I've been doing some analysis on using Elven Accuracy for my half-elf rogue vs upping her DEX score by 2 on my last ASI. I've found that for attacking any AC that she could normally hit, say AC 15, the Super Advantage (rolling 3d20's) hit the AC 91% extremely consistently (almost to a fault), whereas regular Advantage with an additional +1 to hit only hit the target 84% of the time, with a +/- 1% variance. Thus, to me, Super Advantage is definitely better in the combat arena than taking the DEX Ability Score increase.
HOWEVER, there are other systems on the character sheet that are affected by the DEX Ability Score:
Initiative
AC
DEX Save
Acrobatics Skill Checks
Picking Locks
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
My toon is in a rather 50% combat and 50% non-combat campaign, which I think possibly makes an impact.
The question I have for all of you absolutely mental patient players like me is:
Would increase to the additional systems affected by DEX be worth it enough to take the DEX Ability Score +2 instead of Elven Accuracy?
I've been doing some analysis on using Elven Accuracy for my half-elf rogue vs upping her DEX score by 2 on my last ASI. I've found that for attacking any AC that she could normally hit, say AC 15, the Super Advantage (rolling 3d20's) hit the AC 91% extremely consistently (almost to a fault), whereas regular Advantage with an additional +1 to hit only hit the target 84% of the time, with a +/- 1% variance. Thus, to me, Super Advantage is definitely better in the combat arena than taking the DEX Ability Score increase.
HOWEVER, there are other systems on the character sheet that are affected by the DEX Ability Score:
AC
DEX Save
Acrobatics Skill Checks
Picking Locks
Sleight of Hand
Stealth
My toon is in a rather 50% combat and 50% non-combat campaign, which I think possibly makes an impact.
The question I have for all of you absolutely mental patient players like me is:
Would increase to the additional systems affected by DEX be worth it enough to take the DEX Ability Score +2 instead of Elven Accuracy?
Possibly. How much do your individual skills come up, do you have expertise in any of those common ones and do you wish that you had a higher score for any of them? I'm assuming that your dex is already even since you want to bump it by 2, are any of your intelligence, wisdom, or charisma scores odd and would benefit from the +1 from Elven Accuracy? If yes, would the increase be more impactful to those skills than the increase to dex? How often do those saves come up?
Will you have Evasion after this level up (guessing so, limits the effect somewhat of the dex save increase)? Are you even subject to dex saves that much with your playstyle and in this campaign? When you make dex saves, do you wish your dex save score was higher? Are you ranged or melee? If ranged, do you frequently get targeted by attacks? When you are targeted, do you often wish that your AC was better?
What is the expected damage increase for you from having Elven Accuracy vs the +1 from dex? (Take your average damage on a hit and multiply it by the hit rate for each, then subtract them from each other. Factor in crits and compare them at AC 12, AC 15, and AC 18 and weight them by the ones that you commonly target. ) If the increase in damage (and corresponding decrease in incoming damage to the party) plus the benefit from the mental skills from taking Elven Accuracy outweighs the decrease in damage and increase in dex based skills, saves, and AC, then take Elven Accuracy. If not, take dex.
I have otherwise stated that Elven Accuracy is worth someone somewhere between +1 and +2 on average. You got a +7% or about +1.5, confirming this.
However, it becomes worthwhile for Sneak attack builds and Champion builds, because of the interaction with crits and/or sneak attacks.
The reason is not the bonus to hit, but the higher chance of critting. It does not just add another chance to hit, but also increases your chance of critting by 50%. Moreover, your damage skyrockets on a crit because of sneak attack. If you roll with advantage, you have 2 chances of critting, going from 5% to just under 10% (under because of the 1/400 chance of double 20's) . When you get Elven Accuracy, your chance of critting goes to just under 15%. If you have two strikes (TWF for example) that really begins to matter. You should be critting about one every 3 or 4 turns if you are doing TWF and a Sneak Attack makes the crit huge.
