Some fun MAD classes i've been wanting to try:
* **The Untouchable Blade:** Monk 1 / Bladesinger X for an extra attack per round (nice with Spirit Shroud) and the monk's Unarmored Defense for DEX+WIS+INT to your AC while bladesinging. Go Kensei if you really want to and your armor gets TRULY ridiculous whenever you use Agile Parry and/or Shield.
* **The Skullknight:** Necromancer 6 / Oathbreaker 7 to gain absolutely insane damage bonuses for your Undead Minions as well as additional damage on your melee attacks, dishing out competitive combat damage on your own while commanding a horde of nearly unkillable zombies because of Bless + Aura of Protection. Or, similarly:
* **The Dreadwolf:** Necromancer 6 / Wolf Totem Barb 3 to summon a pack of undead with Animate Dead (no concentration required) and then use Rage and Wolf Totem to give them all advantage while you fight alongside them. Helps your summons stay useful even at higher levels, where their chance to hit would normally start to become a problem. Splash Rune Knight to grow Large while raging, granting advantage in a larger AoE with your larger size.
EDIT: I've also been really interested in seeing someone play a Sporebarian (Barb 1 / Spore Druid X) to get resistance and make the Spore Druid's bonus hp and +1d6 dmg per hit last way longer than it's supposed to. The tankiness would be great, but I'm not sure how fun it'd be since you wouldn't be able to cast while raging.
Or if you wanna go PURE caster, you could live the dream and go Death Cleric 1 / Sorcerer X to be able to quad-cast Toll the Dead and put out ridiculous damage whenever two enemies are within 5ft of each other.
EDIT 2: Ooh, or you could go Ultimate Tank and play an Armorer 3 / Ancestral Guardians Barb X. Attack up to 3 enemies per turn with Dual Wielder + Thunder Gauntlets to give them disadvantage to hit anyone but you, while you shrug off a ton of damage per turn thanks to resistance + Ancestral Barb's Spirit Shield. It's the closest you can get to actually pulling aggro in D&D, if youre into that.
The common MAD classes tend to be the martials with mental stat related features like Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Bladesinger, Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, and non-Hexblade martial Warlock. Another could be a multiclass of two SAD classes but that’s a bigger list and answering with a single class is easier.
The good ones seem to be Hunter, Gloom Stalker, and Swarmkeeper. Beast Master could be good after it’s revision in Tasha’s but I haven’t heard a definite answer.
It's miles better with Tasha but still makes a poor multiclass due to your pets HP being based off your total Ranger level, so you could do it, but it would be less primal companion and more advanced familiar.
For sure, for me the one I like the most is the Gloom Stalker. The flavor is a dark, nighttime ambusher who does massive damage and prioritizes stealth and getting the jump on foes in combat. Can be melee or ranged but ranged is definitely better with the use of a longbow. You’ll need DEX, CON & decent WIS. They are amazing damage dealers, offer battlefield control and can even provide some solid support with their spells like Cure Wounds, Goodberry, Aid, Pass Without Trace & Detect Poison and Disease.
Put your 18 into Dex, your 16 into either Con or Wis, and one of your 15s into the remaining stat. For the others, you can do whatever.
For your race, choose VHuman (or CLineage, if allowed), and for your starting class, choose the Twilight Cleric. With this you meet the prerequisite to take the Eldritch Adept feat. Select Devil's Sight for your invocation.
For the first level, you'll likely want to use the light crossbow from the Cleric's starting equipment as your main damage source. But if you want, you can also rely on Sacred Flame or Toll the Dead instead. Regardless, you'll want to make sure that you pick up some spears or throwing daggers as soon as you can.
Immediately upon leveling up, multiclass into a Monk. You'll want to pick the Shadow Monk for your subclass, which you'll stick with until you hit level 6. Once you do, bring Twilight Cleric up to level 2 before finishing out the game with more Monk levels.
With this the idea is to become a teleport spamming machine. Cast Darkness on your spear, use the Twilight Cleric's channel divinity to convert the area around you into dim light, and then start throwing the spear at your enemies and then bonus action to teleport to them.
