Best Class and Specialization for Infiltration?

[Garresh]

Hey, just looking for some advice on the best class for infiltration work around level 9 in an urban environment. I played as an Arcane Trickster but had to retire him for purely roleplay reasons. But, I was kind of dissatisfied with my ability to deal with magical defenses on areas, especially since your spells list is limited to only 1 spell outside of Illusion and Enchantment.

Here's a number of situations I've run into:

Alarm Spells. They're cast on doors, windows, and rooms. I've triggered these several times, unfortunately.

Antimagic Fields. Example: I was walking through an open gate with an invisibility spell, sneaking past 2 low level guards. Unfortunately there was an antimagic field in place, so I was quickly grappled and thrown in a cell. Luckily another stealthy character in our group misty stepped through the fence and managed to get me out, because he was really lucky the alarm spell in place had just worn off.

Magical Traps. There's no way to find traps without using Detect Magic or Identify, and again I have to choose between knowing they're there, or knowing what I'm dealing with, significantly limiting my options. Sometimes I'll make an educated guess and choose horribly wrong. Like if I decide maybe we should trigger a distraction and run through, only to discover it's a sleep spell not an alarm.

So when facing these scenarios, an arcane trickster really does just fall flat. They're good in combat, but I actually feel like rogues as a whole kind of suck for scouting against anything that isn't mundane. If they're scouting using invisibility, they can't see traps. If they're sneaking with detect magic, they can't tell what kind of trap it is or anything. If they take identify, they can't see traps anymore.

So for a level 9 infiltrator and scout, how do I get a way to deal with these things without gimping myself?

[Giant2005]

Rogue 1 for Expertise on Stealth and Thieves Tools.
Warlock 2 for Eldritch Sight and infinite Detect Magic castings.
And either continue Warlock to 8 for Dispel Magic if you don't mind having only 2 spell slots, or take 6 levels of Trickery Cleric or Druid for more spell slots, Dispel Magic, and Pass without Trace (and a little more MADness). Obviously Lore Bard would be better than Cleric or Druid levels if you want to use your Magical Secrets on Pass Without Trace.

[djreynolds]

Once you get 7 to 8 levels of rogue, you can pick warlock, wizard, what have you. Even 2 levels of rogue is enough.

[MrStabby]

Warlock.

Disguise self at will is superb. CHA as a class focus works well with deception.

Mind control spells (fey pact helps here) and invisibility are all nice bonuses.

With the situations you mentioned the invocation to let you cast detect magic at will will help out with magical traps and spot alarm spells. Getting past the guards, you can pretend to be their friend.

[wunderkid]

I actually prefer warlock 2, rogue 1/2, bard X for a stealthy build.

This nets you eldrich sight and infinite detect magic castings as mentioned. mask of many faces or misty visions can also have their place instead of eldrich sight if you already have darkvision and don't expect to have to deal with magical darkness. Or an +cha to eblast to keep your damage relevant and not rely on spell slots.

The rogue 1/2 will get you expertise and cunning action.

The bard will net you more expertise and magical secrets at 6 with full spell progression for the levels you take in this class. If you only go rogue 1 then you end with 9th level spells. Even if you go rogue 2 you still have 8th level by end game.

If you're going for the stealth infiltration route you have detect magic at will, bard gets you dispel magic which can be used on those alarms or magical effects that are impossible to work around, and hopefully enough spell slots too. Including invisibility and greater invisibility.

You have a whopping 6 expertises by end game which I'd take:
Stealth - for sneaking
thieves tools - traps
Perception - for noticing traps/guards etc
Deception - for blagging your way past things
Persuasion - for talking your way past things
Sleight of hand - for stealing

Likely in that order but it can be mixed around depending on what you want.

You also have cutting words to help with some skill checks and minor illusion which is great for sleuthing, along with a fair few other illusion spells from the bard list. And another good cantrip is friends. Be sparing with its use. I'd use it more to escape than to enter as after the duration they will be gunning for you.

