Hi,

I am trying to come up with a character who has a demonic ancestor. The demon blood would have been introduced to the characters ancestry generations ago, by an evil demon worshiping cult, who attempted to make a perfect being by summoning a demon to mate with a human sacrifice. 

in fact the sacrifice was also part of the cult as was willing to submit herself to the ordeal.  However; when the cult was was captured and brought to trial, to be executed for their many crimes, the child and their mother was spirited away, by several cult members who sacrificed their lives, to ensure that the child whom they believed to be their deliverer, would live. 

Many generations have passed since then and the cult was never reformed. All the cult members were put on trial and executed generations ago. Believing that the cult had been destroyed, people forgot about them and went on with their lives, not realising that a half demon child had in fact survived.  That child went on to start their own cult and had children with the members of their cult.  Some of whom survived and went on to have children of their own. Several generations later, we come to the character, whose demon blood is now extremely watered down, but still exerts enough influence upon the character to make them supernaturally dexterous, with unnatural acrobatic skill. They are also very gifted in general, especially when it comes to perception and stealth. 

The character is also androgynous, and capable of passing for both a man and woman, allowing them to easily blend into a crowd and become almost anyone they choose, with the application of a disguise kit. In their natural guise, they are also somewhat forgettable, with no features that really stand out or leave an impression, adding to their stealthiness, as people tend not to really remember them. 

They do not have enough demon blood to be able to do magic. 

The characters whole thing is not being seen, while being able to observe others, perceive their weaknesses and skulk around investigating, while leaving little to no evidence that they were even there, and once they disappear into the shadows or into a crowd, it’s almost impossible to find them again. Their supernatural dexterity also gives them some level of mastery over weapons and combat, with crossbows, combined with a rapier being their preferred weapon of choice. 

For ranged attacks they prefer to hide and shoot a normal crossbow from a distance while remaining hidden, and for melee, they prefer using a rapier, combined with a small crossbow strapped to their wrist, so that they can attack with their rapier and then also bonus attack with what is basically a hand crossbow, before using their dexterous nature to to step out of immediate melee range of their opponent. I was also thinking that the character can be quite deadly with daggers as well, being able to easily get around behind their target without being seen, and then stab them in the back.  Although they heavily favour ranged attacks, so they can attack while hiding, minimising the risk of being attacked themselves.  They aren’t afraid or ashamed to use underhanded tactics or to attack someone in the back, or finish off their opponents.  A dead man can’t betray any knowledge of you.  Although they are willing to leave enemies alive, where there is a clear benefit in doing so, like if you want them to spread misinformation or something.  Or as bait to hook the real target.  

Basically, I was thinking of them using their extreme and dexterous nature and stealthiness for both utility while out of combat, and devastating attacks while in combat. 

Despite having demon blood in their veins, they’re not evil, but believe that the ends justify the means and will be good and evil, as the situation requires.  Taking the most direct route to achieving their goals, although they are willing to play the long game, if the rewards of doing so outweigh the risks and expense.  For example, if they have the task of stopping bandits from attacking a village, they would most likely just kill the bandits, as killing them is the quickest way of achieving the goal of stopping them from attacking. If; however, their goal was to provide intel on who the bandits are working for, to defeat a wide spread protection racket, then they would be willing to go undercover and become a bandit, even do evil things and climb the ranks, to acquire the information they need, in order to ultimately defeat the bandit leader, and put an end to the protection racket once and for all.  So, to do the good thing, they are willing to do any number of evil things, because to them, the ends justify the means and they are not really concerned with what is or is not right or wrong, only what is morally justifiable to the situation they find themselves in, and what is justifiable to them, is essentially what course of action they themselves can live with.  Similarly, they are not over religious and are willing to worship any god that can best help them at the time, regardless of whether said god is good or evil. Although while worshiping a god, they will follow any rules or laws required of a worshiper of that god, are are more than willing to abandon that god, if the worship of another god can give them greater advantage. 

Also while disguised as a person, or when undercover, they become the person they are pretending to be, right down to the smallest detail.   They never get attached to one of their disguises however and are willing to abandon it at a moments notice.  They also rarely show their true selves, living as one person or another, to keep their true self a secret. 

that’s pretty much my concept, but I am having trouble turning all of that into a working character. Do you any of you have any thoughts on how I might make a workable character out of that concept?

thanks

Well, let’s set some general parameters first. How much of all this were you thinking of getting from things like picking an appropriate stat array, background, and class abilities and how much from (unique) racial qualities? If you’re fine with some of these supernatural strengths being reflavored background proficiencies for instance, and have your starting class level abilities cover some of the rest, the Changeling race from the Eberron: RFtLW book could be a pretty convenient starting point, especially combined with something like the Charlatan or Urchin background and starting as a Rogue or Ranger.

