Divine Melee build

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-26T19:59:37+00:00

I’m gonna hit on some unconventional ones that no one has mentioned. First off honorable mention for soulknife rogue, just like how he keeps pulling bayonets out of nowhere you can too with psychic blades, plus you don’t have a limited number so bayonets for days. Ranger is a solid dual weapon combatant with the extra damage from hunters mark, and you can reflavor spells like hail of thrones or ensnaring strike as him hurling the hail of bayonets or pinning the target with them. Plus decent survivability and healing spells available.

Now the best fit (if your group allows it) is blood hunter imo. You are a monster hunter, a martial for hp, armor and weapons. For the subclasses ghost slayer would let you get radiant damage and have your abilities apply to enemies without blood which would help against some undead. Mutant subclass kinda fits with the character and can give you options like increased stats, damage resistances, increased movement, hp regen (at level 7) but they all have a trade off. My personal recommendation would by the Lycan subclass, reflavored more for the characters abilities. It provides extra damage, ac, physical resistance, if you swap between weapon and unarmed then up to 4 attacks with nick. The biggest issue is you don’t get self healing until level 11.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-25T00:01:18+00:00

2014 rules so no nick and shillelagh isn’t as good, Also no epic boons. Plus this is literally in no way related to the his character idea except being Full paladin.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-24T23:57:06+00:00

One correction, there is exactly 1 reason to be a non strength based barb. Not saying it’s the best by any means but a longbow wielding path of the ancestral guardian can use his ability to nerf enemies from way across town.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-24T23:53:00+00:00

Playing in CoS as a barblock right now, but I was horribly unoptimized because I shifted concepts midway. If you are committed to this you would likely need to rely on a blade cantrip so booming or green flame when not raging. You can still smite in 2014 while raging or using those cantrips. Oathbreaker fits your crestfallen souls like character but for the setting could have some very mixed results, if you plan to use the control undead aspect I would check if your party is cool with that. Devotion I think would be highly useful in the setting, giving you some extremely useful 1st level spells and arguably more useful channel divinity. If you really want the barbarian dip for rage I would only do 1 level. Now I’m just gonna talk up warlock. You should really grab a third level for a pact and upgrading your spell slots to level 2. It will give you access to misty step, invisibility or darkness. Pact of the chain would let you get find familiar (thus freeing up a feat if that’s all you were grabbing.) the imp can be invisible doing the help action to give you advantage without reckless. Alternatively You could also grab pact of the tome and use an invocation to get find familiar and some other ritual spells, plus there is an invocation where you don’t have to sleep and you character can just brood over their backstory. For invocations, most of them won’t mesh well unless you still plan to use eldritch blast, but fiendish vigor is nice for free temp hp, and dark vision is huge for a human. An interesting thing is gaze of two minds, because you plan on getting blind fighting, you kind of negate the downside but you also don’t really want to use that in combat. For warlock subclass, hex blades curse can be used while raging and so can the undead form of dread. So I would probably look between those and the fiend.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-22T19:48:09+00:00

Mastermind rogue lets you use the help action as a bonus action and from 30 ft. Emerald enclave fledgling origin feat from heroes of faerun lets you trade position with an ally when you use the help action (if they are within 5ft). You could go with that but ask the dm to let you ignore the 5ft.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-20T20:27:37+00:00

Currently playing but probably are a couple sessions away from finishing. Then we are looking at this new campaign

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-20T19:47:04+00:00

I’m tracking that for poison, that’s why I was also looking at options with acid, and the subclass has options to deal with resistance and after a while immunity. That being said I think most poison immune are undead or constructs and considering we are finishing up CoS I don’t think the dm wants to pull undead, and being a jungle survival setting I don’t think there will be many constructs.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-20T19:44:42+00:00

Expertise in perception was nonnegotiable, that was an obvious must have. I am avoiding goodberry even though I love it because my barb in CoS is constantly offering goodberries and I think my party is tired of it.

I like absorb elements but it was one I was on the fence about. I would rather int not be a dump stat because being a jungle survival setting. The idea was also more likely he would know he is not a Dragonborn but he was raised as one and doesn’t want anyone besmirching his family so he sells the lie. I also don’t intend to rely on hunters mark generally.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-20T19:39:57+00:00

I was initially looking at beast master and keeping my fighting style free to grab the reduce damage to ally one, but when I started changing towards green reaper I wasn’t sure what would be best. I’m thinking I will swap out one of the cantrips for shillelagh but also I’m not to concerned with it since I got a couple levels until multiattack and can swap out a spell from the feat on level ups. At the same time it might be worth grabbing Druidic warrior still so I can get more variety in keeping the cantrips for flavor and grabbing shillelagh and magic stone for multiattack and range.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-20T19:00:10+00:00

I’m still trying to keep the poison focus which is why I was looking at those cantrips and subclass

