I was in a campaign playing a blue aasimar Paladin and my buddy was playing a elven wild magic sorcerer. In the first session one of his rolls on the table turned his skin blue, the DM flavored it to be the same as my own. We couldn't remove it as lvl 2 characters and no outside help to remove it either. So he rolled with it. He ended multiclassing into Paladin and we would charge into battle together coming to be known by our party & the local as the blue man group 😁
Wild magic surge killed a young child staying in the next room of the inn. I didn't let my party live it down especially when the boys father sold his soul to a devil to bring his son back... As a demon who relentlessly pursued the party. After killing the "demon" and the cloaked man with it the found on the body the journal of the father about his loss, bargain, and journey for revenge/redemption... They still have trauma and act differently in game in a new setting 3 years later.
@@nolongerdude I don't think Colby can pin two comments so his should be at the top. You can ask him about it on Twitter if you have that much motivation.
Absolutely love this build. The biggest thing that excites me is the stuff you didn't talk about - the number of cantrips you get, the space to take and use all kinds of cool but super situational spells. Even the flexibility of the sorcerer class choice is great. My taste would be Aberrant Mind, but being Divine Soul and also doubling up as a party healer would totally be possible and a little ridiculous. Just lots of space to personalize and make this your own.
i have a dm that lets every class but wizard know and prepare their entire list. i'm going divine soul as he confirmed that would let me have both the sorc and cleric list.
@@johnpaullogan1365 I could understand knowing the spells, but preparing them seems stupidly powerful given that most casters are already significantly more powerful then noncasters. It's taking a way one of only 2 limiting factors for a casters being able to just pick a spell and throw it at a problem. All this does is make noncasters a lot worse. No point in having skills for noncasters, the casters will just ALWAYS have a spell to fix whatever problem shows up whenever it shows up.
@@sha2143 I think it's OK *if the entire party are spellcasters and you want to run that sort of game. Otherwise you are just making non casters even worse comparatively and taking away their chance to shine.
It might be worth noting that the 'Gunner' feat from Tasha's also gets rid of disadvantage on attack rolls while within 5 ft of an enemy, like Crossbow Expert, with the added bonus of also giving +1 Dex to builds that may need a bump to dex for AC/initiative.
A great point, though Crossbow Expert is more "setting agnostic" since so many DMs seem opposed to introducing firearms, even in settings that already have them in established canon.
@@rehecke7124 Yeah, but we're talking about using either for cantrip close range purposes. In that case, gunner is the same but gives +1 dex. Strictly stronger if you aren't actually using weapons.
For anyone familiar with the Oxventure Guild streamers, they'll recognize this as a cousin to the accidentally-discovered Merilwen's Meat Grinder, so Cheese Grater just seemed a natural progression. (In that case, they set up a Spike Growth behind a patch of Grease just inside a door and watched as the low-level paladins chasing them slipped, slid, and ground themselves into paste just by entering the room.)
Also, give your rogue/fighter some caltrops to toss out for when they don't want to walk into the thorny area to reduce the enemy's movement by another 10ft.
All of these deep dives are just utterly enthralling and fun! You and your half stifled enthusiasm is the frosting on top. Subbed and binging these all :p
The Roll20 inclusion really helps visualize everything this build can do. I love it. You are but a dndbeyond character sheet away from being Treantmonk levels of sensei, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Love your work.
he has a "cheat sheet" in the joiner option. and imo Colby is already better than Chris. i'm subscribed to Chris too but he has a very heavy bias towards control, wizards and casting. Colby imo has a more holistic view as a "sensei." he looks to optimize support, tanking, dmg and even includes story/RP bits. treantmonk doesn't do those. Moreover, Colby's bias (monks/bladesingers) isn't as painfully obvious as treantmonk or at least has more general application (sustained). overall, he's already a better sensei than treantmonk if what you're concerned about is simply character building. I would even posit that other smaller channels have surpassed Chris in character build optimization with being more creative: min/max munchkin, bilbron's and dragons, etc. of course, if as a player all you want to do is control, cast spells and play wizards then treantmonk is perfect.
This build opens up an interesting team up that you didn't mention; Grapplers. If you have a goliath grappling friend (elk barbarian) they can drag a couple baddies around the outside edge for even more cheese grating!
7 месяцев назад
not to mention open hand monks, shove, thunderwave...
Subtle spike growth actually is a good combo because spike growth states: "The transformation of the ground is camouflaged to look natural. Any creature that can’t see the area at the time the spell is cast must make a Wisdom (Perception) check against your spell save DC to recognize the terrain as hazardous before entering it." This means enemies shouldnt know where the spell was cast without wasting an action. Meaning they don't know how to leave it.
Unfortunately, RAW the enemy still knows if you cast a Spike Growth with Subtle Spell. Spike Growth has a material component, which aren't covered by the metamagic. This means that you have to interact with your component pouch/arcane focus in order to cast, which makes the casting obvious according to the rules.
@@sha2143 It's not a "nerf", it's how it was intended to work. There is a reason Subtle spell doesn't cover material components, and that is to interact differently with spells that have one. And yes, you could definitely roll a sleight of hand to be stealthy about it. But the point is that it's an automatic success, and people can notice. But it's not even necessary. Whether or not you subtle spell Spike Growth, the enemy have to make the perception check (which requires no action by the way) in order to see the area you have affected, otherwise they just see that you cast a spell.
Sadly the Subtle Spell part is moot, as it states if they can't see the area, nothing about casting the spell. The enemy can see the area you casted it in and thus sees the spikes form. Now, if you casted it on your side of a door, while said door is closed, even if they heard you casting a spell, they would need to make a check to notice
I made almost the exact same build the other day, but instead of wild magic I went shadow sorcerer. Currently, they're set to lvl 10 as a backup character Sorcerer 3 Warlock 7. If I was playing a game at lvl 15 i'd start 1 sorcerer 14 warlock to have the limited wish since it is my favorite 14th level ability in the game. For that reason I would never go more than 6 levels in another class when playing a genie warlock.
magic stone should "scale" as Eldrich Blast does, not only would it make sense, but I have always felt there should be other cantrips with this "scaling" option. [and on a cantrip that is not class specific]
Our table treats magic stone is if you get to use all three pebbles in your action, so effectively 3d6+12. At level ONE. We are starting at level 3, and we have a week to rejig our characters. I’ve basically changed everything to make sure I got that spell… madness.
@@BelfastBiker Magic Stone does scale, just with number of attacks, not all in the one attack like normal cantrips. So at level 5 make them and give 2 to the paladin to give him a good range option of 1d6 + casting mod per attack which he gets 2 of now. Making it game breakingly powerful like that is unnecessary. You can also use it levels 1-3 where it's already the best damaging cantrip, besides EB with Agonizing Blast, then swap it at 4 with the feature from Tasha's.
@@DaCrump I dealt with it by changing My entire character to get magic stone. I love min-max shenanigans! So that will be my main offensive to go alongside my concentration spell, until EB + AB + GH comes online for a couple of attacks with Spike Growth.
Now that Strixhaven exists, I'd say that it gives the perfect simple justification for optimized multi-class builds. It's definitely the type of thing that dueling groups in a magic university would discuss, debate and theorize about.
Definitely get where you're coming from reliability over burst damage, or potentially bad effects. I've been known not to draw from the Deck of Many Things too when it turns up! Really enjoying your content, and looking forward to more.
