Kevin mispronounces Mordenkain’s Tome of Foes
Paladin Warlock
MC Requirement 13 STR and 13 CHA
First thoughts: This is great, it would be a challenge to do this poorly and their are few traps.
RP even combos fairly well.
Jarred originally hated this when first looking into MCing just to cope with how good the mechanics were. “Only a power gamer would do this”. He was wrong
It’s important to remember that Paladins do not have to be connected to a god. They gain power through their oath and theres no reason they can’t go knocking on a patrons door for more power. It shows the lengths they are willing to go to even.
Oath of Conquest to Beanie Babies as they want to buy all the Beanie Babies
From a mechanics standpoint these two really fill in a lot of gaps for each other. One of them for Paladins is a lack of range. 1 level into Warlock gives you the best ranged cantrip, eldritch blast, going off your secondary ability score.
Then of course, the smites. Big smites from Warlock. And more cause short rest recharge.
We talk about 5th level smites a lot, but at most you need 4th level. Pact of the blade does have an invocation that gets you smites as well so it’s not entirely necessary but you can stack those smites if you have both.
Pact of the Tome is still viable and gets you some neat stuff. Hexblade will be better mechanically. It’s just the best mechanically. But there are other options.
A small dip into warlock is a little tough as you need some invocations to make it easier.
It makes it easy to get addicted to warlock levels. Which is fitting flavorwise as it’s supposed to be the easy path forward.
Pact of the Tome plus Gift of the Everliving one lets you maximize your healing. If you go Celestial warlock it makes it easy to heal yourself a ton. Taking sentinel could also help with being a bit more tanky. Starting with paladin gets you heavy armor which is also nice.
Requirements for heavy armor arent that bad. Even if you dont get the 15 str it isn’t the end of the world. Or play a dwarf and ignore it.
Celestial Warlock/Paladin is super boring flavorwise. It ruins all of the great potential of this MC from an RP perspective.
Jarred alienates listeners by calling them cowards for going this route.
Reminder that a normal smite does not work with the Celestial warlocks ability to add their Cha mod to a spell. But something like a Searing smite would work and get that extra damage.
Theres no real guide on how many levels to go into each on this. Beyond wanting a minimum 3 warlock to make sure you get your pact.
11 in Paladin would be VERY nice as you get your improved divine smite and a d8 on every attack.
Discussion around when you can cast meteor swarm
Level 20 capstone for Warlock just isn’t that great. It normally isn’t going to be a concern.
There are a lot of misc abilities in warlock that get a thing for killing a thing. This class combo is probably the best one to do that.
Fiend overall is a great subclass. The ability to reroll and add 10 to a ST just makes it a solid pick.
Hurl through hell ability is fun. Just does big damage after a hit.
Fjord from Critical Role (has to be talked about). Even after rejection of a warlock patron, you get to keep those powers. You can seek redemption! Maybe take an Oath of it!
What happens when a warlock breaks their connection to their patron? It’s kinda like ending your relationship with the mob.
Shredding a contract is the preferred method compared to killing Azmodeous.
There really aren’t bad ways to do this. And it opens up a lot of doors to cooler invocations that you don’t HAVE to take anymore as you get stuff from paladin that you would normally waste an invocation.
Pact of the Tome discussions. Stealing rituals from other classes is fun.
Kruthiks
Split into young, adult, and hive lord.
Fairly basic stats. Really cool feature where their tunnel size changes based on which one makes the tunnel. Your party gets the option to do some tunnel diving.
Young kruthiks aren’t going to be difficult in a 1v1 fight. Having pack tactics makes it pretty clear that they should never be alone though.
What is a hive? Kevin doesn’t know. He’s a big dummy.
Why do they cap at CR 5? It allows for Dm discretion to ramp it up. More importantly, these should be seen in overwhelming amounts. 3-4 at once is not nearly enough to show off the Kruthiks.
How to design a dungeon with Kruthiks. Keeping a dungeon in initiative to have constant fights.
Making the young ones swarms is important for making martial characters feel worthwhile. Here’s a supplement we like around Hordes https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LZWXq83Rk2jZNs7spok
Ways to set up your game with a Kruthiks encounters.
Shared lairs, they’re happy to have creatures they can’t eat guard their hives.
How to use burrowing as a DM. And how to enable/hinder tunnel fighting for PCs
How do you make PCs care about people trapped in a cave that they have to rescue?
Ask M&M
How do you make a support character in D&D?
Lots of options compared to FPS. And it’s a weird thing where healing just isn’t worthwhile unless it’s a life cleric. Healing will get you on average, 3/4 a round before you’re down again.
If you aren’t a life cleric, then healing should be the last thing you think about. You only need it for last minute heals and maybe out of combat stuff.
Either buffing or debuffing the enemy you are making a good move. But generally bless is better than bane.
Bards are one of, if not the best, class for this. Magical secrets lets them pick whatever spell they want.
Hypnotic pattern is a great spell for battlefield control.
Heat metal is a great example of support spell. You’re holding concentration and using a bonus action to invoke disadvantage on attacks and do some small amounts of damage.
You will never be a healer in the way that you will always heal. You will never play support and ONLY do support.
Vicious Mockery is the best kind of cantrip for this. As it can give disadvantage on attacks.
The new College of Eloquence is a great support bard.
Paladins are great for support with their aura. If they focus less on smites and more on charisma and spell casting. Also MC with Warlock ;)
Holy Weapon is a great spell for this. Paladins get it but it’s hard to get to 5th level Pally spells. Probably better off with Cleric or bard magical secrets.
Having really high skills can also be really helpful. Using a skill to avoid combat is the ultimate support character.
Artificer could be a good support class as well. Treantmonk made us hate Alchemist. But there’s still a lot of support elements you can get out of it. As well as infusions for party members
Make sure to focus on yourself to some extent still. If you’re dead you can’t help your party.
Kevin is addicted to bards.
