Ghostlance build! - D&D 5E

2nd build covered on this channel! This one is by Lilith!

Link to Ghostlance artist:

Link to build Lilith made:

Ronin's Forcelance guild - The original build:

Link to command and dissonant Whispers:

Link to patreon, merch shop, discord and twitter:

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
2:17 What this build does
2:35 Level 1: Undead Warlock 1
4:55 Level 2: Fighter 1
5:15 Level 3: Undead Warlock 2
5:39 Level 4: Fighter 2
6:10 Level 5: Fighter 3 (Echo knight) Build is online
6:41 How Echo Knight works
13:52 Strategy for this build
17:20 For higher level options and multiclass ideas

[benjaminholcomb]

Someone: *thinks polearm master for reaction attacks*

Kobold: "and I took that personally"

[jinxtheunluckypony]

I love the shenanigans this build enables. It’s not often you see a dedicated caster take a full 3 levels in Fighter.

[OffbeatOutlaw]

Excellent build and video! The use of the war caster + echo knight is novel!

[deanofett]

I'd love to see a deeper dive on War Caster and how to get max use out of that, perhaps that is something I can dig into myself.

[Spiceodog]

This feels like a prestige class. I wonder if there’s non optimized but perfectly balanced and capable that also feel completely unique

[SkyyWalker]

I loved listening to how genuinely excited you are about this. Really fun builds and great vid as always.

[DDCRExposed]

This sounds like an amazing build. I'll certainly have to look into it when I get around to starting this in another campaign. Right now, though, I'm getting back into the DM chair with my Tuesday group, so it's time to nearly TKP my players each game, just to keep things interesting. 😈

[stirrcrazy]

See this kind of thing is why I love optimizing. Taking a feature you’d think of as minor or just a bonus, and making the build around it. It becomes something unique to your character while still being effective.

Sincerely,
-A guy who plays a suturefly companion beastmaster ranger

[keeganator]

I’ve been waiting on this video ever since he teased it last month. So glad it’s finally finished and even better than I thought. Well done, as always Kobold you are very quickly becoming one of my favorite D&D optimization build channels. Keep up the good work.

[DDCRExposed]

Oh I was hoping there'd be a "But Kobold" shirt. I'll be getting that one!

[lord]

I've only gotten to use it a few times, but its pretty funny using warcaster to drop bestow curse on somebody.

[zerofang]

This is a great build and I'm hyped to try it out one day. Great video Pack Tactics : )

[louisgunstone]

There is an interesting later build option you could take revolving around the additional warlock invocations of grasp of hadar and lance of lethargy, at higher levels with additional eldritch blasts you get HUGE control of wherever your enemy is at all times, being able to move it both away and towards you, you get a lot of crowd control and synergy with any other casters and environmental hazards in combat with the added benefit of reducing your targets speed until the end of your next turn, essentially forcing them out of combat for the entire combat

[fatilumkins]

I love the distinction between creature and object with the echo knight. Taking Devils Sight as an invocation and casting Hunger of Hadar would allow you to push a creature into the circle, put your echo knight inside where it suffers no effects and can use your reaction at advantage to keep enemies inside taking cold and acid damage while they have disadvantage on all attack rolls and can’t cast many spells.

[AmGroot]

Quick note: you can't frighten enemies via your form of dread on an opportunity attack, as the feature says that you can do it "Once on each of *your* turns".

[arcanerecovery]

I love this idea and the mechanics behind it! This video is already a couple of years old so you didn't have access to some of this but here is one of my takes on a more modern variant:

Take the Polearm Master feat and use a halberd so that your reach is now 10 feet, and take the new Path of the Giant subclass for Barbarians so that your reach increases by 5 feet. This means your total reach is now 15 feet. You also become Large if you are medium or smaller. This actually matters as 15 feet reach on a medium creature covers 48 squares around you on a grid, and 15 feet reach on a large creature covers 60 squares around you on a grid. You reach remains the same, 15 feet, but because a large creature takes up a 4x4 area on a grid it allows you to cover/reach more squares... where even more enemies could have a chance to enter your reach and trigger an AoO.

You're also gonna need to be able to cast Eldritch Blast with the invocation Repelling Blast at the very least (you're probably gonna also want Agonizing Blast). When an enemy breaches your 15 foot bubble of reach you get an AoO.

Now I should mention here that you would also need Warcaster to switch from using an AoO to casting a spell with our reaction. Cast Eldritch Blast and push the enemy back 10 feet so they are now 25 feet away. Since you need at least 3 levels in Barbarian and a way to cast Eldritch Blast with the Repelling Blast invocation you are probably gonna need 2 levels in Warlock also.

Overall this will mean you are a minimum of a 5th level multiclass (Barb 3/Warlock2) and your Eldritch Blast will have two beams which means you could leave your enemy standing 35 feet away... on their turn... as a reaction. How much of their movement did they use to get to within 15 feet of you before you 'blasted them away' and how much do they have left after finding themselves 35 feet distance from you?

[bryankia]

I love this. I have been eyeing the echo knight to play. I might just build one with a 2 level dip in warlock for all shenanigans this offers. You sir are a scaly treasure.

[peterusmc]

I feel like this manifest echo combo works really well with the earth genie warlock which gets spike growth and deals a little bit of extra damage which is bludgeoning so if you wanted you could take crusher for more pushing.

[anonymusincognito]

I waited for this, I love your style of videos

[jdxanadu]

I made a second character in the campaign I'm currently in just to try out ghostlance, and it's a lot of fun. The DM didn't always play into it unfortunately, but when I got to ghostlance I loved it.