What sort of character will you build for Curse of Strahd?

Z. H. Darkstar said:

I'm waiting until the S4 Story Origin options are revealed before making a final decision.

Click to expand...

Pretty much this. It's impossible to know what's interesting without knowing what's allowed. I don't get to play very much—my S2 character only got to level 5 before everything was running S3—so it's unlikely I'll have the foreknowledge to be able to plan an escape. I'm just going to assume the character is not going to make it out.

So that said, I'll probably look for something suboptimal and weird, since I don't have to worry about being competitive at higher levels, like a halfling barbarian or a BM ranger.

RCanine said:

Pretty much this. It's impossible to know what's interesting without knowing what's allowed. I don't get to play very much—my S2 character only got to level 5 before everything was running S3—so it's unlikely I'll have the foreknowledge to be able to plan an escape. I'm just going to assume the character is not going to make it out.

So that said, I'll probably look for something suboptimal and weird, since I don't have to worry about being competitive at higher levels, like a halfling barbarian or a BM ranger.

Click to expand...

If you have a regular in your group that you trust enough to work in a symbiotic relationship, I have a pair of builds that have amazing synergy. Leveling progression is listed for both.

Variant Human (Sentinel) Moon Druid 2/Monk 1/Druid 6/Open Hand Monk 5/Druid 15

Variant Human (Mounted Combatant) Battlemaster Fighter (Defense FS) 3/Ancients Paladin (Protection FS) 7/Fighter 13

The premise is simple from 2nd level and beyond: Bear* Cavalry. Druid acts as intelligent mount, capable of doing its bear things on its own turn. Rider serves as a damage sponge for what is already a damage sponge, redirecting melee attacks to itself via Mounted Combatant and using Protection against ranged attacks. The rest of the minutiae should be self-evident once you parse the components. I'll go into it deeper in a CharOp thread if you'd like, but I'd rather not derail this thread any further.

*"Bear" = any large beast that you can Wild Shape into that would serve as a worthwhile mount. I just used the word Bear because my PC was named Jh'mi D'behr, aka Asbestos Bear.

You do realize that natural attacks (eg. claws) aren't unarmed strikes right? While a bear might be capable of making unarmed strikes (subject to DM interpretation), you would not gain the benefit of multi-attack when doing so (and these would be your normal d4+X attacks). In addition, martial arts and flurry of blows both require the attack action. They will not work with the multiattack action (even if you ignore the fact that a claw/bite doesn't count as a monk weapon, or an unarmed strike).

Other wildshapes may not even be capable of making unarmed strikes (such as wolves, snakes, or spiders). Expect table variation.

I personally think that a Moon Druid 2/Bear Totem Barbarian 5/Moon Druid X (with Sentinel) works much better for this combo. Those few attacks that would drop you out of wildshape can be redirected to your buddy, while you gain resistance to everything (except psychic).

Since you keep your Wisdom score when you wild shape, the Monk's unarmored defense tends to give a slightly better AC than the barbarian, particularly at higher levels.

Ainulindalion said:

Since you keep your Wisdom score when you wild shape, the Monk's unarmored defense tends to give a slightly better AC than the barbarian, particularly at higher levels.

Click to expand...

Not to mention Stunning Strike is incredible. I never understood some peoples' need to unsolicitedly attack others based on ideas they don't fully understand.

I think though, in my case, I'm more interested in something that flirts with the flavor of Ravenloft, and to build around a character option most optimizers dismiss or overlook. If I had my druthers, Season 4 would allow some of the weirder Unearthed Arcana race options, since from a balance point they're almost all suboptimal and story-wise the mists pull people from all over the multiverse into Ravenloft.

kalani said:

You do realize that natural attacks (eg. claws) aren't unarmed strikes right? While a bear might be capable of making unarmed strikes (subject to DM interpretation), you would not gain the benefit of multi-attack when doing so (and these would be your normal d4+X attacks). In addition, martial arts and flurry of blows both require the attack action. They will not work with the multiattack action (even if you ignore the fact that a claw/bite doesn't count as a monk weapon, or an unarmed strike).

Other wildshapes may not even be capable of making unarmed strikes (such as wolves, snakes, or spiders). Expect table variation.

I personally think that a Moon Druid 2/Bear Totem Barbarian 5/Moon Druid X (with Sentinel) works much better for this combo. Those few attacks that would drop you out of wildshape can be redirected to your buddy, while you gain resistance to everything (except psychic).

Click to expand...

Bears still have heads. Headbutts are unarmed strikes. Flurry of Blows doesn't require the use of a Monk weapon, so you can Attack with claws and then Flurry. Using Flurry of Blows as a Bear is a control option that gets better once you get Extra Attack. Until then, Multiattack is the goto move for DPR. Bears can swat away ranged attacks using Deflect Missiles.

I'll admit that Barbearian is the tankier build, but it's also a little bit bland in comparison. RCanine was looking for something a bit suboptimal and weird. Thus, why I went with the Monk-based Bear Mount, that has the Ki-based and Deflect Missiles options instead of just Wildshape and Rage.

