MCDM’s Illrigger DnD 5e Class Guide

Introduction

The Illrigger, a class created by 3rd-party content creator MCDM Productions, is a martial class with incredible magical power from an oath of service to a major devil. Their abilities are mean, tricky, brutal, evil, and generally awesome and a lot of fun. After its recent addition to DnDBeyond, the Illrigger is getting a lot of well-deserved attention from the broader DnD community.

While the Illrigger is primarily a martial character similar to the Fighter or the Paladin. Their primary role is as a Striker, but their subclasses offer a wide variety of playstyles. The Architect of Ruin feels similar to the Eldritch Knight Fighter, adding a splash of Blaster, Controller, and/or Defender depending on your spell selection. Hellspeaker focuses heavily on social skills and the Charmed condition, giving them options as a Controller and a Face.

The Painkiller improves the Illrigger’s armor proficiency to heavy, and adds options to command allies to attack, adding Defender and Support to their roles. The Sanguine Knight mixes Healer and Striker with the ability to drain enemies and both heal and empower allies. Finally, the Shadowmast emphasizes infiltration, stealth, and high-damage attacks similar to the Rogue, focusing more on the Striker role and adding some Scout options.

Mechanically, the Illrigger is roughly as complex as the Fighter or the Rogue. Managing Seals is the most complex part of the class, especially once you add Interdict Boons (very similar to the Warlock’s Eldritch Invocations). The Architect of Ruin is the most complex subclass, adding spellcasting on top of everything else. The Painkiller is the least complex subclass, focusing almost entirely on the class’s martial capabilities.

Remember that this is 3rd-party content. Despite being available via DnDBeyond, you can’t assume that it is usable at your own table. The Illrigger also comes with several sidebars encouraging you to discuss potentially problematic themes with your table. Please have a thoughtful discussion with your table before bringing the Illrigger into your game.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Disclaimer
• The Illrigger in the 2024 Rules
• Game Balance
• Illrigger Class Features
• Illrigger Subclasses
  • Architect of Ruin
  • Hellspeaker
  • Painkiller
  • Sanguine Knight
  • Shadowmaster
• Interdict Boons
  • Level 2 Interdict Boons
  • Level 7 Interdict Boons
  • Level 13 Interdict Boons
• Illrigger Backgrounds
• Illrigger Species
• Illrigger Ability Scores
• Illrigger Skills
• Illrigger Feats
  • Origin Feats
  • General Feats
  • Epic Boons
• Illrigger Weapons
• Illrigger Armor
• Illrigger Multiclassing
• Illrigger Example Build – Over the Counter Painkiller
  • Ability Scores
  • Race
  • Background
  • Skills and Tools
  • Feats
  • Levels

Disclaimer

RPGBOT uses the color coding scheme which has become common among Pathfinder build handbooks, which is simple to understand and easy to read at a glance.

• Red: Bad, useless options, or options which are extremely situational. Nearly never useful.
• Orange: OK options, or useful options that only apply in rare circumstances. Useful sometimes.
• Green: Good options. Useful often.
• Blue: Fantastic options, often essential to the function of your character. Useful very frequently.

We will not include 3rd-party content, including content from DMs Guild, in handbooks for official content because we can’t assume that your game will allow 3rd-party content or homebrew. We also won’t cover Unearthed Arcana content because it’s not finalized, and we can’t guarantee that it will be available to you in your games.

The advice offered below is based on the current State of the Character Optimization Meta as of when the article was last updated. Keep in mind that the state of the meta periodically changes as new source materials are released, and the article will be updated accordingly as time allows.

The Illrigger in the 2024 Rules

Because it was published before the 2024 rules, the Illrigger doesn’t have Weapon Mastery like most martial classes do, and its recovery mechanism for Invoke Hell works much like Channel Divinity did in 2014. If you find that the Illrigger doesn’t feel effective alongside 2024 classes, consider a few minor changes:

• 2 Weapon Masteries starting at level 1
• Update Invoke Hell to follow the same uses per rest and recharge mechanics as the Paladin’s Channel Divinity.
• Replace the level 19 ASI with an Epic Boon

Game Balance

The Illrigger feels similar in effectiveness to core classes in the 2024 rules, but makes some trades in functionality. The easiest comparison is to the Fighter: the Illrigger will generally do more damage in short bursts by relying on seals, but the Fighter is more sustainable and more durable. The Sanguine Knight compares nicely to the Paladin, again trading durability for bigger bursts of damage from seals. The Shadowmaster compares to the Rogue, trading the Rogue’s skills and sustainability for more durability.

Illrigger Class Features

Optional Class Features are detailed below under Optional Class Features.

Hit Points: d10 is standard for front-line martial characters.

Saves: Constitution and Charisma are fine. You’ll need both to fuel your hit points and your class features, so you’ll be well protected. However, you have no additional defenses against common Dexterity and Wisdom saves.

Proficiencies: Medium armor, shields, martial weapons. Painkillers get heavy armor, but other illriggers will lean toward Dexterity-based builds. The Illrigger’s skills are an interesting mix which caters to a broad range of ability scores.

1. Baleful Interdict: You seals are a powerful and precious resource central to the Illrigger’s class features. You get just 3 seals per rest at level 1, then get as many as 7 per rest at level 18. You can only place one seal on a creature per turn, which helps stop you from burning through them in a hurry, but you’ll still need to learn to ration them.

Initially the only function of your seals is to burn them for damage. Note that because burning a seal deals damage separate from the triggering effect, the damage isn’t multiplied on a critical hit, but it does force creatures to make a separate save to maintain Concentration.

