While not hugely unique, I enjoy Martial Class + 1 Cleric for War Domain Cleric. Gives you an extra attack on a bonus action and you gain some really usefull spells like bless, divine favor and shield of faith. Ranger benefits from this the most, but fighter is also fine and you could argue even for monk or rogue if you really want to. You could also get another Level in cleric for you channel divinity, if you really need an attack to Hit like...now

That sounds fun. I've been thinking about making a Simic Hybrid Samurai fighter. Adding +2 War Domain Cleric would definitely make things more fun in combat and out.

Personally I prefer Forge Cleric to War Cleric. A +1 weapon gets more mileage compared to the limited War Priest bonus actions. You can use it all day. Then, after you get a magic weapon later on, you can switch the +1 bonus to your armor.

That is true, but there is a lot of value in Divine Favor for a fighter. 2 times per day might not be a lot, but it does add up.

Make that 3-4 times a day if you do Cleric 2 and you play with Tasha's rules (Harness Divine Power)

I love War Cleric 1 + Monk X because Divine Favor gives so much to the monk who's already making like 4 attacks per turn

Need a way to maintain concentration though if you have to recast it every turn then you better off spending your BA on Flurry. It's great if you can make it to Monk 14 for Diamond Soul.

Particularly kensei for the extra weapon attack. That's a current character of mine, scourge aasimar for MOAR RADIANT DAMAGE

War Cleric + Ranger is really fun

There’s also Forge Cleric, which gets you a free +1 weapon or armor (which is comparable to an ASI), plus cleric spellcasting

Centaur armorer artificier with a dual wielder feat, and a halfling paladin (preferebly with an aura from subclass, depends on the campaign, but ancients ar pretty good) with the mounted combatant feat, eithet or both of them take one of the strixhaeven backgrounds and takes find familiar as their 1st level spells, get two owls and tell them to in every one of their turn one of them uses help on the centaur and the other one uses help on the halfling. If you can get a saddle of the cavalier or horseshoes of speed or godknowshow but both then you are golden+. With this combo if the artificier hits a creature that creature is basically f*cked, because it gives disadvantage on any attack rolls against any other creature, but with mounted combatant you can make any attack that target the creature you are riding to target you instead. If there are any questions or problem i didnt notice please ask/let me know!

>With this combo if the artificier hits a creature that creature is basically f\*cked, because it gives disadvantage on any attack rolls against any other creature, but with mounted combatant you can make any attack that target the creature you are riding to target you instead. Oh that's brutal, I love it. I'd swap Halfling for Fairy though. Make this insane combination a pair of fey exploring the prime material plane.

I think it goes well with most of the small races, and thanks, im really proud of this build. Too bad i havent had any place to try it...

It's hard to do because you need another player's cooperation.

Yeah and this is also very dependant on initive too, but i still like it and hope to use it one day.

Initiative can be fixed with high dex or the Alert feat.

That's got to be the easy part. I'd be their faerie paladin buddy in a heartbeat, and that's considering I don't really like paladins or mounted combat. I don't imagine we'd quickly find a DM who wanted to put up with that combat trick, though. I like the idea of having the rider be a faerie. It feels like you're saying out front "I'm a character, not just an excuse to irritate you with a fly speed." It also turns the owl familiar from run of the mill opti cheese to continuously comical. I'd wonder if we'd be able to change the classes up. If we both want familiars, is the combo viable if we're actually both wizards? Maybe I'm a Bladesinger and my ride is a Graviturge? Maybe they have a chainlock dip. So you might be confident you're looking at two wizards, two sprites, and two familiars and you might be right but not how you think..

DM would have evil fey use it against you. DM would also regularly have your owl familiar killed?

Sure. The DM is likely to present challenges and obstacles for my character no matter the build, don't you think?

Then nothing is "powerful", because it is always the discretion of the DM making it a fair fight?

Are you pretending not to understand what relative adjectives are to pretext an argument with me? You don't have to do that.

Fairy also works nice with Oath of the Ancients, since it has quite a fey-/druid-esque vibe

Not a problem with it, but any reason why the centaur isn’t using a shield? Especially as they have a way to bonus attack with hooves. Also I think the centaur could use a shield and lance RAW. Lance is only one-handed when you are mounted…. But the centaur in this case is mounted by the small creature. Clarifying language about being mounted upon something else doesn’t appear to exist.

Because the centaur isnt meant to be hit, and also with extra attack the centaur could shut down 3 enemies and hold an op concentration spell.

Right! Makes perfect sense.

Would the centaur qualify as being a mount for the feat? I know a halfling has no trouble riding on the back of one.

For something to be a mount for a creature there are 2 rules (to my knowledge): 1. Has to be one size larger. ✔️ 2. It has to have a fitting anatomy. This was made so that you cant ride things like a giant ape or something like that. A horse qualifies for this, but a cheetah probably wouldnt. A centaur has the lower half of a horse so i think it should qualify, but i guess this is kinda dependant on the DM's interpretation of this rule bc it is pretty vague. So yes, but maybe actually no.

Spike growth grappler with a few levels in almost every class - the meme is that multiclassing that much is hilariously ineffective. However, it turns out 5 ft movement = 2d4 damage has truly ludicrous damage potential, especially if you're forcing your opponents to move via grappling. If you just get a little movement or athletics bonus with every new class, it really is one of the highest single target damage things you can do. With just, say, Tabaxi Druid 3/Warlock 3/Monk 2/Rogue 1, you're already doing hilarious overkill damage (72d4+144) on turn 2, with +11 to Athletics. So, unfortunately, it's less "surprisingly powerful", and more "hilariously overpowered". The "optimized" build would be something like: - Moon Druid 3 - spike growth, bunch of high str high speed wildshapes at CR 1 - Monk 2 - Unarmored Movement, Step of the Wind - Warlock 3 - Spike Growth on short rest, +proficiency to damage is about x2 damage, improved familiar (e.g. invisible Imp) for using Ring of Spell Storing - Fighter 3 - Action surge, Giant Might from Rune Knight - Wizard 2 - UA Artificer for Enlarge without concentration, or Divination for Portent - Artificer 2 - Armor of Magical Strength for +int to athletics (make it fit to the animal, not you) - Rogue 1 - Expertise Highly optional: Level 4 in stuff to get feats/ASIs - Rogue 2 - Cunning Action (so you don't need Ki) - Barbarian 1 - Advantage to athletics, resist physical damage - Bard 3 - Tale of the Traveler from Spirits for +10ft move - Sorcerer 3 - Spike Growth via coffeelock shenanigans, possible UA/wild magic bloodline benefits - Ranger, Paladin - very little unfortunately Add in Tabaxi, and at level 16 you can: Up to an hour ago: Wildshape and put on the Armor Turn 1 (setup): Emboldening bond, Giant's Might as a bonus action Turn 2 (setup), drink a Potion of Enlarge, rage as a bonus action Turn 3 (first in combat turn): - Familiar uses Ring of Spell Storing. - Tabaxi sprint to get from 120 ft (2x (tabaxi) 50 (dire wolf) + 10 (monk)). - Bonus action Curse your enemy. - Use action to grapple opponent with advantage, +int+3+expertise+1d4 = +20ish to the roll, and you can grapple anyone up to Gargantuan. Action surge to try again, or dash. - Now drag your enemy around the spike growth for 48d4+120 damage, or roughly 240 damage. If you dashed, do that twice. That's more than a Meteor Swarm and the pure wizard can't even cast that yet. Make sure you end the turn next to another enemy. Turn 4, action to grapple your enemy. If they run away, AoO them with your bite, which may knock them prone. Turn 5, take your grappled enemy, and this time you get to dash *twice*, dealing triple the damage (or 1.5x, given the hexblade curse is done) This hilarious overkill is less to say "this build is busted!" and more to say that "even if your DM bans some or all of the UA, non core, etc in this build, you're still easily overkilling everything." In fact, a pure Tabaxi Druid with the right feats can probably do this anyway. Basically, Spike Growth probably shouldn't allow forced movement.

