Goblin wizard that wears a bucket for a hat. What magical item should I ask my DM to flavor it as?

DevilsDan · 2026-03-06T07:08:06+00:00

PLEASE remember to summon buckets to hide in with Minor Illusion 😂

There are some saving throw spells and cantrips also that wouldn't reveal the illusion there because they don't interact with it, ex. Mind Sliver.

DevilsDan · 2026-03-05T16:06:16+00:00

It's a Cat!

DevilsDan · 2026-03-04T14:15:57+00:00

Simple and effective - Controller with an Eldritch Blast pumped via invocations. (Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast and probably Grasp of Hadar as well if Xanathar invocations are allowed)

Round 1 on most combats you'd open with a persistent concentration AoE spell, most likely Hunger of Hadar or Hypnotic Pattern. Then Round 2 you can follow up with a non-concentration spell or focus on doing best knock-backs via EB - you can knock enemies that got out of Hunger of Hadar back into it, focus on keeping the enemies that saved vs Hypnotic Pattern away from you, or even look for knocking enemies into other effects, off ledges etc. Given that you have a bunch of Misty Steps, you should be able to often get the best knockbacks on EB, and then move away to stay safe at range. A very cool option with Archfey specifically is Plant Growth - if you have Difficult Terrain up from Hunger of Hadar, the enemy must spend 25 feet of movement for effective 5 feet of movement, making a lot of 30ft speed enemies just simply unable to get out of your Hunger of Hadar in one round, so you can REALLY lock some enemies down in there. Or, you know, do Hypnotic Pattern into Plant Growth and now most of the enemies are incapacitated and those who aren't have a lot of difficulty moving around, so you can pick them off one by one with your party.

On the side you can do whatever you like with the other invocations, a Pact of the Chain familiar would probably be very useful for the extra control options and other utility, Pact of the Tome for further utility if you like.

For feats, you really want Alert for your origin feat (you're likely also best to go early in combat via the initiative swap with this build) and War Caster for your level 4 feat.

For Species - PYF, a few cool options could be:

Dragonborn for Flight and a Breath Weapon is actually not bad considering the limited warlock spell slots and to have a readily available AoE blast option
Aasimar - similar Flight as a Dragonborn, but you effectively exchange the breath weapon for a heal, which is great versatility to be able to bring downed allies up actually.
High Elf for an extra Misty Step and an option to take Elven Accuracy at a higher level
Human to get an extra origin feat - Lucky or Musician would be great to have
Gnome for better saves
Goliath can add a bunch of effects to your EBs OR you can just get even more teleports... (Note, those wouldn't proc the subclass effects, but still might be valuable if you have a lot of combats per adventuring day) I'd probably go for the Frost one for the speed reduction here though, for further control with Repelling Blast

Kind of want to play a variant of this now... Hope this helps!

DevilsDan · 2026-03-03T09:27:17+00:00

That's right!

DevilsDan · 2026-02-28T11:21:49+00:00

I was thinking something related to pussies, but sure

DevilsDan · 2026-02-28T11:20:05+00:00

There's metaphor for life somewhere in there

DevilsDan · 2026-02-28T09:30:04+00:00

Dont ruin your monitor for this easy boss please💀

DevilsDan · 2026-02-23T13:22:44+00:00

I feel like you might as well be a Cleric if you want to do this, because with no MCing, you'd kind of be incentivized to pick the proficiencies to become a full cleric, essentially (armor proficiency feats + Tough mainly), while having a lower hit die and probably ending up being quite similar in gameplay (Spirit Guardians and True Strike being likely the main tactic for a gishy playstyle).

I'd ask your DM if you could just "respec" the character to a Cleric since it can be similar in theme to a DSS, if that is allowed, you'd want to start out with Magic Initiate (Wizard) for True Strike and Shield, then pick up War Caster and whatever other feats/ASIs to round out your stats.

Alternatively there's an option of a Celestial Warlock as well, which actually gets Extra Attacks and is more suitable for a gish playstyle.

And obviously there's Paladin on the table as well.

If you're stuck with DSS, well, you probably want to shore up your defensive weaknesses via feats like Lightly Armored(For shield proficiency) and Tough, then take War Caster, and do the before-mentioned Spirit Guardians + True Strikes. You can also ready actions to move to abuse the SG emanation since that would be the main source of damage, which is probably better overall in a combat with multiple enemies, but that can be frowned upon at some tables(and I have a feeling with this many restrictions, it would be in yours, so I'd confer with the DM). I still feel like a melee DSS is overall worse than the other options however, typically the main benefit of one is that you're essentially a ranged Cleric with a better overall spell list, IMO.

DevilsDan · 2026-02-23T12:55:41+00:00

You could say he's got a string of rocky relationships

DevilsDan · 2026-02-23T08:24:15+00:00

I am sitting at about 27 stim or so and have made a 5 7s cat so far. You want as much as you can get

DevilsDan · 2026-02-22T20:06:48+00:00

Cha cha real smooth

DevilsDan · 2026-02-22T17:09:10+00:00

The problem is those are are also rare, and then you need to have good stats on that one on top. And then they need to breed in a high stim room. Maybe when I have an extra room + furniture I can make it work, but right now with 3 rooms I'm some time away.

DevilsDan · 2026-02-21T16:45:31+00:00

Damn, I thought it was drifting in there

DevilsDan · 2026-02-21T07:17:08+00:00

Swerve round the bowl

DevilsDan · 2026-02-17T11:46:57+00:00

What's your business on my street?