You could pair this with a Battle Master Bow Fighter who could push enemies around even more, or even knock them prone so they have a much harder time getting out.
I'd rather take telekinetic as the level 1 feat. Even though you're giving the enemy a save, it's overall more versatile and useful than crusher and having +1 in charisma is huge.
I waffled between them. Starting with 18 in Cha would be awesome. Having an automatic +5 movement on a hit rather than having to use my BA for a *chance* at it ultimately convinced me otherwise (based purely on numbers), but I think it's a close call either way.
You could also do Aberrant Mind to start for a slightly different, but still unified, character concept. I'm personally with you Evan, as the 18 CHA would hit like a truck levels 1-5 n you could bum-rush Warlock 4 at lvl 5 for the crusher feat and round-up on Con. Also gives your DM a chance to warm up to the strategy lmao
@@DnDDeepDive I like crusher also for its ability to push in any direction instead of just to and away. With the cheese grater it probably isn't huge but the ability to knock them up or left etc will be awesome a few times a campaign.
I like when the DM throws a curveball. I like the puzzle aspect of RPG encounters, where you have to see what weakness you can exploit and change tactics. It's fun to imagine challenging scenarios and plan for them, and rewarding when they actually play out in-game.
I had someone play a homebrew Luchador class that we kept making Nacho Libre jokes about. He was so overpowered the rest of us basically just watched and cheered him on as he took on giants and monsters in the ring. You'd think it would be boring, but he could really put on a show. Anyways, never use homebrew, kids.
You should do an episode on a Duergar Rune Knight focusing on grappling! You can grapple literally anything by level 3, if I understand correctly, since you can grow to Huge size (in 1 turn, nonetheless!!!) 🤩
Crossbow expert isnt the best way to remove disadvantage at close range anymore for non crossbow users. The gunner feat gives the same bonus and +1 dex. If you don't use a hand crossbow, then +1 dex is usually better. Especially if you happen to be odd already
I built one pretty similar a few months ago, but it was 6 Genie Warlock, and the rest Graviturgist, so you could get the extra push from each attack. I literally called it the cheese grater (carpet burn also works).
One thing I thought Cory would talk about: with easy short rests as a genie are you able to convert any leftover pact magic into sorcery points before a SR? If so that’d make it real easy to refresh your SP. Just a big plus I didn’t see him talk about.
@@andrewspringer5219 This is a good point: Jeremy Crawford says yes, though of course your DM may rule otherwise. It definitely helps the build be more even more sustainable if your DM allows it! twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/596193607595401216
@@andrewspringer5219 Yes, just make sure you then convert those points into spell slots, since you can never have more sorcerery points than your max. But there's no such limit on your spell slots.
I love this build, but don’t forget that enemies can jump as part of their movement. High strength scores are common. Jumping negates the difficult terrain (for the amount jumped). Enemies with the jump spell would be able to clear the area. Granted, most enemies would still take a good deal of damage from this build.
DM: "oh, you cast spike growth again. We'll these kobold are masters of the ancient combat sport known as The Floor is made of Lava." You get plane shifted into a world where Grung rule. 😉😉
I like this build because you could actually vuild the whole party around it. Graviturgist wizard, Tempest cleric, Swarmkeeper ranger, some kind of grappler, there are a lot of interesting ways to move enemies around and you just made all of them much stronger.
Sorcerer tryed to cast detect magic and well... he detected a fireball centered on us :D we got tpk'ed because the healthier(?) of us had like 13 hp in that moment
Interesting your comments on bouncing around to take levels in different classes. I always consider that once the character has the new class, they are free to take levels as and when they choose.
You can also combo with an ally casting bigby's hand to grasp and grapple another enemy. Literally grating them across the spiked growth with thier bonus action to move the hand after it grappled someone. Or use the hand's push if the dm rules you can't move the hand after it grappled.
I really like this build. Usually, your builds don't fit the game I play in because we go weeks without a long rest, but can get short rests around once a night. This makes any mechanic that relies on long rest or heavy use of spells near worthless. Good job!
wow. isn't sleeping considered a long rest in your game? how aren't your heroes not dead from no sleep? or are you all playing coffeelocks that remove exhaustion?
@@justinsellers9402 thats understandable. we sometimes have 1 adventuring day divided into 3-4 2 hr sessions (which means 3-4 combats before a long rest). we get at least 1 short rest per 2 combats. more if someone packs catnap, the story allows for it or someone is a genielock. my question though is if that's the case, how many combats do you get before a long rest?
Just want to tell you Colby that I made a cheese grateful character for my wife, who is very new to dnd - she has played 6 session, 4 with and wizard tank and 2 with cheese grater, and she absoltly loves it. She has so much fun and feels so cool blasting creature and pushing them around and doing 2 d10 + 10d4 damage. After 20 years of trying to interest her in dnd now she is asking if we are playing this week and is trying to make adding sessions. So thanks it make a great date night.
To update with how great this is. The session this weekend the party stumbled on a nasty combination. 7th level chars. A cheese grater, a thornlock and a flame sorceror. The thornlock cast hunger of hadar to stop a cleric in the midst of a summoning and 5 of her 6 beserker worshipers. The CG cast spike growth in the same 20ft area. The FS cast wall of fire in a 20ft ring around the other areas and made the outside face the flame damaging. The enemy wanders blindingly, wis save to go in direction of party, taking 2d6 cold, fail dex for 2d6 acid; 2d4 spikes(averaging 6d4 per round) to get out of black slurping void of spikes, and then run into 5d8 fire damage. They are then either grabbed and held in the flame taking more damage or hit with eldrich blast back through the fire and i to the black void of spiky death. This was to be a nice hard encounter, instead the party spent 4 rounds watching the barbarians slowly kill them selves, usually by leaving the void and being burned to death. The party has never laughed so hard and Can't stop talking about it and now i have to figure out a way to not let it work with every encounter or they are just going to waltz through everything. The player in me loves how great these builds work, the Dm is just going WTH do i do now.
Perfect with Thorn Whip cantrip! As Dao Genie Warlock with Pact of the Tome, take Thorn Whip as one of the three Tome cantrips. You can then pull the target 10 feet towards you. So with unlimited cantrips you can push back and forth. Eldritch Blast (with Repelling Blast invocation) and Thorn Whip cantrips you can pull the target back and forth as much as you want. If you multi class Sorcerer and use sorcery points for Quicken Spell you can do both actions at once on one target.
Can you get more movement in the spike growth by standing at the corner of the spike growth and move them north with 1 blast and east with the next. Then pull them back diagonally southwest. 3 blasts and they are back in the same spot.
We plan on starting our campaign in like… a month , This has been going on for almost 3 months now. And My DM is so angry at me since I keep making new characters and ask him if I can play them , And he always says ‘Be consistent and Pick Wisely’. Maybe he will help me decide
Lol…all my friends at Super Bowl parties. My wife asked me if I wanted to go to one, I said, no… I’ve got some deep dive to catch up on. Awesome concept here. My son will love this one!
I'm currently playing a Quandrix Sorlock, and I'm sort of wondering how that would fit into this build with the UA release. As it gets a reaction 30 ft teleport for more movement against enemies and allies, buffs/debuffs like a bard and a pretty insane capstone ability, seems like it would fit in very well with this build. Oh and it gets spike growth in it's bonus spell list.
