First off, I’m playing in Adventure League (online play) so I can’t homebrew anything and I’m using point buy. Im playing as a High Elf Arcane Archer, just hit lvl 5. So, I can re-stat prior to my first game as lvl 5.
I’m looking to pick up the feat “Elven Accuracy” but I need a way to consistently get advantage for it to be useful. I’ll be building this out for when I hit lvl 8... after that it’s all fighter levels My two possibilities are as follows:
6/2 Arcane Archer/Light Cleric: casting Faerie Fire. HP66 AC 18 I took Sharp Shooter with first ASI. Stats- STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 19 (headband of Int) WIS 14 CHA 10.
7/1 Arcane Archer/Wizard: Casting Find Familiar (help action) and/or cast True Strike once before engaging. HP 66 AC 18 also Sharp Shooter. Stats- STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT19 WIS 14 CHA10.
That second level in Light Cleric isn't buying you much. You're better off swapping that level to Fighter, Warlock (for a Pact Magic slot and Hexblade's Curse) or Wizard.
Also keep in mind that Shadow Arrow will give you advantage if the enemy fails the save, and won't cost you a whole action. Faerie Fire will only be better if you can catch 2+ enemies in it.
If you’re an archer why not just take the DEX bump. Not as sexy, but it will be useful on every single attack roll, damage roll, initiative roll, tons of skill rolls and AC. Unless you have a class where DEX is a dump stat, it’s really one of the best bumps in the game.
Well, Im considering Elven Acc because it gives a +1 to Dex as well as the reroll ability. Since I have a 17 Dex it would bump me to 18 (4 mod). just a straight +2 Dex wouldn't help as much... since I'd be 19 with still a (4 mod).
Either pick multi-class for role playing or do it based on stats, to avoid being MAD (Wanting 16+ in 3+ stats is MAD. Also mad.)
Arcane Archer wants Dex, and Int (saves). So that means you want either Wizard or Rogue.
Rogue gives you sneak attack, which DOES work with arrows. Not to mention an extra 2 skills and expertise. I would recommend it. Rogues often hide, gaining advantage (some sub classes help with that)
If you go for Wizard, then I suggest you take 2 levels and either get Divination or War Magic. Divination's 2nd level ability is Portents, one of the best around and not affected by wizard level, so it works even at 18 Fighter/2 Wizard. War Magic boosts your saves, AC, and Initiative - again not affected by Wizard level. Wizards often use spells that give them advantage.
What about warlock 3 to grab Devil's Sight and Darkness? That's two situations per short rest (which aligns with your fighter abilities) of attacks as an unseen attacker. This gives you advantage on your attacks and gives then disadvantage on attacks against you. It provides some Line of Sight cover for your allies if you cast it on yourself or gives disadvantage to all attacks by all creatures within against all of your allies if you need to use it defensively. You could then go pact of the chain for an invisible familiar for when you can't use your darkness trick or go pact of the tome for other cantrips for added utility. And we haven't even discussed the patron yet. Of course, that 10 charisma won't help, so you'd have to be able to change that around to get it to at least 13. You wouldn't have to worry about attack spells or spells that force a spell save, meaning that all of your spell choices could be strictly for utility. You wouldn't be able to grab the SCAG cantrips since you've already hit your +1 with Xanathar's but those would mostly be used for their utility aspects while sneaking in some damage. If you are able to kill creatures on the regular, Fiend patron would give you a steady source of temp HP just for doing what you're doing. Celestial would give you a source of healing to help the party or make yourself really hard to kill.
Rogue 3 Assassin would give you advantage against any target at the beginning of battle plus sneak attack and autocrits if your party does stealth well (surprised creatures are auto crit).
Rogue 3 Arcane Trickster could be interesting for the spellcasting aspect with your headband in place.
Well, Im considering Elven Acc because it gives a +1 to Dex as well as the reroll ability. Since I have a 17 Dex it would bump me to 18 (4 mod). just a straight +2 Dex wouldn't help as much... since I'd be 19 with still a (4 mod).
