Could I ask for a little help optimizing an arcane trickster?

[Odessa333]

Hi there!

I'm working on optimizing an arcane trickster as the topic says. She's a wood elf, archery based, and was just rushed from level 2 to level 4 in one session (running the prologue to Storm king's thunder). Her stats are:

STR: 10
Dex: 17
Con: 10
INT: 14
WIS: 10
CHA: 14

I need to pick my spells (didn't have time to do so in session, and DM let me postpone) and a feat/stat. On spells I know I need mage hand and minor illusion, but that's as far as I've come so far. I'm open to ideas there, but I'm particularly stumped on the stat/feat. Sharpshooter has a lot of power to it, but not sure if I can pull it off reliably yet. I'm leaning towards grabbing a feat with Dex +1, but not sure what. Athletic seems the best of them, but that's not saying much. I'm tempted by moderately armored in case I ever need a shield for melee, but I don't think it would see much use, though I could be wrong I suppose.

I'm doing the whole 'what if' thing, and need to get to bed. I hope to come at this tomorrow with a clear head, maybe have a few new ideas/perspectives on where to go with this character. Thank you for your time!

[Greeniron]

Before you take a half feat for dex you may want to consider going +1dex/+1con then grabbing resil(con), this will boost your con up to 12 and give you proficency in it, which will help with concentration saves.

Both of the ranged feats are pretty good for you. I would recommend for your third cantrip either green flame blade or booming blade, as they would help you greatly in melee, if you ever get into it. My buddy picked up moderately armored for his AT and he is ac is comparable to my EK's.

You should try to get dex to 20 pretty quickly and try to get int to about 16/18. The 10 in con will hurt you down the line so you may want to consider something to offset that. As for spells, you will have a hard time keeping concentration spells if you get hit, so you will want to pick up mirror image when you get the chance to do so. For the spell you can choose from any school my favorites are shield, absorb elements, find familiar, and protection from good/evil.

[Rixitichil]

First Level Spells wise, I'd suggest Sleep and Silent Image over the other Illusion/Enchantment spells.
I like Find Familar as the any school choice for the roleplaying/scouting/combat uses.

For cantrips, Booming Blade is very good, but I quite like one of the elemental shape spells for out of combat utility, (crossing water/putting out watch fires/jamming doors shut/creating copies of keys etc.) Maybe consider it as an alternative to Minor Image?

Statwise, +1 to Int and Dex might be worth considering. I quite like Keen Mind for the aforementioned creating duplicate items out of ice. In general considering boosting two stats, the latter which has a +Ability feat you like seems strong.

[Citan]

Hi there!

I'm working on optimizing an arcane trickster as the topic says. She's a wood elf, archery based, and was just rushed from level 2 to level 4 in one session (running the prologue to Storm king's thunder). Her stats are:

STR: 10
Dex: 17
Con: 10
INT: 14
WIS: 10
CHA: 14

I need to pick my spells (didn't have time to do so in session, and DM let me postpone) and a feat/stat. On spells I know I need mage hand and minor illusion, but that's as far as I've come so far. I'm open to ideas there, but I'm particularly stumped on the stat/feat. Sharpshooter has a lot of power to it, but not sure if I can pull it off reliably yet. I'm leaning towards grabbing a feat with Dex +1, but not sure what. Athletic seems the best of them, but that's not saying much. I'm tempted by moderately armored in case I ever need a shield for melee, but I don't think it would see much use, though I could be wrong I suppose.

I'm doing the whole 'what if' thing, and need to get to bed. I hope to come at this tomorrow with a clear head, maybe have a few new ideas/perspectives on where to go with this character. Thank you for your time!
Hi!
For "any-school" spells, Shield is always nice (especially since you have low HP) but from what I understand you want to hang into the backlines so you could do without.
Find Familiar is always a nice asset, to scout or Help you.
Magic Missile seems feeble damage-wise, but the auto-hit means you could make a difference when you really need to hit.
For cantrips, Booming Blade and Minor Illusion seem perfectly tailored for you.