If you go cunning action it can let you pull off things like casting a spell then bonus action to hide again. Gives you that little more turn economy to get past obstacles without leaving yourself exposed.

The expertise will let you stealth reliably but also talk your way past situations.

Magical secrets I'm sure could pick up something nice too.

I'd probably take Lightfoot halfling purely because the lucky trait is incredibly handy for that little buffer when doing skill checks (your proficiency + expertise will generally mean there's only a small window of failure anyway, lucky helps reduce that even more). The stats it gives are handy too.

Grab a cloak of elven kind for advantage on stealth and disadvantage to their perception. It's uncommon.

Eyes of the eagle are great too. Also uncommon.

An uncommon bard instrument is pretty amazing too. But now you're getting greedy.

I am slightly biased towards the bard mind you. Personally I think it's the best class around but that is wholly my opinion (not looking to start a debate on it simply voicing why in advocating it so hard)

[Garresh]

Bard does look pretty awesome, but I'm looking over options and it seems like a monk warlock has the best potential here. Perhaps I'm mistake, but I kind of feel like stealth expertise is overrated. There are just way too many scenarios where stealth can't even be attempted because you have to have basically total concealment to attempt to hide. I'd rather just rely on invisibility, although if I walk into an antimagic field I'm screwed.

Like, I had a situation where I was waiting on a rooftop to ambush, but I had to move way away from the edge because RAW I couldn't stealth there because they could see me, so I had to move to the middle of the roof and basically lay down and wait for the rest of the party to signal me it was time to go.

[wunderkid]

If your gm says that you can't move stealthily then a sneaking based character may not be that great.

Also important point to remember you still need to make stealth rolls while invisible. It does nothing to mask noise you make.

[Skylivedk]

Shadow monk / warlock or lore bard / warlock - or even all three, are value for days. The bard list is strong in illusions and enchantment while warlock provides at-will abilities out the whazoo. The monk is neigh untrappable :)

[Specter]

Rogue and Bard are enough; you can pick whatever spells you want at level 6, so go for Darkvision/Knock and Pass Without Trace

[Giant2005]

Bard does look pretty awesome, but I'm looking over options and it seems like a monk warlock has the best potential here. Perhaps I'm mistake, but I kind of feel like stealth expertise is overrated. There are just way too many scenarios where stealth can't even be attempted because you have to have basically total concealment to attempt to hide. I'd rather just rely on invisibility, although if I walk into an antimagic field I'm screwed.

Like, I had a situation where I was waiting on a rooftop to ambush, but I had to move way away from the edge because RAW I couldn't stealth there because they could see me, so I had to move to the middle of the roof and basically lay down and wait for the rest of the party to signal me it was time to go.

It sounds to me like your DM is being unnecessarily harsh on Stealth and unnecessarily easy on Invisibility. In that case I agree with you, there isn't any point in having a character that is good at being stealthy if you want to be stealthy.

[wunderkid]

Aye shadow monk is awesome for infiltration. It's a little more MAD going monk/lock dex,cha and wis but the at will shadow teleporting is awesome, costs on the social side though. Bardlock (or even the above mentioned bardogueock) is Dex, cha. Great all rounder for dealing with a variety of situations however I think it will likely suffer a little (although only a little) combat efficiency for the versatility trade off.

Comes down to which flavour you prefer really. The monk lock comes online a lot quicker (well level 8 for the at will tps) but with smoother progression. The bardogueock won't really come online until level 8 or so, but is a bit wobbly levels 5-7

[Garresh]

Well either way this has been helpful. I did some theory crafting on bards and monk locks and they all look vastly superior to what I was running before, so there's that.

But it will be a while until I can use this, as I needed something else to swap in and my current replacement is not stealthy, and nigh unkillable.

