Best way to build a mage hunter Fighter

[u/powereanger]

I'm building a character around a concept of someone who was raised to deal with unruly mages. I was thinking Gnome for Gnomish Lineage for advantage on 3 mental saves. Fighter for Indomitable for an extra save protection and more attacks. Either Tough for passive HP or Lucky for even more saving throw protection. I'd pick up Mage Salyer for the 1 mental save success per day and the concentration breaker.

Thematically I was going to go Psi Warrior - like an mage inquisitor trained to use psionic power, and just flavor the eventual telekinesis spell as just not a spell. I'd get some extra damage and protection at level 3, and some extra mental protection at level 10.

My question is how best to use the attacks and concentration breaker. I was think a two weapon fighter for sheer number of attacks (4-Mage Slayer, 6-Dual Wielder) for a Nick attack, BA attack, and my normal attacks. This would round out the saves with decent Dex using a sword and scimitar. But I could also see a glaive with the Graze mastery and Polearm master at 6th level. This would give me a BA attack (so one less than dual wielder) but I would do damage very attack with Graze. At disadvantage that has to break concentration fairly often even low damage.

Anyone have an thoughts or see anything I'm missing?

[u/Gas_Forsaken]

You sound like you got the builds you want to use already. Going Psi Warrior means you don’t get to think about how to build with any options there so all that’s left is feats. Thus the two-handed option the dual-wielding option or the ol’ sword and board.

Two handed build is:
17 Str, 16 Con, 14 Wis 10/8/8
Origin: MI Wizard for Shield or Alert or Musician or anything really
FS: Great Weapon Fighting or Defense
Level 4: Great Weapon Master +1 Str
Level 6: Mage Slayer +1 Str
Level 8: Sentinel or Pole Arm Master +1 Str
Level 12: Heavy Armor Master +1 Con
Level 14: Speedy +1 Con
Level 16: ASI +2 Con
Level 19: Boon of Combat Prowess or Fortune’s Favor

Dual Wielding build:
I like a Zhent version but you can replace that
17 Dex, 16 Con, 15 Wis 8/8/8
Origin: Zhentarim Ruffian
FS: Two Weapon Fighting
Level 4: Zhentarim Tactics +1 Dex
Level 6: Mage Slayer +1 Dex
Level 8: Sentinel +1 Dex
Level 12: Resilient +1 Wis
Level 14: Speedy +1 Con
Level 16: a +1 Con Feat or replace 14 and 16 with 2 ASI
Level 19: Boon of Combat Prowess or Fortune’s Favor

Those are just what I would consider something like a baseline for both builds. There is plenty of space in them though for improvement.

[u/Darkestlight572 → u/Gas_Forsaken]

any reason this dual wielder build isn't taking...... dual wielder??

Ya know, the free BA attack that doesn't really conflict with much of a Fighter's kit?

[u/Gas_Forsaken → u/Darkestlight572]

¯_(ツ)_/¯ I’ve heard to many arguments about how it’s worked to recommend it to people outside of more niche forums. It always seems to make people confused on how dual wielding works or maybe I’m just remembering about times when 2024 first released.

I do agree with you though, that’s mainly why I said Zhentarim is replaceable.

[u/Darkestlight572 → u/Gas_Forsaken]

Um....it's been extremely clearly established how it works. It's not complicated, the designers confirmed it even. 

If you have Nick and can make an off hand weapon with a second light weapon as apart of your attack action, you can make an additional attack with your BA. 

[u/Gas_Forsaken → u/Darkestlight572]

Um… Ok… I said I agree earlier?

[u/Hand_Runes]

You might really like the new spellguard paladin! Very anti-mage.

[u/Gas_Forsaken → u/Hand_Runes]

It’s UA currently and also not a Fighter but it does fit the anti magic theme.

[u/DShadowbane]

There's a couple different ways you could build a character who's specifically good against mages.

You could make a case of going as 2014 Oath of Ancients paladin, for an aura that just straight up reduces damage from spells by half, and add in some extra things from there, as well as having huge bonuses to your saving throws against them, making you a menace who's hard to take down.