This makes up for the AC, initiative, etc. Elven Accuracy is really well designed for Rogues.
Take Elven Accuracy, great feat for you, not so much for other people (who often do better by getting other feats).
Also, EA gives you +dex (or one other skill). So, if you planned it out, couldn't you get EA and some stuff elsewhere? You'd be down a bit until your first feat but once you got it you'd be basically at the same-ish power level but with extra HP or WIS/INT/CHA or whatever.
Thanks all for your input. I love hearing all of the different thoughts on this stuff, even after playing for nearly 40 years.
We're just at the start of an Exandria campaign, 2 sessions in so far. Got a bit beat up in 2 of 3 encounters, by a shark in both of them, so not a lot of history with her yet. Toon is 4th level now (started at 3rd), with only a 16 DEX prior to the EA feat, rolled crappy for stats, 15 was my best, so upped DEX to 16, which is now 17 with EA. Planned out for 8th level to do Athlete (ref Snowtworf) and up DEX again to 18. We're in a bit of minimalist campaign, so I'm not expecting to get a lot of great magical items and only a 14 AC right now (leather 11 + 3 DEX). Don't always have to be a front line fighter, but there's only 4 of us currently: Goliath Barb who's tough enough, a useless Bard, a useful Warlock, and me; so combat requirements fall heavily on me.
I really like the concept of the increased chance of Crits from the extra rolls (ref. Mog_DracoV), but all of those systems that get a boost if I throttled up to 18 DEX are very enticing. The extra damage output (ref Jhffan) is also in the mix there too, and I've been told that Skills will play a pretty big part of the campaign. I've got a ways to go for Evasion, too far out now to play a huge part of the decision.
I'm still a bit on the fence, but I'm leaning toward staying with EA and living with the loss of the additional system updates. What say ya'll?
Doing some math, let's say you're doing 3d6+dex (sneak attack with a shortbow, for example) against AC 13, and you have advantage
With EA, you hit on 8+ (65% on one die); with adv, you are at 95.7% to hit, 14.3% to crit, damage is 13.5*.975=12.92 from hits, 10.5*.143=1.5 from crits, total 14.42
With 18 Dex, you hit on 7+ (70% on one die); with adv, you are at 91% to hit, 9.75% to crit, damage is 14.5*.91=13.2 from hits, 10.5*.09=1.02 from crits, total 14.22
So, for damage, elven accuracy pulls ahead... by 0.14%. However, 18 Dex gives you +1 initiative, and in a 3 round encounter winning initiative is equivalent to doing 50% more damage, so +1 initiative is worth about 2.5%. Also, you aren't guaranteed to have advantage, and dex gives +1 to AC, Dexterity Saves, and Dexterity Checks, so in this particular case you're significantly better off with the +2 Dex.
With a caveat: elven accuracy is a half-feat, the problem is that going from 16 to 17 is useless. If you still want to take athlete at level 18, well, 18 dex with EA is way better than 19 dex without.
I agree with everything you said, the numbers match up exactly with those I found in my testing. I think the math speaks for itself, but after talking with my DM, the additional systems are just a tad more important in the short run, so I'm going to delay EA until Level 8, then Athlete at 10.
I agree with everything you said, the numbers match up exactly with those I found in my testing. I think the math speaks for itself, but after talking with my DM, the additional systems are just a tad more important in the short run, so I'm going to delay EA until Level 8, then Athlete at 10.
Thanks to all who responded, it helped a lot.
EA is such a gamechanger you should generally plan your whole build around it. In particular, if you're a half-elf, your statline probably started at 17/16/16, so EA is one of the best ways (the other is Skill Expert) to reach Dex 18. If you're an Elf with 17/16/15, the comparison is 18/16/15 with EA to 18/16/16, which really depends on many things, including your subclass.
If you somehow started at only 16 Dex, as you seem to have, +2 Dex is probably your best bet - it's really hard for anything to compete with 18 Dex at level 4. That's why you generally plan on having 18 Dex *with* EA at 4.
