Help With an Oddball Character Going Forward?

[doctorbadwolf]

I’m playing in a campaign currently (yay I get to play a bit!) as a really fun character, that is stretched a bit thin.

As much as I love discussing character optimization, I don’t actually play hyper optimized characters, and this is no exception.

Dresden is a Forest Gnome, Sailor, Swashbuckler Rogue 4/Bladesinger Wizard 2. His origin is that he was a sailor from a peninsular nation of humans, elves, dwarves, goliaths, and gnomes, with humans and elves and halfelves dominating the lowlands, and the other races dominating the mountain range that covers about half the peninsula. His crew were murdered by a necromancer and their ship burned, bc necro-boy wanted thralls for a petty duel with another sorcerer, and Dresden returned to the hip too late to do anything it watch his friends’ corpses used as fodder in a stupid, pointless, fight.

For the last couple years, he has taken Magic more seriously, as well as alchemy, and made progress in both, bc he doesn’t see mundane skill at arms as enough to kill mages. He reverse engineered Bladesinging from old texts and his study of how abjuration magic works, and he is working on tools and formulas that will help screw up magic users (hard to concentrate if you’re aflame), while also learning how to enchant items.

My problem is, I’m not sure if I’m heading down an effective path, and I am unsure of some decisions coming up.

So, the game and character parameters are:

concept: Rogueish Sailor (marine, haggler/quartermaster in training, rigging rat, skilled navigator), Tinker, and well read autodidact from a well off middle class merchatile family within deep roots in the mountain, turned Mage and Undead Hunter, using wizardry and alchemy to enchance his mundane skills.

Goals: to use a wide toolkit that *feels* right for the progression described above, to kill the crap outta some undead and evil mages, parkour for fun and profit, and invent rad toys. Also, invent a mostly mechanical flying machine someday.

Campaign houserules and homebrew:

Bonus Feat: all characters gain 1 bonus feat (cannot be ASI, must be feat. Optimizer fears are discouraged.) at level 1.

Bonus ASIs: Every time you have a choice between an ASI and a feat, and you choose a feat, you gain +1 to an ability score of your choice.

My pet wolf acts as my Familiar via Find Familiar. Helps with the small group, even tho she can’t attack.

we use the Xanathsr’s Rules for enchanting items, and for Tool Proficiencies, and try to model invention and alchemical research and development costs and time after magic item crafting, with the caveat that if something has a spell Dresden can’t cast, it works like trying to cast it from a scroll, including cost of a formula sheet or literal scroll consumed in the process.

Character stats: str10, dex16, con13, int15, wis12, cha12.

Skills: Persuasion, Deception, Arcana, Acrobatics, Athletics(expert), Investigation, Performance(Bladesinger), Stealth(expert), Sleight of Hand.

Tools: Nav Tools, Water Vehicles, Thieves Tools, Alchemist Tools(trained during play), Tinker Tools.

Feats: Skilled, Crossbow Expert. Planned: Mage Slayer, probably War Caster,

Main Spells: Booming Blade, Minor Illusion, Prestigitation, Prot. Evil and Good, Absorb Elements, Magic Missile, Healing Elixer (UA), and the normal ritual spells.

Items: Revolver Hand Crossbow (reload 6), with hollow arrows that can hold about an ounce of fluid (I did the math) as well as normal arrows. I make either an Alchemist Fire or Acid every long rest, having spent time and money developing a version that has the normal effect with much less fluid.
Spell Eater, a rapier that absorbs magical energy. All it does right now is let me cast Absorb Elements at 1charge/cast, with 3 charges/day. Eventually it will grow to have Counterspell and Dispell Magic, and a few more charges.

Tactics so far: I tend to start fights Hidden, or find cover to hide ASAP (easy when you’re small), and play hit and run. My xbow is great for range, and Booming Blade is great for a rogue in melee. Familiar helps shore up the times I don’t have circumstance otherwise for sneak attack.

In melee, I tend to hit hard, taunt, and move away, tempting the enemy to follow and take more damage.

Am I missing anything? In the last two fights, I felt like my xbow and feat for it were wasted, maybe I’ve got too many combat strategies at once? It’s good to have melee and range, and having a second d6+dex Attack as a bonus actions on turns when I don’t use Booming Blade is good.

