Let's talk about something I should have discussed in the video: the potential conflict between "make a ranged spell attack" and using a weapon to make that attack. The wording for Magic Stone says that we (or someone else) can throw the stone or use a sling to throw it, and to do so we "make a ranged spell attack." Contrast that with the Archery fighting style, which tells us that you get a "+2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons." Similarly, the Sharpshooter feat says that you can make the attack at -5 to hit, +10 to damage when you "attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with." To me, there is no prohibition here from these features benefitting from a spell attack, so long as the spell attack is made with a ranged weapon we're proficient in (i.e. by putting the stone in a sling). Obviously, you and/or your DM may disagree. Now, making a ranged spell attack is 100% not the same thing as taking the attack action. So there's *definite* conflict with, say, Extra Attack. These are all absolutely things you'll want to discuss with your DM before playing this character in game, and I apologize for not bringing them up in the video! :)
Only half serious. A pebble is a small stone made smooth and round by the action of water or sand. Have a specially crafted handcrossbow to fire the stone? Lol
I think the bigger problem is the difference of making a ranged spell attack and making a ranged weapon attack with regards to the first bullet point of the Sharpshooter feat, allowing for ranged weapon attacks being made without disadvantage at long range. Since ranged spell attacks and ranged weapon attacks are, AFAIK, basically mutually exclusive, this build, which depends on making ranged spell attacks, wouldn't get the first benefit from sharp shooter, limiting it to usual 30/120 ft range of the sling. At least that's the problem I ran into recently while trying to build my own Swarmkeeper...
Makes a goblin that does not know they are magical. He just reaches into the bag to find "the good ones" and he cast magic stones without realizing it 😆
Magic item suggestion: The Two-Birds Sling from the Theros Book - "When you make a ranged attack with this sling and hit a target, you can cause the ammunition to ricochet toward a second target within 10 feet of the first, and then make a ranged attack against the second target."
Slings are THE weapon you bring to a skeleton infested crypt , rarely any thing ever satisfying as dealing 40 damage to a skelton with sharpshooter and a pebble XD
About the constant upkeep in casting, I once used a PAMlock with a Staff of the Adder. While out adventuring, I would reactivate the snake head every minute or so, and the compromise that the DM and I reached is that when combat began I would roll a d10 to see how many rounds were left before it expired (since your character won't know exactly which of the 10 rounds per minute combat will break out). Try running that by your DM if they won't autoaccept the precast magic stone.
Also, couple RAW issues touched on in this video (not big changes, but it does affect it on the edges). 1) You can't ritual cast Find Familiar from Arcane Trickster, they lack the Ritual Casting feature and it's not a druid spell for you to use their Ritual Casting 2) You can only have one familiar, as both the druid feature and the spell involve casting the spell "Find Familiar." You can change the familiar's form when you recast it, though. 3) Interesting wrinkle with the sell Magic Stone. I don't recall the exact logic, but I recall awhile back in a RAW group that anything that boosts your spell attack modifier will stack with your ranged attack. If you have a wand of the war mage (or Enhanced arcane focus from the Artificer class) it will add, as well as a +1 sling (or repeating shot infusion). This gets a bit messy as you'll have to drop the wand to load the sling, and burn a "Use object interaction" to pick it back up before you fire, but it does help. As such, you should be able to get +2 to hit, and +1 to damage, if I recall correctly, with a 2 level dip into Artificer. I believe this is the Crawford Tweet: twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/940654827683631110?fbclid=IwAR1EkV8wg7aZMuX8kefR1AG8b1ITWuwACfU8ozAYcClv8rY6dr2qCH1swuc
I allowed that as a DM. But I ruled that if they rolled a 1 on the d10, then they had disadvantage on any dex save vs. traps, initiative rolls, etc. cuz they were caught while casting. Just to make it a little bit of a pro/con decision for them to be doing that.
I asked my DM about letting Magic Stone scale by adding to the number of stones you can enchant at one time. 3 at level 1, 5 at 5, 7 at 11, 9 at 17. It's really nice for keeping up with extra attack and preserving my bonus action. You could also propose 3-4-5-6 if they don't like 2 per scale-up.
Heads up: you cannot benefit from the casting of Find Familiar twice, so you cannot have 2 familiars this way. I wish it wasn't so, but the Druid's Wild Shape replacement specifically states that you cast a modified version of the Find Familiar spell, so it would not combine with your Wizard version of the spell.
I was not expecting that, really! I'm very impressed that this build is actually very good, and all features only works because of the sling. Really good build, amazing me as always!
15:30 could RP that as PTSD. Who hurt this person? Do they need to make a saving throw in order to resist compulsively refreshing magic stone in inappropriate situations? Do the other PCs think they're insane? Do they refresh it more frequently when they're stressed out? Do they kind of tick sometimes when they cast it? Or rock back and forth?
Give the character a tick where they are always fidgeting by moving the pebbles around in their hand, like worry stones, casting the cantrip on them. Unless a surprise combat happens while they're hands were occupied, they always have magic stones on hand, literally. Plus it is a fun character quirk.
This would make an excellent vampire themed character! Use bats as your swarm, summon bat familiars, and shape shift into a bat. Absolutely love the build!
Great build Colby! Love that the sling has a narrow but awesome use. Ever thought of doing a build as a Kobold that focuses on animate object + summons? They cast spells that create allies and then they grovel, cower, and beg to give them advantage. Basically after turn 1 of a fight they just sit there useless and crying while doing big damage
Thanks! on the list! That said, I wonder if we could consider our animated objects as "allies," technically... hmmmm... it would seem almost silly to argue otherwise, but I can see some DMs getting hung up...
Very creative build, thanks so much! And I am sure there are DMs out there that would support it with regards to extra attack because it's more interesting than CBE and not overpowered. And also I wanted to say that I am happy for you that you have more and more sponsors! You deserve it 🙂 And by the way, I backed the Battlezoo Bestiary because of your ad 😉
I'm doing a similar build using the 2024 rules. High Elf (Booming blade) will be good til 5th level in Melee and as a reaction attack with War Caster Feat. Guide (Shillelagh, Magic Stone, Healing Word) this way I can still take a fighting style with ranger level 2. Wisdom Based Swarm Ranger (5levels)/War Cleric, utilizing Magic Stone and Shillelagh cantrips. By level 8, I'll be able to cast spike growth and War Priest bonus action attack in the first round. After that will be 3 attacks a round until I run out of War Priest uses. 🤙 Potentially 6D4+1D6+5 with Magic Sling Stone + 15ft push and Slowed weapon mastery. Try escaping the spike growth in difficulty terrain and having 10 feet less movement! Ha! Or 6D4+1D10+5 with Shillelagh Quarterstaff + 15ft push and Topple weapon mastery. Now you can't do anything but stand up in the spike growth on your turn! Haha! 😊 EDIT: Going Druid is an option too, since I won't be using Sharp shooter. Circle of the Sea seems really good. Another 15ft push with a CON save this time. Very interesting!
