Not sure my character fits the group...

[Dudewithknives]

Ok so the group is finally finalized but I am not sure my guy fits the group, we have:

Stats were, 18, 16, 15, 15, 14, 13
One free feat at level 1, and max hp at each level.
Of all the big combat feats: GWM, PAM, SS, CBE and the like are unchanged but each character can only have one.
Mage Slayer ' s opportunity attack comes before the spell goes off not after.

The group:

Half orc Fighter - Brute with PAM and a Glaive, wears plate but still has a 16 dex anyway.

Human Bard - College of Glamour, mostly support and buffs with illusions for controlling I would assume.

Deep gnome wizard - abjurer, wards, defense, and ranged damage guy.

Last is my character:

Half elf rogue - swashbuckler with a rapier. First level feat is Magical Initiate for Mage Armor, booming blade and preatidigitation.
The gm let me put both +1s in dex so I have a 20 dex and 18 cha starting. The feat was mainly for flavor and convince, I was determined to not wear armor so mage armor covers that and the others are just solid bonus

The issue is, am I really even needed on the group?

As a rogue with a Glamour Bard in the group there is no way I will be the face guy, even though I will be doing most of the talking, a rogue can just not out skill the bard due to magic backup.

The Brute will be massively beyond me in damage, and rogues are just ok for damage in the first place. I can make up the difference by farming reaction attacks with Mage Slayer and Sentinel, but there are plenty of other good feats.

I am just not sure I bring enough to the group to be worth it.

[KillingTime]

One of the most common fallacies in D&D (or any roleplaying system) is that each party member should fill a specific and distinct role.
In my experience it's actually far better to have multiple party members able to cover multiple roles.

You get a few different angles to approach any given situation, and you get redundancy in case someone goes down or is seperated for any reason.

In the end it's far more satisfying to play the character you want to play and get him to find a niche, than it is to look at the party makeup and then reluctantly play a cleric because no-body else wanted to bring any healing spells.

[Dudewithknives]

One of the most common fallacies in D&D (or any roleplaying system) is that each party member should fill a specific and distinct role.
In my experience it's actually far better to have multiple party members able to cover multiple roles.

You get a few different angles to approach any given situation, and you get redundancy in case someone goes down or is seperated for any reason.

In the end it's far more satisfying to play the character you want to play and get him to find a niche, than it is to look at the party makeup and then reluctantly play a cleric because no-body else wanted to bring any healing spells.

While it is great to have backups for everything it is much better when everyone at least has the main spot at something.

Main social guy and a secondary backup
Main skills guy and secondary backup
Main damage guy and secondary backup
Ect

As it stands the rogue is only the backup for roles. When it really matters he will never be the main guy for anything.

Not sure it is worth it just to be secondary backup for things when there are other roles that could be filled as primary. Honestly, the group is pretty lacking for ranged damage, and healing is pretty slim.

[Honest Tiefling]

1) Do you WANT to be the face? If you do for out of combat stuff, try to coordinate with the bard. There are a lot of tricks and schemes you can do with two people, so having two faces doesn't have to be a problem as long as you work together. If your perception/insight is higher, that might be helpful as well.

2) Don't be melee guy. If your wizard is laying down the hurt/control and your bard the healing, you need to see about getting methods to stop guys from rushing past the bruiser and hitting them in the face. Even getting in the way to let others move out can be helpful regardless of build.

[Dudewithknives]

1) Do you WANT to be the face? If you do for out of combat stuff, try to coordinate with the bard. There are a lot of tricks and schemes you can do with two people, so having two faces doesn't have to be a problem as long as you work together. If your perception/insight is higher, that might be helpful as well.

2) Don't be melee guy. If your wizard is laying down the hurt/control and your bard the healing, you need to see about getting methods to stop guys from rushing past the bruiser and hitting them in the face. Even getting in the way to let others move out can be helpful regardless of build.

My combat strategy is to use the mobility of swashbuckler with the cunning action dash ability, with mage slayer and sentinel to get to high value targets and stick to them like glue. Ruining their day.

I can pick up a shortbow when I need to, but I am mainly melee.

If I need to change strategy too much I will just change characters.

I do not have to be the face, but I am a swashbuckler rogue, so I will have persuasion with expertise and a good cha anyway.

Plot wise, I am the only son of a joined human and elf house, and are being shipped around as the future face of the house.

The half orc is my bodyguard that I do not really want to be there, he was hired by my family to make sure I do not embarrass the family.

The bard is my human cousin and is in charge of the business side of the family where I am the diplomat. He is contracts and negotiation, I am diplomacy and pr.

The wizard is a prospective business partner checking us out. The family business wants to expand to the underground he is the representative for them.

