Level 5: Sword Wielding Wolf

Level 5: Sword Wielding Wolf

How cool would it be to be a wolf wielding a sword or other weapons in your mouth. Its sad in dnd 5e we can't do that... UNLESS. Today we are going to use raw content and a lot of flavor to create a sword wielding wolf like Sif, the Great Grey Wolf from Dark Souls and Zacian, the legendary pokemon.

Image of Sif, the Great Grey Wolf obtained from the Dark Souls Wiki

For this we are going to use the druid's wild shape and some multiclassing to get as close to the idea as possible.

Race

For the race we will use a regular human with the point buy system. There's no reason behind this choice so feel free to choose any race you want.

Stats

With the Racial bonus of a regular human our stats will look like this

Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
9	14	14	12	16	14

Wisdom will be our most important stat as we will be using it a lot for spellcasting. The rest can be arranged to suit different needs. As we are going to be a wolf most of the time, strength will be our dump stat.

Progression

Our first two levels will be druid levels, take any cantrip you like. In second level we will take the Circle of the Moon, which will let us turn into a Dire Wolf.

Now its time to multiclass to cleric, for our first level in cleric we will take the Nature Domain. This will give us a new druid cantrip, heavy armor proficiency and a skill proficiency (Animal Handling, Nature or Survival). We also get some basic utility druid spells!

Next we take two more levels of cleric to finally get our sword. You may have figured it out by now, our sword will be summoned using the spell Spiritual Weapon. 

Spiritual Weapon: You create a floating, spectral weapon within range that lasts for the duration or until you cast this spell again. When you cast the spell, you can make a melee spell attack against a creature within 5 feet of the weapon. On a hit, the target takes force damage equal to 1d8 + your spellcasting ability modifier. 

As a bonus action on your turn, you can move the weapon up to 20 feet and repeat the attack against a creature within 5 feet of it. The weapon can take whatever form you choose. Clerics of deities who are associated with a particular weapon (as St. Cuthbert is known for his mace and Thor for his hammer) make this spell’s effect resemble that weapon.

Result

To summarise, in 5th level we will have a Druid 2/Cleric 3 character. They can turn into a sword wielding wolf by casting spiritual weapon and using wildshape in the same turn. And they have the nature related spells from the cleric class as well as their features and channel divinity.

There is a disadvantage though, the spiritual weapon summoned is not a physical object. This means you can flavor it as the wolf is grabbing it but in the game's logic it can not. It also can only move 20 feet every turn, which is a problem as the wolf has a speed of 50 feet.

Despite all this you can still flavor it saying the wolf spawns with the weapon in its mouth and then throws it. And you can also add to the roleplay by "catching" it whenever you get the chance. 

This build has a big advantage over a real sword wielding wolf though. And that is that you can use your bite attack and the sword in the same turn.

Future Progression
If I were to make this character progress with the same theme even further I would continue taking levels as druid. As you get better spell slots you can increase the damage of the spiritual weapon. And even though the Dire Wolf is the strongest wolf beast that exists in raw 5e, some DMs let you turn into the Winter Wolf (CR 3) even though it is a monstrosity.

When getting to level 13 and being able to transform into an elemental you can flavor it saying that your elemental looks like a wolf (which is hella cool). Finally in level 20 you can finally have access to 9th level spells, which means you can cast shapechange to turn into other strong doggos like the Androsphinx and various dragons.