Changelings are interesting. Certainly a changeling would be able to disguise itself as other people with relative ease. 

Taking rogue and maxing out DEX as quick as possible, and the taking some feats to further boost DEX, would give the character that supernatural dexterity that I was looking for.  Especially if a focussed all my expertise into stealth and acrobatics. The secondary benefit of this, would be having a high AC, to help counter a low HP.  I definitely would want to be a melee character, but combining a high AC with the characters stealth and acrobatic skill and their ability to hide and attack from a distance, I could still be a fairly effective combatant. 

The other thing I considered was a gloom stalker. The problem with gloom stalkers is that their abilities really only work in darkness or twilight.

Also, as a changeling I wouldn’t need proficiency in the disguise kit, so taking a background like “charlatan” would be a waste of a tool proficiency. 

What if I changed my idea slightly, and took Changeling as my race.  Gave them a tiny bit of magic, via the Ranger class (flavoured as coming from the demonic heritage) and then made them a Gloom Stalker?  Not only would they be able to disappear into a crowd of people, but they would be able to disappear into the night, or the shadows as well. I could then take a custom background, to give me proficiency in stealth and thrives tools, and a background feature that enhanced my ability to gather information.  Something like a customised spy background.  

They would really only need enough magic to use cantrips, so they could snuff out the lights in a room or close shutters etc, turning the room into darkness/twilight, so that they could use their gloom stalker ability to not be seen as long as they were shrouded in shadow.  Maybe hunters mark would come in handy, to track enemies from a distance, even in darkness.  

My only problem with that is, I’d still want to focus mostly on having high stealth and acrobatics, and being a ranged attacker, striking from the shadows without being seen, and then vanishing without a trace.

So I would want to max out DEX as quick as possible, and have a decently high WIS score as well, to increase my passive and active perception.  I’d also want a fair amount of INT for investigation and knowledge gathering and a reasonable CON, so that I had some HP, and wouldn’t just die if I did get hit. Although I think my DEX and WIS, would pretty much be the most important abilities.  

I think it would go something like this.

DEX, WIS, INT, CON, CHA, STR.

I am also going to need as many ASIs as possible, so I wouldn’t want to multiclass, and I am thinking that I’d need to take a class that gets a lot of ASIs.  

Could I pull this off with a; Changeling, Gloom Stalker, Ranger?

It's a pretty good approximation, sure. I wouldn't get too hung up about the stats, certainly the secondary ones. Get proficiency in the appropriate skills and you're mostly set - a 12 Int vs a 14 Int is only a difference of +1 to your bonus.

If the gloom bit of the gloom stalker subclass is a bit too much, maybe consider a horizon walker instead. Teleports all over the place seem like they would fit, and HWs make for very effective melee strikers as well.

With the magic, you can flavour that entirely the way you want it - it could be entirely innate, it could be entirely the result of studying, and everything in between.

Tiefling with Bloodline of Glasya sounds like the thing. Just flavour the spells to be traits instead of spells but it's basically the same. It will take until level 3 until you can disguise yourself but you can just excuse it to be his heritage taking time to manifest to its fullness. Though it kind of beats the point of playing a Tiefling, discuss with your DM about not having horns nor tail and normal eyes. Also, though most of the D&D community isn't aware of that, Tieflings' skin colour should actually resemble that of a human, most of the times.

As for the class, rogue sounds like the thing. Expertise in stealth and acrobatics. Take either the Thief or Assassin for eventually incredible infiltration options. 

Take the Skulker feat once you're done with ASIs - that seems like what you described.

It seems like the most obvious solution to me.

Keep in mind that Rangers don't generally get cantrips, unless you use the new optional class features and take Druidic Warrior as a fighting style.  But I don't know if the druid cantrips would do what you want in that regard.

Quote from ArwensDaughter >>

Keep in mind that Rangers don't generally get cantrips, unless you use the new optional class features and take Druidic Warrior as a fighting style.  But I don't know if the druid cantrips would do what you want in that regard.

 
I wasn’t thinking of that. I think I need to consider more what the most important features, skills and abilities of this character are, and then make choices based upon that. 

The rest could be roleplay and reskinning.