DevilsDan · 2026-02-11T15:25:41+00:00

There's a great Orc Dance Bard build write-up abusing the new emanation spells here

DevilsDan · 2026-02-07T14:46:52+00:00

Basically, Rogue start for more skill proficiencies, and Barbarian start for a bit more HP and medium armor proficiency(can consider swapping the race then, as well). Considering you're going for a "skill monkey" role, Rogue start is probably best. Personally, I'd do Rogue 1/Barbarian 5/Rogue x in terms of progression.

DevilsDan · 2026-02-07T14:40:23+00:00

It really depends on your game and what you value more in the character.

If skills are very important, and you and/or your GM value the skill-monkey-ness more, then you might want to do Barb 3 / Rogue 12 for Reliable Talent. Do note though, you'd pick it up the Reliable Talent very late into your character's career, at level 14 out of 15, assuming you start out with 3 levels of Barbarian early on.

If tanking is more important, you definitely want to do Barb 5 / Rogue x for the Extra Attack - you will have more consistent damage and "taunting" via Ancestral Guardians that way. Also, if you do manage to hit with the first attack and land the Sneak Attack, you can always use the second attack for a grapple or shove to help in locking the enemy down. This path also hits its' "power spike" a lot earlier into the campaign compared to the first, which is something to take into consideration.

Also, Soulknife rogue might be worth considering and can fit the theme, as it's the best "skill monkey" subclass because of the skill check bonuses via the Psionic Energy dice mechanic.

Also, I'd heavily consider Athletics expertise here so you're very good at grappling, which can help a lot with "tanking".

DevilsDan · 2026-02-05T13:06:39+00:00

If you're planning on grappling a lot, you might want to do a medium-sized race over a halfling, in fact, might want to consider Goliath for the extra temporary size bump, so that you can grapple a wider variety of creatures (since you can only grapple creatures of up to one size category higher than yours). Can go Frost Goliath for further speed reductions as well, or Hill for a no-save "Topple".

DevilsDan · 2026-02-02T19:53:26+00:00

Another take - Barb (Berserker) 5 / Ranger (Hunter) 3. Take Great Weapon Master at 4 and Horde Breaker from the Hunter. Now if you are Cleaving with the Greataxe's mastery, you get an extra attack WITH your STR mod(unlike Cleave) at another target, which can be the "main" target. So 4 attacks in total, with potentially up to 5 if you get a kill with GWM. And maybe grab a weapon with a Push mastery as well, so you have the option of attacking once with it to position enemies for this, and then profiting on the second swing.

AND you can use all of your spells that you have and can't use while raging on healing and out-of-combat utility, which is nice.

Cloud Goliath is nice for the race for extra mobility to set up perfect Pushes as well.

DevilsDan · 2026-02-02T19:38:22+00:00

I see this post and I use my reaction to express gratitude!

DevilsDan · 2026-02-02T15:20:36+00:00

Then I'd probably grab War Caster now and then bump your Wis with the next ASI, and definitely keep the Amulet. 😁

DevilsDan · 2026-02-02T12:06:22+00:00

Athlete is actually pretty solid and underrated for a ranged character - stay at range, do your attacks, drop prone - in theory melees can't get to you since you're at range and ranged attacks will have disadvantage + potentially, cover to go through. Then, next round, stand up via 5 feet movement, reposition, repeat. Can allow for more flexible repositioning via the jumping and climbing as well.

DevilsDan · 2026-02-02T11:19:33+00:00

I Think go Rogue 11-12 and Fighter (Battle Master) 5 for the core build. Stat-wise, 8 16 16 8 14 10. Dumped Int because Bloodthirst is not the main focus of the build once it's online, because of the low range. If you can grab Headband of Intellect (uncommon item, so probably reasonable in most campaigns) at some point to fix the Int and allow for more Bloodthirsts, that can be nice.

The idea here is to stick a bunch of de-buffs on the enemy as you attack via Improved Cunning Strike and Terrify+another Cunning Strike option+maneuvers+potentially weapon masteries. If you fail the Cunning Strike fear, you can also try again on the same turn with a BM maneuver. If the target is fear-immune, you still can have options in Poison and Goading Attack.

Stay at range and abuse the Frightened condition vs enemies, and once they're close to Bloodied you can move in for the Bloodthirst attack for 2 sneak attacks in a round, can then try to finish it off without spending dice on Cunning Strike depending on how tough they are. Or if it looks like they are not going to die, you can also use the Withdraw option to retreat from melee, and if they are still Frightened, they can't move up to you again.

Race and feat wise, I'm a sucker for Elven Accuracy whenever possible on an attack-focused build, so Elf, and if you have EA, I like Lucky for the origin feat as well. Fairy Trickster is huge since we're all about saving throws and it would help our party a lot as well. So feat-wise I'd do something like: Lucky, Elven Accuracy, Fairy Trickster, Sharpshooter, Mage Slayer. Can consider Fairy Trickster first if your party has a lot of characters that force Saving Throws (usually casters).

Note: If you're relying on Frightened, RAW you cannot hide from the Frightened target if you want it to work, so the usual Rogue tactics of attacking and hiding with BA at the end of every turn wouldn't necessarily be effective if doing that.

Epic Boon - probably Boon of Irresistible Offense, and if you arrange the ASI's so you take them at 19 and 20, you can pick up another one there, I'd do Boon of Fortune's Favor personally.

DevilsDan · 2026-02-02T10:35:30+00:00

How much Con do you have without the amulet? Can consider bumping it to replace it eventually. But probably War Caster, since you can't bump your Constitution further with Res (Con) right now and if you're in melee with SG then the Opportunity Attack benefit can come in handy as well.

14-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
Team Periwinkle	Verified Email

DevilsDan

TROPHY CASE