Straight-classed Warlock. False Life invocation. Reroll the temporary HP until you get 6 or higher, then channel that into a Vital Sacrifice charge. Nowhere in the feat does it say that it has to use real HP values. Also, nowhere in the feat does it say that you can't have more than one charge, or are limited to expending a single charge per instance. Use it to nerf enemy saves into the ground against your biggest, baddest control spells, or smite the everliving fuck out of something.

Yep, Wabbajack is the way. Enable NSFW mod packs check-box. Licentia is one option that comes to mind.

I'd personally go Nature Cleric instead of Druid IMO. In addition to getting Heavy Armor if you want it (the level 6 speed boost would put you back on par with dwarves if you wear heavy armor without strength), you get a lot of nice new spell options instead of just doubling down on more druid spells.

Kind of a mid take, but here goes:

I don't think high tier premiums are necessarily a bad thing, and given the amount of content you can unlock with them, I don't think their price is too far off the mark.

This is from a person who used to drop $50-60 on a single gun in Combat Arms, and did some unusual hat trading/gambling in TF2. Both instances where your purchase got you exactly one thing, and didn't help you grind toward anything new or give you new excitement. The amount of new content you can unlock with a single premium blows other games out of the water in terms of cost to "return on investment" in terms of enjoyment playing and options unlocked.

The "cold" part of this take is that high tier premiums incentivize brand new players to dive head-first into one of the most complex parts of the game to survive and do well at. I'm a firm believer that players shouldn't be able to buy a premium vehicle of a given rank until they own at least one tech tree vehicle of the rank before it. Force players to learn the ropes of lower tier vehicles and work their way up before being able to purchase these vehicles. It'll go a long way toward improving the quality of the matches, beyond the usual demands of reducing match sizes and decreasing in-game BR spreads or spreading vehicles out to a higher max BR of 15.0 or so.

Resilient Wisdom is absolutely still a great call, even if you have that resource. The problem is that a d10 is never a certainty, but adding a flat bonus can make or break your d10's ability to salvage your roll. Not to mention, enemy spellcasting/ability DC's quickly outstrip a character's ability to make saving throws without proficiency, so in my mind saving throw proficiency is essentially mandatory for anyone who doesn't already get it.

Here's the route I've been eyeing next time I get a chance to play one:

MPMM Kobold (Draconic Sorcery, grab Shocking Grasp)

8/13+1/15/12/15+2/8

Level 4 ASI: Shadow Touched +WIS (18 WIS), Inflict Wounds

Level 8: ResCon (16 CON)

Level 12: War Caster or Mobile, depending if your DM's play style makes hit and run gameplay more or less viable than staying put, taking hits and potentially getting opportunity attacks.

Level 16: +2 WIS (20)

Level 19: Lucky, Tough, or whatever tickles your fancy.

Basically, we rely on Inflict Wounds, with on-demand advantage from Draconic Cry, to have high on-demand damage in melee when we need it - which should only be when an enemy is close to death and can be readily transformed into an undead. Activate Symbiotic Entity early just for the temp HP, ignore melee weapons altogether, and go necro-punch people to death. If you bite off more than you can chew against a single target, hit them with Shocking Grasp and run like hell. As a nice bonus, Invisibility pairs brilliantly with Wildshape, so you can still do very well in a scout role.

I just wish it weren't so damn unreliable on small targets with its massive proxy fuze relative to its warhead size. The number of times I've shot Nords at a head-on F104 expecting to snap it like a Slim Jim, only to get a "hit" because the missile detonates so far forward of the enemy plane, is infuriating. I almost exclusively run the R511's as a result.

For real, though, G91Y with good maneuverability and goofy Nords is pretty peak, both in air and ground thanks to Italy's stellar 9.0 lineup. AA20's for smiting helicopters and AS30's for ground targets is pretty primo.

Pretty sure Phantom Rogue is your best bet. Tack on a bunch of D6's once per turn, then deal half as many D6's to a nearby target. Really takes off at level 9 once you can reliably get tokens to fuel your extra damage feature more often. Add in Elven Accuracy to up your chances of crits with Steady Aim, and you're golden.

Weapon Master is a tragic waste of an ASI. I can't think of a single instance where you would prefer it over getting a weapon proficiency from your race.

I would absolutely recommend a Mountain Dwarf or a Half Elf, since they can help alleviate the Monk's need for several good stats at once thanks to their higher than usual stats. Both also give you weapon proficiencies, which you can use Tasha's rules to swap for other weapons of the same class (martial or simple). If you go Mountain Dwarf, you can also toss those unused armor proficiencies for tool proficiencies, for flavor.

As far as subclasses go, I think Four Elements, Shadow, and Long Death are the three remaining options that don't otherwise interface exclusively with unarmed strikes/Flurry of Blows. Four Elements kinda just promotes spamming the one or two good spell options they get (basically just Fireball and Hold Person) so as a weapons Monk it doesn't really do you much good. Shadow can be good, but the heavy ninja/assassin theme might not be what you want. So Long Death is probably the next best option? It can provide some "last man standing/invincible warrior" vibes, so there's that.

If I ever get back to running campaigns again, I'd love to reclass Orcs as Plants and get that WAAAAAAAAAGH on.

Inflict Wounds is pretty great so long as you can secure advantage on your attack roll. Nothing feels worse than spending a spell slot on an attack like Guiding Bolt and having it miss. MPMM Kobold is pretty great for this with Draconic Cry since it's a bonus action to turn on, helps you AND your party, gets multiple uses, and works with spells.

