I have a strength based rogue. Is pretty cool, barbarian two rogue all the rest, first level was rogue for the extra skill. Fourteen dex and eventual twenty con and strength. Uses a shield and a shamshir (homebrew rapier which had it's damage converted to slashing for flavor)
Subclass is Scout which is funny as he has no sneak proficiency, is a body guard actually. Has high perception, insight and investigate, all the scouts abilities basically just make you faster, so works great even if technically only guarding.
Mainly gets sneak attack from reckless attack, which as a level twenty capstone from rogue will no longer grant advantage to enemies. He'll end up with expertise in athletics eventually so he can subdue opponents when neccesary as a side skill. No tavern brawler or grappler though as is not his main ability.
I think it would be very interesting to try and take on that sort of sub-optimal build-- like, you're at a mechanical disadvantage in many ways, but sometimes that's where really great roleplaying and storytelling is born! And there are a lot of potential avenues for backstory. You could be an ex-bandit who used to hold up travelers and intimidate them into handing over their goods (or just hit them hard and take what they've got), who's now trying to make good. You could be a hired goon type with contacts in the criminal world, who winds up accompanying one of the other party members on their quest at the promise of untold riches to be found. There are a lot of places where a group of rogues would have one guy who's The Muscle and that's you-- and now that you're THE rogue in an adventuring party, you've got to use the skills you picked up working with your old gang. It's not what I would play, but I think you could spin a cool character out of the idea, especially if your group cares more about a good roleplay than they do about optimization.
I'm trying to do something like this for a blind Rogue/Fighter NPC idea I had. A retired Soldier who was a Fighter until a monster (be it a high-level Adventurer or a literal Monster, not decided yet) clawed his eyes out in the battlefield and his superiors had him Honourably discharged. Now he has a pension... that buys no more than just enough to stay at night in a ratty in in the worst part of town, buy a loaf of old (not moldy, thankfully. Just hard and dry) bread and maybe a jug of watered-down wine to down it with. And that is if he rations his money with utmost care to last the month. Basically, he needs a job. And the Inkeeper just so happens to know a guy, who know a guy whose old aunt needs boucers that can keep rowdy adventurers in line. He'll be appearing several times down the line, but I'm not sure how to do his stats. Not sure what monster could be re-skinned for this, so I went with the Standart Spread for specs there. Might make him reecrutable.
What would be a good balance of stats and levels? His first appearance will be as a level 5-6 V.Human.
Honestly, I feel that there's a frankenstein class in here somewhere.
- proficiency in simple and improvised weapons
- weapon damage die scales same as monk weapons
- sneak attack when enemy is grappled when using a simple or improvised weapon lacking the versatile or two handed property
- unarmored defense when using only simple or improvised weapons
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Multiclass to barbarian both for reckless attack, medium armor proficiency and advantage on grapple checks. Its a surprisingly good combination ruleswise. As a baseline I would say aim for Barb 5/Rogue5, and after that you can do whatever. Barb 5 gives an extra attack, more movement etc. Rogue 5 gives a ton of useful stuff. Use a short sword and nothing in your off-hand to pull of grapples.
For extra grappling fun, considder using bear totem (barb lv 6 req) and scout subclass. allows you to drag big guys around the battlefield all day long :)
I set up an Earth Genasi rogue at lvl 1. My rolls with bonuses put me having a rogue with insane starting stats. I think I will be having fun with this one. I typically enjoy taking a race and picking an uncommon class for it. Me thinks it can make the game more interesting.
My initial stats for my Earth Genasi Rogue (with race bonus)
Are you expecting to become a Barbarian - Rogue ??????
I do not know if you were asking me, but I am considering barbarian. I may even select arcane trickster for my archetype. A Rogue-Barbarian with magical abilities would be a fun character to play. :)
You'll be limited on the usefulness of the Rage, though. It breaks concentration and impedes any kind of spellcasting, which is not good for a Rogue whose entire schtick is spellcasting. It's either spells or Rage with this build. That said, with 3 levels in Barbarian you can take Totem Warrior, wich grants interesting abilities from day one. The Bear Totem, for one, gives you resistance to all damage except psychic while raging. With Eagle Totem, on the other hand, other creatures have disadvantage on opportunity attack rolls against you, and you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn so long as you are Raging and not in Heavy armor.
Plus, you can always use Rage, then drop it as a bonus action as soon as the next turn.