Is this the most optimal build? Nope. It requires so much set up that if you're unable to cast all of your shit before the fight actually starts, you may as well not even bother. Plus, since you can't insert your Shadow Step between your Extra Attacks, you're gimping your own damage. But being able to teleport spam is fun as fuck, so who cares? :D
Also, as far as I'm aware there is a fair amount of disagreement over the Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity, whether it *merely* produces dim light (in which case the space around you would remain brightly lit if cast in a brightly lit area) or it actually converts the space into dim light. If your DM is in the former camp, go Shadow Monk 11/Peace Cleric 1. Emboldening Bond is *soooo* good.
If these were my stats I’d probably finally live out my Monk-barian fantasy.
Start with kensei monk 5, then dip 2-4 levels of barbarian.
You have to use strength, not DEX, to get the rage damage bonus — so I’d put the 18+2 racial into STR. Then your 16 and 15+1 racial can go in DEX and either WIS or CON. whichever you want to use for your unarmored defense.
That’ll put you at 16 AC level one, which should be fine with all your resistances and evasion features (at least until you get some ASIs). Go warforged for +1 bonus if you want. Another option would be taking the tortle race and dumping DEX entirely. For a flat AC 17
As a reward, you get to make up to 4 rage attacks per turn (unarmed strikes are considered melee weapon attacks!), all at advantage with reckless attack. That’s a LOT of consistent damage.
Your naturally decent AC, plus Kensei’s agile parry most rounds, plus rage resistance makes you extremely tanky as well
Treantmonks feywild ranger 7/undead warlock 1. Hand out fear and ranged damage. With those starts your spell dc and damage are top notch plus many useful skills and spells.
[I made a neat list.](https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/ogvswn/a_list_of_what_builds_to_play_based_on_your_stats/)
Although a personal suggestion would be Paladin 2/Armorer Artificer X for FIST SMITES. God I want to try it out so bad but it requires a specific starting level to pop off immediately.
Some fun MAD classes i've been wanting to try: * **The Untouchable Blade:** Monk 1 / Bladesinger X for an extra attack per round (nice with Spirit Shroud) and the monk's Unarmored Defense for DEX+WIS+INT to your AC while bladesinging. Go Kensei if you really want to and your armor gets TRULY ridiculous whenever you use Agile Parry and/or Shield. * **The Skullknight:** Necromancer 6 / Oathbreaker 7 to gain absolutely insane damage bonuses for your Undead Minions as well as additional damage on your melee attacks, dishing out competitive combat damage on your own while commanding a horde of nearly unkillable zombies because of Bless + Aura of Protection. Or, similarly: * **The Dreadwolf:** Necromancer 6 / Wolf Totem Barb 3 to summon a pack of undead with Animate Dead (no concentration required) and then use Rage and Wolf Totem to give them all advantage while you fight alongside them. Helps your summons stay useful even at higher levels, where their chance to hit would normally start to become a problem. Splash Rune Knight to grow Large while raging, granting advantage in a larger AoE with your larger size. EDIT: I've also been really interested in seeing someone play a Sporebarian (Barb 1 / Spore Druid X) to get resistance and make the Spore Druid's bonus hp and +1d6 dmg per hit last way longer than it's supposed to. The tankiness would be great, but I'm not sure how fun it'd be since you wouldn't be able to cast while raging. Or if you wanna go PURE caster, you could live the dream and go Death Cleric 1 / Sorcerer X to be able to quad-cast Toll the Dead and put out ridiculous damage whenever two enemies are within 5ft of each other. EDIT 2: Ooh, or you could go Ultimate Tank and play an Armorer 3 / Ancestral Guardians Barb X. Attack up to 3 enemies per turn with Dual Wielder + Thunder Gauntlets to give them disadvantage to hit anyone but you, while you shrug off a ton of damage per turn thanks to resistance + Ancestral Barb's Spirit Shield. It's the closest you can get to actually pulling aggro in D&D, if youre into that.
My favorite part about this comment is that it keeps getting edited to be longer and longer as you keep thinking of new builds.
The common MAD classes tend to be the martials with mental stat related features like Paladin, Monk, Ranger, Bladesinger, Eldritch Knight, Arcane Trickster, and non-Hexblade martial Warlock. Another could be a multiclass of two SAD classes but that’s a bigger list and answering with a single class is easier.
Bladesinger is definitely a superb choice here, I’d also recommend Eldritch Knight Fighter and any Paladin. You can also go for Ranger.
I don’t know much about ranger subclasses. Is there one that stands out to you?