As for ASI/feat, I'm with those advising you to bump both DEX and another stat by 1.
Either INT if you plan to take Observant or Keen Mind (I favor the former because it's a direct benefit, but if you are into roleplaying and can collaborate with your DM, the "one-month 100% memory" benefit of KM could be great), because you intend to play with save or suck spells later.
Or CON if you plan to take Resilient: Constitution later because you want to improve your general resilience (or your experience shows that you are often targeted by spells using this saving throw).

[PeteNutButter]

Hi!
For "any-school" spells, Shield is always nice (especially since you have low HP) but from what I understand you want to hang into the backlines so you could do without.
Find Familiar is always a nice asset, to scout or Help you.
Magic Missile seems feeble damage-wise, but the auto-hit means you could make a difference when you really need to hit.
For cantrips, Booming Blade and Minor Illusion seem perfectly tailored for you.

As for ASI/feat, I'm with those advising you to bump both DEX and another stat by 1.
Either INT if you plan to take Observant or Keen Mind (I favor the former because it's a direct benefit, but if you are into roleplaying and can collaborate with your DM, the "one-month 100% memory" benefit of KM could be great), because you intend to play with save or suck spells later.
Or CON if you plan to take Resilient: Constitution later because you want to improve your general resilience (or your experience shows that you are often targeted by spells using this saving throw).

Citan has it pretty well spelled out for you here. I would say even if you hang out in the back lines shield is still a good idea to have. Giants throw rocks... Those aren't something you want to get hit by more than once with only a 10 con and a d8 hit die. All it would take is for you to crit some giant in the troat with a sneak attack arrow and then all his buddies, say (in giant), "Hit that ****ing elf with rocks! He just killed Larry!" Uncanny Dodge will help, but only halve one attack.

Find familiar isn't as good on you in combat anyways, as if you can hide you typically get advantage, so the help action loses some value. It could still be used to give an ally advantage to one attack.

As for the ASI, you could consider ditching the bow for chucking darts and taking moderately armored. Darts have much more limited range, and deal 1 less damage, but you could carry a shield to help deter retaliation. With your 35ft movement speed you could fairly reliably run closer toss it, then flee back to cunning action hide. It becomes much better once you get the sharpshooter feat effectively tripling the range without disadvantage.

If you prefer the bow because you like the aesthetics or often find yourself in long range battles just bump dex and con. Either way, I'd recommend Sharpshooter for level 8.

[Specter]

Find Familiar and Sharpshooter would really amp up your damage. Some bird giving you advantage would compensate the -5, and on a hit it would be 1d8+dex+2d6+10, averaging 25, not bad for level 4.

[Odessa333]

I didn't expect to see booming blade so often. I feel like I'm missing something in it's description, as being archery based I can't see that being useful. Thinking over last session, I think I am going to grab 'message' as my third cantrip, as I do a bit of scouting and it would have made things easier several times last night. It's not one I typically pick, but we'll see.

As for spells, I'm liking Shield for my 'free' spell. I like Find Familiar, though the DM has said using to it to help EVERY attack/action would be too powerful and he'd want me to use it in moderation. I'm not sure I want to open that can of worms, and with the module being as deadly as I've heard, having shield will come in handy. I admit, i'm hesitate to grab sleep or color spray. Last night alone every 'big' enemy had 36+ hit points, so I don't see Hit point based spells working on anything I can't kill with one sneak attack. For now, I'm thinking of grabbing Charm person, silent image and either disguise self or tasha's laughter. I'm not crazy about disguise self (I am proficient with a disguise kit and I 'think' silent image could do the same thing?) so I'm thinking about using Tasha's instead, but it seems like it gives a lot of saving throws. That seems problematic for a save or 'die' spell. Both seem to have a lot of issues to them, honestly.

For the feat/stat, I think I'm going to grab moderately armored. Being proficient with a shield could be useful, and could allow a melee build with a rapier or a shield and hand crossbow set up. I don't know if I'll ever use them, but if I don't take it this level then I won't get the chance. Having a backup +2 AC option isn't the worst idea I've had lol. And I do hand crossbow, it could lead to crossbow expert which could open up some down the road. Not sure, but only one way to find out, eh?

Thanks for the feedback so far. I love hitting these boards to talk about the mechanics of things.