...Also, you aren't guaranteed to have advantage...
If you are playing with Tasha's, you do have Steady Aim. Between that and Cunning Action for hiding, you should consistently have advantage. Still, it is a valid consideration that the +2 dex score increase is on all the time and the increase to initiative can be beneficial.
...Also, you aren't guaranteed to have advantage...
If you are playing with Tasha's, you do have Steady Aim. Between that and Cunning Action for hiding, you should consistently have advantage.
You're going to run into a reasonable number of monsters with an effect that gives you disadvantage, at which point even if you gain advantage all it does is negate the disadvantage, not allow you to use elven accuracy.
At the lower levels my rogue will be at for a while, shouldn't run into too many creatures that force Disadvantage on me from afar. I definitely will be taking EA at 8th, as it will be a game changer for my rogue for sure. Taking EA and Athlete will then get her to DEX 20, good to go then.
At the lower levels my rogue will be at for a while, shouldn't run into too many creatures that force Disadvantage on me from afar.
Well, assuming you can keep them afar, which is far from guaranteed to be possible. In any case, it's not that disadvantage is super common, it's that it's common enough that you have to assume it's going to happen some of the time.
I can say from experience that elven accuracy is better for rouges, especially with a familiar using the help action. This is a very good feat if you want to do a sneak attack build. This triple advantage from this feat actually helped me 1 shot a spellcasting boss at full health before they got a single turn so I would recommend it. Also if you want to use poisoned arrows this feat helps you not waste them.
Hollow unbreakable arrows are the most OP common magic item, and my current method of coming up with insane combat shenanigans.
if you make a steel pipe with one end closed and a nozzle on the other, you can enlarge it, fill with any liquid, and then drop concentration, creating a high pressure squirt gun. (or a pipe bomb, depending if it holds)
Can you buy studded armor? It should be fairly cheap and would give you an AC bump regardless of your ASI decision.
also, if you can find a way to acquire a light crossbow that would increase your DPR slightly by virtue of a 1d8 weapon die, since your proficient in simple weapons. If you’re a half elf variant then perhaps even a heavy crossbow if you have weapon proficiencies.
about elven accuracy, the maths above have highlighted that while the increase in accuracy is nice, the ability to add more damage die to an attack increases the DPR effectively. A half elf variant rogue whonutilizes a blade cantrip adds a damage die at levels 5, 11, and 17. Blade cantrip int sto level 5 with elven accuracy and advantage should be around a 24.32 DPR vs a light crossbow dealing 19.37 DPR. It’s definitely more dangerous going in melee and potentially staying there, but the damage potential is there. You’re also very unlikely to ever effectively make an attack of opportunity at range, where a melee rogue can drastically increase their DPR by more easily being able to make reaction attacks on another creatures turn. In fact, if you still have advantage, your reaction attacks damage potential is exactly the entire DPR of the light crossbow mentioned earlier. Perhaps an investment in the sentinel feat later on or other parties spells can help facilitate these reaction attacks. 43.68 DPR on a round you get your reaction at level 5 is pretty awesome. It can potentially happen multiple times a day too, and this doesn’t account for booming blades extra movement damage or green flame blades damage happening to a second enemy.
maybe you shouldn’t rely on it too much, but that useless bard you have in the party can help you out quite a bit with a well timed Dissonant whispers. You being the rogue and your barbarian ally can get off some ngnsrly damage using reactions. He could even give you an inspiration to help make sure you actually land that reaction attack.
Not sure if someone else has mentioned it, but in an argument for Elven Accuracy is that you can critical hit significantly more often. It’s almost in every theory build I’ve been making lately (mostly because it helps round off 1 of 4 possible stats), but I try to leave it till the end levels because it feels kinda cheap too early.
As for your question specifically, Evasion makes an extra +1 dex save less important. You’re already halving most things. Skills aren’t too important, you’ll already have a decent bonus, +1 isn’t a game changer here either.