RAW, I am pretty sure multiattack is NOT an attack action. It is a specific action named Multiattack...Yes, there are attacks involved, but it is not an attack action. For example, Fighters can't use Extra Attack during a multiattack(if you polymorphed him into a Polar bear, etc). So you could still use your class feature to make an unarmed strike with any part of your body; they all function just like the ability describes dealing the specific martial arts damage, NOT the claw/bite damage from the MM. OR you can use its natural attacks along with multiattack as they are listed in the stat block.

This idea is particularly bad for Adventure League, since the list of allowed forms is VERY(and stupidly) limited.

As far as the original topic goes, I am leaning towards skipping S4 as well. Not particularly keen on making throw-away characters, and one of the main selling features of AL is character portability. Our event coordinator is already talking about having to audit people's logs every week to make sure nobody is from the wrong season or to make sure they don't have any XP gained from S4 if they play in a different mod. This does absolutely nothing to enhance the atmosphere IMO.

2 of our 5ish regular DMs have already said they are dropping out for S4, with a 3rd saying he'll still DM but will only be running previous season content. I DMed all of season 2, and played the last half of S3, but they want me to start DMing again. I am inclined to only do previous content as well. There is still a ton of mid level material in Hoard, Princes, and OotA that none of us have played through.

kalani said:

In addition, martial arts and flurry of blows both require the attack action. They will not work with the multiattack action (even if you ignore the fact that a claw/bite doesn't count as a monk weapon, or an unarmed strike).

Click to expand...

It gets worse -- the monk can't use Flurry of Blows with a Multiattack, since the Flurry requires the use of the Attack action. And even if the monk decides to just use the Attack action to attack with a single claw instead of the full Multiattack, she still can't use Flurry, because Flurry enables unarmed strikes, which a wildshaped monk/druid doesn't have -- check the monster stats and you'll see even things like a tail slap are defined as 'melee weapon attacks'. Just because both an unarmed strike and a creature's attack are considered 'melee weapon attacks' doesn't mean that monster attacks count as unarmed strikes. Since the monk/druid can't Flurry, she gains no benefit from her Open Hand Technique ability, which is arguably the only optimizer-approved reason to take that tradition. (Sure, there's a once-per-long-rest self-heal, but that's minor in CharOp.)

I personally think that a Moon Druid 2/Bear Totem Barbarian 5/Moon Druid X (with Sentinel) works much better for this combo. Those few attacks that would drop you out of wildshape can be redirected to your buddy, while you gain resistance to everything (except psychic).

Click to expand...

I appreciate Z.H. Darkstar's desire to keep serious CharOp discussion out of this forum and in the CharOp forum, both where it belongs and where people who don't care for it don't have to wade through it to get to other stuff. If you want to talk rules as interpreted for Adventurers League as it relates to a possible CharOp build, I'd find that on-topic for the forum.

--
Pauper

Z. H. Darkstar said:

Bears still have heads. Headbutts are unarmed strikes.

Click to expand...

That's not how Martial Arts works in 5E. Check the rule:

"You gain the following benefits while you are unarmed or wielding only monk weapons and you aren't wearing armor or wielding a shield." (SRD 5.0, p.26)

In previous editions, there was an idea that a monk could make an unarmed strike with anything -- a head, a leg, whatever -- but that doesn't apply in 5E. Instead, you look at the brown bear, for instance, and note that both its bite attack and claw attack are defined as 'melee weapon attacks'. (SRD 5.0, p.364) While an unarmed strike is also considered a 'melee weapon attack', that doesn't mean that all melee weapon attacks are equivalent to unarmed strikes -- a DM could absolutely rule that a beast, all of whose attacks are considered melee weapon attacks, is not unarmed for the purpose of the Martial Arts rule. In fact, this is supported in the SRD -- "The most common attacks that a monster will take in combat are melee and ranged attacks. These can be spell attacks or weapon attacks, where the 'weapon' might be a manufactured item or a natural weapon, such as a claw or tail spike." (SRD 5.0, p.262, emphasis mine)

Flurry of Blows doesn't require the use of a Monk weapon, so you can Attack with claws and then Flurry.

Click to expand...

But you need to be able to make unarmed strikes to get the benefit of Flurry of Blows -- if you don't have unarmed strikes, because you're a bear with a bunch of natural weapons, then you don't have the ability to make any attacks via Flurry of Blows, because you're not unarmed. It doesn't matter that the bear has a head; that it has claws that are considered natural weapons (that aren't monk weapons) is enough to disqualify it from using unarmed strikes.

--
Pauper

RCanine said:

Not to mention Stunning Strike is incredible. I never understood some peoples' need to unsolicitedly attack others based on ideas they don't fully understand.

I think though, in my case, I'm more interested in something that flirts with the flavor of Ravenloft, and to build around a character option most optimizers dismiss or overlook. If I had my druthers, Season 4 would allow some of the weirder Unearthed Arcana race options, since from a balance point they're almost all suboptimal and story-wise the mists pull people from all over the multiverse into Ravenloft.

Click to expand...

Which is awesome, but also requires 5 levels into Monk, which is a looooong dip, compared to the 1-3 you need for maximum Barbarian effectiveness.

I think your build of Monk/Moon Druid is much better suited as a Primary Monk/Secondary Druid. Just get druid up to level 2 for Moon Druid, grab Shillelagh and Guidance, then hit Monk for the rest of your levels. Use bear form as short rest temp HP before going into full Monk form.

Plus who doesn't want to be a Shadow Stepping Bearonk.