D&D 5E Basic Build Series: Introduction

Author: kobo1d

For our first series of character builds at Tabletop Builds, we are publishing a single build for each character class in D&D 5E. We are calling these our Basic Build Series.

Each Basic Build we have created is:

• Single-classed. We intend to focus on more complex and further optimized builds in the future, but we thought it would be useful to provide a baseline exploration of the capabilities of each class. Each Basic Build only takes levels in a single, official class, taken for all 20 levels. Our personal experiences with 5E indicate that multiclassing is a popular but not universal variant rule, and we wanted to develop some content for people who visit our site and do not use the variant. Of course, you may wish to use the builds as a starting point for a more complicated and personalized multiclassed character build. We encourage it!

• Variant Human. Human (Variant) and Custom Lineage provide a free feat at level 1, and from an optimization perspective this is a very strong racial option. These choices may seem generic, but general purpose builds is the point of the series! You will need to have specific synergies to compete with the strongest feats, and that just isn’t what a Basic Build is about. If you wish to play with these builds using a different race, they should still be potent, though you may wish to re-evaluate the progression of Ability Score Increases and Feats. 

• Using Feats. Restating the obvious from the above point: we will be using the feat variant. For games that don’t use feats, if there is interest we may develop builds for feat-less games in the future, but our own personal experiences with 5E indicate feats are nearly universal in their usage. 

• Optimized. We explain assumptions made in our Core Tenets. We don’t imagine you will use most builds to the letter, but if you generally follow along with the key decisions, you should have a character prepared to face the challenges set before them with aplomb. These builds are also set up to be excellent pre-made options for a new player in an optimized game, who has no idea how to optimize a character and just wants to be simple but keep up with a group of optimized veterans. 

• In the same format. To make things easier to read, our group of contributors have done their best to adhere to a common format for presentation. We may slightly improve it over time, but our goal is to use the same format for all of our build guides on Tabletop Builds. 

When making major decisions (such as subclass) for each Basic Build, we had the following ranked criteria:

1. Generalizability. These builds should still be largely applicable if you choose a different subclass. Some character options take builds in very specific optimization directions. When choosing a subclass or other decision, we have chosen options that minimize the cascade of decisions that would result from said decision. Some subclasses are played and built like the base class, but more. These are the options we choose, assuming they also line up with our other criteria.

2. Accessibility. Not everyone has access to every book, so without interfering with the other criteria, we will try to favor books that more players will have access to. For minor decisions, such as a few spell choices, if an option is unavailable to you, the impact to the build’s overall effectiveness should be relatively minor. We used the following order for major decisions in the Basic Build Series: 
   1. Player’s Handbook.
   2. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything.
   3. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
   4. Other Official Books (Setting books, etc).

3. Effectiveness. Where we do stray from our Accessibility goals, we do so because of Generalizability or what we consider significant power level differences. If the options in the Player’s Handbook are vastly inferior to options printed in later books, we will skip the Player’s Handbook option, because we want to provide builds we would be happy playing in a highly optimized group.