However, the AC +1 is very legit. And if you do go this route you get everything else as a neat little package with some minor increase to accuracy. Whereas if you go to Elven Accuracy all you get is more offence. Both accuracy and critical damage.
Personally, if you don’t have +4 dex bonus and this will get you there, I’d go with the stats. If you have +4 already I’d go with Elven Accuracy.
Can you buy studded armor? It should be fairly cheap and would give you an AC bump regardless of your ASI decision.
also, if you can find a way to acquire a light crossbow that would increase your DPR slightly by virtue of a 1d8 weapon die, since your proficient in simple weapons. If you’re a half elf variant then perhaps even a heavy crossbow if you have weapon proficiencies.
about elven accuracy, the maths above have highlighted that while the increase in accuracy is nice, the ability to add more damage die to an attack increases the DPR effectively. A half elf variant rogue whonutilizes a blade cantrip adds a damage die at levels 5, 11, and 17. Blade cantrip int sto level 5 with elven accuracy and advantage should be around a 24.32 DPR vs a light crossbow dealing 19.37 DPR. It’s definitely more dangerous going in melee and potentially staying there, but the damage potential is there. You’re also very unlikely to ever effectively make an attack of opportunity at range, where a melee rogue can drastically increase their DPR by more easily being able to make reaction attacks on another creatures turn. In fact, if you still have advantage, your reaction attacks damage potential is exactly the entire DPR of the light crossbow mentioned earlier. Perhaps an investment in the sentinel feat later on or other parties spells can help facilitate these reaction attacks. 43.68 DPR on a round you get your reaction at level 5 is pretty awesome. It can potentially happen multiple times a day too, and this doesn’t account for booming blades extra movement damage or green flame blades damage happening to a second enemy.
maybe you shouldn’t rely on it too much, but that useless bard you have in the party can help you out quite a bit with a well timed Dissonant whispers. You being the rogue and your barbarian ally can get off some ngnsrly damage using reactions. He could even give you an inspiration to help make sure you actually land that reaction attack.
We're still young in the campaign, so not much cash yet for additional equipment, but the studded leather and light xbow will be on the Wish List. I'm running a Scout Rogue, and I plan on doing 15 levels in Rogue and then 5 levels in Ranger, to get the extra attack and switch to a longbow from a shortbow, and some minor spell abilities. Probably do the multiclass after Lvl 5 in Rogue. Trying to be somewhat realistic at the moment about her build, equipment, and such. My bard is still level 4 also, so it'll be a while before he has any spells that really have some bite, but we just got a new Firbolg cleric who is absolutely awesome and will partner excellently with the frontliners with his spells. My poor bard is played by a young player who has never played one before, so it's just a matter of him getting some experience and choosing better bard spells. As the veteran of my group, I tend to tell him to help out the others more than me with his Inspirations. The Sentinel feat hadn't crossed my mind, but that would be pretty amazing for a rogue. Usually think of a tank for that one. Thanks for the input.
Not sure if someone else has mentioned it, but in an argument for Elven Accuracy is that you can critical hit significantly more often. It’s almost in every theory build I’ve been making lately (mostly because it helps round off 1 of 4 possible stats), but I try to leave it till the end levels because it feels kinda cheap too early.
As for your question specifically, Evasion makes an extra +1 dex save less important. You’re already halving most things. Skills aren’t too important, you’ll already have a decent bonus, +1 isn’t a game changer here either.
However, the AC +1 is very legit. And if you do go this route you get everything else as a neat little package with some minor increase to accuracy. Whereas if you go to Elven Accuracy all you get is more offence. Both accuracy and critical damage.
Personally, if you don’t have +4 dex bonus and this will get you there, I’d go with the stats. If you have +4 already I’d go with Elven Accuracy.
