D&D 5E Gloomstalker and Skulker Feat

[Rogue128]

I'm new here and am interested in creating a Gloomstalker character. I'm not necessarily looking for optimization, but more so for some cool 'flavor'. As a human variant, I am considering a few different feats: Skulker, Actor, Prodigy, or Magic Initiate. I think Skulker would be cool, but does that even synergize with a Gloomstalker? I just don't know what that would look like or if that would work well.

Actor would just be cool with a deceptive character. Prodigy would give my character expertise in stealth. And with Magic Initiate, I could learn a 'control flames' cantrip, right?

Any thoughts on a good feat for a Gloomstalker? Of course, Sharpshooter is recommended, but, again, I'm looking for cool flavor. Thanks!

 

[EvanNave55]

Soulker: Gloom stalkers will generally prefer to be in darkness rather than dim light so the first point of it doesn't have as much benefit to them (though it does still enhance their ability to stealth while not under ideal conditions)
the second bullet definitely boosts your ability to hide and attack creatures and be a monster to the monsters that would hide in the dark.
The third bullet is very nice as your dark vision sees darkness as if it were dim light and you have disadvantage on checks relying on sight in dim light which this negates.
Overall I'd say skulker could definitely be a useful feat for a gloom stalker.

The gloom stalker doesn't really have anything to do with social encounters or deception so whether you take actor would depend purely on your backstory and personality and how you want to role play your character.

Prodigy is very flexible and can work for just about any character, expertise in stealth would definitely be a very nice boost to a gloom stalker being able to terrorise monsters unseen from the darkness so that could definitely work.

Magic initiate is another really flexible feat that can work for just about anyone. I myself was just thinking about getting control flames for a gloom stalker character so I could snuff out any torches I came across allowing me to hunt at my leisure.
I'm imagining a gloom stalker approaching some underground dwarven (or whatever) fortress and climbing the ramparts and causing all the lights to extinguish as the guards are then helpless before my blade each reduced to a mere huddled mess or waving there arms about helplessly in the darkness that would normally be their friend as they hear the sounds of the other guards killed one by one.
Anyways long story short control flames can definitely help you as you can extinguish the flames from torches and other lights which would normally be a gloom stalkers biggest weakness.

Mechanically any of those feats other than actor definitely pair well with a gloom stalker, and if you think the actor feat would be fun and fit the character you made that's perfectly fine too. Whatever you like best should work fine.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using EN World mobile app

 

[Rogue128]

Thanks for your response. I didn't understand all of the mechanics that go into lighting/darkness/hiding/etc and couldn't tell how the feat skulker would match up with the gloomstalker subclass. I didn't know if there'd be overlap or if the two complemented each other well. The three feats (except for actor) are very helpful, as you point out, and further add a lot of flavor to my character. So, thanks!

 

[Wrathamon]

Gloomstalkers get disguise self as a spell .. so actor can be very useful to pass yourself off as someone you're pretending to be.


Skulker would work very well

first benefit: Umbral Sight make you invisible (heavy obscured) to creatures who are using Darkvision, so that gives you a huge benefit when using stealth to hide ... Which is better than the Skulker's first benefit, but Umbral Sight is only for darkness, anything else that lightly obscures you allows you to still hide, so fog, or foliage, rain or something other than darkness. Still a benefit.

The 2nd one works for Ranged Gloomstalkers

I think most people forget that Darkvision makes darkness dim light [Dim light, also called shadows, creates a lightly obscured area] It would negate the disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.