1. Forked Tongue: Interesting, but not very impactful in most games. Omitting the ability to read and write in the granted languages is an interesting touch.

2. Combat Mastery: Combat Mastery works a lot like Fighting Style.

• Bravado: Only useful if you’re planning to be stealthy, which is tempting for Shadowmaster builds.
• Brutal: A great way to control the battlefield, but less novel in a world where Crusher and Weapon Mastery (Push) exist. Of course, you can combine all 3 on the same attack to move enemies a total of 20 feet, and that’s pretty great.
• Inexorable: Very tempting for aggressive melee builds, but it’s unreliable without a way to guarantee groups of enemies.
• Lies: Great for several builds, but obsolete in the 2024 rules. Take Magic Initiate to get Shillelagh as a Charisma-based spell.
• Lissome: Fantastic for hit and run attacks. Using Crusher or the Push Weapon Mastery will accomplish the same goal in most situations, but this is still very appealing for builds focusing on Dexterity.
• Unfettered: Absolutely essential for ranged builds.

2. Interdiction: Interdict Boons are a fantastic decision point within the class. They work a lot like the Warlock’s Eldritch Invocations, allowing you to pick and choose class features that suit your play style.

3. Subclass: See Illrigger Subclasses, below.

3. Invoke Hell: Very similar to Channel Divinity. The usefulness of the ability is entirely dependent on your subclass.

5. Extra Attack: The Illrigger is primarily a martial class, so the bulk of your Actions in combat will be spent attacking.

6. Infernal Conduit: The dice scale very slowly, so this will never be very impactful.

• Invigorate: Donate some hit points to an ally. If you have temporary hp, such as from the Soul Eater Interdict Boon, it will mitigate the cost to use this. If you’re at nearly 0 hp, use this to heal an ally and have someone heal you. Going from 1 hp to 0 hp to heal an ally for 3d10 or more is nice. This will never be a huge amount of healing since the dice scale so slowly, but putting all of your dice into an ally could get them through another hit or two.
• Devour: Similar in concept to Vampiric Touch, but Constitution saves are consistently high and your damage will never be especially good even if you’re using all of your dice at once.

10. Blood Price: Absolutely fantastic. It doesn’t include your Constitution modifier, but +1d10 to a save is still really good in 5e’s bounded math. This is strong motivation to not use your Hit Dice during Short Rests, so consider other healing options if they’re available to your party.

11. Terrorizing Force: A nice boost to your damage output. I strongly recommend Necrotic damage, as it’s the least common resistance among the listed options.

14. Superior Interdict: Ignoring damage resistances is nice, but by this level you have plenty of uses for your seals that aren’t damage. The one additional seal per day will have very little impact.

17. Infernal Majesty: A once per day combat transformation. Flight, damage resistances, and some additional damage output. Altogether a pretty great buff.

20. Master of Hell: A once per day AOE nuke. The range is good and the radius is massive, so this is great for handling big groups of enemies.

• Inferno: Decent damage, and the ongoing damage is enough to feel impactful, but won’t win fights on its own. Ongoing damage is also a great way to break Concentration because it forces saves without you doing anything.
• Pestilence: Worse damage types than Inferno, and it targets Constitution saves. Poisoning the targets is really tempting, but this will be unreliable. If you’re going to gamble on a Constitution save, go for Darkness.
• Darkness: The cold damage is fine, but you’re here for the blindness effect. Despite the description, this doesn’t obscure the area, and the blindness effect doesn’t care about the saving throw for the cold damage.

Illrigger Subclasses

Architect of Ruin

Similar to the Eldritch Knight Fighter, the Architect of Ruin adds some spellcasting to a martial class. With the ability to build entirely around Charisma using Combat Mastery (Lies), a Warlock dip, or Shillelagh, the Architect of Ruin is best built more like a Charisma-based spellcaster than like a conventional martial character. You can build around Strength or Dexterity, but the benefits of building around Charisma are massive.

3. Asmodeus’s Blessing: An extra skill and an improvement to Forked Tongue. Unfortunately, the skills are Intelligence-based, which is really hard on a build that has no other dependence on Intelligence.
3. Spellcasting: The Architect of Ruin’s spells fall somewhere between the Eldritch Knight and the Paladin, focusing primarily on combat options with a few utilities mixed in. They’re 1/3 casters like the Eldritch Knight, so you generally don’t want to use your spells offensively like a Wizard would, but the Architect of Ruin’s other subclass features offer a few ways to make offensive spells appealing despite your relatively weak spellcasting.

   Note that the Architect of Ruin’s spell list likely will not be expanded. As we see additional official rules supplements which gradually add new spells, the Illrigger’s spell list will be left untouched. MCDM might revisit the Illrigger, but their current focus on their Draw Steel RPG makes that unlikely.

3. Invoke Hell: Both options are fantastic.
   • Enervating Spell: Impose weakness to your spell’s damage, ignoring existing resistances and immunities. Very powerful. Unfortunately, you get spells very slow;ly.
   • Spellblade: Pretend that you have the Eldritch night’s War Magic once per rest. You don’t want to rush to use this right away because Invoke Hell gets so few uses, but if you’re at a significant advantage this can be a night boost to your damage output.
7. Hellish Versatility: Cantrips will frequently deal more damage than a single weapon attack, especially as your cantrip damage scales with level. If you’re built around Charisma, Fire Bolt and Hellfire both provide reliable damage, while Ray of Frost provides some crowd control. If you’re built around Strength or Dexterity, Vengeful Blade provides some bonus damage to punish enemies for fighting back and doesn’t rely on your spellcasting ability.

