Before I get the ball rolling, I'd like to clarify that this build is not a Gish in the sense that I was not trying to create a character that melees and also use magic. If you look below, all the powers I picked up from Paladin/Justicar are actually implement based rather than weapon based, so this character will never lift a sword in her career if she can help it.
As of now, I've only got the level 20 build, but I'm planning on giving a snapshot at level 10 and level 30 as well when I have more time to flesh it out. And now, without further adue, the Feyknight of Corellon!
Level 20 Eladrin Warlock/Paladon of Corellon
Str: 14 Dex: 18 Con: 18 Int: 13 Wis: 9 Cha: 21
Initiative: +14
HP: 125 Surge Value: 31 Surges/day:10
AC: 35 Fort: 30 Ref: 31 Will: 31
Racial Features: Eladrin Education: Gain training in one additional skill (Stealth) Eladrin Weapon Proficiency: Gain proficiency with longsword Eladrin Will: +1 racial bonus to Will defense, +5 bonus against charm saving throws. Fey Origins: Considered a fey creature. Trance: 4 hour trance instead of sleep during which I am fuly aware. Fey Step: May use fey step once per encounter.
Class Features:
Feypact: When an enemy under my warlock's curse is reduced to 0 HP or fewer, I can immediately teleport 7 squares as a free action. Primeshot: If none of my allies are nearer to my target than I am, I receive a +1 bonus to ranged attacks against that target. Shadow Walk: If I move at least 3 squares away from where I started on my turn, I gain concealment (-2 to attacks against me) until the end of my next turn. Warlock's Curse: Once per turn as a minor action, can place Warlock's curse on two nearest enemies. If I damage a cursed enemy, I deal an extra 2d6 2d6 damage. I can deal this extra damage once per round. I can place a Warlock's curse on multiple targets over the course of an encounter. Implements: Can use rods or pact blades as implements for warlock powers. Just Action: When I spend an action point, each enemy adjacent to me is weakened until the end of its next turn Just Spirit: Each ally adjacent to me can reroll one saving throw at the end of his or her turn. Just Shelter: Allies adjacent to me are immune to fear and charm effects and receive a +1 bonus to saving throws. Divine Challenge: Can use divine challenge once per encounter. Creature gains a -2 penalty to attack creatures other than me, also takes 11 radiant damage the first time it attacks a creature other than me. I must engage target either by attacking it or ending my turn in a square adjacent to the creature in order for the effect to continue.
At Will: Eldritch Blast Ranged 10, One creature, +20 vs Reflex, 1d10+10 damage. Eyebite Ranged 10, one creature, +20 vs Will, 1d6+10 psychic damage. The creature receives a -2 penalty to its next attack roll, and I am invisibile to it until the beginning of my next turn.
Encounter: Mire the Mind Ranged 10, +20 vs Will, 1d10+10 psychic damage. Me and all allies within 10 squares are invisbile to this target until the end of my next turn. The target takes a -2 penalty on its next attack roll. I gain a +1 power bonus to all stealth checks until the end of the encounter. Hand of the Gods: Close burst 1, each enemy in burst, +19 vs fort, 2d10+9 Radiant damage. Targets are marked until the end of my next turn. Otherwind Stride Close Burst 1, each creature in burst, +20 vs fort, 1d8+10 damage. Targets are immobilized until the end of my next turn. Effect: I teleport 13 squares. Just Radiance Close Burst 5, each enemy marked by me in burst. +19 vs Will, 2d8+9 radiant damage. Until the end of my next turn, the target cannot make an attack that does not include me. Fey Step Move Action, encounter, personal. Teleport up to 9 squares, and gain +2 to all defenses until the end of my next turn.