Just getting caught up on this. I think a Strength based Rogue is perfectly fine.
Sneak attack - allows you to add extra 1d6 damage to a creature once per turn if you have advantage. Must use a finesse or ranged weapon. Finesse: When making an attack with a finesse weapon use YOUR CHOICE of Strengthor Dex for the attack and damage rolls.
You take a Feat in XtGE, such as Inquistive or even Swashbuckler and you have a lot of opportunity to get a sneak attack as long as you gain advantage. So with a STR based Rogue, it would be important to get within Melee range, get advantage on the attack somehow and use your finesse weapon.
Sounds more like an assassin or a ninja type build but it would still be really cool
A strength-based Rogue is easy to do. A race that gives medium armor is advisable though.
The biggest thing you get from this is high athletics. Dex Rogues that dump strength pretty much have to take expertise in Athletics, otherwise they can't climb, which means they can't do one of the main things they are supposed to do. A Strength Rogue can either be the best at climbing (and grappling and shoving) with expertise, or be still good at it with just proficiency.
A Strength Rogue can also be a great grappler build and I do use it with strength single classed Rogues (or really all Rogues) but it is situational - do you really want to grapple with a bad AC, and medicre hps, and you will lose damage from sneak attack. Even with the tavern brawler feat you still lose the sneak attack.
To be honest a strength based Rogue works best with a 5-level dip in fighter, unarmed fighting style and tavern brawler feat. This combination gives you two attacks, meaning you can use one of them to do an unarmed strike with decent damage because of the fighting style, grapple with expertise as a bonus and then use your rapier to sneak and get additional grapple damage every turn from the fighting style. I have one of these Rogues. There are many ways to do this - Swashbucker, Arcane Trickster, Scout (to give you movement as a reaction on every turn) - Eldritch Knight (to pair with AT), Rune Knight (to Grapple Dragons), Samaurai (to get advantage), Battlemaster (disarm and then drag him away from his weapon).
This also gives you a great opening turn: Attack action - shove prone, extra attack - 1d8 unarmed strike, bonus action - grapple, action surge attack action - redo any of the previous attacks that failed, extra attack - sneak attack). At this point you have the enemy Grappled and Prone and have advantage. He has to use an action to TRY to break the grapple and can't stand up until he does because his move is 0.
Another thing you can do with this is get Hex spell through Fey Touched or Magic Initiate to make grapples easier, especially if you are an AT/EK
The words sneak and finesse are both suggestive to me of a dex based attack.
I can appreciate that sounds like Dex. However, RAW indicate that Finesse weapons can use either Strength or Dexterity. And sneak attack only gives you an extra 1d6 if you have advantage on the attack while using a finesse weapon. So really, Strength and Dex as it pertains to Sneak and Finesse are fulfilling the same concept.
The AD&D classic Half-Orc Cleric/Assassin works quite well: 1 level in War Cleric, then Rogue (Assassin) onwards. STR-based, medium armour plus shield for 17-18 AC (you don't need to worry about an off-hand weapon for occasional misses due to the War Cleric's bonus attack). Martial Weapons allows whip for reach and heavy crossbow for a bigger, longer ranged punch.
I'm trying to do something like this for a blind Rogue/Fighter NPC idea I had. A retired Soldier who was a Fighter until a monster (be it a high-level Adventurer or a literal Monster, not decided yet) clawed his eyes out in the battlefield and his superiors had him Honourably discharged. Now he has a pension... that buys no more than just enough to stay at night in a ratty in in the worst part of town, buy a loaf of old (not moldy, thankfully. Just hard and dry) bread and maybe a jug of watered-down wine to down it with. And that is if he rations his money with utmost care to last the month. Basically, he needs a job. And the Inkeeper just so happens to know a guy, who know a guy whose old aunt needs boucers that can keep rowdy adventurers in line. He'll be appearing several times down the line, but I'm not sure how to do his stats. Not sure what monster could be re-skinned for this, so I went with the Standart Spread for specs there. Might make him reecrutable.
What would be a good balance of stats and levels? His first appearance will be as a level 5-6 V.Human.
My advice is don't use PC class levels for this. Use the DMG section on how to build a monster to figure out HP/AC/Attack bonuses and damages like you would a monster. Then add a few traits and abilities that make him more unique. Maybe he has a Blightsight 10-20ft and relies on his hearing. Maybe he has cunning action as well as second wind and youve got your Fighter/Rogue NPC. Players will recognize he's either of those just from him having those two abilities. You will find it much simpler to design NPCs this way and not worry too much about building a PC which requires a lot more time.