Pretty much what I figured out from the others' advice too. Nice to hear it confirmed by someone else though. I'm going to take EA at 8th and my DM, who is also a player in my campaign, so we talk a lot about builds, echoed most of what you said and let me know that the Skills (Stealth, Sleight of Hand) would be very helpful to be a bit better for now. The AC bonus helps and as soon as I can acquire some additional funds, the better armor will be purchased. Who knows, I might find some along the way on a body that has no use for it anymore!
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Hi All,
I've been doing some analysis on using Elven Accuracy for my half-elf rogue vs upping her DEX score by 2 on my last ASI. I've found that for attacking any AC that she could normally hit, say AC 15, the Super Advantage (rolling 3d20's) hit the AC 91% extremely consistently (almost to a fault), whereas regular Advantage with an additional +1 to hit only hit the target 84% of the time, with a +/- 1% variance. Thus, to me, Super Advantage is definitely better in the combat arena than taking the DEX Ability Score increase.
HOWEVER, there are other systems on the character sheet that are affected by the DEX Ability Score:
My toon is in a rather 50% combat and 50% non-combat campaign, which I think possibly makes an impact.
The question I have for all of you absolutely mental patient players like me is:
Would increase to the additional systems affected by DEX be worth it enough to take the DEX Ability Score +2 instead of Elven Accuracy?
Possibly. How much do your individual skills come up, do you have expertise in any of those common ones and do you wish that you had a higher score for any of them? I'm assuming that your dex is already even since you want to bump it by 2, are any of your intelligence, wisdom, or charisma scores odd and would benefit from the +1 from Elven Accuracy? If yes, would the increase be more impactful to those skills than the increase to dex? How often do those saves come up?
Will you have Evasion after this level up (guessing so, limits the effect somewhat of the dex save increase)? Are you even subject to dex saves that much with your playstyle and in this campaign? When you make dex saves, do you wish your dex save score was higher? Are you ranged or melee? If ranged, do you frequently get targeted by attacks? When you are targeted, do you often wish that your AC was better?
What is the expected damage increase for you from having Elven Accuracy vs the +1 from dex? (Take your average damage on a hit and multiply it by the hit rate for each, then subtract them from each other. Factor in crits and compare them at AC 12, AC 15, and AC 18 and weight them by the ones that you commonly target. ) If the increase in damage (and corresponding decrease in incoming damage to the party) plus the benefit from the mental skills from taking Elven Accuracy outweighs the decrease in damage and increase in dex based skills, saves, and AC, then take Elven Accuracy. If not, take dex.
I have otherwise stated that Elven Accuracy is worth someone somewhere between +1 and +2 on average. You got a +7% or about +1.5, confirming this.
However, it becomes worthwhile for Sneak attack builds and Champion builds, because of the interaction with crits and/or sneak attacks.
The reason is not the bonus to hit, but the higher chance of critting. It does not just add another chance to hit, but also increases your chance of critting by 50%. Moreover, your damage skyrockets on a crit because of sneak attack. If you roll with advantage, you have 2 chances of critting, going from 5% to just under 10% (under because of the 1/400 chance of double 20's) . When you get Elven Accuracy, your chance of critting goes to just under 15%. If you have two strikes (TWF for example) that really begins to matter. You should be critting about one every 3 or 4 turns if you are doing TWF and a Sneak Attack makes the crit huge.
This makes up for the AC, initiative, etc. Elven Accuracy is really well designed for Rogues.
Take Elven Accuracy, great feat for you, not so much for other people (who often do better by getting other feats).
Also, EA gives you +dex (or one other skill). So, if you planned it out, couldn't you get EA and some stuff elsewhere? You'd be down a bit until your first feat but once you got it you'd be basically at the same-ish power level but with extra HP or WIS/INT/CHA or whatever.
Thanks all for your input. I love hearing all of the different thoughts on this stuff, even after playing for nearly 40 years.
