How do you make an Int- or Wis-based character with only 3 Con viable with 30-35 hp at level 6?
I am a player in Tomb of Annihilation (5e) and we're playing with rolled characters. Rules are 4d6 drop lowest and no moving around ability scores. I ended up with the following stat block:
- Str: 14
- Dex: 15
- Con: 3
- Int: 18
- Wis: 17
- Cha: 13
The stats are as I rolled them, and they cannot be moved around.
With a Con of -4, how do you design a level 6 character that won't die in the first or second encounter, especially considering that we're doing rolled health past the first level? I'm looking to bring expected health (including temp hp that can be reliably gained) into at least the 30ish range.
This is for a replacement character that will be entering at level 6. Race, ASI, Class all need to be selected. Multi-Classing and Feats, including Variant Human, are allowed. I have access to all published classes and races (not UA, but including Planeshift and WGtE). One of the few limitations is that I'm not allowed to pick Druid (a small dip is ok), since I cannot repeat a class.
The obvious answer is to say pick Barbarian and let the d12 hit die do the talking, but I do want the character to be able to leverage the high Int/Wis scores.
dnd-5e character-creation optimization
add a comment |
I am a player in Tomb of Annihilation (5e) and we're playing with rolled characters. Rules are 4d6 drop lowest and no moving around ability scores. I ended up with the following stat block:
- Str: 14
- Dex: 15
- Con: 3
- Int: 18
- Wis: 17
- Cha: 13
The stats are as I rolled them, and they cannot be moved around.
With a Con of -4, how do you design a level 6 character that won't die in the first or second encounter, especially considering that we're doing rolled health past the first level? I'm looking to bring expected health (including temp hp that can be reliably gained) into at least the 30ish range.
This is for a replacement character that will be entering at level 6. Race, ASI, Class all need to be selected. Multi-Classing and Feats, including Variant Human, are allowed. I have access to all published classes and races (not UA, but including Planeshift and WGtE). One of the few limitations is that I'm not allowed to pick Druid (a small dip is ok), since I cannot repeat a class.
The obvious answer is to say pick Barbarian and let the d12 hit die do the talking, but I do want the character to be able to leverage the high Int/Wis scores.
dnd-5e character-creation optimization
Beautiful! A good answer should be along soon. :) Here is the latest errata for the PHB, if you are interested ... it updates a few of the HP details that have been the norm for about 4 years. Probably best to discuss those with DM to make sure on same page.
– KorvinStarmast
5 hours ago
1
Do you need to be viable beyond level 6?
– Miniman
4 hours ago
1
@Miniman Yes, but probably not past 7 or 8, if it lives that long
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
add a comment |
I am a player in Tomb of Annihilation (5e) and we're playing with rolled characters. Rules are 4d6 drop lowest and no moving around ability scores. I ended up with the following stat block:
- Str: 14
- Dex: 15
- Con: 3
- Int: 18
- Wis: 17
- Cha: 13
The stats are as I rolled them, and they cannot be moved around.
With a Con of -4, how do you design a level 6 character that won't die in the first or second encounter, especially considering that we're doing rolled health past the first level? I'm looking to bring expected health (including temp hp that can be reliably gained) into at least the 30ish range.
This is for a replacement character that will be entering at level 6. Race, ASI, Class all need to be selected. Multi-Classing and Feats, including Variant Human, are allowed. I have access to all published classes and races (not UA, but including Planeshift and WGtE). One of the few limitations is that I'm not allowed to pick Druid (a small dip is ok), since I cannot repeat a class.
The obvious answer is to say pick Barbarian and let the d12 hit die do the talking, but I do want the character to be able to leverage the high Int/Wis scores.
dnd-5e character-creation optimization
I am a player in Tomb of Annihilation (5e) and we're playing with rolled characters. Rules are 4d6 drop lowest and no moving around ability scores. I ended up with the following stat block:
- Str: 14
- Dex: 15
- Con: 3
- Int: 18
- Wis: 17
- Cha: 13
The stats are as I rolled them, and they cannot be moved around.
With a Con of -4, how do you design a level 6 character that won't die in the first or second encounter, especially considering that we're doing rolled health past the first level? I'm looking to bring expected health (including temp hp that can be reliably gained) into at least the 30ish range.
This is for a replacement character that will be entering at level 6. Race, ASI, Class all need to be selected. Multi-Classing and Feats, including Variant Human, are allowed. I have access to all published classes and races (not UA, but including Planeshift and WGtE). One of the few limitations is that I'm not allowed to pick Druid (a small dip is ok), since I cannot repeat a class.
The obvious answer is to say pick Barbarian and let the d12 hit die do the talking, but I do want the character to be able to leverage the high Int/Wis scores.
dnd-5e character-creation optimization
dnd-5e character-creation optimization
edited 29 mins ago
V2Blast
19.7k356121
19.7k356121
asked 5 hours ago
The Great Java
32611
32611
Beautiful! A good answer should be along soon. :) Here is the latest errata for the PHB, if you are interested ... it updates a few of the HP details that have been the norm for about 4 years. Probably best to discuss those with DM to make sure on same page.
– KorvinStarmast
5 hours ago
1
Do you need to be viable beyond level 6?
– Miniman
4 hours ago
1
@Miniman Yes, but probably not past 7 or 8, if it lives that long
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
add a comment |
Beautiful! A good answer should be along soon. :) Here is the latest errata for the PHB, if you are interested ... it updates a few of the HP details that have been the norm for about 4 years. Probably best to discuss those with DM to make sure on same page.
– KorvinStarmast
5 hours ago
1
Do you need to be viable beyond level 6?
– Miniman
4 hours ago
1
@Miniman Yes, but probably not past 7 or 8, if it lives that long
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Beautiful! A good answer should be along soon. :) Here is the latest errata for the PHB, if you are interested ... it updates a few of the HP details that have been the norm for about 4 years. Probably best to discuss those with DM to make sure on same page.
– KorvinStarmast
5 hours ago
Beautiful! A good answer should be along soon. :) Here is the latest errata for the PHB, if you are interested ... it updates a few of the HP details that have been the norm for about 4 years. Probably best to discuss those with DM to make sure on same page.
– KorvinStarmast
5 hours ago
1
1
Do you need to be viable beyond level 6?
– Miniman
4 hours ago
Do you need to be viable beyond level 6?
– Miniman
4 hours ago
1
1
@Miniman Yes, but probably not past 7 or 8, if it lives that long
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
@Miniman Yes, but probably not past 7 or 8, if it lives that long
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
add a comment |
6 Answers
6
active
oldest
votes
Hill Dwarf Eldritch Knight is a good option
Classes to consider
Wisdom based classes include Cleric, Druid, Ranger, and Monk.
These have hit dice of d8, except ranger that has a d10.
Int means you'd be looking at Wizard (d6 hit die).
However, you could pick Fighter / Eldritch Knight which makes good use of your decent Strength/Dexterity for combat and your great Intelligence for spellcasting support. That would also give you an extra ASI at level 6. That means two ASIs available to boost Con by 2 each time.
So your base HP would be 6 for Cleric/Druid/Ranger, or 12 for Hunter, or 18 for Fighter.
Ways to pickup Con
Hill Dwarf (PHB page 20) grants +2 Con and +1 Wisdom. That reduces the penalty to the hit die at each level by 1 so, after six levels, the net result would be +6 HP. Plus you get +6 HP from Dwarven Toughness for a 6th level character (and a +1 bump to your Wisdom mod, for what it's worth).
Fire Genasi (if you're allowed to choose the race) would be almost the same except that your Int is on the even stat value. Bumping Int by 1 would not increase the mod.
Taking the Tough feat would net you 12 HP compared to 6HP from a straight +2 to Con, so it would be wiser to pick the feat at level 4.
If you pick the Eldritch Knight and get an extra ASI at level 6, you could boost your Con again to a net 48 maximum possible HP (18 base, +12 from racial boost, +12HP from ASI @ L4, +6HP from ASI @ L6).
With rolled HP increases, you'd probably end up around half that at 24ish hot points.
Other perks to Eldritch Knight
Eldritch Knight would grant you access to heavy armor, Defense Fighting Style, Second Wind, and the Shield spell (+5 AC as a reaction) meaning that you would avoid a LOT of damage simply by not getting hit in the first place.
Given the variability inherent in rolling stats, boosting your AC to high levels becomes extremely valuable.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
add a comment |
It's going to take some work, but you can make this survivable. You're going to be a Variant Human with the Tough feat. If you give yourself +1 Con, combined with the Tough feat, your hp penalty will drop to -1 per level. At that point, you could make most builds work, but there are a couple I'd like to suggest:
Barbarian 1/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1/Rogue 1
This is probably my favourite, but it toes the line of the limitations on repeating classes - while 2 levels is normally a dip, this build has more levels in Druid than any of their other characters, and it's the focus of the build. If you can get away with it, here's how it works.
Starting with Barbarian gets you a nice starting hp of 11. Next, you're dropping 2 levels into Druid so you can turn into a brown bear. That's the idea here - you are a bear. While your hp total as a human shouldn't be completely terrible, the aim is that you will be a bear every time you are in combat.
Your Barbarian level lets you boost a brown bear's AC from 11 to 13, as well as Rage, which gives you resistance to mundane physical damage and a minor damage boost. Old One Warlock gives you the telepathy you need to communicate with your party members, as well as some short rest spell slots you can use to heal yourself while in bear form.
After that, you're taking a Rogue level, so that you can pick up Expertise in your Perception and Insight skills. The idea here is to be as difficult as possible to surprise, because surprise is deadly for you - you can't afford to be caught in your human form.
The last level is up to you - none of the level 2 features of the Barbarian, Rogue, or Warlock stand out to me. One kinda nice option is to take a Monk level - if you use your other +1 from Variant Human on Wisdom, the Monk's Unarmoured Defence will boost your bear AC up to 14. It's not a huge bonus over the Barbarian's, but you can use every bit you can get.
Bear Totem Barbarian 3/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1
This is a variation on the above build - you're now playing a Variant Human, which puts your human form hp back in the toilet, but nets you the Alert feat, so you're never caught unawares. Ditching the Rogue level lets you take Barbarian all the way to 3, which gives you the (wildly appropriate) Bear Totem, extending your resistances from Rage to all damage except psychic.
Fighter 1/Forge Cleric 4/Wizard 1
And now for something completely different - this is the "my hp sucks, but it (hopefully) never matters" build. Starting with a Fighter level gets you a bit more hp (9 instead of 7), the Defense Fighting Style, for +1 AC, and proficiency in Con saving throws, meaning you have at least some chance of keeping your concentration spells going.
After that, you're just like any other Cleric, except that you have 22 AC in plate armor and a shield, instead of 20. The shield of faith spell brings that up to 24 AC when you really don't want to get hit. We top it off with a Wizard level, which gets you two important emergency button spells: The first, as always, is shield, for +5 AC, when you really don't want to get hit. The second is absorb elements, for when people attack you in ways that don't involve your AC.
This build has a gaping flaw, of course - attacks that don't target AC, and deal radiant, necrotic, or psychic damage. My recommendation is to stand near a friendly Paladin.
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
You probably shouldn't play a main caster
You want to make use of your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, but playing a caster is not only about these scores. You want a non-terrible Constitution score in order to maintain concentration on your spells. For you this will be all but impossible as you would have to roll a 15 every time you take any damage (you'd have to roll higher if you take more damage, but with so little HP from the spellcaster classes, more damage would sooner kill you).