Really enjoy your show mate, but I have a small request. When you use the maps the white screen can be very bright. When setting up maps on roll 20 (or editing their setup later) you can change it to say a medium gray or whatever colour you like really. That way it won't be as glaring to the viewer. Once again, thanks for the great content!
agreed. i go custom class. solves so many issue. liked the wild magic start. i think i'd take that as an alternative to the divine soul. i went divine soul primarily for cleric spell access, guidance and favored of the gods for misses. as you know, i always go burst so re-sharing my build here too. 2 fighter, 4 dao, 4 divine soul fighting style: superior technique-ambush custom lineage: telekinetic (wanted a way to still grate a prone enemy) asi: crusher, eldritch adept: grasp of hadar invocations: agonizing blast, repelling blast metamagic: seeking spell for misses, quickened spell pact of the chain: quasit tactics: round 1 familiar: help bonus action: quickened spike growth behind bbeg action: eldritch blast push 20 ft, grasp of hadar pull 10 ft action surge: eldritch blast push 10 ft, eldritch blast crusher 5 ft into the air + 10 ft then enemy falls prone or simply crushing eldritch blast 25 ft if you don't want to knock them prone that's 55 ft of cheese grating goodness on round 1. that's 55 dmg without putting in eldritch blast and genie's wrath dmg. glad to see our builds work similarly and have alot of similar choices early on. agreed on swarmkeeper. imo its a different build altogether. love the roll 20 presentation. personally, when i continued the build, i kind of went the same way you did (except for the 2 levels of fighter). i made sure to get sorc 8 for catnap (works awesome with pact magic slots) then we ended at level 15 so i got to 5 daolock for lance of lethargy.
If you have the luxury of choosing or planning the area of an area, I've got an idea. Using the mold earth cantrip, you can excavate a small to large area. Make the hole anywhere from 5 and below feet deep. Put it so that the enemy must go through it to reach the party. Then cast spike growth and all the other neat tricks you've mentioned. Since they have to use double their movement to climb up, you could have them in the thicket that much longer. It would become a boxed cheese grater :) Thank you for an awesome video as always :)
imo that's more trouble for minimal performance improvement. using mold earth would be a total different tactic. better to just get them prone and to fall into your pit and then mold earth again to bury them alive. no need for spike growth dmg when the enemy is removed from combat (and slowly dying).
Any character that takes levels in Warlock can always justify other abilities being "unlocked" as a part of their powers being granted by their patron. Seems like one of the easiest ones to storyline, depending on the patron/class combos that are chosen.
I had a Fiend Warlock who's patron would present upgrades and abilities as gifts, and encourage the player to test them out immediately, all with the intention of corrupting her and making her violent. When she casted fireball for the first time, I made sure to describe the damage as horrifically as possible to make it clear just how destructive she was becoming. Good times.
An alternative, for sure. I like the other things we get from Warlock, but if you're intent on, say, getting to those higher level sorc spells etc. and prefer a dip, it's not a bad idea.
Love this build! The thought lab on this is fun. I wonder how it would work at the table? Colby-time for a one shot. You play this build. I’ll play an aarakocra ranged build and stay out of your thorns.
This is the type of person that if he was offered a magic item that replaced all d20’s with a 4d6-4 roll, he would absolutely use it. “1/1296 chance to crit? Sounds good to me.”
Well I wouldn't include Such a magic item xd IT just has a mechanical Effect of making nat1 impossible, nat20 next to impossible, and 11 very likely. This would basically be a Universal and worse version of Reliable Talent
The character I've been brainstorming for an upcoming nautical campaign actually fits into this concept while taking different classes. He's basically a sailor whose warlock patron turned him into a giant shark man. Think King Shark from DC. Either Lizardfolk, Goliath, or Simic Hybrid. All three races actually work pretty well for the concept. He's a blend of fathomless warlock and swarmkeeper ranger. The swim speed from fathomless coupled with longstrider, jump, and expertise in athletics from canny ranger will let him swim alongside enemy ships, get a running start by swimming straight up, breaching/jumping over the deck of the ship, and dropping his tentacle on the deck of the ship. Taking swarmkeeper to level 3 so the fathomless tentacle could fling targets 15 feet overboard was a given, but taking ranger to 5 for spiked growth to drop both that and the tentacle on the deck in the opening round is promising. I might still work a few levels of sorcerer into the build because the UA for the Mage of Prismari coming in the book they'll release in November fits the character theme perfectly and the overall mechanics near perfectly.
Enjoy reducing luck and chance you say? Still waiting for your build on player and monster dice result manipulation via spells, feats, and other racial/class features to get all the results you want!! The anyway you want it. That's the way we need it build.
In place of Fey Touched (more as an alternative to crossbow expert) I’d strongly consider Mobile. Gets you out in the event you get bum rushed and gets the additional movement speed to get from either side of the briar patch easier
I love this concept (and think it’s cool that it finally beat the Bladesinger) but whenever I’ve considered it myself I find myself too bogged down by its flaws. It assumes enemies are not able to fly, teleport, phase/plane shift, or make ranged attacks (perhaps this is just my own experience but it seems to me that this is not a great assumption, especially at high levels of play). Also, it has a tendency to leave the battlefield overcontrolled. Getting into and out of melee is very hard due to Spike Growth’s large AoE and damaging property. Therefore, no one moves within this massive area resulting in a very static (and often unfun) encounter. In short, love the numbers but feel like you will rarely see them in game.
i've played a similar build already in the past and it works. this is just the type of build you discuss with your party mates at session zero (check if there;s any melee guys). while fly, teleport are indeed weakness of the build; ranged attacks or plane shift arent (unless the enemy can spam plane shift every turn). a ranged attacker will still be grated. for a flyer, i'd just hit them with something that makes them go prone then let them enjoy the falling dmg into the spikes. only teleport is an issue really. but lets be honest, aside from a handful of stuff that can prevent teleports, it's always an issue.
Just now checking this one out. I think I'd stay with warlock until you get your next invocation at level 5 warlock to get Grasp of Hadar. Push 10, pull 10 for that real cheese grater effect. I really enjoy your builds!
Just hit level 4 with this build last night, desert campaign so we reflavored the spike growth to cacti, turned an ogre into a pincushion in one turn cycle, just absolutely loving it !
Hey!! Love what you do here, just subscribed. I was wondering if you could cover an artificer artillerist build. Like having multiple cannons and being a artillery commander?
If you have a Druid in the party that can then cast Plant growth on your spikes... have to spend 4 feet of movement to move one. No one would be able to get out of the patch... they do less damage to themselves but you can move them around like pawns on a chess board.
I played with a wild magic sorcerer once in a 1st level party and the first leveled spell he was trying to cast was burning hands... which turned into a 3rd level fireball centered on himself. We had a TPK within roughly 30 min of the first session cuz our sorcerer wanted to attack 2 kobolds at once. I swore I'd never play a wild magic sorcerer after that day.
Super fun build! Cool to see it from Genie Sorlock. In our current campaign, bae's Druid of the Moon did Spike Growth and Wild Shape Grapple+Drags. The Genie Sorlock is understandably a better engine since it's more invested to the playstyle, but it doesn't stop allies from gaining even more value from abusing dragging!
"For now we're just trying to stay alive." My mind - know, save your strength and stay alive! Is he breathing? Is he going to survive this? (Stay alive!)