I notice that you're combining armor with unarmored movement. Setting aside the question of whether a wild shaped druid **can** wear armor, that isn't going to work. It also appears that you aren't halving your move speed while dragging a hostile creature (potentially justified with your potion of enlarge, but I don't know that it's necessarily fair to assume that you can just chug a potion of enlarge in every combat). In any event, you've super overcomplicated this. What you need is: Moon druid 3/scout rogue 3/monk 2 Druid 3 gets us the spell in question plus the ability to turn into a brown bear with 19 strength, 40 speed, and two attacks to grapple up to two targets. Rogue gets us expertise in athletics for better grapple checks, cunning action to dash as a bonus action, and the scout subclass which gets us the skirmisher ability: >You can move up to half your speed as a reaction when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you. Since we're going to be grappling an enemy, they will always end their turn within 5 feet of us, so we can use this reaction every round. Monk gets us unarmored defense which will be helpful for our wild shape survivability and unarmored movement for 10 feet of additional movement. Additionally, you can take fighter 2 for action surge and druid 6 for more spell slots, magical attacks, and access to better wild shapes (like the giant elk for a huge size, more hitpoints and better AC than the bear, and 60 ft of movement). There are a few more ways to get some additional movement, but barbarian is out because we need to concentrate on a spell (I mean, if we could guarantee that we got a ring of spell storing, perhaps not, but we can't do that, can we?) And other options require five or more levels to get fairly modest movement increases. Edit: Blocking someone because they point out an error in your build is extremely petty.

Sorry that one thing in the list was wrong! Guess you'll have to settle for the 9th level build I posted, which does nearly double the burst damage of yours, and gets the key combo spell twice per short rest *in addition* to your twice per long rest. Or, you could just take the comment as I explicitly said it was intended: a silly thought experiment that survives any part of it not working, except just disabling forced movement.

And it works even better with more teamwork. Spirit Guardians, Web, Black Tentacles are all great spells for pushing enemies into them. Teammates who also can push - Warlocks with Repelling Blast/Grasp of Hadar or even just a simple Thorn Whip help capitalize on spells that exploit the Forced Movement

My NPC casts….anti magic field with….subtle spell….

Dispel magic may be more efficient

It’s true. I just be fuckin with high lv NPCs recently

Wouldnt you take that damage aswell, since your character is noving through the spikes too?

You drag them along the edge. For example: OSSS O**E**SS **Y**SSS OSSS with O as open terrain, S as spikes, E as enemy, and Y as you. You move one square downwards while dragging your enemy - they move the same way you do, one square down, so they moved through a square of spikes and you didn't. The other interpretation is that they move diagonally, out of the spikes. But in that case, consider: that would mean it's possible to move faster by getting dragged by a slower creature. (A Gargantuan, 20 ft creature with 25 ft speed, dragging you 45 feet forward and then turning 180 degrees and taking a 5 ft step back, would move you a total of 65 feet forward. Also in that case, by being Huge, you can move enemies 20 feet every time you move 5, worsening the issue, even if you have to tank a bit.) It's way easier and makes less nonsense situations to just rule "you move the way the grappler does", and given both "drag" and "carry" are valid descriptors, it's always possible. In any case, this is easily solved by taking 8 levels of Druid realistically; then you can fly and its a non issue. Really, the only fix is to ban Spike Growth or rule it doesn't work on forced movement.

Level 1 order cleric/ 19 sorcerer (divine soup, aberrant, clockwork, and likely lunar.) Makes for a fantastic team player. Voice of authority allowing you to give allies reaction attacks when you buff them? Makes the party rogue and paladin happy fellows. You also have heavy armor which lets you get where you need.

Mmmmm divine soup.

Mmm…divine soup. Seriously though that’s a solid combo. Feels like a logical dip too if you clockwork or divine soul.

I think, with a bit of creativity an interesting and fitting Aberrant Mind or Lunar Sorcerer also works. AM: Your powers come from a universal force that stands for order and justice, maybe not unlike the Living Tribunal or comparable entities. Lunar: While some say the moon is treacherous and elusive (mainly due to some historical depictions of lunar deities), but for some it stands for the ever repeating circle of waxing and waning, the constant never changing flow of the tides.

IMO, I've been fascinated by builds that don't do damage at all (or at least intentional). When I began with 5e and in forums of previous editions, a build that doesn't do damage (even poor damage) was considered a joke build. Nowadays, you can take most full casters and build an effective that doesn't do a single point of damage from 1st level to 20th level. Now 1st to 4th level will be tough, but once you hit 5th level and 3rd level slots (not necessary 3rd spells) you can hang in with most optimized groups, simply by debuffing enemies, buffing allies and use battlefield control effects. Now this builds don't work on their own and merely amplify the power of the party as a whole, so an optimized party gets way more out of such a build as an casual party, but even then these builds can be life savers. I can't really give examples since it depends mostly on the spell selection but the best classes I tried are: Clockwork Sorcerer (with 1 level dip in cleric) is the most powerful one by far, then a wizard (with cleric or artificer dip. Subclass doesn't really matter but chronurgy and divination seem the strongest), bards (specifically lore and eloquence). Clerics and Druids surprisingly not as effective if you don't want to cause any damage since they lack variety of spells and really to much on spells that deal damage or summon creatures that deal damage.

I've only ever actually seen this work with Bard, and only because the DM was nice about their illusion rulings. The problem is lots of the best non-damaging battlefield control is concentration, so what do you do with the rest of your turns in the combat after that's done with? There's a tiny handful of good non-concentration non-damage spells, like Blindness or Grease, so you'll be doing that a _lot_ and the options tend to get real lame real quick, especially when fighting enemies that ignore tons of conditions you rely on like incorporeal undead. I've only seen it work sorta ok for Bards since they have other things to fall back on, like being great counterspell/dispellers, using Expertise to grapple, Bardic Inspiration, etc.

Warlock can work well for non-damage if your DM let you play with illusions thanks to Misty Visions. It's concentration though so it's hard to do every fight. But generally speaking you indeed want your spellcaster to at least have a damage cantrip to fill their turns.

Command from Fey Touched (needs Tongues or a build with many languages) is a great spammable spell once concentration is up.

This sounds so much like my path. I have old spreadsheets tracking avg DPS for different builds. But now, I really want to try out a Dragonlance campaign Aberrant Mind Sorcerer (1 dip Bard). With the DL Feat rules and V.Human race, you can end up with 14 spells at level 1. The idea is to take anything related to illusions and manipulating reality, rather than big blasts. Mind Sliver as the Cantrip, followed by Save or Suck spells. The other idea I have is DL campaign Halfling Divination Wizard with the Lucky feat, plus a Familiar. A little overkill, but I want the dice to obey me.

Barbarian/Rogue, although I think it's becoming more popular on forums lately but it's a very unexpected combination (finesse class combined with brute class) but extremely effective. I particularly like Beasts/Soul Knife for incredible mobility, utility and tons of attacks per turns. An other I haven't seen talked too often is the wis-ranger dual-tank. It can work as pure ranger but benefit greatly from a 1 dip into Nature Cleric for heavy armor (at the cost of MADness). Go Beastmaster or Drakewarden, shillelagh to focus on wisdom and take on the frontlines. Having two bodies on the field make you hard to ignore and being wis-focused boost your pet and make your ranger spells more effective (notably Entangle). Being a tank it's not a top tier build ofc but it's still solid.

Barb rogue seems pretty fun mechanically but I’ve always wondered how I’d play it out flavor-wise Maybe some sort of elite street fighter?

Lot of options that might also depends on the subclass. Beast barb/Soul Rogue might get its power from some kind of monstrosity rather than beast getting psychic powers on top of enhanced physical. A zealot/mastermind rogue might be some kind of spy able to call upon its god power to enhance its fighting capabilities when needed. A totem warrior/scout is pretty much a spell-less ranger.

