Magic Stone is an amazing cantrip for certain Rogues that I do not often see used. To get straight to the point; if you hurl the Magic Stone from a sling it can benefit from Sneak Attack since you are making the attack with a ranged weapon. This gives you a way to get that Sneak Attack damage using your Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom since the spell is available to Druids, Artificers, and Warlocks. This also makes your Sneak Attack magical bludgeoning damage, which is way better when accounting for enemy resistances. For those of you who care, Jeremy Crawford did confirm this in a Tweet from 2017 saying that Magic Stone "does work with a feature that requires a ranged weapon" even though you are making spell attacks. To get Magic Stone early simply take either the Magic Initiate or the Artificer Initiate feat, or take a single level dip into Druid, Artificer, or Warlock.
Now, this is not the best option for every Rogue subclass. Thief, for example, is still going to want to max out Dexterity as soon as possible and does not have any features that scale of your tertiary abilities like the Swashbuckler's Panache feature. The subclass would absolutely use Magic Stone on is Arcane Trickster. This would allow you to max out your Intelligence early on and make your spell casting that much better. Taking the cantrip on other subclasses depends on how you want to play that character. Do you want to max out Intelligence on you Mastermind so you can really lean into being the "brains" of the party? Do you want to max out Wisdom so you can see through any lie as an Inquisitive Rogue and all but guarantee your Insightful Fighting feature will always work? This cantrip really opens up Rogue from just being the reliant on Dexterity and opens up, what I think, are a lot of fun alternative ways to play and roleplay your character.
Let me know what you think and what ideas you have around this concept!
Dex is king. As a rogue, hurling a Magic Stone with a sling means relying on a different ability score forcing yourself into multiple attribute dependency and may not be superior on all account, notably range;
Sling: Range 60 ft, 1d20 + Spell mod + prof; 1d6 + Spell mod bludgeoning damage + Sneak Attack (magical)
VS
Shortbow: Range 80/320 ft, 1d20+ Dex mod + Prof; 1d6 + Dex mod piercing damage + Sneak Attack
I agree with what you are saying. Dexterity is still the best option for Rogues. I am just trying to point out that Magic Stone is a good, reliable way to still use Sneak Attack if you wanted to forgo the traditional play style. That does not mean playing an Intelligence based Arcane Trickster with Magic Stone is vastly superior to an Arcane Trickster focusing Dexterity, but the spellcasting for the former would be much better. Though there are several Rogue subclasses that are already reliant on a tertiary ability score for their features (i.e. Swashbuckler's Panache or Inquisitive's Insightful Fighting), so I do not feel like you would be stretching a Rogue out too far by maxing a different ability score before Dexterity.
Edit: On the topic of range, you could always take the Spell Sniper feat so to have an 120ft range with Magic Stone and ignore cover. I remembered this right after I posted my reply lol
There are class restrictions attached to that cantrip unfortunately. You would have to multiclass into Warlock or Druid (I think Artificer has access?) or take a feat with the requisite class to gain access to casting this yourself. Still, people generally consider this cantrip underrated for whatever reason, I happen to love it!
Magic Stone is an amazing cantrip for certain Rogues that I do not often see used. To get straight to the point; if you hurl the Magic Stone from a sling it can benefit from Sneak Attack since you are making the attack with a ranged weapon. This gives you a way to get that Sneak Attack damage using your Charisma, Intelligence, or Wisdom since the spell is available to Druids, Artificers, and Warlocks. This also makes your Sneak Attack magical bludgeoning damage, which is way better when accounting for enemy resistances. For those of you who care, Jeremy Crawford did confirm this in a Tweet from 2017 saying that Magic Stone "does work with a feature that requires a ranged weapon" even though you are making spell attacks. To get Magic Stone early simply take either the Magic Initiate or the Artificer Initiate feat, or take a single level dip into Druid, Artificer, or Warlock.
Now, this is not the best option for every Rogue subclass. Thief, for example, is still going to want to max out Dexterity as soon as possible and does not have any features that scale of your tertiary abilities like the Swashbuckler's Panache feature. The subclass would absolutely use Magic Stone on is Arcane Trickster. This would allow you to max out your Intelligence early on and make your spell casting that much better. Taking the cantrip on other subclasses depends on how you want to play that character. Do you want to max out Intelligence on you Mastermind so you can really lean into being the "brains" of the party? Do you want to max out Wisdom so you can see through any lie as an Inquisitive Rogue and all but guarantee your Insightful Fighting feature will always work? This cantrip really opens up Rogue from just being the reliant on Dexterity and opens up, what I think, are a lot of fun alternative ways to play and roleplay your character.
Let me know what you think and what ideas you have around this concept!
Dex is king. As a rogue, hurling a Magic Stone with a sling means relying on a different ability score forcing yourself into multiple attribute dependency and may not be superior on all account, notably range;
Sling: Range 60 ft, 1d20 + Spell mod + prof; 1d6 + Spell mod bludgeoning damage + Sneak Attack (magical)
VS
Shortbow: Range 80/320 ft, 1d20+ Dex mod + Prof; 1d6 + Dex mod piercing damage + Sneak Attack
I agree with what you are saying. Dexterity is still the best option for Rogues. I am just trying to point out that Magic Stone is a good, reliable way to still use Sneak Attack if you wanted to forgo the traditional play style. That does not mean playing an Intelligence based Arcane Trickster with Magic Stone is vastly superior to an Arcane Trickster focusing Dexterity, but the spellcasting for the former would be much better. Though there are several Rogue subclasses that are already reliant on a tertiary ability score for their features (i.e. Swashbuckler's Panache or Inquisitive's Insightful Fighting), so I do not feel like you would be stretching a Rogue out too far by maxing a different ability score before Dexterity.
Edit: On the topic of range, you could always take the Spell Sniper feat so to have an 120ft range with Magic Stone and ignore cover. I remembered this right after I posted my reply lol
There are class restrictions attached to that cantrip unfortunately. You would have to multiclass into Warlock or Druid (I think Artificer has access?) or take a feat with the requisite class to gain access to casting this yourself. Still, people generally consider this cantrip underrated for whatever reason, I happen to love it!
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