Help build the Best scout character.

[Sir cryosin]

I was thinking of making the best scout I could. I was thinking a fell lvs of ranger rouge and druid. I don't know what lvs and the lv progressin I should take. Why druid I want the cantrips druid craft, mending, guidance. I'm going xbow so I was thinking vhuman getting xbow expert. I want guidance for insane stealth chacks and other ones. Mending for bolts and other stuff, druidcraft for to make a on the fly gilily suit and other stuff. I want rouge for cunning action, and expertise.

[Shining Wrath]

You can't use Guidance on yourself.

Druid so you can wild shape into innocuous creatures is useful.
Rogue gives you stealth proficiency and expertise. Check with your DM to make sure you can use it while wild shaped although I believe that's RAW.
Ranger may not add that much to the scout build except, perhaps, Perception


You'll need to build up both Wisdom(Perception) and Dexterity(Stealth), which does make Ranger an easy add if you want Hunter's Mark. I don't think you have to have Ranger, though. A rogue crossbow expert is not a bad scout; just make sure you get Perception somehow.

[Sir cryosin]

Guidance say you can touch one willing creature it doesn't say anything about not being able to touch yourself

[RulesJD]

1. Druid 3 (Wildshape into form no one would think to check for + Guidance + Pass Without Trace)

2. Arcane Trickster 11 (Reliable Talent + Invisibility + Expertise).

Can't have both Guidance and Pass W/out Trace, so use at your discretion.


Really that's it. With those abilities, your minimum stealth roll will be 2.5 (Guidance) OR + 10 (Pass W/out Trace) + 10 (Reliable Talent) + 5 (Dex) + 10 (Expertise) = 35 (Assuming PWT), which you can do anywhere you can be invisible.

Alternatively, if you want a full level 20 build:

Add on 6 levels of Shadow Monk. The free teleport 60ft is useful as a scout, especially if you already have Wall Walking from a small spider form or something.

OR

Just go straight Wizard and pull some Astral Plane + Scrying crap, or Arcane Eye, or just cast Invisibility on your Familiar and call it a day.

[Sillybird99]

Something that could synergies well would be a shadow monk druid multiclass. Take the ritual caster feat or mage initiate to get find familiar. Use the familiar to scout and save your wild shapes at early levels.

[bam13302]

Guidance say you can touch one willing creature it doesn't say anything about not being able to touch yourself

Correct, see PHB page 204 "Targeting yourself"

[Kyoami]

Warlock, Pact of the Chain, Voice of the Chain Master. Find a pub and drink ale while your little buddy does all the dirty work.

[MrFahrenheit]

Druid is most useful. Be a literal fly on the wall.
Otherwise, rogue or bard for expertise where it counts, or knowledge cleric as a backup.

[bam13302]

So this really depends on what you want to do with the scout.
If you want a scout build with good on speed, stealth, and good melee combat: (and some other scout stuff to taste)
Rogue 2+ (free ba dash and expertise in stealth + other stuff), some caster spells (having someone in your party with them is good, if noone can, feel free to grab them yourself (spells to look for are longstrider, haste, guidance, invisibility, etc. you could do this with rogue levels in arcane trickster if you wanted), and either barbarian (elk totem) or monk for speed.
Go Aarakoca if EE handbook is allowed (as all that stuff will boost your already crazy fly speed), if not, Winged tieflings are nice (fly speed will be super useful even at regular speeds), and if all else fails, wood elf also works too if just for the speed.
Barbarian+rogue is already an interesting combo, reckless attack gives you advantage on your sneak attack, if you have mobility (or swashbuckler rogue) you can then move away to deny them their advantage without disengaging (and all your speed boosts will be super nice in this, especially if you can top it off by ending your turn with a bonus action hide).
And grab the outlander background for all the ranger stuff you don't want to put levels into ranger to get.


