“If you choose anything but the bagpipes I’m not sure I want to know you anymore” this got me

Inarguably the best character history of all time. Bag pipes? ✅ Fluent in halfling? ✅ Earned the love of two deities? ✅

"We're going to pick the halfling language because this character is cool." Ha! Chris, I'd like to hear more about your builds that DIDN'T work - something crazy you thought might be fun or interesting, but fell flat.

I love how Mads Kills was all about those bagpipes lol

The genius of the bagpipe build is that you can fit almost any secondary build into the framework as well.

The only way to be this early is the Alert feat.

Chris, I think you did a great job in this video balancing striking a lighthearted tone with actually exploring an interesting build concept. Your humor is great and delivered in a deadpan manner that really suits you, so I'd love to see the occasional future video produced in this style. I also really appreciate your "optimizing" philosophy, which centers around building to maximize a particular concept better than a lot of the online theorycrafting out there. As usual, well done!

I really liked the humor in this one. It was dry but definitely made me laugh a few times

Big fan of how much mileage you got out of the bagpipes joke.

Lost it at the Liam Neeson meme. But I absolutely died at "Mads kills."

I can appreciate that while the concept was 'every skill' you didn't wind up utterly useless in combat. Many of the 'Rogue Inquisitive' builds suffer in combat at times. Very gratifying to see you NOT forget the combat thing.

Constitution is tied to the most important skill hit points.

My favorite rogue subclass is the thief because you can use pocket sand to blind an opponent as a bonus action then stab them with advantage on the same turn

I like this build and I love builds that get every skill proficiency. Your build has a great advantage of having +10 to every skill and still being effective in combat but you don’t achieve the goal of every skill proficiency until level 13 and you don’t achieve the goal of +10 to all skills until level 20. A full 20 levels is a big commitment for a novelty build and as we know most campaigns don’t go that far. That’s why the build I like most for this is one that doesn’t have the advantages of your build but has the advantage of getting skills as quickly as possible. That build is VH (Skilled), 3 Rogue (Scout), 3 Bard (Lore), 1 Cleric (Knowledge) That gives you proficiency in every skill by level 7. And then at levels 8 and 9 you can get to level 4 in both Rogue and Bard and get some Feats that can help you out. Lucky is a great choice which can make sure that you always roll well on a skill check. Or Medium Armor Master if you have a DEX of 16 which can let you get Half Plate. This build is great for Campaigns like Curse of Strahd or for making a Tier 2 AL character where you would only get to level 10. And then you get the satisfaction of “completing” this character by playing it for half as long.

Renaissance man with a bloated ego, now that is a good way to annoy your fellow party members.

The problem with Green-Flame Blade and Eldritch Blast on a Rogue is that their casting stat is Charisma (because Warlock), so you'll need to pump that a bit for the advantage. Which you did. You can make your Rapier your Hex weapon, so use Charisma as your attack and damage modifier.

Great video. Kicking up your meme game, I see. Easiest way: 2nd level knowledge cleric with balanced stats (or belt of giant strength + headband of intellect with str and in as dunk stats to pump the others). Every short rest, you can be proficient in any skill or tool of your choice!

Makes sense. People who can play the bagpipes can probably do anything, if you ask me.

This character has expertise in more skills than my current party of 6 does collectively. And yes, we have a rouge and a bard LMAO

Great Build! You leaned hard into the meme while stile remaining effective in combat. You definitely didn’t disappoint. I would love to see more builds for more out there character concepts.

Congratulations. You’ve just made the most interesting man in D&D. Stay thirsty my friends...

Very nice, I made some modifications though: A master of all skills is expected to never fail, and knowing D&D, rolling a 1 could still make you fail, even with a +10 to everything. The solution? Reliable Talent! This level 11 rogue feature makes any skill you are proficient in infinitely more reliable, since you can only roll a 10 or higher on the checks. The multiclass you would use to get this feature would be something like this: rogue 11, Bard 6, Cleric 1, and Warlock 2. In the skill department you only give up 2 expertises by losing out on bard level 10, but that's fine, since you gain reliability for every single check you will ever have to make. You also lose out on quite a bit of spellcasting and thus utility, but you do get an extra A.S.I. at rogue 10, probably for getting that spicy 20 dex, since you now have a much more rogue-focused build. Anyway, not saying this build was wrong, because it does have more expertise, but if i were to play such a character i would value the reliability of the skills more than just a big modifier. lvl 20 bonuses would still look something like this though: Acrobatics (Dex) 11 Animal Handling (Wis) 7 Arcana (Int) 11 Athletics (Str) 11 Deception (Cha) 10 History (Int) 11 Insight (Wis) 13 Intimidation (Cha) 10 Investigation (Int) 11 Medicine (Wis) 7 Nature (Int) 11 Perception (Wis) 13 Performance (Cha) 16 Persuasion (Cha) 10 Religion (Int) 11 Sleight of Hand (Dex) 11 Stealth (Dex) 17 Survival (Wis) 13 Hope this was useful for anyone, and thanks again for this great character build Mr Treantmonk

