Ranged Rogue: Damage maximizing with Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter/Familiar

[lkwpeter]

Hey!

I am playing a level 9 ranged rogue with:


Crossbow Expert (allows second crossbow attack as a bonus action)
Sharpshooter (allows -5 on attack roll for +10 damage)
Familiar (Owl) (grants me Advantage via Help Action).

So I always find myself considering what's the smartest way for attacking:


I definitely want to apply my Sneak Attack what does most of my damage/round (5D6 extra damage).

Furthermore I want to take the biggest Advantage out of my Familiar's Help Action that grants me Advantage for an attack against a specific creature. And it feels like it would be the best to use that advantage for the -5/+10 penalty from Sharpshooter.

Sometimes there is no problem combining both, especially when fighting big tough creatures that take a lot of damage. But sometimes this doesn't make sense. For example when creatures have low/little health and Sneak Attack plus Sharpshooter (-5 attack/+10 damage) would be a waste. And these are exactöy the situations I am asking myself:


What is the best way to combine Advantage, Sneak Attack and second weapon attack?
What should I use my Bonus Action for? Should I always use my Bonus Action for a second crossbow attack or is it better to hide instead to get two times advantage in the next round? (First comes from attacking while hidden. Second one from my familiar. I know that I need to attack two different creatures for that.)

This seems also to be dependend from the creatures health and armor class. I don't want to make science of it (although it feels like I somehow already do ;) ). What I am looking for is something like a rule of thumb.

Maybe you guys can help me. Would be glad about it! Thanks in advance!

Peter

[Specter]

Apply the -5 to the attack with advantage. It should work most of the time.

When you have somewhere to hide, definitely hide. Not only for the advantage, but to avoid being targeted by the enemy.

If you're open to multiclassing, Battle Master, Monster Hunter and Scout (UA) would severely improve your accuracy, with Archery's +2 and Precision Strike.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

1. If you know (or at least have a good idea of) your enemy's AC, then whether to use GWM/Sharpshooter is more or less a solvable problem - see here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?373572-GWM-Reference-Table), and use your average damage. Now, as a 9th level Rogue with a Hand Crossbow, you should be doing an average of around 26 damage with a sneak attack (3.5 for the weapon, 17.5 for the Sneak Attack, and 5 for your dexterity)*. Thus, we see that using Sharpshooter without advantage is only wise against enemies you could otherwise hit on a 3 or less. Assuming you have an attack bonus of +9 (4 for proficiency, 5 for dexterity)*, that's enemies with an AC of 12 or less, which are going to be fairly uncommon at your level, though hardly unheard of. With advantage, Sharpshooter becomes something of a better bet, useful against enemies with an AC of up to 17, which should be a fair chunk of them. On an attack where you do not have sneak attack, however, Sharpshooter is much more useful - with your average damage only being 8.5 (3.5 for the weapon, 5 for the dexterity)*, it becomes advisable against enemies with an AC of up to 20 without advantage or 21 with it, which will be almost all enemies.

2. Overall, a second attack tends to be better than advantage in almost all scenarios. Thus, unless you have other reasons to hide (like not getting targeted or running away, both subjects close to the black heart of any self-respecting Rogue), I would take the second shot in general.

To conclude, my advice would a) be to only even consider using Sharpshooter on attacks with Sneak Attack if you have advantage, and even then only against relatively low AC enemies, b) to generally use Sharpshooter on attacks without Sneak Attack, except against enemies with an unusually high AC, and c) to prioritise getting off your second attack over getting advantage.

Specter's advice on considering a few levels in Fighter is well worth considering, though I would personally wait until level 11, because Reliable Talent is awesome.

*The maths here is assuming you have a dexterity of 20, and do not have a magic weapon or any other miscellaneous modifiers to your to-hit or damage. If you do adjust accordingly.

[lkwpeter]

Thanks for your answers. Especially your calculating, TheTeaMustFlow! That is just awesome and exactly what I was looking for!


The only thing I am still unsure about are low HP targets:

Let's say there are several mobs with low HP and my familiar granted me Advantage for an attack against one of them.

Is it advisable to attack a different creature first to possibly apply sneak attack. And after that attack the foe with Sharpshooter my familiar granted me Advantage with? Because then I could avoid "overdamaging"/"overkilling" low hp targets.
Or would you *always* try to apply Sneak Attack first - regardless of whether I have Advantage or not? And after that attack with the second attack?


Concerning Fighter levels: I already dipped 1 level into Fighter and chose Archery stlye (+2 on ranged attacks). But I only have 18 Dex so far, beacause I picked up two talents. So I have a modifier of 10 (4 from proficiency and 4 from dexterity). I was thinking of following the rogue's path until level 11 and then head over to fighter. Although I am not quite sure, if the Sneak Attack damage from going straight rogue would be better than a second attack. But I like the Battler Master Archetype for the maneuvers.

