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Viewers' Choice #34B: Agravain of the Iron Hand

yes this is the best picture of Agravain in FGO I could find.

today on Grailfinders we’re building Fate’s least-favoured paladin, Agravain of the Iron Hand. Aggy’s a Paladin like just about every other member of the round table, but he wasn’t blind enough to take the god puppeting his king’s body’s offer so instead of being a paladin of the crown he’s a paladin of Conquest, a subclass that fits him so perfectly we don’t really need any spells from the class to make this build work, just his subclass abilities.

I mean obviously grab what you want. maybe some buffs for your homies while you’re here.

check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Ancestry & Background

Agravain is, shockingly, Human.

I’ll give you a minute to recover.

That means he gets +1 Constitution and Charisma, as well as proficiency in Animal Handling, and the Heavy Armor Master feat. this feat gives you +1 Strength, as well as three fewer points of damage from any nonmagical source of bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. it’s kind of hard to be “Agravain who knew no wounds” if you, y’know, get wounded.

you’re not a crown paladin, but you’re still a Knight of the Order for proficiency with Persuasion and Religion. we’re gonna be using persuasion’s scarier cousin more often, but you do work for a god.

Ability Scores

number one is, weirdly enough, Charisma. he might not be likable, but he definitely has a force of will behind what he does. also, charisma is going to be powering his chains and information gathering techniques, so it has to be decent. after that is Wisdom. he’s level-headed, what can I say. third is Constitution, which again connects to his force of will and steadfastness. this makes your Strength strangely low for a paladin, but you don’t usually end up on the front lines often anyway. I mean you clearly don’t, I don’t think you’ve shown up since the singularities. your Intelligence is a bit low, but you’re better at gathering intelligence than remembering it, and finally we’re dumping Dexterity. it’s not really needed, you’ll be wearing heavy plate mail whenever possible.

Class Levels

1. as a Paladin, you get proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as two skills like Intimidation and Insight, both pretty useful for, uh… “information gathering”, shall we say.

you can also gain a Divine Sense to detect undead, divinities, fey, etc., near you, a couple times per day. you can also use Lay on Hands, spending from a pool of HP equal to five times your paladin level to either heal HP or cure an illness/disease. the actual curing is an action, and your pool fills back up after every long rest. your bio just says you come back from battle uninjured, you can totally von Karma this.

2. second level paladins get their Fighting Style, and with Defense you’ll know even fewer injuries thanks to that +1 AC.

you can also cast and prepare Spells now, using your Charisma, but as I said in the intro we don’t really need… any, for this build to work. obviously it’ll work better with spells, but you’re free to pick your faves, especially since paladins can switch up their spells every long rest for maximum freedom. you can only keep half your paladin level plus your charisma modifier on hand at a time, but even at the start that’s a pretty solid four spells off the bat.

and of course, you can always use the paladin’s signature “spell”, Divine Smite. spend a spell slot when you hit someone with a melee attack, and you can deal truly silly amounts of radiant damage as part of that hit. this is definitely more a Lancelot thing, but a smart knight takes whatever advantage they can get.

3. at level three you finally take your Oath of Conquest, which is presumably where you get your scary black armor from. you can add Armor of Agathys and Command to your spell list, and you’ll always have them on hand without needing to spend preparation slots on them. your commands have to be one word, but you could make an argument that asking a question and then commanding “answer” would be a valid use.

you can also Channel Divinity once per short rest, either letting you make a Guided Strike for an easy +10 to an attack roll or exude a Conquering Presence to force a wisdom save on a nearby creature and frighten them if they fail for up to a minute.

you also have Divine Health now, so you’re immune to disease. servants don’t get sniffles.

4. at fourth level you get your first Ability Score Improvement, but we’re grabbing the Scion of the Outer Planes feat instead since you’re so Lawful. I know Agravain’s the only guy who didn’t take the lion king’s goodiebag, but ehhhh. he still worked for them. so now you have the Guidance cantrip so you’ll be better than everyone else with your skill checks, and you resist force damage. a lot of random stuff uses force damage just because they couldn’t figure out what other type it should be, so this is more helpful than it looks. also for the sake of a later feat, pick charisma for your casting modifier for Guidance.

5. fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack each action. you’re actually not that great at fighting, but you’re better than a layman. you also get second level spells, including the freebies Hold Person for your very first chains and Spiritual Weapon for… ok that one’s not super helpful, but hold person is great, both from a character building perspective and for gameplay. if a person is held with this spell, all your melee attacks are guaranteed crits, which is great for someone who is already more than doubling the amount of dice they’re rolling for damage.

I’m not sure how much information you can get out of someone when they’re paralyzed, but it’s a good start.

6. at sixth level your Aura of Protection kicks in, adding your charisma modifier to the saves of everyone within ten feet of you as long as you’re up and kicking. yeah all of them. paladins are fun.

it’s a really small area though, which is probably why it’s called The Fall of Camelot and not That Time Agravain Saved Everyone and was Really Cool.