As such, the use of these scores should be as secondary in a different class. The best classes for this would be Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight (to make use of the Intelligence) or a Cleric without focusing on Concentration spells (to make use of the Wisdom).
Rykara's answer is an excellent showing of how to mitigate the HP-loss with your race, class, and feats. I don't think a cleric without Concentration spells would be more effective than his fighter for this, so I'll touch on ho to build an Arcane Trickster (with the intent to avoid taking damage as opposed to being a hair more bulky).
The slippery Arcane Trickster
The rogue offers a number of options that increase your ability to avoid damage.
- Cunning Action gives you the option to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action allowing you to exit an unfortunate melee without provoking an opportunity attack, and in the right situation gain the benefits of Unseen Attackers which as a start gives enemies disadvantage when attacking you, but also lets you leverage Sneak Attack for heavy damage.
- Expertise in Stealth improves that Hide ability greatly making even the perceptive creatures have trouble tracking you on a battlefield with sufficient cover.
- Uncanny Dodge comes in as a fail-safe so that even if an attack does hit you, you only take half damage.
- Your next level gives you Evasion which is very good at avoiding that pesky AOE spell damage even when you succeed on the saving throw.
- Arcane Trickster gives you access to the very useful shield spell 3 times a day (or other utility spells if you don't find yourself in harrowing situations enough to require this).
Dragonmark of Shadow
Even with the benefits of an Arcane Trickster defensively, you do not want to be in the fray very often. As such, I recommend a ranged weapon build, this means maximizing Dexterity, and one of the Dexterity increasing races is actually very good for your build.
The Mark of Shadow elf, in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, gives you an extra d4 to Stealth checks (which on top of Expertise makes you very hard to detect), and it also lets you use the Hide action even without cover once per rest:
You can use the Hide action as a bonus action, even if you have no cover or if you’re under observation. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
This can save your life in situations where cover is not readily available and you've run out of shield slots (or if you're up against a spellcaster, who can get around your armor class, that you really don't want to know your location).
Elf also puts your Dexterity at 17, allowing you to catch up with other weapon characters (who will have 18 in their primary attack stat) using your level 4 ability score increase.
The build
Here is a sample finalized build using the above advice:
- Level 1:
- Mark of Shadow Elf
- Proficiency in Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Mage Hand Legerdemain), Perception (high Wisdom), and Investigation (high Intelligence) from Rogue
- Proficiency in two knowledge Skills (i.e. Religion, Nature) relevant to the campaign from background (to use that Intelligence)
- Note: all of your skill-relevant ability scores are passible, so with Expertise, you can pick and choose what skills you think will be the most useful
- Expertise in Stealth and Perception (these are your two most useful skills in my experience, although another option can be taken instead of Perception depending on how often your table uses skills like Investigation and the knowledge skills)
- Level 2:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 3:
- Arcane Trickster, of course. make sure you pick up the shield spell, some utility spells that utilize your Intelligence (like disguise self or tasha's hideous laughter), and maybe a cantrip that helps you deal extra damage in some situations (like sword burst/thunderwave if you are surrounded or booming blade if you are willing to risk going into melee range)
- Level 4:
- An ability score increase gets your Dexterity to 18 and brings your Wisdom to 18 or Constitution to 4 (depending on whether you want 6 more HP or better Perception)
- Alternatively, the Greater Dragonmark feat will give you a, extra d6 instead of a d4 for your Stealth and Deception checks, and gives you some powerful spells while still bringing your Dexterity to 18 (this would be my choice).
- If you expect to have cover a lot (with which to be hidden), sharpshooter is probably the best. Since you have advantage as an Unseen Attacker, you can capitalize on the +10 damage often and you can also be further away from your enemies by attacking from long range.
- Level 5:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 6:
- 2 more expertise to put in skills of your choice (again, your knowledge skills could be very useful, but just about any skill is viable as most of your ability scores are pretty solid)
- Vital Equipment:
- You want to have as high an Armor Class as possible so try your best to get Studded Leather Armor.
- The best ranged weapon to be using is a Light Crossbow.
- You may want to have a Rapier on hand in case the opportunity for booming blade or green-flame blade presents itself (remember, a light crossbow only takes up to hands when firing, so you can draw a rapier as part of your attack, and stow it before you attack with the light crossbow in later turns)
- You want a component pouch so you can cast spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or just ask your GM if you can have the components listed in each Material spell you have (again, you can hold the light crossbow in one hand while not attacking allowing you to use Somatic spells while still hanging on to your weapon)
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
add a comment |
An Abjurer can get some staying power without constitution
An abjuration Wizard gains the Arcane Ward feature at 2nd level, which provides twice your level plus your intelligence modifier in extra hit points that replenish as you cast abjuration spells. At 6th level with your base stats this is at least 16 extra maximum hit points. That's a massive improvement over the measly 8ish max hp your wizard would otherwise probably have!
Being a wizard also lets you ameliorate the effects of your low constitution a bit: while your d6 hit die will almost never outweigh your negative Constitution modifier, your minimum HP gain per level can't go below 1. This is particularly good since you are, for some reason, focused on median rather than mean hit points-- while your mean or expected hp at level 6 from wizard levels with 3 Con is 7.5, your median hp is a whopping 2 points higher: 9.5. This is because there are a very limited selection of values your hp can be, and there's about an 80% chance it's one of the bottom two.
A Warlock can charge Arcane Wards all day, every day
Warlocks get the only unlimited at-will spellcasting ability we can use to fuel Arcane Ward: the Armor of Shadows eldritch invocation. This lets us "cast an abjuration spell of first level or higher" an unlimited number of times without resting, plus we get to up our AC a bit. It's only 2 hp per casting, so it'll take 48 seconds to fully recharge a downed ward, but if you need your ward back up faster than that you're better off casting one of them fancy higher level spells anyways.
It's two levels to get invocations, so you'll be War2/Wiz4. Eventually, in the far future, you'll really want to replace those levels in Warlock, but that's at level 18, which is far enough out I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.
Your levels in Warlock also give you a patron, which should be either the Raven Queen or the Undying.
The first gives you access to the Sanctuary spell, which is a nice effect for a support caster, and also is an abjuration so it'll recharge your ward a tiny bit when used, as well as a cool raven familiar that stacks with other familiars you might have except that it's totally not a problem if it dies repeatedly. The raven is particularly good since it boosts your perception score (by 2 in your case) so you are less likely to get one-shotted by an unexpected ambush.
The Undying instead gives you a sanctuary-spell-like effect that's always on, but only functions against undead and only until they first make the save. Tomb of Anhinnialation has a lot of undead baddies, so this is pretty comparable, but that's all it's going to give you. Your call on whether saving the allowed-to-cast-spells-this-round flag for something else is worth it.
Note that Warlocks have a d8 HD so you suffer more from your negative Con score: a regular character would gain around 1 more hp per level from that change but you only gain around .58 hp per level more over those two levels. Our expected hp and median are still a bit higher this way, of course, and we end up with an expected hp of 10.42 and a median hp of 12.5.
Our second invocation can be utility stuff like Eyes of the Rune-Keeper or Eldritch Sight, or 8 more hit points via false life via Fiendish Vigor.
Half-orcs get a do-over
Half-orcs (and Minotaurs from Planescape:Amonkhet, but those swap out darkvision for a garbage natural weapon) get +1 constitution and the ability to instead be fine the first time they would be reduced to 0 hp or below each long rest. This doesn't trigger if you are instakilled by massive damage, which is a significant concern for you since that's, like, 45 damage and there are CR 6 creatures that can actually do that in a single round if you let them (don't get charge-stomped by a mammoth).
The final recommended build would look something like this:
Half-Orc War2/Wiz4
AC 15
hp: 12
temp hp: 8
arcane ward: 17
Str: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 4
Int: 20
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Background: Stojanow Prisoner
Skills: Perception, Deception, Investigation, Arcana, Intimidation
Tools: Thieves' Tools, Gaming Set
Patron: Raven Queen
Invocations: Armor of Shadows, Fiendish Vigor
Warlock Cantrips:
Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion
Pact Magic Spells Known:
Sanctuary, Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke
Wizard Cantrips:
Control Flame, Encode Thoughts, Shape Water, Blade Ward
Wizard Spells Known:
Comprehend Languages, Identify, Fog Cloud, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, Grease, Unseen Servant, Lonstrider (+ whatever you can get from scrolls, NPCs, etc)
Flock of Familiars, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Enlarge/Reduce (+ etc)
Out of combat, you are fairly tanky since your hp completely replenish after each trap, fall, firewalking exercise, or what have you.
In combat, you want to be in the back and avoid damage as much as possible, using an unseen servant and/or flock of familiars and/or your sentinel raven to control enemy movement options. You can cast enlarge or false life on an ally to buff them without losing sanctuary, and you can cast sanctuary twice per short rest to discourage enemies from attacking you. Armor of Agathys can singlehandedly eliminate hordes of weaker enemies who attack you, because your Arcane Ward will ensure that the temp hp from that spell stay around until you're basically dead anyways. Eldritch Blast provides an option to deal okayish ranged damage if it comes up, and something to do while sanctuarying when defence isn't urgent enough to warrant a blade ward.
Out of combat, your wide variety of utility spells, massive perception abilities, and proficiency in Thieves' Tools will let you act a bit like a rogue.
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
add a comment |
Moon Druid might be your best option
The feature of all Druids, irrespective of their archetype, is their ability to gain a "shield" of hp through their wild shape forms. Because Moon Druids are incentivized to shapeshift a lot, and they gain access to very powerful wild shape forms, being able to at-will shapeshift into a high hp creature (with some decent attacks to accompany them) will be very beneficial in keeping you alive. You'll also gain access to some powerful spellcasting abilities, and your high Wisdom score will complement those abilities.
At level 6, you are limited to CR2 Beasts. So you could shapeshift into, say, a Saber-toothed Tiger, gaining 52 hitpoints. Or you could shapeshift into a Giant Constrictor Snake, gaining 60 hit points. You have a lot of ways to substantially improve your survivability by simply relying on the extra hitpoints provided by these kinds of forms, and combined with your ability to also regenerate hitpoints either through Cure Wounds or your Combat Wild Shape feature, you'll offset the lost Constitution by a tremendous factor.
Another consideration is the fact that while shapeshifted, you only retain your mental stats (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), whereas your other stats are replaced by the form you choose. So in a wild shape form, your lack of Constitution might as well not exist.
There are limitations of course: if you ever fall out of those forms, you'll be vulnerable. But that would be a problem regardless, and I think this shores up your weakness in a reliable manner.
Consider Lizardfolk to further bolster survivability
Irrespective of whether you go Moon Druid or not, gaining the extra +2CON is a good way to at least recover some of those lost maximum hitpoints, and since it also provides a +1 to Wisdom, it'll at least complement your class choice.
3
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
add a comment |
You don’t.
Sorry, but that’s just reality. This character is going to die, very-probably sooner rather than later. There is a reason why rolling in order is not recommended, and this is it.