He's a hill dwarf life cleric 1 sorc8 in full plate with a shield, who spams healing and twinned buff spells. So... Probably not going anywhere for a while. He has more Hp than our barbarian.

[Adderbane]

Don't forget warlock pact of the chain; lots of possible familiars can be sneaky

[SharkForce]

well, just go down to the shop of selling antimagic fields for stupid cheap prices (because seriously, that should be like a legendary item, not something you just casually throw on a door somewhere casually) and you will no longer have to worry about your ability to bypass magic defenses ever again.

in all seriousness, it does seem like the DM is putting in a stupid amount of anti-stealth measures into the game. it looks suspiciously like the DM has basically decided that sneaking anywhere is cheating, and is acting to block anything of the sort. so, with this DM at least (again, bearing in mind that the DM appears to be putting in absolutely stupid amounts of defenses against stealth), i would recommend that you just make a character for full frontal assaults, with absolutely no subtlety at all.

[wunderkid]

I BE GROG THE NINJA BARBARIAN
*GROG 'stealthily' kicks down the door and quietly brutally murders the guards*

One witness survives.

"YOU DID'N SEE NUFFINK RIGHT?"

witness nods and puddles himself.

Infiltration successful.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'd go for a full three levels of Warlock and take Pact of the Chain so I can have a scouty familiar-- especially the shape-shifting ones? Alarm spell goes off? Ahh, it's just a big spider, nothing to worry about.

[RickAllison]

Another useful advantage of Warlocks: Hex. This requires being a little more aggressive, but Hex lets you inflict disadvantage on Perception. For passive, that's worth a -5, and this can be passed around.

[wunderkid]

Another useful advantage of Warlocks: Hex. This requires being a little more aggressive, but Hex lets you inflict disadvantage on Perception. For passive, that's worth a -5, and this can be passed around.

Cloak of elven kind is an uncommon magical item that gives advantage stealth, and disadvantage perception with no resource uses. Granted it relies on your GM but it is only an uncommon item so it's not like asking for something legendary.

Hex has verbal components so casting it will break stealth unfortunately. Although if it's already up and being passed around later then it can work, seems like too specific a situation to really make use though, but good to keep in mind if it does occur.

[Giant2005]

Hex has verbal components so casting it will break stealth unfortunately. Although if it's already up and being passed around later then it can work, seems like too specific a situation to really make use though, but good to keep in mind if it does occur.

That doesn't really work either - once you Hex someone, it is stuck on that person until you drop them to 0 HP. So unless you are going to break stealth to beat the crap out of someone, it is only going to be useful against a single person.

[wunderkid]

That doesn't really work either - once you Hex someone, it is stuck on that person until you drop them to 0 HP. So unless you are going to break stealth to beat the crap out of someone, it is only going to be useful against a single person.

That's what I meant by passed around, thinking a rogue and assassin team, who would pick people off one by one pumping the hex along each time

Like I said highly situational.

[RickAllison]

That's what I meant by passed around, thinking a rogue and assassin team, who would pick people off one by one pumping the hex along each time

Like I said highly situational.

I never said it was something to make a build on :smalltongue:

It is just one more powerful tool that Warlocks have in addition to everything else. Disguise Self at-will lets you sneak around in the form of a guard, Detect Magic lets you spy any magics in the area, and Hex lets you eliminate threats. While it might not be the most important feature for infiltration, it fulfills a niche that has a good likelihood of coming up.

[Garresh]

well, just go down to the shop of selling antimagic fields for stupid cheap prices (because seriously, that should be like a legendary item, not something you just casually throw on a door somewhere casually) and you will no longer have to worry about your ability to bypass magic defenses ever again.

in all seriousness, it does seem like the DM is putting in a stupid amount of anti-stealth measures into the game. it looks suspiciously like the DM has basically decided that sneaking anywhere is cheating, and is acting to block anything of the sort. so, with this DM at least (again, bearing in mind that the DM appears to be putting in absolutely stupid amounts of defenses against stealth), i would recommend that you just make a character for full frontal assaults, with absolutely no subtlety at all.

