Does this combo work?

[Klorox]

Riposte (it's a battle master maneuver that allows you to attack as a reaction) and sneak attack? What if you've already gotten sneak attack damage on your turn?

I'm thinking about a swashbuckler/battle master character that will basically get sneak attack damage all the time.

I'm also considering finding a way (I think a half elf with one of the alternative abilities can learn a cantrip) to get booming blade in there. This way I can use fancy footwork to attack and force the enemy to stay in one spot or take additional damage.

[Sans.]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471720-Ways-to-attack-with-your-Reaction-(GladiusLegis)

[Klorox]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471720-Ways-to-attack-with-your-Reaction-(GladiusLegis)

Thank you. So I can make an attack with riposte. I knew that.

Can I get sneak attack damage if I've already gotten it on my attack phase?

[tkuremento]

Thank you. So I can make an attack with riposte. I knew that.

Can I get sneak attack damage if I've already gotten it on my attack phase?

Sneak attack says "Once per turn" right in the description of it. This means any turn, even if it isn't your turn. If it only wanted it on your turn it would say so, or if it was only once per round it would say so. As such you CAN use your reaction to get sneak attack.

[Monavic]

You can only get sneak attack damage once per turn but there is no limit to how many times in a round. So as long as the riposte still qualifies for sneak attack it works because the reaction takes place on the enemies turn.

[Corran]

Yeah you can, provided the attack from ripose does not occur on your turn. So for example, if an enemy swings at you on his turn and he misses you, you can riposte and if you hit you can add sneak atack damage (provided you satisfy the conditions for sneak attack).


ps: Btw, having riposte (via battlemaster preferably, as opposed to the martial adept feat) on a rogue, is a good set up in order to include sentinel as a feat in your build, provided of course there is another dedicated melee character in your group (make sure to build for a good AC though in this case). Food for thought.

[Deleted]

Riposte isn't that great on a rogue unless you want to die.

Reactions happen after the trigger.

So, in order to kill something faster, you put your squishy self specifically in danger? The target has to miss you in order for your reaction to work.

AC isn't exactly hard to hit in 5e.

So... Take caution when using this feature.

Potentially awesome but the risk is high for your d8 lower AC character. Unless you make a STR/Heavy armor build...

[NNescio]

Riposte isn't that great on a rogue unless you want to die.

Reactions happen after the trigger.

So, in order to kill something faster, you put your squishy self specifically in danger? The target has to miss you in order for your reaction to work.

AC isn't exactly hard to hit in 5e.

So... Take caution when using this feature.

Potentially awesome but the risk is high for your d8 lower AC character. Unless you make a STR/Heavy armor build...

Not to mention Riposte also competes with Uncanny Dodge for the Rogue's reaction, making him even squishier.

(Unless he's soloing one enemy with only a single attack for some reason.)

[Corran]

Riposte isn't that great on a rogue unless you want to die.
I am of the opposite view. Riposte helps a rogue survive. Being able to riposte, makes an enemy have second thoughts about attacking you (ofc AC plays a major role in that). Sure, a melee rogue that dances around the battlefield (via cunning action or fancy footwork) might not get to use riposte all that often, but when an enemy makes the mistake of following that rogue in order to take him out, then the rogue having riposte means that he can potentially finish off that enemy more quickly. All in all, it can only possibly result in drawing the enemies' attention away from you, saying possibly because if your AC is crap then it wont matter much.



Not to mention Riposte also competes with Uncanny Dodge for the Rogue's reaction, making him even squishier.

(Unless he's soloing one enemy with only a single attack for some reason.)
I dont believe riposte competes with uncanny dodge, they perfectly complement each other against a single attack. Granted, if you are about to be targeted with a lot of attacks during a single round, then yes, there is overlap, but for a mobile playstyle such as the swashbuckler's, I dont think this will be the case very often. Besides, you have a limited pool of sd, and not all of those will go to riposte (precision is another very good of sd), so you will only be making ripostes when it really counts, relying on cunning action every other time.

[Deleted]

I am of the opposite view. Riposte helps a rogue survive. Being able to riposte, makes an enemy have second thoughts about attacking you (ofc AC plays a major role in that). Sure, a melee rogue that dances around the battlefield (via cunning action or fancy footwork) might not get to use riposte all that often, but when an enemy makes the mistake of following that rogue in order to take him out, then the rogue having riposte means that he can potentially finish off that enemy more quickly. All in all, it can only possibly result in drawing the enemies' attention away from you, saying possibly because if your AC is crap then it wont matter much.