   This may look like it’s redundant with Invoke Hell (Spellblade), but Spellblade also works with your leveled spells, while Hellish Versatility works only with cantrips. Reserve Spellblade for when you need to use a bigger spell to buff yourself or to attack, but use Hellish Versatility as your primary attack option.

   Note that this needs to be an Illrigger Cantrip, so it can’t come from Magic Initiate or anything else.

11. Asmodeus’s Interdiction:
    7. Axiomatic Seals: A significant boost to your damage output from burning seals. If the spellcasting didn’t sell you on a Charisma-based build, this should.
    13. Spellbreaker: An excellent counter to enemy spellcasters at a fairly low resource cost. Using additional seals to raise the spell level of your Counterspell is an expensive prospect and requires you to apply a bunch of seals to one creature before they start casting spells, which is unlikely to happen unless you sit around staring at them for a few rounds before combat starts. Plan to use the basic level 3 Counterspell at least until you get Hell Mage.
    18. Hell Mage: You can normally only apply one seal per turn, which is what prevents your seals from quickly nuking single enemies. Hell Mage allows you to apply 6 seals at once. On your next turn, you can then damage the target and burn the seals all at once. Assuming 20 Charisma, that’s 18d6+30 damage (avg. 93), which is pretty great. It may not be worth that resource cost in many cases, but nuking an enemy spellcaster in the first round or two of combat will often win a fight for you. Just remember that you only get 7 seals per rest unless you use Vile Transmogrification to get more.
11. Submit: Imposing Disadvantage on a save is great. If you combine this with Invoke Hell (Enervating Spell), you can make one spell extremely effective. The Architect of Ruin gets vew few offensive spells which call for saves, but Suggestion, Bestow Curse, Blight, and Phantasmal Killer will all work here.

    The wording of the feature seems to specify only a single saving throw. I think the intent here is that the Disadvantage applies on the first save against the spell, but wouldn’t apply to additional saves against spells like Hold Person or Phantasmal Killer.

15. Vile Transmogrification: The ability to trade your resources back and forth like this offers some neat options. Seals work with your Interdict Boons, but some of your subclass features don’t matter without your spells. Trading spell slots for seals is considerably more efficient, but don’t rush to melt down all of your spell slots unless you’ve built your whole character around spending seals (which is an option).

    Since you can’t have more than 7 seals at a time, you can’t use this to recover spell slots above level 2. You can’t regain something that you haven’t lost, so you can’t “regain” an 8th seal to go over your capacity.

Hellspeaker

The Hellspeaker is almost entirely focused on social skills, offering a handful of combat options, but little utility beyond the ability to charm creatures. They make an excellent Face, but otherwise don’t expand the Irrigger’s capabilities.

3. Moloch’s Blessing: Proficiency or Expertise in either Persuasion or Deception. Deception feels like it fits the theme better, but choose whichever works for your character.

   The Advantage mechanic requires special attention and deep understanding of the Forked Tongue feature. You will know 2 or 3 languages from your species, almost always including Common. If you can somehow not learn Common from your species, you’ll spend most of the game rolling Charisma checks with Advantage, but that’s probably not the intent of the rule. Forked Tongue gets you additional languages, and you get Advantage when using them, so you’re encouraged to speak in basically anything except Common. Remember that Forked Tongue allows you to change the languages you gained (except for Infernal), so try to keep your languages relevant to whatever creatures you’re facing at any given point.

   Of course, you also have Charm Enemy to offer another route to Advantage on your Charisma checks.

3. Charm Enemy: The first part of Charm Enemy allows you to quickly charm a creature. The Bonus Action to apply a seal doesn’t have any sort of audio or visual indicator, so it’s perfectly subtle, making it easy to use in a conversation. Many creatures have poor Charisma saves even at high levels, so this is usually reliable. If the conversation goes badly, you go into combat with your target interdicted.

   The second half of the feature lets you charm multiple creatures at once after damaging them by burning seals. They get the same Charisma save as your original target, and don’t get Advantage on their save if you’re in combat like most charm effects. This can easily end or prevent a combat encounter.

3. Invoke Hell:
   • Honey-Sweet Blades: One guaranteed critical hit per Short Rest is pretty great, but seal damage doesn’t multiply on a critical hit, and the Hellspeaker doesn’t get any combat-focused subclass features which complement this.
   • Turncoat: Excellent in crowded encounters both because it forces enemies to damage each other and because it wastes targets’ Reactions so that you and your party can move about freely.
7. Moloch’s Interdiction:
   7. Red Cant: Excellent insurance in social situations, especially if you haven’t charmed whatever you’re talking to.
   13. Slippery Ploy: A fantastic defense, but be sure that your party members are okay with drawing more attacks.
   18. Incontrovertible: This makes Charm Enemy and Slippery Ploy extremely reliable.
11. Intransigent: Only situationally useful, but many effects will charm targets and apply additional problems while the targets are charmed.
11. Let’s Make a Deal: With Advantage and +PB on the roll on top of any other modifiers, succeeding should be very easy, and your target gets Temporary Hit Points on top of succeeding on the roll.
15. Quid Pro Quo: Even once per day, banishing an enemy to summon a CR 11 Horned Devil is pretty good.