Is there some important thing I’m not seeing that would be good here?

I also use Minor Illusion *a lot*, from hiding behind illusory shrubberies and furniture, to projecting my voice, to all sorts of fun gags and cons, and talk to small critters frequently. Out of combat he is really working well.

in combat, I think I may have gone too far into that broad toolkit, and maybe Crossbow expert wasn’t a smart feat?

Anyone ever played anythig similar?

Also, since I’m having trouble pinpointing where I am on the power curve (1st ever 5e Wizard, 2nd Rogue), I am not sure how far to go with inventions, alchemy, and enchantment, in a campaign where my DM trusts me to not try to break the game with it.

Has anyone played or run a game for an inventor, Alchemist, or enchanted in 5e?

 

[fobia]

I think you wanted Spell Eater to be a rapier, right?

And I'd say yes, you fit a lot of stuff into a single character. But imho it's already a heavily optimized build, especially with all that homebrew stuff. It's just not optimized towards pure damage.

Regarding the feat, you can attack twice with your crossbow expert feat, if you're not holding a weapon in your off-hand. But that uses up your bonus action, so it uses up the rogue's abilty to disengage, dash or hide as a bonus action. That feat is better on a pure archery build, but it's still viable. Sharpshooter is maybe more interesting if you want to do lots of damage with the crossbow.

Regarding the playstyle, that depends on the campaign and the group. Hard to say without knowing your DM and your group. Is he used to that kind of game? Does he throw harder monsters at you to make up for the added damage through feats etc? Do others in your group use a lot of homebrew stuff or exceptions to standard rules?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think you wanted Spell Eater to be a rapier, right?

And I'd say yes, you fit a lot of stuff into a single character. But imho it's already a heavily optimized build, especially with all that homebrew stuff. It's just not optimized towards pure damage.

Regarding the feat, you can attack twice with your crossbow expert feat, if you're not holding a weapon in your off-hand. But that uses up your bonus action, so it uses up the rogue's abilty to disengage, dash or hide as a bonus action. That feat is better on a pure archery build, but it's still viable. Sharpshooter is maybe more interesting if you want to do lots of damage with the crossbow.

Regarding the playstyle, that depends on the campaign and the group. Hard to say without knowing your DM and your group. Is he used to that kind of game? Does he throw harder monsters at you to make up for the added damage through feats etc? Do others in your group use a lot of homebrew stuff or exceptions to standard rules?

Thanks for the catch. Wrote that out on my phone, and apparently some misspelling of rapier went very wrong!

This game has a little more homebrew than the DM normally uses, because some of the concepts being thrown around in session 0 were hard to make work without them, but he is totally fine with where we are. He does challenge us quite a bit, but honestly, only 1 person in the 3 person group has a directly combat related bonus feat, so he isn't needing to beef up encounters due to feats.

The other homebrew is mostly my sword, and my wife's character's armor, and a repeating hand crossbow. Considering my character can't always use the hand bow, because it competes with Cunning Action, and sometimes it's just better to Booming Blade someone into a position where they are at a disadvantage if they don't move on their turn, and will take extra damage if they do. Can't do the Bonus Action attack if I don't first take the Attack Action. My sword is basically a middling power level wand that I can use as a rapier, and my wife's armor is mostly exploration benefits.

The wolf Familiar is good, but mostly she just can sometimes take two hits instead of one, and I can ride her sometimes.

We do ignore the loading property of the hand crossbow.

Most of my character's power is still just coming from his class features, in combat. Alchemy is good, too. Considering every time I want to rework a formula to concentrate it into a smaller package, I have to pay gold and spend downtime making checks to see how long (and expensive) the process is, I think it's a fair system. Especially since I'm then still turning gold into damage.

Anyway, yes, Sharpshooter might output more damage, but then I'd really feel silly continuing to focus on the sword.Maybe when I've increased my Dex up to 18. The main issue, I think, is that I like the idea of stabbing and then shooting, but Booming Blade ends up being really effective often enough that I mosty only use the xbow when I'm at range, and just double tap with it, or play the "Shoot from Stealth, move, Bonus Action Hide" game.

The Dm allows retraining at level up, as long as it makes sense, so I'll see how the rest of level 6 goes and see how things feel.