A True Strike Analysis

So I've been thinking, True Strike am I right? Its kind of a dumb cantrip available to bards, sorcerers, warlock and wizards. It takes your action, its concentration, etc.

True Strike

You extend your hand and point a finger at a target in range. Your magic grants you a brief insight into the target’s defenses. On your next turn, you gain advantage on your first attack roll against the target, provided that this spell hasn’t ended.

Why would anyone take this? As Zee Bashew said in his video (animated spellbook True Strike): "Just attack twice". Well, lets talk a little about some good uses.

When is it worth it?
Well we know its not worth it to cast it if you are going to use it in an attack you can do twice. But it IS worth it if:

• having advantage triggers another feature

OR

• you are going to do an attack you can't do all the time and you really need it to hit.

Lets focus on the first condition, there is one class feature that really shine when the user has advantage, and that's Sneak Attack:

Sneak Attack

Sneak attack is a Rogue feature that lets you do more damage when you have advantage on an attack and it scales with level. Lets say we have a level 5 Rogue with 16 dex and a rapier.

The amount of damage dealt by hitting both attacks in two rounds is 2d8 + 6 (average = 15). By using True strike and hitting the attack the damage is 1d8 + 3d6 + 3 (average = 18). And the second damage will increase with level!

Thats why True Strike is a must-have cantrip for an arcane trickster rogue.

The Second Condition

You want to hit an attack that you really need to hit and it must be worth wasting an action to cast True Strike. By that we know that the attack can't be a cantrip or a regular weapon attack. It also can't be a special attack given by the Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter feats special attacks as we can get better results by doing them on two subsequent turns.

So what's left? Well, spells!

Casters have a limited amount of spell slots per combat. True Strike really boosts a spell's chance to hit and also the possibility it crits. Normaly the chance of an attack roll critting is 5%, with advantage we get it up to around 9%. Its not much but its better.

We can't do this with any spell though, True Strike requires an attack roll. Lets take a look at the spells that require attack rolls and their respective classes:

Level 1

• Chromatic Orb (Sorcerer, Wizard)
• Guiding Bolt (Cleric, Divine Soul Sorcerer, Celestial Warlock)
• Inflict Wounds (Cleric)
• Ray of Sickness (Sorcerer, Undying Warlock, Wizard)
• Witch Bolt (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)

Level 2

• Melf's Acid Arrow (Wizard)
• Ray of Enfeeblement (Warlock, Wizard)
• Scorching Ray (Sorcerer, Fiend Warlock, Wizard)
• Spiritual Weapon (Cleric)

Level 7

• Plane Shift (Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)

I excluded spells that make attack rolls as part of the spell but require concentration as Vampiric Touch as True Strike would break our concentration. I also colored Scorching Ray in red as only one of the blasts would get advantage and doesn't scale well with higher level casting. (Scorching Ray is just not that worth it for this).

Now that we have the list of spells lets talk abput how the classes that can learn True Strike can use it.

Wizards
Wizards can learn every spell of the list that is acompanied by a secondary effect. That can make for a great debuff character by getting advantage in spell attack rolls.

Warlocks
Warlocks is the class that maybe get the most out of this cantrip based on the small amount of spell slots they have. However, they normally only get ray of enfeeblement. In order to get an extra spell with an attack roll they must choose the Celestial or Undying Patron.

Sorcerers
Sorcerers get the same benefit as wizard does as well as one extra benefit. In level 3 and forward they can use quickened spell to cast True Strike as a bonus action and cast one of the spells mentioned in the same turn. This is almost equivalent to spending a sorcery point to get advantage with a spell!

Bard
I don't know why bards can have this cantrip, none of the spells mentioned are available to bards. I guess that College of Lore bards can get these spells in level 6 but still. Why do bards know a cantrip they can't use effectively??

Honorable Mention: Cleric
I can see why a cleric taking the magic initiate feat would take True Strike. It works for the two damaging spells they get: Guiding Bolt and Inflict Wounds. Though it can be used with Spiritual weapon to get advantage on every one of its strikes, its still better to do an attack as well as a spiritual weapon attack instead of one spiritual weapon attack with advantage.

Level 4: A Wisdom/Charisma oriented Fighter

Hi! This is going to be a short one as the idea is for it to be versatile. Maybe you want to make a very wise or charismatic Fighter for Roleplaying reasons. So I'll give you ideas that can help you do exactly that while being a powerful entity in battle.

Stats
We are skipping the race section and we will asume we don't have racial modifiers. We are also going to use the standard array for this.

First of all, wisdom and charisma will not affect your AC. Depending on what you want to do you may need a strength of 13 to use chain mail armor (16 AC) or you may want to pump up your dexterity. In order to fight constitution is always useful because of the extra hitpoints.

Lets do an example, lets say that our fighter is an experienced and very wise warrior. When they were younger they excelled in melee combat and resistance. Now their body isn't what it was, but they remain strong as a warrior:

Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
13	8	14	10	15	12

These stats will give them the ability to use chainmail and a moderate boost in hit points.

How do they attack

Its true that this fighter in level 1 will not be able to attack. That's the reason this build is for level 4. In level 4 our fighter will take the Magic Initiate Feat.

Magic Initiate

Choose a class: bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard. You learn two cantrips of your choice from that class's spell list. In addition, choose one 1st-level spell to learn from that same list. Using this feat, you can cast the spell once at its lowest level, and you must finish a long rest before you can cast it in this way again.

Your spellcasting ability for these spells depends on the class you chose: Charisma for bard, sorcerer, or warlock; Wisdom for cleric or druid; or Intelligence for wizard.

 This feat is the essence of this build. For our example we will take druid as there are two cantrips that mix very well with this build of the fighter: Shillelagh and Magic Stone.
Both of these cantrips can take advantage of the fighter's Extra Attack feature and some of the class' traits.

For magic stone the Archery Fighting Style increases the damage while using a sling (however weapon bonuses do not apply). For shillelagh the weapon bonuses and class traits work as normal.

For a charisma oriented fighter we would take magic stone as the warlock class. Using this build its better to go a range fighter rather than a melee fighter. This is because without multiclassing and taking the hexblade warlock patron we can't use charisma for our attack and damage rolls.

Compatible Subclasses
Now lets talk how the fighter subclasses work with this build.

Arcane Archer and Eldritch Knight: These subclasses require intelligence, if you want to subclass for one of these and be effective in combat you would have to nerf your defenses in some way.

Banneret: The effectiveness of the traits of this subclass do not differ by comparing them to a regular fighter build.

Battle Master: The Rally Maneuver is better when choosing a charisma oriented fighter as it relies on your charisma modifier. The maneuvers that do not require saving throws will work as normal, the others will be worse as they depend on the character's strength and dexterity.

Cavalier: May of this class features depend on strength and constitution modifiers. Which our build do not excel in.

Champion: Many of the features in this subclass are very useful. Easier crits, bonus to physical saving throws, etc. If you have less than a 10 in strength your long jumps will be nerfed in level 7.

Samurai: This subclass works very well with the wisdom variant of our build. All abilities are not nerfed in any way for having low strength or dexterity. And the social interaction feature is boosted by having a high wisdom.