Painkiller

By far the simplest of the Illrigger’s subclasses, the Painkiller feels very similar to the Fighter. With simple, combat-focused features and only one added option to spend seals, the Painkiller’s resource management is relatively easy, but still extremely impactful.

3. Dispater’s Blessing: Heavy armor means that you can effectively use Strength-based weapons without making massive sacrifices.
3. Devastator: If your party relies heavily on weapon attacks, this can be devastating. If your party is all spellcasters, it may be useless unless they summon creatures that can make good weapon attacks. Provided that you can affect at least 2 allies who will make effective attacks, this will almost always be more impactful than attacking by yourself. This gets especially powerful with a Rogue in the party.
3. Invoke Hell:
   • Grand Strategist: Free movement for your allies with no action cost from anyone. Absolutely fantastic for getting allies out of dangerous positions or into better positions to attack from. Don’t rush to use this since Punishment is also amazing, but watch for opportunities for it to have an impact.
   • Punishment: Use this when you suffer a critical hit. Note this works on any kind of attack, not just weapon attacks.
7. Dispater’s Interdiction:
   7. Telekinetic Seal: Knocking a foe prone will either make it very hard for them to move past you or potentially leave them prone through their turn unless they Dash to get additional movement.

      If you use this with Flash of Brimstone, you can also teleport anywhere within 5 feet of the creature. If you use the push effect, you could push them 15 feet away, then teleport next to them.

   13. By The Throat: Restrained gives them Disadvantage on their attacks, reduces their speed to 0, and grants Advantage on attacks against them. This will be consistently useful for your entire party.
   18. Dispater’s Supremacy: 15% chance to crit, or 27.75% with Advantage. You’re going to crit frequently even before you consider Deathstrike.
11. You Die on My Command!: A fantastic protection for your whole party.
15. Deathstrike: Guaranteed critical hits a few times per day. If you’ve accumulated a few seals on the target, burning them for double damage will also have a huge impact. Remember that they deal 3d6 damage per seal at this level, they ignore damage resistances, and they’ll go up to 4d6 per seal at level 20.

Sanguine Knight

The Sanguine Knight adds Healer to the list of the Illrigger’s roles in the party. While you can’t quite compete with a full spellcaster, you can produce big bursts of healing, and you have the ability to remove status conditions, so you can replace a full spellcaster in a party as long as your allies aren’t willfully reckless. The subclass features also have a unique way of taking from your enemies, and giving to your allies which feels very satisfying.

3. Exsanguinate: An excellent and reliable source of Temporary Hit Points. The THP don’t have a listed expiration, so they last until you complete a Long Rest. Be sure to spread the points around to everyone in the party. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that you can use this to give yourself temporary hit points.
3. Sutekh’s Blessing: Another skill is always nice, though Intelligence-based skills are hard for the Illrigger.
3. Invoke Hell:
   • Embolden Allies: A huge amount of hp healed as a Bonus Action. By comparison, the Paladin’s entire Lay on Hands pool is the same amount of healing and takes an Action to heal anyone except yourself.
   • Vitalize: A massive buff for your whole party. It only lasts for 1 minute, unfortunately, but that’s enough to disarm traps, lie your way past a guard, etc.
7. Sutekh’s Interdiction:
   7. Foul Interchange: Basically Lesser Restoration, plus you can shuggle the condition off to another creature. If you’re out of combat and don’t have enemies around, you can put the condition on yourself or an ally for a round.
   13. Sanguine Fist: Very efficient healing. You could use this with Invoke Hell (Embolden Allies) and add bonus healing for your whole party, though beware of the resource cost to do so.
   18. Blood for Blood: It’s not a ton of damage at this level, but it’s great motivation to quickly put a seal on every enemy you encounter.
11. Bloodstroke: This is a huge amount of damage, and the scaling is excellent. Be sure to regularly refresh your allies’ Temporary Hit Points to keep this feature as effective as possible.
15. Haemel Exchange: A d8 is a significant debuff, and applying this as a Reaction makes it easy to fit into your action economy.

    There’s no listed expiration for the d8 granted to an ally, and it doesn’t specify that the dice can’t stack. This can obviously lead to abuse, so I recommend adding a 10-minute expiration and disallow creatures from having more than one die from Haemal Exchange.

Shadowmaster

The Shadowmaster is the closest subclass to the Rogue, focusing on a high damage from a single attack, stealth, and darkness. They start off somewhat slow, but get a bit insane at high levels once you get Doomed to the Shadows. The Shadowmaster is also the only Illrigger subclass that doesn’t depend on Charisma in any way, which makes them unusually easy to build.

Because the Shadowmaster benefits from fighting in dim light or darkness, Darkvision is an absolute must. Also, strongly consider a species that gets additional skill proficiencies if you plan to replace a Rogue since the Illrigger only gets the standard 2, and you don’t get Expertise at all.

3. Marked for Death: Extremely reliable Advantage on your first attack each turn. Unless you’re completely out of seals, you should get this benefit every turn. Remember that this is once per turn, not “once on each of your turns”, so you can use it with Opportunity Attacks, too.
3. Strike from the Dark: A decent damage boost. It’s not quite Sneak Attack, but it has very similar mechanics. Like Sneak Attack, it can apply once per turn, so you can use it with Opportunity Attacks.

   Because this scales with your Proficiency Bonus, it’s very tempting for multiclass dips.

3. Invoke Hell:
   • Master of Disguise: Only situationally useful, but it definitely fits the theme of the subclass very well.
   • No Escape: A fantastic way to keep enemies locked into melee with you, provided that you’re built for melee.