3
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ifUsing("editor", function () {
return StackExchange.using("mathjaxEditing", function () {
StackExchange.MarkdownEditor.creationCallbacks.add(function (editor, postfix) {
StackExchange.mathjaxEditing.prepareWmdForMathJax(editor, postfix, [["\$", "\$"]]);
});
});
}, "mathjax-editing");
StackExchange.ready(function() {
var channelOptions = {
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "122"
};
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
createEditor();
});
}
else {
createEditor();
}
});
function createEditor() {
StackExchange.prepareEditor({
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader: {
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
},
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
});
}
});
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2frpg.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f138325%2fhow-do-you-make-an-int-or-wis-based-character-with-only-3-con-viable-with-30-35%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
6 Answers
6
active
oldest
votes
6 Answers
6
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
Hill Dwarf Eldritch Knight is a good option
Classes to consider
Wisdom based classes include Cleric, Druid, Ranger, and Monk.
These have hit dice of d8, except ranger that has a d10.
Int means you'd be looking at Wizard (d6 hit die).
However, you could pick Fighter / Eldritch Knight which makes good use of your decent Strength/Dexterity for combat and your great Intelligence for spellcasting support. That would also give you an extra ASI at level 6. That means two ASIs available to boost Con by 2 each time.
So your base HP would be 6 for Cleric/Druid/Ranger, or 12 for Hunter, or 18 for Fighter.
Ways to pickup Con
Hill Dwarf (PHB page 20) grants +2 Con and +1 Wisdom. That reduces the penalty to the hit die at each level by 1 so, after six levels, the net result would be +6 HP. Plus you get +6 HP from Dwarven Toughness for a 6th level character (and a +1 bump to your Wisdom mod, for what it's worth).
Fire Genasi (if you're allowed to choose the race) would be almost the same except that your Int is on the even stat value. Bumping Int by 1 would not increase the mod.
Taking the Tough feat would net you 12 HP compared to 6HP from a straight +2 to Con, so it would be wiser to pick the feat at level 4.
If you pick the Eldritch Knight and get an extra ASI at level 6, you could boost your Con again to a net 48 maximum possible HP (18 base, +12 from racial boost, +12HP from ASI @ L4, +6HP from ASI @ L6).
With rolled HP increases, you'd probably end up around half that at 24ish hot points.
Other perks to Eldritch Knight
Eldritch Knight would grant you access to heavy armor, Defense Fighting Style, Second Wind, and the Shield spell (+5 AC as a reaction) meaning that you would avoid a LOT of damage simply by not getting hit in the first place.
Given the variability inherent in rolling stats, boosting your AC to high levels becomes extremely valuable.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
add a comment |
Hill Dwarf Eldritch Knight is a good option
Classes to consider
Wisdom based classes include Cleric, Druid, Ranger, and Monk.
These have hit dice of d8, except ranger that has a d10.
Int means you'd be looking at Wizard (d6 hit die).
However, you could pick Fighter / Eldritch Knight which makes good use of your decent Strength/Dexterity for combat and your great Intelligence for spellcasting support. That would also give you an extra ASI at level 6. That means two ASIs available to boost Con by 2 each time.
So your base HP would be 6 for Cleric/Druid/Ranger, or 12 for Hunter, or 18 for Fighter.
Ways to pickup Con
Hill Dwarf (PHB page 20) grants +2 Con and +1 Wisdom. That reduces the penalty to the hit die at each level by 1 so, after six levels, the net result would be +6 HP. Plus you get +6 HP from Dwarven Toughness for a 6th level character (and a +1 bump to your Wisdom mod, for what it's worth).
Fire Genasi (if you're allowed to choose the race) would be almost the same except that your Int is on the even stat value. Bumping Int by 1 would not increase the mod.
Taking the Tough feat would net you 12 HP compared to 6HP from a straight +2 to Con, so it would be wiser to pick the feat at level 4.
If you pick the Eldritch Knight and get an extra ASI at level 6, you could boost your Con again to a net 48 maximum possible HP (18 base, +12 from racial boost, +12HP from ASI @ L4, +6HP from ASI @ L6).
With rolled HP increases, you'd probably end up around half that at 24ish hot points.
Other perks to Eldritch Knight
Eldritch Knight would grant you access to heavy armor, Defense Fighting Style, Second Wind, and the Shield spell (+5 AC as a reaction) meaning that you would avoid a LOT of damage simply by not getting hit in the first place.
Given the variability inherent in rolling stats, boosting your AC to high levels becomes extremely valuable.
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
add a comment |
Hill Dwarf Eldritch Knight is a good option
Classes to consider
Wisdom based classes include Cleric, Druid, Ranger, and Monk.
These have hit dice of d8, except ranger that has a d10.
Int means you'd be looking at Wizard (d6 hit die).
However, you could pick Fighter / Eldritch Knight which makes good use of your decent Strength/Dexterity for combat and your great Intelligence for spellcasting support. That would also give you an extra ASI at level 6. That means two ASIs available to boost Con by 2 each time.
So your base HP would be 6 for Cleric/Druid/Ranger, or 12 for Hunter, or 18 for Fighter.
Ways to pickup Con
Hill Dwarf (PHB page 20) grants +2 Con and +1 Wisdom. That reduces the penalty to the hit die at each level by 1 so, after six levels, the net result would be +6 HP. Plus you get +6 HP from Dwarven Toughness for a 6th level character (and a +1 bump to your Wisdom mod, for what it's worth).
Fire Genasi (if you're allowed to choose the race) would be almost the same except that your Int is on the even stat value. Bumping Int by 1 would not increase the mod.
Taking the Tough feat would net you 12 HP compared to 6HP from a straight +2 to Con, so it would be wiser to pick the feat at level 4.
If you pick the Eldritch Knight and get an extra ASI at level 6, you could boost your Con again to a net 48 maximum possible HP (18 base, +12 from racial boost, +12HP from ASI @ L4, +6HP from ASI @ L6).
With rolled HP increases, you'd probably end up around half that at 24ish hot points.
Other perks to Eldritch Knight
Eldritch Knight would grant you access to heavy armor, Defense Fighting Style, Second Wind, and the Shield spell (+5 AC as a reaction) meaning that you would avoid a LOT of damage simply by not getting hit in the first place.
Given the variability inherent in rolling stats, boosting your AC to high levels becomes extremely valuable.
Hill Dwarf Eldritch Knight is a good option
Classes to consider
Wisdom based classes include Cleric, Druid, Ranger, and Monk.
These have hit dice of d8, except ranger that has a d10.
Int means you'd be looking at Wizard (d6 hit die).
However, you could pick Fighter / Eldritch Knight which makes good use of your decent Strength/Dexterity for combat and your great Intelligence for spellcasting support. That would also give you an extra ASI at level 6. That means two ASIs available to boost Con by 2 each time.
So your base HP would be 6 for Cleric/Druid/Ranger, or 12 for Hunter, or 18 for Fighter.
Ways to pickup Con
Hill Dwarf (PHB page 20) grants +2 Con and +1 Wisdom. That reduces the penalty to the hit die at each level by 1 so, after six levels, the net result would be +6 HP. Plus you get +6 HP from Dwarven Toughness for a 6th level character (and a +1 bump to your Wisdom mod, for what it's worth).
Fire Genasi (if you're allowed to choose the race) would be almost the same except that your Int is on the even stat value. Bumping Int by 1 would not increase the mod.
Taking the Tough feat would net you 12 HP compared to 6HP from a straight +2 to Con, so it would be wiser to pick the feat at level 4.
If you pick the Eldritch Knight and get an extra ASI at level 6, you could boost your Con again to a net 48 maximum possible HP (18 base, +12 from racial boost, +12HP from ASI @ L4, +6HP from ASI @ L6).
With rolled HP increases, you'd probably end up around half that at 24ish hot points.
Other perks to Eldritch Knight
Eldritch Knight would grant you access to heavy armor, Defense Fighting Style, Second Wind, and the Shield spell (+5 AC as a reaction) meaning that you would avoid a LOT of damage simply by not getting hit in the first place.
Given the variability inherent in rolling stats, boosting your AC to high levels becomes extremely valuable.
edited 2 hours ago
SevenSidedDie♦
205k30657934
205k30657934
answered 4 hours ago
Rykara
2,368322
2,368322
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
add a comment |
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
– mxyzplk♦
3 hours ago
add a comment |
It's going to take some work, but you can make this survivable. You're going to be a Variant Human with the Tough feat. If you give yourself +1 Con, combined with the Tough feat, your hp penalty will drop to -1 per level. At that point, you could make most builds work, but there are a couple I'd like to suggest:
Barbarian 1/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1/Rogue 1
This is probably my favourite, but it toes the line of the limitations on repeating classes - while 2 levels is normally a dip, this build has more levels in Druid than any of their other characters, and it's the focus of the build. If you can get away with it, here's how it works.
Starting with Barbarian gets you a nice starting hp of 11. Next, you're dropping 2 levels into Druid so you can turn into a brown bear. That's the idea here - you are a bear. While your hp total as a human shouldn't be completely terrible, the aim is that you will be a bear every time you are in combat.
Your Barbarian level lets you boost a brown bear's AC from 11 to 13, as well as Rage, which gives you resistance to mundane physical damage and a minor damage boost. Old One Warlock gives you the telepathy you need to communicate with your party members, as well as some short rest spell slots you can use to heal yourself while in bear form.
After that, you're taking a Rogue level, so that you can pick up Expertise in your Perception and Insight skills. The idea here is to be as difficult as possible to surprise, because surprise is deadly for you - you can't afford to be caught in your human form.
The last level is up to you - none of the level 2 features of the Barbarian, Rogue, or Warlock stand out to me. One kinda nice option is to take a Monk level - if you use your other +1 from Variant Human on Wisdom, the Monk's Unarmoured Defence will boost your bear AC up to 14. It's not a huge bonus over the Barbarian's, but you can use every bit you can get.
Bear Totem Barbarian 3/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1
This is a variation on the above build - you're now playing a Variant Human, which puts your human form hp back in the toilet, but nets you the Alert feat, so you're never caught unawares. Ditching the Rogue level lets you take Barbarian all the way to 3, which gives you the (wildly appropriate) Bear Totem, extending your resistances from Rage to all damage except psychic.
Fighter 1/Forge Cleric 4/Wizard 1
And now for something completely different - this is the "my hp sucks, but it (hopefully) never matters" build. Starting with a Fighter level gets you a bit more hp (9 instead of 7), the Defense Fighting Style, for +1 AC, and proficiency in Con saving throws, meaning you have at least some chance of keeping your concentration spells going.
After that, you're just like any other Cleric, except that you have 22 AC in plate armor and a shield, instead of 20. The shield of faith spell brings that up to 24 AC when you really don't want to get hit. We top it off with a Wizard level, which gets you two important emergency button spells: The first, as always, is shield, for +5 AC, when you really don't want to get hit. The second is absorb elements, for when people attack you in ways that don't involve your AC.
This build has a gaping flaw, of course - attacks that don't target AC, and deal radiant, necrotic, or psychic damage. My recommendation is to stand near a friendly Paladin.
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
It's going to take some work, but you can make this survivable. You're going to be a Variant Human with the Tough feat. If you give yourself +1 Con, combined with the Tough feat, your hp penalty will drop to -1 per level. At that point, you could make most builds work, but there are a couple I'd like to suggest:
Barbarian 1/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1/Rogue 1
This is probably my favourite, but it toes the line of the limitations on repeating classes - while 2 levels is normally a dip, this build has more levels in Druid than any of their other characters, and it's the focus of the build. If you can get away with it, here's how it works.
