D&D 5E Obvious synergies you never realized

[FlyingChihuahua]

This one takes a bit of investment and isn't combat related, but it sounds real fun.

Great Old One Patron Warlock with the Actor feat and proficiency in Deception and Persuasion (conveniently available in one Invocation ) and the Mask of Many Faces Invocation. Get Friends and Hex and maybe a few other charm/dominate spells to dig into the niche.

You can disguise as basically anyone and if you observe them for a little bit you can sound like them too, and pass yourself off fairly easily with both Advantage and Proficiency. For any aliases created out of whole cloth or people you only need to deal with once, you can make Friends with them and get advantage anyway. Them being mad at you won't matter because they'll be mad at an alias (and if you ever need to distract them, disguise yourself as the alias and get them angry at, and distracted by, you).

Here's where the real fun begins though: With Awakened Mind, you can talk to other people inside of their heads, and with the Actor feat, you can, at least with the way I read it, disguise your voice as anyone's, including the person you are communicating with! You can be the voice inside someone's head and drive them crazy like any good Great Old One follower should.

Like I said, not combat related, but you can have some serious fun with this I think.

EDIT: I forgot to mention why Hex is important. With Hex you can curse someone's ability checks and give them disadvantage, like say their Wisdom, crippling their Perception and Insight, so not only do you get advantage when lying to people, they get disadvantage on investigating your motives, and you can Hex someone to make it so it's harder for them to percieve you while you or your friends sneak by.

 

[Fenris-77]

You forgot to swap out MoMF for Master of Myriad Forms at 15th.

Seriously though, I love that build. I am waiting none to patiently for an excuse to try it out in a campaign. It's easier in Eberron of course (Changling), and given the nature of the setting, maybe more useful there in some respects. Not that useful in a dungeon crawl though, although with some creativity, not useless either.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

You forgot to swap out MoMF for Master of Myriad Forms at 15th.

oh rip, build is trash then.

Seriously though, I love that build. I am waiting none to patiently for an excuse to try it out in a campaign. It's easier in Eberron of course (Changling), and given the nature of the setting, maybe more useful there in some respects. Not that useful in a dungeon crawl though, although with some creativity, not useless either.

Do tell me how it goes, I am very interested.

Of course, I will do the same should I manage to play it before you do.

 

[Todd Roybark]

I have to concur, I’ve seen the Actor feat come up huge. Player overheard the hardass Sgt Major of a prison at a tavern and started impersonating him to get the group in. The clever part is he would call people from their duty stations from afar in the NPCs voice.

The Character is a Barbarian with a 13 Charisma. He got lucky, but Prof + ADV does grant the opportunity to get lucky.

It was pretty tense to see how far, he could BS his way in. Rather a good distance it turned out

 

[Fenris-77]

The build above can get most of that functionality out of a 2 or 3 level dip in Warlock and presents some cool MC options - Rogue/Assassin and Bard/College of Whispers would both be pretty cool.

 

[Quartz]

So you get the AC bonus with the shield (and can get shield mastery down the line), and get 2 attacks per round. One at 1d6+2(dueling)+3(str), and one at 1d4+2+3. 6-11pts and 6-9 pts each round? That seems...a lot for a first level variant human fighter. Along with the high AC to boot. And the extra AoO due to the feat.

Not really. Don't forget that that's using the Bonus Action (which competes with the BA from Shield Mastery) and you still only get one Reaction. Remember too that Advantage is of less benefit to this Fighter than one using one of the -5 / +10 feats.

Let's do the maths. Add in a Reaction attack of 6-11 damage and your spear and shield fighter is doing an average of 24.5 damage. Compare that with a Fighter who's got one of the -5 / +10 feats, who attacks with a 2H sword for 2d6 + 3 + 10 (20 average) or 60 HP if she gets all three attacks (slightly more with the appropriate Fighting Style, actually). Remember also that Action Surge does not give an extra Bonus Action or Reaction, so damage only goes up to 33 HP versus 80 for the 2H sword. That's a big trade-off for +2 AC.