     This effect has no listed expiration. In theory, you could permanently lock a creature within 30 feet of you, so long as you never move more than 30 feet away to break the effect.

7. Belial’s Interdiction:
   7. Veil of Lies: Effectively the spell Invisibility as a Bonus Action. Fantastic on any sneaky character.
   13. Hell’s Assassin: Rerolls like this become more effective as you add additional dice, and you’re getting additional dice from Strike from the Dark, so it should have a constant impact. You’ll be rerolling your Strike from the Dark damage dice constantly until you get to level 15 and they become d8’s.

       The reroll applies to damage from your weapon attacks, not just weapon damage, so anything that applies “extra damage” gets rerolled, including Strike from the Dark, Sneak Attack, Hunter’s Mark, etc.

   18. Dark Malediction: This is a very curious form of magical darkness. It suppressed mundane light, but Darkvision sees through it, so you don’t need to get Devil’s Sight or Blindsight or anything else. Enemies with Darkvision won’t be hampered by it, and most things in the game have Darkvision. The appeal here is that you get another die of damage from Strike from the Dark and creatures have Disadvantage on the save against No Escape.

       The effect is automatically suppressed by any form of light created by magic or psionics, which means that even a cantrip can suppress the effect. However, very few enemies walk around with magic lights running, so that’s rarely an issue unless one of your party members is bringing the light.

11. Umbral Killer: A grab bag of nice buffs for a sneaky character. They won’t win you any fights or overcome any challenges on their own, but the combinations of benefits will be consistently useful for your whole career.
15. Doomed to the Shadows: The damage upgrade is nice, but blinding a creature for a full minute with no save is absolutely insane. Turn 1, Bonus Action to mark a creature, Action to Attack. You get your first attack with Advantage from Marked For Death, hit them with a damage bonus from Strike from the Shadows, then use your Reaction to burn the seal on them and choose to blind them for a full minute with no save. The fight is now effectively over for that creature, and all that’s left is extremely one-sided hit point attrition.

    While this combination consumes your entire action economy for a round, it’s borderline unstoppable with no investment beyond the 15 levels to get here, and will trivialize the vast majority of combat encounters. I recommend adding a saving throw to the blindness effect, and allowing additional saves at the end of each of the target’s turns. A Charisma save against the Illrigger’s Interdict DC seems in line with the rest of the class’s design.

Interdict Boons

Level 2 Interdict Boons

• Abating Seal: Decent damage mitigation, especially since you can do it at range. Just be careful about burning through all of your seals with this.
• Bedevil: Absolutely fantastic. Using this to support an ally’s save-or-suck spell will be massively impactful for the entire game. It’s not clear if this stacks with itself, but generally effects aren’t intended to stack with identical effects.
• Soul Eater: A good amount of Temporary Hit Points, especially considering how often you can place and burn seals. A great choice for melee builds.
• Styx’s Apathy: Only situationally useful. The most common use for this is to prevent Opportunity Attacks, but there are numerous other ways to avoid those.
• Swift Retribution: Grab Sentinel and make yourself a huge, sticky problem.

Level 7 Interdict Boons

Remember that you can retrain one Interdict Boon each time that you gain a level. Now that you have access to level 7 Interdict Boons, strongly consider retraining the one you gained at level 2.

• Acheron’s Chain: Being grappled reduces a creature’s speed to 0. If they’re prone, they can’t stand. If they’re flying, they usually fall. It’s a Strength saving throw, so don’t use it on big melee enemies.
• Conflagrant Channel: Basically Misty Step at the cost of a seal.
• Eyes of the Gate: Only situationally useful, but very cool. You can do the same thing with a familiar, but the appeal here is the ability to see through the eyes of unwilling creatures. If you’re clever, you could use this to see through an enemy’s eyes while they go somewhere restricted, then use Conflagrant Channel to teleport somewhere that they can see.
• Shadow Shroud: Shield of Faith without a spell slot or Concentration. +2 AC is a lot in 5e.
• Unleash Hell: Burning seals does a decent amount of damage, especially as you gain levels, but having enemies crowded together enough to justify this is rare, and you can usually only force two creatures adjacent to each other long enough to deal the splash damage.
• Vengeful Shot: Your weapon attacks should always deal more damage than the 1d6 for burning a seal. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to draw a weapon as part of this Reaction, so plan to use ranged or thrown weapons if you take this.

Level 13 Interdict Boons

Level 13 boons are stupidly powerful. Retrain your lower-level Interdict Boons unless they’re really important to your build.

• Dis’s Onslaught: Attack and place a Seal as a Bonus Action. By this level you have at 6 seals per rest, which is enough that you can use this every turn in combat in most games. Consider Hellish Frenzy, too, since the cost is similar and both give you an additional attack.
• Flash of Brimstone: Excellent mobility, but remember that the range to place a seal is only 30 feet, and you can probably walk that far. Consider Conflagrant Channel instead if you want teleportation.
• Hellish Frenzy: Fantastic for melee builds.
• Hellsight: Only situationally useful, but very powerful when it matters.
• Impaling Shot: This is a massive penalty to AC. The Fundamental Math assumes that you’ll hit an average CR-appropriate creature on an 8. This changes that to 8 – PB, which is already 4 at this level. Hit an enemy with this, then have your party focus all of their attacks on that target.
• Iron Gaol: Effectively the Banishment spell. It’s great, but also extremely expensive.
• Last Word: As long as you have 1 seal, you can’t die due to hit point damage. When you drop to 0, spend 1 seal and hit a nearby creature for 3d6 damage even if it’s an ally. You heal from 0, which will keep you conscious. This even works against effects that drop you straight to 0 hp. Hit point yo-yoing truly is the most evil and hellish of mechanics.
• Soul’s Doom: A significant damage boost, and it gets better as your party gets larger.

