Original Video:
*This article is an edited version of the script for this video
Race:
Doesn’t really matter, you’ll want something that can boost your Charisma and either Constitution or Dexterity
Ability Scores(point buy):
Str: 8
Dex: 13
Con: 15(+1)
Int: 8
Wis: 12
Cha: 15(+2)
Ability Score Priorities(if rolling):
#1 Cha
#2 Con
#3 Dex
Ideal Equipment:
-Arcane Focus
-Half Plate and a Shield(Once we take Moderately Armored)
Levels 1-3: Bard 1-3
Spells: Vicious Mockery, Silvery Barbs, Healing Word, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Aid, Shatter
Bardic Inspiration: Lets you spend a bonus action to give your ally a die that they can add to any d20 roll with the next 10 minutes. The size of the die will go up as we go up in levels.
Jack of All Trades: This lets you add half of your proficiency bonus to any ability check that doesn’t add your proficiency bonus. This is very strong with things like Initiative, Dispel Magic, and Counterspell
Song of Rest: If your allies spend hit dice on a short rest this allows you to heal them a little bit more on top of that.
Expertise: There aren’t any skills we need for our build to work so just pick whichever skills you’d like.
Bard College: College of Creation
Mote of Potential: Gives your bardic inspiration an additional effect depending on what type of roll it is used on.
Performance of Creation: One problem you can run into with traditional necromancer builds is that it can be difficult to access enough corpses or bones to make a lot of undead. With Performance of Creation we can just create a corpse whenever we want. A corpse is a nonmagical object, this has been confirmed by game designer Jeremy Crawford. So this feature allows you to be completely self sufficient and you won’t ever have to go looking for corpses again. You are limited by gold cost which could be an issue depending on what your GM says the value of a corpse is, but this is an issue we can easily solve with a feature we’ll get later on
Levels: 4-18: Bard 4-18
ASI or Feat: Moderately Armored. This boosts our Dex by 1 and lets us use medium armor and shields which is a huge boost to our AC.
ASI or Feat: Fey Touched. +1 to Cha is the main thing we want here. Some good options for the spells are Gift of Alacrity, Command, or Bless
ASI or Feat: +2 to Cha to get to 20
ASI or Feat: War Caster, Resilient: Con/Wis, or Lucky
Spells: Hypnotic Pattern, Dispel Magic, Polymorph, Animate Objects, Synaptic Static, Heroes’ Feast, Forcecage, Mind Blank, True Polymorph
Magical Secrets:
10th: Animate Dead, Wall of Force
14th: Create Undead, Simulacrum
18th: Demiplane, Wish
Font of Inspiration: We get our Bardic Inspiration back on a short rest.
Creative Crescendo: This makes it so we are no longer limited by item cost for what we create with Performance of Creation. We are also now able to create multiple items at once so we can create up to 5 corpses at one time now.
Now you’re probably already starting to see what kind of things this build is capable of at this level. You can animate a small army of undead without needing to find any corpses or piles of bones. You can create a simulacrum of yourself to create a 2nd small army of undead. You can trap all of those undead in a demiplane and basically cause a zombie apocalypse. And if that wasn’t enough you can cast Wish and duplicate the effect of just about any spell in the game. This also means you can create infinite copies of yourself with Wish and Simulacrum but I think this build has already gone far enough. So as you can see this build is definitely game breaking and if you do want to play it without causing problems at your table just talk to your GM and sort of self police yourself to put some reasonable limits on your abilities.
18 Levels of Bard is really all you need. For those last 2 levels you could finish out in bard or if you’re willing to wait till level 20 to get Demiplane and Wish you could take 2 levels of Warlock early on in the build to get Eldritch Blast as a better damage option. The last option I would consider is taking 1 level of sorcerer for more defensive spells like shield and absorb elements.
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