“You can stay and die, or you can walk your ugly ass back through that gate. It’s your call, pal.”

Greetings to all you demon slayers and devil hunters! Welcome to this week’s Building Character. Today, we’ll be strapping on the crimson long-coat of everyone’s favorite half-demon, Dante!

Born of a human mother and incredibly powerful demon lord father, Dante and his brother Vergil are some of gaming’s finest combatants. Declining to pursue a path of demonic superiority over humans, Dante instead dedicated himself to stopping the incursions of devils and evil entities into the material plane. Even angelic “would-be saviors” with deceitful intentions won’t escape the son of Sparda.

As with all of our builds, we’ll be building Dante up to level 20. Usually, I express a level I think is canonical for a character. This time, I’m gonna throw in the towel. Dante in his own games is immensely powerful, capable of feats of power and speed that would make Elminster raise an eyebrow. Spoilers ahead for some abilities and feats that demonstrate Dante’s incredible abilities, so go play the DMC games first! (maybe skip DMC: Devil May Cry…) Let’s rock and roll!

RACE

Dante is a fun little case study in “intent vs. application”. In his own games, Dante can pass for human, but is most definitely a half-demon, one of infernal heritage. Fortunately for us, Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition has the perfect option to represent that: The Tiefling!

The first tiefling we’ve had on this blog (probably the last one for a while, unfortunately), the only problem we might run into is their appearance. Much like the Tabaxi!Catwoman build, in this instance we’re going to choose function over form. If you build Dante for a campaign where you want to play as a human-passing tiefling, I would talk to the GM about methods of disguising their heritage. Hiding their tail under the long coat, skin dyes, or letting the white hair serve as the primary manifestation of infernal DNA. Speaking of features derived from DNA, here’s tiefling racial abilities:

+2 to CHA- A brilliant boon for Dante, the allure and force of personality that accompanies his hellish parentage helps him where it counts. This is a very, very good start.

+1 to INT- Less useful. Dante is charming, but he’s not a tactician. This stat boost is like frosting; it’s nice along with something else sweet, but by itself? Just kinda ‘meh’.

Darkvision- Demon hunters stray into some pretty dark places, this is a very good advantage to possess.

Hellish Resistance- Being resistant to fire damage makes you better-equipped to handle one of the most common damage types in the game. Another excellent pickup!

Devil’s Tongue- The variant tiefling template found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters works extremely well for our favorite cocksure half-demon. Vicious Mockery is well within his character, Charm Person represents his boyish good looks and ability to make people trust him, and Enthrall is a great way to ensure that all eyes are on Dante as he carves his way through hordes of foes!

CLASS

This is by far the hardest build we’ve ever tackled here on Building Character. Why, you may ask? Because of 2 major reasons:

1). Dante is extremely powerful and probably deserves his own class (Dante too OP please nerf daddy WotC)

2). There are multiple valid ways to build Dante that represent him in decent degrees of accuracy.

It was a hard choice, but we’re going to go with Warlock (Fiend Patron) 20 for this build. Personally, I like the idea of a half-demon fighting against the forces of Hell while drawing power from his infernal blood, wielding his otherworldly power as humanity’s sword. I’ve chosen to lean into that with this build, but here’s some fun alternatives that you can mix and match:

Gunslinger Fighter- Matt Mercer’s Gunslinger is live now on D&D Beyond, making it officially supported material. Good enough for me! We’ll be flavoring Dante’s guns differently, but if you want to focus on Dante’s martial prowess above all, go with Gunslinger/Magic Initiate feat for some basic supplementary spells.

Valor Bard- Cutting Words? Check. Creative spells that mimic his abilities? Check. Ability to make a super-sweet entrance and stylishly deal with enemies? Double check! This is one that would be easy to mix in with Warlock, given their mutual primary stat (CHA).

ABILITY SCORES

STR: 14 Strength is fairly necessary for this particular build, and this is where it starts. Dante is a skirmisher, switching up his style in response to what the situation calls for. When the situation calls for wanton violence, he’ll be able to put a respectable amount of melee damage downrange. When we have ASI’s to spare, we can put them here.

DEX: 12 Even though our proficiency is in light armor, DEX isn’t what we’ll be prioritizing in this build. Optimally, one could boost this above CON, but I quite like the idea of Dante letting people hit him just to show off his incredible endurance. If you roll for stats and get very lucky, pump this at your leisure!

CON: 16 While you won’t be out-tanking the Barbarian, Dante won’t be keeling over at a light breeze. The higher this is, the more room your GM has to describe hits that impale Dante that he can casually laugh off, and come back for more.

INT: 10 (+1) Dante’s not an idiot (mostly), but he’s no brainiac either. Leave INT boosting back at the Snape build.

WIS: 8 Dante is a smarmy, cocky guy whose overconfidence is his primary weakness. Mental effects have proven effective against him in the past, so this is definitely an area that we can neglect. If he won’t improve it, you shouldn’t either.

CHA: 14 (+2) For a Warlock, this starts a bit on the low side. However, I recommend using your level 4 ASI to boost this to 18, a very respectable amount. All of Dante’s supernatural abilities will run off of this stat, so keeping him feelin’ fresh is super-important. A 20 in this category is not too much!

BACKGROUND

After losing both of his parents and brother (allegedly), Dante grew up and started his demon hunting business. Coming up alone from the age of 8 onward, Dante must have had to have some pretty good street smarts to survive. To that end, we’ll be giving him the Urchin Background.

Sleight of Hand and Stealth are both skills that will serve Dante well when adventuring in the field, and proficiency in Thieves’ Tools and Disguise Kits will come in handy for those pesky undercover jobs. City Secrets as a feature can help Dante become a master of his urban environment, able to make sure that his city is no haven for the demonic.