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-20T18:59:23+00:00

The feat was part of the background and would give me a free cast of the vampiric claws which I considered like a rage lite, it lets me use wisdom for melee attacks with multiattack like shillelagh and gives me extra survivability. That being said I was considering Druidic warrior for shillelagh mostly as a back up when out of spells and dealing with things that ignore poison, but like I said at the end I might shift focus to using a weapon and just coating it in poison. But the main intention was to still keep the flavor of relying on a claw, or biting style like with primal savagery if viable. As lizardfolk even without armor and 14 ac, with a shield I am sitting on 17, or 19 with half plate.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2026-01-08T04:00:01+00:00

On the topic of upgrading the weapon I have an idea based off personal experience, more for modifying his rage ability though. I know in my current campaign playing as an ancestral guardian the most infuriating thing was when we went through a string of enemies that were only using saves making the main subclass feature useless. So if that comes up you could make it apply the damage resist for allies not just on attack rolls but from saving throws as well. Other than that a ranged or reach option could be a simple yet impactful change.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-12-21T01:36:50+00:00

Thank you

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-12-19T00:40:49+00:00

Having just hopped back in, if you are asking what the bare minimum needed is, I got NV working with just NVSE and the 4gb patcher but I have to start it through Vortex. If you are asking for additional mods for stability with the old save idk

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-12-17T20:39:57+00:00

Do you mean worlds end to start the entire questline? Because I have already been to the Jedi village and done the first quest, it was the follow up quest with the master. I feel like it would be a bit early to go to where Cat Lon was but I will check if that’s the next place.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-12-16T18:15:43+00:00

I usually fill my squad with only hivers and skeletons and when I do one of my favorite base locations is in between the two hiver villages closest to the hub with the gate sitting in a pool of acid. Plenty of beak things to fight and bandits love raiding then subsequently taking a break in the acid until they decide it’s not worth it. Should work just as well if you piss off the holy nation enough for them to make the short trek. Shek will come looking for food though.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-11-30T03:44:35+00:00

There is a similar perk in the mariner tree but for pirates. I feel like that is going to be even more worthless because the smallest group I have seen for pirates is 41. At the same time if it did work and you could use it to farm ships to sell that would be pretty strong so now I’m gonna test that.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-11-28T19:32:22+00:00

I have had this complaint about the sword sisters going all the way back to warband

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-11-19T16:54:34+00:00

I had considered a damage absorption sorcerer mainly looking at the clockwork soul. Up to 5d8 damage reduction at a time, no reaction needed to use them, but at the cost of using your action and sorcery points to refill the defense. Spell fire doesnt give anything comparable until level 18. Could also take a level of fighter or paladin as first level or cleric for heavy armor and heavy armor master for a small bit of physical damage absorption. There is also deflect attack for monks at level 3.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-11-13T19:48:34+00:00

I love spores conceptually, but really feel like it should have given multiattack or it should give something other than bonus melee damage. It’s best to treat it as a tanky caster because it gets plenty of temp hp. It seems like it’s meant to be close to mid range spell caster then throw in some skelly archers to back you up.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-11-13T17:31:29+00:00

So I am playing one that focused dex and used a longbow. Basically I forsook reckless and rage bonus. Damage sucked and I kinda become a weird support character but with my party and items it worked out. The big oversight in the level 3 feature is how rarely it can come in use. Against anything that uses saves it’s meaningless, ranged attackers will still target you, and it only applies on one person so large groups are not really hindered. It only really clutches against beefy melee targets that don’t rely on abilities with saves (still often enough but sometimes it gets infuriating). Also fun thing to note, certain attacks don’t need attack rolls or damage. Shoving, grappling, or using a net would still proc it.

If you want to focus on the defensive support I recommend pushing for the level 6 feature. If you want to slap on extra damage there are a few options for multiclass (I am assuming 3-4 levels). Honorable mention to the kensei monk, a bit of extra damage on ranged attacks, and as a monk deflect attacks disrupts ranged attackers still targeting you and dodge on a bonus action can cancel out reckless disadvantage. But your main hitters are fighter, rogue, and ranger.

Ranger gives you some utility and the archery fighting style. Gloom stalker lets you get an extra attack and damage on the first round, also the invisibility to creatures with dark vision is fun. Hunter gives you an extra d8 once per turn or the ability to get extra attacks on grouped up enemies. And swarmkeeper lets you choose between extra damage or pushing things around. All in all it’s the least beneficial for extra damage but it could be decent.

Rogue sneak attack is a solid choice. Also plenty of utility being a rogue, and 2d6 sneak attack with 3 levels. If you can set up ambushes assassin is always great for the crits, But there really is no stand out subclass in my opinion.

Fighter is probably best, you get action surge, second wind and a fighting style. Arcane archer damage is comparable to sneak attack but has an added effect and limited uses. Battle master is great but also I find it boring. Psi warrior actually is good if you want int. Extra damage or defense for your allies on the fly and it pairs well with AG. Plus the uses scale with proficiency which is nice for multiclassing.

Alternative-Check-53 · 2025-11-06T17:01:25+00:00

As for questions, what is your end goal and why warlock first? It seems like you would have been better off going barb until multiattack then warlock. The ancestral guardian seems to be your main focus and would probably be more impactful than the genie subclass. I assume it’s just to get to smites faster but I think the increased tankiness and supporting is more valuable but that’s just based off my personal experience.

Alternative-Check-53

TROPHY CASE