1:07:05 In the right situations you could get more than 70, potentially the full 85ft (arguably it's even 95ft). Simplest ideal scenario: target starts in corner of the 20x20ft square, you adjacent outside of square. You cast EB pushing 30ft across the edge, then pull back 15ft, for 45ft total, and displacing them now 20ft away, you move diagonally first 5ft and then go along the outside edge to be adjacent to them again with 20ft of movement, then cast your next blast to push 40ft across to the opposite edge of the patch, 90degrees different direction from the first EB. There's a good argument that you can apply both repelling blast when you hit and grasp of hadar when you hit to move 20ft total, with 0 net displacement, just like how the dao+crusher can move up and repelling blast upward on the same EB or even beam. For both cases, the timing is unclear and up to DM interpretation. With this you could still get the full 95ft of movement by just pushing 10 more feet on the first blast, and then moving 30ft instead of 20ft to be adjacent to them again.
A newer spell that would assist in this build, from the Strixhaven book, Vortex Warp allows you to move an enemy. Lvl 2 sorc/wiz list. 90' range. You magically twist space around another creature you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (the target can choose to fail), or the target is teleported to an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within range. The chosen space must be on a surface or in a liquid that can support the target without the target having to squeeze. At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the range of the spell increases by 30 feet for each slot level above 2nd. Spell Lists. Artificer, Sorcerer, Wizard
I know this is an old build but some things I'm thinking of...Ring of spell storing to give your imp the thorns cast and you can use gust of wind. I'm also thinking about going Storm Sorc (or blue dragon) to take advantage of Thunderwave (if your standing near the edge), and Lightning Lure (if you are flying in the middle). Storm's Furry would be fun to stand in the middle of the thorns as well.
Amazing video as always, would love to see your take on a gloomstalker. Keep up the great work, I listen to these videos at work and they make the time fly by.
I understand your stance on deck of many things, but I think it’s actually a pretty potent learning opportunity for relic-happy DMs. Giving a party a deck will quickly destabilize the campaign unless you can adapt very quickly and think on your feet. It’s made me think a lot more about what items I give out at what point
Bestow Curse would be a huge damage boost, since the 1d8 increase for each spell damage, meaning each EB hit and every 5feet moved in Spike Growth triggers the 1d8, meaning 5d8 per blast, with grasp of hadar and repelling blast.
One of my favorite characters I've played was a war forged wild Magic sorcerer. On one cast I got a cloud of butterflies that my Dm flavored as micro machines with butterfly wings. He let me use them as a free mage hand for the rest of that campaign as long as I said "Vroom Vroom Butterflies" first!
With the addition of dragonlance backgrounds and feats a really powerful new version of the cheesegrater is now viable. If you take the mage of high sorcery background, and then the adept of the red robes feat when you get your first ASI, you can get spike growth on any class. Thus becomes possible: The Hexblade Cheesegrater. Because of the way hexblades curse is worded, you can now add your proficiency bonus to the damage of every single spike growth damage roll. First go a level in sorcerer for constitution saving throw proficiency, then two levels in hexblade, take agonizing blast and repelling blast, then hard focus sorcerer the rest of the way. At later levels pick up grasp of hadar with eldritch adept feat for greater control, and you will be throwing out over 200 DPR at lower enemy AC's by level 13 and by level 17, you will be dishing out close to 300 DPR. Obvious weaknesses are that the build is severely limited by hexblades curse dependency and sorcery points for quickened spell, but even with those limitations, its pretty damn powerful even without going full cheese mode. Enjoy and have fun *only use at approval of DM
Possible additional trick.....when you get metamagic at Sorc 3, take Distant Spell and combine it with Thunderwave as a way to chuck multiple enemies into your Spike Growth early in combat from 30 feet away.
Anyone who says power gamers are toxic need to watch this guy. He's optimally wholesome
Power gamers aren't toxic. Power gamers who insist that anybody NOT a power gamer isn't playing the game right and should quit are toxic.
@@Valandar2 Hear, Hear!
toxic players are just toxic doesn't mean they are power gamer
@@tarlison2k1 Nobody said otherwise.
One could argue that: He's intoxicatingly wholesome ...
"So we're a Warlock 4."
And then my mind went:
"A Fourlock"
perfect
Fourcerer too, don’t forget about that
D4lock
Edit: Crap right after I sent I saw someone else said it
foulock clover :P
Absolute Perfection
I was in a campaign playing a blue aasimar Paladin and my buddy was playing a elven wild magic sorcerer. In the first session one of his rolls on the table turned his skin blue, the DM flavored it to be the same as my own. We couldn't remove it as lvl 2 characters and no outside help to remove it either. So he rolled with it. He ended multiclassing into Paladin and we would charge into battle together coming to be known by our party & the local as the blue man group 😁
ha!
His battle cry needs to be SPOOOONNNN!!!!
Wild magic surge killed a young child staying in the next room of the inn. I didn't let my party live it down especially when the boys father sold his soul to a devil to bring his son back... As a demon who relentlessly pursued the party. After killing the "demon" and the cloaked man with it the found on the body the journal of the father about his loss, bargain, and journey for revenge/redemption... They still have trauma and act differently in game in a new setting 3 years later.
Level 1:(see above) [sorcerer 1, sub-class & race]
Level 2:(see above) [warlock 1 & patron]
Level 3:(@22:04) [warlock 2 & eldritch invocations]
Level 4:(@23:29) [warlock 3 & boon]
Level 5:(@28:43) [sorcerer 2]
Level 6:(@29:53) [sorcerer 3 & metamagic]
Level 7:(see above) [sorcerer 4 & ASI]
Level 8:(@37:48) [warlock 4 & ASI]
Level 9:(@38:32) [warlock 5 & eldritch invocation]
Level 10:(see above) [warlock 6]
Level 11:(@47:19) [warlock 7 & eldritch invocation]
Level 12:(@51:24) [sorcerer 5]
Level 13:(@51:58) [sorcerer 6]
Level 14:(see above) [warlock 8 & ASI]
Level 15:(@53:54) [warlock 9 & eldritch invocation]
Level 16:(@1:02:43) [warlock 10]
Level 17:(@1:03:40) [warlock 11 & mystic arcanum]
Level 20:(@1:05:42) comment [warlock 14]
you got some of the time wrong
@@nolongerdude I don't think Colby can pin two comments so his should be at the top. You can ask him about it on Twitter if you have that much motivation.
Absolutely love this build. The biggest thing that excites me is the stuff you didn't talk about - the number of cantrips you get, the space to take and use all kinds of cool but super situational spells. Even the flexibility of the sorcerer class choice is great. My taste would be Aberrant Mind, but being Divine Soul and also doubling up as a party healer would totally be possible and a little ridiculous. Just lots of space to personalize and make this your own.
Glad you enjoyed! And yes, plenty of versatility that I didn't have time to explore :)
i have a dm that lets every class but wizard know and prepare their entire list. i'm going divine soul as he confirmed that would let me have both the sorc and cleric list.
@@johnpaullogan1365 I would actually hate that as a player. Agonizing over the decision over what to learn and prepare is half the fun.
@@johnpaullogan1365 I could understand knowing the spells, but preparing them seems stupidly powerful given that most casters are already significantly more powerful then noncasters. It's taking a way one of only 2 limiting factors for a casters being able to just pick a spell and throw it at a problem. All this does is make noncasters a lot worse. No point in having skills for noncasters, the casters will just ALWAYS have a spell to fix whatever problem shows up whenever it shows up.