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Tortle with 2-level dip Barbarian. Best strength based rogue build.
I have a strength based rogue. Is pretty cool, barbarian two rogue all the rest, first level was rogue for the extra skill. Fourteen dex and eventual twenty con and strength. Uses a shield and a shamshir (homebrew rapier which had it's damage converted to slashing for flavor)
Subclass is Scout which is funny as he has no sneak proficiency, is a body guard actually. Has high perception, insight and investigate, all the scouts abilities basically just make you faster, so works great even if technically only guarding.
Mainly gets sneak attack from reckless attack, which as a level twenty capstone from rogue will no longer grant advantage to enemies. He'll end up with expertise in athletics eventually so he can subdue opponents when neccesary as a side skill. No tavern brawler or grappler though as is not his main ability.
I think he'll be fun.
Mountian Dwarf. Give yourself a 14 dex, ASAP get a breastplate. Fight with 2 weapons, put expertise into Dex skills. You'll be fine and have a ball.
I think it would be very interesting to try and take on that sort of sub-optimal build-- like, you're at a mechanical disadvantage in many ways, but sometimes that's where really great roleplaying and storytelling is born! And there are a lot of potential avenues for backstory. You could be an ex-bandit who used to hold up travelers and intimidate them into handing over their goods (or just hit them hard and take what they've got), who's now trying to make good. You could be a hired goon type with contacts in the criminal world, who winds up accompanying one of the other party members on their quest at the promise of untold riches to be found. There are a lot of places where a group of rogues would have one guy who's The Muscle and that's you-- and now that you're THE rogue in an adventuring party, you've got to use the skills you picked up working with your old gang. It's not what I would play, but I think you could spin a cool character out of the idea, especially if your group cares more about a good roleplay than they do about optimization.
I'm trying to do something like this for a blind Rogue/Fighter NPC idea I had. A retired Soldier who was a Fighter until a monster (be it a high-level Adventurer or a literal Monster, not decided yet) clawed his eyes out in the battlefield and his superiors had him Honourably discharged. Now he has a pension... that buys no more than just enough to stay at night in a ratty in in the worst part of town, buy a loaf of old (not moldy, thankfully. Just hard and dry) bread and maybe a jug of watered-down wine to down it with. And that is if he rations his money with utmost care to last the month. Basically, he needs a job. And the Inkeeper just so happens to know a guy, who know a guy whose old aunt needs boucers that can keep rowdy adventurers in line. He'll be appearing several times down the line, but I'm not sure how to do his stats. Not sure what monster could be re-skinned for this, so I went with the Standart Spread for specs there. Might make him reecrutable.
What would be a good balance of stats and levels? His first appearance will be as a level 5-6 V.Human.
Honestly, I feel that there's a frankenstein class in here somewhere.
- proficiency in simple and improvised weapons
- weapon damage die scales same as monk weapons
- sneak attack when enemy is grappled when using a simple or improvised weapon lacking the versatile or two handed property
- unarmored defense when using only simple or improvised weapons
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
...Could be a homebrew class, something like "Brute" or something. Or maybe a H.B. subclass of Rogue?
Multiclass to barbarian both for reckless attack, medium armor proficiency and advantage on grapple checks. Its a surprisingly good combination ruleswise. As a baseline I would say aim for Barb 5/Rogue5, and after that you can do whatever. Barb 5 gives an extra attack, more movement etc. Rogue 5 gives a ton of useful stuff. Use a short sword and nothing in your off-hand to pull of grapples.
For extra grappling fun, considder using bear totem (barb lv 6 req) and scout subclass. allows you to drag big guys around the battlefield all day long :)
I set up an Earth Genasi rogue at lvl 1. My rolls with bonuses put me having a rogue with insane starting stats. I think I will be having fun with this one. I typically enjoy taking a race and picking an uncommon class for it. Me thinks it can make the game more interesting.
My initial stats for my Earth Genasi Rogue (with race bonus)
Strength 17; Dexterity 17; Constitution 14; Intelligence 14; Wisdom 14; Charisma 13
If I decide to multiclass, it will be a tough decision. Looks like any other class may work very well.
Are you expecting to become a Barbarian - Rogue ??????