[djreynolds]

You can only sneak attack once a turn, so any extra attack is just to ensure you hit and land that awesome SA damage.

So Specter is right, you need precision it is the best as you add 1d8 after you roll if you miss.

Precision is more reliable than advantage.

The scout is a very cool archetype, if allowed, because you can use that SD on skills and precision.

You can bolster your stealth and sniper shots.

I'm guessing you are human, so I would look into acquiring the darkvision spell if you are an Arcane Trickster, or the skulker feat.

I would snag precision sooner, rather than later. So that's 3 levels of fighter pronto.

I like crossbow expert, but do you need it? You only require one shot as a sniper, and if caught in melee, just use a sword or dagger as precision works on all attacks.

I would very humbly,IMO, ditch the crossbow expert unless you plan on taking more levels of fight for the extra attack.

Sharp shooter is essential for a sniper and not just for the +10 damage but the increased range. Precision from battlemaster is next. Skulker or darkvision, max dex and lucky. I would dump crossbow expert.

I like using crossbow expert in melee it does work, but you definitely might want 5 levels of fighter for the extra attack as you are relying more on the damage from sharpshooter than the sneak attack than.

[lkwpeter]

Thanks for your answer!

1.)
I think on this point it makes sense to post my build:


Classes: Rogue 8 (Arcane Trickster) + Fighter 1
Race: Human (Variant)
Abilities: STR 8 | DEX 18 | CON 14 | WIS 12 | INT 12 | CHA 13
Talents: Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter
Spells: (Cantrips) Minor Illusion, Message, Mage Hand, (1st) Find Familiar, Silent Image, Disguise Self, (2nd) Darkvision, Invisibility, Mirror Image

So I already picked up Darkvision (finally! :smallwink:).


I like using crossbow expert in melee it does work, but you definitely might want 5 levels of fighter for the extra attack as you are relying more on the damage from sharpshooter than the sneak attack than.

I don't get that. Maybe it's due to language problems. But why should Extra Attack surpass Sneak Attack in damage? And why is the "extra attack" of Crossbow Expert worth less than the Extra Attack from Fighter level 5? I think they complement each other very well, don't they? And especially while not having Precision Attack a second attack means "a second chance". So I think Crossbow Expert is really a cornerstone of this build.


2.)
With Fighter(1)/Rogue(8) I achieved a milestone of this build (Darkvision, ASI) . Now it's a hard decision between:


Extra ASI (Rogue 10) + Reliable Talent (Rogue 11)
and Precision Attack (Fighter 3) and perhapbs Extra Attack (Fighter 5).

The question seems to be: "Is Precision Attack even more worthwhile than and extra ASI?" The pro on going fighter levels is that I would also get another ASI only one level later (Fighter +3 vs. Rogue +2). And in addition it's only one more level for Extra Attack.


3.)
Last but no least I still would be happy about some tips concerning the mentioned situation:


The only thing I am still unsure about are low HP targets:

Let's say there are several mobs with low HP and my familiar granted me Advantage for an attack against one of them.

Is it advisable to attack a different creature first to possibly apply sneak attack. And after that attack the foe with Sharpshooter my familiar granted me Advantage with? Because then I could avoid "overdamaging"/"overkilling" low hp targets.
Or would you *always* try to apply Sneak Attack first - regardless of whether I have Advantage or not? And after that attack with the second attack?


I am really glad about your help! Thanks for that!

[djreynolds]

Could be my horrible writing skills.... All right it is my horrible writing skills

Imagine an 11th battlemaster with 3 attacks using sharpshooter and hitting on all of them, that 30 damage flat at 11th level plus 15 for dex. Not including weapon damage. Now imagine that 11th level battlemaster with two hand crossbows... he lives on that damage from the sharpshooter feat. And spam precision superiority dice if he misses.

A rogue at 11th level has 5d6 sneak attack, but has to connect. I may not even want to use sharpshooter (-5/+10) aspect out of fear of missing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you are a rogue running around in melee yes crossbow expert is fine. Duel crossbows or short sword/crossbow.

If you are a ranged rogue, sniper, sharpshooter is nice to have for the range portion.

But maybe you do not need both as a rogue. And without the extra attack from 5 levels of fighter you have to use your bonus action to use the off-hand attack, either via crossbow expert and the hand crossbow or just dueling short swords... but you lose the ability to use cunning action and disengage. So if you had the extra attack from fighter, you could shoot twice and still have the ability to use cunning action.