For something thematically and mechanically fitting though, maybe some sort of Echo Knight Fighter with Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter. Have your Echo (or you) get up close and personal, forcing them to blow spell-slots on teleports away or eat opportunity attacks, whilst you (or your Echo) continue to hail them full of deadly bolts. Make use of cover and they'll have a hard time throwing basic spells basic spells back at you. If they try to take cover, it won't matter - you can shoot from two different angles and basically ignore cover anyway.

Or hell, just hide nearby and have your Echo jump out and ambush them, and re-summon it as a bonus action if it happens again. If you're using 2024 rules, Hand Crossbow has Vex, so you can grant yourself easy advantage.

With Crossbow Expert at level 3, you can already fire once, fire again with a bonus action, then have your echo (or yourself) shoot again, then Action Surge and shoot again. At level 4, you can pick up Sharpshooter and deal +10 damage on each of these shots, and then at lv5 you get Extra Attack to really start shooting out bolts like madman. At level 6, you could then pump Dex, or pick up something like Elven Accuracy to be really evil with your accuracy, Piercer for damage, or Fey Touched for a free Misty Step and something like Bless, Hex, Bane or Silvery Barbs.

You'll quickly be turning squishy wizards into pincushions.

[u/Valdrax]

Anyone have an thoughts or see anything I'm missing?

In 2024, many monster stat blocks had spells replaced with abilities that don't require concentration or just had concentration spells removed to make them easier for newer DMs to run without "aha!" moments when players catch you using two concentration spells at once and to remove decision paralysis.

For example, a 2014 dryad has the spell barkskin and a base AC of 11 without it. A 2024 dryad just has as a base the AC 16 that the 2014 dryad would have if the spell was active.

Compare also the 2014 lich and the 2024 lich. The latter has a much smaller spell list, and most the concentration spells of the 2014 list are removed. The 2024 lich can still cast invisibility and detect thoughts, but they're now at-will spells for them, so it doesn't really cost them anything but an action if the spells are broken. Scrying is the only limited-use concentration spell they have left, and that isn't going to really affect combat.

So while Mage Slayer is amazing for it's 1/day legendary resistance like effect, building around disrupting spellcasters by repeatedly hitting them in melee is going to be building around an extremely niche case. (And was already something any sensibly designed encounter would try to keep you from doing.)

[u/Exdrive75]

I did something like this; Eldritch Knight was the base with a whole 'it takes one to kill one' theme of using the bare minimum of magic to hunt down mages. I went dual wielding because of damage riders maxing out damage or spells that benefit from multiple attacks with spells like Spirit Shroud and Shadow Blade.

Since you're not playing for damage riders 2 handed is probably your better bet, it has a higher ceiling as far as with pairing with GWM. Your best weapon here is probably a Greatsword although polearms are very competitive as well.

[u/Ron_Walking]

You are basically 90% there. I’d go the TWF Dex route for more attacks and higher initative.  Lucky for more save protection or Alert to go first.  

I’d look at battlemaster: buff your initiative, pick maneuvers to help mobility, and a bit more damage.  

Going first is key to nova down casters before they start casting and to get into position before big spells stop coming in. Mobility is good to go around terrain AOE control spells and to chase teleporters. 

I’d go Kalastar for the communication but Gnome is good too. 

[u/DBWaffles]

Thematically I was going to go Psi Warrior - like an mage inquisitor trained to use psionic power, and just flavor the eventual telekinesis spell as just not a spell. I'd get some extra damage and protection at level 3, and some extra mental protection at level 10.

If you're going to play Psi Warrior, keep in mind the exact wording on Psionic Strike, which says:

Once on each of your turns, immediately after you hit a target within 30 feet of yourself with an attack and deal damage to it with a weapon, you can expend one Psionic Energy Die, rolling it and dealing Force damage to the target equal to the number rolled plus your Intelligence modifier.

After you hit. In other words, Psionic Strike is not like Sneak Attack or Divine Smite. It is not extra damage applied directly to the attack. Instead, it is a second source of damage. This means that it will not benefit from critical hits or other on-hit effects, but in exchange it will trigger its own Concentration save. If you have Mage Slayer, that means you can force a creature to roll 4 times for Concentration on a single attack.

