Creating a nasty-piece-of-work

[Toblerone]

I'm creating a character for Out of the Abyss with a party of three to fit with a moon druid and fighter or paladin (both played by newbies). I've suggested an all drow survivors collective so I hope we will all be able to sneak about.

I'd like a sneaky, lying, cheating, manipulating dark elf with a penchant for poisonous murder to join the gang!

Although it obviously fits a rogue I am also drawn to bard for the flexibility and utility of spells. I think I might need them as the DnD veteran to control things. Plus I love the idea of using disguise self and charm person to meddle. But I'm a bit concerned about not being able to do much spike damage. There's not much point in sneaking up on someone or separating out the NPC's if you can't bump off the loner. Rogue sneak attack builds this up, but then I lose spells, or I was wondering whether sharpshooter with a hand crossbow on a bard would do the trick. How bad would multiclassing a bard/rogue below level 10 be and can the same thing be accomplished with clever use of multiclass warlock or sorceror?

So many options. Blessing of Lolth for the help in advance (or not for arachnophobes)

Toblerone

[Ninja_Prawn]

The rogue/bard multiclass is good for skills, but I don't think you can get both magical battlefield control and strong nova damage from that build, especially below level 10.

Maybe if you go for arcane trickster... but it sounds like you're leaning towards assassin.

On the other hand, if your DM gives you time to craft poisons or options to buy/scavenge them (which might be on the table in a drow-heavy campaign), that could solve your damage issues and you can just focus on magic with your class levels. Then bard becomes a no-brainer.

[MrStabby]

Bard rogue can be both brutal and fun.

I recommend going valor or lore bard to 10 and getting swift-quiver. Follow that up with rogue.

In combat you can use your action for a spell and then use your bonus actions to shoot arrows and put your sneak attack damage on them. There are a lot of low level spells like web, ensnare etc. that remain pretty solid uses of an action. When you get more sneak attack dice you can ready an action with your action and still sneak attack on your turn. When your readied action triggers on someone else's turn you get to make another sneak attack.

Two lots of expertise and high charisma means no trouble getting expertise in stealth, deception and intimidation...

[Felvion]

I have an urge to shout "WARLOCK!!" here!
Your main ranged damage source will be eldritch blast. The rogue gets sneak attack and i dare to say EB is better. An assassin may deal huge amounts of damage but he also may not! I mean you won't always have the chance to deal sneak attack and at some point you'll need a magic weapon to overcome mundane resistance. On the other hand, Eldritch blast is force damage which means it's rare to be resisted, it can be split after lvl 5 and it can be greatly enhanced if you choose to (hex and cha to damage). Keep in mind that spells requiring attack rolls can still crit and you get more rays as you level.
In terms of utility i prefer warlock again.
Skill wise, rogues and bards are better due to more skills and expertise. On the other hand a warlock get his utility from invocations and cantrips. You can get all the crucial skills from race (perception), criminal background (deception, stealth, thieves tools) and class (investigation and arcana).
Invocations are godlike in terms of utility: You can get unlimited disguise self (replace it with unlimited alter form later), unlimited minor illusions, seeing through mundane and magical darkness (which pairs greatly with the darkness you get from drow) and many other cool stuff.
If you pick the tome pact (i strongly suggest you do) you can get access to really powerfull (and spammable) rituals. This way you can also get a familiar that can serve as a scout and also **cheese alert** help you while shooting rays. You can also get awesome cantrips like guidance (your kind of expertise), thaumaturgy (for cool rp moments), vicious mockery or shillelagh (one of the strongest bonus action spells for those ugly moments someone reaches you unexpectedly).
In terms of spell power you are far far better than the rogue and kinda equal to the bard (depends on the average of short rests per day you can get). You have nice enchantments (suggestion) many save or suck spells (hold person, banishment) and lots of utility (invisibility, fly, counterspell). Also due to pact magic mechanics at level 7 you make all your party invisible.
Talking about patrons, did i mention 30ft telepathy (even if they can see you!), hurl through hell or misty escape? Who can beat this level of coolness?


TL;DR Imo warlock is what you want in utility and definately beats a bard /rogue multiclass in terms of spell power. Pure bard or pure rogue are strong but not as cool as a drow warlock.

[MightyDog16]

Someone might end up playing a Drow Paladin? Interesting...

[Felvion]

Someone might end up playing a Drow Paladin? Interesting...

