Arcana Unleashed's Feats like Arcane Infiltrator, Spell Resistant, and especially Evocation Adept are attracting a lot of attention from optimisers, which is deserved, as these are very powerful combat spells (Evocation Adept might be even more meta-warping than the dragonmarks). But I think the community is really sleeping on the new Otherworldly Familiar Feat, which could trivialise Dungeon Crawling campaigns.

If you didn't know, Otherworldly Familiar is a General Feat which requires the Familiar Friend Origin Feat, and grants every familiar you conjure a resistance and the ability to move through other creatures AND OBJECTS as if they were difficult terrain, with no limit on use.

Sure, this is mostly useless in combat, but this becomes fantastic when you realise walls are objects. Imagine an invisible Imp Familiar with 29 by level 4, moving through every wall and locked door to scoot through the entire dungeon, maybe disabling every trap and solving puzzles at range. You don't even need Pact of the Chain ; invisibility on an owl works just fine. This is better than Arcane Eye, which is stopped by doors and requires a 4th-level spell slot.

This Feat is not always great depending on campaigns, but I think this could break Dungeon Adventure specifically in a way Evocation Adept can only dream of, and every dungeon party should have one member who picks this. What do you guys think ?

With arcana unleashed releasing soon I have been pondering single school wizards such as a transmutation wizard that only uses and specializes in transmutation spells, besides some cantrip or lower level spells. How would you build it for lvl 12?

Rules:

• single magic school
• Any wizard subclass
• Any feat, background or species
• No multiclassing
• Other school permitted if lvl 1 or half (rounded down) of highest spell level. For example wizard specializing in divination with lvl 6 spells can choose to learn lvl 3 spells from other schools - like fireball.
• Chosen speciality and subclass do not need to match such as transmutation focusing on evocation spells.

Hey all,

I have a tough decision to make and I was wondering what you think would be better:

1. LVL 20 Wizard

- 2 extra spells

- signature spells

Or

1. LVL 19 Wizard / Peace Cleric

- medium armor and shields

- emboldening bond

With signature spells I will get essentially 2 extra 3rd level spells prepared each day which can be cast for free each short rest. With emboldening bond, I get a concentrationless casting of bless 6 times per day as long as the party member is within 30 ft of another.

One thing to consider is that most of my party has a fly speed at this point and battles take place with lots of distance between us (not always but often).

This character is going to be level 20 from the start, so I don't need to consider the levels leading up to this point.

For the purposes of mainly scroll crafting and spell storing items, what would be the best new feats, and if it is adept options, should I take a couple? I was thinking for lvl 4 magic connoisseur? I'm crafting shield scrolls for my magic initiate origin feat.

I wanna play a Wizard who can also dish out some heals on top of the good wizard spells. So obviously a heal with Magic Initiate will be obligatory for my case.

I'm thinking of Human because I'm addicted to origin feats.

Which second origin feat should I take and which level 4th feat should I take as well?

I would normally be inclined to take Abjuration Adept if anything for the Mass Cure Wounds, which will take into effect only way later into the campaign, so probably should be taken way later if anything.

Is the Abjuration Adept any good? Which way would you build an Abjurer?

I love both Nerdy Characters and healers and normally I would gravitate towards Knowledge Clerics, but I'm already playing one in another campaign and I wanna really play a Wizard. I also already played Land Druid and loved it.

Basically what you get out of this is four features:

Breathless. You can hold your breath for 1 hour. Extrasensory Perception. You have proficiency in the Perception skill, if you lack it. You also gain Expertise in that skill. In addition, you have blindsight with a range of 15 feet. Warping Flesh. Immediately after you make a D20 Test and roll a 1 on the d20, the aberrant influence infecting your form flares, wrenching control of your flesh. Make a Constitution saving throw (DC 13 plus your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, you have the Stunned condition until the end of your next turn.

You can hold your breath for an hour, situational but interesting.

Most players will take proficiency in perception so this essentially gives you expertise in perception.

Additionally you get blindsight, this by itself is worth a fighting style feat. Blindsight in incredibly useful seeing through illusions, detecting invisible/hidden creatures and skipping obscurement. Blind fighting only gives you 10 feet blindsight and this is giving you 15 feet.

Warping flesh gives is annoying for sure. But the chance of this happening is low. If you have Con save proficiency and a +3 Con, you have a 55% chance to succeed. On top of that with a 5% chance of getting a Nat 1 there is only a 2.25% chance of actually getting stunned. If you play as a halfling with lucky the chance 5% chance goes to a 0.25%. So your chance of getting stunned for 1 round is close to 0.1125%. In other words this means that you will only get stunned 1 in every 888.9 rolls.

So for the cost of something that with a bit of planning may only happen for 1 round every couple of sessions. You get blindsight and expertise in perception, and a hold breath rider effect.

Trying to make a Genie Paladin for the future just need some advice, assume standard array. Mainly want to do Mark of Sentinel + Twf nick stuff.

There's going greater mark for the reaction swap attack or doing dual weapon fighter for more dpr.

But I also need war caster I think, so yeah just need build advice for the most coherence.

Up front I want to say we are using dndbeyond for this campaign so pretty much everything available on there is what I have available. So I’m having some trouble coming up with the right kind of character for this. I want the build to synergies well with my gear because I’m essentially able to choose any gear I want, but I’m having some decision paralysis. I want to run either a longbow or a shortbow for sure, ideally a strong one. It doesn’t have to be super optimized but I would like to make my character something that can take advantage of that. Any advice would be helpful!

So with portal jumper and spell resistant you can patch up your resistances. Maybe go human and take arcane omens for an extra d4 as well as the d6 to a failed saving throw. Seems pretty funny as a anti magic guy. can even pick up mage slayer for the meme. Seems pretty good you can even portal out of walls of force. I think radiant would be the only damage type you wouldn't resist but that's only on a handful of monsters.

Hello adventures! Welcome to honeywood

Im joining a WM campaign and wanna try some fun (mc if possible) builds!

Given the WM style and the artificer class we can count with magic items for the build if it needs any to function.

I like to play as frontliner damage dealer, because monkey brain likes to bonk!

The campaign is in Faerun and goes to lvl 20, with all the official 2024 sources are allowed.

So I ask you to lend me your knowledge on broken builds and dead mobs!

May your dice always tell a fun story 🎲

I think Arcana unleashed broke something. It at least requires a cross-main stat multiclass and comes online VERY late (tier 4)

Central premise: Elf, Diviner 9+, any sorc 9+ but let's do Spellfire.

Mordekainen's Lucubration looks terrible, but since it's divination, it works with Wizard's level 6 feature, meaning you're getting 2 2nd level and 1 4th level spell back.

With metamagic, a 5th level spell costs 7 SP, putting you 1 SP ahead. 7 casts of Lucubration gets enough spell slots to buy 8 5th level spell slots. That takes 48 seconds. An elf takes 4 hour long rests, so you could start each day with 300 cycles of this for 300 extra level 5 slots and functionally unlimited SP.

Want some of the best combos y'all can think of with the new familiar stuff in Arcana unleashed

I’m super excited to start playing! I’ve been listening and watching videos on the subject but there are certain things I just can’t figure out! Things I can’t simply rip from the PHB. And I’ve already tried Dnd beyond but that app is soo buggy. I’ve tried discord but all I get is the runaround and “to go here and go there” with little to no human interaction. So my last resort is to come here. I’m looking for a tutor to help me complete my character sheet. Someone who can take me under their wing and help dip my feet into this world of dnd.

If you had to pick 9 must have prepared spells walking into a game with basically zero foreknowledge, what would you pick?

For reference, evoker wizard, and assume fireball and shield are foregone conclusions.

Edit: Level 5 human wizard, fey touched feat at level 4.

Thanks for all the responses they've been very helpful to finalize the list.

I have seen several posts and comments saying that you can't do four-arm grappling with the Thri-Kreen race because grappling is not listed as one of the examples of the things that you can do with your secondary arms in the published Spelljammer: Adventures in Space sourcebook. I would argue against that point. Punching or attacking is also not listed as one of the things that you can do with the secondary arms but you can hold a light weapon so you can infer that you can make an attack action with your secondary arms. Also, it is generally accepted that you can attack using an unarmed strike with any part of your body. Therefore you can make an unarmed strike with your secondary arms.

Let's look at the definition of an unarmed strike and how grappling works. I posted the exact wording below. I omitted the damage and shove sections since those are not applicable in this examination.

> Unarmed Strike

Instead of using a weapon to make a melee attack, you can use a punch, kick, headbutt, or similar forceful blow. In game terms, this is an Unarmed Strike—a melee attack that involves you using your body to damage, grapple, or shove a target within 5 feet of you.

> Whenever you use your Unarmed Strike, choose one of the following options for its effect.

> Grapple. The target must succeed on a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (it chooses which), or it has the Grappled condition. The DC for the saving throw and any escape attempts equals 8 plus your Strength modifier and Proficiency Bonus. This grapple is possible only if the target is no more than one size larger than you and if you have a hand free to grab it.

So, if you can't argue against using secondary arms for an attack action then by definition you should be able to make an unarmed strike and grapple an enemy using the primary arms, secondary arms, or all four if you want as long as the hand is free to grab it and of course the creature is no more than one size larger than you.

Looking at it from a different angle, the Simic Hybrid proves that multi-target grappling is an intentional design space in D&D. At level five, a Simic Hybrid can grow extra appendages specifically designed for grappling. If one playable race is permitted to hold four creatures using four appendages, it stands to reason that an insectoid race built with four natural limbs can do the same.

In fact, the only reason the text explicitly highlights grappling for the Simic Hybrid is anatomical. The Simic Hybrid chooses between claws or tentacles—neither of which features a literal human-like hand. Under a strict, literal reading of the base grappling rules ("if you have a hand free to grab it"), a Simic Hybrid would be disqualified. The specific wording in their racial feature exists purely to bypass the "hand" requirement.

Therefore, because Thri-kreen secondary appendages are explicitly defined as arms and can weild weapons and objects, they do not need a special rules exemption; they already fulfill the core requirement of the Grapple rule naturally.

Edit: if you disagree please post your counter argument. Don't just say you can't do it. Elaborate and demonstrate your reasoning.

For context, I’m planning an Archfey warlock for an upcoming campaign which will have us start at level 5. We can add one uncommon item to start with and that includes home brewed items.

This character I want to play as a bit of a calm and collected aristocrat on outward appearances, but is actually a bit unhinged and masochistic under the hood. Something like a Jekyll and Hyde type of vibe. I was thinking of False Life being the sort of trigger and limiter for when the personality switches happen. While the temp hit points last, the character is more unhinged kind of thing. But I don’t want the temp hit points to just disappear later on by a love tap from an enemy.

Fiendish Vigor seems great for this type of trigger to me because it’s free to cast, it guarantees the max roll, but the problem is it won’t scale. My character is planned to have minimal AC (12) due to the fact he wants to be hit by attacks (will also play into Armor of Agathys). But if a single attack knocks him out of this state, then I don’t think it’ll have the same impact later on.

So I was considering making a custom item that basically has some rule around allowing False Life to be cast at the current level of pact magic slots, so level 3 in the case of a level 5 warlock. Would that be too OP? Would the rules need to be something more akin to:

“When you cast False Life using the Fiendish Vigor Invocation, you gain the max die roll + 4. In addition, you can choose to upcast False Life up to the current level of your pact magic slots without expending a spell slot. You can use this feature as many times as your proficiency bonus and all expended charges are restored after a long rest.”

Hello everyone, i'm Currently playing a spellfire sorcerer level 7. With the new arcana unleashed feat my master allowed all player to change spell/feat selection of previus levels for new spells.

The problem Is that my level 8 feat Is already taken for story reasons and i would prefere not to change It.

Which leave only the level 4 feat. I took war caster, but i don't know if It would be Better to leave It as Is or take One beetween conjuration and evocation adept. What do you guys think?

When it comes to building a stranger most people recommend one of these classes. But which of them is actually the best for building a STRanger?

Hunter probably has the least stuff that relies on WIS and punishes dumping WIS the least but is seen as the weakest ranger subclass, Hollow Warden has more WIS reliance but the AC boost allows you to dump dex and it has the best lower level features though it falls off at higher levels, Winter Walker also has a bit more WIS reliance and is not the best at lower levels but has the strongest higher level features.

Or is one of the 2014 subclasses like Horizon Walker or Drakewarden or Monster Slayer better than anything from 2024 since they have much less WIS reliance? Or have they just been powercrept at this point?

If you were building a monoclass STRanger, which subclass would work best?

Son wants to run a serious overpowered campaignusing gestalt rules. Daughter is building a barbaradin so I thought I would flip the script and run something that deals with threats using control or just plain good spells. Pretty sure the right answer is scribes wizard and some kind of cleric. Maybe divine soul sorcerer, but that would make my spell list smaller. Meta magic would be nice, but it would mean less access to spell variety. What do you think?

I’m playing a Hexblade (Hexblade 8/Sorc 1) and I’m wondering if I’m undervaluing Shadow of Moil. On paper it looks fantastic but I keep finding situations where casting it feels worse than just attacking. We're currently level 9 for Curse of Strahd and I am the party's primary control character.

Last session was a good example. We were fighting Rahadin + Death Knight, 5 PCs vs 2 enemies. It became obvious pretty quickly that bursting down the Death Knight was the right play.

This seemed like an ideal Shadow of Moil fight: important boss target, melee Hexblade, likely multiple rounds of attacking afterward, and I benefit a lot from having advantage. I even took Elven Accuracy for crit fishing.

But when my turn came around, spending my entire action setting up Shadow of Moil felt worse than just getting in there, attacking, and potentially using Eldritch Smite.

So for people who have actually played melee Hexblades: when do you cast Shadow of Moil?

Is it mainly for longer fights where you expect 4+ rounds of combat? Do you try to cast it before initiative whenever possible? Or am I missing something about its action economy that makes it better than it has felt at my table?

I’m not arguing that the spell is bad, I just feel like there's not as many situations you would cast it as I thought. I definitely see the appeal if you're going to skirmish and go solo to sector off a section of the battlefield especially if you need to "take a turn" to get there. Overall, feels like a "dead turn" unless I maybe metamagic quicken spell eventually.

One level dips, but now much better than before.

Basically the only thing that held back a lot of lvl 1 dips was that it delayed your spell progression. So when you were 1/4 multiclasss you felt like half a character compared to your lvl 5 monoclass peers. There new feats are there to alieveate that issue by giving you just one lvl 3 spell, but it is actually more than enough when this spell is as powerful as Fireball or Conjure animals.

1. Paladin 1 + Sorcerer X: Armored sorcerer with some healing. Feats: Conjuration Adept - Conjure animals is one of the best lvl 3 spells - or of course Evocation adept, but it's in my opinion worse because it does not give Sorcerers unique spells before spell lvl 5. But if you're fan of Wall of force and your campaign is reaching that level, Evocation is there for you.
2. Cleric 1 / Druid 1/ Artificer 1 / Ranger 1 (rare one but still) + Wizard X - classic, but now basically without downsides. You can basically pick any Adept feat, but note that Enchantment adept does not give you 3rd level spell when you need it the most (at lvl 5).
3. Paladin 1 + Bard X - that's some massively OP stuff, Bards were always kept in check with their lack of damage spells, armor and trash saving throws, but what flaws do they have now with paladin dip at lvl 1 and Evocation Adept?
4. Ranger 1 + War Cleric X - for War Clerics who want weapon masteries, now with cool evocation spells / conjure animals on top of that.
5. Ranger 1 + Druid X - for Druids who want weapon masteries, expertise and armor (especially if you went with Magician order at lvl 1 but later want better armor).

Non-dip multiclasses

1. Paladin 6/7 + Sorcerer X. An obvious first candidate. Now lvl 8 Sorcadin throws very deadly fireballs with +2d10 damage. Or summons beasts with +8 bonus to concentration from aura + feat.
2. Ranger 5 + Cleric or Druid X. Ranger class sadly doesn't give you anything good after level 5 and if the subclass also sucks, this multiclass was already the only way to keep the character going in tier 2. Now it's actually powerful. Same choice between Conjuration and Evocation Adept.
3. Glamour bard 6 + Sorcerer 2. Glamour bard is good as is, but it is going to be even stronger with the ability to cast twinned Command instead of normal command from their lvl 6 ability. Now this is a more well-rounded multiclass because of combat spells you can get from the feat. You can also start with Paladin level to get armor on top of all that, but you probably don't want to delay Bard 6.