[KillingTime]

You're always going to be useful to have around.
You'll have the highest dex for ranged attacks and dex skills. And you're the go to character when stealthiness is necessary.
You can handle yourself well in melee when the fighter is getting swamped.
You can coordinate with the bard for the widest range of proficiencies and expertise so you don't have to cross over too much.
And as Honest Teifling says, you can probably set up some awesome bait and switch plays with the bard so you'll be a very complementary pairing.

If you really want to just be the best at one thing, ditch the rogue and take a life cleric. But I genuinely think that's totally unnecessary.

[Honest Tiefling]

My combat strategy is to use the mobility of swashbuckler with the cunning action dash ability, with mage slayer and sentinel to get to high value targets and stick to them like glue. Ruining their day.

Then switch it. Have the high DPS go after squishy targets, and you ruin the day of spellcasters in the back. Two melee is preferable in my opinion.


The bard is my human cousin and is in charge of the business side of the family where I am the diplomat. He is contracts and negotiation, I am diplomacy and pr.

The wizard is a prospective business partner checking us out. The family business wants to expand to the underground he is the representative for them.

Tag team those encounters. Bard handles the business, you handle talking to nobility or something like that. You don't go into negotiations without the other, in case they spot something the main guy doesn't. But...The bard, story wise, can't talk on your behalf, YOU are the noble. Just don't go crazy with power and suggest a plan of trading off face encounters with the other one acting as back up.

[MxKit]

You bring a major thing to the party: A ton of versatility, especially in battle. You're a secondliner, and it looks like you might be the only secondliner in your group, so embrace that role! If your party needs you to help keep enemies away from the Bard and Wizard, you'll be able to. If your party needs more ranged attacks, you'll be able to do that too (remember, the basic Rogue package lets a Swashbuckler be a great crossbow user too!).

You also have a level of Stealth and maneuverability that no one else in your party is going to be able to reach. Stealth will likely come up enough that you'll feel useful for it, and maneuverability is huge when your team really needs go get to a particular enemy

Remember that Bards and Wizards are great at support and battlefield manipulation, but they still need a solid group to support and turn things in favor of. One Brute is great, but very limited. You can also work together, since putting an enemy in a position where one of you is getting advantage will often open things up for both of you, so your Brute might well be happy to shove enemies prone for both your sakes.

Also remember that a)you can Expertise whatever skills you want and b)not all social skills fit all situations. Definitely talk with the person playing the Glamour Bard. You might want to back up each others' cons and deceptions, as people have said, but they might also be happy to let you be the Persuasion Guy while they focus on magical Deceptions and distractions. You can also Expertise some other campaign-appropriate skill, such as History, Insight, Investigation, Nature, Religion, or Survival, and be the go-to guy for that. Maybe even adjust your background to match.

[Malapterus]

Don't forget, as a Rogue, you're the Skill Guy. Slap on the right Background and you'll be taking charge in any non-specific situation. In every other situation, you are the jack-of-all-trades, able to back up anyone or take their place of they fall, darting around with Cunning Action to shore up your side's strength from round to round.

Not only can these guys have a place for you, lacking a Ranger, they will DIE without you. While they're all really good at one or two things, they're exclusively good at those things. In any situation where one of their limited pool of solutions doesn't work, they're screwed without you.

[Dudewithknives]

I am not sure what 2 feats the human bard is going to take but I am pretty sure he is not going for anything combat focused.

[Gtdead]

Your party is good. Your character while it doesn't add something new, he adds power to the things your party can already do.

Take another scenario. You have an archer. If you team up with a bard, you need to spend lots of resources to protect and heal yourselves while you have more options in battle, and if you add a barbarian instead, your party will be low maintenance but it may lack a useful ability against an encounter, like dispel magic. If you add both, you have a well rounded party. Since you have a core, you can do whatever.

Admittedly, without you, the party is kinda low on damage. You will be a great addition.

[Azgeroth]

you are the only party member who moves at full speed whilst hidden.

never underestimate the value of a scout, especially one proficient with thieves tools.

i find it kind of weird that a glamour bard is an admin clerk, but whatever.

make sure you take investigation, for finding those traps.

if your not sneaking about el solo on the scouting mission, bring that bard with you, between the 2 of you there shouldnt be any social encounter you can't 'win'

brute's are known to be really high damage, but thats all they have.. you are a skill monkey, with a very high initiative, super sneaky, and very capable in a one on one, your best bet is to let the brute charge in, then circumvent the hoard to single out the casters. you will definitely be MVP.

re ruling Mage Slayers AoO is very ****ty, half the point is to force disadvantage on the concentration check, if your making the attack first thats redundant, massively reducing the benefit of the feat, which is specifically geared towards casters only, which is already a small percentage of foe's you will face.. id ask for that to be changed back.

