Skills, combat and some utility! Oh my!

[Spacehamster]

So were bored and a build popped into my head that sounds fun and useful:
Variant human with resilient CON, +1 DEX and +1 STR, starting stats with modifiers: 14/16/14/8/9/14, skill perception.

Start with paladin 6(any type will do), 4 lore bard, 10 arcane trickster. ASI/feats will go to +4 DEX, +2 CHA, observant(+1WIS) and alert. His skills will be perception, sleight of hand, stealth, persuasion, insight, investigation, athletics, acrobatics, deception and performance.

Expertise in: perception, investigation, stealth, athletics, persuasion and deception.

Combat style dueling, will use shield, studded leather and rapier.

Pros: functional all the way through, 5 ASI's even with MC, lots of skills and expertise, high initiative, pretty good damage, decent AC, good saves from pally aura.

Cons: not as high health as a standard frontliner.

What do you guys think of this build?

[Citan]

Hi!

It will certainly end as a good build, but I'm not sure that this level of versatility, resilience and "skillness" requires such a combination.
For example, pairing Observant + Expertise certainly bring your Perception to a pretty decent level even with a 10 WIS. You won't beat any Rogue with high WIS and Expertise nor any Ranger with Observant.
So it's great if you are in a small party or while alone, but in a large group chances are this could have been a spare feat for something else, for example Shield Master or Mage Slayer, or Mobile, or Resilient.

Don't agree about "any Oath" either.
- Vengeance doesn't bring much: you probably won't want to stick into the heat that often, so CD is situational. Misty Step & Mirror Image you can get with Bard/AT. Haste you never get.
- Ancients brings Moonbeam and Ensnaring Strike which are nice spells, but you will have many other great ones already. Besides that, the CD is nice to use sometimes but not worth choosing this Oath overall imo.
- Oathbreaker is mostly underwhelming until you get level 7 (+CHA) and 9 (Animate Dead), so it's a no-go either.

What are left? Devotion: Sanctuary as a niche emergency, +3 on weapon attacks is nice enough. Or Crown, if in spite of your lowish resilience you'd want to be a tank.

On the plus side of this build, you can count low-level versatility, still more than decent resilience overall (~20 AC + Aura of Protection) and high-level debuff greatness (Magical Ambush > single-target debuff with smite spells or Bard spells, mass debuff with Bard spells).

[Spacehamster]

Hi!

It will certainly end as a good build, but I'm not sure that this level of versatility, resilience and "skillness" requires such a combination.
For example, pairing Observant + Expertise certainly bring your Perception to a pretty decent level even with a 10 WIS. You won't beat any Rogue with high WIS and Expertise nor any Ranger with Observant.
So it's great if you are in a small party or while alone, but in a large group chances are this could have been a spare feat for something else, for example Shield Master or Mage Slayer, or Mobile, or Resilient.

Don't agree about "any Oath" either.
- Vengeance doesn't bring much: you probably won't want to stick into the heat that often, so CD is situational. Misty Step & Mirror Image you can get with Bard/AT. Haste you never get.
- Ancients brings Moonbeam and Ensnaring Strike which are nice spells, but you will have many other great ones already. Besides that, the CD is nice to use sometimes but not worth choosing this Oath overall imo.
- Oathbreaker is mostly underwhelming until you get level 7 (+CHA) and 9 (Animate Dead), so it's a no-go either.

What are left? Devotion: Sanctuary as a niche emergency, +3 on weapon attacks is nice enough. Or Crown, if in spite of your lowish resilience you'd want to be a tank.

On the plus side of this build, you can count low-level versatility, still more than decent resilience overall (~20 AC + Aura of Protection) and high-level debuff greatness (Magical Ambush > single-target debuff with smite spells or Bard spells, mass debuff with Bard spells).

Group I play with mostly play combat maniacs so normally never anyone with expertise or observant, so alert and observant would be a great boon, and mostly
meant that any oath works since not getting the level 7 aura part which would have made ancients best by far. :) Would probably still go aincients since I think it would
fit best with the builds mood.