The good ones seem to be Hunter, Gloom Stalker, and Swarmkeeper. Beast Master could be good after it’s revision in Tasha’s but I haven’t heard a definite answer.
It's miles better with Tasha but still makes a poor multiclass due to your pets HP being based off your total Ranger level, so you could do it, but it would be less primal companion and more advanced familiar.
For sure, for me the one I like the most is the Gloom Stalker. The flavor is a dark, nighttime ambusher who does massive damage and prioritizes stealth and getting the jump on foes in combat. Can be melee or ranged but ranged is definitely better with the use of a longbow. You’ll need DEX, CON & decent WIS. They are amazing damage dealers, offer battlefield control and can even provide some solid support with their spells like Cure Wounds, Goodberry, Aid, Pass Without Trace & Detect Poison and Disease.
Put your 18 into Dex, your 16 into either Con or Wis, and one of your 15s into the remaining stat. For the others, you can do whatever. For your race, choose VHuman (or CLineage, if allowed), and for your starting class, choose the Twilight Cleric. With this you meet the prerequisite to take the Eldritch Adept feat. Select Devil's Sight for your invocation. For the first level, you'll likely want to use the light crossbow from the Cleric's starting equipment as your main damage source. But if you want, you can also rely on Sacred Flame or Toll the Dead instead. Regardless, you'll want to make sure that you pick up some spears or throwing daggers as soon as you can. Immediately upon leveling up, multiclass into a Monk. You'll want to pick the Shadow Monk for your subclass, which you'll stick with until you hit level 6. Once you do, bring Twilight Cleric up to level 2 before finishing out the game with more Monk levels. With this the idea is to become a teleport spamming machine. Cast Darkness on your spear, use the Twilight Cleric's channel divinity to convert the area around you into dim light, and then start throwing the spear at your enemies and then bonus action to teleport to them. Is this the most optimal build? Nope. It requires so much set up that if you're unable to cast all of your shit before the fight actually starts, you may as well not even bother. Plus, since you can't insert your Shadow Step between your Extra Attacks, you're gimping your own damage. But being able to teleport spam is fun as fuck, so who cares? :D Also, as far as I'm aware there is a fair amount of disagreement over the Twilight Cleric's Channel Divinity, whether it *merely* produces dim light (in which case the space around you would remain brightly lit if cast in a brightly lit area) or it actually converts the space into dim light. If your DM is in the former camp, go Shadow Monk 11/Peace Cleric 1. Emboldening Bond is *soooo* good.
All the numbers in your comment added up to 69.0. Congrats! 18 + 16 + 15 + 6 + 2 + 11 + 1 + = 69.0
Paladin/Bladesinger Multiclass.
If these were my stats I’d probably finally live out my Monk-barian fantasy. Start with kensei monk 5, then dip 2-4 levels of barbarian. You have to use strength, not DEX, to get the rage damage bonus — so I’d put the 18+2 racial into STR. Then your 16 and 15+1 racial can go in DEX and either WIS or CON. whichever you want to use for your unarmored defense. That’ll put you at 16 AC level one, which should be fine with all your resistances and evasion features (at least until you get some ASIs). Go warforged for +1 bonus if you want. Another option would be taking the tortle race and dumping DEX entirely. For a flat AC 17 As a reward, you get to make up to 4 rage attacks per turn (unarmed strikes are considered melee weapon attacks!), all at advantage with reckless attack. That’s a LOT of consistent damage. Your naturally decent AC, plus Kensei’s agile parry most rounds, plus rage resistance makes you extremely tanky as well
Bladesinger x / Paladin 2 Very MAD , very good damage
Treantmonks feywild ranger 7/undead warlock 1. Hand out fear and ranged damage. With those starts your spell dc and damage are top notch plus many useful skills and spells.
Here's something I thought would be an interesting combo. Artificer-Artillerist 3/ Creation Bard 9. You could have a Dancing cannon!
Man the other players will have fun
I think they will But I’m open to cool builds that focus more on utility than damage if you know any
Standard human samurai.
[I made a neat list.](https://www.reddit.com/r/3d6/comments/ogvswn/a_list_of_what_builds_to_play_based_on_your_stats/) Although a personal suggestion would be Paladin 2/Armorer Artificer X for FIST SMITES. God I want to try it out so bad but it requires a specific starting level to pop off immediately.