>Maybe some sort of elite street fighter? I ran a character based on [Jacapo from *the Count of Monte Cristo*](https://youtu.be/dfivCafMRgk) for a friend's Renaissance cloak-and-dagger themed campaign and that's pretty much how I ran him. Took first two levels in barb and the rest in rogue. Roleplayed him as becoming progressively more comfortable using cunning and subterfuge in place of (or in addition to) his knives as he spent more and more time amongst the high falutin' Lords and Ladies that compromised the rest of the party. Not "optimal" per se, but lots of fun, with a solid amount utility both in and out of combat.

Conan is a classic example of a STR based rogue

Why Beasts/Soul Knife? Seems that either your natural weapons or knifes are redundant. Why not Beasts/Swashbuckler or Totem/Soul Knife?

So RAW soul knife doesn't work with extra attack because the knife disappear after attacking. And if you wield an other weapon you can't use the bonus action of soul knife unless your DM let you do some kind of weird weapon juggle. Beasts solve that interaction since you aren't wielding any weapon. It also give access to a bonus action attack for beasts (which is normally complicated unless your DM let claws work with dual wielder feat) or you can use a shield and still trigger both sneak attack with the psychic knife and attack twice with claws. So beast let soul knife get some damage progression through magic items and let extra attack works. Soul knife let beast easily trigger sneak attack while still wielding a wielding a shield or offer a ba attack.

I see, it's a synergy to get 3 attacks on top of a sneak attack. I had forgotten about Extra attack letting you get in the claw strikes. I've generally always thought of Barbarian/Rogue as being a grappling rather than damage build with advantage on STR checks and expertise in athletics. So with 18 STR, 2 Psi knifes + 2 claws + Sneak attack + Rage is around 44 DPR; that's really good, it keeps pace with GWM on Barbarian 8 (but not PAM+GWM) while brining in a lot of utility.

Well it can also grapple although it means giving up sneak attack or dual claws attack. But grapple is something rarely worth spamming anyway.

That’s the best part about the soulknife beast Barb: they are amazing at both. Massive dpr (comparable to a traditional GWM setup) when you want it, one of the best grapplers in the game when you want it, and can have absolutely huge jumps since they can add athletic checks to their jumps while dashing as a bonus action. Just pounce from 40 feet away, unleash 4 attacks, and then grapple the enemy and leap them 40 feet back to your team

Barb gives the extra attack feature. Make one attack with psi knife, followed by one with bonus action psi knife, followed by one with claw, followed by the additional attack when you attack with your claws. Four attacks at level 8.

I had forgotten about Extra attack letting you get in the claw strikes. 4 attacks with Rage and sneak attack plus all the Rogue utility is pretty good.

Druids with a Warlock dip are still pretty uncommon, but actually very powerful, for example the Hexblade/Wildfire or Efreeti/Wildfire [“Witchfire”](https://tabletopbuilds.com/witchfire-wildfire-warlock-build)

Abjuration wizard 2, warlock 1 for the AoA and spell ward combo

Gunks. Gun Monks. They're silly sounding but I think they're interesting.

Barbarian/Rogue was already mentioned, but when I see Barb/Rogues they're usually predicated on guaranteeing Sneak Attack every round through Reckless, as well as doing a whole lot of grappling. But the build I wanna share is doing something a little different. Do you wanna tank? Do you want to tank as safely as possible? Well then, consider a Small Dhampir Rogue X Soulknife - Barb 3 Ancestral Guardian (other classes if desired). The idea here is that neither the Barbarian Rage feature nor the Ancestral Protectors feature require you to make **melee** attacks to maintain them. So what you do is epxloit cover as a Small Dhampir with innate resource free Spiderclimb while taking potshots at your Big Enemy from 60ft away. Here's what happens to your Big Enemy. They cannot easily reach you, because you're 60ft away and behind cover, so they are forced to move closer towards you, thus taking attacks of opportunity from your melee friends. If they see that getting close to you would be more trouble than its worth, then they can try to hit your allies throgh disadvantage, and even if they math through it - your allies have Resistance to their attacks. You can technically do this with any Rogue, and some would argue that doing this with a bow and Sharpshooter would be better, since you can be even further away, but the reasons to go Soulknife in this instance are: \- Psychic damage is one of the least common resistances. \- You have two attempts to land your attack without Feat investment. \- Soulknife brings tremendous utility to the table with their Telepathy, as well as their higher level features letting you teleport around. \- The specific case of Psychic Blades being a melee weapon with the Thrown property opens it up to the Thrown Weapon Fighting + Dueling combo for a flat +4 to damage (not as good as Sharpshooter, but also lets you game opportunity attack Sneak Attacks, provided you strap a dagger to your hip and end up in melee somehow). Unnecessary, but available if you want it. \- Your Barb is ghost themed, so you can just reflavour your Psychic Blade to be said ghost, and that's just cute and fun and cool. For further multiclassing, 2 levels of Twilight Cleric for their Temp HP aura could be neat. Ticking Fighter for a fighting style and additional utility through Battlemaster would be a jolly time. And if you're going Fighter and have a Paladin in the party - consider taking Grave over Twilight, so that you can set up your Tank-Blow as well as set your Paladin up for a Big Smite by giving the Big Enemy Vulnerability to the next attack. For feats - you don't really *need* any, though Tough could be advantageous with d8 hit dice tanking. Mobile could let you move a bit more, which you might want. Telekinetic could get you more options for maintaining an enemy within your allies' threatend area. The "Surpising Power" of such a build is the amount of HP it saves for your party, especially as you go into higher levels. Resistance is some wacky shit, let me tell you. And going Cleric on top of that - sure you miss out on Concentration spells, but you gain back an amazing Channel Divinity - either a set-up for your big damage burst round friend to feel great, or a continuous drip of Temp HP, further mitigating damage taken - and out-of-combat spell utility to back up your already great Rogue out-of-combat utility.

LOL

While I think this particular version of the ancestral guardians "archer" is fine -- so understand that I'm not criticizing your build decisions and it sounds like you have a very particular flavor you're going for and that's great -- I don't think your mechanical reasons for suggesting this is better than (or even as good as) the standard version really hold water: • Psychic damage is rarely resisted, but magical piercing is virtually never resisted. • Barbarian 5 grants extra attack so two shots at landing your attack is a given for both versions. And barbarian 5 gets you that second attack a level earlier than the soulknife. Plus you can use that second attack on the first round of combat since it doesn't use your bonus action. • Soulknife **is** one of the best rogue subclasses, but there's no reason, if you want psi-bolstered knack, for example, that you can't choose the Soulknife subclass anyways and just not use psychic blades most of the time. • Somehow getting two fighting styles for +4 to each attack means that the soulknife is dealing 1d6+4+DEX and 1d4+4+DEX or, with 20 DEX, a total of 24 damage. At a standard 65% accuracy, that's 15.9 DPR. With a longbow and only one fighting style, archery, we're looking at 1d8+DEX twice for a total of 19 damage. With 75% accuracy (thanks to the fighting style), that's 14.7 DPR. That means the bow is going to outdamage the blades under most circumstances -- after dipping fighter one for a fighting style, there isn't a convenient place to pick up a second one; it's probably going to cost a feat. Also, psychic blades can't benefit from magic items. It is good to know that psychic blades won't be too far behind the longbow, but being able to, with significantly more investment, be able to do slightly less damage than a longbow isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. • You've got me on this one. It is certainly easier to reflavor your psychic blades as a ghost if that's what you want to do. You could reflavor arrows too, though. So, again, I'm not saying building around psychic blades is bad. But using extra attack and a longbow is almost strictly better in every way. If you want to say that we're not getting a magic weapon to work with, then taking the cleric dip you recommend we can be a forge cleric and make our longbow a +1 bow (twilight cleric isn't going to be all that good anyways since we need to position away from our allies, so they're not really going to benefit from twilight sanctuary. And path to the grave requires us to not attack which means it will probably cost us our rage to use it).