SKILLS

In addition to Sleight of Hand and Stealth that we’ll be getting from the Urchin background, being a Warlock will give Dante 2x additional skills. While there’s an argument to be made for a few different ones, we’ll be going with Religion and Investigation.

Religion will let Dante better identify the various nasties he tangles with on a regular basis, and Investigation is helpful when looking for hidden secrets in the interesting environments he frequents.

EQUIPMENT

Dante has so many fun little tools and weapons to bring to bear, it would take a very long time to go into them. Suffice to say, over the course of any campaign that Dante is a part of, he’ll be picking up a variety of magical items and armaments. Here’s a few of his mainstays:

Rebellion- I would stat Dante’s classic greatsword as a +1 weapon in its dormant state, and +3 in its Awakened state. For our purposes, this will be Dante’s pact weapon.

Ebony & Ivory- Dante’s twin pistols. If you want, you can give Dante the Firearms Proficiency feat (included on D&D Beyond with the advent of the Gunslinger subclass) and have him dual wield them. However, we’re going to say that the pistols are less actual weapons, and more spell focuses for his Eldritch Blasts. Since his bullets are unlimited, and eventually he’ll be getting multiple blasts, I think it fits a bit more fitting to flavor EB as arcane bullets.

FEATS

A high CHA and high STR will be absolutely necessary for this build, so boost those immediately. If you have some room for feats, here’s some that will make Dante even cooler and more capable!

Level 4: Great Weapon Master- This will let Dante go for broke, trading accuracy for power. I recommend you have a decent STR score already so you have a good chance to hit.

Level 8: Tough- Dante’s ability to shrug off damage is legendary, and a feat to boost the otherwise mediocre Warlock hit points would be very nice.

Level 12: Resilient- Perhaps putting this in DEX would better represent Dante’s ability to dodge effects and attacks that target that save. Cool guys dodge with ease!

Level 16- Sentinel- Being able to stun and combo a foe is par for Dante, making sure that an enemy who is trying to rush past him and target an ally is shut down completely.

Level 19- War Caster- At higher levels, different concentration spells and effects that Dante maintains will be better served by having a cushion against disruption.

CLASS FEATURES

Otherworldly Patron- We’ll be going with The Fiend. This is less of an actual contract with a devil or demon, and more of a manifestation of Dante’s instinctual ties to Hell. As the son of the demon lord Sparda, Dante is heir to a host of demonic abilities that put him head and shoulders past humans.

Pact Magic- We won’t be going over all of the spells for Dante, as spellcasting isn’t really the crux of his character. However, some fun options for Dante’s spells might include: Armor of Agathys (flavored as perhaps a swift counter-strike with Cerberus), Witch Bolt (flavored as playing his Devil Arm, Nevan), Mirror Image (Doppelganger Style), Shatter (Gilgamesh punches), Cloud of Daggers (the blades from Lucifer), etc. We can say that his gun(s) are the arcane focus, or a gem in his weapon.

Dark One’s Blessing- Getting a health boost when you finish off an enemy is a great way to portray the combo system in Dante’s games. The better the finisher, the more you’re able to stay in the fight!

Eldritch Invocations- While it’s really up to you, the player, there are certain invocations that portray Dante pretty well (not in any specific order):

-Agonizing Blast makes his “gun” attacks even better.

-Armor of Shadows gives you decent AC, because your armor and DEX aren’t really cutting it. You can flavor this as Trickster style if you’d like, making sure things that would normally hit you pass you by.

-Dreadful Word is fun to give Dante as a sort of quip that confuses and unnerves an opponent.

-Mire the Mind can represent Quicksilver Style, making Dante much faster than his opponents.

-Improved Pact Weapon gives you more weapons, more damage types, and all around more options.

-Otherworldly Leap makes Dante more like his in-canon self, able to leap extreme heights and distances.

-Fiendish Vigor can mimic Royalguard style, giving increased defenses to our favorite demon slayer. Get hit and shake it off!

-Agonizing Blast makes his “gun” attacks even better. -Armor of Shadows gives you decent AC, because your armor and DEX aren’t really cutting it. You can flavor this as Trickster style if you’d like, making sure things that would normally hit you pass you by. -Dreadful Word is fun to give Dante as a sort of quip that confuses and unnerves an opponent. -Mire the Mind can represent Quicksilver Style, making Dante much faster than his opponents. -Improved Pact Weapon gives you more weapons, more damage types, and all around more options. -Otherworldly Leap makes Dante more like his in-canon self, able to leap extreme heights and distances. -Fiendish Vigor can mimic Royalguard style, giving increased defenses to our favorite demon slayer. Get hit and shake it off! Pact of the Blade- We’ll be going with this pact boon to represent Dante’s incredible skill with a blade.

Dark One’s Own Luck- Dante is only lucky when it comes to combat, take him to a casino and he’ll be broke in an hour!

Fiendish Resistance- Adding to the image of the unkillable half demon, Dante can gain resistance to a particular damage type every short rest. If he knows what manner of creature he’ll be fighting, Dante can take advantage of this power!

Mystic Arcanum- There’s several Mystic Arcanums that we’ll be getting over the course of this build, but the best one I’d like to point out is one you’ll get near the end of the build: Foresight. This 9th level spell can mimic Dante’s Devil Trigger, giving him incredible combat instincts. Seeing an opponent’s attack before it happens gives them disadvantage every time, making Dante an unstoppable killing machine. Have fun with these features!

Hurl Through Hell- Mostly flavor, but it’s a lot of fun if you’re fighting a corrupted being of angelic origin.

Eldritch Master- More icing on a delicious Devil Food cake. (Had to pun at least once.)

That’s it for this week! Tune in next week, where we’ll be building…

Saber, from the Fate series! Seeya then!