Hey Treantmonk one thing that I noticed. You had a choice between putting the +1 into Strength or Intelligence. In that scenario unless you later plan to add a +1 to your Intelligence you should almost always choose Strength. A +1 to Strength increases your carrying capacity by up to 15 pounds. I think Strength drain might also be a bit more common place than Intelligence drain as well, but I could be wrong in that regard. Either way when I find myself in that situation usually I'll go for the Strength just for that bit extra carry weight. At least in my games it comes up quite often (though to be fair we also use variant encumbrance). Great video, and interesting build!

I love it!! ♥️ And what a lofty goal. A lot of other KZfaqrs like Nerdarchy come up with crazy, goofy, novelty builds. Most of the time I fall asleep, because they never turn out to be something I would ever want to play. But you, on the other hand, truly raise the bar 👍 Well done.

This build personally reminds me of my current character: I’m playing a changeling scout rogue where I took a level dip into bard 3 levels for lore bard, and took a single level dip into divine soul sorcerer with law bloodline so I had access to better chance of turning a miss/failed save into a success, got access to shield and absorb elements (I needed it badly), but also have the abilith to nerf enemies, reposition, buff my party with decent bard options, I have booming blade if I’m ever caught in melee, and with skilled and skill expert I’m proficient with every skill in the game. By the end of the build (because my dm gave me homebrewed glamoured studded leather armor which gave me an additional expertise for reasons beyond my knowledge that I heavily use for infiltration), I have a total of 8 expertised skills. Normally this build would have 7, and in the past I wasn’t mixing in divine soul, but my charisma was high at an 18 and I just couldn’t pass up the access to bless and survivability. Plus it gave me access to guidance, which is always a welcome addition when you consider that it works way too well with bardic inspiration on my party. My goal was to play a supportive role in the group and bolster my skills, the skills of my party, and have decent combat effectiveness so the goal is to continue with rogue for hand crossbow, crossbow expert and sharpshooter, then later on I plan to grab feytouched to round myself out. This will make my character never roll below 10 on any skill due to reliable talent, a decent amount of expertise though not as great as your build, and it focuses more on support through low level spells with martial single target damage. Your build is probably stronger but I still love mine :)

Even if I didn't like your build, which I do, I'd approve of this simply due to the wisdom of you focusing on the bagpipes. Cheers.

I really like this one! It would still work in a fight but they would really be awesome at everything.

Nice. Classic build video. Back to the channel's vintage roots. ^_^

I was very surprised to see this video given your criticisms on the effectiveness of other "All Skills" builds in the past, but I loved this.

“We’re going to pick the halfling language because this character is cool.”

Very enjoyable video, man!

I recently built a similar character, dubbed "the most obnoxiously helpful character ever." His name is Jachilles, and he's a Scout Rogue 4/Lore Bard 16. Proficiency in 17 skills, expertise in 10, and knows 9 languages (really 12 since Primordial is technically 4), as well as a bunch of spells that make him an excellent support character (possibly a DMPC). Here's the link to his sheet if anyone is interested. drive.google.com/open?id=1B4GJ4iOl2mGe0K_PmnIzdRAgc2-OmOu5

So i started with Lorebard and all of a sudden i realized that skills were where i would shine since i always was partied with high dpr high mitigation classes. I then understood how cool expertise was. I love this build...I went Bard first into warlock (story reasons) and formulated the Lorelockpick-er....6 lore/6 tome/6 mastermind because this was for fun (number of the beast easter egg because my Bard has always been suspected as being the BBEG). But looking at it through an optimancer's perspective i really see i may not be as effective in combat but boy did those skill checks become my thing. Love your story reasons as well!!! (Fun is cool!!)

I'd be really interested to see you have another go at this now, with all of the options from Tasha's I can see there being more flexibility with classes

Combat effectiveness can be significantly enhanced by taking Shadow Blade with level 6 Magical Secrets. Provide advantage on the single attack and also big damage boost. At level 20 with hexblade curse on doing an average DPR of 57 against 15AC which isn’t great but isn’t useless. Of course takes concentration.

