 168 damage and against an enemy with a 17 armor class it would be 159 damage that is admittedly quite good but not amazing when compared to other nova builds but i do like how we've consistently increased by about 40 damage at each damage report consistent scaling is always really nice to see especially when you are adding a lot more than just damage to boot like we are and so final thoughts we have a tier score to report on now with nova builds like i do with my sustained damage builds and for this character we came in at 107. that puts us near the lower end of the tier 2 nova builds when you look at the character's career as a whole but if we were to give a little more weight to the earlier levels they would perform better and again this is compared to other builds that i've built specifically for nova damage so pretty decent the fact that we can nova at these levels once per short rest and then also have like mini nova rounds even more frequently makes me feel really pretty good about the state of the damage but even more than that i think for this character i really really love the do-it-all feel you know strong nova damage fantastic rogue utility of course as well as the ability to be a sort of off tank and even be like an emergency backup healer who buffs their allies as well this might actually be the most well-rounded character i've made to date and i think is probably my favorite rogue at least maybe just because i love the princess bride so much but there is definitely a strong appeal to playing a character who is highly charismatic super versatile light on their feet quick-witted and filled with bravado and panache i really hope i get to play this character in game sometime soon so that's the build for the week i hope you guys enjoyed it as much as i enjoyed creating it and sharing it with you i love you guys dearly thank you so much for all of your support everything that you do for me for the channel you're awesome please check out the other content on the channel if you haven't including the slide into my dm stuff d d university stuff and our actual play tales of an area stuff but i hope you have a fantastic week i hope to see you again soon and until then take care see ya [Music] why hello there how's it going welcome everybody to what's the name of the show again [Laughter] don't even say ah that mode what's that stop it at level three rogues get their subclass their roguish archetype and as you probably know because you saw because i said that we were building a swashbuckler for our third maneuver i would actually get repost repost repost repost i'd probably get riposte to continue owning honing owning owning our roguish skills pronunciating things is hard also pronouncing them life goes on and by the way you do get to prick up not prick up the plane the plane can you hear the plane i think you can hear the plane how how do i get out of this chair it's so tight oh i forgot to stop recording that is a slow plane

Channel: d4: D&D Deep Dive

Views: 88,173

Keywords: D&D Optimized, dnd, dungeons & dragons, swashbuckler, battle master, nova damage, burst damage, sneak attack, rogue, tank, fighter, cleric, grave, 5e, how to, guide, character creation

Id: zmzb_h030bA

Length: 53min 31sec (3211 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 30 2021