Character Builds - John Wick
A while back, I created a John Wick subclass, but today I decided to take it one step further, creating a character build based on the action hero. This way, you don’t have to concern yourself with begging your DM to use 3rd party homebrew and still gain all the wonderful killing power of Baba Yaga.
Race - Variant Human. You could also make an argument for Fallen Aasimar, Kalashtar, and the UA Hexblood if you want to get fancy.
Languages - Abyssal. It seems like a stereotype, but Abyssal feels close to Russian.
ASI Increase - Dexterity & Constitution
Stats - Str. 12, Dex. 16, Con. 14, Int. 10, Wis. 13, Cha. 10.
John isn’t lifting heavy objects or actions that require high strength. He wears no armor, possibly leather at most in the early levels, but we’ll have to discard it once we are multi-class. Some may drop Intelligence to 8 to raise Constitution to 16, but I hate dumping Int when John Wick knows the history and lore of New York, The Syndicate, all types of weapons, and so forth.
Skill Proficiencies - Acrobatics, Deception, History, Intimidation, Stealth
Expertise - Athletics, Perception
Feat - Here’s the hard one. Crossbow expert makes the most sense (unless firearms are available in your game, then take the gunner feat). But other feats such as Crusher, Durable, Mobile, Sentinel, Sharpshooter, Tavern Brawler, and Tough can all be argued for.
Starting Class - Rogue. Sneak Attack, why else?
Weapons - Rapier 1d8, +5 to hit, +3 damage, Hand Crossbow 1d6, +5 to hit, +3 damage.
Our first level John Wick rogue is ready to roll. The goal was to stay as close to a John Wick type of character as possible. When I’ve tried to create character concept builds in the past, many times, it felt like there was one critical element or ability that was missing no matter where I looked. With this, the opposite was true. There were so many great options available it was a struggle to exclude some.
Rogue 1
Sneak Attack - Advantage adds 1d6 with finesse or ranged weapon.
Crossbow Expert - Hey, guess what, we have a ranged weapon! Up close, fighting with our hand crossbow incurs no penalty. We already feel like Mr. Wick since we get to attack twice, using our action to make a rapier attack, bonus action with your hand crossbow.
Athletics Expertise - If you want to grapple or shove someone, athletics is what you’ll need, and you start with a +5 bonus.
Thieves’ Cant - Thieves’ Cant is not its own language, but a series of unique words and phrases mixed in with the native language that a certain few know the true meaning. Such words and phrases as Wine Tasting (shopping for guns), the Ruska Roma (Romani assassin trainers), and the Cleaner (mop up service after Wick kills everyone) are just a few examples.
Rogue 2
Cunning Action - Dash to the bad guy or disengage if things are going poorly.
Rogue 3
Assassin Archetype - What else would we take. Gaining advantage is no longer an issue, and it’s a critical strike when you hit. Its hurts even more since sneak attack now does 2d6 damage.
Rogue 3/Monk 1
Unarmored Defense - Nice +1 bump to our AC
Martial Arts - You know Kung Fu
Rogue 3/Monk 2
Ki - Lots of punches and kicks with flurry of blows. Plus, you look cool dodging your enemy’s blows.
Unarmored Movement - The faster you get in there, the faster you can kill your target.
Rogue 3/Monk 3
Way of the Open Hand - Lots of options here, so let me explain. John Wick does a lot of hand-to-hand combat, so being able to knock your target down or back when you punch the crap of them syncs up with what he does in all three movies.
Deflect Missiles - It’s about as close to dodging bullets as we’ll get, and reactions are cool.
Rogue 3/Monk 4
Feat - Tough. John gets punched, kicked, slammed, stabbed, shot, and beaten regularly. The more hit points you have, the more of a beating you can withstand.
Slow Fall - Anything to lessen damage is a good thing, and now we have 2 reactions.
Rogue 4/Monk 4
Feat - Tavern Brawler. Yep, you finally get to kill someone with a pencil, and since you have proficiency in Calligrapher’s Tools (Criminal Background), you’ll have one on your person. Add the +1 to Strength to get closer to doing more damage when you grapple, especially since now you can potentially grapple as a bonus action.
Rogue 4/Monk 5
Extra Attack - Who doesn’t like an extra attack?
Stunning Strike
Rogue 4/Monk 6
Wholeness of Body - I think I’ve mentioned that John gets beaten up a lot. This is the second reason our monastic tradition is Way of the Open Hand.
Ki Empowered Strikes
Increase to +15 movement speed
Rogue 4/Monk 7
Evasion - You know what better than getting hit? Not getting hit
The stillness of Mind - John Wick is scared of nothing.
Rogue 4/Monk 8
ASI Increase - Increase Dexterity to 18 for obvious reasons.
Here is where we have some interesting choices to make. None of the Rogue (assassin) features do much for me at this point, as many of them overlap with the monk abilities we already have. Nothing in any of the upcoming monk features do much to improve our character being John Wick. We have 8 more levels to go. Since we aren’t planning to add any more levels to rogue or monk, let’s add a new class. Barbarian, especially Path of the Zealot, is tempting, but we will add 8 levels of Fighter.
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 1
Fighting Style - Archery is a nice addition to our ranged attack. If you are using Tasha’s as a sourcebook, go Blind Fighting instead. You’ve already gone any number of ways to cause pain to your foe. In films, most fights occur in dark places, making blindsight a critical skill for your character.
Second Wind - John Wick has a 3rd, 4th, 5th wind, but we’ll have to settle for a 2nd.
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 2
Action Surge - One more attack means one more way to kill your opponents
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 3
Battle Master Archetype - Arcane Archer also makes a lot of sense, but with Battle Master, we give our John Wick character three more ways to mess up the bad guys. There’s a great deal of overlap with abilities we already have, so let’s take the following maneuvers: Menacing Attack (Wick’s name alone instills fear in people’s hearts), Ambush (going first always helps), and Disarming Attack (watch and see how many times he knocked a gun or knife out of someone’s hand. It’s a lot).
Student of War - I mention this only because there's an opportunity if your DM will go along with it. If allowed, gain proficiency in Mounts and Vehicles. Unfortunately, you probably won’t be able to talk the DM into letting you have a 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429.
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 4
Feat - Sentinel. I’m not usually a big fan of feats after levels 10-12, but we are trying to stick as close to the John Wick character as possible. Creatures that aren’t smart enough to steer clear of you or try to flee can now get hit, stopping in their tracks when they are.
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 5
Extra Attack
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 6
ASI Increase - +2 to Dexterity. I hope we have other items that have increased our stats, but it’s time to get the base score to 20, no matter how late in the game.
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 7
Archetype (2 additional maneuvers) - Staying in theme and not overlapping with existing abilities is becoming a challenge. Take Riposte (a good counterattack can be as effective as an attack) and Sweeping Attack (Wick has a tendency to fight more than one person at a time, so hitting two people in one attack is good.)
Rogue 4/Monk 8/Fighter 8
ASI Increase - As we reach the end of our build, I’ll take a simple way out and add +1 to Strength and Wisdom each, increasing the bonus for both stats. In reality, there are several good choices here, including taking another level in rogue to get uncanny dodge any number of feats, including but limited to grappler, savage attacker, or sharpshooter.
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