Proposal: Ultimate skill Character w/ UA: Rogue8/Bard12

[Snowbluff]

Bard gives:
Inspiration (d10)
4 expertise skills
Jack of all trades
some spells.
Multiclass proficiency for +1 skill
We'll go with college of whisper (https://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Bard.pdf) for the disguise ability.

Rogue:
4 expertise
Reliable talent (treat a die roll beneath 10 as a 10).
Arcane Trickster gives better bonuses to Sleight of hand, but thief give a better bonus to stealth. Really a toss up.
4 starting skills. (One more than bard)

Variant Human for +1 skill and +1 feat. You can't see in the dark, though. :(

You're background isn't a big deal, but I like charlatan for the forgery kit and bonus, which meshes well with the disguise from Whisper bard. +2 skills, +2 tools.

With your 5 ASI and human feat you can take skill feats! (http://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UA-SkillFeats.pdf) They give pretty good bonuses to skills, with new uses. They also double the bonus you get from proficiency (which can technically stack to x4 with the wording, but we'll ignore it for sanity), or make you proficient with a new skill. They also ALL give +1 stat so it's barely costing you anything.

So that's basically 8 skills in total. 4 are expertise, then double the bonus for another 4 skills, then take 2 more with the remaining 2 ASI. That's a total of 8 double skills and 2 skills.

[Corran]

Mmmmm, why not more rogue levels for reliable talent, if the focus is on skills? So, something like rogue11/bard9?

Edit: I see that you included reliable talent, but rogues get it @lvl 11. Maybe you wanted to type rogue12/bard8?

[Snowbluff]

Mmmmm, why not more rogue levels for reliable talent, if the focus is on skills? So, something like rogue11/bard9?

Edit: I see that you included reliable talent, but rogues get it @lvl 11. Maybe you wanted to type rogue12/bard8?

I was on the fence.

Here was my thinking: having more bard, and getting that 10th level gives you better inspiration dice, spells, and 2 expertise skills.

Of course, I broke it down into 4 level groups for the ASI.

So I had meant to pick up reliable talent. I guess if we parse some math it's probably better than more powerful inspiration. reliable talent improves the dice roll from 10.5 to 12.75, which IS better than 2 die improvements.

So 12 rogue 8 bard it is. Losing 2 expertise isn't so had because we have a glut of them. In that interest I think that you can take Arcane Trickster, as it'll dampen the loss of spell slots.

[Phelan Boots]

If you include UA and go Rogue Scout, you get free proficiency and expertise in Survival and Nature.

Lore bard would have given you 3 extra proficiencies.

Again UA, going half-elf and picking Persuasion and Deception for your free racial skills, you could then pick up the Everybody's Friend racial feat to get Expertise in Persuasion and Deception.

This build is really begging for a two level dip in Knowledge Cleric. You get free Proficiency and Expertise in Arcana, Religion, or History. (And Nature, but you already got that through Rogue Scout.) Plus you can use your channel divinity to become proficient in anything for 10 mins per short rest.