Oh, I see. I misunderstood in the stats you posted it already incorporated the bump from the feat, I thought you were already sitting on an even number for DEX. you could always add one each to DEX and int, but the higher int doesn’t do a lot for you, I suppose.
Well, Im considering Elven Acc because it gives a +1 to Dex as well as the reroll ability. Since I have a 17 Dex it would bump me to 18 (4 mod). just a straight +2 Dex wouldn't help as much... since I'd be 19 with still a (4 mod).
Oh, I see. I misunderstood in the stats you posted it already incorporated the bump from the feat, I thought you were already sitting on an even number for DEX. you could always add one each to DEX and int, but the higher int doesn’t do a lot for you, I suppose.
First off, I’m playing in Adventure League (online play) so I can’t homebrew anything and I’m using point buy. Im playing as a High Elf Arcane Archer, just hit lvl 5. So, I can re-stat prior to my first game as lvl 5.
I’m looking to pick up the feat “Elven Accuracy” but I need a way to consistently get advantage for it to be useful. I’ll be building this out for when I hit lvl 8... after that it’s all fighter levels My two possibilities are as follows:
6/2 Arcane Archer/Light Cleric: casting Faerie Fire. HP66 AC 18 I took Sharp Shooter with first ASI. Stats- STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 19 (headband of Int) WIS 14 CHA 10.
7/1 Arcane Archer/Wizard: Casting Find Familiar (help action) and/or cast True Strike once before engaging. HP 66 AC 18 also Sharp Shooter. Stats- STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT19 WIS 14 CHA10.
Thoughts on which is better?
also of note was the warlock idea for darkness/devil sight.
also of note was rogue for bonus action sneaking.
a question I have is are you looking for a purely combat solution? Or one that also fits thematically/role play wise/etc to your character? In which case more details would be needed.
from a purely combat... I’d say the faerie fire as that works for multiple people having advantage not just you, targets multiple enemies, and has other uses.
the familiar is limited in that it can die. And AoE effects are likely to hit it if you use it for that. And being at range you are more likely to be targeted by aoe such attacks than melee people engaged with enemies’ allies.
Well, Im considering Elven Acc because it gives a +1 to Dex as well as the reroll ability. Since I have a 17 Dex it would bump me to 18 (4 mod). just a straight +2 Dex wouldn't help as much... since I'd be 19 with still a (4 mod).
Oh, I see. I misunderstood in the stats you posted it already incorporated the bump from the feat, I thought you were already sitting on an even number for DEX. you could always add one each to DEX and int, but the higher int doesn’t do a lot for you, I suppose.
Adding to Int wouldn't do anything, depending on what the int was before Headband of Intellect. If the intelligence was already at 18, then the character could pass the headband off with no loss whatsoever and a 17 would have made the modifier the same without the headband. I'm assuming that neither instance is true.
As an aside, I realized that I didn't comment about the options the OP presented. If you're not stressed about being without your headband or if your intelligence is higher than your wisdom anyway, I'd say go with Wizard. As Mog says, you could go two levels to get the subclass. In addition to their suggestions, you could go Abjuration for the added survival (Alarm for the ritual casting recharge of your ward) or one of the more utility based options (conjuration for those keys that you might need?), though War Magic would let you go higher in the initiative much more frequently as Mog points out.
One other thing to remember is that the Archfey patron for the Warlock also gives access to Faerie Fire, and in this case it does so on a short rest. Archfey pact could also make a lot of sense for a more traditional elven Arcane Archer, and requires only a single level to get one short-rest first-level slot to Faerie Fire with. A second Warlock level for invocations could help, but is not strictly required.
One other thing to remember is that the Archfey patron for the Warlock also gives access to Faerie Fire, and in this case it does so on a short rest. Archfey pact could also make a lot of sense for a more traditional elven Arcane Archer, and requires only a single level to get one short-rest first-level slot to Faerie Fire with. A second Warlock level for invocations could help, but is not strictly required.