Starting with Barbarian gets you a nice starting hp of 11. Next, you're dropping 2 levels into Druid so you can turn into a brown bear. That's the idea here - you are a bear. While your hp total as a human shouldn't be completely terrible, the aim is that you will be a bear every time you are in combat.
Your Barbarian level lets you boost a brown bear's AC from 11 to 13, as well as Rage, which gives you resistance to mundane physical damage and a minor damage boost. Old One Warlock gives you the telepathy you need to communicate with your party members, as well as some short rest spell slots you can use to heal yourself while in bear form.
After that, you're taking a Rogue level, so that you can pick up Expertise in your Perception and Insight skills. The idea here is to be as difficult as possible to surprise, because surprise is deadly for you - you can't afford to be caught in your human form.
The last level is up to you - none of the level 2 features of the Barbarian, Rogue, or Warlock stand out to me. One kinda nice option is to take a Monk level - if you use your other +1 from Variant Human on Wisdom, the Monk's Unarmoured Defence will boost your bear AC up to 14. It's not a huge bonus over the Barbarian's, but you can use every bit you can get.
Bear Totem Barbarian 3/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1
This is a variation on the above build - you're now playing a Variant Human, which puts your human form hp back in the toilet, but nets you the Alert feat, so you're never caught unawares. Ditching the Rogue level lets you take Barbarian all the way to 3, which gives you the (wildly appropriate) Bear Totem, extending your resistances from Rage to all damage except psychic.
Fighter 1/Forge Cleric 4/Wizard 1
And now for something completely different - this is the "my hp sucks, but it (hopefully) never matters" build. Starting with a Fighter level gets you a bit more hp (9 instead of 7), the Defense Fighting Style, for +1 AC, and proficiency in Con saving throws, meaning you have at least some chance of keeping your concentration spells going.
After that, you're just like any other Cleric, except that you have 22 AC in plate armor and a shield, instead of 20. The shield of faith spell brings that up to 24 AC when you really don't want to get hit. We top it off with a Wizard level, which gets you two important emergency button spells: The first, as always, is shield, for +5 AC, when you really don't want to get hit. The second is absorb elements, for when people attack you in ways that don't involve your AC.
This build has a gaping flaw, of course - attacks that don't target AC, and deal radiant, necrotic, or psychic damage. My recommendation is to stand near a friendly Paladin.
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
It's going to take some work, but you can make this survivable. You're going to be a Variant Human with the Tough feat. If you give yourself +1 Con, combined with the Tough feat, your hp penalty will drop to -1 per level. At that point, you could make most builds work, but there are a couple I'd like to suggest:
Barbarian 1/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1/Rogue 1
This is probably my favourite, but it toes the line of the limitations on repeating classes - while 2 levels is normally a dip, this build has more levels in Druid than any of their other characters, and it's the focus of the build. If you can get away with it, here's how it works.
Starting with Barbarian gets you a nice starting hp of 11. Next, you're dropping 2 levels into Druid so you can turn into a brown bear. That's the idea here - you are a bear. While your hp total as a human shouldn't be completely terrible, the aim is that you will be a bear every time you are in combat.
Your Barbarian level lets you boost a brown bear's AC from 11 to 13, as well as Rage, which gives you resistance to mundane physical damage and a minor damage boost. Old One Warlock gives you the telepathy you need to communicate with your party members, as well as some short rest spell slots you can use to heal yourself while in bear form.
After that, you're taking a Rogue level, so that you can pick up Expertise in your Perception and Insight skills. The idea here is to be as difficult as possible to surprise, because surprise is deadly for you - you can't afford to be caught in your human form.
The last level is up to you - none of the level 2 features of the Barbarian, Rogue, or Warlock stand out to me. One kinda nice option is to take a Monk level - if you use your other +1 from Variant Human on Wisdom, the Monk's Unarmoured Defence will boost your bear AC up to 14. It's not a huge bonus over the Barbarian's, but you can use every bit you can get.
Bear Totem Barbarian 3/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1
This is a variation on the above build - you're now playing a Variant Human, which puts your human form hp back in the toilet, but nets you the Alert feat, so you're never caught unawares. Ditching the Rogue level lets you take Barbarian all the way to 3, which gives you the (wildly appropriate) Bear Totem, extending your resistances from Rage to all damage except psychic.
Fighter 1/Forge Cleric 4/Wizard 1
And now for something completely different - this is the "my hp sucks, but it (hopefully) never matters" build. Starting with a Fighter level gets you a bit more hp (9 instead of 7), the Defense Fighting Style, for +1 AC, and proficiency in Con saving throws, meaning you have at least some chance of keeping your concentration spells going.
After that, you're just like any other Cleric, except that you have 22 AC in plate armor and a shield, instead of 20. The shield of faith spell brings that up to 24 AC when you really don't want to get hit. We top it off with a Wizard level, which gets you two important emergency button spells: The first, as always, is shield, for +5 AC, when you really don't want to get hit. The second is absorb elements, for when people attack you in ways that don't involve your AC.
This build has a gaping flaw, of course - attacks that don't target AC, and deal radiant, necrotic, or psychic damage. My recommendation is to stand near a friendly Paladin.
It's going to take some work, but you can make this survivable. You're going to be a Variant Human with the Tough feat. If you give yourself +1 Con, combined with the Tough feat, your hp penalty will drop to -1 per level. At that point, you could make most builds work, but there are a couple I'd like to suggest:
Barbarian 1/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1/Rogue 1
This is probably my favourite, but it toes the line of the limitations on repeating classes - while 2 levels is normally a dip, this build has more levels in Druid than any of their other characters, and it's the focus of the build. If you can get away with it, here's how it works.
Starting with Barbarian gets you a nice starting hp of 11. Next, you're dropping 2 levels into Druid so you can turn into a brown bear. That's the idea here - you are a bear. While your hp total as a human shouldn't be completely terrible, the aim is that you will be a bear every time you are in combat.
Your Barbarian level lets you boost a brown bear's AC from 11 to 13, as well as Rage, which gives you resistance to mundane physical damage and a minor damage boost. Old One Warlock gives you the telepathy you need to communicate with your party members, as well as some short rest spell slots you can use to heal yourself while in bear form.
After that, you're taking a Rogue level, so that you can pick up Expertise in your Perception and Insight skills. The idea here is to be as difficult as possible to surprise, because surprise is deadly for you - you can't afford to be caught in your human form.
The last level is up to you - none of the level 2 features of the Barbarian, Rogue, or Warlock stand out to me. One kinda nice option is to take a Monk level - if you use your other +1 from Variant Human on Wisdom, the Monk's Unarmoured Defence will boost your bear AC up to 14. It's not a huge bonus over the Barbarian's, but you can use every bit you can get.
Bear Totem Barbarian 3/Moon Druid 2/Old One Warlock 1
This is a variation on the above build - you're now playing a Variant Human, which puts your human form hp back in the toilet, but nets you the Alert feat, so you're never caught unawares. Ditching the Rogue level lets you take Barbarian all the way to 3, which gives you the (wildly appropriate) Bear Totem, extending your resistances from Rage to all damage except psychic.
Fighter 1/Forge Cleric 4/Wizard 1
And now for something completely different - this is the "my hp sucks, but it (hopefully) never matters" build. Starting with a Fighter level gets you a bit more hp (9 instead of 7), the Defense Fighting Style, for +1 AC, and proficiency in Con saving throws, meaning you have at least some chance of keeping your concentration spells going.
After that, you're just like any other Cleric, except that you have 22 AC in plate armor and a shield, instead of 20. The shield of faith spell brings that up to 24 AC when you really don't want to get hit. We top it off with a Wizard level, which gets you two important emergency button spells: The first, as always, is shield, for +5 AC, when you really don't want to get hit. The second is absorb elements, for when people attack you in ways that don't involve your AC.
This build has a gaping flaw, of course - attacks that don't target AC, and deal radiant, necrotic, or psychic damage. My recommendation is to stand near a friendly Paladin.
edited 48 mins ago
answered 3 hours ago
Miniman
110k27496698
110k27496698
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Yeah, I just saw that edit, comment removed.
– KorvinStarmast
3 hours ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
Thanks for your reply. Those are some very interesting multi-classes. I do have a soft spot for 3+ class combos that actually work. Is the Stensia Human grant any special synergies over Variant Human? Because the +1 Str feels slightly wasted. +1 Con, +1 Dex, Tough V. Human seems slightly better since it allows Dex mod to actually increase.
– The Great Java
57 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Um...oops. Guess I got a bit caught up and forgot that really obvious point. It still has the slight advantage that you could take the Tough feat later for a net +4 hp per level, but you're right, for you variant human is objectively a better choice.
– Miniman
54 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@TheGreatJava Edited - that also lets you get some benefit from a Monk level, which I originally wanted to include but had to drop.
– Miniman
47 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
@Miniman about taking a feat, especially in the first build, an ASI is at least 2 levels away (assuming no levels in Monk). Are the first two builds worth the loss of ASI?
– The Great Java
34 mins ago
|
show 1 more comment
You probably shouldn't play a main caster
You want to make use of your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, but playing a caster is not only about these scores. You want a non-terrible Constitution score in order to maintain concentration on your spells. For you this will be all but impossible as you would have to roll a 15 every time you take any damage (you'd have to roll higher if you take more damage, but with so little HP from the spellcaster classes, more damage would sooner kill you).
As such, the use of these scores should be as secondary in a different class. The best classes for this would be Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight (to make use of the Intelligence) or a Cleric without focusing on Concentration spells (to make use of the Wisdom).
Rykara's answer is an excellent showing of how to mitigate the HP-loss with your race, class, and feats. I don't think a cleric without Concentration spells would be more effective than his fighter for this, so I'll touch on ho to build an Arcane Trickster (with the intent to avoid taking damage as opposed to being a hair more bulky).
The slippery Arcane Trickster
The rogue offers a number of options that increase your ability to avoid damage.
- Cunning Action gives you the option to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action allowing you to exit an unfortunate melee without provoking an opportunity attack, and in the right situation gain the benefits of Unseen Attackers which as a start gives enemies disadvantage when attacking you, but also lets you leverage Sneak Attack for heavy damage.
- Expertise in Stealth improves that Hide ability greatly making even the perceptive creatures have trouble tracking you on a battlefield with sufficient cover.
- Uncanny Dodge comes in as a fail-safe so that even if an attack does hit you, you only take half damage.
- Your next level gives you Evasion which is very good at avoiding that pesky AOE spell damage even when you succeed on the saving throw.
- Arcane Trickster gives you access to the very useful shield spell 3 times a day (or other utility spells if you don't find yourself in harrowing situations enough to require this).
Dragonmark of Shadow
Even with the benefits of an Arcane Trickster defensively, you do not want to be in the fray very often. As such, I recommend a ranged weapon build, this means maximizing Dexterity, and one of the Dexterity increasing races is actually very good for your build.
The Mark of Shadow elf, in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, gives you an extra d4 to Stealth checks (which on top of Expertise makes you very hard to detect), and it also lets you use the Hide action even without cover once per rest:
You can use the Hide action as a bonus action, even if you have no cover or if you’re under observation. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
This can save your life in situations where cover is not readily available and you've run out of shield slots (or if you're up against a spellcaster, who can get around your armor class, that you really don't want to know your location).