I do not know if I'm helping or hindering because I like the build.

Because I love the build, darkvision, archery style, find familiar. And I do love short sword/hand crossbow style very cool

[lkwpeter]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you are a rogue running around in melee yes crossbow expert is fine. Duel crossbows or short sword/crossbow.

[...]

And I do love short sword/hand crossbow style very cool
Thanks for you answer again! I appreciate that discussion! But I think you don't take into account that you are not able to wield two hand crossbow and/or a melee weapon with Crossbow Expert, because you need to have a free hand to reload the crossbows. The Sage Advice from Jeremy Crawford (D&D Rule's Manager) are very clear about that.



If you are a ranged rogue, sniper, sharpshooter is nice to have for the range portion.
What is that "sniper" feat you are talking about? Or have I missed something?



Imagine an 11th battlemaster with 3 attacks using sharpshooter and hitting on all of them, that 30 damage flat at 11th level plus 15 for dex. Not including weapon damage. Now imagine that 11th level battlemaster with two hand crossbows... he lives on that damage from the sharpshooter feat. And spam precision superiority dice if he misses.
If you hit all these attacks that's quite a lot damage. But the emphasis is on if you do. I think you don't take into account that Sneak Attack hits more often than Sharpshooter attacks with the -5 penalty. So the calculation is not very reliable. ;-)

[djreynolds]

I like the build, with a familiar, like an owl, you will have a good source of advantage.

Could you or would you use a bow over a crossbow?

Shaprshooter with a longbow, or even a heavy crossbow is awesome.

Its an awesome build, I love AT and remember a bard or cleric can make things easier also.

[lkwpeter]

I like the build, with a familiar, like an owl, you will have a good source of advantage.

Could you or would you use a bow over a crossbow?

Shaprshooter with a longbow, or even a heavy crossbow is awesome.

Its an awesome build, I love AT and remember a bard or cleric can make things easier also.

Thanks for your reply! I played with a bow before going Crossbow Expert. The problem was: I missed a lot. And that's why I chose CE to have a "second chance" applying my Sneak Attack damage. But to be honest that was before I knew that my owl familar could grant me Advantage with the Help Action. I rarely need my Cunning Action, because most of the time I am in save distance. So the second attack is more or less a "free" one.

I can understand your argumentation. The use of Crossbow Expert has its two sides. But I think I have enough ASI as a rogue to take that "luxury talent" (if you know that I mean).

[djreynolds]

Thanks for your reply! I played with a bow before going Crossbow Expert. The problem was: I missed a lot. And that's why I chose CE to have a "second chance" applying my Sneak Attack damage. But to be honest that was before I knew that my owl familar could grant me Advantage with the Help Action. I rarely need my Cunning Action, because most of the time I am in save distance. So the second attack is more or less a "free" one.

I can understand your argumentation. The use of Crossbow Expert has its two sides. But I think I have enough ASI as a rogue to take that "luxury talent" (if you know that I mean).

Cool. I like the rogue chassis, its so versatile.

So you shoot once with a hand crossbow, and then shoot with the other hand crossbow as your bonus action. And sharpshooter helps to increase the distance

[lkwpeter]

So you shoot once with a hand crossbow, and then shoot with the other hand crossbow as your bonus action. And sharpshooter helps to increase the distance

Yes, you can do so. But then you are NOT able to reload your two crossbows, because that requires one hand free. The Sage Advice (http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SA-Compendium.pdf) states that:


Do the first and third benefits of Crossbow Expert turn a
hand crossbow into a semiautomatic weapon? The short
answer is no.
The first benefit of the feat lets you ignore the loading
property (PH, 147) of the hand crossbow if you’re proficient
with that weapon. The upshot is that you can fire it more
than once if you have a feature like Extra Attack. You’re still
limited, however, by the fact that the weapon has the ammunition
property (PH, 146). The latter property requires
you to have a bolt to fire from the hand crossbow, and the
hand crossbow isn’t going to load itself (unless it’s magical
or a gnomish invention). You need to load each bolt into the
weapon, and doing so requires a hand.
To dig deeper into this point, take a look at the following
sentence in the definition of the ammunition property:
“Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other
container is part of the attack.” The sentence tells us two
important things. First, you’re assumed to be drawing—
that is, extracting with your hand—the ammunition from
a container. Second, the act of drawing the ammunition is
included in the attack and therefore doesn’t require its own
action and doesn’t use up your free interaction with an object
on your turn.
What does that all mean for a hand crossbow? It means
Crossbow Expert makes it possible to fire a hand crossbow
more than once with a feature like Extra Attack, provided
that you have enough ammunition and you have a hand free
to load it for each shot.