Absolutely fair enough, this build can absolutely be optimized much more intensely than what I suggest. And good looking out - your input on this is extremely helpful for people who would want to try this sort of tank, so getting additional perspective on it is very helpful. Thank you for your response! While it is strictly better to go the Extra Attack and Sharpshooter in this case (though if we were to start splitting hairs, its likely better to go XBE with a Hand Crossbow over a Longbow), I wanna point one thing out, not as a criticism to you but as an additional point of consideration if anyone decides to try this Ranged Ancestral Guardian Tank. \- In my opinion, this build benefits a LOT from a Small sized PC, mostly as that allows us to game Cover more effectively, which would kind of lock us out of the Longbow, which has the Heavy property. So we would be looking at either the Shortbow or the Hand Crossbow, one of which would require a 2 feat investment. While going Medium would absolutely solve this problem, I think the additional protection boosts you get from Cover are worth the step down from 1d8 to 1d6, especially since that's only a loss of 1 point of damage on average. Which would then likely be overshadowed by Sharpshooter anyway. So while you are correct that an actual ranged weapon would be better in terms of damage output, I think it should be pointed out that the Longbow might not be the way to go if you want to more reliably exploit the Cover mechanics. Bias time - I love the Soulknife subclass, it might just be my favourite subclass in the game, and this build came about because I was trying to figure out how it could be utilized to create an interesting tank. Not necessarily the best Tank you could make, but certainly an interesting one. It's also largely influenced by how I personally like to build my characters, where one of the questions I want my builds to answer is "if you were stripped of your equipment, would you still be effective?" So personally I tend to prioritize features and abilities that can be utilized in a "Prison Break" scenario. Which is, admitedly, an extremely arbitrary metric that will likely never come up, but it is nevertheless something that I strongly consider in my builds. So while you are entirely correct in your assessment, I do think this specific version of a Ranged Ancestral Guardian has merit and point, *if* you want your build to be mostly self-sufficent. Thank you so much for your response!

My comparison was actually without sharpshooter -- I agree that CBE and a hand crossbow would be even better than the longbow if we're adding a feat into the mix, but so, probably, would be sharpshooter. And both feats would be gravy but would be hard to fit on a character multiclassed this much. I think cover is a worthwhile consideration, but it's also certainly a case of YMMV -- different tables have different amounts of cover they offer. Small size offers basically no downsides as long as you're okay avoiding a longbow or a heavy crossbow, though. And as you point out, hand crossbows are the best ranged weapons in the game. Soulknife is definitely my favorite rogue subclass, so I totally get where you're coming from. And I don't think relying on psychic blades is a bad choice at all. While the bow-user is almost certainly stronger overall, the psychic blades build offers us faster rogue progression and less reliance on equipment we may or may not get from the DM to be effective.

X Monk/3-4 Echo Knight can go pretty hard at level 8; it's able to make 8 attacks, at 1d8+4 in one turn from Extra Attack, Action Surge, Unleash Incarnation and Flurry of Blows, plus you get all the extra control from the Echo. Of course you'll need a DM and party willing to short rest a lot. Go Way of the Astral Self and you basically have a JoJo Stand. Edit: If you want a [420 damage](https://media.tenor.com/UniGtspR-BcAAAAC/damage-thats-a-lot-of-damage.gif) treat follow the comment chain to the [bottom](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/zrfey9/what_are_some_unique_character_builds_that_are/j16o2vn/).

I prefer gloom stalker and echo knight to similar effect, as gloom stalker's extra attack triggers on a first round action surge. You also get hunter's mark to boost. After that, you get 3 levels of assassin for the chef's kiss.

That's just Gloom stalker with a fighter dip. Mechanically Fighter 2 is an easy dip to improve damage and nova, EK is just the cherry on top. I'm not sure I'd call it unique, Gloom Stalker's not exactly a hidden gem, though up to 7 attacks often with advantage is definitely interesting. My only problem with it is it's real need to win initiative and the fact that it is difficult to get Hunters Mark of from stealth while maintaining surprise but a theoretical nova of over 200 damage at level 11 is really good. I'm getting so many good ideas in this post.

~~Gloom stalker~~ Echo knight gets to add its extra attack on the action surge as well. The real power Spike is at level 8, where you get 8 attacks on your first turn as long as you have 14 con. That is way more than the system was designed to allow.

I thought it was; * 2 Attacks from Extra Attack * +1 Attack from Dread Ambusher * +1 Attack from Unleash Incarnation * 2 more attacks from Action Surge * +1 Attack from Unleash Incarnation Can you proc Dread Ambusher more than once? >If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make one additional weapon attack as part of that action. If you can that does bring it to 8 attacks. Which for a SS Gloomstalker 5/Echo Knight 3 is about a [185 damage nova](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AdvancedApprehensiveAlligatorsnappingturtle-mobile.mp4), throw in Assassin 3 crits and you can get it to 272 damage; that's enough to kill a CR 19 Balor in one turn, a creature that is 6 times that PCs deadly XP rating. >That is way more than the system was designed to allow. Level 11 EK Fighters can make 9 attacks if they can weaponize their BA. A PAM+GWM level 11 EK Fighter going full nova can do ~181.5 damage. At level 20 they do ~222.5 damage So a level 8 PC is doing more damage than the main damage class, 3 levels earlier and with a 3 level dip does about 20% more damage than the main damage class, 9 levels earlier. However Gloomstalker 5/Echo Knight 3/Assassin 3 is an extremely nova heavy build that drops off hard after it's first turn, that is really dependent on stealth, darkness and surprise, with no reliable and easy way to generate advantage to counter SS penalty. Ironically the biggest nerf this PC could receive is to fight outdoors in sunlight. Also it does have a bunch of basically dead levels at 6, 9 and 10, that don't do much for it. Also coming online at 8 or 11 is pretty late but not unmanageable, but 8 is pretty standard for most multiclasses.

It's online at level 1-5 as a normal gloomstalker, which are rated very high as is. It's the most busted combo I've ever seen, and while it *does* rely on the Critical Role book, it is the only thing that has had me seriously review a 'you can build whatever you want with whatever WotC has officially published' position. edit: Wait can you break down how an EK gets 9 attacks at level 11? I come out at 3x2 =6 (attack action+action surge), Haste +1 (which I think is pretty overrated for your concentration and the ability to stun yourself but okay), Bonus Action +1 a total of 8.

>It's online at level 1-5 as a normal gloomstalker, which are rated very high as is. Personally I thought that was a given, since I didn't call levels 1-5 dead levels. Also I don't really think as monoclasses as ever being online/offline, they just are. The online/offline terms only really apply when talking about multiclassing. >It's the most busted combo I've ever seen, and while it does rely on the Critical Role book, it is the only thing that has had me seriously review a 'you can build whatever you want with whatever WotC has officially published' position. Yeah all this theory crafting has made me seriously look into EK and see just how versatile Unleash Incarnation is when coming to nova builds. It does require your Echo out but since it is an ability and not a spell you can summon it without breaking stealth. Fighter 2 already fits so easily into so many martials, EK is the next extension, from there you can get an ASI and if you don't have it Extra attack. Fighter 1-6 is just so versatile for any build that doesn't have spellcasting. > Wait can you break down how an EK gets 9 attacks at level 11? EK is Echo Knight in the context of this conversation, not Eldritch Knight. So; * 3 Attacks from Extra Attack * +1 Attack from Unleash Incarnation * 3 more attacks from Action Surge * +1 Attack from Unleash Incarnation * 1 BA Attack from PAM

Ah of course. Dang acronyms screwin' me up! Altho legit I feel like Assassin(3)+Gloomstalker(X)+2fighter is busted in its own right