I dont believe riposte competes with uncanny dodge, they perfectly complement each other against a single attack. Granted, if you are about to be targeted with a lot of attacks during a single round, then yes, there is overlap, but for a mobile playstyle such as the swashbuckler's, I dont think this will be the case very often. Besides, you have a limited pool of sd, and not all of those will go to riposte (precision is another very good of sd), so you will only be making ripostes when it really counts, relying on cunning action every other time.

You have to be missed by a melee attack in order to use Riposte.

So you have to be in position to be hit. Putting yourself in position to be hit when you have all the awesome mobility and *you don't get to attack me* features.

You have to let them attack first to use this feature and hope they miss. AC is not hard to hit in 5e.

You are letting the creature do its job in order to kill it faster... Which you really won't killing it any faster all that much. You don't provoke OA unless you want to, and if you kill the creature with your reaction it still dies before its next turn. Yeah, you can focus on another creature with your action but you will have allies dealing with them. That specific creature still would get the same number of actions in the combat.

Relying on a creature to miss you as a way to hurt it is bad business for the rogue. You would need to be primarily fighter and partially rogue.

Edit===

Orc (Attacks Rogue, Miss)
Rogue (Reaction, kills orc)

Versus

Orc (Attacks Rogue, Hits)
Rogue (down some HP, attacks orc, kills orc)

You are taking away one of the most powerful features the rogue has to offer in order to MAYBE do HP damage...

[Corran]

You have to be missed by a melee attack in order to use Riposte.

So you have to be in position to be hit. Putting yourself in position to be hit when you have all the awesome mobility and *you don't get to attack me* features.
Waitt wait. You dont have to sacrifice mobility. You can still play a mobile playstyle like the one sugested in the op, and still get some situational value out of riposte. Say you use BB on an enemy and move away due to dancy footwork. If that enemy procceds into engaging you, he suffers the secondary damage from BB, and if he attacks and misses you, you can spend a superiority die and riposte, hopefully hitting and thus dealing even more damage to that enemy. By the end of his turn, said enemy will have taken a lot more damage than what he expected. This works ether you take BB or not, and perhaps having BB makes using riposte even more situational, but the combination is very good in terms of avoiding unwanted attention. I would say, that this rogue has taken extra measures to ensure not being followed when he is using his hit&run tactics, which adds to the overall defense of that build, by just drawing away unwanted attention. Sure, it might be situational, but since superiority dice are limited, there is nothing wrong with having situationally good uses of them, just as long you have at least one reliable maneuvre that you can use quite regularly. Besides, the fighter dip has a lot more to offer to this BB swashbuckler, such as action surge and precision maneuvre (which both profit from many rogue levels and from using BB instead of twf), and some other additions like second wind, fighting style, and one more maneuvre. But I am straying a bit from the point I want to make, which is that a fighter dip and riposte dont have to mean a non-mobile playstyle (though I would very much like to try one such out when I do get the chance).





You have to let them attack first to use this feature and hope they miss. AC is not hard to hit in 5e.
I do have some ideas regarding that (ie building AC), but that would take the build to a much different direction than what the OP is discussing (and besides, and would be only theorycrafting on my part). I will say that which I said above, the value of riposte is quite situational concerning the build that the OP seems to want to make (essentially what I said above).


You are letting the creature do its job in order to kill it faster... Which you really won't killing it any faster all that much. You don't provoke OA unless you want to, and if you kill the creature with your reaction it still dies before its next turn. Yeah, you can focus on another creature with your action but you will have allies dealing with them. That specific creature still would get the same number of actions in the combat.
Emphasis mine. I think this is a good benefit. You dont get o take away actions from the creature you just killed with riposte, but being able to use your main action next turn to focus on another enemy is the same benefit. I think it is easier to think of it as gaining an action. Ofc, if attacked more than one time and get hit at least once, having used riposte means that you didnt get to use uncanny dodge with your reaction, so that's some opportunity cost right there. Hopefully, it wont affect action economy (that is if you do not drop unconscious during the fight or if you dont force an ally to heal you), and it will only result in blowing away a couple more HD (transfering the cost at lost HD might be more severe than what I make of it, since in the campiagns I play, for good or bad we dont really count them since they are not that combat heavy).


Relying on a creature to miss you as a way to hurt it is bad business for the rogue. You would need to be primarily fighter and partially rogue.
I disagree with you there. I think you benefit from more rogue levels, for more sneak attack dice. All you really need is a good AC, and this doesn't get improved wether you take a lot or a few fighter levels (just the starting one for proficiencies and the fighting style is all you really need in that respect).