Sounds like the perfect build for a friend in my group who loves to be the scene stealer. This is also an amazing build for campaigns and adventures that have little to no combat. The only downside is that in non combative adventures; the other players will be getting frustrated since nobody likes the "know it all". Still, even in combat you can be a great support with heals and cutting words plus bardic inspiration. Just to move in and get the killing blow via sneak attack. Then take all the credit in your performances as it was you who lead your posse in the charge against the mighty creature. It was you who saved them from certain doom with your heals. It was you and you alone who fell the creature. All the bluffs in persuasion and deception will assure that all the glory is yours and yours alone. I see this character as someone extremely vain and self absorbed. A character this skilled and gifted by two separate higher buildings is not a foundation for the typical humble hero.

Easy fix for the extra skill prof from half elf: start with bard and MC into rogue. In addition to having more flexibility with skill choices, you can have more instruments than those accursed bagpipes.

It’s definitely a novelty build. I would say that if you’re not worried about having a +10 in everything you could take rogue to 11 for reliable talent. I did a similar build as a concept idea and focused more on rogue than the others. I’m on mobile but I think my lvl 20 build was: Half elf 12 rogue (arcane trickster) 4 bard (lore) 1 cleric (knowledge) 2 warlock (any) 1 ranger While not refined and dipping into way too many pies I’m pretty sure it gave all skills by level 8 if you took no ASIs and only cared about skills.

Jack of all trades helps with all those pesky ability checks come if from game feature that don’t call out for a skill. Ensnaring strike, Entangle, and Wrathful smite are a few low level spells like that. There are various checks imposed by creatures that have similar effects. Hell, breaking down a door is a strength check.

This build is relevant to my interests. I know it's an awful task, but i'd love to see the best monk build you can devise.

Funny. Our group was trading around builds for this last week and this is roughly where I landed. That said, we were trying to see how low level you can be for Omni proficiency (it's 7). So none of ours would be nearly as effective. I can tell you had great fun making this. Pipe on!

I think I would've sacrificed those last 2 expertise from bard to get Reliable Talent. I'm guessing those expertise are required for the +10 minimum you wanted, but I think the minimum roll of 10 would be better

I find that only 7-8 skills are commonly used and worthy the investment. Building a Lore Bard with some inspired choices for feats and tools, keeping the full spellcaster progression, you could be the out of combat master.

If Bard was your starting class rather than Rogue then you could be a Half-elf without any extra proficiencies.

I like it, though I personally might learn towards start 16 Charisma and 14 Dexterity, taking an earlier level in Warlock, and I'd be _really_ tempted to pick up Reliable Talent from Rogue. I'd also consider taking Whisper Bard to toss a little more damage onto a few rapier attacks, but the loss of Counterspell would hurt, so I'm not fully confident in that change.

This video really made me laugh. It was a pretty good 'bad' build!

I like the idea of Fiendish vigor, but Agonizing Blast would make you a fair amount better in combat than anything else I can think of (especially if you go with 16 DEX/20 CHA). By 17th level you're basically guaranteed to get your sneak attack dice so you would be well above the baseline throughout your career. The current build just barely keeps up with the baseline and falls behind the average Rogue after level 10.

I am toying with the idea of a soulknife with two levels of knowledge cleric, perhaps getting three levels of bard for the lore subclass. not grabbing every skill, but having that knowledge channel divinity Knowledge of the Ages to get any skill I need to pump with psi-dice and Reliable talent.

Well done :)

Personally I think the all skills proficiency build is about having rogue at 11 so you don't get less than like a 20 on any skill roll

Good stuff.

Mads seems to be a bit MAD. Love it! Definitely the most effective skill build I've seen so far. It's a shame you can't fit 11 levels of rogue in for reliable talent. It would be awesome to never get below a 20 on any skill check

LOL, this is going to crash optimization pages, I know it! Great ideas! I tried building a 4 member party covering all the skill the other night and I failed(alcohol was involved), this should give me a good starting point if I ever want to experiment with that while sober.

Yep it's definitely a Treantmonk build, silly, but still playable all the way from 1-20, and well rounded ...

I have the sudden urge to learn the bagpipes

Hey there Treantmonk, seeing all this is a whirlwind - i've been doing analysis of your builds and such over the last month or so out of personal interest, and now suddenly you're starting a youtube channel! I did have a question - I know you bash on damage soaks a bit, but what classes/builds do you believe are the best front line builds in current 5e?

Might soulknife be a good substitute for this build with the pool of psychic dice? Would it be worth taking skill expert feat?

The best name for this character hahahaha love it

Just a thought,but wouldn’t rogue 11(reliable talent go good with this build?

Is there a version of this gimmick that incorporates Rogue 11 Reliable Talent?

You just need 11 levels in rogue and then get as many skills as possible. You no longer need worry about rolling below 10

I was working on a build like this, only expect for Skill Proficiency I was going for Tool Proficiency. It'd be interesting to see an effective build upon those lines.