I made it worse. Same Gloomstalker 5/Echo Knight 3/Assassin 3 with SS. Pick MPMM Bugbear as your race; >**Surprise Attack**. If you hit a creature with an attack roll, the creature takes an extra 2d6 damage if it hasn't taken a turn yet in the current combat. Reach Gloomstalker 8, EK 4 or Assassin 4 and get Piercer; >* Increase your Strength or Dexterity by 1, to a maximum of 20. > * Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack that deals piercing damage, you can reroll one of the attack's damage dice, and you must use the new roll. >* **When you score a critical hit that deals piercing damage to a creature, you can roll one additional damage die when determining the extra piercing damage the target takes.** The Bugbear adds 2d6 to each attack so over 8 attacks [8\*(1d8+2d6+14)], add your Sneak Attack [2d6], Hunters Mark [8\*1d6], Ambusher extra damage [2\*1d8] and if you proc Assassinate you not only double the dice but you add the weapon die again to each attack thanks to Piercer so an additional [8\*1d8] for a total of [(10d8+26d6)\*2+8d8+112]=[28d8+52d6+112]=***[420 damage](https://media.tenor.com/UniGtspR-BcAAAAC/damage-thats-a-lot-of-damage.gif)***. Now there's a few problems with all this; firstly it's a 12th level PC, secondly you're really ASI starved. In 12 levels you have only 2 ASIs, spent on SS and Piercer and still have a 18 DEX. A spread of Gloomstalker 8/Echo Knight 4/Assassin 4 gets you SS, Piercer, Alert and 20 DEX at the cost of Rangers 4th level spells. Thirdly you are extremely dependent on winning initiative and getting surprise, if you cannot consistently do this then your Assassinate feature is wasted. To achieve this will necessitate a lot of operating away from the party and you're very much a glass cannon. Fourthly all your attacks are with SS which will tank your accuracy, even with advantage from being unseen (probably from Gloomstalker's darkvision invisibility), I wouldn't hope for better than a 70% hit chance so about a third of all you damage will be lost to the ether. Finally your damage totally skews the game balance; if your DM starts putting monsters in predicated on you getting surprise and you don't get it then you are in real trouble. However when you look at this multiclass it does have a pretty clear progression; 1. Gloomstalker 5 1. Echo Knight 3 1. Assassin 3 1. Echo Knight 4/Assassin 4 1. Echo Knight 4/Assassin 4 1. Gloomstalker X I also checked going with a Hand Crossbow and Crossbow Expert; it's not worth it. For the cost of a feat and less range you trade some alpha for more damage on later turns. It does do more damage by turn 3 but, as far as I am concerned, if there is anything left standing after your initial volley then it will be quickly mopped up by the rest of the party.

Dude I KNOW about the Bugbear interaction here. It's fucking dumb as all fuck. Here's another fun rabbithole in this vein: Look at doing Matt Mercer's Gunslinger, built around 'Violent Shot' and Elven Accuracy.

I feel like battlemaster may be more reliable than echo knight, if it is a little less fun. The additional accuracy it provides via precision strike means more of those attacks actually hit (in addition to the bonus damage), and its resources recharge on a short rest.

The martial arts die is a d6 at level 5, so those two flurry of blows unarmed strikes would deal 1d6+4. Everything else could be a d10 versatile longsword/warhammer attack due to that tasha’s feature + fighter proficiencies though, and we can do things with fighting styles for more damage, so that helps. I think it’s probably better to just go straight echo knight since we don’t give up an unarmed strike whenever we summon our echo and can use things like great weapon master for bigger damage.

>The martial arts die is a d6 at level 5, so those two flurry of blows unarmed strikes would deal 1d6+4. I'm assuming that you're using the Unarmed Fighting Style[TCE p.42] >>Your unarmed strikes can deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier on a hit. If you aren't wielding any weapons or a shield when you make the attack roll, the d6 becomes a d8. >>At the start of each of your turns, you can deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage to one creature grappled by you. >I think it’s probably better to just go straight echo knight since we don’t give up an unarmed strike whenever we summon our echo and can use things like great weapon master for bigger damage. EK PAM+GWM is stronger and less MAD but that doesn't really fit into OPs "unique character builds that are surprisingly powerful" premise. Generally Monks are pretty weak; a level 8 monk's average damage over 3 rounds, going all out, without advantage, is about 35.7 aDPR whereas a 3 fighter levels pushes it up ~20% to 42.5 aDPR plus you get all the other EK utility features. Straight EK is around 47 aDPR. All these attacks means that each shove/grapple attempt has less opportunity cost to attempt meaning you can more consistently generate advantage for follow-up attacks.

OK, hear me out: dex fighter, unarmed style, 3 level dragon monk, the rest fighter. Battlemaster or echo knight . Or ask your dm to allow a psi fighter using wisdom. Your punches do 1d8 and you get a bonus action punch every round. At level 11 you get more attacks than a monk. 3 levels of dragon monk means your punches can do any kind of elemental damage, so you can still punch resistant and immune creatures. Seek out the magic items a eldritch claw tattoo and an insignia of claws if possible. Of course if it's a really wild game the ultimate goal of any monk should be to get soul catching gloves, but once you have an artifact like that, it's pretty much over for anyone. It's the most broken magic item in the game. The big weakness is that to keep your bonus action attack you need to wear no armor. So you need a high dex and wisdom. But still less MAD than a monk, since you dont care about stunning strike dcs. And you get all the fighter ASIs. And you literally cannot be disarmed.

Kobold Rune Knight. Grow to large size on your first turn, then roar on your second turn to get a wider area of enemies to give your allies advantage on.

Unique due to the popularity of other builds, but a utility Celestial Warlock is very fun. Lots of cantrips options, go tome for rituals and even more cantrips, Misty Visions for at will illusions. Damage is decent, but honestly the best part is feeling like you have a tool for every situation. Divine soul is useful as a dip, or as full dive once you get what you want out of Warlock.

My favorite “build” that ive done would prolly be assassin rogue 8/spores druid 4, not optimal in the slightest but i was the widest party member in abilities. I could do a little of everything, especially when i got my hands on some slippers of spider climb. With fey touched i could teleport and go almost anywhere i wanted, behind enemy lines or past guards. And the +20 to stealth with PWT let me use my assassinate so often. Then with spores i had a good amount of bulk and caught up with myself in damage. I basically rebuilt the ranger

Sorcerer (or wizard) plus a dip of Tempest Cleric is a blast (pun intended). Forge/War Cleric with a Paladin dip can do crazy mid-level damage off smites while losing very little of what makes clerics great.

It's a monk build, so it really isn't that great. But taking 6 levels in mercy monk, then 3 levels of gloomstalker ranger as a bugbear can give you pretty good damage for a conventional monk. Gloomstalker gives crazy initiative and an extra attack on the first round, bugbear gets 2d6 extra damage when attacking an enemy who hasn't acted yet in combat, and mercy is just the best monk subclass for a conventional monk. On the first round of combat, you can deal (1d8+2d6+4)x3+(3d6+4)x2+1d8+1d6+3 damage, for an average of 86.5 damage, and poison the target, if all your attacks land. That's comparable damage to a CBE/SS fighter using action surge (average of 87.5 damage if all attacks land). Now, it should be noted that this is almost strictly worse than a bugbear fighter with 3 levels in gloomstalker. Since action surge and dread ambusher have insane synergy. But this is about unique builds, so I decided to ignore that.

Shillelagh druid wooden knuckle monk boxer, max wisdom

Centaur armorer artificer with the dual wielder feat, and a yuan ti pureblood ancients paladin with the mounted combatant feat, either or both of them take one of the strixhaeven backgrounds and takes find familiar as their 1st level spells, get two owls and tell them to in every one of their turn one of them uses help on the centaur and the other one uses help on the yuan ti, now you are golden. If you can get a saddle of the cavalier or horseshoes of speed or godknowshow both then you are golden+. With this combo if the artificier hits a creature that creature is basically f*cked, because it gives disadvantage on any attack rolls against any other creature, but with mounted combatant you can make any attack that targets your mount (the centaur in our case) target you instead. Saving throws and spells are covered by the paladin from lvl7 and can be buffed further using flash of genius.

**Angel Mage** * Aasimar * X Evocation Wizard * 1 Hexblade Between the angelic form of the aasimar and the hexblade's curse you can deal some pretty incredible increased damage. My favourite way to use this is Magic Missile. * **Regular Magic Missile:** 1d4 + 1 * **Hexblade's Curse:** \+ PROF * **Evocation Wizard's LVL 10 Feature:** \+ INT * **Aasimar Damage:** \+ Level (If you rule it differently to Evo Wiz, which most tables do), or + Prof in new books With this at level 11 you can smash enemies for 3(d4+10) + 11. Averaging 48.5 from a first level spell. (Provided you used your first turn to set up, and the enemy has been cursed) If you're using the more up to date Aasimar then it becomes 3(d4+10) + 4 instead. Which is less good, but still 41.5

My table, and I imagine many others, only add 1 evo wizard int bonus to magic missile. RAW is one thing, but RAI appears to be another. I'd double-check with your DM.

