D&D 5E Best gish (PHB only)

[krunchyfrogg]

What are you looking to gain by ditching STR? Your DEX could be 13 instead of 12, opening up some multiclass options that you probably don't care about, and you could get your INT and CHA modifiers up a bit, but is that worth it? You'd become completely dependent on shillelagh to use a weapon, since you don't get any finesse weapons beyond a dagger.

As far as choosing hill dwarf in general, yes, you can wear the heavy armor with no speed penalty, but your speed is still lower than a human (that doesn't dump STR), and the same as a wood elf that does (and they at least can get 14 DEX and CON, 13 INT (in case you wanted a level of wizard at some point for rituals, arcane recovery, and the shield spell) and access to some ranged and finesse weapons). You do get more HP as a dwarf, but your concentration saves will be worse than a vuman with war caster, or even a vuman with resilient CON who also gets their CON up to 16 (at the expense of STR going down to 13 instead of 14).

Edit: Realized a hill dwarf can get 13 INT for a potential wizard dip just as easily as a wood elf can so disregard that as a distinguishing factor.

All I was looking for was a single classed cleric who can use his WIS instead of any other stat for everything.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

I play an arcane trickster at my table, and she is a lethal gish, but she multiclassed into bladesinger, and uses booming blade and shadow blade heavily. Without any of those things on the table she'd basically just be a rogue in combat who gets advantage more often from an owl, and can choose to cast a debuff or fog cloud occasionally (very occasionally since she'd have hardly any spell slots) instead of attacking. I still love a single class arcane trickster, because rogues are really fun to play and some casting is lovely gravy, but I don't think it would feel so much like a gish, especially before level 7 when you're limited to 4 spells, all 1st level, and have to choose between shield and find familiar. I guess with vuman for magic initiate you can get find familiar there, and even more utility cantrips, but then you don't have darkvision, which is especially rough for a rogue.

Unfortunately, the awesome melee cantrips would be unavailable to me (PHB only).

 

[Esker]

All I was looking for was a single classed cleric who can use his WIS instead of any other stat for everything.

Oh, I thought that since vuman nature cleric with shillelagh was my first suggestion earlier in the thread you were focused on the hill dwarf part here.

 

[Esker]

Unfortunately, the awesome melee cantrips would be unavailable to me (PHB only).

Yeah, I know; that and the low level cap are why I think arcane trickster may not be such a great option (at least not such a great option to give you a gishy feel)

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Oh, I thought that since vuman nature cleric with shillelagh was my first suggestion earlier in the thread you were focused on the hill dwarf part here.

I was just pointing out that you can get away dumping a Stat with a dwarf nature cleric that you’d normally need to prioritize as a human

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I play an arcane trickster at my table, and she is a lethal gish, but she multiclassed into bladesinger, and uses booming blade and shadow blade heavily. Without any of those things on the table she'd basically just be a rogue in combat who gets advantage more often from an owl, and can choose to cast a debuff or fog cloud occasionally (very occasionally since she'd have hardly any spell slots) instead of attacking. I still love a single class arcane trickster, because rogues are really fun to play and some casting is lovely gravy, but I don't think it would feel so much like a gish, especially before level 7 when you're limited to 4 spells, all 1st level, and have to choose between shield and find familiar. I guess with vuman for magic initiate you can get find familiar there, and even more utility cantrips, but then you don't have darkvision, which is especially rough for a rogue.

If Xanathar’s and SCAG spells are allowed, a human rogue can have Booming Blade at level 1, as well as Find Familiar and Mage Armor.

If they aren’t, then either gish is going to be attacking OR using magic with any given action.

 

[Esker]

I was just pointing out that you can get away dumping a Stat with a dwarf nature cleric that you’d normally need to prioritize as a human

Well except you only need to prioritize it insofar as you don't want to part with 10 ft of your speed (or insofar as you want to be able to attack without shillelagh, which being a dwarf doesn't help with). Not saying there are no advantages to hill dwarf (more HP is one), but you are basically "prepaying" half of the armor penalty (compared to a human) or the full penalty (compared to a wood elf) by starting with a reduced speed. And since I'm not sure you really even gain anything that useful by being able to dump STR in the first place (and you lose non-shillelagh attack, carrying capacity, and athletics skill), it doesn't seem like a good mechanical option to me (but maybe you are thinking of something I missed).

 

[Esker]

If Xanathar’s and SCAG spells are allowed, a human rogue can have Booming Blade at level 1, as well as Find Familiar and Mage Armor.

If they aren’t, then either gish is going to be attacking OR using magic with any given action.

True, and they aren't, so any gish is making a choice with their action. But the cleric or the sorcerer or the wizard can take magic actions (or bonus actions) that make them a more formidable combatant in future rounds. In the first six levels that includes bless/shield of faith or expeditious retreat/longstrider; spiritual weapon or mirror image/blur/magic weapon/enlarge/web; spirit guardians or haste/fly/blink). The arcane casters also get a great reaction spell in shield (and the tempest cleric gets a reaction damage ability). None of those level 1 gish spells listed are enchantment or illusion, which means the arcane trickster prior to level 7 can pick at most one (maybe two if magic initiate), and only has two or three spell slots to cast it with (plus an extra casting of their magic initiate spell).

I guess if they are ranged they can use minor illusion or fog cloud to buff their attacks by creating hiding places for advantage, but minor illusion probably only gives you at most one hide attempt that way (DM dependent), and fog cloud competes with all those other spells for the any school pick.

That doesn't mean the AT isn't good --- far from it, I love the class even without SCAG/Xanathar's --- it just means that their magic at low levels has to be used sparingly and will primarily be useful for utility and support/control, which doesn't exactly sound like a gish to me. But, OP didn't actually specify that the magic had to be integrated with the attacking, and also didn't specify a desired balance between combat prowess and magical prowess, so maybe none of this matters.

 

[FrogReaver]

You can take magic intiate with a tempest cleric and gain shileleagh that way as well. Tempest is a lot more gishy than nature IMO.

 

[Esker]

You can take magic intiate with a tempest cleric and gain shileleagh that way as well. Tempest is a lot more gishy than nature IMO.

That's a thought. Hurts to have to give up war caster for shillelagh, though, especially since you don't get CON save proficiency as a cleric. Heh, or I suppose you could take first level in fighter for CON saves and dueling style, magic initiate druid at 1st level for shillelagh and whatever else appeals to you, and then go Trickery Cleric (since you already have heavy armor and martial weapons) to get mirror image and blink. You could even use your channel divinity to give yourself advantage on attack rolls, which is arguably even gishier than what tempests can do.