I absolutely adore this build. As a huge fan of rangers, and a sucker for SAD builds, and someone who just LOVES optimizing with rarely used weapons, this character is right up my alley! Thank you for the build :)
Love it. I’m picturing a fighter version of this that uses rune knight as an anti-David hurling bolders. Also let’s you push more creatures with crusher. Maybe those last three levels. 🤔
I love this build so much. Such a cool concept. I’ll be using variant human for mine. I picture a young little girl with her sling and her little magic friends.
My approach to the always casting magic stone problem would be for my character to invent a common magic item. Satchel of Magic Stones: This small pouch can store up to 20 stones, instantly transforming them into magic stones (as per the magic stone spell). The stones remain magical for up to 1 minute after they leave the pouch.
This is one of the most clever and fun builds you have done so far! Im DMing for a swarmkeeper right now, and Ill be advising her to watch this. I would love to see a conquest paladin build for control/tanking sometime, maximizing the fear mechanic. giving a ton of enemies disadvantage on attack rolls and immobilizing them seems like it could be utilized creatively. perhaps a candidate for a 2-character build with a glass cannon melee build to dart in and take out debuffed enemies.
Thanks! You might enjoy this if you haven't seen it yet... (though the conquest pally bit comes on a little late) ua-cam.com/video/sV8MhBajXtE/v-deo.html
There is one other way of using your spellcasting ability to attack with a sling. Battle Smith Artificer with the Repeating shot infusion. I was literally working on that build yesterday. (But I still love the build! As usual)
Goodberry > cure wound imho Zephyr's Strike is _so_ good - lets you use a bonus round to move if something ends its turn next to you. DMs love to put monsters in your face, if you're a ranged attacker.
I spent a lot of time considering a form of this build too, with magic stone and sling, so I'm really happy you made this. I definitely missed a few steps in my calculations, because you got it to work in a way that I couldn't. In the end I built a melee swarmkeeper with a whip, slasher feat, blindfighting, fog cloud, and some rogue dip for sneak attack. It doesn't deal as much damage, but it is very effective.
It's been a while since I've commented. But I just have to say that this is hands down my favorite build so far Colby! I think I'm on my 7th time watching this. My group starts our new campaign in two weeks and I'm going to be playing a variation of this with the gunner feat and my swarm will be a single animal. I think for flavour this works perfectly if you want to play a beastmaster where your animal companion is used more for control instead of damage. Thanks for the inspiration. Keep it up!
I like how a tonne of people I know, me included, make some of the weirdest swarms. My friend is going to have a swarm of ducks and I have made one which is just a gang of meerkats. To clarify something, these meerkats all have a name.
Amazing build Colby! So fun and thematic and I also sing with joy seeing the Sling put to good use. But a quintessential slinger for me must be a halfling. David vs Goliath vibe is strong in this one. Missing out on the starting feat, but one can always resort to begging for the sake of the vibe xD
This was great inspiration, I discovered that a Loxodon can double up on the Enhanced Weapon and Enhanced Arcane focus for a +4 a/d roll on Magic Stone!
Your videos are awesome! Sometimes i can't really follow what you are saying, because I'm quite new to DnD, but you're so positive about everything that you say that I keep going and watch how happy you are:-)
I've been playing this build and really love it, my main confusion is how you missed that it's impossible to have 2 familiars at once! Because Wild Companion just says you cast the Find Familiar spell we have to use its full text which does state that "You can't have more than one familiar at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead cause it to adopt a new form." Feels like a biiiig change from RAW to allow two familiars and it wasn't mentioned in the build haha.
Mage Hand Story (in short): My DM contrived an epic tourney that came down to a 3 on 3 mounted combat between my party and the BBEG's Lieutenant. The Lord Herald waves the flag, combat is on, to the Death! My rogue casts Mage hand and un buckles the saddle of the Lieuy, fail Dexterity, he is on the ground. Our DM is awesome and we love him but all's fair...P.S. love the build. I'd also like to see more niche' builds.
Such a fun build. Post Tasha’s I think ranger may be my favorite class. While I know they are not top tier the fact that they are middle of the pact is all I need. Keep up the great work.
Unfortunately, the rules state that, if you cast any spell as a bonus action, no matter whether it's a cantrip or a spell slotted spell, the only other spell you can cast that turn is a cantrip with a casting time of one action. Obviously, your DM may rule otherwise... www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/spellcasting#CastingTime
@@sha2143 Alas I don't believe so. If you're going to cast a spell with your bonus action at all, the rules just don't allow anything but a cantrip with your action. Again, your DM may rule otherwise :).
Recommendation for saving youtube cards: make optimized playlists by class, i.e. a warlock class playlist would have a level 20 warlock build, but also every hexblade dip. Then, when you make a build you can use the cards to link to the playlists that use the same classes as in the build from the video.
i may be mistaken, but you can cast spike growth, and the cantrip magic stone. magic stone is both a cantrip, and a bonus action spell. which is allowed to cast at the same time you cast a regular spell!
I think if I make this character it would be a dryad and the magic stones are essentially acorns, while the swarm is twig blights. I would really want to use Hail of Thorns (hail of acorns) as well but only when not concentrating on spike growth. (Parts of this may not be mine originally, but I have had it in my head for a while, possibly thanks to someone here)
While spike growth does have higher damage potential, I think there's a really good spell that hasn't been mentioned that can (sort of) deal with the need for advantage: Web. (you get the spell anyway as part of the subclass) Web is able to restrain enemies in an area when they enter it or when they start their turn in the area, it also becomes difficult terrain. Now the interesting thing is how this combos with gathered swarm. A creature that escapes the web is not likely to have enough movement to get far enough away or into melee range due to the difficult terrain, which means that if you can hit them after they get out you can force them to make a save and throw them right back in if they fail. If you don't need to put anyone back into the sticky zone you can attack those inside with advantage because they are restrained. This might have less individual dpr but assuming that the wizard isn't chucking a fireball at it then it's massively boosting the dpr of your teammates while having massive control of the battlefield. Better yet, if someone else casts web(or a similar spell like black tentacles) then you can cast spike growth and throw them around inside the area, dying the webs red with blood. I was actually thinking of what build might work for bulling enemies with web and I forgot that swarmkeeper was also the swarm yeeter. Instead of starting with druid you can start as a fighter and pick up archery, then pick up druidic fighter from ranger. It's a little slower since you won't have the right stats from level 1-2 but if you're starting at level 3, no problem. Doesn't give as many spell slots but does allow you to pick up samurai for the 3/long rest advantage on all attack rolls per turn. I'm not sure how worth this is(I'm not much of a number cruncher) Another way to use a sling is as a ranged side-arm on a bladesinger. It's only an extra 1d4+dex(or 1d6+INT if you take artifice initiate or 1 level arty dip, or 2d4+dex if you go for dual wielding and hang a bunch of loaded slings off your belt to switch to) but it's better than nothing. But if ranged bladesinger is what you're going for it's better to just go drow(or astral elf) and focus on hand crossbows or to pick up the gunner feat on variant human if your gm allows it.