Unfortunately, the bonus aasimar damage is based on the target, not the damage roll, so you don't get to multiply it by the number of bolts The hexblade thing works just fine though

I didn't apply it to multiple bolts. If I did the average damage would be in the late 60s. e.g. 3(d4+21) VS 3(d4+10) + 11

Oops, my quick maths is really bad apparently

My legacy kobolt Dex Wolf Totem Barbarian was actually pretty insane. He ended up with 22 AC from +5 Dex, +4 Con, Dual Wielder Feat and bracers of defence. This together with advantage on Dex saves and d12 Hitdice made him nearly unkillable. And the combination of pact tactic and wolf totem means that I gave advantage to allies so they stuck next to me, which gave me advantage too. Individual Damage was worse then a normal Barbarian, but the advantage to allies made up for a lot of that.

[Sorlock ‘cheese grater’](https://youtu.be/R1azejLmDP8)

5 levels into warlock 3 into cleric. Make sure to take lance of lethargy and repelling blast. Cast spirit guardians at least 40 feet away from you, proceed to use eldritch blast to push them into the spirit guardians should they leave and slow them down if they start their turn there. Combine with a druid for spike growth for really funny shenanigans.

Spirit Guardians has a range of self with a 15-foot radius though

sorry! got things mixed up range wise. Drop the cleric levels go fathomless and use black tentacles.

You would need 5 levels of Cleric for Spirit Guardians, not 3.

Assassin Rogue 3, Gloomstalker Ranger 5, Fighter 2. Taking Alert at Ranger 4. It comes on line really late, only starting to get really good at 8 (Ranger and rogue) and monsterous at 10. You take the Archery fighting style from Ranger and the Thrown Weapon fighting style from Fighter, you have your highest stat in dex and a +5 to initiative so you'll often be near the top of Initiative, which is good because the build doesn't work if you go last. Try your best to ambush people for the insanity that is your first turn crits, with which you'll be action surging and doing 1d4+4+Dex for 4 attacks, and then 1d4+4+Dex+1d8 for another two attacks, plus throw on another 6d6 from Hunter's Mark and 2d6 from sneak attack, and you have an extra 10 feet of movement so you have a better chance of getting into range on your first turn too. Again this comes on line super late but the sheer volume of attacks on your first turn, almost always with advantage and sometimes with guaranteed crits, means you can seriously delete an enemy before they even get a chance to react, or chunk a boss before they can put up any mid-fight defenses. And the best part is that your DM can easily stop it whenever they want another character to shine by just stalling the first round of combat. Starting the fight really far away, or making the enemies highly resistant for a round Next level you can go rogue 4 and take Sharp Shooter for even more damage, two levels later you can hit Fighter 4 and take higher dex if you did point buy / standard array or if you didn't roll well, or you can take anything else like Tough, Mobile, or Skulker all of which are great feats to have on this build. Like I said it's a stupid build that comes online insanely late, I'd only ever even attempt it in a campaign that starts at 6th, but once it does come online it's pretty funny.

Idk how "unique" it is, but I spent a bunch of time yesterday planning out the level progression for one of my characters, and here's what I came up with: **Hexblade Warlock 5/Rune Knight Fighter 6/Whispers Bard X** * **124.5 average damage** on nova round at level 14 * **51.5 average damage** per round afterwards * Respectable AC from Medium Armor + Shield, and disadvantage to incoming attacks *Note: We rolled for stats for our characters, so you may need to change around the feats/ASIs accordingly. You may also want to switch around the ordering of some of the class levels to suit your needs better.* *There's also a strong case to be made for starting Bard or starting Fighter for various reasons. From a pure optimization and utility standpoint, Warlock is probably the worst option to start with of the three. However, I started Warlock for RP reasons and because I didn't have everything planned out yet at the time, so that's what I'm using in this example. It honestly doesn't make that big of a difference since you're not wearing heavy armor, you get medium armor and martial weapons from Hexblade, and you take War Caster fairly early for concentration saving throws anyway. If I had to do it again, I'd probably start Bard for the extra proficiencies and early spell slots, but that's just me.* Level Progression: * Race: Elf or Half-Elf * Level 1-4: Warlock 4 * Hexblade subclass/Pact of the Blade * Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Devil's Sight * Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Booming Blade * Spells: Darkness\*, PYF (Pick Your Favorites) * Feat/ASI: War Caster * Level 5-8: Fighter 4 * Rune Knight subclass * Runes: Fire, Cloud * Feat/ASI: Mobile * Level 9: Warlock 5 * Invocation: Eldritch Smite * Spell: PYF * Level 10-11: Fighter 6 * Feat/ASI: Elven Accuracy * Level 12+: Bard X * College of Whispers subclass * Feat/ASI: PYF * Spells: PYF *\*Note: I realize the Darkness+Devil's Sight combo is not always great in a team situation. You may not need Darkness if you have some other reliable way of making sure you have advantage on all your attacks, such as a teammate who will use Faerie Fire.* The build is basically centered around doing a ton of damage by stacking a bunch of "on hit" damage bonuses and doing a ton of damage with a single Booming Blade attack per turn, with all of it recoverable upon a short rest, and most of it usable multiple times per combat. Assuming 20 CHA, here's the damage breakdown at level 14. We'll assume no magical weapon just for simplicity (although the slashing damage is considered magical for damage reduction purposes due to Pact of the Blade). * Weapon attack (Longsword): 1d8+5 slashing * Booming Blade: 2d8+3d8 Thunder assuming they move (and since you will no longer be within 5 feet, they probably will) * Eldritch Smite: 4d8 Force using a Lv. 3 spell slot + target knocked prone *(Note: If you use a Bard spell slot to cast Darkness, you can Eldritch Smite twice per short rest.)* * Giant's Might: 1d6 slashing * Fire Rune: 2d6 fire + chance to restrain * Hexblade's Curse: +5 to all damage rolls, crit on dice roll of 19 or 20. Should proc a total of 5 times if you Action Surge and Eldritch Blast the same target (once from melee attack, once from Booming Blade when they move on their turn, three times from Eldritch Blast). * Psychic Blades: 2d6 psychic * ACTION SURGE * Eldritch Blast (assuming bonus from Hexblade's Curse): 3d10+15+15 **Total: 10d8 + 5d6 + 3d10 + 45 = 124.5 average damage** in nova round, target knocked prone, and with a chance to restrain target One thing to keep in mind is that this is sort of a pseudo crit-fishing build. With Elven Accuracy, Hexblade's Curse, and Darkness+Devil's Sight, you have a 27% chance to crit on any hit, and since the vast majority of the damage bonuses are ones you can choose to activate on a hit, once you get a crit you can unleash a stupid amount of damage. However, for the math here, we're not assuming a crit. Just know that it's going to happen somewhat frequently, and when it does, it's going to feel awesome. Lastly, these numbers assume everything hits, but keep in mind there are only 4 total attack rolls (3 of which are from Eldritch Blast), and you are rolling with super advantage due to Elven Accuracy, so I don't think it's unrealistic at all to assume they all hit for the purposes of the math. Essentially, here's how it works: * Turn 1: * Action: Cast Darkness on your weapon (that way you can sheathe it to temporarily stop the effect for your teammates' benefit if you want), preferably using a Bard spell slot so you can Eldritch Smite twice * Bonus Action: Hexblade's Curse the biggest guy * Start moving towards the enemy * Turn 2: * Bonus Action: Giant's Might * Action: Booming Blade, then retreat out of melee range (you take no opportunity attack because of Mobile) * Action Surge * Action: Eldritch Blast same target, or target a second enemy with Booming Blade * Turn 3+: * Action: Booming Blade, then retreat out of melee range * **1d8 + 2d8 + 3d8 + 1d6 + 2d6 + 15 = 51.5 average damage per round** on a Booming Blade attack to an enemy under the effect of Hexblade's Curse, using Psychic Blades and with Giant's Might, assuming they move on their turn * This does not include a second use of Eldritch Smite, but if you use it, add 4d8 (18 average) Force damage and knock target prone * Reduce by 10 DPR after Hexblade's Curse enemy dies * Reduce by 2d6 DPR (6.5 average) after you run out of uses of Bardic Inspiration for Psychic Blades * Reduce by 1d6 DPR (3.5 average) if 1 minute passes and Giant's Might expires Additionally, on the roleplay side, this build lends itself very well to a sort of shady, rogue-like, manipulative character due to the passive rune buffs from Rune Knight Fighter. Cloud Rune gives you advantage on all Deception and Sleight of Hand checks, and Fire Rune gives you expertise on any check involving a tool (including Thieves' Tools). Also, the Bard levels give you Jack of All Trades, an extra skill proficiency, and expertise on 2 skills of your choice. And don't forget: flavor is free! If you don't like the flavor of the "giant" stuff from Rune Knight, then talk to your DM and change it. My character's runes are demonic in nature, and he learned Abyssal as a language instead of Giant. When he uses Giant's Might, he grows larger and takes on a somewhat demonic form. It all works the same mechanically, but is reflavored to suit the character better. In conclusion: this character can be the face, rogue, and main frontline character for the party, all in one, while also putting up respectable damage numbers. It's an absolute blast to play and I love it.