Daily: True Nemesis One creature, ranged 5, +19 vs Will, 2d10+9 damage. Does half damage on miss. Until the end of encounter, whenever target is within 5 squares of me and attacks me or an ally, I can make a secondary attack against target as an immediate reaction. Secondary Attack: +19 vs will, 2d10+9 damage. Does half damage on miss. Wrath of Acamar One creature, Ranged 10, +20 vs reflex. 4d10+10 necrotic damage. Target disappears into a "starry realm" until they succeed saving throw. While in the "starry realm," the target cannot take actions, cannot be targeted, and takes 1d10 necrotic damage at the start of its turn. On a save, it returns to the space it was last in. If that space is occupied, the target returns to the nearest unoccpied space of its choice. Thief of the Five Fates One creature, Ranged 10, +20 vs Will. Until the end of my next turn, whenever the target makes a saving throw or an attack roll, I roll a d20 without modifiers. If my result is higher than the target's unmodified roll, the target's attack misses or the saving throw fails. Sustain Minor: Make a +20 vs will attack againt the target. On hit, the effect continues. On a miss, the effect ends. Challenge the Unjust Close burst 10, Each enemy in burst. +19 vs will, 3d8+9 radiant damage. Every target is marked until the end of my next turn. On a miss, it does half damage and each target is still marked until the end of my next turn.
Utility: Ethereal Stride: Move action, encounter. I can teleport 7 squares, and gain a +2 power bonus to all defenses until the end of my next turn. Wrath of the Gods Minor action, daily, close burst 1. Me and each ally in burst gains +5 to all damage rolls until the end of the encounter. Shielding Shades Immediate reaction, daily. Trigger: I am hit by an attack. Effect: reduce the damage to 0. If allys are also hit by attack, they take damage as normal. Strike Me Instead Immediate interrupt, personal, daily. Trigger: Ally within 5 squares is attacked. Effect: Attack misses all my allies it targets, but automatically hits me even if I'm not a target of the attack. Infuriating Elusiveness Move action, encounter, personal. I become invisible and can teleport 8 squares. The invisibility lasts until the start of my next turn.
Item Abilities: (Can only use 2/day, but regain one use per milestone reached) Eladrin Boots: (Daily) Move action, teleport 12 squares. Guardian's Cape: (Daily): Move action; teleport to the space of an ally within 14 squares of you; that ally switches places with you. Ironskin Belt (Daily) Minor action; gain resist 5 to all weapon damage Gloves of Piercing (Daily) Minor action; Until the end of the encounter, my attacks ignore any resistance of 10 or lower.
Feats: Soldier of the Faith (Level 1) Chainmail Proficiency (Level 2) Novice Power (Level 4) Lightshield Proficiency (level 6) Acolyte Power (Level 8) Adept Power (Level 10) Improved Misty Step (Level 11) Teleport an additional 2 squares with pact teleport Psychic Lock (Level 12) Powers with psychic keyword also cause -2 to attack on targets. Twofold Curse (Level 14) Allows cursing of two simultaneous targets with one minor action. Great Fortitude (Level 16) +2 to fortitude defense Combat Anticipation (Level 18) Shield Specialization (Level 20)
Equipment: Eladrin Chainmail +4 (level 18): Ignore skill penalty, speed penalty, teleports have +2 range Magic Rod +5 (Level 21) Holy Symbol +4 (45,000 GP) Eladrin Boots (45,000 GP) Teleports have an additional +2 range Guardian's Cape +4 (Level 20) Shield of Deflection (13,000) Gain resistance 5 to all ranged attacks. Gloves of Piercing (680) Circlet of Authority (2600) Gain +2 to intimidate and diplomacy. Ironskin Belt (1000 gp) Bag of Holding (1000 GP) Everlasting Provisions (840)
15880 GP remaining
Now that you've (hopefully) read the mechanics, lets discuss strategy.
This class is a combined striker, secondary defender, party support, and serious debuffer all on one character, with some jaw-dropping mobility to top it all off. With access to FOUR once-per-encounter teleports (feystep, ethereal stride, otherwind stride, and enfuriating elusiveness), two items that grant once-per-day teleports (Guardian's Cloak and Eladrin Boots), teleports as a free action whenever an enemy is dropped to 0 HP under your curse, and on top of all of this gains +4 squares to ALL teleports from combined Eladrin Chainmail and Eladrin boots, the fey-knight will be constantly warping around the battlefield, gaining the best possible position for her attacks every turn. And you know what the best part is? Thanks to shadow walk, everytime you teleport you can gain concealment, and with a good stealth roll, combat advantage.