Elf also puts your Dexterity at 17, allowing you to catch up with other weapon characters (who will have 18 in their primary attack stat) using your level 4 ability score increase.
The build
Here is a sample finalized build using the above advice:
- Level 1:
- Mark of Shadow Elf
- Proficiency in Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Mage Hand Legerdemain), Perception (high Wisdom), and Investigation (high Intelligence) from Rogue
- Proficiency in two knowledge Skills (i.e. Religion, Nature) relevant to the campaign from background (to use that Intelligence)
- Note: all of your skill-relevant ability scores are passible, so with Expertise, you can pick and choose what skills you think will be the most useful
- Expertise in Stealth and Perception (these are your two most useful skills in my experience, although another option can be taken instead of Perception depending on how often your table uses skills like Investigation and the knowledge skills)
- Level 2:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 3:
- Arcane Trickster, of course. make sure you pick up the shield spell, some utility spells that utilize your Intelligence (like disguise self or tasha's hideous laughter), and maybe a cantrip that helps you deal extra damage in some situations (like sword burst/thunderwave if you are surrounded or booming blade if you are willing to risk going into melee range)
- Level 4:
- An ability score increase gets your Dexterity to 18 and brings your Wisdom to 18 or Constitution to 4 (depending on whether you want 6 more HP or better Perception)
- Alternatively, the Greater Dragonmark feat will give you a, extra d6 instead of a d4 for your Stealth and Deception checks, and gives you some powerful spells while still bringing your Dexterity to 18 (this would be my choice).
- If you expect to have cover a lot (with which to be hidden), sharpshooter is probably the best. Since you have advantage as an Unseen Attacker, you can capitalize on the +10 damage often and you can also be further away from your enemies by attacking from long range.
- Level 5:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 6:
- 2 more expertise to put in skills of your choice (again, your knowledge skills could be very useful, but just about any skill is viable as most of your ability scores are pretty solid)
- Vital Equipment:
- You want to have as high an Armor Class as possible so try your best to get Studded Leather Armor.
- The best ranged weapon to be using is a Light Crossbow.
- You may want to have a Rapier on hand in case the opportunity for booming blade or green-flame blade presents itself (remember, a light crossbow only takes up to hands when firing, so you can draw a rapier as part of your attack, and stow it before you attack with the light crossbow in later turns)
- You want a component pouch so you can cast spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or just ask your GM if you can have the components listed in each Material spell you have (again, you can hold the light crossbow in one hand while not attacking allowing you to use Somatic spells while still hanging on to your weapon)
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
add a comment |
You probably shouldn't play a main caster
You want to make use of your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, but playing a caster is not only about these scores. You want a non-terrible Constitution score in order to maintain concentration on your spells. For you this will be all but impossible as you would have to roll a 15 every time you take any damage (you'd have to roll higher if you take more damage, but with so little HP from the spellcaster classes, more damage would sooner kill you).
As such, the use of these scores should be as secondary in a different class. The best classes for this would be Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight (to make use of the Intelligence) or a Cleric without focusing on Concentration spells (to make use of the Wisdom).
Rykara's answer is an excellent showing of how to mitigate the HP-loss with your race, class, and feats. I don't think a cleric without Concentration spells would be more effective than his fighter for this, so I'll touch on ho to build an Arcane Trickster (with the intent to avoid taking damage as opposed to being a hair more bulky).
The slippery Arcane Trickster
The rogue offers a number of options that increase your ability to avoid damage.
- Cunning Action gives you the option to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action allowing you to exit an unfortunate melee without provoking an opportunity attack, and in the right situation gain the benefits of Unseen Attackers which as a start gives enemies disadvantage when attacking you, but also lets you leverage Sneak Attack for heavy damage.
- Expertise in Stealth improves that Hide ability greatly making even the perceptive creatures have trouble tracking you on a battlefield with sufficient cover.
- Uncanny Dodge comes in as a fail-safe so that even if an attack does hit you, you only take half damage.
- Your next level gives you Evasion which is very good at avoiding that pesky AOE spell damage even when you succeed on the saving throw.
- Arcane Trickster gives you access to the very useful shield spell 3 times a day (or other utility spells if you don't find yourself in harrowing situations enough to require this).
Dragonmark of Shadow
Even with the benefits of an Arcane Trickster defensively, you do not want to be in the fray very often. As such, I recommend a ranged weapon build, this means maximizing Dexterity, and one of the Dexterity increasing races is actually very good for your build.
The Mark of Shadow elf, in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, gives you an extra d4 to Stealth checks (which on top of Expertise makes you very hard to detect), and it also lets you use the Hide action even without cover once per rest:
You can use the Hide action as a bonus action, even if you have no cover or if you’re under observation. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
This can save your life in situations where cover is not readily available and you've run out of shield slots (or if you're up against a spellcaster, who can get around your armor class, that you really don't want to know your location).
Elf also puts your Dexterity at 17, allowing you to catch up with other weapon characters (who will have 18 in their primary attack stat) using your level 4 ability score increase.
The build
Here is a sample finalized build using the above advice:
- Level 1:
- Mark of Shadow Elf
- Proficiency in Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Mage Hand Legerdemain), Perception (high Wisdom), and Investigation (high Intelligence) from Rogue
- Proficiency in two knowledge Skills (i.e. Religion, Nature) relevant to the campaign from background (to use that Intelligence)
- Note: all of your skill-relevant ability scores are passible, so with Expertise, you can pick and choose what skills you think will be the most useful
- Expertise in Stealth and Perception (these are your two most useful skills in my experience, although another option can be taken instead of Perception depending on how often your table uses skills like Investigation and the knowledge skills)
- Level 2:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 3:
- Arcane Trickster, of course. make sure you pick up the shield spell, some utility spells that utilize your Intelligence (like disguise self or tasha's hideous laughter), and maybe a cantrip that helps you deal extra damage in some situations (like sword burst/thunderwave if you are surrounded or booming blade if you are willing to risk going into melee range)
- Level 4:
- An ability score increase gets your Dexterity to 18 and brings your Wisdom to 18 or Constitution to 4 (depending on whether you want 6 more HP or better Perception)
- Alternatively, the Greater Dragonmark feat will give you a, extra d6 instead of a d4 for your Stealth and Deception checks, and gives you some powerful spells while still bringing your Dexterity to 18 (this would be my choice).
- If you expect to have cover a lot (with which to be hidden), sharpshooter is probably the best. Since you have advantage as an Unseen Attacker, you can capitalize on the +10 damage often and you can also be further away from your enemies by attacking from long range.
- Level 5:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 6:
- 2 more expertise to put in skills of your choice (again, your knowledge skills could be very useful, but just about any skill is viable as most of your ability scores are pretty solid)
- Vital Equipment:
- You want to have as high an Armor Class as possible so try your best to get Studded Leather Armor.
- The best ranged weapon to be using is a Light Crossbow.
- You may want to have a Rapier on hand in case the opportunity for booming blade or green-flame blade presents itself (remember, a light crossbow only takes up to hands when firing, so you can draw a rapier as part of your attack, and stow it before you attack with the light crossbow in later turns)
- You want a component pouch so you can cast spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or just ask your GM if you can have the components listed in each Material spell you have (again, you can hold the light crossbow in one hand while not attacking allowing you to use Somatic spells while still hanging on to your weapon)
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
add a comment |
You probably shouldn't play a main caster
You want to make use of your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, but playing a caster is not only about these scores. You want a non-terrible Constitution score in order to maintain concentration on your spells. For you this will be all but impossible as you would have to roll a 15 every time you take any damage (you'd have to roll higher if you take more damage, but with so little HP from the spellcaster classes, more damage would sooner kill you).
As such, the use of these scores should be as secondary in a different class. The best classes for this would be Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight (to make use of the Intelligence) or a Cleric without focusing on Concentration spells (to make use of the Wisdom).
Rykara's answer is an excellent showing of how to mitigate the HP-loss with your race, class, and feats. I don't think a cleric without Concentration spells would be more effective than his fighter for this, so I'll touch on ho to build an Arcane Trickster (with the intent to avoid taking damage as opposed to being a hair more bulky).
The slippery Arcane Trickster
The rogue offers a number of options that increase your ability to avoid damage.
- Cunning Action gives you the option to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action allowing you to exit an unfortunate melee without provoking an opportunity attack, and in the right situation gain the benefits of Unseen Attackers which as a start gives enemies disadvantage when attacking you, but also lets you leverage Sneak Attack for heavy damage.
- Expertise in Stealth improves that Hide ability greatly making even the perceptive creatures have trouble tracking you on a battlefield with sufficient cover.
- Uncanny Dodge comes in as a fail-safe so that even if an attack does hit you, you only take half damage.
- Your next level gives you Evasion which is very good at avoiding that pesky AOE spell damage even when you succeed on the saving throw.
- Arcane Trickster gives you access to the very useful shield spell 3 times a day (or other utility spells if you don't find yourself in harrowing situations enough to require this).
Dragonmark of Shadow
Even with the benefits of an Arcane Trickster defensively, you do not want to be in the fray very often. As such, I recommend a ranged weapon build, this means maximizing Dexterity, and one of the Dexterity increasing races is actually very good for your build.
The Mark of Shadow elf, in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, gives you an extra d4 to Stealth checks (which on top of Expertise makes you very hard to detect), and it also lets you use the Hide action even without cover once per rest:
You can use the Hide action as a bonus action, even if you have no cover or if you’re under observation. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
This can save your life in situations where cover is not readily available and you've run out of shield slots (or if you're up against a spellcaster, who can get around your armor class, that you really don't want to know your location).
Elf also puts your Dexterity at 17, allowing you to catch up with other weapon characters (who will have 18 in their primary attack stat) using your level 4 ability score increase.
The build
Here is a sample finalized build using the above advice:
- Level 1:
- Mark of Shadow Elf
- Proficiency in Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Mage Hand Legerdemain), Perception (high Wisdom), and Investigation (high Intelligence) from Rogue
- Proficiency in two knowledge Skills (i.e. Religion, Nature) relevant to the campaign from background (to use that Intelligence)
- Note: all of your skill-relevant ability scores are passible, so with Expertise, you can pick and choose what skills you think will be the most useful
- Expertise in Stealth and Perception (these are your two most useful skills in my experience, although another option can be taken instead of Perception depending on how often your table uses skills like Investigation and the knowledge skills)
- Level 2:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 3:
- Arcane Trickster, of course. make sure you pick up the shield spell, some utility spells that utilize your Intelligence (like disguise self or tasha's hideous laughter), and maybe a cantrip that helps you deal extra damage in some situations (like sword burst/thunderwave if you are surrounded or booming blade if you are willing to risk going into melee range)
- Level 4:
- An ability score increase gets your Dexterity to 18 and brings your Wisdom to 18 or Constitution to 4 (depending on whether you want 6 more HP or better Perception)
- Alternatively, the Greater Dragonmark feat will give you a, extra d6 instead of a d4 for your Stealth and Deception checks, and gives you some powerful spells while still bringing your Dexterity to 18 (this would be my choice).
- If you expect to have cover a lot (with which to be hidden), sharpshooter is probably the best. Since you have advantage as an Unseen Attacker, you can capitalize on the +10 damage often and you can also be further away from your enemies by attacking from long range.
