Nightcrawler: Kurt Wagner

The release of X-Men ‘97 is just around the corner so let’s celebrate by building my
FAVOURITE X-man
Nightcrawler
For a long time now I’ve wanted to build a D&D character who is entirely focused on teleporting
I want to make someone who can essentially teleport infinitely
Let’s see if I succeeded.
If you think I have remember to give this video a like
And if you wuv my cute ‘wittle goblin self, subscribe for more of- WUH POW
THIS!
Alright let’s go!

Powers of Nightcrawler to note:

Teleporting takes energy (And so it makes sense that they require spell slots etc.)
- Suction Feet (spider climb)
- Offensive Teleport (Teleport people so much they pass out: eldritch blast?)
- Easier to teleport along the earth’s magnetic lines (eg North to South or vice versa)
- To teleport, he often needs to know where he is going
- Camouflage/ bend light around him(pass without a trace & invisibility)
- Subconscious spacial awareness (stop teleporting into ground)
- Dimension hop (passes through Brimstone Dimension when teleporting)
- Nightvision (darkvision)
- Father (Demon Azazel)
- BAMFS: Teleport to lil demons
- Immortality

Shadow Monk (7) Warlock (13) / (Optional Alternative: Wizard Conjuration (13))

Our lil’ midnight demon grew up as a circus boy so we’re going with the entertainer background
Giving him proficiency in Acrobatics & Performance

Our father is a devilish mutant called Azazel, so we are going to be a tiefling.

Either picking the Asmodeus or Glasya bloodline. Asmodeus gives us access to the darkness
spell later which is cool and is far more- devilish,- but it’s intelligence bonus is better for the
alternative teleporting build I will be revealing later-
So for this video, I’m going to focus on Charisma and get access to invisibility later on with the
Glasya bloodline.

NOPE!- WE GOING SHADAR-KAI

But feel free to go for drow if you prefer, get superior darkvision as well as gaining access to
the darkness spell which is very useful for this build. (foreshadowing)
With Racial bonuses included make your stats look something like this:
STR: 8
DEX: 16
CON: 10
INT: 8
WIS: 14
CHA: 17

And then, we’ll Start off in monk:

Level 1

Pick Religion and Stealth, you are a religious boy after all and a sneaky one at that.

Here you will gain Unarmoured Defence and learn Martial Arts
We’re still young, still working in the circus and have yet to learn how to teleport.

Lv 2

Ki

Unarmoured Movement

Dedicated Weapon: Blades?

Lv 3

Deflect missile (for extra badassery)

The optional Ki fueled attacks feature
Way of Shadow

Spend ki points to cast: Darkness, pass without a trace or silence.

And can cast minor illusion.
Primarily spend these ki points on casting darkness to allow us to teleport more.
Pass without a trace is also perfect for flavouring Nightcrawler’s natural camouflaging abilities

Lv 4

We get a feat and we will choose:

Fey Touched from Tasha’s to gain the spell misty step for obvious reasons
This will be your first form of teleportation.
It took awhile for Nightcrawler’s powers to set in so it only makes sense not to have them right
away.
And he only gets better with time.
This feat also allows us to increase our charisma by 1
And take one additional spell
Now there are a few options here and you can choose silvery barbs if you want to be meta and
say you teleport somewhere for a split second to distract someone and give someone else and
edge. Or- you just give a wonderfully witty comment because humour is how Nightcrawler deals
with most issues.
Alternatively: Hunter’s mark, Bless, Bane or even Tasha’s Hideous Laughter are all great.
The latter is also a great way to express yourself as a comedic relief character

We also get slow fall at this level

very handy for if you are still working that trapeze act
And then an
Optional Rule: of quickened healing which is always nice

Lv 5

We have the beloved extra attack now, allowing you to zip around and punch many many
people in a matter of moments

Stunning strike is hands down a monk’s best feature. Could also flavour it to be you briefly
teleporting a creature to multiple places in rapid succession to completely discombobulate them.

And then you have that additional optional rule of focused aim.

Lv 6
We get ki empowered strikes to punch through Sentinels

Finally we take our last level in monk to

And gain access to our primary source of teleportation.
In way of the Shadow’s feature:
Shadow Step
So long as you are in dim light or darkness, as a bonus action you can teleport up to 60 feet to
an unoccupied space you can see that is also in dim light or darkness.
And very soon we’ll be able to teleport anywhere we like.

Lv 7

Now you can take one final level in Monk here if you like or save it for another time, but evasion
is just such a good ability, it’s hard to ignore!
Lv 8

Now upon reaching level 8 we are going to multiclass into warlock

At the end of this video I will show you an alternative multiclass
But for this, we are going to choose warlock
And here we have a few options:

Pact of the Fiend makes sense with who Nightcrawler’s father is and how he eventually makes
pacts in his life with some devils
And Hexblade is always cool

But for this build I’m going to give some love to the
Pact of the Archfey. Our mother is a mysterious shapeshifting fey-like being afterall.

Which gives us access to some lovely teleportation spells and abilities.

But starting off with our first warlock level we get some spells
For our cantrips we are definitely taking eldritch blast, reflavouring these attacks as us briefly
teleporting towards someone and smacking them in the face before returning to where we were.

And then mage hand, if our dm lets us flavour it in a similar way. Teleporting out of a jail cell to
grab the keys on the walls for example.

We also know two spells, alongside those given to us by our pact.

I will list every spell that I chose for this build in the linked document below just to save time but I
WILL give a mention to any very important spells I think deserve to be highlighted.
Expeditious Retreat is one good spell to pick here for example.

Our pact also grants us access to the ability to scare people with Fey Presence.