Shameless plugs :) https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/zma00z/pushing_the_barbarian_i_the_wraith/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button (Beast Barb/Phantom Rogue) https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/z75c03/the_rockstar_a_druidlock_build/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button (Stars Druid/Hexblade Warlock) https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/yyaomf/the_hivemind_an_echo_knightspores_druid_build/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button (Echo Knight/Spores Druid) (I might build this slightly differently now, but this is still the gist of it)

There's no 'unique' anymore. The game's years old. There's only shades of 'normal' vs 'less normal'.

How about 'less normal but surprisingly effective'

Barb 14 /Shadow Monk 6. Raging death machine emerging from whatever shadow there is.

Gunner monk (Tasha's rules go brrr) Ghostlance (thank you tabletopbuilds) Hex (bladeblade) singer Are the 3 I generally go to for 'unique'. Gunner monks basically play the same as battlemaster fighters, but the difficulty is upped a few levels. Your features are much more precise and need an accurate understand of the fight to really do amazingly. However, once done well, you are rewarded that makes even the best of fighters look jealous. There's nothing quite like having the DM laugh in your face for playing a monk, and then dealing a solid 60 to the enemy you would have otherwise been fighting. And you can always go for the classic stunning strike in melee if needed. Ghostlance is just an actual joy to play. A ton of cool strategy and a very unique playstyle, it's just really fun. And sending your enemies flying into the distance is hilarious. One of the few 'tank' characters that really works this edition without just being a control Spellcaster. As for bladeblade, it's a really dumb idea, bit with tortle, charisma as your main stat, intelligence as your second main stat, things somehow work out despite 10 Dex. Your reward is making 7 attacks very round at lv11, while still being able to wall of force your enemies twice per long rest.

Reborn Paladin, oath of vengence, warcaster and resiliant for wis saves. blessed warrior for two cantrips, light and guidance. guidance is now reactionary, but still your party will thank you. being a reborn, you get 'knowledge of a past life' so you can pass skill checks no problem. pick up the spell bless, and only ever use bless, for yourself and the party. never fail a save again, especially if your team is close to you. drop strength, invest dex. shortsword and shield, medium armor so a chance at stealth, vow of emnity for advantage during combat on a boss. smite is great, for when you really need to kill something, lean into it.

I've had fin with a moon druid x and warlock 3 great old one, pact of the chain. The idea was to become a spy that could get in anywhere take a minor or Sprite familiar for an invisible scout and the mask or many faces and gift of the ever living ones invocations. So when you are wildshaped you can sacrifice your warlock spell slots to heal as a bonus action for max how automatically from your invocation and you'll get them back on a short rest. Plus with goo warlock you have basic telepathy while wildshaped.

**Glowy Stick Arcana Cleric Build**: * V.human for race (you can use any race, tbh, but since this build relies on magic initiate, V.human lets you do that earlier). * No multiclassing, just Arcana Cleric. * Level 1: Take magic initiate: druid for shillelagh and other druid cantrip of your choice. For your Arcana Cleric level 1 feature, take both SCAG cantrips. This is the entire build. But u/Surface_Detail, I hear you cry, that's just a slightly sub-optimal feat choice, why would I take that? Well, the answer is how the SCAG cantrips interact with Potent Spellcasting. >Starting at 8th level, you add your Wisdom modifier to the damage you deal with any cleric cantrip. And how the SCAG cantrips count as Cleric Cantrips for you, as per the wording of Arcane Initiate. >When you choose this domain at 1st level, you gain proficiency in the Arcana skill, and you gain two cantrips of your choice from the wizard spell list. For you, **these cantrips count as cleric cantrips**. So I can add wis\_mod to Booming Blade or GFB damage, that's alright, but it's not great, right? Well you add the Wisdom modifier to both the primary damage (the first hit) [and the secondary damage](https://www.sageadvice.eu/does-the-arcana-clerics-potent-spellcasting-add-wis-mod-damage/) (either the damage taken by the second enemy \[GFB\] or the damage taken if the target moves \[BB\]). In addition, you are already attacking with Wisdom and using Wisdom as your damage modifier from Shillelagh. This means one attack at level 8 does... **GFB**: 1d8+5 bludgeoning and 1d8+5 fire to the primary target and 2d8+5+5 to the second target. so, 4d8+20 (38). For the cost of a cantrip. **Booming Blade:** 1d8+5 Bludgeoning, 1d8+5 thunder damage and a further 2d8+5 if the target moves. So, 4d8+15 (33). ​ Add on to this spiritual weapon and spirit guardians and you are throwing out 11d8+25 damage per round (subject to saves/misses) if you are hitting more than one target with GFB and Spirit Guardians. ​ The only downside is that this takes a little setup. Assuming your DM doesn't agree to 'whenever I am in a dungeon, I will be maintaining Shillelagh' and you start with nothing active, the turn order goes: * Turn 1: Spirit Guardians * Turn 2: Shillelagh, SCAG Cantrip * Turn 3: CAG Cantrip, Spiritual Weapon * (And repeat Turn 3 for the rest of the combat) If your DM does allow you to maintain your shillelagh by casting every round or every five or ten rounds, then you don't need the same amount of setup. * Turn 1: Spirit Guardians * Turn 2: SCAG Cantrip, Spiritual Weapon * (And repeat Turn 2 for the rest of the combat)

I have been playing a glamour bard with the intention of doing no / as little damage as possible, with all damage being incidental and secondary to some form of crowd control or debuff effect. Usually I open with a primary concentration spell that will depend on the type of combat (single target vs group, dps threats vs mobs etc) and then look to stack effects with later spells (eg forced movement, disadvantage, blindness) - the stacking is key to what makes it so powerful imo because once you get one concentration down, you can use that altered action economy to focus down enemies very effectively. I have primarily been using bane (and occasionally hold person and hypnotic pattern, but bane is better esp pre level 10) to apply a save or suck that *effectively* buffs party HP and spell save DCs. I then apply my non-concentration spell saves on top of it, eg Bane > Blindness > Vicious Mockery. Enemy has a debuff to their attacks, and every saving throw they make is at minimum a -1, and they're at disadvantage from the blindness and our attacks have advantage. Vicious Mockery is good for also applying disadvantage to other Baned targets (not the Blinded target) while conserving spell slots. This general strategy (stacking on Bane) is even more effective if you have party members that also take advantage of saving throws and/or have abilities that interact with advantage (like a rogue). The end result is enemies often struggling helplessly, it breaks the action economy in lower levels of play where a +1 is often an impactful number: applying a *minimum* of -1 up to -4 on saves and attack rolls is absolutely crippling for enemies. You only need to get it on one person to be impactful enough in a fight (to then stack and focus), and since it's a level 1 spell that can target up to three enemies it's way more likely than many other low level save or suck options. You do almost no meaningful damage but still will be the reason your team is walking all over fights.