- Level 5:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 6:
- 2 more expertise to put in skills of your choice (again, your knowledge skills could be very useful, but just about any skill is viable as most of your ability scores are pretty solid)
- Vital Equipment:
- You want to have as high an Armor Class as possible so try your best to get Studded Leather Armor.
- The best ranged weapon to be using is a Light Crossbow.
- You may want to have a Rapier on hand in case the opportunity for booming blade or green-flame blade presents itself (remember, a light crossbow only takes up to hands when firing, so you can draw a rapier as part of your attack, and stow it before you attack with the light crossbow in later turns)
- You want a component pouch so you can cast spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or just ask your GM if you can have the components listed in each Material spell you have (again, you can hold the light crossbow in one hand while not attacking allowing you to use Somatic spells while still hanging on to your weapon)
You probably shouldn't play a main caster
You want to make use of your high Intelligence and Wisdom scores, but playing a caster is not only about these scores. You want a non-terrible Constitution score in order to maintain concentration on your spells. For you this will be all but impossible as you would have to roll a 15 every time you take any damage (you'd have to roll higher if you take more damage, but with so little HP from the spellcaster classes, more damage would sooner kill you).
As such, the use of these scores should be as secondary in a different class. The best classes for this would be Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight (to make use of the Intelligence) or a Cleric without focusing on Concentration spells (to make use of the Wisdom).
Rykara's answer is an excellent showing of how to mitigate the HP-loss with your race, class, and feats. I don't think a cleric without Concentration spells would be more effective than his fighter for this, so I'll touch on ho to build an Arcane Trickster (with the intent to avoid taking damage as opposed to being a hair more bulky).
The slippery Arcane Trickster
The rogue offers a number of options that increase your ability to avoid damage.
- Cunning Action gives you the option to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action allowing you to exit an unfortunate melee without provoking an opportunity attack, and in the right situation gain the benefits of Unseen Attackers which as a start gives enemies disadvantage when attacking you, but also lets you leverage Sneak Attack for heavy damage.
- Expertise in Stealth improves that Hide ability greatly making even the perceptive creatures have trouble tracking you on a battlefield with sufficient cover.
- Uncanny Dodge comes in as a fail-safe so that even if an attack does hit you, you only take half damage.
- Your next level gives you Evasion which is very good at avoiding that pesky AOE spell damage even when you succeed on the saving throw.
- Arcane Trickster gives you access to the very useful shield spell 3 times a day (or other utility spells if you don't find yourself in harrowing situations enough to require this).
Dragonmark of Shadow
Even with the benefits of an Arcane Trickster defensively, you do not want to be in the fray very often. As such, I recommend a ranged weapon build, this means maximizing Dexterity, and one of the Dexterity increasing races is actually very good for your build.
The Mark of Shadow elf, in Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, gives you an extra d4 to Stealth checks (which on top of Expertise makes you very hard to detect), and it also lets you use the Hide action even without cover once per rest:
You can use the Hide action as a bonus action, even if you have no cover or if you’re under observation. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
This can save your life in situations where cover is not readily available and you've run out of shield slots (or if you're up against a spellcaster, who can get around your armor class, that you really don't want to know your location).
Elf also puts your Dexterity at 17, allowing you to catch up with other weapon characters (who will have 18 in their primary attack stat) using your level 4 ability score increase.
The build
Here is a sample finalized build using the above advice:
- Level 1:
- Mark of Shadow Elf
- Proficiency in Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Mage Hand Legerdemain), Perception (high Wisdom), and Investigation (high Intelligence) from Rogue
- Proficiency in two knowledge Skills (i.e. Religion, Nature) relevant to the campaign from background (to use that Intelligence)
- Note: all of your skill-relevant ability scores are passible, so with Expertise, you can pick and choose what skills you think will be the most useful
- Expertise in Stealth and Perception (these are your two most useful skills in my experience, although another option can be taken instead of Perception depending on how often your table uses skills like Investigation and the knowledge skills)
- Level 2:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 3:
- Arcane Trickster, of course. make sure you pick up the shield spell, some utility spells that utilize your Intelligence (like disguise self or tasha's hideous laughter), and maybe a cantrip that helps you deal extra damage in some situations (like sword burst/thunderwave if you are surrounded or booming blade if you are willing to risk going into melee range)
- Level 4:
- An ability score increase gets your Dexterity to 18 and brings your Wisdom to 18 or Constitution to 4 (depending on whether you want 6 more HP or better Perception)
- Alternatively, the Greater Dragonmark feat will give you a, extra d6 instead of a d4 for your Stealth and Deception checks, and gives you some powerful spells while still bringing your Dexterity to 18 (this would be my choice).
- If you expect to have cover a lot (with which to be hidden), sharpshooter is probably the best. Since you have advantage as an Unseen Attacker, you can capitalize on the +10 damage often and you can also be further away from your enemies by attacking from long range.
- Level 5:
- Nothing really important to choose here
- Level 6:
- 2 more expertise to put in skills of your choice (again, your knowledge skills could be very useful, but just about any skill is viable as most of your ability scores are pretty solid)
- Vital Equipment:
- You want to have as high an Armor Class as possible so try your best to get Studded Leather Armor.
- The best ranged weapon to be using is a Light Crossbow.
- You may want to have a Rapier on hand in case the opportunity for booming blade or green-flame blade presents itself (remember, a light crossbow only takes up to hands when firing, so you can draw a rapier as part of your attack, and stow it before you attack with the light crossbow in later turns)
- You want a component pouch so you can cast spells like Tasha's Hideous Laughter, or just ask your GM if you can have the components listed in each Material spell you have (again, you can hold the light crossbow in one hand while not attacking allowing you to use Somatic spells while still hanging on to your weapon)
edited 30 mins ago
answered 2 hours ago
David Coffron
33k3112231
33k3112231
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
add a comment |
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with Mark of Shadow ELf, do you know which book it's from?
– The Great Java
1 hour ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
@TheGreatJava It is from Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron
– David Coffron
31 mins ago
add a comment |
An Abjurer can get some staying power without constitution
An abjuration Wizard gains the Arcane Ward feature at 2nd level, which provides twice your level plus your intelligence modifier in extra hit points that replenish as you cast abjuration spells. At 6th level with your base stats this is at least 16 extra maximum hit points. That's a massive improvement over the measly 8ish max hp your wizard would otherwise probably have!
Being a wizard also lets you ameliorate the effects of your low constitution a bit: while your d6 hit die will almost never outweigh your negative Constitution modifier, your minimum HP gain per level can't go below 1. This is particularly good since you are, for some reason, focused on median rather than mean hit points-- while your mean or expected hp at level 6 from wizard levels with 3 Con is 7.5, your median hp is a whopping 2 points higher: 9.5. This is because there are a very limited selection of values your hp can be, and there's about an 80% chance it's one of the bottom two.
A Warlock can charge Arcane Wards all day, every day
Warlocks get the only unlimited at-will spellcasting ability we can use to fuel Arcane Ward: the Armor of Shadows eldritch invocation. This lets us "cast an abjuration spell of first level or higher" an unlimited number of times without resting, plus we get to up our AC a bit. It's only 2 hp per casting, so it'll take 48 seconds to fully recharge a downed ward, but if you need your ward back up faster than that you're better off casting one of them fancy higher level spells anyways.
It's two levels to get invocations, so you'll be War2/Wiz4. Eventually, in the far future, you'll really want to replace those levels in Warlock, but that's at level 18, which is far enough out I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.
Your levels in Warlock also give you a patron, which should be either the Raven Queen or the Undying.
The first gives you access to the Sanctuary spell, which is a nice effect for a support caster, and also is an abjuration so it'll recharge your ward a tiny bit when used, as well as a cool raven familiar that stacks with other familiars you might have except that it's totally not a problem if it dies repeatedly. The raven is particularly good since it boosts your perception score (by 2 in your case) so you are less likely to get one-shotted by an unexpected ambush.
The Undying instead gives you a sanctuary-spell-like effect that's always on, but only functions against undead and only until they first make the save. Tomb of Anhinnialation has a lot of undead baddies, so this is pretty comparable, but that's all it's going to give you. Your call on whether saving the allowed-to-cast-spells-this-round flag for something else is worth it.
Note that Warlocks have a d8 HD so you suffer more from your negative Con score: a regular character would gain around 1 more hp per level from that change but you only gain around .58 hp per level more over those two levels. Our expected hp and median are still a bit higher this way, of course, and we end up with an expected hp of 10.42 and a median hp of 12.5.
Our second invocation can be utility stuff like Eyes of the Rune-Keeper or Eldritch Sight, or 8 more hit points via false life via Fiendish Vigor.
Half-orcs get a do-over
Half-orcs (and Minotaurs from Planescape:Amonkhet, but those swap out darkvision for a garbage natural weapon) get +1 constitution and the ability to instead be fine the first time they would be reduced to 0 hp or below each long rest. This doesn't trigger if you are instakilled by massive damage, which is a significant concern for you since that's, like, 45 damage and there are CR 6 creatures that can actually do that in a single round if you let them (don't get charge-stomped by a mammoth).
The final recommended build would look something like this:
Half-Orc War2/Wiz4
AC 15
hp: 12
temp hp: 8
arcane ward: 17
Str: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 4
Int: 20
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Background: Stojanow Prisoner
Skills: Perception, Deception, Investigation, Arcana, Intimidation
Tools: Thieves' Tools, Gaming Set
Patron: Raven Queen
Invocations: Armor of Shadows, Fiendish Vigor
Warlock Cantrips:
Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion
Pact Magic Spells Known:
Sanctuary, Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke
Wizard Cantrips:
Control Flame, Encode Thoughts, Shape Water, Blade Ward
Wizard Spells Known:
Comprehend Languages, Identify, Fog Cloud, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, Grease, Unseen Servant, Lonstrider (+ whatever you can get from scrolls, NPCs, etc)
Flock of Familiars, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Enlarge/Reduce (+ etc)
Out of combat, you are fairly tanky since your hp completely replenish after each trap, fall, firewalking exercise, or what have you.
In combat, you want to be in the back and avoid damage as much as possible, using an unseen servant and/or flock of familiars and/or your sentinel raven to control enemy movement options. You can cast enlarge or false life on an ally to buff them without losing sanctuary, and you can cast sanctuary twice per short rest to discourage enemies from attacking you. Armor of Agathys can singlehandedly eliminate hordes of weaker enemies who attack you, because your Arcane Ward will ensure that the temp hp from that spell stay around until you're basically dead anyways. Eldritch Blast provides an option to deal okayish ranged damage if it comes up, and something to do while sanctuarying when defence isn't urgent enough to warrant a blade ward.
Out of combat, your wide variety of utility spells, massive perception abilities, and proficiency in Thieves' Tools will let you act a bit like a rogue.
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
add a comment |
An Abjurer can get some staying power without constitution
An abjuration Wizard gains the Arcane Ward feature at 2nd level, which provides twice your level plus your intelligence modifier in extra hit points that replenish as you cast abjuration spells. At 6th level with your base stats this is at least 16 extra maximum hit points. That's a massive improvement over the measly 8ish max hp your wizard would otherwise probably have!
Being a wizard also lets you ameliorate the effects of your low constitution a bit: while your d6 hit die will almost never outweigh your negative Constitution modifier, your minimum HP gain per level can't go below 1. This is particularly good since you are, for some reason, focused on median rather than mean hit points-- while your mean or expected hp at level 6 from wizard levels with 3 Con is 7.5, your median hp is a whopping 2 points higher: 9.5. This is because there are a very limited selection of values your hp can be, and there's about an 80% chance it's one of the bottom two.
