D&D 5E Bard Arcane Trickster?

[Mephista]

Search is generally supposed to be Perception (Wisdom)

Eh... The devs have said its a grey area. Passive perception? The old 3e Spot skill? Absolutely going Perception Wisdom. Actively searching for traps based on clues you see in the environment? That's actually falling under Investigation's stick- anything where you're looking for clues to something.

Its not clear cut, so its deliberately up to individual GMs, but I wouldn't say anything is generally supposed to be one or the other.


EDIT - oh, and for the GM? I personally think of the bard as the core "Beguiler" style class, so I'm all for it. The thing with wizards is that they've basically become the jack-of-all-spell-trades at once, overlapping with pretty much the warlock, sorcerer, bard, and even bits of the druid and cleric. I don't see a lot of functional difference between an Illusion/Enchanter wizard and a bard.

The big difference is the INT and CHA focus. I actually personally feel that Intelligence has more uses than Charisma. Yes, Charisma is the key skill for Deception, and there's the whole social-rogue thing. But that's actually just one style of rogue, not all of them. Not every rogue wants or needs to be social. The treasure-hunter archetype has fun with History checks to find and recall designs of buildings and where to locate treasure.

 

[Prism]

Search is generally supposed to be Perception (Wisdom), in 5E. Arcana is a very situational thing. With a true Wizard in our group, no one else seems to feel a need for arcana.

For traps in particular if you take the 8 examples in the dmg, 3 require just wisdom to disarm, 3 require both wisdom and intelligence and 2 require just intelligence. So I'd suggest that rogues should be pretty good in both of those stats if they want to be good trap finders. Of course other rogues prefer the deception, disguise route and would prefer charisma. I just don't think that allowing an arcane trickster to use bard spell casting is going to make it to strong.

I agree about arcana if you have a wizard but so far none of our group has gone for it. So our arcane trickster is the arcana expert in one campaign and its the fighter in the other

 

[Mistwell]

Speaking as a player with a 13th-level arcane trickster: This would be a significant boost. In 5E, Intelligence is basically useless for anything but spellcasting. Charisma is the basis of several powerhouse skills which dovetail nicely with the AT's spell selection.

That is EXTREMELY campaign-specific and not a fair generalization. Intelligence is used for a lot of things which, in some campaigns, will come up a lot more often than Charisma-based skills. Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, Religion, silent communication, value estimation, gathring a disguise, forging documents, recalling lore, winning games of skill, etc.. In my games, that list comes up WAY more often than the Charisma skills.

Also, given he is changing the spell selection, it's not really relevant if Charisma would dovetail nicely with the AT spell selection...he wouldn't be getting that spell selection in this proposed scenario.

 

[Mistwell]

Search is generally supposed to be Perception (Wisdom), in 5E. Arcana is a very situational thing. With a true Wizard in our group, no one else seems to feel a need for arcana.

Investigation: When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check. You might deduce the location of a hidden object, discern from the appearance of a wound what kind of weapon dealt it, or determine the weakest point in a tunnel that could cause it to collapse. Poring through ancient scrolls in search of a hidden fragment of knowledge might also call for an Intelligence (Investigation) check.

In our games, this skill gets use a lot. If there is time and inclination to seek something out you think might be there, investigation usually comes up more than perception. Perception is much more often for quickly noticing something. Traps can come under either for instance, but perception is if you don't really necessarily suspect something is there, and investigation is more often for when you think there is something and you're looking for the clues to tell you precisely where, and then how to disable or avoid it. Perception might find the secret door (unless you already suspected it was there, in which case you might follow clues to find it), but usually investigation is what tells you how to open it.

Bottom line: It's campaign and GM-specific. No generalization can be made.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Bottom line: It's campaign and GM-specific. No generalization can be made.

This is generally true.

*waits for it...*

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

If bards are balanced against wizards as full casters, I don't see an issue with making a 1/3 bard caster rogue. Or a 1/3 cleric rogue, or a 1/3 druid fighter, etc. It's not like wizards get better spells because Intelligence is a "worse" stat. Let us know how it turns out!

 

[AverageCitizen]

It seems like the consensus echoes my thoughts; it should be alright. I'll let you guys know how it goes!

PS: The main reason to explore the variant, in this case, is just that we like rogues and bards and the player wants to multiclass. He could have done it without any mods, but the 1/3 casters are so much fun to multiclass I couldn't resist looking into it. He'll be exited.

 

[Riley37]

I see pulling from Bard list rather than Wizard list as balanced, or a mild hit, since the Bard list is shorter and mostly a subset of the Wizard list, with a few exceptions such as Whissonant Dispers. CHA instead of INT, sure, perhaps that balances out when combined with the different spell list.

I would encourage emphasizing the fluff, too. An Arcane Trickster is a rogue who also *studies books*. I imagine them as the super-methodical sort of rogue, somewhat like Barney Collier on the old Mission: Impossible TV show. An Arcane Trickster who pulls from Bard, has a different relationship with magic; not methodical, but rather, persuasive. "Whistle while you work!" Does the character learn proficiency with a musical tool?

 

[AverageCitizen]

Does the character learn proficiency with a musical tool?

That is a good question. The Arcane Trickster doesn't get a spell focus normally, but in this case I think he should. What do you think?

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Music instrument proficiency is like one step above fluff in terms of game impact, so I don't see an issue with granting an instrument as well. I mean, you might be running a game based on Jem and the Holograms where each adventure ends in a battle of the bands, but otherwise its kind of at the low end of the tool power totem pole.