We're just at the start of an Exandria campaign, 2 sessions in so far. Got a bit beat up in 2 of 3 encounters, by a shark in both of them, so not a lot of history with her yet. Toon is 4th level now (started at 3rd), with only a 16 DEX prior to the EA feat, rolled crappy for stats, 15 was my best, so upped DEX to 16, which is now 17 with EA. Planned out for 8th level to do Athlete (ref Snowtworf) and up DEX again to 18. We're in a bit of minimalist campaign, so I'm not expecting to get a lot of great magical items and only a 14 AC right now (leather 11 + 3 DEX). Don't always have to be a front line fighter, but there's only 4 of us currently: Goliath Barb who's tough enough, a useless Bard, a useful Warlock, and me; so combat requirements fall heavily on me.
I really like the concept of the increased chance of Crits from the extra rolls (ref. Mog_DracoV), but all of those systems that get a boost if I throttled up to 18 DEX are very enticing. The extra damage output (ref Jhffan) is also in the mix there too, and I've been told that Skills will play a pretty big part of the campaign. I've got a ways to go for Evasion, too far out now to play a huge part of the decision.
I'm still a bit on the fence, but I'm leaning toward staying with EA and living with the loss of the additional system updates. What say ya'll?
Doing some math, let's say you're doing 3d6+dex (sneak attack with a shortbow, for example) against AC 13, and you have advantage
So, for damage, elven accuracy pulls ahead... by 0.14%. However, 18 Dex gives you +1 initiative, and in a 3 round encounter winning initiative is equivalent to doing 50% more damage, so +1 initiative is worth about 2.5%. Also, you aren't guaranteed to have advantage, and dex gives +1 to AC, Dexterity Saves, and Dexterity Checks, so in this particular case you're significantly better off with the +2 Dex.
With a caveat: elven accuracy is a half-feat, the problem is that going from 16 to 17 is useless. If you still want to take athlete at level 18, well, 18 dex with EA is way better than 19 dex without.
I agree with everything you said, the numbers match up exactly with those I found in my testing. I think the math speaks for itself, but after talking with my DM, the additional systems are just a tad more important in the short run, so I'm going to delay EA until Level 8, then Athlete at 10.
Thanks to all who responded, it helped a lot.
EA is such a gamechanger you should generally plan your whole build around it. In particular, if you're a half-elf, your statline probably started at 17/16/16, so EA is one of the best ways (the other is Skill Expert) to reach Dex 18. If you're an Elf with 17/16/15, the comparison is 18/16/15 with EA to 18/16/16, which really depends on many things, including your subclass.
If you somehow started at only 16 Dex, as you seem to have, +2 Dex is probably your best bet - it's really hard for anything to compete with 18 Dex at level 4. That's why you generally plan on having 18 Dex *with* EA at 4.
If you are playing with Tasha's, you do have Steady Aim. Between that and Cunning Action for hiding, you should consistently have advantage. Still, it is a valid consideration that the +2 dex score increase is on all the time and the increase to initiative can be beneficial.
You're going to run into a reasonable number of monsters with an effect that gives you disadvantage, at which point even if you gain advantage all it does is negate the disadvantage, not allow you to use elven accuracy.
At the lower levels my rogue will be at for a while, shouldn't run into too many creatures that force Disadvantage on me from afar. I definitely will be taking EA at 8th, as it will be a game changer for my rogue for sure. Taking EA and Athlete will then get her to DEX 20, good to go then.
Thanks.
Well, assuming you can keep them afar, which is far from guaranteed to be possible. In any case, it's not that disadvantage is super common, it's that it's common enough that you have to assume it's going to happen some of the time.
I can say from experience that elven accuracy is better for rouges, especially with a familiar using the help action. This is a very good feat if you want to do a sneak attack build. This triple advantage from this feat actually helped me 1 shot a spellcasting boss at full health before they got a single turn so I would recommend it. Also if you want to use poisoned arrows this feat helps you not waste them.