Next, lets talk defenses. I was able to set up her stats so that all three of her highest stats cover different defenses. Although her AC and Fort save are lower than a typical defender of her level, her will and reflex saves are higher to compensate; this isn't even taking into count the fact that the Fey-knight should be getting concealment from Shadow Walk nearly every turn; as a reminder, concealment means that enemies take a -2 penalty to attack the feyknight, essentially giving her +2 to all of her defenses. This narrows the gap between her AC/Fort to that of a similar leveled defender, and further increases her advantage of higher reflex/will. The one area that the Fey-Knight can NOT compete with a defender, however, is Hit Points and Healing surges; although 125 HP is by no means a low HP value, the Fey-knight isn't designed to take repeated abuse like a defender. This is why The fey-knight is better at dealing with enemies the primary defender isn't currently tanking, and in a pinch can step in for the defender if the defender is low on HP, surges, or is dead or unconscious.
Next up is party support. Thanks to her paladin multiclassing and Justicar paragon path, the Fey-knight can help boost the effectiveness of her entire party. First, lets discuss the Justicar features Just Spirit and Just Shelter. Allies adjacent to the fey-knight get both a +1 saving throw bonus, and can choose to reroll their saving throw if they are not happy with their roll; this means that persistent effects have a significant chance of being shrugged off . Although not useful in every encounter, Just Shelter also grants adjacent allies immunity to fear and charm effects. As an example, any dragon's "Frightful presence" simply will not work on allies adjacent to the Justicar, which is impressive. Second, the fey-knight has two utilities which help her support her allies. The first is "Wrath of the Gods" which is gained through her paladin multiclassing. This utility allows the fey-knight to, once per day, give herself every ally within 1 square an impressive +5 to damage until the end of the encounter as a minor action. The next utility, "strike me instead," which is gained from Justicar paragon path, allows her to absorb an attack for allies; if you read it closely, it means that if your entire party is hit by an area of effect attack, the Fey-knight can have it miss ALL of her allies in exchange for being hit herself.
Next, lets discuss debuffing and ability combos. First up is a simple and abusable combo involving eyebite and divine challenge. In one turn, the fey-knight can curse an enemy, divine challenge him, and hit him with eyebite. The enemy, if hit, takes 3d6+10 damage, canot see the Fey-knight, has a -2 penalty to attack anyone but the feyknight, has another -2 penalty from psychic lock, and takes 11 damage if it attacks anyone else. This is absolutely VICIOUS coming from an ability that can be used at will. Next up is one of my favorite combos. First, you use Infuriating Elusiveness to teleport into a group of enemies and become invisible. Next, you use your minor action to mark two targets. Then you use "Challenge the Unjust" to deal a large amount of damage and mark enemies in a very large burst. Next, you use an action point to activate "Just Radiance," any targets hit by it take even more damage and cannot make attacks that do not include you. Because you're invisible, the enemies hit by Just Radiance take a massive penalty to hit you, and those that you miss can choose to hit other targets but have a -2 penalty to do so, take 11 damage when they do, and if they were adjacent to you are also weakened for a turn. The next turn the fey-knight can simply teleport out again if she believes that being surrounded will bring her death.
There are many, many more combos like this hidden in the build, too many for me to list here if I desire my sanity. I'd love to hear any comments, criticisms, or even other ways to make this build even better! Thank you for reading and I hope you find my build interesting.
A few things to make it better (IMO). I'd go with something else besides Eladrin for race, and not pump Dex so much. The only thing you're getting with that Dex is better stealth and initiative, especially if you use chainmail like the design calls for. If you can use the MM Doppelganger, you want to, as it pumps both stats you care about and also is a lot of fun (you can look just like the enemy...if you're bamfing around behind the lines so to speak, this along with your concealment will cause massive confusion while helping your side). That is, unless you want to exploit the Warforged supplement's rules for embedded and installed weapon/shield and go for more of a fighter/mage type (though I really don't know how those don't make warforged better than almost anything else for a hybrid-fighter design so they'll probably get toned down some).