Something I like to rule with Magic stone is that you can use it on whatever small things you could throw. In which case, my favorite ideas for a swarmkeeper with magic stone is either a swarmkeeper with a swarm of chickens using magic stone on their eggs, or a crazy cat lady with a swarm of cats that she casts magic stone on to throw at her opponents.
I was imagining slinging Goodberries to heal at range and slinging hornets for poison damage. A range version of the Way of Mercy Monk. Not for gameplay, just for giggles.
Are you reading my mind Colby? Spying on me? My friend asked me to figure out a rogue healer after I made him a bard tank. So I was like, use the healer feat and thief. Then use alchemist to make more healing with the elixirs. Then he was like what’s next? I responded, well nature cleric gives me magic stone and bless, combined with a sling and sharpshooter and 2 levels of ranger I have a scary accurate rock pelter wearing heavy armor! After that he just kinda looked at me funny. You guys get me though, building is fun!!! Also I always liked the idea of combining this with fey wanderer to double duty as the face of the group and have powerful summons to gang up on people. And turning your mage hand invisible is in character because you wanted little fairies as a swarm, and little fairies would totally turn invisible and then pick locks and pockets for you!!!
I think the absolute best Mage Hand user is a capped intelligence Arcane Trickster that takes Telekinetic but only after learning it from Arcane Trickster, in order to double the range it is usable in. (I'm actually really surprised you've never mentioned that little bit from Telekinetic or utilized it, Colby!)
@@DnDDeepDive please lose your mind more often. It reminded me how fun the game is when you optimized a character for roleplay instead of being a yummy yum crunchy number festival.
I thought this was a cute build idea in the beginning... and then the Arcane Trickster kicked in. Now I want to build myself a version and see what it would look like at a game. Nice job
a suggestion i would make for this build is to drop druid and go 3 levels samurai fighter. this gives us a fighting style, action surge for nova damage, and at 3rd level we can use fighting spirit to get advantage on both of our attacks without needing the complicated setup. 4 levels fighter to get the extra ASI early could also work.
Fighter is a good option, but when I look at Swarmkeeper ranger samurai isn't the fighter that jumps to mind for theming with the swarm. Echo knight gives great tools to use with the swarm that can all be flavored as your swarm doing something awesome.
If the build wasn't already so feat dependent, then I would probably find a way to include spell sniper to double the range, however that might be a good way to get the spell at level 1 with variant human or custom lineage, for a different kind of sling build
Could you do a 4/5 member party composition with optimized characters only? Maybe with newer builds or builds you've already done? Would be lit to get an overview of a crazily optimized power party that also complement each other well. PS. Absolutely love your optimized character series
Thanks! I get this request fairly often, but I'm just not sure I'll ever have the time to put it all together :). Or maybe it'd just be the Starry Twilight Build + the Bladesinger Nova (for perma dim light) coupled with the Yin Yang team up build :P.
Also Colby have you heard of a supplement called Playing Dead? It’s on the DMs Guild. It contains a Druid subclass called Circle of the Host, which gives you a beehive or something that your body is host too. I would pair that with Swarmkeeper for the flavour alone.
I'm close to begining another campaign, and I'm now set on the idea of playing this build, if edited a little. Thank you d4 network, and keep up the great content.
love me some magic stone builds as i use this spell alot as additional dpr. btw i love the outtakes you include at the end of the vids. they weren't there before i took a "hiatus." since you took arcane trickster, the circle of the shepherd dip feels redundant. it just adds to the bonus action clog to use the hawk totem. you could've just used steady aim and the familiar to get your 2 advantage attacks. the wild companion is just completely inferior to the wizard version. since you were hankering for more sustained dmg, you could've just converted those 2 levels of circle of shepherd to 2 more rogue arcane trickster levels. or perhaps dipped genie lock 1 for genie's wrath. or if you were willing to consider a "limited resource" sustained, dipped psi warrior 3 for psionic strike (this is a sustained dmg bonus for me as you get a ton of psionic energy dice).
I'd 100% allow this at my table, very few questions asked. I would like to point out, however, that I believe Jeremy Crawford's two cents on this (however valuable those cents may be), are that Magic Stone benefits attacks in general, ranged attacks, or spell attacks, but not weapon attacks. So while it would work with Extra Attack, which doesn't specify weapon attacks, it would not work with options that require you to attack with a "weapon". Even if you are using a sling.
Been a while since I heard that song. Does it mean what I think it does, brother? Also, great build! I love seeing uncommon weapons being used to great effect. Any hopes of seeing a blowgun get the same treatment?
One of my Adventurer's League characters is a Swarmkeeper Ranger/Mercy Monk combo (mostly a monk). His swarm is black and white butterflies. Healing with the white butterflies, harming with the black butterflies.
16:00 I think I’ve figured out how to rp this, you’re paranoid because you’re used to being in trouble & needing to defend yourself from threats. This works especially well with subclasses like Swarmkeeper because you could reason that you’re something of an outsider, what with you constantly being surrounded by a cloud of wasps or whatever. This works with the sling because it is traditionally a lowly, common weapon. I’d take the Urchin or Criminal background for extra flavour.
I LOVED my Snobold (dm homebrew), shep druid, Mastermind rogue lv 3. Our cleric loved the hawk spirit reaction for his guiding bolt, ba help action, action atk/heal or grovel for more advantages. The kobold makes the hawk spirit actually good, plus the kobold got adv with pact tactics...
When I built my swarmkeeper I chose circle of the stars druid and multiclassed one level into Cleric (arcana domain for more cantrips) to get access to healing word. exceptional healing with chalice form. Guiding bolt for free. If you ever get into melee range you can use Shillelagh, bonk your enemies with booming blade and push them away to gtfo.
