D&D 5E Working on a Wood Elf Fighter/Rogue archer, with a likely 15-level cap, looking for suggestions

[pdegan2814]

Then straight Rogue. That one level as fighter is not wasted. You get better HP than a straight rogue. You have a fighting style that with bounded accuracy will pay dividends as a scouting archer. Second Wind makes you a bit hardier at least till the Cleric arrives. Bad thing is, you are stuck with Fighter saves (STR, CON) and DO NOT get the good saves of a rogue from multiclassing. This makes later features like evasion less useful. But, you aren't the acrobatic wonder. You are the tough dude scouting ahead who can tough out a CON save that would make a typical rogue croak. And, with Mr. Warlock dude scouting with you, you guys can hold your own till the rest come in a lot of situations.

I'm not too worried about the Saves I've got. Con is worth having, I'll eventually be grabbing Resilient(Dex) to even out my score so I'll have that one as well, and my Dex saves will be even better if I get Rogue 7(Evasion). I won't have proficiency in Wis saves, but I have the Elven resistance against Charm & Sleep effects, which are a big chunk of the Wisdom saves. Charisma & Intelligence saves will be risky, but they aren't very common.

I'm definitely getting more attracted to the idea of taking my Rogue levels up to at least 7, but I still think I'd like to get at least enough Fighter levels for the extra attack. My party is light on crowd control, so the idea of being able to hit multiple enemies per turn is very attractive. Especially if I can use Stealth and Assassinate to get a surprise auto-crit round, I can Action Surge for a nova burst.

 

[pdegan2814]

As far as the forums go, I'm pretty sure if you tag something as dungeons & dragons, aka the 5e tag, it gets cross linked in the 5e forum. I could be wrong though.

As far as levels go, I'm a big fan of the champion, but loves me some crits. Critting with sneak attack is icing on the cake too. If you stick with fighter beyond lvl 2 I recomend going to at least lvl 4 for the ASI. 6 is also tempting for the next ASI and then only two more for another. I'm not as familiar with Rogue as I am with the fighter, but if you are going for assassin then the Champions initiative bonus, lvl 6 I believe, comes in really handy. Combined with the feat that gives you a bonus to initiative, and you should have plenty with 8 levels of fighter you should almost always go first.

That's pretty much what I'm thinking, though there are two factors at this point that are keeping Battle Master in consideration for me. One, one of the other characters is a Half-Orc Fighter GWF Fighter who's planning to go Champion(which makes sense, given his racial bonus). So I figured Battle Master might offer some variety to the party, and it might be kinda fun to exert some influence over the fight with those maneuvers. Plus that ability to scope out the enemies' stats is pretty nifty and plays well for someone who can observe unnoticed. But the more Rogue levels I'm becoming inclined to take, the more valuable Champion is looking. And yes, I was already thinking about taking Alert at some point, if I'm going to be a crit-happy Assassin, I want to be going first ALL THE TIME.

 

[pdegan2814]

I understand wanting the feats, but why not Ranger instead of Fighter? You could roll into hunter and get a lot more out of your archery that way.

Favored enemy will give you some tracking bonuses for when you are scouting. Stealth at normal pace in favored terrain.

Fighting Style Archery just like fighter.

Colossus Slayer extra 1D8 damage to stack on top of that sneak attack or Horde Breaker to basically have an extra shot early.

Spells like Hunters Mark (moar damage!), Hail of thorns, (moar arrows) and ensnaring strike (moar stuck enemies!)

If not, then I agree with Ahrimon, with archery I like Champion for the extra crit.

I considered it, but I wanted to stick with a non-spellcasting role this time around. Whether it's pen & paper or computer games, I play casters quite a bit, I wanted to shake things up. There are definitely some spellcasting classes I want to try out with future characters, though. Might be a while before I get to the Ranger, since I'll have just played an archer. Next character I think will be someone with magic, but who's also on the front lines. I'm thinking either a Paladin, Cleric, or Bladelock.

 

[994125010]

I suggest Rogue 7/Fighter 8 (better than Rogue 8/Fighter 7 due to HD). I feel like the Fighter 7 features are better than the Rogue 9 features which is why I didn't go Rogue 10/Fighter 5.

I highly recommend Extra Attack so that you have more chances to get Sneak Attack off on your turn. Sure you won't deal as much Sneak Attack damage on opportunity attacks but you're an archer, you don't get AoO's anyways.
A good thing to keep in mind is: Extra Attack scales off your damage modifier more (since the damage mod is multiplied), while Sneak Attack scales off attack bonus more (since you just need a hit to land all your SA dice).

You get 4 ASI. Given your scores, I'd suggest:

1) Sharpshooter: Gets you more range and makes cover (+2 and +5 for half and three-quarters) go away.
2) Resilient (DEX): Gives you +4 DEX and DM prob has more DEX saves now
3) +2 DEX: +5 DEX

The rest is up to you. You now avoid cover, have a killer DEX save + Evasion, CON saves, and advantage against Charm (with a +2 WIS save). Your AC should also be around 16-18 now.

If you're going to be an Assassin, I would actually recommend the Battlemaster over the Champion. And here's why:

1) Precision Attack

The Assassinate feature says that any hit you make is a critical hit. That still requires you to hit the creature, and even if you have advantage, there are times where you need that 1d8 extra bonus to land your crit.

2) Anything that adds the Superiority Die to damage

Since you can use a Superiority Die once per attack and you get 4 of them with Action Surge, you can add up to 4d8 to the number of dice you double with crits on Assassinate. This is a potential 8d8 (36) extra damage on your nova round. I think this is much more worth it than fishing for that 19 crit which happens 5% of the time and only gives you 4d6 + 1d10 (19) extra damage for an expected increase of ~1 damage per round.

If you argue that Champion's Remarkable Athlete grants half your proficiency to initiative, note that at levels 1-15, this is a +1 or +2 bonus. You already have +5 from DEX and if you do take the Alert Feat, I don't think it'll make much of a difference between you having a +12 vs. a +10 to initiative.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

What about the first unearthed arcana spelless ranger? I liked that one.
Other possibilities are just outlander fighter, bunt any combination of fighter rogue works. You make up for the lost second attack with sneak attack and assassinate. Ther is no possibility of lagging far behind in damage on level 5. You have at least 2 sneak attack dice OR 4 battlemaster dice along with maneuvers to reliably gain advantage. With 3 levels of rogue and 2 levels of fighter you have assassinate and an action point to make it pay out twice. With only a single level fighter you lack that but you gain a feat instead and you are a hardy rogue with a +2 attack bonus making up for the lost d6 sneak attack at range OR two weapon fighting which is at least +3 damage on the off hand attack canceling the lost d6. And you also have the level 4 rogue feat for crossbow expert or archery style.
If you decide rogue 1 fighter 4 you have a single d6 sneak attack and the feat. Expertise in stealth and proficiency in thiefing tools make you a gread scout, giving you tactical advantage many times. So just don't sweat it and just level up what makes more sense.
I would recommend level 5 in fighter at some point and level 3 rogue at least.
All other levels are optional. Depends how often sneak attack works, if you need an extra feat or if you notice that you like more expertised skills. I don't see you lagging behind in damage too much and you gain a lot of utility.