Yeah, the double expanded spell list is nice but you'll definitely eat Metamagic points faster since they both incentivize spending Metamagic points for their own features. The Storm Sorcery + Draconic Bloodline combo really only needs you to spend Metamagic to convert damage types to Lightning, though, and bringing Storm Sorcery along actually removes the need to spend Metamagic points on the low-level Draconic Sorcerer feature that incurs a Metamagic point cost. The downside of that, though, is that to deal optimal damage you essentially need to use transmute spell, which prevents you from using many other common Metamagic choices like Quicken or Twin on those damage spells.

Violins are traditionally made from four types of wood:

• Maple for the scroll (swirly bit at the top), neck, back and sides because it's easy to steam it and bend it into shape for the sides (kinda similar to balsa wood for early airplane wings and frames)

• Spruce for the front face and IIRC the sound post (a cylinder of wood bridging between the front and back plates on the inside, both to improve resonance and help support the front face so the tension of the strings pushing down against the bridge don't crack the front face)

• Ebony for the non-metal hardware such as the tailpiece (the piece at the bottom holding the strings in place) and the peg that holds it in place, chin rest, tuning pegs, fingerboard, and perfling (the two lines running around the perimeter of the front face). Another fun fact, ebony dust is toxic if inhaled, so wear a mask when sanding ebony dry/without applying oil first.

• Willow, the most obscure piece, is used only in a single place: as a third layer in between the two strips of ebony for the perfling. It's very soft and springy, and serves a specific purpose within the perfling not just as a decorative element, but as a barrier to prevent cracks from propagating inward and splitting the front face if the instrument is scuffed or knocked against something.

As a decorative taste preference, rosewood is sometimes subbed in place of ebony.

I generally think Barbarian multiclasses should dip out A) at level 3 if mixed with another class that gets Extra Attack, B) at 5 if mixed with a non-Extra Attack class but picking a subclass with a poor level 6 ability, or C) level 6 otherwise. Ancestral Guardian + Rogue falls into category C.

Yeah, I'd probably pick Mercy and Long Death. I think they thematically go together really well, as a bonus, because they're both heavily involved with postponing death, albeit through different means. And, they're both relatively Ki-conservative (unless you're in a REALLY bad situation and need to dump Ki to avoid death as a high-level Long Death Monk).

I'd probably pick Sorcerer. You could just go for the absolute meta combo of Aberrant Mind + Clockwork Soul, but I think Storm Sorcery + Draconic Soul (Lightning) would have some pretty peak flavor. A Hill Dwarf with Draconic Soul would go a long way toward correcting one of the Storm Sorcerer's biggest weaknesses - needing to do melee spellcasting with a d6 hit die and no armor proficiencies. You'd effectively be on par with a d10 hit die class with the extra HP of Hill Dwarf and Draconic Soul, and Draconic Soul gives you permanent Mage Armor. You then get to double-dip on damage bonuses for Lightning spells, making Transmute Spell a pretty phenomenal pick for just raw damage increase.

Chronurgy + War Magic. Double your INT to initiative AND dunamancy spells AND all of Chronurgy's cracked features.

And absolutely EVERYTHING demands the same pool of Ki. It'd be fun, but it'd also feel super constrained, I'd bet. You'd probably want Long Death as one of the subclasses, since it gets some abilities that aren't Ki-dependent.

That, unlike Firebolt, Eldritch Blast can only target creatures and not objects RAW. So you try to Eldritch Blast a chest, and if it's not a mimic, then the spell fails.

You're honestly better off using Mind Sliver for this, because even if you don't know whether it's a mimic (say your DM likes to roll blind saves behind a DM screen to fool you), all objects are immune to poison and psychic damage. So you won't end up harming the contents of a chest with it.

I think you're right on that, now that I think about it. My bad.

Which also benefits from spell sniper and Bugbear's Long-Limbed to stretch to 65 feet.

Orsimer sneak Archer with a face randomizer. So self-conscious about how butt-ugly and unloved they are that he spares his victims the indignity of seeing who killed them, and can one-shot Godd Howard himself with Berserker Rage sneak attack archery.

I'd look at DMG Pg. 294 about swapping spell lists for a subclass. With your DM's permission, you could swap EK's Wizard spell list for Cleric's. You lose some of the staple low level spells EK's are known for like Shield and Absorb Elements, and you won't have a cantrip as good as BB or GFB, BUT you get a little bit of pinch healing with Healing Word, great low-level concentration spells with Bless, some Smite spells (IIRC they were added to Cleric's list in Tasha's?) and Shield of Faith, some decent long-duration buffs like Aid, and eventually the coveted Spirit Guardians and Aura of Vitality.

Correction, they changed Ranger's base class features to be far more reliant on using Hunter's Mark. So you now have to actively decide between using your class features or better spells that you concentrate on, but not both. And the Hunter subclass got gutted, with the impactful 3rd level feature replaced with the worst part of the Monster Slayer's 3rd level features and their strong 11th level multiattack feature replaced with a whopping 2, maybe 3d6 of "splash" damage from hitting your Hunter's Mark target. I know it's harsh to judge it before playing it, but it definitely seems like it'd feel worse than getting to make a whole lot of extra attacks that the old features let you do.

Absolutely, the Bracers are excellent on a Rogue. Essentially gives the Rogue Extra Attack, which is great for ensuring that you'll always get your Sneak Attack off each round. Not to mention, you don't need to find a place to store a dozen knives, or waste time retrieving them.

The only downside is that you can't use the Bracers to make an opportunity attack, so you'll want to keep one actual dagger on hand.