# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games > D&D 5e/Next >  Goblin Polo

## MrStabby

I was, for thematic reasons, pondering a ranger bard.  One thing that jumped out at me was that swarmkeeper ranger coupled with mobility flourish from swords bard, could knock a creature pretty far.  Give them a big warhammer and the crusher feat and using the ability to follow up from the flourish and you could really spring accross the battlefield knocking enemies along as you go.

Add in some open hand monk and do this of a flurry of blows (though you couldn't use the hammer for it) and you should be able to knock people 40ft+ per hit... and then move 50ft, should you chose.

So far, this is all very funny and I love the idea of it, but I am wondering how to turn it from something silly to something good(enough). Also I am wondering if there are similar abilities I have missed (armourer and tempest cleric for example?)

My instinct is to just ditch the bard and focus on monk + ranger as the stats align and crusher will work on the punches anyway.  It probably comes a bit quicker than waiting for warlock repelling blast and multiple beams).

Ranger can get some spike growth I guess, which is nice with forced movement.  I would like a way to knock enemies prone - half movement and being 35ft away (ok assuming both failed saves!) Will leave you out of reach of most enemies.  Or maybe some fear so they can't close again?

Ranger can knock enemies prone from level 11, though this is late game - and add in any levels of monk and it gets later still.  There are weird options like shield master (and flurry of blows with a headbut), to try and knock prone and then smack enemies off into the distance. 

So I really feel lacking in inspiration - all the 'improvements' seem to make it less fun as you hit people less hard and get fewer interacting class abilities from different classes... and less madly dashing over the battlefield chasing the creatures you punted off into the distance.

Am I missing something?

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## Sorinth

Minotaur can use a BA to push 10ft which although less distance then Open-Hand monk might still be better since you won't have a lot of Ki to actually use FoBs.

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## MrStabby

> Minotaur can use a BA to push 10ft which although less distance then Open-Hand monk might still be better since you won't have a lot of Ki to actually use FoBs.


Oh, that's a good plan.  It's one of those things that I didn't think about because I was looking to see how far I could hit an enemy with an attack, but generally if I am able to benefit someone shoving someone once, I would expect even a second smaller bonus action shove to have benefits.

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## Corran

Can you please break down the 40+ feet of pushback per hit?
I'll assume 40 push per hit below just to get a rough idea.

Hmm. Ok, let's assume you end up going with monk levels so you end with a maximum of 4 attacks, which if all hit, you end up needing 120 feet of movement to be able to attempt your last attack, assuming of course you start your turn adjacent to your target. You dont (or at least shouldn't) aim to end your turns adjacent to a target, and at the first round it is also unlikely that you will, so let's increase the 120 need of movement to 160. So, 160 feet of movement per round is roughly the minimum number I would be aiming at, with monk levels (ie up to 4 attacks) in play.

So the first question is, which is the best way to go up to that speed?


With bard levels in play, this drops to a minimum of 120' movement speed (since reaction movement will give you what you need for the last bit of movement that you'll need). Bonus action dashing I'll try to avoid since it conflicts with the extra monk attacks (also with the potential to shove with it, but that's out of scope for now). This is the time to ask yourself on what you will count for your speed's basic ingredient. Haste, mount, or both? If mount ends up being a yes, swords bard loses enough of its appeal (though bard levels could still be useful, for grabing useful spells like longstrider, freedom of movement, haste, etc). Let's igore the option of riding a mount, let's keep the sword bard investment (both for the extra pushback effect and for the reaction movement), and see if 120' of movement speed is achievable. I'll need haste for sure. Let's use haste to add to the fun, so let's say we use the haste action for yet another attack and thus another potential push of 40'. Now I need a minimum of 160' speed while under haste, so that means just a 80' base movement. Wood (half)elf mobile with longstrider on achieves 55'. To achieve 80' you need 14 levels of monk, so this is not viable. It will be *when you are starting within 15' of your opponent*, so probably once in a while (edit: actually, more often, since I didn't include misses). So, backtrack, we dont use haste offensively. We use the haste action for dashing. Now I need 60' base speed which can be achieved. To save my reaction for something other (eg deflect missiles, shield, absorb elements, etc) than using it with mobile flourish I still need 80' base speed, so not doable on a consistent basis. I still may want to go for all the easily obtained speed bumps I can get my hands on (instead of just stopping at 60') so that I will be able to more often have enough speed to take cover from any powerful ranged attackers, or even more likely, I would ask myself if against these opponents it would be a good time to just go for 3 attacks per turn (and save on ki coincidently), so that I can save my reaction for defense or so that I can conserve movement points for cover if available.

If you are willing to do this every other turn, a tabaxi would work very nicely, as you wouldnt have to commit to options that will overstretch your build. During the odd turns you just stand still and perhaps make some use out of patient defense while at it. Though pushing the same opponent in a straight line would only work in a very stretched battlefield. The more I think about it, the better I find a scenario where you split your attacks, inflicting as much action denial as you can on melee enemies.

The mount will make the sword bard investment less important (although you can still combine it probably, not 100% sure how much movement dismounting consumers). It can potentially allow you for a shove option at the cost of it not dashing (but if you can dismount easily this wont be that big of a deal - though shoving honestly feels kind of overkill if you attack 3 or more times per round on a regular basis). But eh, unless you can think of any paticular fast mount (teleporting mounts can help but not as much as I first imagined, since it's important to be able to break down its movement), you probably still need haste, and at this point I am starting to think it's not worth it, other than for style points.

Edit: With misses reducing your need for movement speed but not your movement speed, haste seems like the way to go actually. Often allowing you just enough to make the best of 3 attacks along with boosting defense through the use of cover or through the use of your reaction, other times allowing you just enough for making the most of 4 attacks, lastly giving you the option for a 5th attack if you had enough misses or favorable terrain/no ranged threats.

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## Sherlockpwns

I just finished a full campaign running a telekinetic warlock genie swarmkeeper with crusher. 

Ill say in practical terms I almost never ended up using the swarmkeeper shove (I used the free d6 usually). Simply put i ran into a few problems with the concept. 

1) pushing an opponent that far (45 ft) often would launch them off the map. Sure we could figure it out, but I didnt want to slow down the game with my nonsense. 

2) 25 - 30ft was almost always plenty to achieve my goals; usually launching them through spike growth, fire wall, etc- sometimes just giving us breathing room to reposition. The swarm keeper push just wasnt usually needed as there were only a time or two over an entire year of play where the extra distance would achieve anything. 

3) we had a very melee focused player and every time Id launch someone they would often find themselves in a very sub-optimal role, so I would sometimes pull my pushes to ensure they could still have a target. 

In general though the concept was super effective. Borderline OP often. Its just that swarmkeeper ended up providing a small damage increase and medium armor / shield more than extra shove. Totally worth it for a genie, but given the bard approach Id skip the swarmkeeper side. 

So in short I strongly recommend playing a pushing character, just dont go min/max like I did, lol. 

One interesting note about the mobile flourish I hadnt considered is you move within 5ft of a target- that actually means you can move behind them from where you started; essentially moving you through enemies, a total distance of at least 15ft movement for free. So thats pretty neat. Not sure how to make best use of that. With mobile it Would be potentially handy for placing enemies into tight groups so maybe the real multiclass benefit is Ranger Hunter and horde breaker for another attack?

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## Joe the Rat

Removing swarmkeeper would open up one of the Beast Buddy versions - then you could really get your Polo on since you'd be mounted.

Anything that relies on multiple attacks for distance is going to limit a bit - how much do you want "batter and chase across the field," and how much do you want "swing for the bleachers?"

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