Edit: consider too the Rogue who lands three Sneak Attacks (Attack, Bonus, Reaction). Three attacks at a base of 1d6 + 3 + 1d6 is 30 HP per round. So no, your spear & shield fighter is not OP.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Someone who doesn't value the Actor feat has never watched an episode of Mission Impossible.

 

[Esker]

This one takes a bit of investment and isn't combat related, but it sounds real fun.

Great Old One Patron Warlock with the Actor feat and proficiency in Deception and Persuasion (conveniently available in one Invocation ) and the Mask of Many Faces Invocation. Get Friends and Hex and maybe a few other charm/dominate spells to dig into the niche.

You can disguise as basically anyone and if you observe them for a little bit you can sound like them too, and pass yourself off fairly easily with both Advantage and Proficiency. For any aliases created out of whole cloth or people you only need to deal with once, you can make Friends with them and get advantage anyway. Them being mad at you won't matter because they'll be mad at an alias (and if you ever need to distract them, disguise yourself as the alias and get them angry at, and distracted by, you).

Here's where the real fun begins though: With Awakened Mind, you can talk to other people inside of their heads, and with the Actor feat, you can, at least with the way I read it, disguise your voice as anyone's, including the person you are communicating with! You can be the voice inside someone's head and drive them crazy like any good Great Old One follower should.

Like I said, not combat related, but you can have some serious fun with this I think.

EDIT: I forgot to mention why Hex is important. With Hex you can curse someone's ability checks and give them disadvantage, like say their Wisdom, crippling their Perception and Insight, so not only do you get advantage when lying to people, they get disadvantage on investigating your motives, and you can Hex someone to make it so it's harder for them to percieve you while you or your friends sneak by.

I'm playing a build along these lines right now in Descent into Avernus, only it's a Changeling Bard instead of a warlock. No telepathy, but expertise in deception on top of the built in pseudo-disguise-self/actor feat from Changeling. I haven't used it a ton yet, but it's early.

 

[Tony Vargas]

disguise your voice as anyone's, including the person you are communicating with! You can be the voice inside someone's head

As anyone who's listened to a recording of their own voice can attest, it sounds surprisingly different.

But, a "voice in your head" because you're going crazy could sound like anything.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not really. Don't forget that that's using the Bonus Action (which competes with the BA from Shield Mastery) and you still only get one Reaction. Remember too that Advantage is of less benefit to this Fighter than one using one of the -5 / +10 feats.

Let's do the maths. Add in a Reaction attack of 6-11 damage and your spear and shield fighter is doing an average of 24.5 damage. Compare that with a Fighter who's got one of the -5 / +10 feats, who attacks with a 2H sword for 2d6 + 3 + 10 (20 average) or 60 HP if she gets all three attacks (slightly more with the appropriate Fighting Style, actually). Remember also that Action Surge does not give an extra Bonus Action or Reaction, so damage only goes up to 33 HP versus 80 for the 2H sword. That's a big trade-off for +2 AC.

Edit: consider too the Rogue who lands three Sneak Attacks (Attack, Bonus, Reaction). Three attacks at a base of 1d6 + 3 + 1d6 is 30 HP per round. So no, your spear & shield fighter is not OP.

A few things

1 I never said this was the most optimized build. I've only said it was a good synergy. And it is. Good synergies don't have to mean they are the most optimized.

2 the shield bonus is more than just a +2 bonus. It can be assumed you get a better shield as you adventure and GWM doesn't get better as you level, the fest description stays the same. Also, you have other benefits with a shield. And it gives extra flexibility

3 you seem to be forgetting to apply that -5 to hit in your math. That's a pretty important factor.

4 with a spear, you get all the same hit and damage bonuses at range if you throw it. You can't do that by throwing your greatsword. Which adds additional lethality because you aren't always in melee range of your target every round.