I am new to DnD and I am considering the following character. I want to go Arcane Trickster with 1 lvl of knowledge domain cleric. Background sage + Medium Armor Master/Warcaster as first feats.
With lvl 5 (4 rogue, 1 cleric), you could have 6 Experise (Arcane, History, Nature, Religion, + X), AC 20 (Half Plate + feat, Shield) which you can bump up with Shield of Faith and/or Shield to 22 - 27. You also have a nice cantrip with a Booming Blade rapier to punish enemies from disengaging from you.
Race seems not too important (suggestions welcome though) as you only need Dex 16 + Wis 13 early on. What do you think?
Purchasing Half Plate at level 5 requires a DM that loves throwing gold at his party.
Unless you go human, you're not getting both War Caster and Medium Armor Master until level 9. But if you go human, you won't have dark vision, and it sucks being a Rogue without dark vision. By the time you reach level 9, saving throw proficiencies are more important than AC.
It's a similar idea to the character I have right now in one of the campaigns my group is doing. He's a Human Ranger 3 (Gloom Stalker) Rogue 3 (Arcane Trickster) with the Medium Armor Master Feat, and he'll get the War Caster feat at the next level (and Resilient Constitution the level after that). At the moment he can't cast Shield unless he puts away his Sword on his turn to give him a hand free. It's fun playing a tanky Rogue, I'm glad you're thinking of trying it out.
Dark vision is essential to a Rogue, so don't choose a race without dark vision unless you have a plan.
Also, you need to come up with a good backstory to explain how you have one level as Knowledge Domain Cleric to go with being an Arcane Trickster. Having the Sage background is definitely a good start to coming up with a cohesive back story.
Thanks for your input. The background idea was originally an impatient wizard's assistant who feels held back by his master as the latter would not give him access to all his books. So eventually he steals a few of them (with which he will later learn his magic) and leaves (I looked at potential multiclass options for some nice "combos" after I had that story).
I probally would integrate the 1 lvl cleric as following: He was looking for more knowledge* from a temple but decided after a while that he would be more successful if he tries to uncover more knowledge by himself instead of relying on the benevolence of an divine entity. As I said before: He is quite impatient ;-)
Human variant with Resilient feat (CON) seems indeed quite nice. Then I would go for Warcaster feat on lvl5 with DEX 14 and hopefully a breastplate as armor. After that I could go for DEX 16 on lvl9 with Medium Armor Master (+ Half Plate) at lvl11. That would be my general plan.
Of course, things might change and dependant on what I get for my Ability scores I could go more roguey or more brainy :-)
* I would choose a specific topic for his interests but I am not quite sure what. Immortality could be a classic but also quite boring goal I feel. Uncovering some greater truth about something in the past or the nature of good and evil might be something interesting that drives his actions :-D
I advise against using human unless you have a plan to compensate for the lack of darkvision. Darkvision is essential to Rogues.
You also need to start off with 16 Dexterity. I advise not doing a Rogue that starts off with less than 16 Dexterity. Every class in the game should start off with 16+ in their main attack stat without any exceptions.
If you only have 14 dexterity, it will require an ASI to get to 16 Dexterity as well as a feat to get Medium Armor Master. You cannot do both at the same time.
After some consideration, I might go for a Highelf. That way I could start with the one lvl cleric and then go rogue which makes more sense from a background perspective. I also get darkvision, and proficiencies in short sword and longbow for fighting.
Then I can decide if I need MAM or Warcaster depending on whether I need to be frontlining.
Your backstory makes more sense for Wizard than it does for Cleric. Have you considered a two level dip in Bladesinger Wizard instead of a one level dip in Knowledge Cleric?
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Hi,
I am new to DnD and I am considering the following character. I want to go Arcane Trickster with 1 lvl of knowledge domain cleric. Background sage + Medium Armor Master/Warcaster as first feats.
With lvl 5 (4 rogue, 1 cleric), you could have 6 Experise (Arcane, History, Nature, Religion, + X), AC 20 (Half Plate + feat, Shield) which you can bump up with Shield of Faith and/or Shield to 22 - 27. You also have a nice cantrip with a Booming Blade rapier to punish enemies from disengaging from you.
Race seems not too important (suggestions welcome though) as you only need Dex 16 + Wis 13 early on. What do you think?
Purchasing Half Plate at level 5 requires a DM that loves throwing gold at his party.
Unless you go human, you're not getting both War Caster and Medium Armor Master until level 9. But if you go human, you won't have dark vision, and it sucks being a Rogue without dark vision. By the time you reach level 9, saving throw proficiencies are more important than AC.
It's a similar idea to the character I have right now in one of the campaigns my group is doing. He's a Human Ranger 3 (Gloom Stalker) Rogue 3 (Arcane Trickster) with the Medium Armor Master Feat, and he'll get the War Caster feat at the next level (and Resilient Constitution the level after that). At the moment he can't cast Shield unless he puts away his Sword on his turn to give him a hand free. It's fun playing a tanky Rogue, I'm glad you're thinking of trying it out.
Dark vision is essential to a Rogue, so don't choose a race without dark vision unless you have a plan.
Also, you need to come up with a good backstory to explain how you have one level as Knowledge Domain Cleric to go with being an Arcane Trickster. Having the Sage background is definitely a good start to coming up with a cohesive back story.
Thanks for your input. The background idea was originally an impatient wizard's assistant who feels held back by his master as the latter would not give him access to all his books. So eventually he steals a few of them (with which he will later learn his magic) and leaves (I looked at potential multiclass options for some nice "combos" after I had that story).
I probally would integrate the 1 lvl cleric as following: He was looking for more knowledge* from a temple but decided after a while that he would be more successful if he tries to uncover more knowledge by himself instead of relying on the benevolence of an divine entity. As I said before: He is quite impatient ;-)
Human variant with Resilient feat (CON) seems indeed quite nice. Then I would go for Warcaster feat on lvl5 with DEX 14 and hopefully a breastplate as armor. After that I could go for DEX 16 on lvl9 with Medium Armor Master (+ Half Plate) at lvl11. That would be my general plan.
Of course, things might change and dependant on what I get for my Ability scores I could go more roguey or more brainy :-)
* I would choose a specific topic for his interests but I am not quite sure what. Immortality could be a classic but also quite boring goal I feel. Uncovering some greater truth about something in the past or the nature of good and evil might be something interesting that drives his actions :-D
I advise against using human unless you have a plan to compensate for the lack of darkvision. Darkvision is essential to Rogues.
You also need to start off with 16 Dexterity. I advise not doing a Rogue that starts off with less than 16 Dexterity. Every class in the game should start off with 16+ in their main attack stat without any exceptions.
If you only have 14 dexterity, it will require an ASI to get to 16 Dexterity as well as a feat to get Medium Armor Master. You cannot do both at the same time.
After some consideration, I might go for a Highelf. That way I could start with the one lvl cleric and then go rogue which makes more sense from a background perspective. I also get darkvision, and proficiencies in short sword and longbow for fighting.
Then I can decide if I need MAM or Warcaster depending on whether I need to be frontlining.
Your backstory makes more sense for Wizard than it does for Cleric. Have you considered a two level dip in Bladesinger Wizard instead of a one level dip in Knowledge Cleric?