The Fey Knight! A gnome tank that's prepared for everything and fears nothing!! (Except maybe Giant Frogs)

[Driftw00d]

This is a tanking build designed to give options in almost every situations. While it doesn't have the highest AC possible, your AC is still high enough to cause difficulty, and while the damage doesn't quite hit the level of 2Hand weapons, 3 attacks per round with shadow blade will hit more often and hard enough to make it difficult for monsters to ignore you. This build combines the raw AC of an Eldritch Knight with the bonus to saves from Gnomish Cunning's advantage on saving throws vs magic and War Wizard's + to saves to make targeting you by save spells difficult. His biggest weakness is his small stature making him more susceptible to grapples and being eaten by giant frogs.


I present to you Dabbledob Boondiggles III, Fey Knight of the Winter Court. Eldritch Knight 12 War Wizard 8
Or Eldritch Knight 12 War Wizard 5 Assasin 3


Race: Forest Gnome
Skills taken: Perception and Acrobatics.
Background: I used the create your own to make the Fey Knight: Skills: Arcana and Stealth. Extra languages Elvish and Fey, and the retainers feature from nobility to give him 3 Human servants to get things from tall shelves:


Attributes Point Buy: STR 8 DEX 16 Con 14 INT 16 WIS 10 CHA 10


Saves: STR will be your weakest save with just proficiency DEX will be pumped up to +5 by level 6 from raw DEX score, CON will be insane starting at +5 and ending up at almost auto pass levels by endgame. The mental proficiencies suffer at first but you get advantage on all those due to magic, which is most of the mental saves. This plus Arcane deflection plus indomitable and you're making most saves. Travel with a personal paladin and your definitely making all saves.


Weapon: Starts with a rapier at level 1 and for most combats switch to Shadow Blade at level 8. We're leveraging extra attacks to do significant damage with Shadow Blade. At level 8 with level 2 spell slots and dueling fighting style you're doing 2 attacks at 2d8 +7, at level 11 we'll have 2 level 3 slots for 2 attacks doing 3d8+ 7 each. At level 13 we get 3rd attack giving us 3 attacks at 3d8 +7. At level 17 you get your first 5th level slot allowing for 3 attacks per round at 4d8 +7. All of these attacks have advantage in dim light.


Feats: Level 4 and 6 feats go to bringing Dex to 20. Level 8 feat could be used for War caster or lucky. Given this characters lack of use of bonus actions you can easily make use of either the Eldritch Knight's or Shadow Blades ability to summon your sword back on bonus action to keep your had free for reaction casting of Shield or Absorb elements. Simply throw the sword on your last attack then use your bonus action to bring it back on your next turn. This makes lucky a better choice due to its versitility. Higher level feats worth looking at are bringing con to 20 or toughness to add more hps to make up for the ones lost to Wizard levels.


Spells: Cantrips: Frostbite(Ranged damage and gives disadvantage), Chill Touch (Shores up some of the builds weakness to undead), Minor Illusion(Free for Gnome)I play AL so can't have both War Wizard and SCAG cantrips if you play in a home game then by all means pick up GFB and BB
Level 1: Shield, Absorb elements, Find Familiar as free non evocation/abjuration spell, Later take Mage armor
Level 2: Darkness taken at 7 then Shadow Blade taken at 8
Level 3: You wont be seeing these till you get Wizard 5 at 17th level At this point take whatever you want! I got my eye on Fly and Thunder Step for more mobility.




AC: Start with Medium armour and shield ac 18 at level 1, Switch to studded leather at 4 for the same AC but no penalty to stealth, level 6 AC 19, Level 9 pick up Mage armor with Wizard level 1 for AC 20 naked. As with all Eldritch Knight Shield spell bumps this up to 25. War wizard give the option to bump to 22 against one attack per round for free, occasionally saving you spell slots.


Initiative: Starts at + 3 but ends up +8 once you add War Wizard this will help make up for your speed of 25 by going first more often.