Illrigger Backgrounds

Your choice of background depends heavily on your role in the party. Shadowmaster builds can fill roles similar to the Rogue, so look for backgrounds that provide proficiency in Perception, Thieves’ Tools, and Sleight of hand. Other Illriggers likely want more Face skills and Origin Feats which complement their combat tactics.

For information and advice regarding Origin Feats, including those granted by your Background, see the Illrigger Feats section, below.

• Acolyte ^(PHB) : Tempting for Architect of Ruin builds, but lacking a Constitution increase is hard.
• Artisan ^(PHB) : You can get increases to Strength and Dexterity, and you get one Charisma-based skill, but Crafter isn’t a great feat. Altogether it meets the absolute bare minimum of functional.
• Charlatan ^(PHB) : Perfect ability scores for a Dexterity-based build or an Architect of Ruin build, and an easy way to cover all of the Face skills that you need while leaving space for other skill proficiencies.
• Criminal ^(PHB): A good choice for Dexterity-based builds, especially if there isn’t a Rogue in the party. Wayfarer has similar benefits with an easier feat choice.
• Entertainer ^(PHB) : The ability scores are good and the Musician feat is welcome in any party, but it’s hard to waste two skill proficiencies on borderline useless skills.
• Farmer ^(PHB) : A good option for front-line martials. The ability scores are great, and Tough is an easy go-to feat if you don’t want more complexity, but you won’t get much use out of the skills.
• Hermit ^(PHB) : Okay for an Architect of Ruin build, but the skills are middling, and Healer isn’t appealing when you have Lay on Hands.
• Merchant ^(PHB) : Good ability scores for Architect of Ruin builds, Lucky is an easy feat choice on any character, and one good skill.
• Noble ^(PHB) : Good ability scores, and you can get all of the Face skills that you need. The only wasted bit is History.
• Sage ^(PHB) : No Charisma increase, so this doesn’t even work for Architect of Ruin.
• Sailor ^(PHB) : Decent ability scores, but that’s really all that you get.
• Scribe ^(PHB) : Passable for a Dexterity-based build, especially in a small party that needs more skill coverage.
• Soldier ^(PHB) : Good ability scores, Savage Attacker is decent since you’ll probably never have more than 2 attacks, and one Face skill.
• Wayfarer ^(PHB) : Good ability scores for a Dexterity-based build, and between the skills and Thieves’ Tools you could fill in for a Rogue in your party. Lucky is an easy feat on any character.

Illrigger Species

With so much diversity in the Illrigger’s subclasses, it’s difficult to assess species for the class as a whole. If you’re building melee, look for species that work the Fighter or the Paladin. If you’re building to be a Face or a Scout, look for a species that offers additional skills.

Illrigger Ability Scores

Illriggers are similar to Paladins in many ways, including their MAD dependence on both Dexterity and Charisma. Weapon-using builds will typically build around Dexterity, though building around Charisma is possible for any Illrigger thanks to Shillelagh.

Str: With the exception of the Painkiller, there is essentially no reason to build a Strength-based Illrigger.

Dex: The Illrigger is only proficient in medium armor, so you need 14 Dexterity to max out your AC, which means that Dexterity should be your ability score of choice if you plan to use weapons (unless you’re using Charisma).

Con: Always essential.

Int: Dump.

Wis: A little bit for saves is nice.

Cha: You can build partially or entirely around Charisma, but every Illrigger will need some amount of Charisma to support their class and subclass features.

Illrigger Skills

• Arcana (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for the Illrigger.
• Athletics (Str): Completely useless in the 2024 rules.
• Deception (Cha): A great Face skill.
• Insight (Wis): Helpful for a Face, but you probably won’t have great Wisdom.
• Intimidation (Cha): A great Face skill.
• Investigation (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for the Illrigger.
• Persuasion (Cha): Essential for any Face.
• Religion (Int): Intelligence is a dump stat for the Illrigger.
• Stealth (Dex): Dexterity-focused builds will have enough Dexterity to make Stealth useful, especially if you downgrade from half plate to breastplate to avoid Disadvantage on Stealth checks.

Illrigger Feats

This section does not address every published feat, as doing so would result in an ever-growing list of options which don’t cater to the class. Instead, this section will cover feats which we think work especially well for the class or which might be tempting but poor choices.

Origin Feats

These feats typically come from your Background, but you can also select an Origin Feat any time that you could select a General Feat, and you may get more from sources like the Human’s species traits.

• Alert ^(PHB):
• Crafter ^(PHB): Bad feat.
• Healer ^(PHB): Fine, but no specific synergy, and you have Infernal Conduit.
• Lucky ^(PHB): An easy choice on any character. It won’t directly impact your build, but it’s a great default if you don’t need anything else.
• Magic Initiate ^(PHB): For the Architect of Ruin, this is absolutely amazing. Access to Charisma-based Shillelagh makes their build massively more effective.
• Musician ^(PHB): A great way to contribute to any party.
• Savage Attacker ^(PHB): Fine, and you’ll use it constantly, but it will never have a huge impact.
• Skilled ^(PHB): Illriggers building for either Dexterity-based or Charisma-based skills will both need more proficiencies than you can reasonably get from your class and your Background.
• Tavern Brawler ^(PHB): There is no reason to build an Illrigger around unarmed strikes.
• Tough ^(PHB): Simple and reliable.

