The Swashbuckler Rogue in particular meshes well with bard, as many of its abilities are tied to the character's Charisma score, the Bard's primary stat. Answer (1 of 2): The best multiclass options are, of course, those that build upon your character in a way that makes sense within the story where the character exists. This sounds like a super fun build to play and RP . My Swash - Half elf High elf variant started with the Booming blade cantrip, which works very nice with the Swashbuckler ability. Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, their respective logos, and all Wizards titles and characters are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. Uncanny Dodge: Refer to the 5e Rogue Guide. Well, the swashbuckler introduces a new condition; if you are within 5 feet of your target, no other creatures are within 5 feet of you, and you dont have disadvantage on the attack roll, you can make a sneak attack. Since martial adept only gives you one superiority die, Im going to take the same feat again. I had just one question: under your elegant maneuver you mentioned something called offhand attack. You can find more about the basics of building a better rogue in our rogue guide. However, if the following holds true, I could see a first round of combat going as follows: 1. Check out our Guide to DnD Races for non-standard races. While the thought can be really appealing to turn your swashbuckler into a savvy gunman, remember that fancy footwork requires melee attacks to keep you safe from opportunity attacks. If you miss with an attack roll, you can roll it again with advantage. Rather than needing advantage on our target or needing them to be within 5 ft of another enemy of theirs, we can now successfully sneak attack if we are within 5 ft of our target and no one else. Combine this with their buffed sneak attack and Swashbucklers will commonly find themselves dancing around the battlefield, sneak attacking to their hearts content. Panache: Panache is an outstanding ability. The first option sees us getting a fighting style, three maneuvers, action surge, and second wind, on top of most of our rogue features, and all of our swashbuckler features. It says cast time is 1 action and duration 1 round, so Id need to cast it and hit in same turn. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Or follow us on Instagram,Twitter, Facebook, and Patreon. Doesn't have to be a longsword. Character (C) will also get Dex 20 at level 9 for DPRs of20.21 (L8) and 21.41 (L9) with an additional59.53per short rest. This allows Swashbucklers to be a bit more autonomous than a normal rogue. A 5e Guide to Fighter / Rogue Multiclassing. Think about it: if its just you and your foe, youre sneaking; if an ally gets within 5 feet of your foe, youre sneaking; and if you have advantage for any reason, youre sneaking. But if you are creative, there are plenty of exciting options. We also have all of the additional toys that character (B) but are limited to+5.33 from Action Surge due to fewer attacks per Attack Action. Whenever we opt to multiclass a character, were signing up to miss out on some amount of abilities. You can use a bonus action on your turn to gain advantage on the next Acrobatics or Athletics check you make during the same turn. If you play a highly mobile race like a Tabaxi or Wood Elf you can get in your melee attacks and still end your turn somewhere safe. This assumes Dex 16, two weapon fighting short swords with no feats5 Fighter/3 RogueExpertise x2, Cunning Action, Second Wind, Action Surge, Extra Attack, ASI/Feat1d6+3 Attack Action1d6+3 Extra Attack Action1d6+3 Bonus Action2d6 Sneak Attack. Standalone, this ability is awesome. Second Wind and get to pick either TWF of Duelling Style giving a little extra damage at will. A masked elf creeps along the walls of a manor to rescue his love trapped inside by a dastardly baron. What we'll focus on here are the main points where swashbucklers differ, and their . I guess this would only work if the other party . 9. Its important to remember that this ability has no impact on other effects a dexterity saving throw might cause, such as being knocked prone. Ill be honest, Im fairly certain tabaxi was built for this subclass, or at least rogues in general. This could be especially useful if your fighter is getting pincushioned by an enemy 60ft away from you. The Assassin is what it sounds. You will want to get this to 20 as soon as possible because it means more damage, more AC, better stealth, etc. This is a super fun and super great ability. You focus your training on the art of the blade, relying on speed, elegance, and charm in equal parts. The spells from Eldritch Knight can also present some rather appealing options that increase your flexibility in a pinch, but keep in mind that your spellcasting will still be lagging behind that of other partial-casters. modifier will give you a suicidal AC of 14, and it's not going to get much better. Once you do so, you cant use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest. The extra attacks at 5th-level fighter and the introduction of two more maneuvers and a whole new feature at 7th more than make up for anything we might be sacrificing at the later rogue levels. Get a few extra hit points, Second Wind and get to pick either TWF of Duelling Style giving a little extra damage at will. Rather than being a heavy-hitting tank like the barbarian class, this rogue archetype follows a hit and run tactic. Kensei can turn a rapier into a Monk weapon, due to the Kensei weapon feature. So Im thinking Ill do swashbuckler Paladin and then give him the Warlock later on. Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. The DPR from sneak attack is therefore 77% * 4d6 (14) + 7% * 8d6 (28) + 0 = 12.74. We cover the best background for Rogues in our 5e Rogue Guide, the only changes would be: Ability Score Increases (ASI) at 4th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level. Well boost our dexterity up to 17, and gain some great abilities, including the ability to reroll our weapon damage once per turn. Champion does grant half od your proficiency to initiative at 7, which is swell. So I really enjoy my swashbuckler and I'm wondering on doing some MC'ing to make him extra spicy. Is that something specific? But, they can always be used to build a great character, and being able to choose a feat at 1st level is hard to pass up. Ive made of a note about the benefits of picking Magic Initiate (Warlock), Hex is an awesome 1st level spell to pick up next to those stellar cantrips. Swashbucklers would certainly be the subclass to take both Deception