D&D (2024) Avenger of The Silver Flame build

[mellored]

Okay having looked at it again I will say that it works as long as I don’t go too many levels into the class, since you don’t get a hadoken until level 6. And I guess an explosion of silver flame is thematic.

Elemental Radiant Burst is not a thing you would do often. Only when there's a group.

I would rather the attacks be with a weapon, but I can flavor the radiant strikes as daggers wreathed in silver flame.

Summon them ?

The only thing missing is ways to investigate and detect supernatural evil,

dip cleric 1
Detect Good and Evil
Thaumaturge (+Wis to Int skills)
Guidance and healing Word are quite nice too.

Cleric 1/Rogue 1/Elemental Radiant Monk x
Throwing daggers of light.

 

[Zardnaar]

Shadow Armor gets you Mage Armor at-will.

I’m still considering replacing one of the classes with rogue or just adding rogue (one level at level one, and eventually 3-5 total rogue levels).

The build needs divine magic (or magic I can flavor that way easily), radiant damage, efficacy while using weapons that aren’t immediately recognizable as weapons (ie daggers, preferably dual wielding), and using supernatural abilities and magic to accomplish what a rogue/ranger would do largely by physical skill and prowess.

And of course, be made a using classes I actually like to play lol.

I’d love to make it as a monk, but I see no way to do it without a custom monk subclass or a houserule to use wisdom for the Paladin, or maybe a more divine Ranger subclass. And even with one of those, I’d need either great stat rolls or to ignore the multiclass stat requirements to do monk-paladin.

And honestly Paladin provides so much of what makes a good “agent of divine wrath against supernatural evil” that it’s hard to ignore.

Anyway, the current build is probably ditching GFB but keeping true strike (my dm will let me use Dex instead of cha for that so it’s a good magic longbow attack option). I’ll keep Pact of the Blade because making one weapon deal radiant damage is part of the basic concept and it’s an easy way to do that.

So Warlock, pact of the Blade, Armor of Shadows, and I’ll choose a utility invocation like pact of the tome or maybe lessons of the ancients, or part of the chain with a sphinx (flavored as a small coatl guy) familiar.

Paladin, TWF, dagger and possibly short sword mastery even though I intend to use Shadowblade a decent amount so a second melee mastery isn’t going to come up a ton. Might use Shortbow rather than longbow and grab mastery with that.

Spells: divine favor, wrathful smite, compelled duel, armor of Agythis, Shadowblade (homebrewed to radiant damage), and all the Vengeance Paladin and Archfey Warlock spells.

Skills: Stealth, Investigation, Religion, deception, insight, athletics, persuasion, and a musical instrument just because. (Skilled, changeling, warlock, paladin).

Feats: Not actually that impressed by dual wielder, but gonna grab skill expert for expertise in Stealth and to grab maybe sleight of hand, later I’ll grab speedy or skulker.

I’ll make another post later with how I’d do this using monk and ranger and maybe even explore monk-paladin in spite of the obstacles there.

OK cool. Cantrips mostly waste of time once you get multiple attacks. Thoughts on magic initiate wizard vs armor of shadows is two more cantrips vs at will mage.

Starting level? If it's from 3 paladin 1/warlock xyz? Level 5 is bit of dead level vs mono, pal2/warlock xyz is kinda bad as well until 7.

Divine favor is good for dual wielding and the dual wielding feat but is choking on bonus actions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

OK cool. Cantrips mostly waste of time once you get multiple attacks. Thoughts on magic initiate wizard vs armor of shadows is two more cantrips vs at will mage.

Starting level? If it's from 3 paladin 1/warlock xyz? Level 5 is bit of dead level vs mono, pal2/warlock xyz is kinda bad as well until 7.

Divine favor is good for dual wielding and the dual wielding feat but is choking on bonus actions.

I only smite on crits on when I think it will really make a big difference, when I play paladins, so not as many things want my BA. Full weed-wacker mode does needs a couple rounds to build up to between DF, Shadowblade or Hunter’s Mark, Oath of Emnity, and then TWF, but you rarely blow your entire package of abilities on one fight IME. And since TWF doesn’t require the BA with Nick, you’re still making multiple attacks per round while building that up.

I’ve done basically the same thing with other builds before, and in practice it is perfectly effective.

All that said, Assassin Rogue/ Vengeance Paladin (R1/P4, and then split from there) with Rapier+Dagger, Alert, Dual Wielder (for rapier to even work, short sword before then), and eventually Speedy and Skulker.

I considered using Bladesinger instead of Paladin and only take concept appropriate spells, but the gain wasn’t worth the loss of Paladin stuff, and the Monk build just didn’t…hit for me. I don’t know exactly why.

I am gonna play a monk soon though, just not for this concept. I love the 2024 Monk. Deflect Attacks is my favorite new feature in the 2024 PHB. It’s just fun to negate an attack and stab them in the face. Besides my favorite long running PC is currently a level 16 assassin rogue/shadow monk. Deflect attacks is even more fun when it gets you an extra sneak attack, and Assassinate is even more fun when you have extra attack and flurry of blows to work with in that first round of combat.

 

[Zardnaar]

I only smite on crits on when I think it will really make a big difference, when I play paladins, so not as many things want my BA. Full weed-wacker mode does needs a couple rounds to build up to between DF, Shadowblade or Hunter’s Mark, Oath of Emnity, and then TWF, but you rarely blow your entire package of abilities on one fight IME. And since TWF doesn’t require the BA with Nick, you’re still making multiple attacks per round while building that up.