7. seventh level conquest paladins have an Aura of Conquest. any creature within ten feet who is frightened can’t move, and they take half your level in psychic damage whenever they start their turn in your aura. again, small. we’re working on it. but! this is a new form of chaining people that makes them more likely to spill their guts without paralyzing all the muscles they need to do so.

8. another level divisible by four, another ASI! this time grab Agent of Order to round out your Strength score and, proficiency times a day and once per turn, you can add a bit more force damage to your melee attack to force a wisdom save on your target- if they fail, they get chained up for a round, making them restrained. do we have better options for chains? well, yeah, but this one’s still on-brand.

9. ninth level paladins get third level spells- Bestow Curse might be able to make people talk if your DM goes for it, but I bet you could at least make them make a save to lie to you or something. Fear is right there on the tin- make them afraid of you, then chain them up with their aura until they give you what you need. or until you kill them, either or.

10. tenth level paladins get an Aura of Courage that matches the size of your other auras. as long as you’re alive and kicking, friends in that area can’t be frightened by anyone, not even you. given that you just got an AoE frightening effect, this will be very helpful, I’m sure. friendly fire is also more lancelot’s thing.

11. at level eleven you get an Improved Divine Smite, so now every attack you make is at least a little smitey. I guess the lion king’s rubbing off on you. sorry, that came out wrong, you’d never let a woman rub off on you.

12. finally, we can use an ASI as an ASI! bump up your Charisma for stronger chains and auras. making fear useful requires people failing a lot of saves in a row, so they have to be as hard to make as possible.

13. at thirteenth level, paladins get fourth level spells! Dominate Beast and Stoneskin are kind of in your wheelhouse, what with the chains and knowing no wounds, respectively. I’m not sure if the dominate spells quite work for your chain rules though. it’s been a while since I’ve read the singularities, but if feels like we’ve swung too much in the other direction from “mild suggestion” to “absolute mental control”. honestly I’d just use zone of truth, it’s a good middle ground.

14. fourteenth level paladins can use a Cleansing Touch as an action Charisma Modifier times a day to remove any one spell affecting you or a creature you’re touching. presumably this is how you managed to completely shut down your old boss’s plans for your vis a vis betraying King Arthur. like, morgan is obscenely powerful, by all rights you should not have been able to just walk away from that job.

15. congrats on your new Scornful Rebuke! if you’re ever made to know a wound, by some fool attacking you, you automatically deal your charisma modifier in psychic damage to them. I was not expecting to make Agravain a wobbuffet, but maybe that’s why he’s not in the game yet, they’ve been tinkering with ways to make counterattacking useful.

16. another ASI, so max out your Charisma for… just about everything short of stabbing people, honestly.

17. one more set of spells, with your freebies of Cloudkill and Dominate Person, neither of which are super in-character, so uh… you have stronger smites now, at least?

18. level 18. all your auras go out to 30 feet now. that sounds so simple but it makes you so much stronger. you can practically fill a room with that aura now. guess all that farming paid off.

19. one last ASI, and I guess we can make your Strength usable. if we have to.

20. paladin capstones tend to be pretty solid, and Invincible Conqueror is no exception. once per day, for one minute, you gain resistance to all damage, a third attack per action, and improved critical hits, i.e. they crit on 19s and 20s now.

the whole thing’s a bit more offensively focused than I would like, but you can’t be full resistance to everything.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

Agravain is pretty good at locking enemies down with his various types of chains, and unlike his direct competition Mash, he’s good at locking them down at a distance, making his own HP total way less of an issue.

Most paladin builds have to splash into something, or are a splash themselves, so they don’t get the full aura treatment. Agravain is the rare exception, and he is equally as rare in his dedication to charisma over strength and constitution, making his super-sized auras even stronger. if you want to play a guy who makes fights easier just by showing up, Aggy’s your guy.

being able to keep people in place while you frighten them half to death is a solid interrogation tactic, and when you add in spells like dominate person and command, it’ll be hard to hide anything from you. and that’s before we toss in zone of truth.

Cons:

like all paladins you have range issues, and this also applies to your auras for the vast majority of your playthrough. Conquest can barely keep enemies off you, and protection and courage require your squishier allies to hang out right next to you. which is bad, if you’re attached to them.

at lot of your stats could stand to be stronger- there’s a reason most paladins pick strength and constitution to focus on. if you’re stuck in a fight- and most of dnd is being stuck in fights- you won’t be as helpful as, say, Gawain.

fear sounds like a cool thing to specialize in, but most powerful entities in D&D are immune to fear, or come packing plenty of those legendary resistances to shut down your shenanigans early. and the worse part is even if you use another one of your features to try and debuff them, every one I’ve mentioned in this build using wisdom saves, so you’re not exactly packing tons of variety.

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