I like combining Swarmkeeper Ranger, and Circle of Spores. So I can kill my enemies from afar with Necrotic daming as a reaction and turn them into Zombies. I like the theme of Infecting my fire ants swarm wth Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis. So I'll put a bunch of arrows in their body, and with their last bit strength as they crawl toards me to reach form my foot, my Ants will bite them and infect them Lanect Liver Flukes and turning them into Zombies. and then I use the Zombies as meet shields.
Love the content. I saw the short and had to find this. The fact that it is a swarm keeper (which I want to play) I'm down.... I'm going the 1 lvl cleric dip, since my swarmkeeper character idea is a bit more of a Friar Tuck. hence he slings blessed stones
I loved that build and am looking to build a character for Ravenloft. Is there a good way to make these stones an even more effective weapon against the undead with cleric or nature cleric instead of druid?
@@xaotica do 1 cleric, 5 ranger, then all cleric. Shit just doing a cleric pure is the best way to deal with undead & spooky shit. Just let ur party know ur plan, and have a second healer. Magic stone is magic damage, no way to make it radiant
@@xaotica I am biased toward medium armor master at lvl1 if you roll well for stats. You can make stealth a proficiency and be sneaking/tanky. Clerics passing stealth checks, now that is OP
@@Lost_Pikachu Thanks mate. Somebody in our group will, I just instantaneously had a really nice RP concept for the slinger and am now thinking about ways to slightly tweak it for Ravenloft.
The spell is simply creating the magic imbued stones. From there, you or anyone else can use them to make attacks, but it doesn't, so far as I can tell, put limitations on how many could theoretically be used in a turn.
@@DnDDeepDive "You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling. " I think that the spell says you are making a "ranged spell attack" even if using a sling. A ranged spell attack takes an action to accomplish and does not stack with Extra Attack. I certainly do not think that it breaks the game at all to allow multiple attacks in a turn, we handwoven this in a game, but we did believe that by RAW, you could only do one a turn. That does not have to be correct, but I do at least see the reasoning on the other side.
RAW, Magic stone is a spell attack whether thrown or used as sling ammunition. It absolutely should count as a weapon attack though, and I would count it that way in-game. It's a spell I don't see often. Rangers usually go long-bow, druids use other spells, and it's on the artificer list, but is almost useless to them, as they all get better options at level 3.
Let's talk about something I should have discussed in the video: the potential conflict between "make a ranged spell attack" and using a weapon to make that attack. The wording for Magic Stone says that we (or someone else) can throw the stone or use a sling to throw it, and to do so we "make a ranged spell attack." Contrast that with the Archery fighting style, which tells us that you get a "+2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons." Similarly, the Sharpshooter feat says that you can make the attack at -5 to hit, +10 to damage when you "attack with a ranged weapon that you are proficient with." To me, there is no prohibition here from these features benefitting from a spell attack, so long as the spell attack is made with a ranged weapon we're proficient in (i.e. by putting the stone in a sling). Obviously, you and/or your DM may disagree. Now, making a ranged spell attack is 100% not the same thing as taking the attack action. So there's *definite* conflict with, say, Extra Attack. These are all absolutely things you'll want to discuss with your DM before playing this character in game, and I apologize for not bringing them up in the video! :)
Thank you so much for clarifying and finding an awesome way to use a sling 😁
Only half serious. A pebble is a small stone made smooth and round by the action of water or sand. Have a specially crafted handcrossbow to fire the stone? Lol
I think the bigger problem is the difference of making a ranged spell attack and making a ranged weapon attack with regards to the first bullet point of the Sharpshooter feat, allowing for ranged weapon attacks being made without disadvantage at long range. Since ranged spell attacks and ranged weapon attacks are, AFAIK, basically mutually exclusive, this build, which depends on making ranged spell attacks, wouldn't get the first benefit from sharp shooter, limiting it to usual 30/120 ft range of the sling. At least that's the problem I ran into recently while trying to build my own Swarmkeeper...
This would be a great topic for a Quick Ruling in the next Slidin' into my DM's.
@@TheOnlyRealIRONicMAN Correct. I must often fight on small battlefields, as that hasn't often been a problem for me when I'm playing ranged :)
Makes a goblin that does not know they are magical. He just reaches into the bag to find "the good ones" and he cast magic stones without realizing it 😆
Magic item suggestion: The Two-Birds Sling from the Theros Book - "When you make a ranged attack with this sling and hit a target, you can cause the ammunition to ricochet toward a second target within 10 feet of the first, and then make a ranged attack against the second target."
if a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, then 2 birds in the hand is better, of course
@@ghostfather1390 winner winner (double) chicken dinner
@@benoleno96 winner winner chicken chicken dinner dinner heh heh
oh oh
I I can't can't seem seem to to stop stop
@@ghostfather1390 well well you'd you'd better better
that attack would be made with dexterity with the original d4+dex. but it would be fun to push even more enemies around in your thorns
Level 1:(see above) [druid 1, race ]
Level 2:(see above) [ranger 1]
Level 3:(@17:55) [ranger 2 & fighting-style]
Level 4:(@18:55) [ranger 3 & sub-class]
Level 5:(@22:30) [ranger 4 & ASI]
Level 6:(@22:59) [ranger 5]
Level 7:(see above) [druid 2 & sub-class]
Level 8:(@32:47) [ranger 6]
Level 9:(@33:25) [ranger 7]
Level 10:(see above) [tanger 8 & ASI]
Level 11:(@36:19) [rogue 1]
Level 12:(@37:51) [rogue 2]
Level 13:(@38:13) [rogue 3 & sub-class]
Level 14:(see above) [rogue 4 & ASI]
Level 15:(@47:02) [rogue 5]
Level 16:(@47:31) [rogue 6]
Level 17:(@47:41) [rogue 7]
Slings are THE weapon you bring to a skeleton infested crypt , rarely any thing ever satisfying as dealing 40 damage to a skelton with sharpshooter and a pebble XD
If your custom liniage turtle, the swarm could live in your shell!
I like that alot.
Or you could be a grung and rp a Suriname toad for a horror campaign.
About the constant upkeep in casting, I once used a PAMlock with a Staff of the Adder. While out adventuring, I would reactivate the snake head every minute or so, and the compromise that the DM and I reached is that when combat began I would roll a d10 to see how many rounds were left before it expired (since your character won't know exactly which of the 10 rounds per minute combat will break out). Try running that by your DM if they won't autoaccept the precast magic stone.
