So I've been thinking about this lately, and this is mainly a question for the min-maxers among us - which I personally think is fine as long as the DM is made aware of intentions and effect. It's about having fun, after all.
But here's the question? What creative ways are there to build assassins with multi-classing and so forth? Sure, plain rogue Assassins are a thing. I've also seen tons of other posts that maximize a Rogue Assassin's damage output. But all of those rely on the same tactic: Hide, land a hit, hope the target dies.
What if you wanted to create an assassin who was very good at their job but decided to end their career of killing things? What if it wasn't a people killer but a monster hunter or something like that? You'd need a build that can function on its own without making it obvious that the character used to be a hired killer.
An assassin is not a leather clad person in tight pants with two poisoned daggers, though that's certainly a route you can take. But no, an assassin is someone who gets the job done, no matter what. Be it killing silently or just decimating foes from range, or having just incredible versatility to deal with any situation by using potions, poisons and tools, all while being able to pass yourself off as just a normal soldier, monk, diplomat or healer.
I've seen some examples of this with ranger/rogue multiclassing, but I was wondering, what are you guys's favourite high damage builds?
For a very unconventional build, a Circle of the Land Druid from the Grasslands with the Criminal background would make a devastating assassin as soon as you hit 3rd level!
With your wild shape ability you can shift into anything and sneak into almost anywhere unnoticed, especially if you cast Pass Without Trace first. Even an anti-magic zone of some sort would only dispel, the spell, it wouldn’t force you back into your human form. Then you can change into a Giant Centipede and bite your target while it’s sleeping doing both melee attack damage and poison damage. At the worst you’d have 2 attacks with advantage on your sleeping target before it would be able to even begin to attack you, including two saving throws vs. poison!
This isn’t a conventional assassin build, but it would be a surprisingly brutal and effective one.
So I've been thinking about this lately, and this is mainly a question for the min-maxers among us - which I personally think is fine as long as the DM is made aware of intentions and effect. It's about having fun, after all.
But here's the question? What creative ways are there to build assassins with multi-classing and so forth? Sure, plain rogue Assassins are a thing. I've also seen tons of other posts that maximize a Rogue Assassin's damage output. But all of those rely on the same tactic: Hide, land a hit, hope the target dies.
What if you wanted to create an assassin who was very good at their job but decided to end their career of killing things? What if it wasn't a people killer but a monster hunter or something like that? You'd need a build that can function on its own without making it obvious that the character used to be a hired killer.
An assassin is not a leather clad person in tight pants with two poisoned daggers, though that's certainly a route you can take. But no, an assassin is someone who gets the job done, no matter what. Be it killing silently or just decimating foes from range, or having just incredible versatility to deal with any situation by using potions, poisons and tools, all while being able to pass yourself off as just a normal soldier, monk, diplomat or healer.
I've seen some examples of this with ranger/rogue multiclassing, but I was wondering, what are you guys's favourite high damage builds?
For a very unconventional build, a Circle of the Land Druid from the Grasslands with the Criminal background would make a devastating assassin as soon as you hit 3rd level!
With your wild shape ability you can shift into anything and sneak into almost anywhere unnoticed, especially if you cast Pass Without Trace first. Even an anti-magic zone of some sort would only dispel, the spell, it wouldn’t force you back into your human form. Then you can change into a Giant Centipede and bite your target while it’s sleeping doing both melee attack damage and poison damage. At the worst you’d have 2 attacks with advantage on your sleeping target before it would be able to even begin to attack you, including two saving throws vs. poison!
This isn’t a conventional assassin build, but it would be a surprisingly brutal and effective one.
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