Orc (Attacks Rogue, Miss)
Rogue (Reaction, kills orc)

Versus

Orc (Attacks Rogue, Hits)
Rogue (down some HP, attacks orc, kills orc)

You are taking away one of the most powerful features the rogue has to offer in order to MAYBE do HP damage...
I think you are underestimating HP damage, particularly when the potential of it being high is a possibility, if one assumes several rogue levels. Either way, wether I am right or wrong, you can always use riposte when there is no (or little) chance of using uncanny dodge, especially since the former uses up resources while uncanny ddge does not. This is perhaps a good way to go about it when playing a mobile rogue with riposte. And by playing a mobile rogue with riposte (and BB), helps a lot minimizing the number of incoming attacks, and that helps with making a choice of using either riposte or uncanny dodge.

[MeeposFire]

One thing you have to remember is that you do not get that many dice to use this ability on and that is assuming you only use them on riposte and you take more levels of fighter rather than rogue. You get them back on a short rest but even so even for a rogue played normally assuming you use melee weapons there is a fairly good chance you will be attacked in melee enough that there will be a miss and that may be a good opportunity to use riposte unless you get hit or believe you will be hit by a single large hit in which case uncanny dodge may be better (if you are getting hit instead by lots of smaller damage attacks uncanny dodge will not be as effective for you). At the same time since you do not have that many dice you do not have to act like you are trying to get it to activate every turn rather you do what you normally do and when the situation happens you take advantage of it.

[Saeviomage]

You have to be missed by a melee attack in order to use Riposte.

So you have to be in position to be hit. Putting yourself in position to be hit when you have all the awesome mobility and *you don't get to attack me* features.


"You don't get to attack me" = "You attack someone else", be it via mobility or other features.

If combat is actually difficult, then the decent-ac, decent-hp, halves-damage-on-a-hit rogue is actually best serving the party being attackable, not staying out of reach.

And of course if your hitpoints get low, you can always revert to more risk-averse behaviour.

[Sir cryosin]

Riposte isn't that great on a rogue unless you want to die.

Reactions happen after the trigger.

So, in order to kill something faster, you put your squishy self specifically in danger? The target has to miss you in order for your reaction to work.

AC isn't exactly hard to hit in 5e.

So... Take caution when using this feature.

Potentially awesome but the risk is high for your d8 lower AC character. Unless you make a STR/Heavy armor build...

Dude I haven't read any of your post that haven't been negative. Also a d8 hit dice is not that low more then have of all the classes are d8 hit dice. You have barbarian at d12, fighter/ paladin/ranger at a d10, wizard at d6. Then everyone else at a d8. Him having having riposte don't change the way the swashbuckler plays. There are manys situations where using riposte is more ideal then then cutting the damage it take in half. If he use riposte and kills the enemy. Then the enemy can make any attacks next round. And AC is important.

[Corran]

Dude I haven't read any of your post that haven't been negative. Also a d8 hit dice is not that low more then have of all the classes are d8 hit dice. You have barbarian at d12, fighter/ paladin/ranger at a d10, wizard at d6. Then everyone else at a d8. Him having having riposte don't change the way the swashbuckler plays. There are manys situations where using riposte is more ideal then then cutting the damage it take in half. If he use riposte and kills the enemy. Then the enemy can make any attacks next round. And AC is important.
Just keep in mind what Deleted says. Riposte (which spends resources) can prevent you from using uncanny dodge (which does not spend resources, it's free), so use riposte with caution. Meaning that you dont use riposte if there is a good chance that you will use uncanny dodge (for example, wait till all adjacent enemies have used their actions before using riposte; if there is a chance to use uncanny dodge you should not use riposte; even if you end up not using any of the two, and even if there was a chance using riposte and you missed it cause you waited to see if you would use uncanny, it's ok, your superiority dice are limited anyways, and you can always use them for other things, like precision. Potential exception to the above, is when an enemy needs to go down asap, in which case use riposte a him at every opportunity;).
Bottom line, since you wot be changing your playstyle, keep in mind that riposte is of situational value to you, and is overshadowed by action surge and precision, which both work wonders for someone who attacks only once due to BB and is NOT twf'ing.

ps: To make the best use of this fighter dip, you need to invest heavily in the rogue class for more sneak attack. Extra attack is less important for someone with access to BB. Sorcerer is usualy a good did fpr swashbucklers, making good use of charisma, and allowing for twinned BB, but if you already have BB through race, and a fighter dip, then another dip starts losing its value (besides sorc works better if you take several levels in it, for access to mre sorcerer points, while the fighter dip you are planning works better for more rogue levels, ie action surge and precision are more important the more sneak attack dice you have; same goes for riposte).
Another way to nab BB, apart from race (variant halfelf is the best one for the boost in charisma I think), or apart from diping sorcerer (losess value cause of fighter being in the mix), is to get the feat magic initiate, which would give you access to another cantrip and one 1st leve spell (ahem, familiar). You cant say for sure if getting BB from race is better or not from getting it from the feat, but I guess it mostly has to do with how much you can get out from using the familiar.