@@sha2143 I think it's OK *if the entire party are spellcasters and you want to run that sort of game. Otherwise you are just making non casters even worse comparatively and taking away their chance to shine.
It might be worth noting that the 'Gunner' feat from Tasha's also gets rid of disadvantage on attack rolls while within 5 ft of an enemy, like Crossbow Expert, with the added bonus of also giving +1 Dex to builds that may need a bump to dex for AC/initiative.
A great point, though Crossbow Expert is more "setting agnostic" since so many DMs seem opposed to introducing firearms, even in settings that already have them in established canon.
@@rehecke7124 Yeah, but we're talking about using either for cantrip close range purposes. In that case, gunner is the same but gives +1 dex. Strictly stronger if you aren't actually using weapons.
@@Casino220 Thanks for this!
DM 1: “there’s no guns in forgotten realms!”
Me: “bro my party’s monk got a gun on session 2 of waterdeep dragon heist.”
I can't believe Cheese Grater actually won ahah
LETS GOOOOO
Yeah…
it didn’t win the pole
@@codean909 But it won my heart.
@@DnDDeepDive this answer is acceptable ;)
For anyone familiar with the Oxventure Guild streamers, they'll recognize this as a cousin to the accidentally-discovered Merilwen's Meat Grinder, so Cheese Grater just seemed a natural progression. (In that case, they set up a Spike Growth behind a patch of Grease just inside a door and watched as the low-level paladins chasing them slipped, slid, and ground themselves into paste just by entering the room.)
Also, give your rogue/fighter some caltrops to toss out for when they don't want to walk into the thorny area to reduce the enemy's movement by another 10ft.
Thanks for the Map stuff. That really helps my understanding and visualization.
All of these deep dives are just utterly enthralling and fun! You and your half stifled enthusiasm is the frosting on top. Subbed and binging these all :p
Yay! Thanks and welcome :).
The Roll20 inclusion really helps visualize everything this build can do. I love it. You are but a dndbeyond character sheet away from being Treantmonk levels of sensei, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Love your work.
he has a "cheat sheet" in the joiner option. and imo Colby is already better than Chris. i'm subscribed to Chris too but he has a very heavy bias towards control, wizards and casting. Colby imo has a more holistic view as a "sensei." he looks to optimize support, tanking, dmg and even includes story/RP bits. treantmonk doesn't do those. Moreover, Colby's bias (monks/bladesingers) isn't as painfully obvious as treantmonk or at least has more general application (sustained). overall, he's already a better sensei than treantmonk if what you're concerned about is simply character building. I would even posit that other smaller channels have surpassed Chris in character build optimization with being more creative: min/max munchkin, bilbron's and dragons, etc. of course, if as a player all you want to do is control, cast spells and play wizards then treantmonk is perfect.
This build opens up an interesting team up that you didn't mention; Grapplers. If you have a goliath grappling friend (elk barbarian) they can drag a couple baddies around the outside edge for even more cheese grating!
not to mention open hand monks, shove, thunderwave...
Proud member of Team Cheese Grater. We stand victorious.
Subtle spike growth actually is a good combo because spike growth states:
"The transformation of the ground is camouflaged to look natural. Any creature that can’t see the area at the time the spell is cast must make a Wisdom (Perception) check against your spell save DC to recognize the terrain as hazardous before entering it."
This means enemies shouldnt know where the spell was cast without wasting an action. Meaning they don't know how to leave it.
Unfortunately, RAW the enemy still knows if you cast a Spike Growth with Subtle Spell. Spike Growth has a material component, which aren't covered by the metamagic. This means that you have to interact with your component pouch/arcane focus in order to cast, which makes the casting obvious according to the rules.
@@bouboulroz Or you could idk, roll sleight of hand to make the gesture go unnoticed. Or just not nerf the metamagic because of poor wording.
@@sha2143 It's not a "nerf", it's how it was intended to work. There is a reason Subtle spell doesn't cover material components, and that is to interact differently with spells that have one.
And yes, you could definitely roll a sleight of hand to be stealthy about it. But the point is that it's an automatic success, and people can notice.
But it's not even necessary. Whether or not you subtle spell Spike Growth, the enemy have to make the perception check (which requires no action by the way) in order to see the area you have affected, otherwise they just see that you cast a spell.
Surely if they see you casting they can see the area of the spell, and therefore see it become hazardous?
Sadly the Subtle Spell part is moot, as it states if they can't see the area, nothing about casting the spell. The enemy can see the area you casted it in and thus sees the spikes form. Now, if you casted it on your side of a door, while said door is closed, even if they heard you casting a spell, they would need to make a check to notice
I made almost the exact same build the other day, but instead of wild magic I went shadow sorcerer. Currently, they're set to lvl 10 as a backup character Sorcerer 3 Warlock 7. If I was playing a game at lvl 15 i'd start 1 sorcerer 14 warlock to have the limited wish since it is my favorite 14th level ability in the game. For that reason I would never go more than 6 levels in another class when playing a genie warlock.
Such a shame that Magic Stone doesn’t scale, would have been really cool for this build
magic stone should "scale" as Eldrich Blast does, not only would it make sense, but I have always felt there should be other cantrips with this "scaling" option. [and on a cantrip that is not class specific]
Our table treats magic stone is if you get to use all three pebbles in your action, so effectively 3d6+12. At level ONE. We are starting at level 3, and we have a week to rejig our characters. I’ve basically changed everything to make sure I got that spell… madness.
@@BelfastBiker Magic Stone does scale, just with number of attacks, not all in the one attack like normal cantrips. So at level 5 make them and give 2 to the paladin to give him a good range option of 1d6 + casting mod per attack which he gets 2 of now. Making it game breakingly powerful like that is unnecessary. You can also use it levels 1-3 where it's already the best damaging cantrip, besides EB with Agonizing Blast, then swap it at 4 with the feature from Tasha's.
@@DaCrump I dealt with it by changing My entire character to get magic stone. I love min-max shenanigans! So that will be my main offensive to go alongside my concentration spell, until EB + AB + GH comes online for a couple of attacks with Spike Growth.
Now that Strixhaven exists, I'd say that it gives the perfect simple justification for optimized multi-class builds. It's definitely the type of thing that dueling groups in a magic university would discuss, debate and theorize about.
Definitely get where you're coming from reliability over burst damage, or potentially bad effects. I've been known not to draw from the Deck of Many Things too when it turns up! Really enjoying your content, and looking forward to more.
Great Build, thank you! This push and pull theme reminds me much of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series ☺️
You could pair this with a Battle Master Bow Fighter who could push enemies around even more, or even knock them prone so they have a much harder time getting out.
For thumbnails I like the grey background but the homey vibe in your recording room is awesome.
Thanks for the feedback! I might be doing some back and forth during the Summer while school is out...
Absolutely amazing, breathtakingly beautiful.
Cheesy in ALL the right places.
I'd rather take telekinetic as the level 1 feat. Even though you're giving the enemy a save, it's overall more versatile and useful than crusher and having +1 in charisma is huge.
I waffled between them. Starting with 18 in Cha would be awesome. Having an automatic +5 movement on a hit rather than having to use my BA for a *chance* at it ultimately convinced me otherwise (based purely on numbers), but I think it's a close call either way.