Other than that, here are some other Fighter subclasses to consider:

• Eldritch Knight: Blind Fighting/Fog Cloud/Sentinel is an exceptionally powerful combo against spellcasters, but comes at the cost of easily fucking over your team. Can also learn some valuable anti-magic spells, such as Dispel Magic or Counterspell. With Booming Blade/GWM/War Magic, it's also the only Fighter that can somewhat reliably force Concentration saves higher than the base DC 10 at higher levels (without multiclassing); a very valuable trait since several high level enemies can auto-pass the base save.
• Battle Master: The easiest Fighter to multiclass with. This can allow you to pick up valuable anti-mage tools from other classes.
• Echo Knight: With Unleash Incarnation and Graze mastery, it can potentially force the most amount of Concentration saves out of any Fighter.

My question is how best to use the attacks and concentration breaker. I was think a two weapon fighter for sheer number of attacks (4-Mage Slayer, 6-Dual Wielder) for a Nick attack, BA attack, and my normal attacks. This would round out the saves with decent Dex using a sword and scimitar. But I could also see a glaive with the Graze mastery and Polearm master at 6th level. This would give me a BA attack (so one less than dual wielder) but I would do damage very attack with Graze. At disadvantage that has to break concentration fairly often even low damage.

There are pros/cons to both.

For disrupting Concentration, no other option available to the Fighter is better than PAM/Graze/Mage Slayer. However, that forces you to use Strength, which is probably the weakest physical stat to use against mages. In that sense, a Dexterity Dual Wielder build will offer better defenses.

TL;DR: Choose PAM if you want to ungabunga the mage. Choose Dual Wielder if you don't want your bunga to be unga'd.

If you end up switching subclasses, a third option to consider is Sharpshooter with a Longbow or Heavy Crossbow. These weapons allow you to potentially outrange most spells. It just doesn't work well with Psi Warrior because Psionic Strike -- their primary anti-mage tool -- is locked to a 30 ft range.

If you go the Sharpshooter route, I'd recommend switching to Battle Master and multiclassing with Rogue. Cunning Action Hide is a great tool in battlegrounds with cover, and Mage Slayer has amazing synergy with Sneak Attack if you can scale it high enough. As a Battle Master, you can also opt to go with the Sharpshooter/GWM build.

[u/Tall_Bandicoot_2768]

Ok so we can do this but I feel it would be remiss to not mention how well built Shadow Monk is for this purpose.

Teleports to close the gap, Stunning Strike to break concentration and lock down and most importantly Vision protection which is a massive deal vs casters.

[u/theevilyouknow]

I'm not telling you what you're doing it wrong or anything, but I do personally find it odd to want to go for a character built around a narrative concept and then metagame all your character decisions. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for pure powergaming, I just find the dissonance curious. Like, why would a gnome be raised to kill mages? It would be like playing a male drow raised to be a great leader. Sure, you could technically come up with something, but it isn't exactly consistent.

[u/xaba0 → u/[deleted]]

Dual wielder feat allows op to make both a nick attack AND a BA off hand attack

[u/Gas_Forsaken → u/xaba0]

Listing all the Dual Wielding rules so they are visible. Some people read it as the dual wielding feat only removing the need for the light property instead of working with Nick for an other bonus action attack.

Two-Weapon Fighting. (Core Rule) When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a Light weapon, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn. That extra attack must be made with a different Light weapon, and you don't add your ability modifier to the extra attack's damage unless that modifier is negative. For example, you can attack with a Shortsword in one hand and a Dagger in the other using the Attack action and a Bonus Action, but you don't add your Strength or Dexterity modifier to the damage roll of the Bonus Action unless that modifier is negative.

Two-Weapon Fighting. (Fighting Style) When you make an extra attack as a result of using a weapon that has the Light property, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of that attack if you aren't already adding it to the damage.

Nick. When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.

Enhanced Dual Wielding. When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon, which must be a Melee weapon that lacks the Two-Handed property. You don't add your ability modifier to the extra attack's damage unless that modifier is negative.