The Electric Druid - And My Thoughts on Momentum and Lightning Charges

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

I created a Druid whom I've just leveled up to fourth level, with the intent of capitalizing on Lightning Charges and Momentum by using some of the new magic items that were introduced in Patch 7.

My character build:

Wood Elf
Circle of the Moon Druid
Str: 13, Dex: 16, Con: 10, Int: 10, Wis: 16, Cha: 10
Cantrips: Thorn Whip, Produce Flame, Guidance
Feat: Mobile

My gear:

Weapons -

Speedy Reply, Gain 2 rounds of Momentum on a hit
Spellthief, Restore a 1st level spellslot on a critical hit
Joltshooter, Gain 2 Lightning Charges on a hit

Armor -

Chain of Liberation, Once per turn, spend 1 round of Momentum to Sprint (Dash 20 ft. in a straight line without triggering AOO's, free action)
Haste Helm, at start of combat gain 3 rounds of Momentum
Fleetfingers, once per turn, Jump as a free action after Dashing
Watersparkers, Standing in water or blood electrifies it, beginning your turn standing on an electrified surface generates 1 Lightning Charge
The Real Sparkysparkswall, +1 shield, Lightning Aura (spend 4 Lightning Charges to create a Lightning Aura, possibly dealing 1d6 PBAoE - appears to be bugged)

Trinkets -

Amulet of Misty Step, Cast Misty Step once per Long Rest
Crusher's Ring, +10 Movement
The Sparkswall, Can't be Electrocuted, Resistance to Lightning Damage

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The first advantage this build has is speed - I always cast Longstrider (and then unprepare it so I have room for another spell) on myself, and combined with Crusher's Ring, the Mobile Feat, and being a Wood Elf, I've got 55 ft. of base move and 65 ft. whenever I have Momentum (which tends to be most of the time).

AC isn't bad - chain armor gives a base of 13 plus 2 from Dex for 15, and then the +1 shield raises that to 18. If you have someone cast Shield of Faith on you, then you top out at AC 20.

Once you've completed this build and got all the items, the idea is to cast Create Water (this is the primary reason I chose a Druid) on your enemies and then walk into the water to Electrify it, using your superior movement speed to then move out of their range of attack. On subsequent turns you can move in for a melee attack, and then using either Mobile or Sprint to escape without fear of AOO's, keeping your enemies in the electrified water. Alternatively, you can also shoot with Joltshooter to build up Lightning Charges for a little extra damage, and it's easy to blend both ranged attacks and melee attacks in this style. If you want you can add stealth to the strategy too, as a really high movement speed allows you to easily reach dark areas more easily and remain hidden. You can also use Thunder Wave to push enemies who've ran out of the electrified area back into it, or Thorn Whip to drag enemies who are hesitant into it.

I only just finished this build last night before going to bed, and I tested it out against the newborn gnolls and gnoll adds (if you don't kill the hyena, it runs to the nearby gnoll band and they join the fight), with just my MC and Shadowheart, and I handily defeated all of them without using stealth, but I did use a couple of Healing Word's from Shadowheart (she's also got Bless on Heal too which makes things a lot easier). I'm going to go and see if I can take down the Gith patrol with this too.

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to make similar builds with Wizards and Sorcerers, I just liked the tankiness of the Druid. I haven't yet even used Wildshape yet (mostly because I wanted to attack with my weapons and trigger their abilities), so maybe Circle of Land might have actually been better, but I prefer Moon for it's bonus action Wildshape when I need it (not to mention Dire Raven is one of the best forms you can get).

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My thoughts on Momentum and Lightning Charges

My feelings on these mechanics are sort of mixed. On the one hand, they are interesting. On the other, they are testing the spirit of Bounded Accuracy, and I'm a little bit worried about the power creep that will inevitably lead to bloated enemy stats and the necessity of magical gear progression that Bounded Accuracy set out to eliminate.

The +1 to hit from Lightning Charges is helpful, and when you start stacking it with things like Bless, +2 from high ground, and Advantage from Stealth, you can easily get your hit rate really high to the point where you rarely miss. The extra damage is negligible, except for the 1d8 when you expend 5 charges. The number of items that generate charges makes it fairly trivial, at least for one character, to rapidly generate charges (the Dash for 3 charges is especially easy to use for Rogues who can Dash as a bonus action).

I think I'd like to see the +1 to hit removed, and instead of only dealing +1 damage if you have any lightning charges, each charge should grant +1 damage. This gives you incentive to continue building up charges and will be useful against later enemies without being too OP. Expending Lightning Charges to deal an extra 1d8 should be a free action that you can choose to use instead of automatically occurring at 5 charges, and I think that it should be triggerable starting at 3 Charges, dealing 1d4 extra lightning damage, and increasing by one damage die per additional Charge (1d6 for 4 charges, 1d8 for 5 charges, 1d10 for 6 charges and 1d12 for 7 charges). This extra damage die should be able to crit.

Momentum grants +10 move speed. Alone this is alright, but when you start to stack it with other move speed buffs, the end result are characters that can easily move in and out of range of enemies (both melee and ranged) with impunity. When you add ranged attacks on top of that, you've basically got skirmisher builds that can consistently attack without taking any attacks in return. I've been doing this even before Momentum, but Momentum just adds...well, momentum...to the skirmisher style of combat, and it's also universally available to all classes. It will be interesting to see an entire group of skirmishers, particularly when more skirmishing style Feats are available, such as Sharpshooter and Skulker. A group of Wood Elfs with the Mobile feat and plenty of Momentum as well as Longstrider cast on all of them have IMMENSE first strike capability as well as the ability to stay out of harm's way and even hide.

Of course, there are only so many items to go around and so optimizing this for an entire party of four will be tricky (there's only one Crusher's Ring), I also imagine that in the final game there will be many more movement speed buffing items too (and not to mention the Haste spell).

I like the mechanic - but it's adding to an already growing issue of movement being an almost unbeatable strategy. The only means of countering it I've seen in game so far are encounters that occur in restricted spaces (like the Arcane Tower fight with the constructs...and even then I was able to use my superior movement speed to choose the best possible position from which to fight, and ended up beating it with just my MC and Shadowheart, at level 3...)

I'm not sure exactly what I'd do to rebalance it. Maybe instead of providing so many rounds of extra movement speed, perhaps it should only give extra speed/distance on your next use of Dash or Jump, making it something you need to constantly invest in and take actions to use.

And then there's Sprint. It's pretty cool, but I think avoiding all AOO's make it too powerful. This actually allows me to play a melee skirmisher using Speedy Reply (and Mobile) as I dart in, take a melee strike, and then Sprint out again using a free action, maybe even ending my turn by Hiding. Again, using these things to become untouchable. I think just removing the immunity to AOO's would be enough to balance it.

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That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.