Going Archfey to level 3 to get Faerie Fire and Darkness, whatever other spells you could get to that point, Devil's Sight, and pact of the chain would give you 3 ways to get advantage and allow you to pick the best one for the scenario. The short coming of going Archfey is that Faerie Fire's Save DC would be based off of your charisma. You could potentially grab charisma boosts at ASIs after dex is maxed to negate this weakness. This is still assuming that you can reassign a stat to charisma which you listed as a 10 AND that you want to do so. Whatever your intelligence was could be moved there to help since your Headband of Intellect would still keep it at 19 as long as it was equipped. Still, lots of great options have been put forward that you'll be able to choose from. You'll want to consider how often your groups have short rested and determine if that seems like the norm for AL as part of your decision since your number of casts will be determined by that if you go Warlock.
So I have to ask, are you looking to get Elven Accuracy for more reliable hits or for crit fishing? Because if you just want to hit more reliably as an archer I would probably recommend going a different path. I'm playing a Battle Master archer and Precision Attack + Sharpshooter is just *chef's kiss*
If you want to crit fish, then perhaps an Eldritch Smite Hexbow might be to your liking. Hexblade's curse + Elven Accuracy gives you close to a 30% crit chance if you have advantage and the Devil's Sight + Darkness combo is a particularly easy way for a warlock to do so.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Personally I'd go 2 levels of rogue. Spell options for advantage are going to be extremely limited by your spell slots, but you can hide all day long. All you need is a corner, tree, boulder, etc. Plus you get sneak attack damage and you can keep going for Arcane Trickster if you really want to cast spells.
I would ask your DM about their interpretation of the optional Flanking rules in the DMG. It most commonly describes a situation where 2 melee grant each other advantage by engaging a target from opposite sides. I would personally rule that any 2 attackers could create this same effect at range if desired. If you have a melee, they could always Aid you against a target to give advantage on your first attack, no rule interpretation required. Regardless of how you chose to gain advantage, focus fire on targets is always a good plan.
Also keep in mind that Shadow Arrow will give you advantage if the enemy fails the save, and won't cost you a whole action. Faerie Fire will only be better if you can catch 2+ enemies in it.
This is by far the best answer here. Any multiclassing is going to reduce your attacks per round too significantly and the most powerful feature of the AA is Curving Arrow. This will almost guarantee a hit for every Attack per Round that you get.
And as for Shadow Arrow? Only ever use it on a first attack of a round. If it succeeds, unload your Action Surge on that target. So if you’re level 11, that’s 5 Sharpshooter attacks at Elven Advantage and a TON of damage if you factor in the crits. This will be enough to finish any big baddie you might face even into the higher levels in AL.
Better yet, the beauty of AA is that shots don’t have to be declared until after you hit and *some* shots don’t have Saves either. That means you can also use your second Arcane Shot when you crit one of those five times, getting another extra 4d6 damage added on top.
Sacrifice for multiclass and you severely reduce the attacks per round for a small *limited* benefit that hampers your attacks per round, and later your saves.
Here’s a novel idea - stop trying to be a one-stop shop for creating Advantage *and* Elven Accuracy and let your allies help you a bit. Get someone to use more Crowd Control spells that grant you Advantage and you’ll be a lot happier. I know that’s not usually the AL way though, a big reason I don’t play it anymore.
First off, I’m playing in Adventure League (online play) so I can’t homebrew anything and I’m using point buy. Im playing as a High Elf Arcane Archer, just hit lvl 5. So, I can re-stat prior to my first game as lvl 5.
I’m looking to pick up the feat “Elven Accuracy” but I need a way to consistently get advantage for it to be useful. I’ll be building this out for when I hit lvl 8... after that it’s all fighter levels My two possibilities are as follows:
6/2 Arcane Archer/Light Cleric: casting Faerie Fire. HP66 AC 18 I took Sharp Shooter with first ASI. Stats- STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT 19 (headband of Int) WIS 14 CHA 10.
7/1 Arcane Archer/Wizard: Casting Find Familiar (help action) and/or cast True Strike once before engaging. HP 66 AC 18 also Sharp Shooter. Stats- STR 10 DEX 18 CON 14 INT19 WIS 14 CHA10.