[Dudewithknives]

you are the only party member who moves at full speed whilst hidden.

never underestimate the value of a scout, especially one proficient with thieves tools.

i find it kind of weird that a glamour bard is an admin clerk, but whatever.

make sure you take investigation, for finding those traps.

if your not sneaking about el solo on the scouting mission, bring that bard with you, between the 2 of you there shouldnt be any social encounter you can't 'win'

brute's are known to be really high damage, but thats all they have.. you are a skill monkey, with a very high initiative, super sneaky, and very capable in a one on one, your best bet is to let the brute charge in, then circumvent the hoard to single out the casters. you will definitely be MVP.

re ruling Mage Slayers AoO is very ****ty, half the point is to force disadvantage on the concentration check, if your making the attack first thats redundant, massively reducing the benefit of the feat, which is specifically geared towards casters only, which is already a small percentage of foe's you will face.. id ask for that to be changed back.

On the mage slayer thing. If they fail the concentration check they lose the spell. It is essentially a chance to interrupt casting. They don't lose the slot though, just interrupts that casting.

[quark12000]

That group needs a healer!

[Dudewithknives]

That group needs a healer!

Not in 5e.

A bard is good enough.

In combat healing is never going to matter, it does not have to be a huge heal to get you up, and you are not healing enough to save another hit anyway

[quark12000]

Not in 5e.

A bard is good enough.

In combat healing is never going to matter, it does not have to be a huge heal to get you up, and you are not healing enough to save another hit anyway

Did they get rid of hit points in 5e? If not, they definitely need a cleric or at least a druid.

[bc56]

Rogue is very skill focused. Because you don't have the main role in fighting or social interaction, take advantage of two things

You aren't the main combatant, so you can cunning action hide and then get surprise on attacks the next round.

Take advantage of expertise. You can, at level 2, have a +9 to two skills, given your stats (I recommend Stealth and Thieves Tools for your first 2) If your DM allows it, use the skill feats from unearthed arcana to get even more expertise.

[Zilong]

Did they get rid of hit points in 5e? If not, they definitely need a cleric or at least a druid.

Bards have access to a decent amount of healing. In particular, they get healing word which, as people are fond of pointing out, may be the best since it does not overly hinder the character's action economy.

Essentially, no a cleric or druid is not necessary, even if you believe in the idea that healing magic is an essential part of the adventuring party (I don't).

[Dudewithknives]

Did they get rid of hit points in 5e? If not, they definitely need a cleric or at least a druid.

No, but they did get rid of healing meaning anything.

Every good healing spell is on the list for bard, druid, and cleric and if the bard does not have it they can steal it at level 10, 14 or 18.

There are no negative hp and dying at -10 so how hard you get knocked down means nothing, if you get knocked to zero by a hit you are popping back up with a level 1 heal anyway.

The tiny bit that cleric or even druid can heal more than a bard in the first place is very minor.

Healing has just become convenient, not vital. Also, they gave even class the ability to heal on a short rest, and a bard makes it better. Also considering how crazy healing on a long rest is, it is even less important.


Also, to BC56.

Nothing in the game gives you surprise after round 1, and also surprise is pretty hard to get anyway. I assume you mean advantage, which is always great.

Rogues get expertise at level 1, bards get it at 2. With a bard in the parry at low levels he will be at most 1 point behind in anything and has the same expertise. But has full casting backup.

I am going to try to be the HVT killer. The one thing I do have over the group is mobility.

[Malapterus]

Nothing in the game gives you surprise after round 1, and also surprise is pretty hard to get anyway.

A Goblin or a Rogue or a Goblin Rogue can Hide each turn and pop back up for that surprise advantage over and over again.

You could be a real bitch with a Goblin Ranger with the Sharpshooter feat, even though you're stuck with a shortbow.

[Dudewithknives]

A Goblin or a Rogue or a Goblin Rogue can Hide each turn and pop back up for that surprise advantage over and over again.

You could be a real bitch with a Goblin Ranger with the Sharpshooter feat, even though you're stuck with a shortbow.

That is not what surprised means in 5e.

You can attack from being hidden to get advantage each round, but that is not the same thing as attacking a surprised opponent.

[MxKit]

A Goblin or a Rogue or a Goblin Rogue can Hide each turn and pop back up for that surprise advantage over and over again.

Yeah, unfortunately, Dudewithknives is right. "Surprised" specifically refers to the surprise condition that only occurs on the first turn of a combat, under very specific circumstances.


The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.
If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

The official Rule Answers on dnd.wizards.com back that up even further:


The first step of any combat is this: the DM determines whether anyone in the combat is surprised... This determination happens only once during a fight and only at the beginning. In other words, once a fight starts, you can’t be surprised again, although a hidden foe can still gain the normal benefits from being unseen...