You could also do Aberrant Mind to start for a slightly different, but still unified, character concept.
I'm personally with you Evan, as the 18 CHA would hit like a truck levels 1-5 n you could bum-rush Warlock 4 at lvl 5 for the crusher feat and round-up on Con. Also gives your DM a chance to warm up to the strategy lmao
I mean bonus feat and level 4 ASI feat for these two for sure IMO, personal choice/concept/game might determine which comes first.
@@ajmacewan7285 Yeah I was thinking Aberrant Mind as well, but I also thought Fathomless Warlock.
@@DnDDeepDive I like crusher also for its ability to push in any direction instead of just to and away. With the cheese grater it probably isn't huge but the ability to knock them up or left etc will be awesome a few times a campaign.
Very nice art example. Grats for the artist! And by the way Crusher feat criticals are awesome too.
I like when the DM throws a curveball. I like the puzzle aspect of RPG encounters, where you have to see what weakness you can exploit and change tactics. It's fun to imagine challenging scenarios and plan for them, and rewarding when they actually play out in-game.
Want to make this crazy, add a pair of illusionist's bracers
You got me at "¿Cómo estamos?" I come here straight from another of you videos, enjoying it so far!
Ja ja! Gracias :).
An echo knight would work great as an ally for this build, the echo is not a creature and so is unaffected by spike growth.
Love this build! Great job as always
Hmmm now we need a “Nacho Libre,” styled bard.
Gonna need to find some Eagle Powers... I'm thinking Aarakocra.
I had someone play a homebrew Luchador class that we kept making Nacho Libre jokes about. He was so overpowered the rest of us basically just watched and cheered him on as he took on giants and monsters in the ring. You'd think it would be boring, but he could really put on a show. Anyways, never use homebrew, kids.
Only if he can have stretchy pants
The art is absolutely awesome!
You should do an episode on a Duergar Rune Knight focusing on grappling! You can grapple literally anything by level 3, if I understand correctly, since you can grow to Huge size (in 1 turn, nonetheless!!!) 🤩
Love your channel! Thank you for your great passion and dedication :)
Damn I was hoping for briarlock, but I would still watch if you called it "Shooty Spikey Boi"
Arguably the proper title right there
Shooting spiky boi is best boy
This is my new favourite D&D series :)
Crossbow expert isnt the best way to remove disadvantage at close range anymore for non crossbow users.
The gunner feat gives the same bonus and +1 dex.
If you don't use a hand crossbow, then +1 dex is usually better. Especially if you happen to be odd already
Good call - I so rarely think about gunpowder in any capacity in D&D, which shows my own personal bias. Time to do a gunner build :)
@@DnDDeepDive Man I'd love to see a gunner build, but I'd want to be an Artificer and none of them actually get bonuses to muskets.
I built one pretty similar a few months ago, but it was 6 Genie Warlock, and the rest Graviturgist, so you could get the extra push from each attack. I literally called it the cheese grater (carpet burn also works).
Can't wait for the illustration collob, sounds fun. Try to let us have a view of him actually drawing.
Wait cheese grater won, when I voted briarlock had it on lock, lol.
It didn't win, he chose the right thing.
@@nicoruppert4207 hahaha got the win by 2%
One thing I thought Cory would talk about: with easy short rests as a genie are you able to convert any leftover pact magic into sorcery points before a SR? If so that’d make it real easy to refresh your SP. Just a big plus I didn’t see him talk about.
@@andrewspringer5219 This is a good point: Jeremy Crawford says yes, though of course your DM may rule otherwise. It definitely helps the build be more even more sustainable if your DM allows it! twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/596193607595401216
@@andrewspringer5219 Yes, just make sure you then convert those points into spell slots, since you can never have more sorcerery points than your max. But there's no such limit on your spell slots.
Was really hoping for "the shredder" with this charisma build, thought we could potentially dip bard for the performance rolls.
My build finally. Can't wait to see how you build it :)
I love this build, but don’t forget that enemies can jump as part of their movement. High strength scores are common. Jumping negates the difficult terrain (for the amount jumped). Enemies with the jump spell would be able to clear the area. Granted, most enemies would still take a good deal of damage from this build.
I would answer this by overlapping Solid Fog. Jumping becomes just another form of 5' movement.
@@PrometheanConsulting what do you mean by “solid fog”? Are you saying to use fog cloud?
I love that collab idea. Excited to see it!
DM: "oh, you cast spike growth again. We'll these kobold are masters of the ancient combat sport known as The Floor is made of Lava."
You get plane shifted into a world where Grung rule. 😉😉
I like this build because you could actually vuild the whole party around it. Graviturgist wizard, Tempest cleric, Swarmkeeper ranger, some kind of grappler, there are a lot of interesting ways to move enemies around and you just made all of them much stronger.
100%
Sorcerer tryed to cast detect magic and well... he detected a fireball centered on us :D we got tpk'ed because the healthier(?) of us had like 13 hp in that moment
Ha! D'oh!
I like the thought of a trinket that houses a small study, worn by your car familiar. 😂
Interesting your comments on bouncing around to take levels in different classes. I always consider that once the character has the new class, they are free to take levels as and when they choose.
You can also combo with an ally casting bigby's hand to grasp and grapple another enemy. Literally grating them across the spiked growth with thier bonus action to move the hand after it grappled someone. Or use the hand's push if the dm rules you can't move the hand after it grappled.
After treantmonk and bilbrons I was expecting another psi blade rogue this week
I really like this build. Usually, your builds don't fit the game I play in because we go weeks without a long rest, but can get short rests around once a night. This makes any mechanic that relies on long rest or heavy use of spells near worthless. Good job!
wow. isn't sleeping considered a long rest in your game? how aren't your heroes not dead from no sleep? or are you all playing coffeelocks that remove exhaustion?
@@TheRobversion1 By night, I mean real life night. We go through a dungeon taking weeks of real life time, playing once a week.
@@justinsellers9402 thats understandable. we sometimes have 1 adventuring day divided into 3-4 2 hr sessions (which means 3-4 combats before a long rest). we get at least 1 short rest per 2 combats. more if someone packs catnap, the story allows for it or someone is a genielock. my question though is if that's the case, how many combats do you get before a long rest?
Just want to tell you Colby that I made a cheese grateful character for my wife, who is very new to dnd - she has played 6 session, 4 with and wizard tank and 2 with cheese grater, and she absoltly loves it. She has so much fun and feels so cool blasting creature and pushing them around and doing 2 d10 + 10d4 damage. After 20 years of trying to interest her in dnd now she is asking if we are playing this week and is trying to make adding sessions. So thanks it make a great date night.
This makes my heart happy :)
To update with how great this is. The session this weekend the party stumbled on a nasty combination. 7th level chars. A cheese grater, a thornlock and a flame sorceror. The thornlock cast hunger of hadar to stop a cleric in the midst of a summoning and 5 of her 6 beserker worshipers. The CG cast spike growth in the same 20ft area. The FS cast wall of fire in a 20ft ring around the other areas and made the outside face the flame damaging.
The enemy wanders blindingly, wis save to go in direction of party, taking 2d6 cold, fail dex for 2d6 acid; 2d4 spikes(averaging 6d4 per round) to get out of black slurping void of spikes, and then run into 5d8 fire damage. They are then either grabbed and held in the flame taking more damage or hit with eldrich blast back through the fire and i to the black void of spiky death.