Lv 9

Moving on to our 2nd level of Warlock we gain access to something VERY important.
One of our main reasons for picking this class

Eldritch invocations.

And we will 100% be taking Devil Sight!

So do you remember that Shadow Step Ability?

Now we can use it outside of dark and gloomy areas. Simply cast darkness with your key
points, centred on yourself or have the edge of it just cover you. And now you can teleport
anywhere within its radius as you can now see through it.

When nightcrawler teleports it is said that he passes briefly through a hellish dimension and this
is why the area smells like brimstone and smoke after he teleports. I love the flavouring of him
teleporting so much that smoke from the hells begins to pool up in an area leaving everyone
within completely blind.

You can now set down your darkness over a crowd of enemies and start bamphing all over the
place within the darkness, taking all of them out before they even know what’s happening.
Stunning Strike them, flurry of blows, whatever you like.
Alternatively, just put down darkness and start casting eldritch blast into it and flavour it that
your still bamphing in and out of the darkness, since you can fire off 2 solid blasts at this stage.

There are also So many brilliant ways you can use this from a utility standpoint.
I love this concept so so much.

And as for other eldritch invocations moving forward:

Focus on the ones that either ramp up your eldritch blast,
Or if you want to get more use of your monk abilities and be up close and personal take
anything related to the pact of the blade.

Lv 10

With our 3rd level of warlock we are going to take the pact of the blade, having it be a monk
weapon that we can now magically teleport to our hand whenever we like. We can now sneak
into places seemingly unarmed and then suddenly have our blade appear out of nowhere.

In terms of level 2 spells we are going to focus on the likes of misty step, spider climb and
darkness or invisibility, pick whichever one you don’t know.

Lv 11
4th level gives us an asi or feat, up to you hear, increase dex or charisma
Or take the lucky feat and use it to make enemies miss you saying that you teleport briefly out of
the way when they attack.

Lv 12

5th level of warlock gives us access to 3rd level spells

Our pact gives us access to blink
And we will focus on thunder step, gaseous form and possibly some summoning spells saying
we bamph them over here, teleporting to the hells and back with our new friend.

Lv 13

The 6th level ability given to us by our pact is the main reason we picked it
We now have the ability:
Misty Escape
We can now spend our reaction to teleport out of danger and turn invisible! And we can do so
every long rest.
This allows us to enter combat a bit more aggressively, by always having a get out of jail free
card up our sleeve.

The rest of the levelling of this class is pretty straight forward, and we want to get at least 13
levels in warlock so we eventually get access to a 7th level spell with Mystic Arcanum, adding
the Teleport spell to our roster.

Along the way you’ll also pick up Dimension Door upon reaching 7th level in warlock which will
be your main form of long distance teleporting until then.

Some other fun spells that fit into the flavour of this class are
Banishment,
Far Step
Teleportation Circle
And then maybe Summon Greater Demon.

And as promised I had mentioned an alternative to the warlock.

But before I reveal anything, if you’ve enjoyed this video so far please give it a like and
subscribe!

So, If you wanted to play a Less charismatic nightcrawler and focus instead on his intelligence
and quick thinking, you could instead multiclass these 13 levels in wizard.

Become a conjuration wizard and by 6th level you gain the ability: Benign Transportation
You can teleport 30ft as an action or swap the position of you and a willing creature.
And can reuse this ability anytime you cast a conjuration spell.

By 13th level you'll have access to a 7th level spell and you can pick teleport.

However, if you want to get real crazy and forgo ever being able to teleport far away, take 6
levels in monk, 6 in warlock and 6 in wizard and have fun trying to balance your mental stats xD
And there you have it. You have unlimited teleports in dim areas. A bunch of ways to teleport
outside of that, both long distance and short distance as well as being able to teleport to hell to
bring back a big ol devil or demon to fight by your side.

Thank you so much for watching this episode of the Ugly Goblin

And if you enjoy what I do please consider supporting me on Patreon. It means an awful lot,
and helps me slowly progress into making this a full time job one day.

If you wanna talk about more things dnd I also have a patreon down below and this entire
breakdown and character sheet is all available in the description for

ABSOLUTELY FREE

Goodluck nightcrawlers, and have fun!

Goodbyyyyye

Invocations:

Must Have Invocation

Devil's Sight
You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.

Eldritch Blast Invocations

Agonising Blast
When you cast eldritch blast, add your Charisma modifier to the damage it deals on a hit.

Lance of Lethargy
Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can reduce that
creature's speed by 10 feet until the end of your next turn.

Repelling Blast
When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from
you in a straight line.

Eldritch Spear
When you cast eldritch blast, its range is 300 feet.
Pact Weapon Invocations
Improved Pact Weapon
You can use any weapon you summon with your Pact of the Blade feature as a spellcasting
focus for your warlock spells.

In addition, the weapon gains a +1 bonus to its attack and damage rolls, unless it is a magic
weapon that already has a bonus to those rolls.

Finally, the weapon you conjure can be a shortbow, longbow, light crossbow, or heavy
crossbow.

Lifedrinker
Prerequisite: 12th level, Pact of the Blade feature

When you hit a creature with your pact weapon, the creature takes extra necrotic damage equal
to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1)

Eldritch Smite
Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a warlock spell
slot to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to the target, plus another 1d8 per level of the spell slot,
and you can knock the target prone if it is Huge or smaller.

Additional Options:
Ascendant Step
You can cast levitate on yourself at will, without expending a spell slot or material components.

One with Shadows

Prerequisite: 5th level

When you are in an area of dim light or darkness, you can use your action to become invisible
until you move or take an action or a reaction.