An even bigger problem is that that same Rule Answers thing nerfed surprise even further than the book does. See, reading that section in the book, you could argue that it actually says that a creature can be surprised by a hidden/stealthy enemy even if they notice all the other enemies... even though that doesn't mesh up well with the second paragraph, the first paragraph seems to imply it (calling for checks pitting "anyone hiding" against each creature on the opposing side implies that the entire party might not be hiding, and "a threat" could mean even a singular threat). Unfortunately:


To be surprised, you must be caught off guard, usually because you failed to notice foes being stealthy or you were startled by an enemy with a special ability, such as the gelatinous cube’s Transparent trait, that makes it exceptionally surprising. You can be surprised even if your companions aren’t, and you aren’t surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares.

So, suddenly, not only can you only surprise foes on the first turn of combat, suddenly your Stealth score often doesn't help you get that surprise, since you're also dependent on the Stealth scores of every single other person in your party who's anywhere near you. I'd say it's still possible to arrange things so the Rogue can get close enough for a Sneak Attack with the rest of the party far enough away to not have to try to be sneaky, but close enough that they can immediately rush in once combat's started/the Rogue can draw back to them right after attacking, but there are definitely situations where that's not going to be possible. Maybe even a lot of them. Though I'd argue that the Assassin is still pretty strong, because when it all lines up for you, it can get insane.

[Dudewithknives]

Update:

I never noticed how good the net was as a weapon.

We start with a bonus feat so I could take V-Human and have 2.

With our stats I could take:

Weapon Master:
+1 dex and proficiency with Net, Longbow, Blowgun, and Whatever other weapon.

Dual Wielder:
+1 AC
Can use 2 one handed weapon for TWF

That could still give me 20 dex.

Fight with Rapier in one hand and Net in the other.
(The net is flavored as a weighted cape he wears)

Bonus action throw net at enemy, enemy gets restrained, gives advantage to attack and enables Sneak Attack.

Issue will be that:

1. I will need many nets to carry around.
2. It will not work on enemies above large.
3. It takes up 2 feats, which is not a HUGE deal but it is costly.


I think it could have some nice flavor, just not sure it is worth it.

[Cynthaer]

I think it could have some nice flavor, just not sure it is worth it.

This is 5e, who cares? You don't need to be optimized to be effective. I'm playing a half-orc wizard whose primary damage output is Booming Blade with a 2-handed quarterstaff.

Don't psych yourself out over hypothetical party roles or maximizing combat hit chance or whatever. You've found a thing that is interesting and works, so use it!

As far as "filling a party role"—just play your character and see what happens. You'd be surprised how much of what makes a character unique isn't on the sheet, even in combat. I swear to god, you could build all four of your party members as Champion Fighters and still have them feel like different, non-redundant characters off of personality, background, and feats alone.

I mean, it's nowhere near as good as actually having different classes, but the point is you don't need completely non-overlapping mechanical specialties for two characters to play very differently. Seriously, just try it.

[Dudewithknives]

Update:

We just finished Game 1:

Ended up going with this build:

Half Elf Rogue 1

Str: 13
Dex: 20
Con: 15
Int 14
Wis: 15
Cha: 18

Skills:
Acrobatics
Deception
History
Insight
Perception: Expertise
Persuasion: Expertise
Slight of Hand
Stealth
Thieves Tools

Using a rapier for main weapon and a few daggers to throw if needed.

Bonus Feat as per house rule:
Magic Initiate: Sorcerer
Cantrips: Booming Blade and Prestidigitation
1st level spell: Mage Armor


I will be going Swashbuckler when I hit level 3 and not going to multi class ever.

I was planning on:

Level 4: Either take Sentinel or up my con and wis by 1 each
Level 8: The other one I did not take at level 4
Level 10: Mage Slayer
Level 12: Skilled or Prodigy
Level 16: The other one of skilled or prodigy
Level 19: whatever


Anyone have any ideas on how to improve or nifty combos with like cheap magic gear. I am planning on staying melee 90% of the time.

[Throne12]

Did they get rid of hit points in 5e? If not, they definitely need a cleric or at least a druid.

A bard is a better healer then druid in 5e

[Dudewithknives]

A bard is a better healer then druid in 5e

Not now that the new healing spell came out in Xan's. Unless they pick it up as a magical secret.

Everyone is pretty much in the same boat as far as healing.

Divine Soul Sorcerer's can make tremendous healers. Twinning a healing spell is much better than casting it twice. Same with quicken Dash/heal.

[Throne12]

Not now that the new healing spell came out in Xan's. Unless they pick it up as a magical secret.

Everyone is pretty much in the same boat as far as healing.

Divine Soul Sorcerer's can make tremendous healers. Twinning a healing spell is much better than casting it twice. Same with quicken Dash/heal.

They did untel Xan's came out they pick any healing spell and they had song of rest. Were the druid just had spells