Not really. For dungeon and wilderness encounters we can murder it up but one of our missions we went full murder hobo and the game got rolled back 2 sessions because we killed like 30 people. And with alarm spells everywhere I can't even sneak into an out of town guards office without being stopped dead in my tracks. Can arcana be used to disable stuff like alarms?

Anyways that time we had to sneak into a place a d it got rolled back we wound up just paying someone to Forge papers and walking up and asking for the stuff they had to transfer to another guard station.

So I'm definitely at a loss, because a lot of these places have the magical defenses to stop 2 stealth characters dead in their tracks, but a barbarian can murder most of the guard by himself without breaking a sweat. But we're supposed to avoid casualties. I'm thinking more and more that warlock up to level 5 at least for dispel magic is the best option.

[Theoboldi]

If you want to avoid casualties, but stealth isn't an option, why don't you just all go full melee and simply knock the guards unconscious with your attacks? That's right there in the rules. Heck, if being recognized is an issue you could just dress in colourful outfits while beating people up and become a full-blown superhero team with secret identities. :smalltongue:

[SharkForce]

If you want to avoid casualties, but stealth isn't an option, why don't you just all go full melee and simply knock the guards unconscious with your attacks? That's right there in the rules. Heck, if being recognized is an issue you could just dress in colourful outfits while beating people up and become a full-blown superhero team with secret identities. :smalltongue:

or brute force it by other means; a sleep spell will knock out guards from a distance without harming anyone. there are plenty of poisons that paralyze people for an extended period as well. the DC is low, but when you're using it on 2 HD guards that have terrible saving throws, that isn't a major problem.

(also, I believe arcana can be used to disarm magical traps, but unlike other editions I don't believe there is any clear statement as to whether various spells count as magical traps, or just as spells).

[Garresh]

or brute force it by other means; a sleep spell will knock out guards from a distance without harming anyone. there are plenty of poisons that paralyze people for an extended period as well. the DC is low, but when you're using it on 2 HD guards that have terrible saving throws, that isn't a major problem.

(also, I believe arcana can be used to disarm magical traps, but unlike other editions I don't believe there is any clear statement as to whether various spells count as magical traps, or just as spells).

Sleeps probably too weak, since we're looking at multiclass characters with lower level spell slots at an average party level of 9th. Tbh, I'm almost feeling like next time I play a stealth character I'll just run the monklock thing for god-tier detection and darkness at will(no dispel though), and then Just dogear every single stealth rule with the errata pdf on my phone. More and more it seems like the problem wasn't even arcane trickster so much as bad rulings I guess? I mean in the GMs defense I also made poor decisions...often. But it was frankly disheartening to feel like my stealth was an unreliable mechanic 90% of the time. And iirc I think I had like 7 arcana at level 9 which is not terrific, but is still pretty good for an infiltrator so I could've potentially disabled a lot of stuff.

[wunderkid]

Stealth should be reliable. As a rogue it's effectivly your AC. It's why you get cunning action. Most turns you should drop into stealth no problems, it's only if you roll badly and their passive perception beats yours that you should risk taking a beating. Or if they have a notice bunny who uses his action to look for you then points you out to his friends.

After all martials get plate to survive, or high hp, or a special AC, it seems like your gm is just against stealth in general, it shouldnt be a hard thing to pull off unless your in a field with freshly cut grass. Or roll terribly.

Seriously have a word with your gm before rolling up a new character, see if you can get him to see how stealth should be used and if he is still of the same mind set then never ever try stealth with him again because it will be ridiculously underpowered.

[Saeviomage]

Bard does look pretty awesome, but I'm looking over options and it seems like a monk warlock has the best potential here. Perhaps I'm mistake, but I kind of feel like stealth expertise is overrated. There are just way too many scenarios where stealth can't even be attempted because you have to have basically total concealment to attempt to hide. I'd rather just rely on invisibility, although if I walk into an antimagic field I'm screwed.

