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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nickabbey1979" data-source="post: 7358141" data-attributes="member: 6942515">I'm using this guide as a start point for building a rogue assassin dex based twf with fighter dip for superiority dice and extra attacks. I'm very interested in building a true assassin, but there are a couple of design decisions I don't comprehend. I'm going for a stealthy scout that can be effective in the first round vs surprised opponents while still functioning primarily as a rogue in terms of spotting and disabling traps. If I don't get spread too thin in terms of MAD, I will also go for the ability to investigate traps. I want to be able to approach a group of enemies, spot, investigate and disarm their traps (or repurpose them to be used in my favor) and then get the drop on them for the first round to eliminate as many as possible while being able to hold my own in remaining rounds. Some of the design choices from this guide seem to be a bit at odds with my character concept, and I want to understand them better before dismissing them out of hand. I apologize if these seem like silly questions, but I'm wondering if perhaps I've missed some reasoning behind key choices for this build.  Perhaps this is because I still see the role of the character I'm looking to build as a stealth based scout for spotting and disabling traps.1) Why take fighter at first level? The rationale explained in the OP doesn't seem to hold water for me. Con saves are great, but a proficiency in strength saves is completely useless for almost every version of this build except the fighter/rogue/pally version. Additionally, strength based saves aren't super important or common in most situations. Going with rogue to level 3 for archetype selection as early as possible seems to make more sense as it gets you the ability to autocrit unaware enemies for surprise round nova at level 3. Going rogue to level 4 before dipping fighter would let you choose a feat. Alert will make your surprise round more productive by ensuring you go first, but you could also take the resilient feat and to get a +1 in con and proficiency on con saves. For the build I'm trying to create, dex saves are going to be more frequent and important than con saves for levels 4-6. At either level 4 or 8, the resilient (con) feat will get you the con save proficiency at a point where it starts to matter more during gameplay. The whole point here is that I want to understand if fighter really is the best option at level one for my build concept. Even though I'd need to take a feat to get it, by level 8 I will have proficiency in all of the saves that are most relevant to the build (except wisdom).2) Why all the love for charisma and deception? Is there some game mechanic that I am missing which provides a good reason for this? Deception in combat isn't addressed in the PHB, so it's not like you can feint in battle to get advantage by RAW that I know of. By RAW, the feint combat maneuver of a battle master is keyed off of dex (or str, but that wouldn't make sense in this build) so cha is no real benefit there. Perhaps the DMG or other sources mention something I'm not aware of? Outside of combat, I could see how it could lead to catching more opponents unaware during the first round of combat by approaching as if you were going to parley and then just attacking. However, initiating combat from stealth nets the same effect without the need for pumping charisma or the chance that intelligent foes who have heard of your deceptive tactics will get advantage to oppose your deception rolls because you have become notorious for this behavior. For the build I'm after, it seems like I could either dump cha to 8, or leave it at 10 and put the other points in to wis and int. This would get me better passive and active perception, insight and investigation.</blockquote>

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