Also, couple RAW issues touched on in this video (not big changes, but it does affect it on the edges).
1) You can't ritual cast Find Familiar from Arcane Trickster, they lack the Ritual Casting feature and it's not a druid spell for you to use their Ritual Casting
2) You can only have one familiar, as both the druid feature and the spell involve casting the spell "Find Familiar." You can change the familiar's form when you recast it, though.
3) Interesting wrinkle with the sell Magic Stone. I don't recall the exact logic, but I recall awhile back in a RAW group that anything that boosts your spell attack modifier will stack with your ranged attack. If you have a wand of the war mage (or Enhanced arcane focus from the Artificer class) it will add, as well as a +1 sling (or repeating shot infusion). This gets a bit messy as you'll have to drop the wand to load the sling, and burn a "Use object interaction" to pick it back up before you fire, but it does help. As such, you should be able to get +2 to hit, and +1 to damage, if I recall correctly, with a 2 level dip into Artificer.
I believe this is the Crawford Tweet:
twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/940654827683631110?fbclid=IwAR1EkV8wg7aZMuX8kefR1AG8b1ITWuwACfU8ozAYcClv8rY6dr2qCH1swuc
What is a pamlock
@@snazzyfeathers Polearm Master Warlock
@@snazzyfeathers Polearm master warlock. Often a hexblade, pact of the blade, but not always.
I allowed that as a DM. But I ruled that if they rolled a 1 on the d10, then they had disadvantage on any dex save vs. traps, initiative rolls, etc. cuz they were caught while casting. Just to make it a little bit of a pro/con decision for them to be doing that.
Never have I so consistently looked forward to a weekly UA-cam video. Great stuff!
I asked my DM about letting Magic Stone scale by adding to the number of stones you can enchant at one time. 3 at level 1, 5 at 5, 7 at 11, 9 at 17. It's really nice for keeping up with extra attack and preserving my bonus action. You could also propose 3-4-5-6 if they don't like 2 per scale-up.
I really like this idea. Unlike Shillelagh, it makes a lot of sense for this one to have some sort of scaling to keep up.
fantastic
Heads up: you cannot benefit from the casting of Find Familiar twice, so you cannot have 2 familiars this way. I wish it wasn't so, but the Druid's Wild Shape replacement specifically states that you cast a modified version of the Find Familiar spell, so it would not combine with your Wizard version of the spell.
Excited for a David build lol.
I was not expecting that, really! I'm very impressed that this build is actually very good, and all features only works because of the sling. Really good build, amazing me as always!
Thanks!
I agree. This is one of the builds too where all of the choices feel right to me. Both for RP, Utility and combat effectiveness.
Swarmkeeper and horizon walkers are my favorites ranger subclasses flavour wise, so I consider this vídeo as a personal gift hahaha
15:30 could RP that as PTSD. Who hurt this person? Do they need to make a saving throw in order to resist compulsively refreshing magic stone in inappropriate situations? Do the other PCs think they're insane? Do they refresh it more frequently when they're stressed out? Do they kind of tick sometimes when they cast it? Or rock back and forth?
Can I just say, that the little song you sang at the beginning really made me smile? I love those moments of impromptu creativity 🤗
Give the character a tick where they are always fidgeting by moving the pebbles around in their hand, like worry stones, casting the cantrip on them. Unless a surprise combat happens while they're hands were occupied, they always have magic stones on hand, literally. Plus it is a fun character quirk.
Hello, hello, hello, hello. Im glad i came your way.....to share with you on dungeoning day and to smite the dragons in an optimized way..
ha! yes!
Loved that into singing. Wasn't expecting that
*psst* your utah is showing
Share with us this primary day and be our friend in a very special way
@@chickenman2489 😬😬😂😂
This would make an excellent vampire themed character! Use bats as your swarm, summon bat familiars, and shape shift into a bat. Absolutely love the build!
I love the idea of high fiving my hand shaped swarm spirits after an awesome move
That opening song made me smile. I haven't heard it in a long time.
If you know, you know.
It was a pleasant surprise!
Great build Colby! Love that the sling has a narrow but awesome use. Ever thought of doing a build as a Kobold that focuses on animate object + summons? They cast spells that create allies and then they grovel, cower, and beg to give them advantage. Basically after turn 1 of a fight they just sit there useless and crying while doing big damage
Thanks! on the list! That said, I wonder if we could consider our animated objects as "allies," technically... hmmmm... it would seem almost silly to argue otherwise, but I can see some DMs getting hung up...
@@DnDDeepDive the Animate Object spell describes the objects as “creatures”, so thinking of these creatures as allies seems totally reasonable.
@@michaellavy3269 Makes sense to me. They are basically created summons.
@@michaellavy3269 I'd agree. I mean, if they're not allies... what are they? Definitely not enemies...
Crusader's Mantle spell?
As soon as I heard the primary song I knew it was gonna be a good build.
I thought you might go Circle of Stars: Archer when you grabbed Druid lvl 2, but the Shepherd does fit perfectly for a young King David
Very creative build, thanks so much! And I am sure there are DMs out there that would support it with regards to extra attack because it's more interesting than CBE and not overpowered.
And also I wanted to say that I am happy for you that you have more and more sponsors! You deserve it 🙂 And by the way, I backed the Battlezoo Bestiary because of your ad 😉
Thanks! And good to know!
I'm doing a similar build using the 2024 rules.
High Elf (Booming blade) will be good til 5th level in Melee and as a reaction attack with War Caster Feat.
Guide (Shillelagh, Magic Stone, Healing Word) this way I can still take a fighting style with ranger level 2.
Wisdom Based Swarm Ranger (5levels)/War Cleric, utilizing Magic Stone and Shillelagh cantrips.
By level 8, I'll be able to cast spike growth and War Priest bonus action attack in the first round. After that will be 3 attacks a round until I run out of War Priest uses. 🤙
Potentially 6D4+1D6+5 with Magic Sling Stone + 15ft push and Slowed weapon mastery. Try escaping the spike growth in difficulty terrain and having 10 feet less movement! Ha!
Or
6D4+1D10+5 with Shillelagh Quarterstaff + 15ft push and Topple weapon mastery. Now you can't do anything but stand up in the spike growth on your turn! Haha! 😊
EDIT: Going Druid is an option too, since I won't be using Sharp shooter. Circle of the Sea seems really good. Another 15ft push with a CON save this time. Very interesting!
I absolutely adore this build. As a huge fan of rangers, and a sucker for SAD builds, and someone who just LOVES optimizing with rarely used weapons, this character is right up my alley! Thank you for the build :)
Love it.