So the more usual use for that is to attack with only ONE crossbow twice a round using your Bonus Action.

[djreynolds]

Right but in order to get that off hand attack with the hand crossbow, I think it is assumed it was preloaded before the turn.

So the only way for someone to use this feat with only "one" attack, they would need 2 separate hand crossbows already loaded.
You would in essence use a main hand attack with a weapon, such as a sword or loaded hand crossbow, and have in your off hand a loaded hand crossbow, which with crossbow expert is a light weapon and you can fire now fire it. But it would have to be loaded from a previous turn, unless you had the extra attack feature.

I'm not sure, if PC with one attack can fire a hand crossbow and then reload the same crossbow and fire it with his off hand, as a bonus action.

So that's why I was thinking you were just using 2 hand crossbows you had preloaded.

[lkwpeter]

I'm not sure, if PC with one attack can fire a hand crossbow and then reload the same crossbow and fire it with his off hand, as a bonus action.

So that's why I was thinking you were just using 2 hand crossbows you had preloaded.
Yes, you can! That is actually the biggest benefit from that feat. But a lot of people misunderstand that you only have to have one crossbow instead of two! So you can attack as many times as you are able to, for example if you have two attacks from the Extra Attack class feature. In addition to that you can also fire another shot using your Bonus Action.

Crossbow Expert ignores the loading property. That's why you can attack as many times as you have attacks per round. But you still need to have one hand free, because the weapon doesn't reload itself.

[djreynolds]

Thanks to extensive practice with the crossbow, you gain the following benefits:
◾You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient.
◾Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
◾When you use the Attack action and attack with a one handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding.

I'm okay with players doing what they want,

But the hand crossbow is already loaded when you make the first attack that allows you to receive a bonus action to use the loaded hand crossbow after attacking with your main hand weapon, try the RAW thread and see what those chaps think about it.

So I would just use two loaded hand crosswbows to alleviate this.

[lkwpeter]

It could be that we are misunderstanding each other.

Yes, you don't need to load the crossbow for the first attack.
Yes, you can shoot a second loaded crossbow after the first one. You don't need to load the second crossbow for the first attack as well.
No, you can not reload the two crossbows, if you have no free hand. That is why shooting with only one crossbow multiple times is better. Because you can shoot as many times you want without having to put away either one of them.

The Sage Advice (http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/SA-Compendium.pdf) is official ruling from Wizards of the Coast. That means that it is RAW.

[djreynolds]

I stand corrected, it does say you can the same handcross bow for both attacks.

Then it is a powerful feature indeed.

[MeeposFire]

I am not sure about the math with advantage but without advantage a rogue should probably avoid using the -5 unless they know the AC is very low and even then maybe not. One instance of +10 is not worth missing on your sneak attack.

That being said unless there is a change in the rules since I bought my PHB you make the choice to use the -5/+10 per attack so you would choose to not use sharp shooter on your first attack and if you hit (and thus use your sneak attack damage) then you would choose to use sharpshooter on your second attack and if you miss the first attack then you should probably go without sharp shooter on the second attack.

[djreynolds]

Well now that you helped rid me of my curse of stupidity, thank you, you are looking for a way to increase your likely hood of landing sharpshooter on either the 1st attack or 2nd attack.

The owl is a good choice for this with fly-by, just know DMs love to kill 1HP familiars. This is a good source of advantage, and very good choice on your part.

Another good way is using that cunning action to hide, so as long as your team mate doesn't mind being bait and hanging out 5ft from the creature, hiding should give you advantage. But you lose out on that bonus action.

Arcane trickster has a lot of good spells, such as invisibility, but you only have so many slots.

If there is a cleric or bard, bless and inspiration are great. As is picking up 3 in battlemaster for precision, which is after the roll, 4xs a short rest and if you hit you could also disarm them or trip them.

Skulker has its uses, but its more for you not wanting retribution from fireballs or guards chasing you down.

I think your build is fine, lucky is a good feat to have also.

Many archery builds out there use rogue/battlemaster, I myself have a build I'm using now that also includes ranger as the base with some fighter and rogue here and there. I liked beastmaster and flying snake combo, as the flying snake had some more HP.

But I think your build is fine as it stands, and I would just either increase more rogue or grab some wizard maybe, but AT gets up to 4th level spell access, so greater invisibility is there as well as fly, its just they come around like 16th level.

Wizard could offer you some versatility at the cost of sneak attack damage, and ranger with access to pass without a trace and lightning arrow are good choices also, hail of arrows is pretty sweet and it just needs 2-3 levels of ranger if you have 13 in wisdom.

Very cool build, I might look to make one now. Thanks