and Persuasion if you were ever going to. Multiclassing effectively in 5e . A big part of being a swashbuckler is having a reputation that speaks for itself, even if youve done some of the fabricating for it. As with most rogue subclasses, Swashbucklers tend to be a single target combatant. I personally like using Unseen Servant to create opportunities for sneak attack. Roland Drews says: June 10, 2021 at 6:05 am. Because the Swashbucklers Rakish Audacity feature allows them to add CHA to their Initiative, it becomes a higher priority to buff. Should I start as another class, and then go swashbuckler? Take a level 8 variant human character with an 18 Dex and the Dual Wielder feat for dual rapiers, a 60% to land a hit and all attacks qualify for sneak attack. Side note: Id love to suggest Davey Jones, or some fantasy version of him, as your patron. Even Captain America can be seen pulling off this sort of speech before a big fight so hes one on one with whatever dastardly villain is threatening the day. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 0.55*8.5 + 0.05*13 + 0 = 5.325and 0.55*4.5 + 0.05*9 + 0 = 2.925 for a total of 8.25. Well, no. This is essentially a more exciting version of the soldier background, which connects you to an interesting life of the sell-sword. Required fields are marked *. You can even take this multiple times for a sort of soft multiclass if you really like all the options. Or as a last resort. thoughts? I was turned off of playing anything with warlocks for a while when I played one because their "eldritch blast" playstyle was pretty boring to me, but maybe that was just the encounter. While you could get away going completely unarmoured, Cunning Action completely replaces Step of The Wind,Sneak Attack requires the weapon to have the Finesse property so you can't Sneak Attack with a longsword via Kensai or with your unarmed attacks and you will need to have 11 levels of Monk before the bonus damage exceeds that of a short sword or 17 if you are using Rapiers. Multiclassing can be difficult to pull off without a plan, and thats only with two classes. Rogues pick up another Expertise at 6th Level. That's why we live and die by the sword, or swords if you so choose to go a more dual-wielding build. This doesn't include the effects of crits, the fact you may miss altogether or the fact that having additional attacks increase the odds of you landing your sneak attack (and maybe even critting it). There are a couple of options here for how our characters will look at 20th level. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. DnD 5e - Practical Guide to Multiclassing. For the following example build weve used the standard set of scores provided in the PHB (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) when deciding ability scores. With your two highest ability scores boosting your initiative youre practically guaranteed to get the jump on anyone and everyone. Well want to get a full 7-level dip into this class, even though a 3 or even 1-level dip would still yield us benefits. Check out the full Mystic 5e guide here: https://www.skullsplitterdice.com/blogs/dnd/mystic-5e-guideParry, thrust, now for witty banter! Panache also essentially grants a free Charm Person spell any time you are out of combat. 3. This is especially true since both of these subraces have some great stealthy spells to add to your arsenal. This time Ill go with Riposte for a fun reaction attack. Youre right that your action will typically be used for attacking, rather than using Panache. The Fighter also gives you access to the Two-weapon Fighting Style (or Dueling if . In D&D, this gives us a really exciting character to play. Yeah but that happens with ANY multiclass in 5e. Hone your skills with the blade, and sharpen your tongue. You might as well call this ability hit and run. Also, as we discussed in the limitations section, there is a lot of potential to improve upon this subclass and make it your own with feats. Eldritch blast is an amazing cantrip to have at your side no matter what. The Arcane Trickster is a Rogue subclass that grants access to the Wizard spell list, focusing on enchantment and illusion spells. As soon as you take this subclass at 3rd level, you gain the ability to add your charisma modifier to your initiative roll. This character is an intelligent fencer or noble, a class born of elves. This means that for the level 8 character I present: Taking your simplified example of Dex16, dual short swords, no feats with a target AC of 16 (55% accuracy) we get: The results between the Rogue 8 and Rogue 3/Fighter 5 are more similar, but are still in the latter's favour. I love your guide. CON: More hitpoints and better CON saves make the Swashbuckler less squishy. So, this capacity must be there for use to cause an enemy to hit another enemy. The best class to multiclass into for a Rogue (Swashbuckler) IMO is the Fighter. I noticed on SB the best features are pretty much at 3 and everything else is sneak attack. 6 levels of rogue grants your 2nd set of expertise, too. No more waiting in the shadows for one of your party members to engage an enemy before you rush in. This is the class to take if we want to pull off fancy stunts. Draw your off-hand weapon and step forward 5 from in behind the barbarian to engage in melee The swashbuckler attitude is something that permeates into just about every on-screen hero we see nowadays. We can take 17 levels in rogue (getting our Master Duelist capstone feature) and 3 levels in fighter (enough to take the battle master subclass). Gladiator Proficiency in Acrobatics and Performance. The only reason I mentioned the longsword was to point out that you cant use Monk as a way to Sneak Attack with a Versatile (d10) weaponsince the Martial Arts feature does not grant it the Finesse property even if the end result is the same (Choose Dex or Str for attack rolls). I wound up picking Battle Master because the maneuvers add some extra utility (and oomph) to your attacks, especially if you're going for Two-Weapon-Fighting or using a Scimitar of Speed. Rogues get the second most amount of ASIs/feats of any class, with 6 levels to choose ASIs for. Regarding Alignment. 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Multiple times for a fun reaction attack of abilities the Warlock later on levels of rogue grants your 2nd of! Since both of these subraces have some great stealthy spells to add to your arsenal giving a extra... Around the battlefield, sneak attacking to their initiative, it becomes a higher priority to.! Bit more autonomous than a normal rogue your initiative roll miss with attack!