Thoughts on which is better?
That second level in Light Cleric isn't buying you much. You're better off swapping that level to Fighter, Warlock (for a Pact Magic slot and Hexblade's Curse) or Wizard.
Also keep in mind that Shadow Arrow will give you advantage if the enemy fails the save, and won't cost you a whole action. Faerie Fire will only be better if you can catch 2+ enemies in it.
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If you’re an archer why not just take the DEX bump. Not as sexy, but it will be useful on every single attack roll, damage roll, initiative roll, tons of skill rolls and AC.
Unless you have a class where DEX is a dump stat, it’s really one of the best bumps in the game.
Well, Im considering Elven Acc because it gives a +1 to Dex as well as the reroll ability. Since I have a 17 Dex it would bump me to 18 (4 mod). just a straight +2 Dex wouldn't help as much... since I'd be 19 with still a (4 mod).
Either pick multi-class for role playing or do it based on stats, to avoid being MAD (Wanting 16+ in 3+ stats is MAD. Also mad.)
Arcane Archer wants Dex, and Int (saves). So that means you want either Wizard or Rogue.
Rogue gives you sneak attack, which DOES work with arrows. Not to mention an extra 2 skills and expertise. I would recommend it. Rogues often hide, gaining advantage (some sub classes help with that)
If you go for Wizard, then I suggest you take 2 levels and either get Divination or War Magic. Divination's 2nd level ability is Portents, one of the best around and not affected by wizard level, so it works even at 18 Fighter/2 Wizard. War Magic boosts your saves, AC, and Initiative - again not affected by Wizard level. Wizards often use spells that give them advantage.
What about warlock 3 to grab Devil's Sight and Darkness? That's two situations per short rest (which aligns with your fighter abilities) of attacks as an unseen attacker. This gives you advantage on your attacks and gives then disadvantage on attacks against you. It provides some Line of Sight cover for your allies if you cast it on yourself or gives disadvantage to all attacks by all creatures within against all of your allies if you need to use it defensively. You could then go pact of the chain for an invisible familiar for when you can't use your darkness trick or go pact of the tome for other cantrips for added utility. And we haven't even discussed the patron yet. Of course, that 10 charisma won't help, so you'd have to be able to change that around to get it to at least 13. You wouldn't have to worry about attack spells or spells that force a spell save, meaning that all of your spell choices could be strictly for utility. You wouldn't be able to grab the SCAG cantrips since you've already hit your +1 with Xanathar's but those would mostly be used for their utility aspects while sneaking in some damage. If you are able to kill creatures on the regular, Fiend patron would give you a steady source of temp HP just for doing what you're doing. Celestial would give you a source of healing to help the party or make yourself really hard to kill.
Rogue 3 Assassin would give you advantage against any target at the beginning of battle plus sneak attack and autocrits if your party does stealth well (surprised creatures are auto crit).
Rogue 3 Arcane Trickster could be interesting for the spellcasting aspect with your headband in place.
Oh, I see. I misunderstood in the stats you posted it already incorporated the bump from the feat, I thought you were already sitting on an even number for DEX.
you could always add one each to DEX and int, but the higher int doesn’t do a lot for you, I suppose.
The INT is 19 because of a magic item.
also of note was the warlock idea for darkness/devil sight.
also of note was rogue for bonus action sneaking.
a question I have is are you looking for a purely combat solution? Or one that also fits thematically/role play wise/etc to your character? In which case more details would be needed.
from a purely combat... I’d say the faerie fire as that works for multiple people having advantage not just you, targets multiple enemies, and has other uses.
the familiar is limited in that it can die. And AoE effects are likely to hit it if you use it for that. And being at range you are more likely to be targeted by aoe such attacks than melee people engaged with enemies’ allies.
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Adding to Int wouldn't do anything, depending on what the int was before Headband of Intellect. If the intelligence was already at 18, then the character could pass the headband off with no loss whatsoever and a 17 would have made the modifier the same without the headband. I'm assuming that neither instance is true.