Progression:
1-8 Eldritch Knight to get 2nd attack and Shadow Blade
9-10 War Wizard Gets higher spell slots, increased initiative, War wizards + to ac and saves.
11-14 Eldritch Knight for 3rd attack and feat
15-17 War wizard to 5 for 1 5th level slot per day to put Shadow Blade to 4d6 each swing.
18-20 Either War wizard to give 4th level spells A second 5th level slot and 1 6th level spell slot. Or you could take 3 levels of Assassin to get expertize in stealth a sick alpha strike hitting for up to 468 with an average of 290 opening round damage. With spells like invisibility, misty step, blink, alter self, and expertise in stealth infiltration would be easy making one hell of an assassin type character but you only have one 5th level slot for 4d8 Shadow Blade a day, making the rest of the fights 3d8 instead, you also don't get spells higher than second level..

 

[Blue]

I like how this comes together.

If you didn't care about saves but wanted ridiculous AC (and similar concentration), you could swap Gnome -> Elf and your wizard subclass from War -> Bladesinger, but frankly I like how you have very few chinks in your defenses, important for a moderate HP front-liner.

I was thinking about Shadow Blade and the opportunity cost of Concentration. I compared it to Haste with a 3rd level slot - assuming a +1 Rapier, the damage is slightly in Shadow Balde's favor btu the other bonuses are in Haste+magic rapier's favor - except that if Haste goes down you're screwed for a round. And psychic is so rarely resisted. And of course actually KNOWING Haste is way late (and after your get yet another attack). Seems pretty clear to stay with Shadow Blade.

To play around with other options, most of your listed spells don't care about spell attack or save DC - if you go high CHR instead you could get paladin aura to saves. But it comes later, gets rid of your emergency ranged cantrips, and is only a half caster so you're not getting your higher level slots. That doesn't work as well.

Okay, I tried banging on it some other ways and it hangs together well.

Thumbs up.

 

[carnage220]

i don't believe you get your dex damage bonus on shadow blade. the wording says deal 2d8 psychic damage on a hit. it doesn't say you get all riders so wouldn't get sneak attack as well.

 

[mellored]

Samurai gets proficiency in Wisdom saving throws.

You lose some spell slots, but it might be worth it.

 

[Driftw00d]

i don't believe you get your dex damage bonus on shadow blade. the wording says deal 2d8 psychic damage on a hit. it doesn't say you get all riders so wouldn't get sneak attack as well.

Per the spell description "This magic sword lasts until the spell ends. It counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. It deals 2d8 psychic damage on a hit and has the finesse, light and thrown properties. range 20/60." With the exception to its durability being tied to your concentration it is a light finesse weapon making it work for sneak attack and ability mod to damage.

 

[Driftw00d]

I like how this comes together.

If you didn't care about saves but wanted ridiculous AC (and similar concentration), you could swap Gnome -> Elf and your wizard subclass from War -> Bladesinger, but frankly I like how you have very few chinks in your defenses, important for a moderate HP front-liner.

I was thinking about Shadow Blade and the opportunity cost of Concentration. I compared it to Haste with a 3rd level slot - assuming a +1 Rapier, the damage is slightly in Shadow Balde's favor btu the other bonuses are in Haste+magic rapier's favor - except that if Haste goes down you're screwed for a round. And psychic is so rarely resisted. And of course actually KNOWING Haste is way late (and after your get yet another attack). Seems pretty clear to stay with Shadow Blade.

To play around with other options, most of your listed spells don't care about spell attack or save DC - if you go high CHR instead you could get paladin aura to saves. But it comes later, gets rid of your emergency ranged cantrips, and is only a half caster so you're not getting your higher level slots. That doesn't work as well.

Okay, I tried banging on it some other ways and it hangs together well.

Thumbs up.

Unfortunately I have only AL games available to me so no Bladesinger/Shadowblade yet without finding another wizard with it in their spellbook and copying it over which is not a likely scenario. On the paladin, my kid is playing a one so I get the aura bonus too. The paladin bonus should stack with War mages bonus for some ridiculous saves!

 

[Blue]

i don't believe you get your dex damage bonus on shadow blade. the wording says deal 2d8 psychic damage on a hit. it doesn't say you get all riders so wouldn't get sneak attack as well.

It's a weapon, getting your ability score to damage is part of that. Except in the cases where it isn't, like if you were using this in your off-hand while dual wielding without the fighting style. No need to call out a general rule, and cover the exceptions again.