I don´t always take expertise - but when i do, i take all of them ;)

I'm not finished watching the video yet, but I'm thinking you could use the half-elf instead of variant human if you swap knowledge cleric for nature cleric. And no wasted skills.

Hey Chris! Been a while since you did this video, and I wanted to ask if you think a build very similar to this could work out post Tasha, but dropping some of the skills, and going for a multiclass of rogue, fey wanderer ranger and knowledge cleric. It would really lean into using wisdom, I think something super cool could come out of it, how would you build it?

As a less specialized option, the Knowledge Cleric CD lets you have proficiency on demand. So the v.human, with the skilled feat, starting Rogue is sort of the common baseline for most of these builds. While 2 levels of Cleric doesn't get you any more skills than a 1 level dip, it does remove the need to check every single box. Whether you wanted to lean into either Cleric or Rogue, or take another path, you can functionally claim access to all skills.

It's a fun build but I still like your build of Jack moar. Plus Jack is played by Bruce Campbell, while Mads is played by Cybill Shepherd. Who is fine, but more of a "straight woman" (I guess that doesn't mean the same thing in the Current Year +7 as it meant to Vaudvillain's like the two Bruces - Campbell & Willis - back in the day). Jack, seen here: pbs.twimg.com/media/BBqv1hACIAIlZie.jpg

Would it not be better to take rogue to 11 for reliable talent? If you went: Rogue 11 Hexblade 2 Cleric 1 Bard 6 You could have have even better skill checks with reliable talent, all your casting and weapon attacks based off charisma, and if you take haste with bards magical secrets, you can do an eldritch blast and a sneak attack in one turn.

Honestly, I don't know if Rogue Level 11 might be better for the skills, since then all skill rolls can be no lower than 15 for the Skills using Strength or Intelligence without Expertise, and even that is better than a natural 1 with a +10

hey what about dropping 4 levels of bard for rogue. reliable talent seems really good for the build idea. or are the levels in bard that much better?

> Rogue with the Entertainer Background (Maddy) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/p7KRidaDxs2xkWw.html

Can’t post my banner screenshot here, but I’m sitting at 77 characters on DnD Beyond. I see you, TM.

This is sort of tangential question. The emphasis on bagpipes Mads has made me consider the concept. Are there weapons that are also musical instruments?

Hey does anyone know whether rogues get proficiency with whips because if they do my rogues are going to be using whips from now on

What Eldritch Invocations did you take?

Calling half elf rogue bard Edit: NANI!?

I like the creativity of the build but I believe it could cause some inter party conflict regarding "stealing other players spotlight." IE, The wizard will want to make the arcana check on the runes on the door, or the druid a survival/nature check while out in the woods, etc. My point being, it's cool to know a character is possible but best not be used. I reference one of dawnforges older videos about a skill monkey halfling bard with lucky who takes all the spotlight.

Sounds like a NPC in my campaign Kevin McKev the human rogue cleric bard ranger monk wizard sorcerer warlock artificer fighter barbarian druid paladin My party hates him for no reason

Mmm. Bagpipes (drool).

If you don't care about combat you could just do rogue or bard and keep taking Prodigy

Couldn't you just do Knowledge Cleric 2 / Lore Bard? That gets you a channel divinity option to gain proficiency with any skill or tool and, starting at level 16, you can bardic inspiration yourself when making an ability check.

MAD 😁 Mad Skills 🤣🤣🤣

Mads Kills somehow simultaneously the worst pun I have ever heard but one of the funniest

Did you figure out what you would need to change to be a half orc?

Most important part of a Build is obviously the character "name".. without and optimal name you are a nobody in the bread line.

Any plans on revising artificer? Alchemy sucks which makes me sad.

This channel bums me out at times with its cynicism and with its accuracy to the narrow way D&D is played. Think of all the ways performance might be used in movies, fairy tales, and real life. In one instance, my PC used perform to calm a panicked child. I might be inclined too to try it out for favour with an overwhelming monster like a dragon or djinn. (It's got a better shot than stabbing it, and if nothing else, the monster might wait to listen even if it doesn't work.) Also, perception is way way WAY overused. It gets used for instances where things are in plain sight but only a discerning eye can notice it... in which case, use another skill! For example, to find the right information in a library might better be served with history checks. To pick out the valuable herbs from a grove should be nature. I think even if you knew what the herbs looked like, I'd call for the nature skill. The other crummy aspect to the weight behind perception and stealth is that DMs are so stingy with everything else. A high knowledge-type skill check should get you something *real*. If a player busts 25, he ought to learn something like what some of the spells of the boss monster are. Or the general location of a secret door. Or that a certain item they're going to find is cursed. That kind of thing.

Nice build, but bagpipes? Yikes. I thought, you have taste....