This was to be a nice hard encounter, instead the party spent 4 rounds watching the barbarians slowly kill them selves, usually by leaving the void and being burned to death. The party has never laughed so hard and Can't stop talking about it and now i have to figure out a way to not let it work with every encounter or they are just going to waltz through everything. The player in me loves how great these builds work, the Dm is just going WTH do i do now.
@@dienezdarcprowlyr9406 Ha ha! Awesome!
Perfect with Thorn Whip cantrip! As Dao Genie Warlock with Pact of the Tome, take Thorn Whip as one of the three Tome cantrips. You can then pull the target 10 feet towards you. So with unlimited cantrips you can push back and forth. Eldritch Blast (with Repelling Blast invocation) and Thorn Whip cantrips you can pull the target back and forth as much as you want. If you multi class Sorcerer and use sorcery points for Quicken Spell you can do both actions at once on one target.
When you asked for votes I voted to call this the briarlock, but once I understood what you were doing, cheese grater is the best name
Can you get more movement in the spike growth by standing at the corner of the spike growth and move them north with 1 blast and east with the next. Then pull them back diagonally southwest. 3 blasts and they are back in the same spot.
I love how versatile Sorlocks are....
He said ‘I try to make characters that put out consistent damage’ and then and there , I knew , I was gonna love this guy
We plan on starting our campaign in like… a month , This has been going on for almost 3 months now. And My DM is so angry at me since I keep making new characters and ask him if I can play them , And he always says ‘Be consistent and Pick Wisely’. Maybe he will help me decide
*chuckles* "stupid Wild Magic"
Made me giggle.
Lol…all my friends at Super Bowl parties. My wife asked me if I wanted to go to one, I said, no… I’ve got some deep dive to catch up on. Awesome concept here. My son will love this one!
I'm currently playing a Quandrix Sorlock, and I'm sort of wondering how that would fit into this build with the UA release. As it gets a reaction 30 ft teleport for more movement against enemies and allies, buffs/debuffs like a bard and a pretty insane capstone ability, seems like it would fit in very well with this build. Oh and it gets spike growth in it's bonus spell list.
Hola Colby, estoy muy bien, gracias! Really great content as always!
Really enjoy your show mate, but I have a small request. When you use the maps the white screen can be very bright. When setting up maps on roll 20 (or editing their setup later) you can change it to say a medium gray or whatever colour you like really. That way it won't be as glaring to the viewer. Once again, thanks for the great content!
agreed. i go custom class. solves so many issue. liked the wild magic start. i think i'd take that as an alternative to the divine soul. i went divine soul primarily for cleric spell access, guidance and favored of the gods for misses.
as you know, i always go burst so re-sharing my build here too.
2 fighter, 4 dao, 4 divine soul
fighting style: superior technique-ambush
custom lineage: telekinetic (wanted a way to still grate a prone enemy)
asi: crusher, eldritch adept: grasp of hadar
invocations: agonizing blast, repelling blast
metamagic: seeking spell for misses, quickened spell
pact of the chain: quasit
tactics:
round 1
familiar: help
bonus action: quickened spike growth behind bbeg
action: eldritch blast push 20 ft, grasp of hadar pull 10 ft
action surge: eldritch blast push 10 ft, eldritch blast crusher 5 ft into the air + 10 ft then enemy falls prone or simply crushing eldritch blast 25 ft if you don't want to knock them prone
that's 55 ft of cheese grating goodness on round 1. that's 55 dmg without putting in eldritch blast and genie's wrath dmg.
glad to see our builds work similarly and have alot of similar choices early on. agreed on swarmkeeper. imo its a different build altogether. love the roll 20 presentation. personally, when i continued the build, i kind of went the same way you did (except for the 2 levels of fighter). i made sure to get sorc 8 for catnap (works awesome with pact magic slots) then we ended at level 15 so i got to 5 daolock for lance of lethargy.
Yeah the cheese grater genie warlock! Yeah!!!
If you have the luxury of choosing or planning the area of an area, I've got an idea.
Using the mold earth cantrip, you can excavate a small to large area.
Make the hole anywhere from 5 and below feet deep.
Put it so that the enemy must go through it to reach the party.
Then cast spike growth and all the other neat tricks you've mentioned.
Since they have to use double their movement to climb up, you could have them in the thicket that much longer.
It would become a boxed cheese grater :)
Thank you for an awesome video as always :)
imo that's more trouble for minimal performance improvement. using mold earth would be a total different tactic. better to just get them prone and to fall into your pit and then mold earth again to bury them alive. no need for spike growth dmg when the enemy is removed from combat (and slowly dying).
Thanks!
Any character that takes levels in Warlock can always justify other abilities being "unlocked" as a part of their powers being granted by their patron. Seems like one of the easiest ones to storyline, depending on the patron/class combos that are chosen.
I had a Fiend Warlock who's patron would present upgrades and abilities as gifts, and encourage the player to test them out immediately, all with the intention of corrupting her and making her violent. When she casted fireball for the first time, I made sure to describe the damage as horrifically as possible to make it clear just how destructive she was becoming. Good times.
excellent build as always thanks
How about Grasp of Hadar instead of Crusher (via Eldritch Adept), instead of taking 2 more warlock levels?
An alternative, for sure. I like the other things we get from Warlock, but if you're intent on, say, getting to those higher level sorc spells etc. and prefer a dip, it's not a bad idea.
Love this build! The thought lab on this is fun. I wonder how it would work at the table? Colby-time for a one shot. You play this build. I’ll play an aarakocra ranged build and stay out of your thorns.
DONE!
This is the type of person that if he was offered a magic item that replaced all d20’s with a 4d6-4 roll, he would absolutely use it. “1/1296 chance to crit? Sounds good to me.”
4d6-4 is lower on average than 1d20
That and there's a chance to roll a 0, which kind of doesn't make sense (lower than nat1?)
6d4-4 though...
@@purpur5 yikes how many d4's are you rolling?
Well I wouldn't include Such a magic item xd IT just has a mechanical Effect of making nat1 impossible, nat20 next to impossible, and 11 very likely. This would basically be a Universal and worse version of Reliable Talent
The character I've been brainstorming for an upcoming nautical campaign actually fits into this concept while taking different classes.
He's basically a sailor whose warlock patron turned him into a giant shark man. Think King Shark from DC. Either Lizardfolk, Goliath, or Simic Hybrid. All three races actually work pretty well for the concept.
He's a blend of fathomless warlock and swarmkeeper ranger. The swim speed from fathomless coupled with longstrider, jump, and expertise in athletics from canny ranger will let him swim alongside enemy ships, get a running start by swimming straight up, breaching/jumping over the deck of the ship, and dropping his tentacle on the deck of the ship.
Taking swarmkeeper to level 3 so the fathomless tentacle could fling targets 15 feet overboard was a given, but taking ranger to 5 for spiked growth to drop both that and the tentacle on the deck in the opening round is promising.
I might still work a few levels of sorcerer into the build because the UA for the Mage of Prismari coming in the book they'll release in November fits the character theme perfectly and the overall mechanics near perfectly.
Enjoy reducing luck and chance you say? Still waiting for your build on player and monster dice result manipulation via spells, feats, and other racial/class features to get all the results you want!! The anyway you want it. That's the way we need it build.