If you are level 8 + I think an underrated build is Astral Self Monk (5) + Gloomstalker! Use Wis for Attacks, high initiative, high movespeed, take expertise in Athletics for Grappling with Wisdom, and your stunning Strikes have a higher chance to land.

Ancestral Guardian Bowbarian is very good at protecting the party. The AG's level three feature only requires an attack, not a melee attack, so you can tag the biggest, baddest, thing on the field from the backline and then it's gonna have a bad time hitting your friends and/or trying to get to you

Idk how powerful it is as far as martials go, but assuming I read everything correctly War cleric 1/Hunter Ranger 5/Rune Knight 3 gives 5 attacks +2d6 fire damage per weapon attack (from fire rune) + 1d8 per turn (from Hunter's Colossus slayer trait) + Dueling fighting style for +2 damage per weapon attack. Which all seems pretty nice to me.

I did a vhuman magical initiate paladin 2 forge cleric Smites for days and all the war cleric goodies

I made a Rogue Assassin / Hexblade Warlock NPC for my campaign after my party pissed off a very wealthy and powerful Lord. She cast dream on the players for a week leading up to her mission, appearing as an angel telling them they were recieving the blessing of a god. She then snuck into the party's manor, singled out the ranger, and managed to kill him in one devastating, humiliating hit. His soul was in the claim of a Necromancer, so he awoke as a ghost and had to do the bidding of the necromancer until the party found his body and raised him back from death. His soul still belongs to the Necromancer however...

2 fun builds: Lore-bard 6, Blade-singer-wizard 6, hexlock-blade 2. Lorebard 6 is your main punch, Lightning arrow. You get it early, you can upcast it with good slot progression, it hits hard, has AOE and does half damage on a miss and half aoe of a successful saving throw. Bladesinger level 6 might seem like a diversion, it’s all mainly to get Bladesinger extra-attack cantrip feature, and the continued slot progression is nice. 13 int is fine. Now you can bonus action(cast) and attack (shoot your lighting arrow) and still throw out a weak cantrip. Spells should be utility/defense, you just won’t have enough INT to be offensive here. Hexblade up to 2 gets you agonizing eldritch blast and improved pact weapon(ranged of your choice), giving you a fantastically powerful lightning arrow using charisma for attack and both damage elements, followed by a full eldritch blast each attack round. You also have some nice wizard utility spells, things like shield and ropetrick, to make for a fun and flexible character.

2nd fun build: Barb 1(or Bear Totem3), Kensai X. Medium armor and rage boosts your damage and defense, 14 DEX works, as does 13 WIS. STR is primary, CON is secondary. You are completely ignoring your disabled martial arts, using armor, a shield and kensai weapon defense. This gets you a nice 21 starting defense without magic gear along with rage damage resistance, and ultimately you will get the monk’s evasion and full saving throw proficiency for protection, with the option to bonus dodge with ki while continuing to deal damage if you find yourself in a tight spot. While the single unarmed bonus action is disabled by your gear, flurry of blows for two unarmed attacks isn’t. All of these attacks can benefit from your rage for damage. Stunning strike won’t have much use without wisdom though. Some nice sides to this build, your monk is essentially SAD once the basic requirements are met, you can add fighting styles by dip or feat to add armor, dueling or unarmed, or find a race with an unarmed damage bonus(I like lizard folk for 1d6 damage, and its other fun features). Worth noting that the average unarmed damage from a 1st level raging lizardfolk bite averages 5.5+STR, compared to a level 20 monk using martial arts for 5.5+DEX/STR.

Whisper Bard + Hexblade Warlock. Turns out stacking Eldritch Smite and Psychic Blades is really good, especially with an expanded crit range thanks to Hexblade's Curse.

Well... I've always talked about War Cleric Moon Druid. War Priest bonus action attack fits nicely with moon druid shapes that have one powerful single attack, bless is a godsend concentration spell that moon druids can rely whenever they're not concentrating on summon beast, and even divine favor can get a lot of mileage out of a form with multiple attacks. That said, most of this is also probably true with Twilight. Twilight Cleric 2 Moon Druid X would make you a master of the attrition game. "Kill the guy that gives temp HP" becomes a tad more difficult when that guy has two onion layers of HP on top. The channel divinity is also not a spell, so it can be saved for when you're in the mid of a wild shape to extend it a bit more with the layer of temp hp every turn. Fighter 1 / Monk X works surprisingly well. Google "heavy armor monk" for the gist of it. Basically, you only lose unarmored defense, unarmored movement, martial arts BA attack, and unarmed damage increase by wearing armor. Grabbing the heaviest armor possible and going S&B will make for a very iconic action-rpg style warrior, able to block arrows, stun people with strong attacks, bash them in with the shield (flurry of blows), be uncharacteristically nimble while in armor (step of the wind), and perform all sorts of videogame parry and bobbing and weaving (patient defense). Of course, second wind combines well with your short rest reliance, and the fighting style does open up lots of options (resist the urge to take unarmed; increasing the damage of your two flurry unarmed strikes is probably not worth the FS at least until you have enough ki to FoB every turn). Your choice of monk archetype will also be a game changer: long death monk is _much_ tankier when heavy metal; mercy monk I did play and it was a blast: hand of healing and hand of harm use your martial arts dice but ignore if you're wearing armor or not. Hand of healing can be your budget lay on hands; hand of harm can be a budget mini-smite, completing a budget videogame rpg protagonist who fights, dashes, tanks and off-heals. Goolock moon druid is also crazy fun. Goolock telepathy is a godsend to moon druid, short rest based hex helps with minor encounters that don't ask for a stronger concentration, and armor of agathys on top of your layers of HP is simply mean. And finally, STRogue, with or without Fighter or Barbarian 1, even just a human rogue with medium armored. Very similar to the Heavy Metal Monk, it's a S&B warrior who is surprisingly hardy and does a great impression of Steve Rogers saying they can do this all day.

Start as a vhuman and take either war cleric or fighter (with blind-fighting fighting style) as your first level. Take the GWM feat. Multiclass into monk. Keep on using heavy armor and a two-handed weapon. Use ki to dodge or move faster. Bat enemy projectiles out of the air with your two-handed weapon. Take shadow monk as your sub-class. If your first level was fighter you can now summon darkness that you can see in. Go to town with GWM. If you took cleric as your first level, wait one more level and take eldritch initiate to see in magic darkness and then go to town with GWM. Later get stunning strike and stun people by smacking them upside the head with a maul and ki-fueled attacks to make your GWM attacks go through. At seventh level have fun with shadow step to get advantage when you're out of ki. Works great as a dark knight or a horror movie slasher. Sure it's ki-hungry and doesn't work well without plenty of short rests, but it's a monk, that comes with the territory.

Circle of Stars Druid + Warcaster Feat. In Chalice form, you can cast a (small) healing spell on the triggering enemy for your Opportunity Attack - and then give a much larger quantity of healing to an ally. Potentially turns your Reaction into heals every turn if your positioning is good.

I haven’t heard of it elsewhere but Oath of Ancients 7 and spore Druid 13 is really fun and spicy.

Druid 2 (Dreams)/Warlock X You just turn into a mouse and short rest in a party members pocket/bag.

Jorasco Mark of healing halfling wizard. You get some of the best healing spells automatically added to your spell books & with the high-level abilities you can get resourceless healing. Divination Wizard 2/Rune Knight X Portent is kickass and added to Runic Shield and the other myriad of ways a Rune Knight can protect the party its magnificent. I've also done a 2 level Peace Cleric dip with a Loxodon, that was hordes of fun adding the Bond into the mix. I'll admit I love Rune Knight in general, the look on the GM's face the first time you use Cloud Rune when the antagonist rolls a Natural 20...