D&D 5E Looking for Build Feedback Arcane Trickster and Gloom Stalker

I wanted to throw out my current build idea and see if you guys would do anything differently. I wanted to make a character for waterdeep, we plan on doing both parts with this character so I'm planning on taking him to 20. I wanted to be a stealth player so I could work well during the heist portion and picked Arcane Trickster and Gloom Stalker. My DM is ok with me using the revised ranger so I'll go ahead and do that too.


Final build would look something like this:


15 Arcane Trickster / 5 Gloom Stalker


Race: Wood Elf


Background: Charlatan


Starting Stats with Racials: STR: 8, DEX:17, CON: 14, INT: 12, WIS: 14, CHA: 10


Feats: Crossbow Expert, Elven Accuracy, Sharpshooter, Lucky


I was planning on starting as Rogue 1, then going up to Gloom Stalker 5, then the rest into Rogue.


The goal would be to get advantage as much as possible using stealth and my familiar to use elven accuracy a lot. Using elven accuracy and the sharpshooter -5/+10 together seems very powerful.

So let me know what you think. The only decision left to make is what my favored enemy would be. Humanoid seems like a safe pick so I might do that, but the Undermountain dungeon could throw literally anything at us so I was considering undead or monstrosity too.

That combination of classes will be pretty MAD, which is tough when using the standard array.

Arcane Trickster spells will suffer from only having a 12 Int for your entire career, which only provides a +1 to your spell save DCs. That'd be less of an issue if you were able to focus on utility spells, but as an Arcane Trickster you're limited to Enchantment and Illusion almost exclusively, and both of those schools rely heavily on saves. Magical Ambush will help with these low DCs, but that won't come online until Level 14/Rogue 9, which is pretty late in the game.

You do get three "any school" spells, one each at Rogue 3, Rogue 8, and Rogue 14. But that's very limited. And it looks like two of those three are already spoken for, with Find Familiar and later Shield. (Which, unlike what's depicted on your character map, you would get at Level 13/Rogue 8, not Level 15/Rogue 10). You won't get your third choice until Level 19/Rogue 14, at which point it's a bit moot.


As a result, unless you're just dead-set on being able to cast Invisibility yourself and/or relying heavily on Mage Hand Legerdemain, you might consider dropping Arcane Trickster and going with a different Rogue archetype. Especially if there's another caster in the party that can take care of your Invisibility needs. Thief is pretty useful all-around, and Inquisitive is handy if you want to be sure to detect/notice every little thing, but Scout can be a nice fit for a ranged attacker, with their Skirmisher ability helping remove the need for the Crossbow Expert feat, since you could just move away from anyone that closes to melee with you, thus freeing up an additional ASI.

In that case, I would go something like Gloomstalker 11/Scout 9 (if you want 3rd Level Ranger spells and the ability to reroll missed attacks) or Gloomstalker 8/Scout 12 (if you want more Sneak Attack damage and two extra ASIs/feats), since you won't get much out of the Scout 13's Ambush Master because you already have advantage on initiative rolls from Revised Ranger and should already have advantage on most attacks through stealth, and Rogue 15's Slippery Mind is already covered by Gloomstalker 7's Iron Mind.

I did think about the low Int as an issue. My final spell list would look like this:

Cantrips:
Mage Hand
Minor Illusion
Control Flame
Message

1st Level:
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Hunter's Mark
Cure Wounds
Find Familiar
Disguise Self
Shield

2nd Level:
Suggestion
Mirror Image
Invisibility
Hold Person
Rope Trick

3rd Level:
Hypnotic Pattern
Haste
Fear

So the spells that would require saves are Tasha's, Suggestion, Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, and Fear. I'd mostly be using spells on the other things though. Hunter's Mark, Cure Wounds, Shield, Mirror Image, Invisibility, and Haste would probably be my most common ones. But I'll take a look into scout too.

Minor Illusion and Disguise Self would also rely on DCs, if interacted with.

Yeah, the low Int is a valid concern. In your opinion, how high should Int be for an Arcane Trickster. I could swap Con and Int with this build so Int is 14 instead of 12. Lose a bit of HP and con saves but increase my spell DC.

The 12 Scout / 8 Gloom Stalker idea does sound pretty good too since I'd get an extra ASI in there. Could grab skulker or something else nice.

To be powerful and effective, a caster's primary stat should be around a 14-16 at a minimum, to start with. (And ideally a 16-18.) Then bumped higher several times through ASIs.