Like, I had a situation where I was waiting on a rooftop to ambush, but I had to move way away from the edge because RAW I couldn't stealth there because they could see me, so I had to move to the middle of the roof and basically lay down and wait for the rest of the party to signal me it was time to go.

Tbh, it sounds like your dm has just decided ahead of time that any infiltration attempt will fail. The permanent anti magic field was a bit of a giveaway.

From your later posts, it sounds like your dm wants you to play "guess what solution I'm thinking of". Point out to him that that isn't fun, and you'd probably all enjoy the game more if he reasoned out how the world works and placed obstacles appropriately instead of placing arbitrary obstacles to force you to stick to his plot.

[Garresh]

Tbh, it sounds like your dm has just decided ahead of time that any infiltration attempt will fail. The permanent anti magic field was a bit of a giveaway.

That mission was actually successful after the other stealth character got in via a different route and bailed me out. He started a fire and forced them to disabled their antimagic effects so they could put it out through magical means. It seems like it's not so much a case of infiltration being wanted to fail as much as poor balance with regards to magical effects and some wonky rulings on how stealth works.

Edit: Basically, it was expected we'd be spamming detect magic I guess, and further not known that rogues could use Arcana to detect magical traps. heh.

[wunderkid]

Well yes, it's a 10 minute duration I believe on detect magic.

I'm all for the dm trying to create interesting stealth opportunities.

After all 'i cast invisibility, I walk past everyone' makes for a mighty boring adventure!

I still advise talking to your gm about stealth, and then having a long hard thing / asking the forum exactly how to counter stealth, so that you can get your counter counter stealth plans in place.

Also a rule that I try to live by in d&d is: magic can make things easy, but always make sure if possible you have another mundane set of skills under your belt.gms LOVE throwing anti magic around because casters can cake walk a lot of things if given free reign to cast spells. For example even of a night ill set up alarm if I have the ritual but I'll still always make sure someone is standing watch. I may have knock prepared but will also carry thieves tools. I may have fly on my list but if I know ahead of time I'll bring climbing tools. That way my magic is there if I need it. But I don't rely on it

So sure use invisibility, but do so while sneaking in how you would if you didn't have it. Treat it like an added layer of protection rather than a crux.

[Saeviomage]

That mission was actually successful after the other stealth character got in via a different route and bailed me out. He started a fire and forced them to disabled their antimagic effects so they could put it out through magical means. It seems like it's not so much a case of infiltration being wanted to fail as much as poor balance with regards to magical effects and some wonky rulings on how stealth works.


Why would they need magic to put out a fire?

[R.Shackleford]

I'm a big fan of Human Str-Rogue (Swashbuckler or Mastermind) 5/Bard 5

[Garresh]

Why would they need magic to put out a fire?

I have no idea.

[SharkForce]

magic is a much more effective way to put out fire, i guess. and i mean, if you're rocking a permanent anti-magic field, having some low-level magic that can put out fires almost sounds more plausible than not having a permanent anti-magic field (the field makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you're pretty much drowning in spellcasters).

[Garresh]

magic is a much more effective way to put out fire, i guess. and i mean, if you're rocking a permanent anti-magic field, having some low-level magic that can put out fires almost sounds more plausible than not having a permanent anti-magic field (the field makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you're pretty much drowning in spellcasters).

Yeah it's a pretty high magic campaign, but magic gear is the same price as normal and we're acurally under level for gold. So it kind of feels like the encounters are CR 7 but the magic i CR 14...

[Temperjoke]

It really does sound like your DM is metagaming a little bit, setting up defenses that seem keyed towards your party, as opposed to more general defenses. He also seems to want to run it like a videogame, where you have to proceed in the proper order, otherwise you fail your attempt. Hence why the attempt succeeded when your party managed to trick them into lowering the field.

