Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Nadlor-de-Ist Sep 10, 2014 2:42:18	Hi, everyone!   I have this idea of an arcane trickster rogue with a rapier in one hand and a hand crossbow in the other, with crossbow mastery and, eventually, sharpshooter. I love the Arcane Trickster Archetype (I really enjoy being able to combine fighting with spells), but I don't find its high level features too atractive. Spending a bonus action to get advantage with one attack thanks to your mage hand seems nice, but getting sneak attack is easy enough and I would rather keep my bonus action to attack twice (if I can get SA this is strictly better than attacking once with advantage). Besides, keeping the mage hand 5 feet away from an enemy at all times can be tricky. The steal spell feature is also very situational (you get it at 17th level, but it only works with spells up to 4th level and victims will always be proficient in the save), so not very interesting. And level 3 illusion spells (there are not enchanment spells of level 3 in the wizard's list) are not that good unless I want to invest heavily in Int.   So I was thinking about multiclassing into something else after level 12. Rogue (arcane trickster) 12/ Warrior (EK) 8, for example. I could get the +2 to ranged attacks and use a shield and a hand crossbow, with crossbow expert + sharpshooter. I would win extra attack, extra feat, action surge, second wind, +2 CA, +2 to attack and EK spells of levels 1 and 2. I would lose 4d6 of sneak attack damage, +1 damage in my first attack when in melee (rapier is d8, hand crossbow is d6), the ability to make opportunity attacks when an enemy moves out of my reach (because they have to be melee attacks), AT spells of levels 3 and 4, some AT features that are not that useful (as explained above), proficiency in WIS saving throws (this hurts), blindsense, elusive and the rogue capstone. If I MC like this, I would choose only spells that don't require ST, so I wouln't invest heavily in INT and that would also allow me to pump my CON/WIS. Do you think it's a fair trade? Any options you think are better?   My main problem with my proposed build is that shield + hand crossbow looks weird, and those details get under my skin...
#2 Litania84it Sep 10, 2014 11:13:22	the demon hunter class in Diablo 3 uses often shield and hand crossbow and looks good doing it. Ranger MC? More spells, more slots, more archery. Also good at tracking and stealth and doesn't need very high wis to be effective.
#3 awaken_D_M_golem Sep 11, 2014 16:53:13	RogAT 10 / Warlock 2 / Wizard 8 ... gets you to 6th level <spell(s)>  edit = slots! , repeatability, and the level 9 disadvantage on a decent batch of Wiz stuff.   RogAT 9 / dip X 1 / Wizard 10 ... gets you to 7th level <spell(s)>  edit = slots!     edit ... spells don't stack, slots do
#4 rettekram Sep 11, 2014 17:40:52	2 levels of Wizard (Illusionist) to get the minor illusion perk. One more level of Wizard will get you access to a spell book with 1st and 2nd level spells in it.
#5 Nachturnus Sep 11, 2014 18:02:24	Grab at least 2 levels of Sorc and take dragon magic. You get to have better-than-light-armor at level 1, and at level 2 you gain the ability to turn your Sorc spells into Trickster spells. To boot, you can pick up more sorc levels, and turn your trickster spells into sorc spells, giving you a better range of spells, as well as better spell slots. If you get 6 levels of sorc, you can start getting +Cha mod to your damage of spells that share a type with your draconic ancestry.
#6 tdaelin Sep 11, 2014 18:54:26	I love taking Wizard levels in with Arcane Trickster, because you're going to be able to cast a ton of different spells.  Even a Rog3/Wiz1 with a 14 intelligence is going to have 6 cantrips and 6 first level spells from the Wizard list ready to go, and only two of the latter need to come from Illusion or Enchantment.  Having spells like Shield, Feather Fall and Fog Cloud are handy for a rogue, and picking up Find Familiar can really be awesome for scouting (the owl is excellent at this.)