D&D 5E LF Crit Fishing Build

[Logan McFarland]

My group rolled for stats and were restricted to Everything but a few UA things are banned, I rolled fairly well, enough to possibly have one 18, and two 16's, with a few lower numbers. I'm looking for a melee crit-fishing build, I saw a build 2 Barb/5 Champ/ 13 Swash but wasn't allowed so I'm looking for a replacement. I'd like to work on something that's effective at about level 4-8 but has late game potential if we ever reach 14+ please give me some ideas, I'm awful at math for working out the details of crit %.

Edit: We're not allowed to use racial features, or the added "extra" features from UA, but everything else is fair game.

 

[bid]

You cannot crit-fish effectively before level 10. You need at least half-orc and brutal critical, which puts you at barbarian 9 / fighter 3.

Champion becomes interesting at level 7, although feral instinct is better than remarkable athlete for initiative.


If you want to have fun with randomness, I suggest you get extra attack from barbarian 5 before dipping champion. Get GWM for the extra crit attack.

An alternative is champion 5 / assassin 3. You can use action surge on the (rare) case you surprise the enemy, and otherwise you will usually get a crit sneak attack every encounter if you manage to get advantage.

 

[Logan McFarland]

The build I posted above can start crit fishing fairly well at level 7, but Elven Accuracy is banned. How would a 2 Fight/3+ Swash do?

 

[FrogReaver]

The build I posted above can start crit fishing fairly well at level 7, but Elven Accuracy is banned. How would a 2 Fight/3+ Swash do?

Have you considered a Half-Orc Paladin 5 with the shield master feat? After you have that take 3 levels of fighter to get the champion ability and then continue in paladin.

You get advantage on most turns which helps your crit chance. You get extra attack which helps your chance of critting in general. You have an ability you can wait to spend only when you crit in divine smite and it scales about as well as the rogues sneak attack. At any time you feel you've reached the pinnacle of your smite scaling you can multiclass to rogue for sneak attack scaling.

 

[Blue]

Have you considered a Half-Orc Paladin 5 with the shield master feat? After you have that take 3 levels of fighter to get the champion ability and then continue in paladin.

You get advantage on most turns which helps your crit chance. You get extra attack which helps your chance of critting in general. You have an ability you can wait to spend only when you crit in divine smite and it scales about as well as the rogues sneak attack. At any time you feel you've reached the pinnacle of your smite scaling you can multiclass to rogue for sneak attack scaling.

I like this as a fresh take. I usually only see crit fishing with the biggest weapon die possible, often with GWM for the bonus attack on a crit (plus the -5/+10 synergizes well with advantage which is a core part of 5e crit-fishing). But this uses a different set of dice to boost with the crit, and is just a very different way to approach it. I haven't run math vs. more traditional barb/champion, but it seems that it would be completely viable build to play.

 

[FrogReaver]

I like this as a fresh take. I usually only see crit fishing with the biggest weapon die possible, often with GWM for the bonus attack on a crit (plus the -5/+10 synergizes well with advantage which is a core part of 5e crit-fishing). But this uses a different set of dice to boost with the crit, and is just a very different way to approach it. I haven't run math vs. more traditional barb/champion, but it seems that it would be completely viable build to play.

So I'm crunching a few numbers on the crit fishing paladin. At level 14 It looks like the crit fishing half-orc paladin 11 / champion 3 may actually be very comparable to a SS CE fighter using Precision attack. (This is without elven accuracy). This was assuming advantage every round which you will have quite a few rounds but not every round. All in all even if you reduce his damage by 20% to help account for not getting shield masters prone to land every round then you still are doing fairly comparative damage against 16+ ac. Please validate my conclusions. It does appear that early on he won't be winning any damage contests with the SS CE fighter, though he will have paladin utility and saves and defenses and shield masters potential party synergy and increased defense it gives against dex saves.

It would be cool if you could confirm my initial suspicions blue. I think this character may actually be even more effective than I'd initially considered.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Half orc champion 20. Dual wield or polearm master feat for an extra attack(and chance to crit).

It's very simple, but a lot more effective than many will give it credit for.

 

[FrogReaver]

Half orc champion 20. Dual wield or polearm master feat for an extra attack(and chance to crit).

It's very simple, but a lot more effective than many will give it credit for.

Strangely you are probably better off with shield master at that point. Though I suppose you can always use any bonus action attack to knock a guy prone just as easily.

 

[krunchyfrogg]

Strangely you are probably better off with shield master at that point. Though I suppose you can always use any bonus action attack to knock a guy prone just as easily.

Good point. You are more likely to get a critical if you can generate advantage on more attacks, which you will if you knock an enemy prone.

 

[hejtmane]

Fighter with pact of the chain warlock familiar gives advantage on attacks with help action. That way you generate advantage even on creatures that are too big to shove and it can scout and a few handy spells and abilities.

Other option could be beast master ranger but easier to resummon familiar imo

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk