This and Treantsmonk's are my favorite dnd optimizers channels. And it's really not because of the math or theory craft. It's because of the attitude. Colby and Chris are so genuine and welcoming and it just makes it feel like you're just chatting with a friend. And it really warms my heart to hear "welcome home, this is where you belong."
Anyone thinking about becoming a subscriber, I have to say that I cannot recommend ENOUGH doing so. Not only are the written breakdowns terrific and you're supporting an awesome channel, Colby also sometimes posts some crazy slash fiction. Ok, so that last part might be untrue, but the rest isn't.
I love specializing as a character. Thats why you're my first stop for new character builds when i jump in a session. Its great. Like i just started playing your Ice Mage build, and its been fantastic, save for the part where we got captured and the captain has some magic dampening item and im trying to stealth without proficiency and have an 8 strength lol. Im getting carried, but boy when im out ill be super useful again
@@oathboundhero1782 right now the only magic ive gotten to work is message, so im the teams walkie talkie while we try to take care of that dampener lol. Im taking all the credit i can
love the interaction between armor of agathys and the sorcerer's bastion of law. by reducing the damage your armor takes, you effectively prolong its duration, allowing it to deal way more damage over more impacts against you
My alternative version of this which is a bit* more "pure" Sorc. Tortle STR-based Clockwork Soul Sorc. Pure Clockwork Soul outside of a 2 level dip in Pali. Your goal is to invest in Strength, use your staff for attacks (hence investment in STR), take Warcaster at level 4, and use Booming Blade + Smite to make enemies stick to you with pure damage. Luckily there are SO many excellent spells on the Clockwork Soul spell list that require 0 saving throws so we take the minimum 13 in CHA and just pump up our STR and CON. Warcaster + High CON + Proficiency allows for safe casting of Haste essentially allowing us to get multi-attack without a investment in a martial class, along with the other numerous benefits. We can also TWIN this to boost another martial in the party. Eventually we can get Crusher and pull off the "Catch-22" for HUGE burst. We can use AoA + Haste + Aid all at once to do massive amounts of tanking. And we can use metamagic to twin amazing concentration spells and protect that concentration extremely well. I love my Clockwork Soul tank!!
The 2-level dip in Paladin and investment in STR can be replaced with 1 level in Hexblade Warlock instead. In exchange for the burst damage of Smite, you can use your CHA modifier for attack and damage rolls. You still get the (one-handed) martial weapon and shield proficiencies, too. Once you get War Caster (or ideally, you start this character at 5th level+), you can swap out your staff for a one-handed martial weapon like a warhammer for better damage. The only downsides I can think of is that you don't get the +1 AC from the Defense fighting style, so you only get a max AC of 19 instead of 20 after the dip, and you lose the Paladin features.
Alt point buy numbers: Str- 8 Dex - 10 Con - 14 Wis - 10 Int - 14 Cha - 15 Give +2 to Con, +1 to Cha. Gives +3 con mod, +3 Cha mod At 1st ASI get +2 int for +3 int. Only drop Str.
I'm probably gonna steal this build and modify to suit my tastes, thank you very much. Hexblade dip sounds delicious, btw. And i think that it might work as a narrative tool with one condition: ancient warforged. Okay, let's say that we are ancient warforged found in a forgotten dungeon. We come online for the first time in X hundreds/thousands of years, our memory block is damaged, personality fragmented. But we don't know about it. So, we kinda try to piece our identity together, we know ancient forgotten artificer ways and we create a set of armour. Except, when we do that, we figure out that the armour is sentient and it's us, another us, with different personality and totally different set of skills. This creates disorder in ourselves. And therefore, fighting our contradictory nature, we instinctively are trying to establish order around us to avoid chaotic environment, where our disorder thrives, thus preventing our mission/goal/desires to be achieved/pursued.
@@paigemackie8942 except it's not a disorder, but real case of multiple personalities. I'm not familiar with the correct terms, because I'm not native english, i just tried to deliver my idea as best i could.
I am making a stained glass warforged clockwork soul sorcerer and was looking for some inspiration, and I absolutely LOVE the thematic awesomeness of the armorer artificer for this. I think I'll forego the tank route in favor of making a literal glass cannon instead, but this is why I love this channel: even if the build isn't quite the route I am looking for, there is always a Font of Inspiration to be drawn from.
I've been playing a Clockwork Sorc/Dao Lock Earth Genasi for almost a year and have used so many of these ideas for him as well as your "Shredder" spike growth tactics. Anyone considering a build like this one, I can't begin to recommend it enough. Being a sorcerer that's so well rounded is one of the most rewarding characters I've made.
I love when Colby says "If you love creating new and some what powerful characters, this is where you belong." Thank you so much for having us who love playing DnD with not so powerful characters! I love the videos you put out, keep up the good work!
I spent weeks trying to come up with a clockwork sorcerer build because thematically its my favourite sorcerer subclass. I ended up settling on being Warforged for the +1 ac, and then decided to stack as much AC as possible. A Warforged with 16 DEX wearing medium armour with the medium armour master feat has an AC of 19. You can then add the defense fighting style, magic armour, shields (and magic shields) and also the shield spell. Also, Sorcerers can twin haste which grants another +2 to both you and a teammate. Potentially an AC of 35 without any reliance on teammates! I'm pretty proud of combining all these options - it's probably a common choice, but I'd be super excited to try it nonetheless
Interesting build. Love the fact that you upload on Tuesday’s. I’m a gm for a pizza joint and on Tuesday’s I go open at a store that’s about an hour from my house and these vids are the perfect length for me to listen to on my way home. One of these vids even in a round about way inspired the build for my current character in the campaign I play in. I’m playing a divine soul sorcerer/hexblade warlock that uses a similar combo to your nature cleric sustained dpr build. My go to combo is spirit guardians with eldritch blast+agonizing blast+grasp of hadar to pull them. Also took telekinetic feat to bonus action push a second target in. Also took haste to buff the party paladin and monk for the combats I feel like I should stay back and play the healer/buffer role. Also I like making the other dudes feel more powerful. I’m the only experienced pc in the party so I don’t wanna always steal the spotlight. :)
My Most favourite part of MOM content is the "your SA is int, wis, or cha". Thanks you! This is sooooooo much better than the old "oh youre a tiefling cleric and wanna use your tiefling spells? Get f***ed" Edit: Dwarf race + Dwarven fortitude + Blood vial thingy(if you can get it) just gives you so many more sorcery points. Which this build needs
@@rg6637 Also you don't want to take the Dodge action during combat as a tank because the enemy lose its incentive to attack you, so Wither and Bloom is a nice alternative.
This is definitely top 3 of your builds for me. I love the concept and flavor of this character. Awesome job, and as always; the plant is looking great.
By dipping just one level into hexblade lock, you can focus mostly on charisma rather than intelligence, get access to wrathful smite (which if combined with heightened spell is an insane way to keep an enemy CCed for a long time. It's a wisdom CHECK to break out of it, so no saving throw proficiencies, and disadvantage cause frightened) On top of that, you get the lock slot which is a short rest resource you can use to make sorcery points for more charges for your d8 shield! Mostly for use after you spend your resources but before long rests The d8 shields are great for maintaining concentration if the hit's big, so, worth
One thing to mention about those lovely D8's of Damage reduction is that they don't negate the fact you have been hit, this means you have the chance to activate Armor of Agathys without losing any Temp HP which can be a lot of extra "free" damage.
Love the use of Earth Genasi here I didn't see that coming though after reading through MOM I totally should have lots of great utility to be had. I'm currently working on an earth Genasi bladesinging tank build (another reason why I shoulda seen this coming 😄) Appreciate all the work you do thanks for another fantabulous build!
When you do calculate how many spell slots you're using to buff your HP and your AC, you don't realistically last more than 17 rounds against a Young White Dragon, 4 berserkers or the level 3 fireball. It's relatively easy to calculate, too. You just determine how much damage you take with and without shield/absorb elements, and how often you'll be able to do the former.
I can totally imagine this character being a spiderman villain, either mimicking Venom, your armor becoming this otherworldly aberrant entity giving you this powerful creepy entity, or like doc ock being driven crazy by the will of his tentacle's strange mechanical intelligence
I’ve been winging multiclass builds for a while without any understanding of the underlying principles. I’m finally taking the plunge: doing some reading/viewing on multiclass build theory and use your channel and Treantmonk’s for some examples, because I *absolutely love* making characters, even if I never play them. It’s fun and also good way to make both PCs and NPCs.
The idea of a magical suit of armor being a hexblades patron is so cool. I think thats the first interesting sounding hexblade patron I've heard. You could even have your artificer be a bit underwhelming intelligence wise (13 or 14) but very charismatic. At later level you could take headband of intellect as your armor makes you smarter.
Love the options you just opened up for me with the Armorer. Never noticed the "taunt" before. Got me thinking of another variant. I would think going Armorer 6 and Glamor Bard 14 would be an awesome combo. too bad I can't get unbreakable majesty prior to level 14... so it wouldn't completely come together till level 17.
Clockwork Soul is one of the only sorcerer specs I like, but I haven't had a chance to play one yet. I hadn't realized how powerful the swapping out spells from their Clockwork Magic list can be. And any chance to get Armor of Agathys makes me happy.
I'm a relatively newer pen and paper rpg player who fell into a great group of guys who have been doing it FAR longer. I like these vids so I can seemingly pull wild ideas out of my rear and surprise them. Thanks for making me look like a prodigy my man, don't tell anyone 😂🤫
I really like to see your sorcerer builds, a really under apriciated class in my opinion (both by players and wotc) would be fun to see a aberrant mind sorcerer build from you
Careful spell only works /when you cast a spell that forces/ other creatures to make a saving throw. So works when the spell is cast, and they are making a saving throw.
Subtle Spell is the one of the best metamagics, it lets you cast spells without material components without anyone knowing you're casting them so they can't be counterspelled (confirmed by JC to be RAI as well). Also useful in social situations or if your hands are full can't cast shield or absorb elements normally.
Although you repeatedly gave the caveat regarding resources, I wish that you had taken them into account for the RTD calculation, especially with respect to the damage resistance of Blade Ward. Unlike Shield, Blade Ward can't be used with discretion, and must be applied every round to be effective, so it's predictable when you will run out of that resource - which is well in advance of the RTD numbers you gave. Not taking that into account is as problematic as, say, building a Divination Wizard tank, saying it can use Portent to turn every attack into a miss, thus earning infinite RTD. In reality, the Blade Ward resource is so much less than your RTD in most of your damage reports that it would be a more accurate approximation simply to cut the RTDs in half, ignoring Blade Ward entirely.
This is why we say "at that rate of damage you'd survive for x rounds." It's not really an attempt to calculate how long we'd actually survive (because who needs to survive for that long anyway? It's silly), but how much taking *that* much damage would actually hurt us, based on our current total potential HP. I should probably rename the thing :).
I tend to agree that some effort should be made to predict when resources will be expended. If not, it makes every class with resources to expend wildly inflated in the metrics when maybe the average performance of such a class is the same as one who is consistently durable. I appreciate that sort of detail on Treantmonk’s builds, for example. He pre-defines his adventuring day so that resource expenditure can be factored in. Sure, his adventuring day is on the extreme end, but it does make it consistent at least.
Yeah, I mean, in reality you would survive for 1000 years for this character if they played an elf instead of the 100 from being an earth genasi, heck we would also be able to reincarnate with an immortal elven soul if we just wanted to live forever why not play that immortal warforged this is comparing tankiness to the other tanks from this channel, none of this is universal and you cannot take the numbers and compare them with other channels, but it does allow this channel to have a ranking system clearly, the more resources you have for defence, the more tanky the character is, and out of all the builds on this channel it clearly has the most defensive resources, most combats are around 4 rounds long, so using bladeward every turn isn't a stretch, if the rounds to die is 50, this just means the combat would take up 8% of your hp if you focused every single one of your resources on defense alone, once you run out of that resource, suddenly your rounds to die increases, as you begin to take damage at a faster rate, but if the enemy is dealing damage at a lower rate as they thin out, as they die one by one, the rounds to die roughly decreases linearly as the rounds progress, which is as expected mathematically speaking, it's a very simple model, which actually works really well for how simple it is in practice
edit, but I disagree with saying portent is equivalent, because there are not only fewer uses, but also they only apply once per round, but we don't just have 3 or 4 blade wards by level 10, we have sorcery points for extra blade wards if necessary, taking it to 5 or 6 if we were desperate, but not just that, we could take the stoneskin spell and for an hour with concentration, have the bladeward bonus, that's an entire hour, if we also use the 17th character level ability to always roll at least a 10, concentration would not be easy to break at all in a fight, though possible how often do we get all these spells? well we could take arcana proficiency, with our +3 intelligence we could have a +7 arcana by character level 10, have stone skin, bladeward, and keep in mind it's a cantrip, if we forgo any attacks, we can still cast it does that affect the calculations of survivability? no I mean we could have just taken the dodge action each turn and now we absolutely survive for sure, actually much more effectively than with bladeward, and if hasted while dodging we can still dish out soft taunts, but now enemies won't attack us whatsoever, and if we lose concentration we lose a turn and definitely don't have resistance now the game is complex, but those same factors affect other characters just as much as does us, the barbarian can run out of rages, sure they last a minute but pretty much just burn away if the barbarian is say paralysed and left to cool off, and this character has dumped wisdom, the most important defence, heck, you could just cast dominate person with a spell-like ability from a demon lord, and have the tank taunt the rest of the party to protect its new demon master instead, at the end of the day this character was just built to annoy dms like mine who love damaging party members, and to feel helpful in a way besides dealing damage or crowd control, (which a clockwork soul could also be insany good at) you also forgot to mention that bladeward doesn't affect all damage, what if you are fighting someone with a shadow blade? or a liches necrotic like touch? you don't have resistance against radiant or psychic damage either but a limited use resistance to weapon attacks, or to non magical bludgeoning piercing and slashing does come up, and at least should be considered as an ability I think, with your ac, any hits would be highly likely to be crits anyway, oh we also have limited spell slots for shield, certainly not 50 of those, should we ignore the ac bonus of shield too perhaps? sure its only expended when you know it will be used, we have alot of them, and we *always* have a free reaction no matter what right? it's not like we have anything like counterspell that might occasionally take up that reaction, nor that there are spells and effects like slow that can remove actions and reactions from a pc
When Dragonlance 5e is out, you could taunt as a kender PB/long rest. :). Chaotic kender having a lawful influence as a clockwork soul sorc would be fun. Like Tasslehoff with the time travel device :)
Love this build! As always great video. And hope you had fun with the folks at EC! One of my favorite channels! I've been working on a Aztec/Mexican inspired tank build. I wanted to base the build in Ancestrial Gaurdian. So far I've been messing around with 5 levels of ancestral gaurdian and then some amount of undead pact warlock. Allowing you to cast Armor of Ag. Before raging & active form of dread on the 1st round and move to position with a Greatsword (or a polearm) Then rage and start attacking to apply fear while also making it harder for people to attack your allies and doing tons of extra damage. It's a bit bonus action heavy but you gain a lot of uses of rage and form of dread so you have options or you can stack them for big damage, big temp hp& damage res. Eldritch smite is also an option later on, invocations could actually be useful in combat or out of combat. The flavor is amazing though especially with this theme based in Mesoamerican designs and both subclasses being themed around spirits. (Edit: if you read all of this BIG THANKS!)
I've actually been trying with clockwork soul recently! my favorite so far is an Oath of crown / clockwork soul sorcadin with full plate, a Spear, and shield with polearm master and War caster.
Mate, Thank you SO much for these videos, I've been always a huge fan of D&D even though did not get a lot of chances to play it. Seeing your videos always explodes my brain because of their awesomeness and how you make different classes fit in roles none would even think off! (Sorcerer tank?? WTF??) Thank you for your hard work, I'm sure it's not easy the research but I'm sure I speak for the community when I say that all your videos were amazing and lots of us will be playing these builds in DnD tables! keep up the EPIC work mate!
A rogue modron as your origin and patron could be fun. Perhaps the event that made the modron rogue somehow infused you with power and later as the modron became more aware ( partially due to your growth) a portion of it came through in your works.
Finally level 4 with this build in the battle campaign I'm playing in. The dm allowed us a feat along with other perks so I got sentinel and now I can actually tank for my friends much better. Noone shall hurt my friends for as long as I stand!! Unless I roll bad...
A Silly fun thing to do which would require maybe a belt of strength to boost your STR (or good rolls) is take two extra levels in Barbarian. Reckless attack without the reckless part thanks to trance. run out of blade ward uses and sorcery points, use an action to undoff your armor and rage to half it anyway (ignore the 14-15 AC)
Hey Colby, great job on these videos. After the first Bladesinger build I was hooked. I recently made your Clockwork Sorcerer Tank Build but tweaked a couple things you might like. Shadar Kia race to deal with charmed or frieghtened and Shield Master Feat for Dex saves.
This is a straight up better race to take. Both this and Earth Genasi use a bonus action to get resistances, but the shadar kai resistance is much more comprehensive and is usable just as many times.
In advance I will say that for both armorer Weapons that the part that says you can use int in place of str or dex for your weapon doesn't specify which weapon would be based off of str or dex just that you can use int instead of str or dex so RAW you can use dex (the better stat in my opinion) for both the Thunder Gauntlets and the Lightning Launchers if you just want to go the minimum 13 int for artificer multiclassing The text in question: Each model includes a special weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can add your Intelligence modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, to the attack and damage rolls.
Love the build. Always look forward to and enjoy your videos. A feature I almost thought you were going to explore when you were describing the character, and which could potentially fill a lot of the same roles, is a combo I’ve been thinking of: The Work-a-holic Prep master. (Bit of a mouthful, I’ll admit.) Basic concept is to be a CoffeeLock who takes full advantage of the Elf’s ‘Trance’ ability to gain a full rest in 4 hours, then spend the remaining 4 hours of your companions Long-Rest casting a fuel spells (Aid, Deathward, MageArmor, ‘Bastion of Law’) with short rests to few your Pact Magic. You can boost your whole party for the day and still have all your resources when they wake up. The trickiest part is deciding what Sorcerous Origin to go with. Clockwork is really strong with Defense and knowing more spells. Aberrant Mind could give you a lot of divination spells to gather information, plus knowing more spells. Divine Soul gives you a lot of strong Cleric spells like Warding Bond(pair it with Extended Spell MetaMagic) and DeathWard, but the typical Sorcerer restriction on number of spells known. For your Pact, the Undead and the Undying both get DeathWard at level 7, Hexblade gives you armor and shield proficiency. Alchemist is also fun with this to really mass produce the potions. WoodElf Magic feat gives you Pass Without Trace, which you could extend and then start your day, or after any short rest, with stealth bonus. Would love to have you take a stab at optimizing this.
I know it's a bit of a side note, but the Levistus Lineage Tiefling gets Ray of frost and a 2nd level armor of agathys once a day. I made him a barbarian, 10 temp and damage back, and then rage is a great start to low level combat.
I do think you missed out on one fact that makes Bastion of Law actually pretty strong on this build: "Clockwork Soul: Bastion of Law: [...] The ward is represented by a number of d8s equal to the number of sorcery points spent to create it. When the warded creature takes damage, it can expend a number of those dice, roll them, and reduce the damage taken by the total rolled on those dice." "Armor of Agathys: [...] You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have these hit points, the creature takes 5 cold damage." To explain, if you have Armor of Agathys temp HP, you can use Bastion of Law to reduce the damage on attacks, and still deal the full 5*spell level cold damage of your AoA. This means you can have that damage effect last a whole lot longer by keeping the temp HP using Bastion of Law as a buffer on top of that. It's not going to be amazing in every fight (where there's ranged damage that will also chip away at AoA for no value), but agains plenty of monsters that want to be using melee attacks, you can have insane survivability while also dealing very respectable damage via those upcasted AoAs.
I like to think this specific artificer's guardian armor has an emblem indicating they graduated top of their class in the Interplanetary Combatives Training program. Mayhaps a little inspired by the shirt you're wearing, or by the hoodie I have on as I watch this :D
Ha! I knew you were going to link Chris’s character. The respect between my favorite D&D TH-camrs is, well, respectful. 😁 BTW - still playing the whippoorwill build. It’s a blast.
I love thinking about the earth Genasi being descended from the beings of Mechanus and putting on the infused gauntlets awakened that biology through the magic leaking from the gauntlets into the body
@@CharalamposKoundourakis Yes, but for half their career, this character is only taking 3 dpr...which then gets reduced to zero. That is definitely worth a feat.
Just made a Half-Orc Clockwork Soul Sorcerer (because I love challenges). She has amnesia, so this will be fun. She woke up on an empty ship with no memory of who she is and what happened. She later remembers her name, Rhyfelwr (Welsh for warrior). Spoiler: She later remembers she was first mate to her uncle, captain of the pirate ship she woke up on. Im saving what happened to the crew for the DM to have some fun with. Rhyfelwr (Riv for short) saved a Modron who fell into the plane and as thanks was granted powers. Due to something happening Riv falls unconscious and awakes with amnesia, later learning she's now a sorcerer. The fact a pirate, someone unruly, has something to do with order and balance was a perfect story idea. I can't wait to play this character.
To save on resources during battle, cast aid with extended spell using your highest level spell slot right before you take a long rest, and you get the effects of aid for 8 hours after your long rest
Love to see your take on this. I have actually been inspired by your thornlock concept when I saw it and made my own clockwork sorc tank. She is a paladin 3 (I went with crown, but conquest works as well for the crowd control channel divinity) and currently clockwork sorc level 7 half elf, using metamagic to quick cast melfs minute meteors or wind ward and regular action blade ward(although I would love to take earth genasi, alas my DM is old school one...) I did get him to let me have amulet of the devout for extra cast of channel divinity
My girl has orderly ocd. Everything needs to go in 3s or divisible by 3. So she uses dancing light cantrip all the time in party of 4 (summoning 2 dancing light fairy like shapes and calling them tinker and Belle, insisting they are real :)
Clockwork Soul always reminds me of Sotha Sil from The Elder Scrolls series of games. A warforged would also fit perfectly for that theme as well since he built his Clockwork City and created mechanical equivalents of biological creatures. Your character could even be one of his Imperfects. Alternatively, this would be amazing in an adaptation of a certain part of the Tribunal expansion of TES III: Morrowind. Fighting this build would be a challenge.
23:23 anyone that says Shadow Blade can't be used with Booming Blade needs to explain why Thunder Gauntlets can. I don't see a price by those Thunder Gauntlets, but I'd sure allow it anyway! RAW doesn't give a value for either SB or TG, but that doesn't mean they should be assumed to be 0.
18:40 RAW I don't think you can use the weapon infusion on your gauntlets until artificer 9. Before then they are a part of the suit of armor. Or at the very least, you wouldn't be able to used both enhanced armor and enhanced weapon since the armor is a single item.
I’m torn on this. Yes, DDB does not do this because the Infusion feature looks for items in your inventory. The Gauntlets are just an added attack action. I would probably rule the Gauntlets are magical since they are part of the Arcane Armor feature. Edit: and upon further research, I changed my mind. The armor is not magical and can be infused. 😝
@@kaneofmars Ha ha that's what the vast majority seem to think and rule at their tables. Obviously it'd be one to double check with your DM before hand!
I just made a character very similar to this, but also entirely different. The goal being the ultimate support / healer. Race: Mark of Healing Halfing. 1 level into clockwork soul sorcery for Restore Balance then 1 level into Order Domain Cleric for Voice of Authority, cleric spells, and medium armor and shield proficiency. Then back to sorcery until level 7 for Bastion of Law, picking up twinned and quickened meta magics, bountiful luck feat, and Magical Guidance on the way. Then 3 levels into fighter (Protection fighting style) to get Battlemaster with Commander's Strike, Rally, Maneuvering strike. After level 10, you really can go anywhere. 1 more into Cleric for channel divinity? More sorcery levels for Trance of Order and higher level sorcery spells? More fighter for more of a front liner healer? Also the combo of Bloodwell Vial with Bastion of Law is nuts. Try this out and tell me what you think!!
I really like your overall approach. If I'm playing a BLANK subclass/concept I want to play the best version of *that* not one that is got a chassis of a class inspired by a concept but feels like something absolutely integral on a thematic and mechanical level. As you say, one isn't better than another but if every creator is trying to create the same kind of optimization 2/3 of them could go away.
Having made a build similar to this, I think a couple of things would improve this even more. 1. The Heavy Armor Master feat would improve the rounds to die a bit. 2. Fire Shield would give the character resistance to fire for 10 minutes (freeing up your spell slots for Cure Wounds or Armor of Agathys). Another thing that is cool, but probably wouldn't improve survivability very much, is the Extended metamagic. I would cast Extended Aid the night before with the highest spell slot I had. I also liked extended Armor of Agathys and Fire Shield. It made me fairly confident those spells wouldn't be wasted.
Something else that was fun for this build was the Earth Elemental Essence Shard. That gave my character resistance to any type of damage I couldn't get easily.
I'm curious, would you ever consider other methods of tanking besides giving disadvantage to attacks your allies? The reason I mention this is for a few reasons. First, in the non-boss fight scenario examples, you'd only be able to taunt up to half the creatures in a turn. Secondly, the AC on your tank is so high, that the enemies might still have a better chance to hit a squishier ally. Lastly, it means build diversity is limited if a tank has to be a cavalier, battlemaster, armorer, ancestral guardian, or occasionally battlesmith. I love your builds regardless, BTW.
drawing aggro is a defining feature of a tank so pretty necessary, how else would you make an enemy attack you and not your allies? there are some paladin things you can do to limit movement (crown, conquest) but if you have an ally near you, they can just attack your friends
You can twin Booming Blade to hit 2 target for a single sorcery point with an action. Instead of using quicken spell for 2 sorcery points, your action AND bonus action.
I love taking classes and figuring out how to make them really good at things they are traditionally "weak" at. Playing a class non-traditionally seems so much more fun! ...and what could be more fun than making any/all your party members that do not build at all for tankiness into super tanks! I had an idea for a temp HP generator and pairing it with warding bond to spread out HP loss. My build focused on divine soul for warding bond, heroism from paladin dip, and potentially interception fighting style from pal or using reaction for shield/absorb elements. Taking warlock to get false life as free cast to boost self HP each round instead of attacking (variant human eldritch adept?). and finally artificer artilliarist for protector cannon. probably tough to run numbers on for solo character but would be interesting in a party that gets hit from all sides. Also might not scale that well... This might still work for a duo episode, but probably more interesting idea than actually optimized. works better on small hits than big ones, especially with rounding down damage from resistance. ...then twilight cleric happened and ... well... definately overshadowed... probably could still use heroism via fey touched and protector cannon.
I know normally you don't make builds that require a magic item, but my favorite build at the moment is one based on the Mizzium Apparatus. It allows my character to have tons of spell options! It's so fun :) The character I'm playing is an Aarakocra (he was a gnome but died and got reincarnated haha) Knowledge Cleric 1/ Circle of the Stars Druid 2 / Divination Wizard X The 3 classes are full casters, so I don't lose spell progression Knowledge Cleric gives me expertise in Arcana, Circle of the Stars Druid gives me the Dragon Starry Form so that I have at least 10 in Arcana and Concentration and divination wizard has portent I would love to see your take on it!! Keep up with the amazing content!
I haven't done character sheets for the builds yet. I *do* put out written “cheat sheets” for the builds, but it *is* actually the one thing I give as a benefit to members of the channel - here’s a little video I did explaining why if you’re at all interested - I’d love to have you as a member! (it’s pretty cheap : ) ) th-cam.com/video/op_QNygYv3E/w-d-xo.html
If you forego every ASI listed in favor of Charisma/Intelligence bumps, you keep a decent chunk of the tank ability but majorly increase your offensive viability. Reminder that this is still a Sorcerer with Twinned and Quickened Spell. You can blow a mf up if you need to.
Colby: You are missing out on describing how you would flavor these spells as an Artificer / Clockwork Soul. For example, do you imagine Thorn Whip as a strand of barbed wire that lashes out to pull opponents back towards you? You also tend to focus on damage over utility. Faerie Fire works even against objects: “For the duration, objects and affected creatures shed dim light in a 10-foot radius.” I think that is important for this character.
The way Colby says "welcome home" always brings an enormous smile to my face.
Sames. I like the videos, but then feel like I’m hanging with a friend, not just power gaming
Recently while watching back some old eps I came to the realization that Colby and this show have become my comfort watch.
I thought I was the only one
Yes!
@@bossarugamer felt that lol
This and Treantsmonk's are my favorite dnd optimizers channels. And it's really not because of the math or theory craft. It's because of the attitude. Colby and Chris are so genuine and welcoming and it just makes it feel like you're just chatting with a friend. And it really warms my heart to hear "welcome home, this is where you belong."
They are DnD's Oogway
Literally refreshing the page waiting for this one, super excited
Me every week ^
Yep
I’m pretty excited. A little late to the party
Anyone thinking about becoming a subscriber, I have to say that I cannot recommend ENOUGH doing so. Not only are the written breakdowns terrific and you're supporting an awesome channel, Colby also sometimes posts some crazy slash fiction.
Ok, so that last part might be untrue, but the rest isn't.
lol! *furiously begins writing some crazy slash fiction*
@@DnDDeepDive My body is ready.
I love specializing as a character. Thats why you're my first stop for new character builds when i jump in a session. Its great. Like i just started playing your Ice Mage build, and its been fantastic, save for the part where we got captured and the captain has some magic dampening item and im trying to stealth without proficiency and have an 8 strength lol. Im getting carried, but boy when im out ill be super useful again
You shall have your spotlight, brother!
@@oathboundhero1782 right now the only magic ive gotten to work is message, so im the teams walkie talkie while we try to take care of that dampener lol. Im taking all the credit i can
love the interaction between armor of agathys and the sorcerer's bastion of law. by reducing the damage your armor takes, you effectively prolong its duration, allowing it to deal way more damage over more impacts against you
My alternative version of this which is a bit* more "pure" Sorc.
Tortle STR-based Clockwork Soul Sorc. Pure Clockwork Soul outside of a 2 level dip in Pali. Your goal is to invest in Strength, use your staff for attacks (hence investment in STR), take Warcaster at level 4, and use Booming Blade + Smite to make enemies stick to you with pure damage.
Luckily there are SO many excellent spells on the Clockwork Soul spell list that require 0 saving throws so we take the minimum 13 in CHA and just pump up our STR and CON.
Warcaster + High CON + Proficiency allows for safe casting of Haste essentially allowing us to get multi-attack without a investment in a martial class, along with the other numerous benefits. We can also TWIN this to boost another martial in the party.
Eventually we can get Crusher and pull off the "Catch-22" for HUGE burst. We can use AoA + Haste + Aid all at once to do massive amounts of tanking. And we can use metamagic to twin amazing concentration spells and protect that concentration extremely well. I love my Clockwork Soul tank!!
Tortle is also very cool flavor-wise for this kind of build because you can integrate stuff like armor plating or clockwork elements into your shell.
The 2-level dip in Paladin and investment in STR can be replaced with 1 level in Hexblade Warlock instead. In exchange for the burst damage of Smite, you can use your CHA modifier for attack and damage rolls. You still get the (one-handed) martial weapon and shield proficiencies, too.
Once you get War Caster (or ideally, you start this character at 5th level+), you can swap out your staff for a one-handed martial weapon like a warhammer for better damage.
The only downsides I can think of is that you don't get the +1 AC from the Defense fighting style, so you only get a max AC of 19 instead of 20 after the dip, and you lose the Paladin features.
Alt point buy numbers:
Str- 8
Dex - 10
Con - 14
Wis - 10
Int - 14
Cha - 15
Give
+2 to Con, +1 to Cha.
Gives +3 con mod, +3 Cha mod
At 1st ASI get +2 int for +3 int.
Only drop Str.
But your taunt requires INT to attack, I don't think 14 is enough unless you take one level on hexblade
I'm probably gonna steal this build and modify to suit my tastes, thank you very much.
Hexblade dip sounds delicious, btw. And i think that it might work as a narrative tool with one condition: ancient warforged.
Okay, let's say that we are ancient warforged found in a forgotten dungeon. We come online for the first time in X hundreds/thousands of years, our memory block is damaged, personality fragmented. But we don't know about it. So, we kinda try to piece our identity together, we know ancient forgotten artificer ways and we create a set of armour. Except, when we do that, we figure out that the armour is sentient and it's us, another us, with different personality and totally different set of skills. This creates disorder in ourselves. And therefore, fighting our contradictory nature, we instinctively are trying to establish order around us to avoid chaotic environment, where our disorder thrives, thus preventing our mission/goal/desires to be achieved/pursued.
Bro, this is fantastic story
Could be a Modron as well
Love it!
That sounds a lot like Dissociative Identity Disorder, if you replace "personality" with "identity" or "alter"
Good story tho I like it
@@paigemackie8942 except it's not a disorder, but real case of multiple personalities. I'm not familiar with the correct terms, because I'm not native english, i just tried to deliver my idea as best i could.
33:40 the silence spell is also insanely effective, and is single handedly the best antimage spell in the game when a sentinel is in your party.
I am making a stained glass warforged clockwork soul sorcerer and was looking for some inspiration, and I absolutely LOVE the thematic awesomeness of the armorer artificer for this. I think I'll forego the tank route in favor of making a literal glass cannon instead, but this is why I love this channel: even if the build isn't quite the route I am looking for, there is always a Font of Inspiration to be drawn from.
I've been playing a Clockwork Sorc/Dao Lock Earth Genasi for almost a year and have used so many of these ideas for him as well as your "Shredder" spike growth tactics. Anyone considering a build like this one, I can't begin to recommend it enough. Being a sorcerer that's so well rounded is one of the most rewarding characters I've made.
Not saying the art is bad, it’s amazing. But, there’s a big missed opportunity. Should’ve had the shield as a huge Clock (Pocket Watch)
Name: Flavander Flavius
@@evannewell7985 Seriously underrated reply
I love when Colby says "If you love creating new and some what powerful characters, this is where you belong." Thank you so much for having us who love playing DnD with not so powerful characters! I love the videos you put out, keep up the good work!
I seriously can never get enough of this channel. I’m gearing up to use a tweaked Psi Knife in my group’s upcoming campaign.
Ah, the best D&D channel, not only do you get to learn more about the game, but you also get some soothing ASMR.
I spent weeks trying to come up with a clockwork sorcerer build because thematically its my favourite sorcerer subclass.
I ended up settling on being Warforged for the +1 ac, and then decided to stack as much AC as possible.
A Warforged with 16 DEX wearing medium armour with the medium armour master feat has an AC of 19. You can then add the defense fighting style, magic armour, shields (and magic shields) and also the shield spell.
Also, Sorcerers can twin haste which grants another +2 to both you and a teammate.
Potentially an AC of 35 without any reliance on teammates!
I'm pretty proud of combining all these options - it's probably a common choice, but I'd be super excited to try it nonetheless
This video came out just in time when I needed a new tank build that I haven't done before! Thanks!
Interesting build. Love the fact that you upload on Tuesday’s. I’m a gm for a pizza joint and on Tuesday’s I go open at a store that’s about an hour from my house and these vids are the perfect length for me to listen to on my way home. One of these vids even in a round about way inspired the build for my current character in the campaign I play in. I’m playing a divine soul sorcerer/hexblade warlock that uses a similar combo to your nature cleric sustained dpr build. My go to combo is spirit guardians with eldritch blast+agonizing blast+grasp of hadar to pull them. Also took telekinetic feat to bonus action push a second target in. Also took haste to buff the party paladin and monk for the combats I feel like I should stay back and play the healer/buffer role. Also I like making the other dudes feel more powerful. I’m the only experienced pc in the party so I don’t wanna always steal the spotlight. :)
My Most favourite part of MOM content is the "your SA is int, wis, or cha". Thanks you! This is sooooooo much better than the old "oh youre a tiefling cleric and wanna use your tiefling spells? Get f***ed"
Edit: Dwarf race + Dwarven fortitude + Blood vial thingy(if you can get it) just gives you so many more sorcery points. Which this build needs
I’ve always called it “SCAM” spell casting ability modifier, for that reason.
Bloodwell vial
@@0_Body gave that to my Con based sorcerer. Very good item.
Wither and Bloom is another fantastic option. It is not race specific and is a decent 2nd level spell instead of a feat tax.
@@rg6637 Also you don't want to take the Dodge action during combat as a tank because the enemy lose its incentive to attack you, so Wither and Bloom is a nice alternative.
Bless your sneeze at the end, very interesting build 😊😊
HELL YEAH my fav sorcerer subclass by far. Thanks Colby!
This is definitely top 3 of your builds for me. I love the concept and flavor of this character. Awesome job, and as always; the plant is looking great.
Animate objects combined with a few flasks of alchemist’s fire/acid can be an absolutely mean and explosive combo.
By dipping just one level into hexblade lock, you can focus mostly on charisma rather than intelligence, get access to wrathful smite (which if combined with heightened spell is an insane way to keep an enemy CCed for a long time. It's a wisdom CHECK to break out of it, so no saving throw proficiencies, and disadvantage cause frightened)
On top of that, you get the lock slot which is a short rest resource you can use to make sorcery points for more charges for your d8 shield! Mostly for use after you spend your resources but before long rests
The d8 shields are great for maintaining concentration if the hit's big, so, worth
An armorer/clockwork soul multiclass? You’re killing me, Colby! I kid of course.
Iron Man:
th-cam.com/video/H55cHSnCMyQ/w-d-xo.html
One thing to mention about those lovely D8's of Damage reduction is that they don't negate the fact you have been hit, this means you have the chance to activate Armor of Agathys without losing any Temp HP which can be a lot of extra "free" damage.
Yes! This plus Blade Ward, and a 2 level Abjuration Wizard dip makes the AoA tHPs last sooooooooo much longer.
Love the use of Earth Genasi here I didn't see that coming though after reading through MOM I totally should have lots of great utility to be had. I'm currently working on an earth Genasi bladesinging tank build (another reason why I shoulda seen this coming 😄) Appreciate all the work you do thanks for another fantabulous build!
Love the shirt! Mass Effect is my favorite video game franchise.
Thanks! Same here :).
Count me for this fan train! N7 Day is also my Bday!
It is SOOO GOOD!!!
I will likely be trying this out soon, playing character from 7 to level 20. I'll keep you posted for the results!
When you do calculate how many spell slots you're using to buff your HP and your AC, you don't realistically last more than 17 rounds against a Young White Dragon, 4 berserkers or the level 3 fireball.
It's relatively easy to calculate, too. You just determine how much damage you take with and without shield/absorb elements, and how often you'll be able to do the former.
I can totally imagine this character being a spiderman villain, either mimicking Venom, your armor becoming this otherworldly aberrant entity giving you this powerful creepy entity, or like doc ock being driven crazy by the will of his tentacle's strange mechanical intelligence
This might be one of the only build that would help us actually punch our enemies as a caster without any monk level or feat. Great!
I’ve been winging multiclass builds for a while without any understanding of the underlying principles. I’m finally taking the plunge: doing some reading/viewing on multiclass build theory and use your channel and Treantmonk’s for some examples, because I *absolutely love* making characters, even if I never play them. It’s fun and also good way to make both PCs and NPCs.
The idea of a magical suit of armor being a hexblades patron is so cool. I think thats the first interesting sounding hexblade patron I've heard. You could even have your artificer be a bit underwhelming intelligence wise (13 or 14) but very charismatic. At later level you could take headband of intellect as your armor makes you smarter.
Love the options you just opened up for me with the Armorer. Never noticed the "taunt" before. Got me thinking of another variant. I would think going Armorer 6 and Glamor Bard 14 would be an awesome combo. too bad I can't get unbreakable majesty prior to level 14... so it wouldn't completely come together till level 17.
Clockwork Soul is one of the only sorcerer specs I like, but I haven't had a chance to play one yet. I hadn't realized how powerful the swapping out spells from their Clockwork Magic list can be. And any chance to get Armor of Agathys makes me happy.
My favorite thing about this tank build is how much of your tanky abilities can be given to allies
I'm a relatively newer pen and paper rpg player who fell into a great group of guys who have been doing it FAR longer. I like these vids so I can seemingly pull wild ideas out of my rear and surprise them. Thanks for making me look like a prodigy my man, don't tell anyone 😂🤫
My lips are sealed! :)
I play a Clockwork Sorcerer tank in one of my campaigns! I'm sure whatever you come up with here will be more optimized but it's a fun one!
I am a viewer and this is my favorite DnD Channel on the Citadel.
I recently made my own Artificer tank with an Abjuration wizard. Needless to say it was extremely fun
I really like to see your sorcerer builds, a really under apriciated class in my opinion (both by players and wotc) would be fun to see a aberrant mind sorcerer build from you
Careful spell only works /when you cast a spell that forces/ other creatures to make a saving throw. So works when the spell is cast, and they are making a saving throw.
Wow. I would never have thought to use booming blade twice in one round!
Subtle Spell is the one of the best metamagics, it lets you cast spells without material components without anyone knowing you're casting them so they can't be counterspelled (confirmed by JC to be RAI as well). Also useful in social situations or if your hands are full can't cast shield or absorb elements normally.
Although you repeatedly gave the caveat regarding resources, I wish that you had taken them into account for the RTD calculation, especially with respect to the damage resistance of Blade Ward. Unlike Shield, Blade Ward can't be used with discretion, and must be applied every round to be effective, so it's predictable when you will run out of that resource - which is well in advance of the RTD numbers you gave. Not taking that into account is as problematic as, say, building a Divination Wizard tank, saying it can use Portent to turn every attack into a miss, thus earning infinite RTD.
In reality, the Blade Ward resource is so much less than your RTD in most of your damage reports that it would be a more accurate approximation simply to cut the RTDs in half, ignoring Blade Ward entirely.
is that considering turning high level slots into tons of sorcery points in order to quicken blade ward, basically substituting the genasi's feature?
This is why we say "at that rate of damage you'd survive for x rounds." It's not really an attempt to calculate how long we'd actually survive (because who needs to survive for that long anyway? It's silly), but how much taking *that* much damage would actually hurt us, based on our current total potential HP. I should probably rename the thing :).
I tend to agree that some effort should be made to predict when resources will be expended. If not, it makes every class with resources to expend wildly inflated in the metrics when maybe the average performance of such a class is the same as one who is consistently durable.
I appreciate that sort of detail on Treantmonk’s builds, for example.
He pre-defines his adventuring day so that resource expenditure can be factored in. Sure, his adventuring day is on the extreme end, but it does make it consistent at least.
Yeah, I mean, in reality you would survive for 1000 years for this character if they played an elf instead of the 100 from being an earth genasi, heck we would also be able to reincarnate with an immortal elven soul
if we just wanted to live forever why not play that immortal warforged
this is comparing tankiness to the other tanks from this channel, none of this is universal and you cannot take the numbers and compare them with other channels, but it does allow this channel to have a ranking system
clearly, the more resources you have for defence, the more tanky the character is, and out of all the builds on this channel it clearly has the most defensive resources,
most combats are around 4 rounds long, so using bladeward every turn isn't a stretch, if the rounds to die is 50, this just means the combat would take up 8% of your hp if you focused every single one of your resources on defense alone, once you run out of that resource, suddenly your rounds to die increases, as you begin to take damage at a faster rate, but if the enemy is dealing damage at a lower rate as they thin out, as they die one by one, the rounds to die roughly decreases linearly as the rounds progress, which is as expected
mathematically speaking, it's a very simple model, which actually works really well for how simple it is in practice
edit, but I disagree with saying portent is equivalent, because there are not only fewer uses, but also they only apply once per round,
but we don't just have 3 or 4 blade wards by level 10, we have sorcery points for extra blade wards if necessary, taking it to 5 or 6 if we were desperate, but not just that,
we could take the stoneskin spell and for an hour with concentration, have the bladeward bonus, that's an entire hour, if we also use the 17th character level ability to always roll at least a 10, concentration would not be easy to break at all in a fight, though possible
how often do we get all these spells? well we could take arcana proficiency, with our +3 intelligence we could have a +7 arcana by character level 10, have stone skin, bladeward,
and keep in mind it's a cantrip, if we forgo any attacks, we can still cast it
does that affect the calculations of survivability? no I mean we could have just taken the dodge action each turn and now we absolutely survive for sure, actually much more effectively than with bladeward, and if hasted while dodging we can still dish out soft taunts, but now enemies won't attack us whatsoever, and if we lose concentration we lose a turn and definitely don't have resistance now
the game is complex, but those same factors affect other characters just as much as does us,
the barbarian can run out of rages, sure they last a minute but pretty much just burn away if the barbarian is say paralysed and left to cool off, and this character has dumped wisdom, the most important defence, heck, you could just cast dominate person with a spell-like ability from a demon lord, and have the tank taunt the rest of the party to protect its new demon master instead,
at the end of the day this character was just built to annoy dms like mine who love damaging party members, and to feel helpful in a way besides dealing damage or crowd control, (which a clockwork soul could also be insany good at)
you also forgot to mention that bladeward doesn't affect all damage, what if you are fighting someone with a shadow blade? or a liches necrotic like touch? you don't have resistance against radiant or psychic damage either
but a limited use resistance to weapon attacks, or to non magical bludgeoning piercing and slashing does come up, and at least should be considered as an ability I think,
with your ac, any hits would be highly likely to be crits anyway,
oh we also have limited spell slots for shield, certainly not 50 of those, should we ignore the ac bonus of shield too perhaps? sure its only expended when you know it will be used, we have alot of them, and we *always* have a free reaction no matter what right? it's not like we have anything like counterspell that might occasionally take up that reaction, nor that there are spells and effects like slow that can remove actions and reactions from a pc
Talking about INT and CHA MADness, would love to see a Hexblade and Bladesinger multiclass build c:
When Dragonlance 5e is out, you could taunt as a kender PB/long rest. :).
Chaotic kender having a lawful influence as a clockwork soul sorc would be fun.
Like Tasslehoff with the time travel device :)
Love this build! As always great video. And hope you had fun with the folks at EC! One of my favorite channels!
I've been working on a Aztec/Mexican inspired tank build. I wanted to base the build in Ancestrial Gaurdian. So far I've been messing around with 5 levels of ancestral gaurdian and then some amount of undead pact warlock. Allowing you to cast Armor of Ag. Before raging & active form of dread on the 1st round and move to position with a Greatsword (or a polearm)
Then rage and start attacking to apply fear while also making it harder for people to attack your allies and doing tons of extra damage.
It's a bit bonus action heavy but you gain a lot of uses of rage and form of dread so you have options or you can stack them for big damage, big temp hp& damage res.
Eldritch smite is also an option later on, invocations could actually be useful in combat or out of combat.
The flavor is amazing though especially with this theme based in Mesoamerican designs and both subclasses being themed around spirits.
(Edit: if you read all of this BIG THANKS!)
I've actually been trying with clockwork soul recently! my favorite so far is an Oath of crown / clockwork soul sorcadin with full plate, a Spear, and shield with polearm master and War caster.
At our table I think this one would meet an early wisdom save.... fantastic build
Mate, Thank you SO much for these videos, I've been always a huge fan of D&D even though did not get a lot of chances to play it. Seeing your videos always explodes my brain because of their awesomeness and how you make different classes fit in roles none would even think off! (Sorcerer tank?? WTF??)
Thank you for your hard work, I'm sure it's not easy the research but I'm sure I speak for the community when I say that all your videos were amazing and lots of us will be playing these builds in DnD tables!
keep up the EPIC work mate!
I'm going to get to play this build in a very short level 17 campaign (like 4-5 sessions total) and I am very excited
Thanks for pronouncing Genasi properly.
The number of times I've heard different people pronounce it "gen-sai" is enough to drive a lesser person mad.
A rogue modron as your origin and patron could be fun. Perhaps the event that made the modron rogue somehow infused you with power and later as the modron became more aware ( partially due to your growth) a portion of it came through in your works.
Clockwork sorcerer: how to run out of sorcery point before the first encounter...
Blood well vial +1 is only uncommon so should be found early. Talk your dm into allowing wither and bloom to regain the points in combat
This sounds like such a fun character build, second favourite next to the wizard tank
Before watching, I’m guessing some combination of Clockwork and Order cleric for the armor and a bit of healing. I’m excited for this build!
Finally level 4 with this build in the battle campaign I'm playing in. The dm allowed us a feat along with other perks so I got sentinel and now I can actually tank for my friends much better. Noone shall hurt my friends for as long as I stand!! Unless I roll bad...
You have some really good ideas. Thanks for the builds!
A Silly fun thing to do which would require maybe a belt of strength to boost your STR (or good rolls) is take two extra levels in Barbarian.
Reckless attack without the reckless part thanks to trance.
run out of blade ward uses and sorcery points, use an action to undoff your armor and rage to half it anyway (ignore the 14-15 AC)
20:30 GLORIOUS EVOLUTION!
Hey Colby, great job on these videos. After the first Bladesinger build I was hooked. I recently made your Clockwork Sorcerer Tank Build but tweaked a couple things you might like. Shadar Kia race to deal with charmed or frieghtened and Shield Master Feat for Dex saves.
This is a straight up better race to take. Both this and Earth Genasi use a bonus action to get resistances, but the shadar kai resistance is much more comprehensive and is usable just as many times.
@@ClintonJohnson1and the shadar kai is not casting a spell with his bonus action so you can teleport and cast a spell on the same turn
Amazing! Thanks for some ideas for new characters one of my friends was looking for a build like this!
In advance I will say that for both armorer Weapons that the part that says you can use int in place of str or dex for your weapon doesn't specify which weapon would be based off of str or dex just that you can use int instead of str or dex so RAW you can use dex (the better stat in my opinion) for both the Thunder Gauntlets and the Lightning Launchers if you just want to go the minimum 13 int for artificer multiclassing
The text in question:
Each model includes a special weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can add your Intelligence modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, to the attack and damage rolls.
My God this guy unintentionally combines D&D and ASMR...😆
Love the build. Always look forward to and enjoy your videos.
A feature I almost thought you were going to explore when you were describing the character, and which could potentially fill a lot of the same roles, is a combo I’ve been thinking of: The Work-a-holic Prep master. (Bit of a mouthful, I’ll admit.)
Basic concept is to be a CoffeeLock who takes full advantage of the Elf’s ‘Trance’ ability to gain a full rest in 4 hours, then spend the remaining 4 hours of your companions Long-Rest casting a fuel spells (Aid, Deathward, MageArmor, ‘Bastion of Law’) with short rests to few your Pact Magic. You can boost your whole party for the day and still have all your resources when they wake up.
The trickiest part is deciding what Sorcerous Origin to go with.
Clockwork is really strong with Defense and knowing more spells.
Aberrant Mind could give you a lot of divination spells to gather information, plus knowing more spells.
Divine Soul gives you a lot of strong Cleric spells like Warding Bond(pair it with Extended Spell MetaMagic) and DeathWard, but the typical Sorcerer restriction on number of spells known.
For your Pact, the Undead and the Undying both get DeathWard at level 7, Hexblade gives you armor and shield proficiency.
Alchemist is also fun with this to really mass produce the potions.
WoodElf Magic feat gives you Pass Without Trace, which you could extend and then start your day, or after any short rest, with stealth bonus.
Would love to have you take a stab at optimizing this.
I know it's a bit of a side note, but the Levistus Lineage Tiefling gets Ray of frost and a 2nd level armor of agathys once a day. I made him a barbarian, 10 temp and damage back, and then rage is a great start to low level combat.
I do think you missed out on one fact that makes Bastion of Law actually pretty strong on this build:
"Clockwork Soul: Bastion of Law:
[...] The ward is represented by a number of d8s equal to the number of sorcery points spent to create it. When the warded creature takes damage, it can expend a number of those dice, roll them, and reduce the damage taken by the total rolled on those dice."
"Armor of Agathys:
[...] You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have these hit points, the creature takes 5 cold damage."
To explain, if you have Armor of Agathys temp HP, you can use Bastion of Law to reduce the damage on attacks, and still deal the full 5*spell level cold damage of your AoA. This means you can have that damage effect last a whole lot longer by keeping the temp HP using Bastion of Law as a buffer on top of that. It's not going to be amazing in every fight (where there's ranged damage that will also chip away at AoA for no value), but agains plenty of monsters that want to be using melee attacks, you can have insane survivability while also dealing very respectable damage via those upcasted AoAs.
100%
I like to think this specific artificer's guardian armor has an emblem indicating they graduated top of their class in the Interplanetary Combatives Training program.
Mayhaps a little inspired by the shirt you're wearing, or by the hoodie I have on as I watch this :D
Ha! I knew you were going to link Chris’s character.
The respect between my favorite D&D TH-camrs is, well, respectful. 😁
BTW - still playing the whippoorwill build. It’s a blast.
Yay!
I love thinking about the earth Genasi being descended from the beings of Mechanus and putting on the infused gauntlets awakened that biology through the magic leaking from the gauntlets into the body
Fun and ridiculous as always! Thanks for always exploring what's possible! Also great shirt!
You could also take Heavy Armor Master Feat to reduce non-magical Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing damage by 3 points per attack.
Nah it doesn't scale well. Useful at early levels but when your taking twenty damage per hit...
@@CharalamposKoundourakis it does when monsters start getting extra attacks.
@@CharalamposKoundourakis Yes, but for half their career, this character is only taking 3 dpr...which then gets reduced to zero. That is definitely worth a feat.
My name is Commander John, and this is my favorite D&D show in the citadel.
Just made a Half-Orc Clockwork Soul Sorcerer (because I love challenges). She has amnesia, so this will be fun. She woke up on an empty ship with no memory of who she is and what happened. She later remembers her name, Rhyfelwr (Welsh for warrior).
Spoiler:
She later remembers she was first mate to her uncle, captain of the pirate ship she woke up on. Im saving what happened to the crew for the DM to have some fun with. Rhyfelwr (Riv for short) saved a Modron who fell into the plane and as thanks was granted powers. Due to something happening Riv falls unconscious and awakes with amnesia, later learning she's now a sorcerer.
The fact a pirate, someone unruly, has something to do with order and balance was a perfect story idea. I can't wait to play this character.
This build sounds super fun to play :D
To save on resources during battle, cast aid with extended spell using your highest level spell slot right before you take a long rest, and you get the effects of aid for 8 hours after your long rest
Love to see your take on this. I have actually been inspired by your thornlock concept when I saw it and made my own clockwork sorc tank. She is a paladin 3 (I went with crown, but conquest works as well for the crowd control channel divinity) and currently clockwork sorc level 7 half elf, using metamagic to quick cast melfs minute meteors or wind ward and regular action blade ward(although I would love to take earth genasi, alas my DM is old school one...)
I did get him to let me have amulet of the devout for extra cast of channel divinity
My girl has orderly ocd. Everything needs to go in 3s or divisible by 3. So she uses dancing light cantrip all the time in party of 4 (summoning 2 dancing light fairy like shapes and calling them tinker and Belle, insisting they are real :)
@@Lucky_Luke486 love it!
Clockwork Soul always reminds me of Sotha Sil from The Elder Scrolls series of games. A warforged would also fit perfectly for that theme as well since he built his Clockwork City and created mechanical equivalents of biological creatures. Your character could even be one of his Imperfects. Alternatively, this would be amazing in an adaptation of a certain part of the Tribunal expansion of TES III: Morrowind. Fighting this build would be a challenge.
i LOVE the idea of this build so much
This was the build i was waiting for, Thank You!
23:23 anyone that says Shadow Blade can't be used with Booming Blade needs to explain why Thunder Gauntlets can. I don't see a price by those Thunder Gauntlets, but I'd sure allow it anyway! RAW doesn't give a value for either SB or TG, but that doesn't mean they should be assumed to be 0.
I want a MOM Kenku next. Also, something that makes the sad MOM Kobald work.
18:40 RAW I don't think you can use the weapon infusion on your gauntlets until artificer 9. Before then they are a part of the suit of armor. Or at the very least, you wouldn't be able to used both enhanced armor and enhanced weapon since the armor is a single item.
Enhanced Armor would go on your shield :). I'm confident this is just something that D&D Beyond needs to fix, but I could be wrong!
I’m torn on this. Yes, DDB does not do this because the Infusion feature looks for items in your inventory. The Gauntlets are just an added attack action.
I would probably rule the Gauntlets are magical since they are part of the Arcane Armor feature.
Edit: and upon further research, I changed my mind. The armor is not magical and can be infused. 😝
@@kaneofmars Ha ha that's what the vast majority seem to think and rule at their tables. Obviously it'd be one to double check with your DM before hand!
This was insane and I loved it so much.
I just made a character very similar to this, but also entirely different. The goal being the ultimate support / healer. Race: Mark of Healing Halfing. 1 level into clockwork soul sorcery for Restore Balance then 1 level into Order Domain Cleric for Voice of Authority, cleric spells, and medium armor and shield proficiency. Then back to sorcery until level 7 for Bastion of Law, picking up twinned and quickened meta magics, bountiful luck feat, and Magical Guidance on the way. Then 3 levels into fighter (Protection fighting style) to get Battlemaster with Commander's Strike, Rally, Maneuvering strike. After level 10, you really can go anywhere. 1 more into Cleric for channel divinity? More sorcery levels for Trance of Order and higher level sorcery spells? More fighter for more of a front liner healer? Also the combo of Bloodwell Vial with Bastion of Law is nuts. Try this out and tell me what you think!!
Adding this to the ever growing list of characters I want to play but will probably never get to! 😂😭
It makes me sad :(
I really like your overall approach. If I'm playing a BLANK subclass/concept I want to play the best version of *that* not one that is got a chassis of a class inspired by a concept but feels like something absolutely integral on a thematic and mechanical level.
As you say, one isn't better than another but if every creator is trying to create the same kind of optimization 2/3 of them could go away.
05:55 OMG, those guns ... I'm melting!
Starting of as a Warlock that is taunt by an entity how to craft demonic imbued armour would be a super cool backstory!
Having made a build similar to this, I think a couple of things would improve this even more. 1. The Heavy Armor Master feat would improve the rounds to die a bit. 2. Fire Shield would give the character resistance to fire for 10 minutes (freeing up your spell slots for Cure Wounds or Armor of Agathys). Another thing that is cool, but probably wouldn't improve survivability very much, is the Extended metamagic. I would cast Extended Aid the night before with the highest spell slot I had. I also liked extended Armor of Agathys and Fire Shield. It made me fairly confident those spells wouldn't be wasted.
Something else that was fun for this build was the Earth Elemental Essence Shard. That gave my character resistance to any type of damage I couldn't get easily.
I'm curious, would you ever consider other methods of tanking besides giving disadvantage to attacks your allies? The reason I mention this is for a few reasons. First, in the non-boss fight scenario examples, you'd only be able to taunt up to half the creatures in a turn. Secondly, the AC on your tank is so high, that the enemies might still have a better chance to hit a squishier ally. Lastly, it means build diversity is limited if a tank has to be a cavalier, battlemaster, armorer, ancestral guardian, or occasionally battlesmith. I love your builds regardless, BTW.
drawing aggro is a defining feature of a tank so pretty necessary, how else would you make an enemy attack you and not your allies? there are some paladin things you can do to limit movement (crown, conquest) but if you have an ally near you, they can just attack your friends
You can twin Booming Blade to hit 2 target for a single sorcery point with an action. Instead of using quicken spell for 2 sorcery points, your action AND bonus action.
I think they killed this when they made Booming Blade have a range of "Self (5 feet)" actually, since you can't twin a spell with a range of self...
I love taking classes and figuring out how to make them really good at things they are traditionally "weak" at. Playing a class non-traditionally seems so much more fun!
...and what could be more fun than making any/all your party members that do not build at all for tankiness into super tanks!
I had an idea for a temp HP generator and pairing it with warding bond to spread out HP loss. My build focused on divine soul for warding bond, heroism from paladin dip, and potentially interception fighting style from pal or using reaction for shield/absorb elements. Taking warlock to get false life as free cast to boost self HP each round instead of attacking (variant human eldritch adept?). and finally artificer artilliarist for protector cannon. probably tough to run numbers on for solo character but would be interesting in a party that gets hit from all sides. Also might not scale that well...
This might still work for a duo episode, but probably more interesting idea than actually optimized. works better on small hits than big ones, especially with rounding down damage from resistance.
...then twilight cleric happened and ... well... definately overshadowed... probably could still use heroism via fey touched and protector cannon.
I know normally you don't make builds that require a magic item, but my favorite build at the moment is one based on the Mizzium Apparatus. It allows my character to have tons of spell options! It's so fun :)
The character I'm playing is an Aarakocra (he was a gnome but died and got reincarnated haha) Knowledge Cleric 1/ Circle of the Stars Druid 2 / Divination Wizard X
The 3 classes are full casters, so I don't lose spell progression
Knowledge Cleric gives me expertise in Arcana, Circle of the Stars Druid gives me the Dragon Starry Form so that I have at least 10 in Arcana and Concentration and divination wizard has portent
I would love to see your take on it!!
Keep up with the amazing content!
Request: after your done with the video, could you leave a link to it in dnd beyond, so we can all use it easier?
Thank you a lot, big fan.
I haven't done character sheets for the builds yet. I *do* put out written “cheat sheets” for the builds, but it *is* actually the one thing I give as a benefit to members of the channel - here’s a little video I did explaining why if you’re at all interested - I’d love to have you as a member! (it’s pretty cheap : ) ) th-cam.com/video/op_QNygYv3E/w-d-xo.html
If you forego every ASI listed in favor of Charisma/Intelligence bumps, you keep a decent chunk of the tank ability but majorly increase your offensive viability. Reminder that this is still a Sorcerer with Twinned and Quickened Spell. You can blow a mf up if you need to.
Colby: You are missing out on describing how you would flavor these spells as an Artificer / Clockwork Soul.
For example, do you imagine Thorn Whip as a strand of barbed wire that lashes out to pull opponents back towards you?
You also tend to focus on damage over utility. Faerie Fire works even against objects: “For the duration, objects and affected creatures shed dim light in a 10-foot radius.” I think that is important for this character.