Welcome to 5th, where druids don't get companions, you can't have fly and invisibility cast at the same time and, indeed, Drow Paladin is a valid, even optimal, choice. Oh, some people whispered that monks are useful now... We didn't tell them otherwise and it saved us from all the monkday joke posts

[Corran]

Welcome to 5th, where druids don't get companions Not an expert on druids, but I think they have a low level spell addressing this issue. Animal friendship or sth like that. Dont remember the exact details of the spell though.
you can't have fly and invisibility cast at the same time Well, that falls under the concentration rules which frankly helps with balancing the game. That said, it not really impossible to have 2 oncentrations spells running. I am sure there is at least one magic item that lets you concentrate on 2 spells for a couple of rounds. As to fly combined with another concentration spell, there are several ways to do it, either by class, race, or a combination of the 2.
and, indeed, Drow Paladin is a valid, even optimal, choice.And this is the whole reason why I am writing this post. Why the racism for the poor Drow? Or do you believe that Lolth doesn't deserve to have some paladins in her armies? You know that by RAW there are oaths that support more shady paly types, right? And I am sure you know that no race has predetermned alignment, right? That said (because I can see where you are coming from for this one), I can totally envision an evil drow paladin of Lolth, but maybe it is just my silly imagination.
As to drows being optimal for the paly, yes, a drow would be a good race for a SnB paly build (or an unconventional TWF paly build). Still, there are also other good racial choices (some are straightforward better than the drow), so by no means could anyone claim that even at least one specific paladin playstyle is restriced to drow in order to be playable or even optimized. It's not like you have to pick this race, so I cannot really understand what the problem is. And I dont think it would be a solution to have the drow not gain a +1 to cha just because paladin uses charisma and because for some weird reason drows should not be paladins.

[Lindonius]

Assassin 3/ Fighter 5 gets big spike damage if you get surprise. 3 attacks x2 (action surge) with superiority dice added to the sneak crits. Throw in a warlock level for hex (if your DM let's you precast before the surprise round) and you can add that to the crit dice pile and also reduce your target's initiative rolls.

[Lindonius]

Not an expert on druids, but I think they have a low level spell addressing this issue. Animal friendship or sth like that. Dont remember the exact details of the spell though. Well, that falls under the concentration rules which frankly helps with balancing the game. That said, it not really impossible to have 2 oncentrations spells running. I am sure there is at least one magic item that lets you concentrate on 2 spells for a couple of rounds. As to fly combined with another concentration spell, there are several ways to do it, either by class, race, or a combination of the 2.And this is the whole reason why I am writing this post. Why the racism for the poor Drow? Or do you believe that Lolth doesn't deserve to have some paladins in her armies? You know that by RAW there are oaths that support more shady paly types, right? And I am sure you know that no race has predetermned alignment, right? That said (because I can see where you are coming from for this one), I can totally envision an evil drow paladin of Lolth, but maybe it is just my silly imagination.
As to drows being optimal for the paly, yes, a drow would be a good race for a SnB paly build (or an unconventional TWF paly build). Still, there are also other good racial choices (some are straightforward better than the drow), so by no means could anyone claim that even at least one specific paladin playstyle is restriced to drow in order to be playable or even optimized. It's not like you have to pick this race, so I cannot really understand what the problem is. And I dont think it would be a solution to have the drow not gain a +1 to cha just because paladin uses charisma and because for some weird reason drows should not be paladins.

Yeah if you're willing to wait til level 10 for the second attack go assassin3/fighter2/paladin5 I think on the true assassin thread there was a assassin3/fighter4/paladin13 build that did crazy spike damage. Vengeance Paladin of Lolth for the win!

[Envyus]

That said, it not really impossible to have 2 oncentrations spells running. I am sure there is at least one magic item that lets you concentrate on 2 spells for a couple of rounds.

No there is no way for one character to have 2 concentration spells runing. And WotC said there is not going to be a way to get two running.

[Gignere]

No there is no way for one character to have 2 concentration spells runing. And WotC said there is not going to be a way to get two running.

I know of at least two RAW ways to do that:

Twin spell

and

Simulacrum

[Envyus]

I know of at least two RAW ways to do that:

Twin spell

and

Simulacrum

Twin spell does not count. It's just making the same spell apply to two different targets, it can't be used if the spell does not single target something. Simulacrum is effective a second character. No different then two casters on the party casting fly and Invisibility on the same target.

So no there is no way for a character to cast two different concentration spells and concentrate on them both.

[Corran]

Twin spell does not count. It's just making the same spell apply to two different targets, it can't be used if the spell does not single target something. Simulacrum is effective a second character. No different then two casters on the party casting fly and Invisibility on the same target.

So no there is no way for a character to cast two different concentration spells and concentrate on them both.
Are you sure there is no magic item that allows you to do so? I think I had seen sth like that, but cant remember where it was. Perhaps I remeber incorrectly...