As an aside, I realized that I didn't comment about the options the OP presented. If you're not stressed about being without your headband or if your intelligence is higher than your wisdom anyway, I'd say go with Wizard. As Mog says, you could go two levels to get the subclass. In addition to their suggestions, you could go Abjuration for the added survival (Alarm for the ritual casting recharge of your ward) or one of the more utility based options (conjuration for those keys that you might need?), though War Magic would let you go higher in the initiative much more frequently as Mog points out.
One other thing to remember is that the Archfey patron for the Warlock also gives access to Faerie Fire, and in this case it does so on a short rest. Archfey pact could also make a lot of sense for a more traditional elven Arcane Archer, and requires only a single level to get one short-rest first-level slot to Faerie Fire with. A second Warlock level for invocations could help, but is not strictly required.
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Going Archfey to level 3 to get Faerie Fire and Darkness, whatever other spells you could get to that point, Devil's Sight, and pact of the chain would give you 3 ways to get advantage and allow you to pick the best one for the scenario. The short coming of going Archfey is that Faerie Fire's Save DC would be based off of your charisma. You could potentially grab charisma boosts at ASIs after dex is maxed to negate this weakness. This is still assuming that you can reassign a stat to charisma which you listed as a 10 AND that you want to do so. Whatever your intelligence was could be moved there to help since your Headband of Intellect would still keep it at 19 as long as it was equipped. Still, lots of great options have been put forward that you'll be able to choose from. You'll want to consider how often your groups have short rested and determine if that seems like the norm for AL as part of your decision since your number of casts will be determined by that if you go Warlock.
So I have to ask, are you looking to get Elven Accuracy for more reliable hits or for crit fishing? Because if you just want to hit more reliably as an archer I would probably recommend going a different path. I'm playing a Battle Master archer and Precision Attack + Sharpshooter is just *chef's kiss*
If you want to crit fish, then perhaps an Eldritch Smite Hexbow might be to your liking. Hexblade's curse + Elven Accuracy gives you close to a 30% crit chance if you have advantage and the Devil's Sight + Darkness combo is a particularly easy way for a warlock to do so.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Personally I'd go 2 levels of rogue. Spell options for advantage are going to be extremely limited by your spell slots, but you can hide all day long. All you need is a corner, tree, boulder, etc. Plus you get sneak attack damage and you can keep going for Arcane Trickster if you really want to cast spells.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I would ask your DM about their interpretation of the optional Flanking rules in the DMG. It most commonly describes a situation where 2 melee grant each other advantage by engaging a target from opposite sides. I would personally rule that any 2 attackers could create this same effect at range if desired. If you have a melee, they could always Aid you against a target to give advantage on your first attack, no rule interpretation required. Regardless of how you chose to gain advantage, focus fire on targets is always a good plan.
This is by far the best answer here. Any multiclassing is going to reduce your attacks per round too significantly and the most powerful feature of the AA is Curving Arrow. This will almost guarantee a hit for every Attack per Round that you get.
And as for Shadow Arrow? Only ever use it on a first attack of a round. If it succeeds, unload your Action Surge on that target. So if you’re level 11, that’s 5 Sharpshooter attacks at Elven Advantage and a TON of damage if you factor in the crits. This will be enough to finish any big baddie you might face even into the higher levels in AL.
Better yet, the beauty of AA is that shots don’t have to be declared until after you hit and *some* shots don’t have Saves either. That means you can also use your second Arcane Shot when you crit one of those five times, getting another extra 4d6 damage added on top.
Sacrifice for multiclass and you severely reduce the attacks per round for a small *limited* benefit that hampers your attacks per round, and later your saves.
Here’s a novel idea - stop trying to be a one-stop shop for creating Advantage *and* Elven Accuracy and let your allies help you a bit. Get someone to use more Crowd Control spells that grant you Advantage and you’ll be a lot happier. I know that’s not usually the AL way though, a big reason I don’t play it anymore.