In place of Fey Touched (more as an alternative to crossbow expert) I’d strongly consider Mobile. Gets you out in the event you get bum rushed and gets the additional movement speed to get from either side of the briar patch easier
I love this concept (and think it’s cool that it finally beat the Bladesinger) but whenever I’ve considered it myself I find myself too bogged down by its flaws. It assumes enemies are not able to fly, teleport, phase/plane shift, or make ranged attacks (perhaps this is just my own experience but it seems to me that this is not a great assumption, especially at high levels of play). Also, it has a tendency to leave the battlefield overcontrolled. Getting into and out of melee is very hard due to Spike Growth’s large AoE and damaging property. Therefore, no one moves within this massive area resulting in a very static (and often unfun) encounter. In short, love the numbers but feel like you will rarely see them in game.
i've played a similar build already in the past and it works. this is just the type of build you discuss with your party mates at session zero (check if there;s any melee guys). while fly, teleport are indeed weakness of the build; ranged attacks or plane shift arent (unless the enemy can spam plane shift every turn). a ranged attacker will still be grated. for a flyer, i'd just hit them with something that makes them go prone then let them enjoy the falling dmg into the spikes. only teleport is an issue really. but lets be honest, aside from a handful of stuff that can prevent teleports, it's always an issue.
Just now checking this one out. I think I'd stay with warlock until you get your next invocation at level 5 warlock to get Grasp of Hadar. Push 10, pull 10 for that real cheese grater effect. I really enjoy your builds!
Just hit level 4 with this build last night, desert campaign so we reflavored the spike growth to cacti, turned an ogre into a pincushion in one turn cycle, just absolutely loving it !
Hey!! Love what you do here, just subscribed. I was wondering if you could cover an artificer artillerist build. Like having multiple cannons and being a artillery commander?
Thanks and welcome! I've got the Artillerist on the to do list!
The following turn after their dash, reposition and hit them diagonally into the middle of the spikes 🥰
If you have a Druid in the party that can then cast Plant growth on your spikes... have to spend 4 feet of movement to move one. No one would be able to get out of the patch... they do less damage to themselves but you can move them around like pawns on a chess board.
We did something similar in a game where we haste and fly our barbarian who grapples people and runs them 30 feet in a circle. 2 12d4 was fun to do.
I played with a wild magic sorcerer once in a 1st level party and the first leveled spell he was trying to cast was burning hands... which turned into a 3rd level fireball centered on himself. We had a TPK within roughly 30 min of the first session cuz our sorcerer wanted to attack 2 kobolds at once. I swore I'd never play a wild magic sorcerer after that day.
Super fun build! Cool to see it from Genie Sorlock. In our current campaign, bae's Druid of the Moon did Spike Growth and Wild Shape Grapple+Drags. The Genie Sorlock is understandably a better engine since it's more invested to the playstyle, but it doesn't stop allies from gaining even more value from abusing dragging!
You're the best! This is my obligatory comment to enhance your RUclips algorithm performance.
"For now we're just trying to stay alive."
My mind - know, save your strength and stay alive! Is he breathing? Is he going to survive this? (Stay alive!)
An adventuring party known as "The invisible bum ticklers"!
1:07:05 In the right situations you could get more than 70, potentially the full 85ft (arguably it's even 95ft). Simplest ideal scenario: target starts in corner of the 20x20ft square, you adjacent outside of square. You cast EB pushing 30ft across the edge, then pull back 15ft, for 45ft total, and displacing them now 20ft away, you move diagonally first 5ft and then go along the outside edge to be adjacent to them again with 20ft of movement, then cast your next blast to push 40ft across to the opposite edge of the patch, 90degrees different direction from the first EB. There's a good argument that you can apply both repelling blast when you hit and grasp of hadar when you hit to move 20ft total, with 0 net displacement, just like how the dao+crusher can move up and repelling blast upward on the same EB or even beam. For both cases, the timing is unclear and up to DM interpretation. With this you could still get the full 95ft of movement by just pushing 10 more feet on the first blast, and then moving 30ft instead of 20ft to be adjacent to them again.
A newer spell that would assist in this build, from the Strixhaven book, Vortex Warp allows you to move an enemy. Lvl 2 sorc/wiz list.
90' range. You magically twist space around another creature you can see within range. The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (the target can choose to fail), or the target is teleported to an unoccupied space of your choice that you can see within range. The chosen space must be on a surface or in a liquid that can support the target without the target having to squeeze.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the range of the spell increases by 30 feet for each slot level above 2nd.
Spell Lists. Artificer, Sorcerer, Wizard
I know this is an old build but some things I'm thinking of...Ring of spell storing to give your imp the thorns cast and you can use gust of wind. I'm also thinking about going Storm Sorc (or blue dragon) to take advantage of Thunderwave (if your standing near the edge), and Lightning Lure (if you are flying in the middle). Storm's Furry would be fun to stand in the middle of the thorns as well.
Amazing video as always, would love to see your take on a gloomstalker. Keep up the great work, I listen to these videos at work and they make the time fly by.
Ok! I've done Gloomstalker levels in a couple of builds, but not one that's *mostly* Gloomstalker. Will add it to the list.
@@DnDDeepDive iirc you haven't done a melee gloomstalker yet right? might be interesting to do a melee one.
today I learned: tickling someone's bum doesn't break your concentration
I understand your stance on deck of many things, but I think it’s actually a pretty potent learning opportunity for relic-happy DMs. Giving a party a deck will quickly destabilize the campaign unless you can adapt very quickly and think on your feet. It’s made me think a lot more about what items I give out at what point
Bestow Curse would be a huge damage boost, since the 1d8 increase for each spell damage, meaning each EB hit and every 5feet moved in Spike Growth triggers the 1d8, meaning 5d8 per blast, with grasp of hadar and repelling blast.
One of my favorite characters I've played was a war forged wild Magic sorcerer. On one cast I got a cloud of butterflies that my Dm flavored as micro machines with butterfly wings. He let me use them as a free mage hand for the rest of that campaign as long as I said "Vroom Vroom Butterflies" first!
Was messing around with a Warlock 4/Rune Knight 16 melee version of the cheese grater.
Love it... thanks Colby. ❤
i am literally playing that character right now in our eberron campaign.
With the addition of dragonlance backgrounds and feats a really powerful new version of the cheesegrater is now viable. If you take the mage of high sorcery background, and then the adept of the red robes feat when you get your first ASI, you can get spike growth on any class. Thus becomes possible: The Hexblade Cheesegrater. Because of the way hexblades curse is worded, you can now add your proficiency bonus to the damage of every single spike growth damage roll. First go a level in sorcerer for constitution saving throw proficiency, then two levels in hexblade, take agonizing blast and repelling blast, then hard focus sorcerer the rest of the way. At later levels pick up grasp of hadar with eldritch adept feat for greater control, and you will be throwing out over 200 DPR at lower enemy AC's by level 13 and by level 17, you will be dishing out close to 300 DPR. Obvious weaknesses are that the build is severely limited by hexblades curse dependency and sorcery points for quickened spell, but even with those limitations, its pretty damn powerful even without going full cheese mode. Enjoy and have fun *only use at approval of DM
These are the builds that make me think of tactics games.
Who says you can’t have both tactics and story?
Possible additional trick.....when you get metamagic at Sorc 3, take Distant Spell and combine it with Thunderwave as a way to chuck multiple enemies into your Spike Growth early in combat from 30 feet away.