The expert

[Spacehamster]

So bored at lunch break and come up with this one:

Half elf: +1 DEX, + 1 WIS, + 2 CHA
start stats: 8/16/12/10/14/16
Start with fighter 1 for archery style and CON saves, remaining levels are 12 Valor bard, 6 rogue and 1 knowledge cleric, Use ASI's to max DEX and get CHA to 18 + take sharpshooter feat. This nets you 10 skills with expertise in them all, what you pick is up to you but would ofc recommend DEX, CHA and WIS skills since they are your high AS score skills. :)

Other than being macgyver you are also a respectable archer.

Thoughts?

[Azgeroth]

this guy has to wear green tights.. his name, robin hood...

[Lombra]

Starting rogue would give you 2 more skills, con saves aren't that much of a problem IMO.

[Quoxis]

Thoughts: awesome. Your GM will either love (because you can deal with any skill related obstacle) or hate you (because he has to think of challenging stuff).

Downside: you're a half caster with mostly bardic spells up to spell level 5(?) as a level 20 character and you sacrifice lots of high level class features.

Use your magical secrets wisely, maybe look into the ranger spells (as they have stuff specifically tailored for ranged attacks).

[Quoxis]

Starting rogue would give you 2 more skills, con saves aren't that much of a problem IMO.

Especially as a ranged character that disengages on a bonus action.

[Spacehamster]

Starting rogue would give you 2 more skills, con saves aren't that much of a problem IMO.

True but that would give me two skills that lack expertise! *gasp* not very expert like that! ;)

[Spacehamster]

Thoughts: awesome. Your GM will either love (because you can deal with any skill related obstacle) or hate you (because he has to think of challenging stuff).

Downside: you're a half caster with mostly bardic spells up to spell level 5(?) as a level 20 character and you sacrifice lots of high level class features.

Use your magical secrets wisely, maybe look into the ranger spells (as they have stuff specifically tailored for ranged attacks).

Yeah will play him mostly as a ranged martial and take swift quiver and banishing smite as level 5 magical secrets to boost my archery. :)

[Spacehamster]

Made the character for fun to see what it would look like at Max level, I present to you "Angus MacGyver" the expert:

Ability scores: 8/20/12/10/14/18
Proficiencies:
Acrobatics, sleigh of hand, stealth: 17
Deception, persuasion: 16
Insight, survival, perception: 14
History, nature: 12

Access to level 6 bard spells and level 7 spell slots, can do all his skills better than a non expertise skill user with max attribute, a good archer, decently mobile due to cunning action, can heal and act as the party face, scout, buff allies and debuff enemies. Pretty much good at everything except frontline combat.

[Easy_Lee]

In actual play, perception and stealth (playstyle dependent) come up more often than other checks, with athletics somewhere behind. You don't need persistent expertise, but what's great is to be able to fake it with anything.

A pure Lore bard can inspire himself at later levels. Combine that with Guidance and Jack of All Trades, and the benefit is even better than having expertise. Add the expanded spell selection on an already great list and a Lore Bard is already good at everything except dealing damage. Two levels of Warlock + poached Swift Quiver can fix that last - that's six attacks per round.

Just a thought.

[Trampaige]

Starting rogue would give you 2 more skills, con saves aren't that much of a problem IMO.

Multiclassing rogue gives 1 skill + thieves tools, so he's actually only down one skill. The saves are debatable and campaign dependent, but dex is more likely to come up than str/con for a ranged character.

(Bard, ranger, and rogue all give one skill when multiclassing.)