My favorite build so far like this was Aarakoca, assassin rogue(14)+elk totem barb(6), strength focused, with a rapier and open hand.
Grabbed alert, and mobile and put the rest into strength then con (alert+assassin rogue is a deadly combo) for first round assassin fun, rage for a fly speed of 85 (50 base, +10 barb+15 elk+10 mobile) without dashing, charge in, stab for auto crit(14d6 from just the sneak attack dice), and run away (no disengage necessary due to mobile).
Bonus points if you grabbed expertise in athletics (and you have advantage when you rage), and you grapple him as you run away bringing his recently criticaled face to your allies.
Next round you have a grappled guy, in your hand, shove him prone (no longer need to reckless attack), and enjoy sneak attacking him as he fails to do anything against you (he has disadvantage on attack since he is prone and grapped [cant get up]) and he has to beat your crazy athletics score (with advantage since your raging) if he ever wants to move anywhere. And even if he does manage to hit you, you have resistance to all weapon damage and have uncanny dodge. His only hope is magical teleportation (if you want to screw that too, grab mage slayer, bonus points if you have an ally that casts silence and you drag the mage into the silence).
All this with high stealth, crazy speed, flying, and memory of geography (from outlander), makes you a an excellent scout and combat ally (you have 4 expertise skills by midgame, giving you stealth, athletics, perception, and whatever else)
If you need to move quickly, action+bonus action dash while in rage gives you 170 movement in one turn, with longstrider and haste, that can reach 570ft/turn (depending on various interpretation on what all haste's x2 speed can multiply, a minimum of 435), you can outrun dimension door, and can almost close to melee with a sharpshooter longbowman in 1 turn with proper preparation.


EDIT:
I find pass without trace not necessary for this build, this build gets reliable talent (admittedly late), but expertise in stealth should put your stealth rolls far beyond the reaches of most monsters passives.
That all being said, familiar's, arcane eye, and scrying can make dungeon scouting super easy.

[spartan_ah]

Best scout, pack of the chain. Invisible, winged, shapechanging imp is the ultimate scout. As I'm DMing one now...

[RulesJD]

Best scout, pack of the chain. Invisible, winged, shapechanging imp is the ultimate scout. As I'm DMing one now...

Eh, not really.

Great scout for sure, but their stealth roll sucks. Still have to make stealth checks even when Invisible. Especially while flying which makes noise.

[manny2510]

Divination wizard. Perfect scouting when needed.

[Kyoami]

Eh, not really.

Great scout for sure, but their stealth roll sucks. Still have to make stealth checks even when Invisible. Especially while flying which makes noise.

Imp's stealth is +5 and the sprite is +8. That's not really terrible, especially considering they both have invisibility on top of that. Not to mention, the imp can turn into something that can hide in plain sight in many cases.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Rogue 1/Shadow Monk

[unwise]

I would not consider being a human as a scout, lacking dark vision is too large a problem. I'd look first towards a wood elf for their hide in nature ability personally.

I'd look towards Ranger (or Scout) for the favour terrain thing. I know its a pretty terrible ability all around, but it does let you march at double time while still doing constant active perception or stealth. So if you want to be a scout that is scouting for long periods, it is pretty vital. If you mean just scouting during dungeon style encounters, then it is not so vital. If you can use Unearthed Arcana, I would lean towards the Scout fighter subclass myself, getting those extra skills is pretty cool and I think an action surge to get the hell out of dodge and the super-parry for when you get caught alone might be handy. Not to mention is makes all your relevant skills more reliable and reliability is the most important thing to a scout. Outside of Hunter's Mark, you likely won't go high enough in Ranger to get the coolest spells anyway.

Rogue for expertise Stealth and Bonus dash/hide is pretty pivotal.

Low level druid for shapeshift is pretty OP for scouting, very hard to pass up.

How do you signal news back to the group? If you are really fully investing in Scouting, then you might want to consider a feat or level dip to get Message. I suppose the druid can get animal message, that that could work. IMC the warlock uses his old one telepathy to talk back to the group, so he does more scouting than the rogue at the moment. Warlock also gets you darkvision, but I think we are getting into way too many classes now.