General Feats

• Actor ^(PHB): Too situational in most games.
• Athlete ^(PHB): Only situationally useful.
• Charger ^(PHB): Fine, but the d8 bonus damage won’t feel relevant at high levels.
• Chef ^(PHB): Welcome in any party. Sanguine Knights should skip this since they already have an easy way to grant Temporary Hit Points.
• Crossbow Expert ^(PHB): You need your Bonus Action to apply seals.
• Crusher ^(PHB): Simple and effective, but only the Painkiller should build around Strength, and Dexterity-based builds don’t have worthwhile bludgeoning weapons.
• Defensive Duelist ^(PHB): Excellent on almost any melee build.
• Dual Wielder ^(PHB): You need your Bonus Action to apply seals.
• Durable ^(PHB): Just not a good feat.
• Elemental Adept ^(PHB): Only the Architect of Ruin qualifies, and they don’t get enough spellcasting to justify this.
• Fey Touched ^(PHB): Use Conflagrant Channel.
• Grappler ^(PHB): The Illrigger doesn’t have any features that work well with grappling.
• Great Weapon Master ^(PHB): An easy, reliable damage bonus for the Painkiller.
• Heavily Armored ^(PHB): As nice as heavy armor would be, it’s not enough of an upgrade for anyone except the Painkiller that you can justify a feat for it.
• Heavy Armor Master ^(PHB): Excellent on anyone in heavy armor.
• Inspiring Leader ^(PHB): Excellent in any party even if you’re not focusing heavily on Charisma.
• Keen Mind ^(PHB): Too situational, and you don’t have the Intelligence to support this.
• Lightly Armored ^(PHB): A 1-level class dip into Fighter is almost always a better idea unless you’re expecting to reach 20th level.
• Mage Slayer ^(PHB): The Guarded Mind benefit is excellent since the Illrigger isn’t proficient in Intelligence or Wisdom saves and usually needs to dump one or both.
• Martial Weapon Training ^(PHB): A 1-level class dip into Fighter is almost always a better idea unless you’re expecting to reach 20th level.
• Medium Armor Master ^(PHB): Borderline worthless. Put +2 into Dexterity and wear light armor.
• Moderately Armored ^(PHB): A 1-level class dip into Fighter is almost always a better idea unless you’re expecting to reach 20th level.
• Mounted Combatant ^(PHB): With no way to get a special mount of any kind, there’s no reliable way to make this work.
• Observant ^(PHB): These aren’t great skills for the Illrigger.
• Piercer ^(PHB): For everyone except the Painkiller, a rapier or a bow will be your best weapon. For the Painkiller, you’re going to crit more than most characters, so Piercer provides a nice damage boost.
• Poisoner ^(PHB): No specific synergy, and you want your Bonus Action free to apply seals.
• Polearm Master ^(PHB): You need your Bonus Action to apply seals.
• Resilient ^(PHB): Another save is always nice. For the Shadowmaster, pick Dexterity to maximize the benefits of Umbral Killer. For other Illriggers, choose Wisdom.
• Ritual Caster ^(PHB): Not a good feat. You don’t get enough rituals, and they can only be level 1.
• Sentinel ^(PHB): Good on almost any melee character.
• Shadow-Touched ^(PHB): The Architect of Ruin might enjoy the ability to cast Invisibility, but it’s not so impactful
• Sharpshooter ^(PHB): Ranged builds need to be within 30 feet (maybe 60) to apply seals, so much of Sharpshooter’s benefit is lost.
• Shield Master ^(PHB): Excellent for Painkiller builds.
• Skill Expert ^(PHB): Illriggers benefit a lot from more skills, but don’t have an easy way to get more skills or Expertise.
• Skulker ^(PHB):
• Slasher ^(PHB): Switching from a rapier to a scimitar so that you can do slashing damage and apply the speed debuff can be helpful.
• Speedy ^(PHB): Fine, but no unique synergy.
• Spell Sniper ^(PHB): The Architect of Ruin doesn’t do enough with spell attacks to justify this.
• Telekinetic ^(PHB): You need your Bonus Action to apply seals.
• Telepathic ^(PHB): Too situational. This could be neat for the Hellspeaker, but the telepathy won’t apply your subclass features.
• War Caster ^(PHB): A good choice for the Architect of Ruin, but avoid Interdict Boons that use your Reaction.
• Weapon Master ^(PHB): A 1-level class dip into Fighter is almost always a better idea unless you’re expecting to reach 20th level.

Epic Boons

• Boon of Combat Prowess ^(PHB): Excellent for the Shadowmaster, but other Illriggers get most of their damage from multiple attacks and from burning seals, so this isn’t amazing for them.
• Boon of Dimensional Travel ^(PHB): Always useful, but Conflagrant Channel has been available since level 7, and that covers much of the utility here.
• Boon of Energy Resistance ^(PHB): A powerful defense on any character.
• Boon of Fate ^(PHB): Excellent on any character, but without a bunch of save-or-suck effects to throw around, it’s less useful for the Illrigger than it might be for a full spellcaster.
• Boon of Fortitude ^(PHB): With no way to continuously recover hit points, much of the benefit here is lost.
• Boon of Irresistible Offense ^(PHB): Illriggers usually only get two attacks. If you raise that using Interdict Boons and if you can get Advantage reliably, this becomes more enticing.
• Boon of Recovery ^(PHB): This is what Infernal Conduit is for.
• Boon of Skill ^(PHB): The Illrigger only gets the standard 2 skills from your class plus 2 from your Background, but could easily cover Dexterity-based and Charisma-based skills for the party. Additional proficiencies will help a lot.
• Boon of Speed ^(PHB): Always nice for melee builds, but there’s no unique synergy here.
• Boon of Spell Recall ^(PHB): The Architect of Ruin does not get enough spells to justify this.
• Boon of the Night Spirit ^(PHB): Always nice, especially on stealthy characters, but the Shadowmaster is the most likely class to use this, and they can already turn invisible.
• Boon of Truesight ^(PHB): Powerful, but only situationally useful.