I’m picturing a fighter version of this that uses rune knight as an anti-David hurling bolders. Also let’s you push more creatures with crusher. Maybe those last three levels. 🤔
I *almost* went Rune Knight :).
@@DnDDeepDive Fire Rune also applies to any weapon attack, not just melee. So… stack it up!!
I love this build so much. Such a cool concept. I’ll be using variant human for mine. I picture a young little girl with her sling and her little magic friends.
Thanks for returning the calm music. Great video again btw.
My approach to the always casting magic stone problem would be for my character to invent a common magic item.
Satchel of Magic Stones: This small pouch can store up to 20 stones, instantly transforming them into magic stones (as per the magic stone spell). The stones remain magical for up to 1 minute after they leave the pouch.
This is one of the most clever and fun builds you have done so far! Im DMing for a swarmkeeper right now, and Ill be advising her to watch this.
I would love to see a conquest paladin build for control/tanking sometime, maximizing the fear mechanic. giving a ton of enemies disadvantage on attack rolls and immobilizing them seems like it could be utilized creatively. perhaps a candidate for a 2-character build with a glass cannon melee build to dart in and take out debuffed enemies.
Thanks! You might enjoy this if you haven't seen it yet... (though the conquest pally bit comes on a little late) ua-cam.com/video/sV8MhBajXtE/v-deo.html
@@DnDDeepDive I had missed this one! Thanks!
@@DnDDeepDive ah yes now that I've watched it, it's exactly what I had in mind! That sounds so fun to play. Great stuff as always
There is one other way of using your spellcasting ability to attack with a sling. Battle Smith Artificer with the Repeating shot infusion. I was literally working on that build yesterday. (But I still love the build! As usual)
It also takes away the need for a bonus action cantrip casting
@@androlgenhald476 Yep, having Int as our attack stat is really nice if we can get it. Went this route with my Blood Hunter build...
Goodberry > cure wound imho
Zephyr's Strike is _so_ good - lets you use a bonus round to move if something ends its turn next to you. DMs love to put monsters in your face, if you're a ranged attacker.
Goodberry as dollops of honey from your bees.
@@cloauldew nice!
@@cloauldew Zephyr's Strike could be Killer Bee Strike!
I spent a lot of time considering a form of this build too, with magic stone and sling, so I'm really happy you made this. I definitely missed a few steps in my calculations, because you got it to work in a way that I couldn't. In the end I built a melee swarmkeeper with a whip, slasher feat, blindfighting, fog cloud, and some rogue dip for sneak attack. It doesn't deal as much damage, but it is very effective.
It's been a while since I've commented. But I just have to say that this is hands down my favorite build so far Colby! I think I'm on my 7th time watching this. My group starts our new campaign in two weeks and I'm going to be playing a variation of this with the gunner feat and my swarm will be a single animal. I think for flavour this works perfectly if you want to play a beastmaster where your animal companion is used more for control instead of damage. Thanks for the inspiration. Keep it up!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed and hope you have fun!
I like how a tonne of people I know, me included, make some of the weirdest swarms. My friend is going to have a swarm of ducks and I have made one which is just a gang of meerkats.
To clarify something, these meerkats all have a name.
ha!
Amazing build Colby! So fun and thematic and I also sing with joy seeing the Sling put to good use. But a quintessential slinger for me must be a halfling. David vs Goliath vibe is strong in this one. Missing out on the starting feat, but one can always resort to begging for the sake of the vibe xD
This was great inspiration, I discovered that a Loxodon can double up on the Enhanced Weapon and Enhanced Arcane focus for a +4 a/d roll on Magic Stone!
Your videos are awesome! Sometimes i can't really follow what you are saying, because I'm quite new to DnD, but you're so positive about everything that you say that I keep going and watch how happy you are:-)
Ha ha thanks! Glad you are here :)
Props to you, Colby
Making a sling wielding build so much fun-looks like a blast to play!
40:00 need telekinetic feat to 'technically" be the best mage hand user.
Keep up the good work, Colby and crew :D
I was having a cruddy morning and your singing intro here was wonderful for helping me out. THANKS!
Ha ha any time! :)
So excited to watch this build unfold!
I've been playing this build and really love it, my main confusion is how you missed that it's impossible to have 2 familiars at once! Because Wild Companion just says you cast the Find Familiar spell we have to use its full text which does state that "You can't have more than one familiar at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead cause it to adopt a new form."
Feels like a biiiig change from RAW to allow two familiars and it wasn't mentioned in the build haha.
Love that spoiler alert :P. Also thank you. Im literally brainstorming a swarm keeper build using slings. Also, go go chicken swarm keeper
Haha awesome, I'm working on a strength based grappler one gotta keep them inside the ensnare/web!
Kind of want to make a kobold artificer with swarm lvl 3 who uses a sling
The boy in the green tunic shivers in fear
Oh nice! Another build I will try out in a one shot!
i love the use of hawk spirit. Not the most usually considered application of this ability
Mage Hand Story (in short): My DM contrived an epic tourney that came down to a 3 on 3 mounted combat between my party and the BBEG's Lieutenant. The Lord Herald waves the flag, combat is on, to the Death! My rogue casts Mage hand and un buckles the saddle of the Lieuy, fail Dexterity, he is on the ground. Our DM is awesome and we love him but all's fair...P.S. love the build. I'd also like to see more niche' builds.
Ha! Awesome!
I'm going to use this, or some variation of this to build a Kobold PC. One of their signature weapons is a sling.
Such a fun build. Post Tasha’s I think ranger may be my favorite class. While I know they are not top tier the fact that they are middle of the pact is all I need. Keep up the great work.
25:24 Wouldn't you be able to cast Spike Growth and Magic Stone on the same turn, since one is a leveled spell and one is a cantrip?
Unfortunately, the rules state that, if you cast any spell as a bonus action, no matter whether it's a cantrip or a spell slotted spell, the only other spell you can cast that turn is a cantrip with a casting time of one action. Obviously, your DM may rule otherwise... www.dndbeyond.com/sources/phb/spellcasting#CastingTime
@@DnDDeepDive So cast Spike growth with your action first, then use your bonus action to cast magic stone. Should work just fine.
@@sha2143 Alas I don't believe so. If you're going to cast a spell with your bonus action at all, the rules just don't allow anything but a cantrip with your action. Again, your DM may rule otherwise :).
Recommendation for saving youtube cards: make optimized playlists by class, i.e. a warlock class playlist would have a level 20 warlock build, but also every hexblade dip. Then, when you make a build you can use the cards to link to the playlists that use the same classes as in the build from the video.