Hollow unbreakable arrows are the most OP common magic item, and my current method of coming up with insane combat shenanigans.
if you make a steel pipe with one end closed and a nozzle on the other, you can enlarge it, fill with any liquid, and then drop concentration, creating a high pressure squirt gun. (or a pipe bomb, depending if it holds)
Can you buy studded armor? It should be fairly cheap and would give you an AC bump regardless of your ASI decision.
also, if you can find a way to acquire a light crossbow that would increase your DPR slightly by virtue of a 1d8 weapon die, since your proficient in simple weapons. If you’re a half elf variant then perhaps even a heavy crossbow if you have weapon proficiencies.
about elven accuracy, the maths above have highlighted that while the increase in accuracy is nice, the ability to add more damage die to an attack increases the DPR effectively. A half elf variant rogue whonutilizes a blade cantrip adds a damage die at levels 5, 11, and 17. Blade cantrip int sto level 5 with elven accuracy and advantage should be around a 24.32 DPR vs a light crossbow dealing 19.37 DPR. It’s definitely more dangerous going in melee and potentially staying there, but the damage potential is there. You’re also very unlikely to ever effectively make an attack of opportunity at range, where a melee rogue can drastically increase their DPR by more easily being able to make reaction attacks on another creatures turn. In fact, if you still have advantage, your reaction attacks damage potential is exactly the entire DPR of the light crossbow mentioned earlier. Perhaps an investment in the sentinel feat later on or other parties spells can help facilitate these reaction attacks. 43.68 DPR on a round you get your reaction at level 5 is pretty awesome. It can potentially happen multiple times a day too, and this doesn’t account for booming blades extra movement damage or green flame blades damage happening to a second enemy.
maybe you shouldn’t rely on it too much, but that useless bard you have in the party can help you out quite a bit with a well timed Dissonant whispers. You being the rogue and your barbarian ally can get off some ngnsrly damage using reactions. He could even give you an inspiration to help make sure you actually land that reaction attack.
Not sure if someone else has mentioned it, but in an argument for Elven Accuracy is that you can critical hit significantly more often. It’s almost in every theory build I’ve been making lately (mostly because it helps round off 1 of 4 possible stats), but I try to leave it till the end levels because it feels kinda cheap too early.
As for your question specifically, Evasion makes an extra +1 dex save less important. You’re already halving most things. Skills aren’t too important, you’ll already have a decent bonus, +1 isn’t a game changer here either.
However, the AC +1 is very legit. And if you do go this route you get everything else as a neat little package with some minor increase to accuracy. Whereas if you go to Elven Accuracy all you get is more offence. Both accuracy and critical damage.
Personally, if you don’t have +4 dex bonus and this will get you there, I’d go with the stats. If you have +4 already I’d go with Elven Accuracy.
We're still young in the campaign, so not much cash yet for additional equipment, but the studded leather and light xbow will be on the Wish List. I'm running a Scout Rogue, and I plan on doing 15 levels in Rogue and then 5 levels in Ranger, to get the extra attack and switch to a longbow from a shortbow, and some minor spell abilities. Probably do the multiclass after Lvl 5 in Rogue. Trying to be somewhat realistic at the moment about her build, equipment, and such. My bard is still level 4 also, so it'll be a while before he has any spells that really have some bite, but we just got a new Firbolg cleric who is absolutely awesome and will partner excellently with the frontliners with his spells. My poor bard is played by a young player who has never played one before, so it's just a matter of him getting some experience and choosing better bard spells. As the veteran of my group, I tend to tell him to help out the others more than me with his Inspirations. The Sentinel feat hadn't crossed my mind, but that would be pretty amazing for a rogue. Usually think of a tank for that one. Thanks for the input.
Pretty much what I figured out from the others' advice too. Nice to hear it confirmed by someone else though. I'm going to take EA at 8th and my DM, who is also a player in my campaign, so we talk a lot about builds, echoed most of what you said and let me know that the Skills (Stealth, Sleight of Hand) would be very helpful to be a bit better for now. The AC bonus helps and as soon as I can acquire some additional funds, the better armor will be purchased. Who knows, I might find some along the way on a body that has no use for it anymore!