[SharkForce]

Are you sure there is no magic item that allows you to do so? I think I had seen sth like that, but cant remember where it was. Perhaps I remeber incorrectly...

by a loose definition, maybe.

there is an item that lets you cast a level <1-9> spell in a single action once per day (you have to charge the item by casting a spell into it first as well, so it still costs your spell slot.... but possibly not a spell slot from today). if it's abjuration, you can do so at half of any expensive material component cost.

glyph of warding removes the need to concentrate on spells.

so, it isn't remotely direct. but it absolutely does let you get two concentration spells down. depending on how liberal your DM interprets the glyph of warding spell, fly and invisibility is probably not an allowed combination though.

(as an added fun fact, it also lets make any (probably hostile) spell have reverse LOS - if they can see you, they can be targeted by the spell. the glyph already does that, but the glyph can't be placed in a single action, while the spell gem thingies can)

[Ninja_Prawn]

Are you sure there is no magic item that allows you to do so? I think I had seen sth like that, but cant remember where it was. Perhaps I remeber incorrectly...

Perhaps you were thinking of the Winged Boots and Ring of Invisibility, which would allow you to have the buffs without needing to concentrate?

[Sitri]

I have an urge to shout "WARLOCK!!" here!...

I second this. Warlocks are a lot of fun for me and can be extremely sneaky with the disguise self at will invocation, a spell you expressed interest in. I played one for about around 3 levels before he died and the party never even knew that he was a tiefling until then.

Also Drow stats would fit nice with the class. And the Tome version has access to every ritual (utility) spell in the game.

If you are really hung up on the poison idea, I recall the spell section suggesting you fluff your spells as you like. You can always have your EBlast create some type of vein swelling/discoloration effect on your targets for the flavor of poisoning them.

[brainface]

But I'm a bit concerned about not being able to do much spike damage. There's not much point in sneaking up on someone or separating out the NPC's if you can't bump off the loner.

In our temple of elemental evil campaign, our charlatan bard would do this by gathering hopeful npcs for "a performance", then unleashing thunderwave. (And alerting the entire fortress.)

So while you might not be able to assassinate a lone guy as a bard, you can definitely send mooks rag dolling through the air.

[Sitri]

Rereading what Brainface quoted got me thinking, if you are with a couple new players do you really want to be soloing targets yourself anyway?

It seems like a melee focused group (especially of new players) would have a lot more fun if you found ways to help them do the main thing they do. A twist on the concept of being able to isolate victims for you to kill, could be isolate them for your friends to Tank and DPS them to death. It would likely lead to a lot more enjoyment for the table.

I do realize this is a departure from your original request, but thought it worth mentioning either way. If you couldn't enjoy this style of play, obviously this won't fly. But like you I enjoy manipulation, in and out of combat. Majority of the characters I have ever built have very little damage potential (Warlocks being an obvious exception.) Let the DPSers have their fun and I have mine.

[Toblerone]

I do realize this is a departure from your original request, but thought it worth mentioning either way. If you couldn't enjoy this style of play, obviously this won't fly. But like you I enjoy manipulation, in and out of combat. Majority of the characters I have ever built have very little damage potential (Warlocks being an obvious exception.) Let the DPSers have their fun and I have mine.

No, that's actually part of the plan so thanks for refocus on it. I agree that I wasn't thinking of routinely trying to pull off one-shot assassinations. I think I was just looking at bard and wondering how to wring some damage out of it.

Thanks to all for suggestions. I am intrigued by Warlock, I just dislike the really obvious eldritch blast gambit. But the reality is it's so much better than a hand cross-bow for everything except coolness factor and application of poison.

Probably I'll just multiclass the hell out myself and get squished at 5th level for trying to be a smartass.

Adios!
Toblerone

[SharkForce]

No, that's actually part of the plan so thanks for refocus on it. I agree that I wasn't thinking of routinely trying to pull off one-shot assassinations. I think I was just looking at bard and wondering how to wring some damage out of it.

Thanks to all for suggestions. I am intrigued by Warlock, I just dislike the really obvious eldritch blast gambit. But the reality is it's so much better than a hand cross-bow for everything except coolness factor and application of poison.

Probably I'll just multiclass the hell out myself and get squished at 5th level for trying to be a smartass.

Adios!
Toblerone

good news: eldritch blast scales on character level, not class level. at level 5, your eldritch blast gets an extra ray whether you splashed for it or went full warlock.

you won't have level 5 spells, of course, but then, neither would a fighter (for example). if a fighter could potentially survive at level 5 based on their big increase of having 2 attacks per round, your multiclassed warlock should be fine.