A Warlock can charge Arcane Wards all day, every day
Warlocks get the only unlimited at-will spellcasting ability we can use to fuel Arcane Ward: the Armor of Shadows eldritch invocation. This lets us "cast an abjuration spell of first level or higher" an unlimited number of times without resting, plus we get to up our AC a bit. It's only 2 hp per casting, so it'll take 48 seconds to fully recharge a downed ward, but if you need your ward back up faster than that you're better off casting one of them fancy higher level spells anyways.
It's two levels to get invocations, so you'll be War2/Wiz4. Eventually, in the far future, you'll really want to replace those levels in Warlock, but that's at level 18, which is far enough out I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.
Your levels in Warlock also give you a patron, which should be either the Raven Queen or the Undying.
The first gives you access to the Sanctuary spell, which is a nice effect for a support caster, and also is an abjuration so it'll recharge your ward a tiny bit when used, as well as a cool raven familiar that stacks with other familiars you might have except that it's totally not a problem if it dies repeatedly. The raven is particularly good since it boosts your perception score (by 2 in your case) so you are less likely to get one-shotted by an unexpected ambush.
The Undying instead gives you a sanctuary-spell-like effect that's always on, but only functions against undead and only until they first make the save. Tomb of Anhinnialation has a lot of undead baddies, so this is pretty comparable, but that's all it's going to give you. Your call on whether saving the allowed-to-cast-spells-this-round flag for something else is worth it.
Note that Warlocks have a d8 HD so you suffer more from your negative Con score: a regular character would gain around 1 more hp per level from that change but you only gain around .58 hp per level more over those two levels. Our expected hp and median are still a bit higher this way, of course, and we end up with an expected hp of 10.42 and a median hp of 12.5.
Our second invocation can be utility stuff like Eyes of the Rune-Keeper or Eldritch Sight, or 8 more hit points via false life via Fiendish Vigor.
Half-orcs get a do-over
Half-orcs (and Minotaurs from Planescape:Amonkhet, but those swap out darkvision for a garbage natural weapon) get +1 constitution and the ability to instead be fine the first time they would be reduced to 0 hp or below each long rest. This doesn't trigger if you are instakilled by massive damage, which is a significant concern for you since that's, like, 45 damage and there are CR 6 creatures that can actually do that in a single round if you let them (don't get charge-stomped by a mammoth).
The final recommended build would look something like this:
Half-Orc War2/Wiz4
AC 15
hp: 12
temp hp: 8
arcane ward: 17
Str: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 4
Int: 20
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Background: Stojanow Prisoner
Skills: Perception, Deception, Investigation, Arcana, Intimidation
Tools: Thieves' Tools, Gaming Set
Patron: Raven Queen
Invocations: Armor of Shadows, Fiendish Vigor
Warlock Cantrips:
Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion
Pact Magic Spells Known:
Sanctuary, Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke
Wizard Cantrips:
Control Flame, Encode Thoughts, Shape Water, Blade Ward
Wizard Spells Known:
Comprehend Languages, Identify, Fog Cloud, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, Grease, Unseen Servant, Lonstrider (+ whatever you can get from scrolls, NPCs, etc)
Flock of Familiars, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Enlarge/Reduce (+ etc)
Out of combat, you are fairly tanky since your hp completely replenish after each trap, fall, firewalking exercise, or what have you.
In combat, you want to be in the back and avoid damage as much as possible, using an unseen servant and/or flock of familiars and/or your sentinel raven to control enemy movement options. You can cast enlarge or false life on an ally to buff them without losing sanctuary, and you can cast sanctuary twice per short rest to discourage enemies from attacking you. Armor of Agathys can singlehandedly eliminate hordes of weaker enemies who attack you, because your Arcane Ward will ensure that the temp hp from that spell stay around until you're basically dead anyways. Eldritch Blast provides an option to deal okayish ranged damage if it comes up, and something to do while sanctuarying when defence isn't urgent enough to warrant a blade ward.
Out of combat, your wide variety of utility spells, massive perception abilities, and proficiency in Thieves' Tools will let you act a bit like a rogue.
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
add a comment |
An Abjurer can get some staying power without constitution
An abjuration Wizard gains the Arcane Ward feature at 2nd level, which provides twice your level plus your intelligence modifier in extra hit points that replenish as you cast abjuration spells. At 6th level with your base stats this is at least 16 extra maximum hit points. That's a massive improvement over the measly 8ish max hp your wizard would otherwise probably have!
Being a wizard also lets you ameliorate the effects of your low constitution a bit: while your d6 hit die will almost never outweigh your negative Constitution modifier, your minimum HP gain per level can't go below 1. This is particularly good since you are, for some reason, focused on median rather than mean hit points-- while your mean or expected hp at level 6 from wizard levels with 3 Con is 7.5, your median hp is a whopping 2 points higher: 9.5. This is because there are a very limited selection of values your hp can be, and there's about an 80% chance it's one of the bottom two.
A Warlock can charge Arcane Wards all day, every day
Warlocks get the only unlimited at-will spellcasting ability we can use to fuel Arcane Ward: the Armor of Shadows eldritch invocation. This lets us "cast an abjuration spell of first level or higher" an unlimited number of times without resting, plus we get to up our AC a bit. It's only 2 hp per casting, so it'll take 48 seconds to fully recharge a downed ward, but if you need your ward back up faster than that you're better off casting one of them fancy higher level spells anyways.
It's two levels to get invocations, so you'll be War2/Wiz4. Eventually, in the far future, you'll really want to replace those levels in Warlock, but that's at level 18, which is far enough out I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.
Your levels in Warlock also give you a patron, which should be either the Raven Queen or the Undying.
The first gives you access to the Sanctuary spell, which is a nice effect for a support caster, and also is an abjuration so it'll recharge your ward a tiny bit when used, as well as a cool raven familiar that stacks with other familiars you might have except that it's totally not a problem if it dies repeatedly. The raven is particularly good since it boosts your perception score (by 2 in your case) so you are less likely to get one-shotted by an unexpected ambush.
The Undying instead gives you a sanctuary-spell-like effect that's always on, but only functions against undead and only until they first make the save. Tomb of Anhinnialation has a lot of undead baddies, so this is pretty comparable, but that's all it's going to give you. Your call on whether saving the allowed-to-cast-spells-this-round flag for something else is worth it.
Note that Warlocks have a d8 HD so you suffer more from your negative Con score: a regular character would gain around 1 more hp per level from that change but you only gain around .58 hp per level more over those two levels. Our expected hp and median are still a bit higher this way, of course, and we end up with an expected hp of 10.42 and a median hp of 12.5.
Our second invocation can be utility stuff like Eyes of the Rune-Keeper or Eldritch Sight, or 8 more hit points via false life via Fiendish Vigor.
Half-orcs get a do-over
Half-orcs (and Minotaurs from Planescape:Amonkhet, but those swap out darkvision for a garbage natural weapon) get +1 constitution and the ability to instead be fine the first time they would be reduced to 0 hp or below each long rest. This doesn't trigger if you are instakilled by massive damage, which is a significant concern for you since that's, like, 45 damage and there are CR 6 creatures that can actually do that in a single round if you let them (don't get charge-stomped by a mammoth).
The final recommended build would look something like this:
Half-Orc War2/Wiz4
AC 15
hp: 12
temp hp: 8
arcane ward: 17
Str: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 4
Int: 20
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Background: Stojanow Prisoner
Skills: Perception, Deception, Investigation, Arcana, Intimidation
Tools: Thieves' Tools, Gaming Set
Patron: Raven Queen
Invocations: Armor of Shadows, Fiendish Vigor
Warlock Cantrips:
Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion
Pact Magic Spells Known:
Sanctuary, Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke
Wizard Cantrips:
Control Flame, Encode Thoughts, Shape Water, Blade Ward
Wizard Spells Known:
Comprehend Languages, Identify, Fog Cloud, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, Grease, Unseen Servant, Lonstrider (+ whatever you can get from scrolls, NPCs, etc)
Flock of Familiars, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Enlarge/Reduce (+ etc)
Out of combat, you are fairly tanky since your hp completely replenish after each trap, fall, firewalking exercise, or what have you.
In combat, you want to be in the back and avoid damage as much as possible, using an unseen servant and/or flock of familiars and/or your sentinel raven to control enemy movement options. You can cast enlarge or false life on an ally to buff them without losing sanctuary, and you can cast sanctuary twice per short rest to discourage enemies from attacking you. Armor of Agathys can singlehandedly eliminate hordes of weaker enemies who attack you, because your Arcane Ward will ensure that the temp hp from that spell stay around until you're basically dead anyways. Eldritch Blast provides an option to deal okayish ranged damage if it comes up, and something to do while sanctuarying when defence isn't urgent enough to warrant a blade ward.
Out of combat, your wide variety of utility spells, massive perception abilities, and proficiency in Thieves' Tools will let you act a bit like a rogue.
An Abjurer can get some staying power without constitution
An abjuration Wizard gains the Arcane Ward feature at 2nd level, which provides twice your level plus your intelligence modifier in extra hit points that replenish as you cast abjuration spells. At 6th level with your base stats this is at least 16 extra maximum hit points. That's a massive improvement over the measly 8ish max hp your wizard would otherwise probably have!
Being a wizard also lets you ameliorate the effects of your low constitution a bit: while your d6 hit die will almost never outweigh your negative Constitution modifier, your minimum HP gain per level can't go below 1. This is particularly good since you are, for some reason, focused on median rather than mean hit points-- while your mean or expected hp at level 6 from wizard levels with 3 Con is 7.5, your median hp is a whopping 2 points higher: 9.5. This is because there are a very limited selection of values your hp can be, and there's about an 80% chance it's one of the bottom two.
A Warlock can charge Arcane Wards all day, every day
Warlocks get the only unlimited at-will spellcasting ability we can use to fuel Arcane Ward: the Armor of Shadows eldritch invocation. This lets us "cast an abjuration spell of first level or higher" an unlimited number of times without resting, plus we get to up our AC a bit. It's only 2 hp per casting, so it'll take 48 seconds to fully recharge a downed ward, but if you need your ward back up faster than that you're better off casting one of them fancy higher level spells anyways.
It's two levels to get invocations, so you'll be War2/Wiz4. Eventually, in the far future, you'll really want to replace those levels in Warlock, but that's at level 18, which is far enough out I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.
Your levels in Warlock also give you a patron, which should be either the Raven Queen or the Undying.
The first gives you access to the Sanctuary spell, which is a nice effect for a support caster, and also is an abjuration so it'll recharge your ward a tiny bit when used, as well as a cool raven familiar that stacks with other familiars you might have except that it's totally not a problem if it dies repeatedly. The raven is particularly good since it boosts your perception score (by 2 in your case) so you are less likely to get one-shotted by an unexpected ambush.
The Undying instead gives you a sanctuary-spell-like effect that's always on, but only functions against undead and only until they first make the save. Tomb of Anhinnialation has a lot of undead baddies, so this is pretty comparable, but that's all it's going to give you. Your call on whether saving the allowed-to-cast-spells-this-round flag for something else is worth it.