[wunderkid]

So this really depends on what you want to do with the scout.
If you want a scout build with good on speed, stealth, and good melee combat: (and some other scout stuff to taste)
Rogue 2+ (free ba dash and expertise in stealth + other stuff), some caster spells (having someone in your party with them is good, if noone can, feel free to grab them yourself (spells to look for are longstrider, haste, guidance, invisibility, etc. you could do this with rogue levels in arcane trickster if you wanted), and either barbarian (elk totem) or monk for speed.
Go Aarakoca if EE handbook is allowed (as all that stuff will boost your already crazy fly speed), if not, Winged tieflings are nice (fly speed will be super useful even at regular speeds), and if all else fails, wood elf also works too if just for the speed.
Barbarian+rogue is already an interesting combo, reckless attack gives you advantage on your sneak attack, if you have mobility (or swashbuckler rogue) you can then move away to deny them their advantage without disengaging (and all your speed boosts will be super nice in this, especially if you can top it off by ending your turn with a bonus action hide).
And grab the outlander background for all the ranger stuff you don't want to put levels into ranger to get.


My favorite build so far like this was Aarakoca, assassin rogue(14)+elk totem barb(6), strength focused, with a rapier and open hand.
Grabbed alert, and mobile and put the rest into strength then con (alert+assassin rogue is a deadly combo) for first round assassin fun, rage for a fly speed of 85 (50 base, +10 barb+15 elk+10 mobile) without dashing, charge in, stab for auto crit(14d6 from just the sneak attack dice), and run away (no disengage necessary due to mobile).
Bonus points if you grabbed expertise in athletics (and you have advantage when you rage), and you grapple him as you run away bringing his recently criticaled face to your allies.
Next round you have a grappled guy, in your hand, shove him prone (no longer need to reckless attack), and enjoy sneak attacking him as he fails to do anything against you (he has disadvantage on attack since he is prone and grapped [cant get up]) and he has to beat your crazy athletics score (with advantage since your raging) if he ever wants to move anywhere. And even if he does manage to hit you, you have resistance to all weapon damage and have uncanny dodge. His only hope is magical teleportation (if you want to screw that too, grab mage slayer, bonus points if you have an ally that casts silence and you drag the mage into the silence).
All this with high stealth, crazy speed, flying, and memory of geography (from outlander), makes you a an excellent scout and combat ally (you have 4 expertise skills by midgame, giving you stealth, athletics, perception, and whatever else)
If you need to move quickly, action+bonus action dash while in rage gives you 170 movement in one turn, with longstrider and haste, that can reach 570ft/turn (depending on various interpretation on what all haste's x2 speed can multiply, a minimum of 435), you can outrun dimension door, and can almost close to melee with a sharpshooter longbowman in 1 turn with proper preparation.


EDIT:
I find pass without trace not necessary for this build, this build gets reliable talent (admittedly late), but expertise in stealth should put your stealth rolls far beyond the reaches of most monsters passives.
That all being said, familiar's, arcane eye, and scrying can make dungeon scouting super easy.

His only hope is magical teleportation (if you want to screw that too, grab mage slayer

Unfortunately this bit doesn't work. Reactions (such as mage slayer) always take effect after the thing that triggers them. So misty step for example will poof you away and then the option to AOO comes into effect

Aside from that it's a funky build.

My build at the moment for scouting is bard 3 / arcane trickster 3

Scout ahead with insane stealth. Use the invisible mage hand to pick pocket holstered weaponry, replace arrows in their quiver with sticks etc

The extra expertises net me some persuasion. This let's me 'scout' by going ahead and engaging people in conversation (while the invisible mage hand does its thing).

Minor illusion also has some fun applications as does suggestion (last session we snuck aboard a ship got found by the deck master, suggested he helped us take down the captain, and he walked us right past the crew told us how to beat the captain, and well long story short we now have a new ship).

With find familiar from AT and the rules in the MM that let you chose an imp you have a nice little extra bit of scout potential but even an owl will do alright.

If you want a high damage dealing combat class this one isn't for you. You have a little sneak attack damage and some spell slots. If you can get dynamite or something using your mage hand to put it in people's pockets is amusing too. As you level up and get more spell slots the low level slots do really do some work as you're looking at debuffs rather than damage.

[djreynolds]

The UA fighter archetype scout, then coupled with rogue for expertise. Cannot go wrong. Lots of skills also. And you can magic this fellow up or just take arcane trickster for invisibility.

AT 3-6 and the UA scout archetype.