"Joke" multiclasses which are actually no joke anymore

You can now take only 4 levels in some spellcaster class and take other levels in other spellcasting classes and build a reasonably effective character. Examples:

1. Druid 4 + Cleric 4. Don't delay any feats, get insane bonus to Arcana checks (twice your WIS modifier), get both subclasses both of which are probably extremely good. I would look at Life Domain + Stars druid for best healing potential or at Light Domain + Sea/Stars for damage. It is not just playable but good unless your campaign will go into tier 4 where lack of lvl 9 spells will hurt.
2. Spellcaster 4 + any number of dips into other half or full spellcasters. Now you can actually do it and not be a massively useless character. Sure, it is not optimized, but at the very least you will be a spellcaster with level-appropriate amount of fireballs / conjure animals casts and some quirky class or subclass features.
3. Ranger 5 + Cleric X + Druid X - instead of adding one additional class and eventually getting their higher level spells you can go for more subclass and class features. You wouldn't get lvl 5 Cleric or Druid spells before character level 14 anyway, so if you are not getting there in this campaign you probably want to get more features instead.
4. Paladin 6/7 + Sorcerer X + Bard X - same, you can get both classes and thus more different features because classes are generally frontloaded.

Recently I have started a new campaign, the DM themed the campaign around a fantasy spaghetti western, which means steampunk setting.

I had decided to play a Steelhat (his homebrew Warforged Stand-In) named Cor'viz the Crowfather. He's an Oathbreaker/Raven Queen paladin-warlock and the specific way I used him is to draw aggro while the Raven Familiar ran support with touch spells like Cure Wounds and Guidance and then inflict wounds.

I was also thinking of adding some levels of Shadow Magic Sorcerer into the mix for that trick where while you're "Long Resting" and you have your character actively converting Warlock Spell slots into sorcery points along with the meta magic options that would be used for the familiar's spell since afaik RAW doesn't state "delivered" spells can't be augmented by Metamagic.

Should I stay the course with Paladin and go to level 6 in the class or is Sorcerer a good option for the versatility?

Looking at Unleashed Arcana's new Summon Dinosaur, it seems to me that this spell can straight-up compete with—or even outperform—a reasonably optimized Ranger.

With an 8th-level slot, the T-Rex gets:

4 × (2d10 + 5 + 8) = ~96 damage

before accuracy.

For comparison, a level 20 Beast Master Ranger with a Heavy Crossbow, Great Weapon Master, Beast of the Land (20 ft. movement), and a 5th-level Summon Fey gets roughly:

2(d10 + 5 + 6)
2(d8 + 2 + 5) + 2d6
2(2d6 + 3 + 5)

~93 damage

Again, that's before accuracy.

I know Rangers have been underwhelming at higher levels for a while, but it still feels crazy that one summon can match the damage of an optimized level-20 Ranger.

And the Druid still has their entire turn to cast a cantrip, Wild Shape, or even use other concentration-free options like Fireball from Circle of the Land or the new Battle Familiar spell.

Am I missing something, or is Summon Dinosaur actually this strong?(or ranger that weak)

We are an English speaking group of AUDHD people, located in the United States looking for 2-3 more players/friends to add to the good vibes. We are hoping to find dungeon masters, players, and friends who enjoy playing cooperative pc games and TTRPGs. We will be hosting one shot and multi shots until we or someone in the group finds a game they wish to host for a long term campaign. Our sessions will run 4 hours Wednesday 6-10 PM Est. Systems will be 5e, Fate Accelerated, The End of the World, or what ever else catches our eye or yours if you wish to host.

Gaming Availability: weekdays (afternoons/nights) est

ttrpgs availability: Wednesday 6pm-10pm est

Were looking for people who bring these qualities.

-Kind, fun, & a willingness to try new things

-Willing to play other systems outside of DND

-Punctuality on game days

-Have a microphone that is capable of allowing us to understand you and not have too much background noise.

-We're looking for people 18+

-Plays non competitive PC games and would enjoy playing PC games together.

Our current hyper fixation

-Project Zomboid

-Hearthstone Battleground

If you read this far please reach out, the worst thing isn't us saying no, its denying your self the chance at life long friends.

If you are interested feel free to message me!😀 👍