D&D charecter idea: Beast War's Dinobot

[Saint of M]

The idea is to recreate Dinobot from the old Beast Wars Cartoon.

My idea is to have a warforged character that has at least six levels of Circle of the Moon Druid and at least 13 levels of Samurai Archetype Fighter. Long sword and shield (wood of curse) With leather armor, potentially scale mail made from dragon scales latter on. My logic on the class levels is Level 6 Circle of Moon Druid makes attacks magical when in beast mode, and Samurai for the fighter class due to Dinobot's philosophy. As brutal as he could be, he was very much honor bound warrior with a heavy bushido slant to him.

Any thoughts and ideas on this?

THis guy

 

[Chimpzy]

The idea is to recreate Dinobot from the old Beast Wars Cartoon.

My idea is to have a warforged character that has at least six levels of Circle of the Moon Druid and at least 13 levels of Samurai Archetype Fighter. Long sword and shield (wood of curse) With leather armor, potentially scale mail made from dragon scales latter on. My logic on the class levels is Level 6 Circle of Moon Druid makes attacks magical when in beast mode, and Samurai for the fighter class due to Dinobot's philosophy. As brutal as he could be, he was very much honor bound warrior with a heavy bushido slant to him.

Any thoughts and ideas on this?

THis guy

I'm assuming this is for 5th? I'm not familiar with that ruleset, but would lv6 let you turn into a dinosaur? Cuz that imo pretty essential for the Dinobot-ness.

 

[Kae]

Wouldn't your dino form be extremely weak?, I mean if you're level 19, I don't think you'll get much of an opportunity to do something with the Dino form, feel like you'd lose it very quickly and it would do dramatically worse damage than a level 13 fighter.

 

[Chimpzy]

Wouldn't your dino form be extremely weak?, I mean if you're level 19, I don't think you'll get much of an opportunity to do something with the Dino form, feel like you'd lose it very quickly and it would do dramatically worse damage than a level 13 fighter.

It would be kind of faithful to the Dinobot character tho, since in the Beast Wars show the beast forms weren't meant for combat. You could make up something similar for flavor.

Nice new avatar btw

 

[Kae]

It would be kind of faithful to the Dinobot character tho, since in the Beast Wars show the beast forms weren't meant for combat. You could make up something similar for flavor.

I guess so, IDK, it's probably because I've never been a huge fan of recreating characters from other media in D&D why it seems like a weird idea to me personally, and the build doesn't seem like it'd be capable of doing it's thing for most of play, like to get juice out of it I feel you'd need Druid 6 Fighter 5, which is already pretty high level, I guess it'd work if it started high level, but it would fail to deliver the intended fantasy if it begins at low level.

Personally, if I was the DM, I think I might help them by either making a custom race, feats or a subclass, instead of having to do all this multiclassing, just so they can do their thing since the beginning of the game, but I'm not the kind of person that's super strict with character options, which I know a lot of DMs are.

 

[Asita]

I guess so, IDK, it's probably because I've never been a huge fan of recreating characters from other media in D&D why it seems like a weird idea to me personally, and the build doesn't seem like it'd be capable of doing it's thing for most of play, like to get juice out of it I feel you'd need Druid 6 Fighter 5, which is already pretty high level, I guess it'd work if it started high level, but it would fail to deliver the intended fantasy if it begins at low level.

Personally, if I was the DM, I think I might help them by either making a custom race, feats or a subclass, instead of having to do all this multiclassing, just so they can do their thing since the beginning of the game, but I'm not the kind of person that's super strict with character options, which I know a lot of DMs are.

I mean if we're talking house rules, mods, and whatnot...The simplest answer might simply be to tweak Matt Mercer's Bloodhunter class. Offhand, make a slight tweak to the Order of the Lycan subclass so that the character's a wereraptor rather than a werewolf and you're basically there as early as level 3.

 

[Kae]

I mean if we're talking house rules, mods, and whatnot...The simplest answer might simply be to tweak Matt Mercer's Bloodhunter class. Offhand, make a slight tweak to the Order of the Lycan subclass so that the character's a wereraptor rather than a werewolf and you're basically there as early as level 3.

I can see the logic besides that, but Bloodhunter does have that Blood Magic harming yourself to do the class thing, which I'm not sure fits the character concept, but yeah, I guess that could work.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Bit of a necro, but I've just joined a campaign where a player is doing this exact thing. Except, more Grimlock than Dinobot, as he's not taking the druid angle but rather beast barbarian. So, pros and cons of beast barb apply.

Now, if you want a funky multiclass that appropriates the philosophy...a lot of players warn against it, but I'd actually recommend monk/druid. A two-level monk splash will get you what you need without compromising spellcasting, but I could see it the other way round with a two-level druid splash just for wild shape. In wild shape you retain class, race, and feat benefits when and where applicable. Martial arts damage and side benefits supersede natural weapons, and you keep monk unarmored defense and movement (natural armor doesn't count against either, but the AC calculation changes).

Yes, this means if you wild shape into a deinonychus or velociraptor, you can do up to five attacks per round as early as level 4 (plus pounce for the former, pack tactics for the latter) -- multiattack plus flurry of blows, which is absolutely RAW. Velociraptor would honestly be my preferred choice, the size and speed means you can actually do hit-and-run without compromising action economy, especially when you can pop into tiny spaces where reprisal is impossible -- and pack tactics is just fucking OP.

If you wanted to push to at least three monk levels for a subclass, several are of interest. Astral is the obvious choice since it pushes you into SAD territory, overcoming the monk's biggest weakness, but drunken master or shadow hypermobility shenanigans are nice. But, I'd suggest sun soul, because dinosaur lasers (and both Grimlock and Dinobot still used their ranged weapons).

Druid/barbarian could work for the same reasons, but you're using Con for unarmored defense instead of Wis (meaning you have less control over it when you wild shape). But on the other hand, a lot of dinosaur options are absolute beef shields, and rage's damage resistance means you will be incredibly hard to put down. Bonus points if you take storm herald, and start taking dinosaur wild shape picks with size disproportionate to their CR, for damage aura shenanigans.