I really like the arcane trickster dip. The utility is wonderful AND it advances your spell casting which is a very nice side-effect.
Character is a juggler, constantly juggling the 3 magic stones, recasting it whenever they can feel that it has lapsed.
Made a warforged swarmkeeper with a swarm of raccoons. He was a bunch of raccoons in a suit of armor.
Another good job with this character keep up the good work
This may be the build that gets me to try the Swarmkeeper. Thank you.
Woo hoo!
i may be mistaken, but you can cast spike growth, and the cantrip magic stone.
magic stone is both a cantrip, and a bonus action spell. which is allowed to cast at the same time you cast a regular spell!
I think if I make this character it would be a dryad and the magic stones are essentially acorns, while the swarm is twig blights. I would really want to use Hail of Thorns (hail of acorns) as well but only when not concentrating on spike growth. (Parts of this may not be mine originally, but I have had it in my head for a while, possibly thanks to someone here)
While spike growth does have higher damage potential, I think there's a really good spell that hasn't been mentioned that can (sort of) deal with the need for advantage: Web. (you get the spell anyway as part of the subclass)
Web is able to restrain enemies in an area when they enter it or when they start their turn in the area, it also becomes difficult terrain. Now the interesting thing is how this combos with gathered swarm. A creature that escapes the web is not likely to have enough movement to get far enough away or into melee range due to the difficult terrain, which means that if you can hit them after they get out you can force them to make a save and throw them right back in if they fail. If you don't need to put anyone back into the sticky zone you can attack those inside with advantage because they are restrained.
This might have less individual dpr but assuming that the wizard isn't chucking a fireball at it then it's massively boosting the dpr of your teammates while having massive control of the battlefield. Better yet, if someone else casts web(or a similar spell like black tentacles) then you can cast spike growth and throw them around inside the area, dying the webs red with blood.
I was actually thinking of what build might work for bulling enemies with web and I forgot that swarmkeeper was also the swarm yeeter.
Instead of starting with druid you can start as a fighter and pick up archery, then pick up druidic fighter from ranger. It's a little slower since you won't have the right stats from level 1-2 but if you're starting at level 3, no problem. Doesn't give as many spell slots but does allow you to pick up samurai for the 3/long rest advantage on all attack rolls per turn. I'm not sure how worth this is(I'm not much of a number cruncher)
Another way to use a sling is as a ranged side-arm on a bladesinger. It's only an extra 1d4+dex(or 1d6+INT if you take artifice initiate or 1 level arty dip, or 2d4+dex if you go for dual wielding and hang a bunch of loaded slings off your belt to switch to) but it's better than nothing. But if ranged bladesinger is what you're going for it's better to just go drow(or astral elf) and focus on hand crossbows or to pick up the gunner feat on variant human if your gm allows it.
I don't know why I found it quite so funny, but "We shall call him...Botticelli" made me chortle
The Chortle Tortle, if you will
Fun (or odd) fact, I have a Tortle character named Nortle and his mother's name is Chortle (father is Bortle).
@@ThreeOttersInATrenchcoat lol! I had to find another famous Italian artist who wasn't used yet!
Don't forget Create Bonfire, let your swarm shove them back into it. It uses concentration, but it is an extra option.
Something I like to rule with Magic stone is that you can use it on whatever small things you could throw.
In which case, my favorite ideas for a swarmkeeper with magic stone is either a swarmkeeper with a swarm of chickens using magic stone on their eggs, or a crazy cat lady with a swarm of cats that she casts magic stone on to throw at her opponents.
I love this. I like the idea of hummingbirds for the swarm.
I was imagining slinging Goodberries to heal at range and slinging hornets for poison damage. A range version of the Way of Mercy Monk. Not for gameplay, just for giggles.
Are you reading my mind Colby? Spying on me? My friend asked me to figure out a rogue healer after I made him a bard tank. So I was like, use the healer feat and thief. Then use alchemist to make more healing with the elixirs. Then he was like what’s next? I responded, well nature cleric gives me magic stone and bless, combined with a sling and sharpshooter and 2 levels of ranger I have a scary accurate rock pelter wearing heavy armor! After that he just kinda looked at me funny. You guys get me though, building is fun!!!
Also I always liked the idea of combining this with fey wanderer to double duty as the face of the group and have powerful summons to gang up on people. And turning your mage hand invisible is in character because you wanted little fairies as a swarm, and little fairies would totally turn invisible and then pick locks and pockets for you!!!
Nice!
I think the absolute best Mage Hand user is a capped intelligence Arcane Trickster that takes Telekinetic but only after learning it from Arcane Trickster, in order to double the range it is usable in. (I'm actually really surprised you've never mentioned that little bit from Telekinetic or utilized it, Colby!)
Great, now I'm going to have the Primary Song stuck in my head all day, thanks a lot XD
😂😂
25:30 magic stone is a cantrip. You can cast spiked growth and magic stone on the same turn
"Who cares about the damage?" Who are you and what have you done with Colby? XD
Ha ha! Sorry, lost my mind for a sec. Won't happen again >.>
@@DnDDeepDive please lose your mind more often. It reminded me how fun the game is when you optimized a character for roleplay instead of being a yummy yum crunchy number festival.
I thought this was a cute build idea in the beginning... and then the Arcane Trickster kicked in. Now I want to build myself a version and see what it would look like at a game. Nice job
a suggestion i would make for this build is to drop druid and go 3 levels samurai fighter. this gives us a fighting style, action surge for nova damage, and at 3rd level we can use fighting spirit to get advantage on both of our attacks without needing the complicated setup. 4 levels fighter to get the extra ASI early could also work.
Fighter is a good option, but when I look at Swarmkeeper ranger samurai isn't the fighter that jumps to mind for theming with the swarm. Echo knight gives great tools to use with the swarm that can all be flavored as your swarm doing something awesome.
If the build wasn't already so feat dependent, then I would probably find a way to include spell sniper to double the range, however that might be a good way to get the spell at level 1 with variant human or custom lineage, for a different kind of sling build
Lol nice opening. I think I know how you spent your childhood Sunday mornings!
Lake Isle of Innisfree is my favourite poem 🤩 amazing!!
The zoom in at 36:50 is so good.
Could you do a 4/5 member party composition with optimized characters only? Maybe with newer builds or builds you've already done?
Would be lit to get an overview of a crazily optimized power party that also complement each other well.