From the sound of things, you want to play more of a skill-monkey sort of character, specializing in breaking-and-entering. I think your original problem was that in your DM's high magic world, there are a lot of defenses against magic, which the AT Rogue doesn't have the amount of magic to counter. You might want to consider a Moon druid, using wildshape to transform into various animal forms for sneaking into places. While I don't think it'll work in an anti-magic field, it would give you a lot of flexibility in your intrusion.

You could also consider a Pact of the Chain Warlock, with the Eldritch Sight and Voice of the Chain Master invocations. Eldritch Sight allows you to cast detect magic at will, and Voice of the Chain Master allows you to see through your familiar's senses and communicate with it. Why is this useful for infiltration? Chain Warlocks can get better familiars, which can include the ability for invisibility and shape-shifting; and if you can communicate with it, you can guide it through to disable some of the alarms.

[Garresh]

Lol I guess. I'm not sure if I should find it sad or hilarious that I found an encounter where we had to fight a remmorhaz or whatever its called in close quarters, then escape a flaming building by running through squares that did 5 damage each, with the shortest and least damaging route being 12 squares long, so like 60 damage to every party member. That's freaking cake compared to trying to sneak into a compound with 2 guards out front. I'll probably stick to healing for a good long while, but whenever I dabble in stealth again I'm making warlock 2 mandatory, with warlock 3 a strong likely pickup. As for everything else, i would be somewhere between 5-7 in shadow monk, or moon druid. Either one of those is nice and can work with Warlock from what I can see. Maybe not stat wise, but in terms of synergistic abilities.

[TheFlyingCleric]

If you want the ultimate in finding both mundane and magical traps at a distance, you should get the 2nd level spell Find Traps. Its definition of a 'trap' is (on purpose) so vague that it should be able to detect antimagic fields used in the way you described. It even tells you the basic threat each trap poses!

Unfortunately it's only on the Cleric, Druid & Ranger spell lists.

[Garresh]

If you want the ultimate in finding both mundane and magical traps at a distance, you should get the 2nd level spell Find Traps. Its definition of a 'trap' is (on purpose) so vague that it should be able to detect antimagic fields used in the way you described. It even tells you the basic threat each trap poses!

Unfortunately it's only on the Cleric, Druid & Ranger spell lists.

Wait. Find traps *literally* mentions Alarm by name. And the DMG says arcana can be used to find and disarm traps. Would it exactly be a stretch to point out that RAI are probably to have arcana work for disarming? Especially since most counters are in the same level range, or lower. Alarm is a 1st level spell and the counter is a 3rd level spell. Which seems terribly out of place...

[wunderkid]

Wait. Find traps *literally* mentions Alarm by name. And the DMG says arcana can be used to find and disarm traps. Would it exactly be a stretch to point out that RAI are probably to have arcana work for disarming? Especially since most counters are in the same level range, or lower. Alarm is a 1st level spell and the counter is a 3rd level spell. Which seems terribly out of place...

What page on the dmg is this?

Also this find trap spell furthers my suggestion for the bardogueock, using magical secrets to nab the spell for the ultimate infiltration expert. (and expertise in arcana, stealth, deception and another skill of your choice)

[Garresh]

What page on the dmg is this?

Also this find trap spell furthers my suggestion for the bardogueock, using magical secrets to nab the spell for the ultimate infiltration expert. (and expertise in arcana, stealth, deception and another skill of your choice)

Sorry I was using the free SRD pdf, but page 200...

"Any character can attempt an Intelligence
(Arcana) check to detect or disarm a magic trap, in
addition to any other checks noted in the trap’s
description"

[Giant2005]

Sorry I was using the free SRD pdf, but page 200...

"Any character can attempt an Intelligence
(Arcana) check to detect or disarm a magic trap, in
addition to any other checks noted in the trap’s
description"

That is on page 121.