Starting with a 14 INT would be workable for an Arcane Trickster, whose casting is somewhat secondary, if you were able to raise it as you level up. But with your situation, even if you were to switch INT and CON, you'd still be a bit behind the curve since all your ASIs are eaten up with a large amount of feats, and the lone remaining ASI is needed for DEX. So you'd remain at a 14 INT for your entire career. Better than 12, but still not ideal.

If your build weren't so MAD, you'd have plenty of feats to spare for all those ones you want to take. And if your build weren't so feat-heavy, you'd have plenty of ASIs to continue to bump your several needed stats. But you're wanting both MAD and feat-heavy, which isn't easily done. It's usually an either/or proposition.

To make both a MAD and feat-heavy build like this truly viable, you'd need an alternative stat method, combined with some luck, to start with high scores in all 3 (and a half) of your important stats. It'd be doable if you were starting with something like:

10ish STR
16-18 DEX
14ish CON
16-18 INT
16-18 WIS
10ish CHA

As it is, with the standard array for stats plus a desire for many feats, I still think you'd be better off from an optimization standpoint to remove the INT casting altogether, and choose a different Rogue archetype, thus removing the MAD. A 12-14 INT is fine for for a non-caster Rogue who will be using it mainly for Investigation, especially with Proficiency and then Expertise added in.

The alternative, if you really want to keep Arcane Trickster in the mix, is to start with a 14 INT and ditch two or three feats in order to put those ASIs towards INT. That would make you effective as an arcane caster, but less effective as an archer. It's a give-and-take.


Of course, that's all from a min/max or powergaming/optimizing perspective. So with all that said, the other way to look at it is "This is the character I want to play, warts and all". If you want an Arcane Trickster with a 12/14 Intelligence, then by God, be an Arcane Trickster! You may not be the most effective caster, but even with a lower INT it adds in some interesting defensive spells that aren't INT-dependant, like Invisibility and Mirror Image, lets you do sneaky thief stuff at range, and certainly seems like a cool idea for a character. But if you're the type of person who's used to playing min-maxed characters, and you start playing one that's not optimized, it can sometimes be frustrating if spells fail semi-frequently and your cool strategies don't work like you envisioned. If you're okay with that, you can certainly still have tons of fun with a non-optimized character.

You do you.

Few things.

With the Revised Ranger I would almost certainly go to 7 not 5. Greater Favored Enemy is a huge boon and proficiency in an additional save is amazing which you would otherwise not get till 20th level (which you probably wont reach).

Owl familiar for immunity to opportunity attacks but keep in mind you only get advantage on one attack with the help action.

With such low spell saves I would not even bother with control spells, its a waste of an action.

You also don't gain access to greater invisibility and wouldn't gain haste until 18th level (the campaign is over). I would consider Ranger 13 Rogue 7 for greater invisibility. 14th Level is still quite late but its not never.

I didn't think Greater Favored Enemy was that big of a boon, my original thought was to pick Humanoid for the favored enemy and if I got Greater maybe pick Fiend? But a bit extra damage vs humanoids and Fiends plus better saves against Fiends doesn't seem that strong.

The Wis save is definitely great though no question so 7 Ranger for that does make some sense.

Owl was definitely my plan going into it for the advantage, even if its only one attack combining it with elven accuracy really ups the odds of my sneak firing.

So, in your opinion, you think going up higher in Ranger is worth the drop in sneak damage? And in the 13 Ranger / 7 Rogue would you stick with arcane trickster or swap to something else?

I'd rather go Gloom Stalker 5 or 7/Assassin 13 or 15 with the Magic Initiate feat for Minor Illusion, Control Flames, and Find Familiar, Sharpshooter, Alert, and Elven Accuracy

Take Archery and use a Longbow

Your first turns would be brutal and it's easy to get surprise rounds from a distance.






Gloom Stalker/Scout would also be great as the Scout's 9th and 13th level features are superior to the Assassin's IMO.

What I love about Arcane Trickster is the Mage Hand Legerdemain + Cunning Action, its brilliant and in a city based campaign like waterdeep I think its a huge boon. It really depends on your dm how good it is but a good example is an enemy mage with a magic ring, steal the ring mid combat as a bonus action? https://youtu.be/OOrX6HZnYWA?t=6m

Assassinate is another great 3rd level but it is also dependent on your DM, surprise rounds can be very rare or very common.

The main problem with ranger is favored enemies might just not appear. However keep in mind that the +4 to Damage from Greater Favored Enemy would also apply to your humanoid pick giving you that +4 damage against all humanoids or as I like to call it 'Free level 20 rage damage bonus'

Your point is certainly valid on the power of eleven accuracy and sneak attack. I certainly think more ranger levels is worth the reduction in sneak attack damage.

Stalkers Flurry is good too.