If limited to PHB, I'd probably go with either Dragonborn (being even more of an AOE-monster than you already are -- it buffs your Cha (what your character runs on) and also your Str (needed for getting armor)) or Tiefling (it gives you your two main stats and a racial that synergizes with one of them as well). You get so much movement anyway as a fey-lock I think Eladrin is a sub-par choice unless you're going for theme.
As for equipment, Rod of Corruption is your friend. The only weaknesses you have as a character are some fragility (common to strikers) and drawing OAs if you're next to stuff and using anything but your close burst powers (ranged powers draw OAs and most of your attacks are ranged).
Wonderful concept. Here's a few suggestions, though.
- I'd replace the two Shield Proficiency feats with Scale Armor Proficiency and Specialization. You wind up with the same net AC bonus gain, and you won't ever need more than a STR 13, CON 13 and DEX 15 for both of those.
On that note, Heavy Shield Proficiency takes a STR 15, so you couldn't take it with this build, anyway.
- Looks like your DEX score started pretty high. Why? Warlocks don't need DEX, other than perhaps for armor feats, and no Paladin powers use it, either. Those points could've gone into more INT at character creation. Intelligence helps your Warlock powers in general, and if it's higher than your DEX score it gets applied to AC and Reflex instead of DEX. And you're an Eladrin, which gets a bonus to DEX, so I'd say you definitely spent too much on that stat.
I would've gone with this point buy: STR 13, CON 13, DEX 12, INT 14, WIS 8, CHA 16
With Eladrin bonuses this becomes: STR 13, CON 13, DEX 14, INT 16, WIS 8, CHA 16
You don't even have to touch your DEX, and at Paragon Tier it will rise high enough to take Scale Specialization (which means you can move full speed in that armor as well as get +1 AC). And you still qualify for Soldier of the Faith at the start. Moreover, your INT is a lot higher, which means your Warlock powers are all a LOT more effective (INT even affects some of your teleports). Assuming you boost CHA every time at 4, 8, 14, and 18, and between those alternate INT and CON, you should have at Lv. 20:
STR 14, CON 16, DEX 15, INT 19, WIS 9, CHA 21
- Also, replace Great Fortitude with Combat Anticipation. That feat covers a lot more ground.
- You might want to consider replacing Quick Draw with Weapon Proficiency (rapier), and then investing in a Pact Blade rapier. That way, you can perform some CHA-based Paladin weapon attacks, some of which are pretty good. Also don't forget that you only need to WEAR a holy symbol to get its benefits, not hold it.
D&DN Paladin: Half-Fighter, half-Cleric, all useless. D&DN Ranger: Third-Fighter, third-Rogue, third-Druid, all useless. With one interesting concept that has its execution botched.
I have a Cha-based human starlock in my campaign going Justiciar - I'll inform him about the build
I also think Eladrin is suboptimal though. Half-Elf (if you go for Scale Armor) or Halfling/Tiefling (if you go with light armor) is best I think.
I'm working on a similar but reversed build where a halfling palading using scimitar dance goes for warlock multiclassing to grab eyebite as an at will and do exactly the debuffing shenanigans you describe. With a wand of frost and frost feats added for good measure.
Thanks for all the comments! I'll adress some specific points, criticisms, and advice you've all brought up.
A few things to make it better (IMO). I'd go with something else besides Eladrin for race, and not pump Dex so much. The only thing you're getting with that Dex is better stealth and initiative, especially if you use chainmail like the design calls for. If you can use the MM Doppelganger, you want to, as it pumps both stats you care about and also is a lot of fun (you can look just like the enemy...if you're bamfing around behind the lines so to speak, this along with your concealment will cause massive confusion while helping your side). That is, unless you want to exploit the Warforged supplement's rules for embedded and installed weapon/shield and go for more of a fighter/mage type (though I really don't know how those don't make warforged better than almost anything else for a hybrid-fighter design so they'll probably get toned down some).