PS. Absolutely love your optimized character series
Thanks! I get this request fairly often, but I'm just not sure I'll ever have the time to put it all together :). Or maybe it'd just be the Starry Twilight Build + the Bladesinger Nova (for perma dim light) coupled with the Yin Yang team up build :P.
Nice job, great concept too!
Thanks!
Also Colby have you heard of a supplement called Playing Dead? It’s on the DMs Guild. It contains a Druid subclass called Circle of the Host, which gives you a beehive or something that your body is host too.
I would pair that with Swarmkeeper for the flavour alone.
I'm close to begining another campaign, and I'm now set on the idea of playing this build, if edited a little. Thank you d4 network, and keep up the great content.
love me some magic stone builds as i use this spell alot as additional dpr. btw i love the outtakes you include at the end of the vids. they weren't there before i took a "hiatus."
since you took arcane trickster, the circle of the shepherd dip feels redundant. it just adds to the bonus action clog to use the hawk totem. you could've just used steady aim and the familiar to get your 2 advantage attacks. the wild companion is just completely inferior to the wizard version. since you were hankering for more sustained dmg, you could've just converted those 2 levels of circle of shepherd to 2 more rogue arcane trickster levels. or perhaps dipped genie lock 1 for genie's wrath. or if you were willing to consider a "limited resource" sustained, dipped psi warrior 3 for psionic strike (this is a sustained dmg bonus for me as you get a ton of psionic energy dice).
I'd 100% allow this at my table, very few questions asked. I would like to point out, however, that I believe Jeremy Crawford's two cents on this (however valuable those cents may be), are that Magic Stone benefits attacks in general, ranged attacks, or spell attacks, but not weapon attacks. So while it would work with Extra Attack, which doesn't specify weapon attacks, it would not work with options that require you to attack with a "weapon". Even if you are using a sling.
Been a while since I heard that song. Does it mean what I think it does, brother?
Also, great build! I love seeing uncommon weapons being used to great effect. Any hopes of seeing a blowgun get the same treatment?
It probably does :). Blowgun user on the list!
@@DnDDeepDive I knew it! That said, it's a little odd that I haven't heard it in a while seeing as I'm a primary teacher... I blame covid xD
@@MatthewDragonHammer ha!
That intro freaked me out. I haven’t heard that song in 20+ years… you sly sob
One of my Adventurer's League characters is a Swarmkeeper Ranger/Mercy Monk combo (mostly a monk). His swarm is black and white butterflies. Healing with the white butterflies, harming with the black butterflies.
Lol, gotta love starting off with primary songs
/high five
on my current swarmkeeper build the first asi/feat i took was eldrich innitate taking the mage armor option, and with a sheild i have a AC of 18
16:00 I think I’ve figured out how to rp this, you’re paranoid because you’re used to being in trouble & needing to defend yourself from threats. This works especially well with subclasses like Swarmkeeper because you could reason that you’re something of an outsider, what with you constantly being surrounded by a cloud of wasps or whatever. This works with the sling because it is traditionally a lowly, common weapon. I’d take the Urchin or Criminal background for extra flavour.
I LOVED my Snobold (dm homebrew), shep druid, Mastermind rogue lv 3. Our cleric loved the hawk spirit reaction for his guiding bolt, ba help action, action atk/heal or grovel for more advantages. The kobold makes the hawk spirit actually good, plus the kobold got adv with pact tactics...
Oh and the sneak atk isn't much, but the slingshot gets sneak too...
I just learned about you from a comment in the Dungeon Dudes. Dope stuff
Awesome! Welcome! :)
When I built my swarmkeeper I chose circle of the stars druid and multiclassed one level into Cleric (arcana domain for more cantrips) to get access to healing word. exceptional healing with chalice form. Guiding bolt for free. If you ever get into melee range you can use Shillelagh, bonk your enemies with booming blade and push them away to gtfo.
I like combining Swarmkeeper Ranger, and Circle of Spores. So I can kill my enemies from afar with Necrotic daming as a reaction and turn them into Zombies.
I like the theme of Infecting my fire ants swarm wth Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis.
So I'll put a bunch of arrows in their body, and with their last bit strength as they crawl toards me to reach form my foot, my Ants will bite them and infect them Lanect Liver Flukes and turning them into Zombies.
and then I use the Zombies as meet shields.
Build Suggestion: A spellcaster that focuses on Acid and Poison damage, using the elemental adept feat or poisoner feat
On the list!
Love the content. I saw the short and had to find this. The fact that it is a swarm keeper (which I want to play) I'm down....
I'm going the 1 lvl cleric dip, since my swarmkeeper character idea is a bit more of a Friar Tuck. hence he slings blessed stones
I loved that build and am looking to build a character for Ravenloft. Is there a good way to make these stones an even more effective weapon against the undead with cleric or nature cleric instead of druid?
@@xaotica do 1 cleric, 5 ranger, then all cleric.
Shit just doing a cleric pure is the best way to deal with undead & spooky shit.
Just let ur party know ur plan, and have a second healer. Magic stone is magic damage, no way to make it radiant
@@xaotica I am biased toward medium armor master at lvl1 if you roll well for stats. You can make stealth a proficiency and be sneaking/tanky. Clerics passing stealth checks, now that is OP
@@Lost_Pikachu Thanks mate. Somebody in our group will, I just instantaneously had a really nice RP concept for the slinger and am now thinking about ways to slightly tweak it for Ravenloft.
You know this also has "Pokemon Trainer" vibes. Wishiwashi and Falinks are swarms essentially.
This is just such a fun concept
Does Magic Stone work with Extra Attack? I’ve gone back and forth. I think it says a single attack in description.
The spell is simply creating the magic imbued stones. From there, you or anyone else can use them to make attacks, but it doesn't, so far as I can tell, put limitations on how many could theoretically be used in a turn.
@@DnDDeepDive "You or someone else can make a ranged spell attack with one of the pebbles by throwing it or hurling it with a sling. " I think that the spell says you are making a "ranged spell attack" even if using a sling. A ranged spell attack takes an action to accomplish and does not stack with Extra Attack.
I certainly do not think that it breaks the game at all to allow multiple attacks in a turn, we handwoven this in a game, but we did believe that by RAW, you could only do one a turn. That does not have to be correct, but I do at least see the reasoning on the other side.
@@lexmtaylor Indeed - decided to pin a comment on this :)
I really like the idea of a sling build.
RAW, Magic stone is a spell attack whether thrown or used as sling ammunition. It absolutely should count as a weapon attack though, and I would count it that way in-game. It's a spell I don't see often. Rangers usually go long-bow, druids use other spells, and it's on the artificer list, but is almost useless to them, as they all get better options at level 3.