Illrigger Weapons

The Illrigger is proficient in martial weapons. Most illriggers should favor ranged weapons and/or Finesse weapons, but Painkillers can build around Strength in order to use two-handed, Strength-based melee weapons. Beyond those concerns, the Illrigger’s weapon choices are fairly generic since they don’t have interesting options for two-weapon fighting and they don’t have Weapon Mastery.

Illrigger Armor

The Illrigger is proficient in light armor, medium armor, and shields. The Painkiller adds proficiency in heavy armor.

• Breastplate: 1 lower AC than half plate, but no disadvantage on Stealth. Tempting for Shadowmasters.
• Half Plate: Most Illriggers will live in half plate.
• Full Plate: The ideal for Painkillers.

Illrigger Multiclassing

3rd-party classes generally aren’t balanced with multiclassing in mind, and being written for the 2014 rules makes the Illrigger especially susceptible to multiclass issues with the 2024 classes. If you do intend to multiclass, be aware that it may create a much more powerful character than the designers expected.

This section briefly details some obvious and enticing multiclass options, but doesn’t fully explore the broad range of multiclassing combinations. For more on multiclassing, see our Practical Guide to Multiclassing.

• Barbarian: Not as good as the Fighter. 2 Rages per day is neat, but not terribly impactful unless your party is resting very frequently.
• Bard: If you want Expertise, the Rogue is a much easier choice. If you want Charisma-based spellcasting, the Sorcerer is a better choice. If you want a strong Face, the Hellspeaker is sufficient, but it’s nearly impossible to compete with Eloquence Bard in that capacity, so 3 levels into Eloquence Bard is a great addition.
• Fighter: Starting with a level in Fighter gets heavy armor on any type of illrigger, plus a Fighting Style. If you’re playing with the 2024 rules, it also gets you Weapon Mastery.
• Paladin: Heavy armor, Fighting Style, and potentially spellcasting and Divine Smite. The 2024 version of the Paladin gets a lot at level 1, including spellcasting and Weapon Mastery.
• Rogue: A level for Expertise isn’t a terrible idea, and you coud likely use Cunning Action reliably on turns where you don’t need to mark a creature. If you use the 2024 rules, you also get Weapon Mastery. Rogues considering a multiclass dip into the Illrigger will get a lot of benefit from 3 levels of Shadowmaster.
• Sorcerer: 1 level for better Charisma-based spellcasting is tempting for Architect of Ruin builds.
• Warlock: 1 level in Warlock to use Charisma with your weapon saves you an Interdict Boon, which is great since you never get more than 4. Use Hexblade in the 2014 rules or Pact of the Blade in the 2024 rules.

Illrigger Example Build – Over the Counter Painkiller

This is a very simple, accessible Painkiller Illrigger build. It’s primarily built to cater to the 2024 rules, but could be adjusted to fit the 2014 rules with a little bit of work.

You will have some difficulty surviving to level 3 due to armor proficiency issues. Grab a shield and play smart.

This build gives us an easy comparison to a two-handed fighter build. The Fighter will be more durable and can handle longer periods between rests, but the Painkiller Illrigger can put out more damage in a short time period.

Ability Scores

We’re building around Strength primarily. We’ll put our +2 into Strength, our +1 into Constitution, and leave Charisma at 15 so that we can split an ability score increase later.

Race

At high levels, the Painkiller’s subclass features make critical hits very reliable. This feels like an opportunity to play the 2014 Half-Orc, and I honestly can’t think of a better build for it. But suffering until level 15 to get one extra damage die on crits isn’t worth it.

So instead we’ll play a Goliath. This build is highly aggressive and focused on big, two-handed weapons, so Stone’s Endurance is a great addition. If you’re using the 2024 rules, avoid Cloud’s Jaunt and Storm’s Thunder, but otherwise anything will work.

Background

For the 2024 rules: Soldier. Strength and Constitution increases, plus the Savage Attack origin feat. Athletics is useless in the 2024 rules, but at least we get Intimidation. Farmer would also work. If you want to focus more on Face skills, Entertainer and Noble both work, but you’ll need to move the Con increase described above into Charisma.

For the 2014 rules, pick whatever you like. Athletics is great, then you probably want some Face skills.

Skills and Tools

We’ll get Athletics and Intimidation from our Background, then take Deception and Insight as our class skills.

Feats

At level 1 we’ll get Savage Attacker from our background. If you’re using the 2014 rules, you’re fine without this. It’s not a great feat.

At level 4 we’ll take Great Weapon Master and increase our Strength to 18.

At level 8 we’ll take Piercer and increase our Strength to 19.

At level 12 we’ll take an Ability Score Increase to increase our Strength to 20 and our Charisma to 16.

At level 16 we’ll take +2 Charisma.

At level 19 we’ll take +2 Charisma.

Levels