I mostly went Eladrin for theme, and Eladrin does more than you think it does. First off, although I'll be getting teleports off the wazoo from Feypact, I have to kill an enemy for it to go off, and Shadow Walk explicitly states that it only works if you move during your turn. Having that one extra, controllable teleport is powerful. Second, the powerful Eladrin Boots daily power has an impressive TEN squares instead of just 5 if you're an Eladrin. Finally, the extra skill is nice for making the character even more versatile.
Next, I raised Dex instead of Int because I explicitly chose warlock powers that do not run off of intelligence. Therefore, dex's +initiative and +stealth is infinitely more useful, especially since I'll be gaining cover every single round, and having more initiative is NEVER a bad thing.
- I'd replace the two Shield Proficiency feats with Scale Armor Proficiency and Specialization. You wind up with the same net AC bonus gain, and you won't ever need more than a STR 13, CON 13 and DEX 15 for both of those.
No can do. Eladrin chainmail is crucial for not crippling her base move speed, not having an armor penalty to stealth, and also boosting her teleport range, not to mention that the shields also give her +reflex in addition to AC.
Looks like your DEX score started pretty high. Why? Warlocks don't need DEX, other than perhaps for armor feats, and no Paladin powers use it, either. Those points could've gone into more INT at character creation. Intelligence helps your Warlock powers in general, and if it's higher than your DEX score it gets applied to AC and Reflex instead of DEX. And you're an Eladrin, which gets a bonus to DEX, so I'd say you definitely spent too much on that stat.
Already adressed above, but I'll recap: none of the Warlock powers I picked use intelligence in any way.
- Also, replace Great Fortitude with Combat Anticipation. That feat covers a lot more ground.
Great fortitude is needed because her fort defense is her crucial weakness, and Great Fortitude helps bring it up to nearly equal that of her other two defenses. However, below you inform me that quick draw isn't neccesary, so I'm going to replace quick draw with Combat Anticipation.
- You might want to consider replacing Quick Draw with Weapon Proficiency (rapier), and then investing in a Pact Blade rapier. That way, you can perform some CHA-based Paladin weapon attacks, some of which are pretty good. Also don't forget that you only need to WEAR a holy symbol to get its benefits, not hold it.
I originally planned on taking weapon proficiency: rapier, but after looking through the paladin powers I wanted, I noticed that none of them needed a weapon and decided to drop it. Besides, not using a weapon makes her unique in the sense that she's not really a "gish" because she doesn't focus on melee, and it sets her apart from the "witch-knight' build someone else posted. Think of her more as a tank mage.
On that note, Heavy Shield Proficiency takes a STR 15, so you couldn't take it with this build, anyway.
I replaced it with Shield Specialization, which ends up having the same effect anyway.
EDIT: After looking over the powers, I realized just one works off of intelligence: Mire the Mind gives a bonus to stealth checks for the rest of the encounter equal to my int modifier. Although this is a nice ability, I already get +1 from it and I don't think it's strong enough to warrant pumping INT farther.
DOUBLE EDIT: Also, another bonus for eladrin: Eladrin skill training allows you to train stealth without blowing a feat on it. Combined with high dex, the feyknight will be gaining combat advantage almost every round.
You only posted a 20th Lvl version, so I had to extrapolate a 15th Lvl snapshot as best I could. Let me know when you update it, so I can edit the posts for changes,
The race really should be changed. If you want to keep the elf-y flavor, a drow works wonderfully (and you subscribe to the drow-worshipping-Corellon-and-may-or-may-not-be-angsty-about-it-but-probably-because-all-drow-are-angsty archtype).
Or, alternately, the gnome has (arguably) some of the best stats for this, and is really a miniature eladrin, but with more stealth powers. Also, that way...you can be a monster! Rawr!
Challenge: When ~ comes into play, all opponents may put a Legendary creature card with the same or smaller converted mana cost as ~ into play without paying its mana cost.
Have you considered a Star of Corellon for this build? It's in the AV on page 86 and lets you use it as an implement for any arcane power in addition to functioning as a normal holy symbol.