I’ve done basically the same thing with other builds before, and in practice it is perfectly effective.

All that said, Assassin Rogue/ Vengeance Paladin (R1/P4, and then split from there) with Rapier+Dagger, Alert, Dual Wielder (for rapier to even work, short sword before then), and eventually Speedy and Skulker.

I considered using Bladesinger instead of Paladin and only take concept appropriate spells, but the gain wasn’t worth the loss of Paladin stuff, and the Monk build just didn’t…hit for me. I don’t know exactly why.

I am gonna play a monk soon though, just not for this concept. I love the 2024 Monk. Deflect Attacks is my favorite new feature in the 2024 PHB. It’s just fun to negate an attack and stab them in the face. Besides my favorite long running PC is currently a level 16 assassin rogue/shadow monk. Deflect attacks is even more fun when it gets you an extra sneak attack, and Assassinate is even more fun when you have extra attack and flurry of blows to work with in that first round of combat.

Saw a 2014 monk in action tonight poster diednt want the new one. They're a bit better than internet makes out and I tend to funnel better magic items towards OCs who pock weaker options.

They have bracers of defense and this staff.

Cacophony - bg3.wiki

Paladin, Monk, Warlock are on my short list of things to play. Next campaign player wants to DM so probably one of them.

Need to check with DM about magic item crafting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Saw a 2014 monk in action tonight poster diednt want the new one. They're a bit better than internet makes out and I tend to funnel better magic items towards OCs who pock weaker options.

They have bracers of defense and this staff.

Cacophony - bg3.wiki

Paladin, Monk, Warlock are on my short list of things to play. Next campaign player wants to DM so probably one of them.

Need to check with DM about magic item crafting.

Oh I love the 2014 monk too. One of my favorite characters is a Shadar-Kai Monk in Eberron and I’ve played him since 4e and loved playing every version of him.

But man the new one just cooks.

If only the new Ranger was as fun. Even if it was just more prepared spells for more versatility, or something. Ah well.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh I love the 2014 monk too. One of my favorite characters is a Shadar-Kai Monk in Eberron and I’ve played him since 4e and loved playing every version of him.

But man the new one just cooks.

If only the new Ranger was as fun. Even if it was just more prepared spells for more versatility, or something. Ah well.

Think the new ranger is a bit to reliant on subclass and game system mastery to work. Wife's playing a hunter at level 3 we kept track and she was beating barbarian as a hunter. At 4 barbarian wins and hunters mark is great as hunter.

She's multiclassing out after 5 though. Not sure which but looking at war clerics.

Far wanderer is decent potentially very bubble with shillelagh shenigans or @ ECMO3 fear build.

Beat Beatmaster to many bonus actions required. Might need to be wisdom based as well.

Gloomstalker got nerfed to hard. Wouldn't touch it tbh.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Think the new ranger is a bit to reliant on subclass and game system mastery to work. Wife's playing a hunter at level 3 we kept track and she was beating barbarian as a hunter. At 4 barbarian wins and hunters mark is great as hunter.

She's multiclassing out after 5 though. Not sure which but looking at war clerics.

Far wanderer is decent potentially very bubble with shillelagh shenigans or @ ECMO3 fear build.

Beat Beatmaster to many bonus actions required. Might need to be wisdom based as well.

Gloomstalker got nerfed to hard. Wouldn't touch it tbh.

Beastmaster I actually really like. The bonus action attack doesn’t bother me since I’m either TWF with Nick or I’m using a bow so my only BA feature I use all the time is hunters mark.
I really like an archer with beast of the air, from level 7 on.

I still think that they should have given the BM some juicy ways to buff their pet with spells, though. Let me use a spell slot to give it extra HP, speed, and damage, you cowards! Lol

 

[Zardnaar]

Beastmaster I actually really like. The bonus action attack doesn’t bother me since I’m either TWF with Nick or I’m using a bow so my only BA feature I use all the time is hunters mark.
I really like an archer with beast of the air, from level 7 on.

I still think that they should have given the BM some juicy ways to buff their pet with spells, though. Let me use a spell slot to give it extra HP, speed, and damage, you cowards! Lol

The beast is competing with hunters mark. Bit of anti combo.

Harder to make shillagh ranger work as well yet another bonus action.

It's playable though I just prefer the other 2. Gloomstalker needed a nerf but it got hit to hard imho.

 

[mellored]

Saw a 2014 monk in action tonight poster diednt want the new one. They're a bit better than internet makes out and I tend to funnel better magic items towards OCs who pock weaker options.

2014 Stun spamming works well, especially at higher levels when you have Ki to fuel it.

I just don't think it's fun.

 

[Mistwell]

You want War Cleric + Rogue. Bonus Action sneak attack on your turn and then hold action to sneak attack off turn.

I have to admit this does fit the concept stated pretty well, which was "a changeling scribe and clergy of the Silver Flame. They’re also a divine assassin of sorts, blessed by the Flame to kill supernatural evils."

Assassin rogue war cleric works quite well. Which also fits well with, "no armor, dual wielding daggers because they’re easy to hide, but also very good with a longbow."

I am really not seeing how Warlock fits this concept.