Note that Warlocks have a d8 HD so you suffer more from your negative Con score: a regular character would gain around 1 more hp per level from that change but you only gain around .58 hp per level more over those two levels. Our expected hp and median are still a bit higher this way, of course, and we end up with an expected hp of 10.42 and a median hp of 12.5.
Our second invocation can be utility stuff like Eyes of the Rune-Keeper or Eldritch Sight, or 8 more hit points via false life via Fiendish Vigor.
Half-orcs get a do-over
Half-orcs (and Minotaurs from Planescape:Amonkhet, but those swap out darkvision for a garbage natural weapon) get +1 constitution and the ability to instead be fine the first time they would be reduced to 0 hp or below each long rest. This doesn't trigger if you are instakilled by massive damage, which is a significant concern for you since that's, like, 45 damage and there are CR 6 creatures that can actually do that in a single round if you let them (don't get charge-stomped by a mammoth).
The final recommended build would look something like this:
Half-Orc War2/Wiz4
AC 15
hp: 12
temp hp: 8
arcane ward: 17
Str: 16
Dex: 15
Con: 4
Int: 20
Wis: 17
Cha: 13
Background: Stojanow Prisoner
Skills: Perception, Deception, Investigation, Arcana, Intimidation
Tools: Thieves' Tools, Gaming Set
Patron: Raven Queen
Invocations: Armor of Shadows, Fiendish Vigor
Warlock Cantrips:
Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion
Pact Magic Spells Known:
Sanctuary, Armor of Agathys, Hellish Rebuke
Wizard Cantrips:
Control Flame, Encode Thoughts, Shape Water, Blade Ward
Wizard Spells Known:
Comprehend Languages, Identify, Fog Cloud, Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Familiar, Grease, Unseen Servant, Lonstrider (+ whatever you can get from scrolls, NPCs, etc)
Flock of Familiars, Detect Thoughts, Rope Trick, Enlarge/Reduce (+ etc)
Out of combat, you are fairly tanky since your hp completely replenish after each trap, fall, firewalking exercise, or what have you.
In combat, you want to be in the back and avoid damage as much as possible, using an unseen servant and/or flock of familiars and/or your sentinel raven to control enemy movement options. You can cast enlarge or false life on an ally to buff them without losing sanctuary, and you can cast sanctuary twice per short rest to discourage enemies from attacking you. Armor of Agathys can singlehandedly eliminate hordes of weaker enemies who attack you, because your Arcane Ward will ensure that the temp hp from that spell stay around until you're basically dead anyways. Eldritch Blast provides an option to deal okayish ranged damage if it comes up, and something to do while sanctuarying when defence isn't urgent enough to warrant a blade ward.
Out of combat, your wide variety of utility spells, massive perception abilities, and proficiency in Thieves' Tools will let you act a bit like a rogue.
answered 2 hours ago
the dark wanderer
37.3k394196
37.3k394196
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
add a comment |
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
Thanks for the reply. You are indeed correct. I thought mean and wrote median. Will make an edit to the question. Though, largely, I do not think it changes much in the answer either way, since mostly the best mechanics that would raise median are also the best mechanics to raise mean.
– The Great Java
52 mins ago
add a comment |
Moon Druid might be your best option
The feature of all Druids, irrespective of their archetype, is their ability to gain a "shield" of hp through their wild shape forms. Because Moon Druids are incentivized to shapeshift a lot, and they gain access to very powerful wild shape forms, being able to at-will shapeshift into a high hp creature (with some decent attacks to accompany them) will be very beneficial in keeping you alive. You'll also gain access to some powerful spellcasting abilities, and your high Wisdom score will complement those abilities.
At level 6, you are limited to CR2 Beasts. So you could shapeshift into, say, a Saber-toothed Tiger, gaining 52 hitpoints. Or you could shapeshift into a Giant Constrictor Snake, gaining 60 hit points. You have a lot of ways to substantially improve your survivability by simply relying on the extra hitpoints provided by these kinds of forms, and combined with your ability to also regenerate hitpoints either through Cure Wounds or your Combat Wild Shape feature, you'll offset the lost Constitution by a tremendous factor.
Another consideration is the fact that while shapeshifted, you only retain your mental stats (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), whereas your other stats are replaced by the form you choose. So in a wild shape form, your lack of Constitution might as well not exist.
There are limitations of course: if you ever fall out of those forms, you'll be vulnerable. But that would be a problem regardless, and I think this shores up your weakness in a reliable manner.
Consider Lizardfolk to further bolster survivability
Irrespective of whether you go Moon Druid or not, gaining the extra +2CON is a good way to at least recover some of those lost maximum hitpoints, and since it also provides a +1 to Wisdom, it'll at least complement your class choice.
3
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
add a comment |
Moon Druid might be your best option
The feature of all Druids, irrespective of their archetype, is their ability to gain a "shield" of hp through their wild shape forms. Because Moon Druids are incentivized to shapeshift a lot, and they gain access to very powerful wild shape forms, being able to at-will shapeshift into a high hp creature (with some decent attacks to accompany them) will be very beneficial in keeping you alive. You'll also gain access to some powerful spellcasting abilities, and your high Wisdom score will complement those abilities.
At level 6, you are limited to CR2 Beasts. So you could shapeshift into, say, a Saber-toothed Tiger, gaining 52 hitpoints. Or you could shapeshift into a Giant Constrictor Snake, gaining 60 hit points. You have a lot of ways to substantially improve your survivability by simply relying on the extra hitpoints provided by these kinds of forms, and combined with your ability to also regenerate hitpoints either through Cure Wounds or your Combat Wild Shape feature, you'll offset the lost Constitution by a tremendous factor.
Another consideration is the fact that while shapeshifted, you only retain your mental stats (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), whereas your other stats are replaced by the form you choose. So in a wild shape form, your lack of Constitution might as well not exist.
There are limitations of course: if you ever fall out of those forms, you'll be vulnerable. But that would be a problem regardless, and I think this shores up your weakness in a reliable manner.
Consider Lizardfolk to further bolster survivability
Irrespective of whether you go Moon Druid or not, gaining the extra +2CON is a good way to at least recover some of those lost maximum hitpoints, and since it also provides a +1 to Wisdom, it'll at least complement your class choice.
3
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
add a comment |
Moon Druid might be your best option
The feature of all Druids, irrespective of their archetype, is their ability to gain a "shield" of hp through their wild shape forms. Because Moon Druids are incentivized to shapeshift a lot, and they gain access to very powerful wild shape forms, being able to at-will shapeshift into a high hp creature (with some decent attacks to accompany them) will be very beneficial in keeping you alive. You'll also gain access to some powerful spellcasting abilities, and your high Wisdom score will complement those abilities.
At level 6, you are limited to CR2 Beasts. So you could shapeshift into, say, a Saber-toothed Tiger, gaining 52 hitpoints. Or you could shapeshift into a Giant Constrictor Snake, gaining 60 hit points. You have a lot of ways to substantially improve your survivability by simply relying on the extra hitpoints provided by these kinds of forms, and combined with your ability to also regenerate hitpoints either through Cure Wounds or your Combat Wild Shape feature, you'll offset the lost Constitution by a tremendous factor.
Another consideration is the fact that while shapeshifted, you only retain your mental stats (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), whereas your other stats are replaced by the form you choose. So in a wild shape form, your lack of Constitution might as well not exist.
There are limitations of course: if you ever fall out of those forms, you'll be vulnerable. But that would be a problem regardless, and I think this shores up your weakness in a reliable manner.
Consider Lizardfolk to further bolster survivability
Irrespective of whether you go Moon Druid or not, gaining the extra +2CON is a good way to at least recover some of those lost maximum hitpoints, and since it also provides a +1 to Wisdom, it'll at least complement your class choice.
Moon Druid might be your best option
The feature of all Druids, irrespective of their archetype, is their ability to gain a "shield" of hp through their wild shape forms. Because Moon Druids are incentivized to shapeshift a lot, and they gain access to very powerful wild shape forms, being able to at-will shapeshift into a high hp creature (with some decent attacks to accompany them) will be very beneficial in keeping you alive. You'll also gain access to some powerful spellcasting abilities, and your high Wisdom score will complement those abilities.
At level 6, you are limited to CR2 Beasts. So you could shapeshift into, say, a Saber-toothed Tiger, gaining 52 hitpoints. Or you could shapeshift into a Giant Constrictor Snake, gaining 60 hit points. You have a lot of ways to substantially improve your survivability by simply relying on the extra hitpoints provided by these kinds of forms, and combined with your ability to also regenerate hitpoints either through Cure Wounds or your Combat Wild Shape feature, you'll offset the lost Constitution by a tremendous factor.
Another consideration is the fact that while shapeshifted, you only retain your mental stats (Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma), whereas your other stats are replaced by the form you choose. So in a wild shape form, your lack of Constitution might as well not exist.
There are limitations of course: if you ever fall out of those forms, you'll be vulnerable. But that would be a problem regardless, and I think this shores up your weakness in a reliable manner.
Consider Lizardfolk to further bolster survivability
Irrespective of whether you go Moon Druid or not, gaining the extra +2CON is a good way to at least recover some of those lost maximum hitpoints, and since it also provides a +1 to Wisdom, it'll at least complement your class choice.
edited 4 hours ago
answered 4 hours ago
Xirema
15.8k24696
15.8k24696
3
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
add a comment |
3
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
3
3
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Yeah, I wish I could. Unfortunately my current character is a Moon Druid and I'm not allowed to repeat classes.
– The Great Java
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
Oof, fair enough. I'm leaving this up for players who don't have that very specific restriction.
– Xirema
4 hours ago
add a comment |
You don’t.
Sorry, but that’s just reality. This character is going to die, very-probably sooner rather than later. There is a reason why rolling in order is not recommended, and this is it.
3
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
add a comment |
You don’t.
Sorry, but that’s just reality. This character is going to die, very-probably sooner rather than later. There is a reason why rolling in order is not recommended, and this is it.
3
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
add a comment |
You don’t.
Sorry, but that’s just reality. This character is going to die, very-probably sooner rather than later. There is a reason why rolling in order is not recommended, and this is it.
You don’t.
Sorry, but that’s just reality. This character is going to die, very-probably sooner rather than later. There is a reason why rolling in order is not recommended, and this is it.
answered 4 hours ago
KRyan
218k28544936
218k28544936
3
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
add a comment |
3
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
3
3
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
How does this help the OP? I agree with your sentiment and personally hate rolling for stats at all but this isn't a good answer to the question.
– linksassin
3 hours ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
It could be a proper answer to the question if expanded to explain/justify why such a character is not viable, no matter what class OP picks.
– V2Blast
28 mins ago
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Role-playing Games Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
Use MathJax to format equations. MathJax reference.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Some of your past answers have not been well-received, and you're in danger of being blocked from answering.
Please pay close attention to the following guidance:
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function () {
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2frpg.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f138325%2fhow-do-you-make-an-int-or-wis-based-character-with-only-3-con-viable-with-30-35%23new-answer', 'question_page');
}
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function () {
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
});
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Beautiful! A good answer should be along soon. :) Here is the latest errata for the PHB, if you are interested ... it updates a few of the HP details that have been the norm for about 4 years. Probably best to discuss those with DM to make sure on same page.
– KorvinStarmast
5 hours ago
1
Do you need to be viable beyond level 6?
– Miniman
4 hours ago
1
@Miniman Yes, but probably not past 7 or 8, if it lives that long
– The Great Java
4 hours ago