Help on creating a Shadow Blade character

[Willywilliamrtx]

Playing through Curse of Strahd on Roll 20 currently and we're about to fight a sentient hut (those familiar with the campaign know exactly what I'm talking about). The upcoming hardship of battle with intelligent wood had gotten me to think about a back-up character in case things don't go so well. Now I really like the thematics of the Shadow Blade spell, and want to kick that into overdrive.

Stat Array; 8/10/12/13/14/15 (any order), Medium HP rolls, feats allowed. Currently lvl 8


My current idea was to take Gloom Stalker up to lvl 3/5 (Umbral Sight feature, making you invisible to darkvision creatures whilst in the dark and Extra Attack if not obtained from somewhere else) and somehow pick up Shadow Blade (could be Shadow Sorcerer for thematics, Draconic Sorcerer for +Cha to GFB etc etc) along the way. Then I'd finish the build with 1 more MC into rogue (and preferably take it a long way. Either Assassin for the stealth nova first round with Umbral Sight combo, Swashbuckler for more general combat effectiveness, etc etc).

How would you all create this character? It remains based on the idea of using a combination of Umbral Sight and Shadow Blade. Great Stealth scores just help this do its work and possible Sneak Attack is pure icing on the cake. Sorcerer would net me sorcerery points, letting my quicken a GFB to get a 3rd attack when needed. The whole advantage schtick from Umbral Sight and Shadow Blade also opens up the possibility to take Elven Accuracy (granted this character becomes some form of elf).

[Specter]

Wizard adds a brickload of versatility out of combat to a Ranger, so I'd be inclined to follow that road. Gloom Stalker 7/Bladesinger 3 would be very powerful.

Also, about the hut, do your best to stay at range. The vines can decimate you pretty quickly, but the rocks won't (especially if you also find cover).

[Willywilliamrtx]

I feel like Gloomstalker gifts most of its goodies by lvl 5 for the build I'm imagining. A save proficiency (lvl 7) is coolio and Stalker's Flurry basically gives me a free redo on a missed attack (lvl 11), but I'd rather take more caster/rogue levels to buff up Shadow Blade/Sneak Attack. I could also forgo Rogue/other MCing entirely and go the Blade Bard route instead, but that delays Shadow Blade till lvl 10 (magical secrets).

I like the idea of bladesinger (if only for the fact that its a caster that lets you add INT to concentration checks), but it does make for a slighty MAD character (granted there's no real reason to keep up the WIS of this character apart from the WIS to Initiative bonus, but that's fairly important when relying on Dread Ambusher for that extra attack).

So let's say we throw rogue off of the table (which severely impedes my DPR when continuously concentrating on Shadow Blade), what caster would fit best with Gloom Stalker, and how do we split it? And above that - how do we still gain a great stealth bonus (even though invisible in the dark this only applies to vision, not hearing for example)


Edit; So I made a little test version using the stat array above.

Race: Wood-Elf
Classes: Gloom Stalker 5/Shadow Sorcerer 7/Swashbuckler 8
Final Stat Array; 8/20/12/10/17.14 (2/4 ASI's used)
Feats: Elven Accuracy, Alert
Fighting Style: Duelist
Final HP: 111

Now here's where we get tasty - +15 to initiative! +Cha from Swashbuckler, +Wis from Gloom Stalker, +5 from Alert and the base +5 from capping our Dex. Our Sneak Attack is 4d6 and we have spell slots up to lvl 5 (this lets us upcast Shadow Blade to become a 4d8 on each hit). We have the extra attack feature from Gloom Stalker (and a third one during the first round) and we'll be using our bonus actions as much as possible to Quicken GFB/BB (for ANOTHER attack). This nets us a consistent 3 attacks per round as long as you recycle spell slots into sorcery points up front. Spells aside from Shadow Blade will problaly be defensive/control options - as with this combination you're not really going to beat the possible 8d8(Shadow Blade *2)+7d8 (GFB using Shadow Blade) + 4d6 (Sneak Attack) every round. As long as the attack target is in dim light or lower we gain advantage on all our attacks and we're considered invisible to darkvision creatures while in the dark.


Our stealth also ends up at a +17, we take no damage on a succesful dex save on area effects, save advantage against charms and a once per long rest insta-raise on a charisma save, creatures we hit can't take opportunity attacks on us and some other fun things.

How do we feel about this combination? For it to be fully online we'd be looking at around GS5/SS3/SB3. Starting at lvl 8 i'd problaly go GS5/SS3 so I atleast have the Shadow Blade chassis.