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
I do not know if you were asking me, but I am considering barbarian. I may even select arcane trickster for my archetype. A Rogue-Barbarian with magical abilities would be a fun character to play. :)
You'll be limited on the usefulness of the Rage, though. It breaks concentration and impedes any kind of spellcasting, which is not good for a Rogue whose entire schtick is spellcasting. It's either spells or Rage with this build. That said, with 3 levels in Barbarian you can take Totem Warrior, wich grants interesting abilities from day one. The Bear Totem, for one, gives you resistance to all damage except psychic while raging. With Eagle Totem, on the other hand, other creatures have disadvantage on opportunity attack rolls against you, and you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn so long as you are Raging and not in Heavy armor.
Plus, you can always use Rage, then drop it as a bonus action as soon as the next turn.
Just getting caught up on this. I think a Strength based Rogue is perfectly fine.
Sneak attack - allows you to add extra 1d6 damage to a creature once per turn if you have advantage. Must use a finesse or ranged weapon.
Finesse: When making an attack with a finesse weapon use YOUR CHOICE of Strength or Dex for the attack and damage rolls.
You take a Feat in XtGE, such as Inquistive or even Swashbuckler and you have a lot of opportunity to get a sneak attack as long as you gain advantage. So with a STR based Rogue, it would be important to get within Melee range, get advantage on the attack somehow and use your finesse weapon.
Sounds more like an assassin or a ninja type build but it would still be really cool
A strength-based Rogue is easy to do. A race that gives medium armor is advisable though.
The biggest thing you get from this is high athletics. Dex Rogues that dump strength pretty much have to take expertise in Athletics, otherwise they can't climb, which means they can't do one of the main things they are supposed to do. A Strength Rogue can either be the best at climbing (and grappling and shoving) with expertise, or be still good at it with just proficiency.
A Strength Rogue can also be a great grappler build and I do use it with strength single classed Rogues (or really all Rogues) but it is situational - do you really want to grapple with a bad AC, and medicre hps, and you will lose damage from sneak attack. Even with the tavern brawler feat you still lose the sneak attack.
To be honest a strength based Rogue works best with a 5-level dip in fighter, unarmed fighting style and tavern brawler feat. This combination gives you two attacks, meaning you can use one of them to do an unarmed strike with decent damage because of the fighting style, grapple with expertise as a bonus and then use your rapier to sneak and get additional grapple damage every turn from the fighting style. I have one of these Rogues. There are many ways to do this - Swashbucker, Arcane Trickster, Scout (to give you movement as a reaction on every turn) - Eldritch Knight (to pair with AT), Rune Knight (to Grapple Dragons), Samaurai (to get advantage), Battlemaster (disarm and then drag him away from his weapon).
This also gives you a great opening turn: Attack action - shove prone, extra attack - 1d8 unarmed strike, bonus action - grapple, action surge attack action - redo any of the previous attacks that failed, extra attack - sneak attack). At this point you have the enemy Grappled and Prone and have advantage. He has to use an action to TRY to break the grapple and can't stand up until he does because his move is 0.
Another thing you can do with this is get Hex spell through Fey Touched or Magic Initiate to make grapples easier, especially if you are an AT/EK
The words sneak and finesse are both suggestive to me of a dex based attack.
I can appreciate that sounds like Dex. However, RAW indicate that Finesse weapons can use either Strength or Dexterity. And sneak attack only gives you an extra 1d6 if you have advantage on the attack while using a finesse weapon. So really, Strength and Dex as it pertains to Sneak and Finesse are fulfilling the same concept.
The AD&D classic Half-Orc Cleric/Assassin works quite well: 1 level in War Cleric, then Rogue (Assassin) onwards. STR-based, medium armour plus shield for 17-18 AC (you don't need to worry about an off-hand weapon for occasional misses due to the War Cleric's bonus attack). Martial Weapons allows whip for reach and heavy crossbow for a bigger, longer ranged punch.
My advice is don't use PC class levels for this. Use the DMG section on how to build a monster to figure out HP/AC/Attack bonuses and damages like you would a monster. Then add a few traits and abilities that make him more unique. Maybe he has a Blightsight 10-20ft and relies on his hearing. Maybe he has cunning action as well as second wind and youve got your Fighter/Rogue NPC. Players will recognize he's either of those just from him having those two abilities. You will find it much simpler to design NPCs this way and not worry too much about building a PC which requires a lot more time.