Resourceless party that can fight all day

[Greywander]

I had the idea of looking into specialized builds and tactics that require a team instead of just one player doing their own thing, and then another post asking about sustained damage got me thinking about a party that can fight all day without needing to rest.

Now, no party is truly resource-free. If nothing else, you always have hit points that will eventually deplete. If this concerns you, then I suggest trying to obtain Rings of Regeneration for each of your party members. The healing is slow (1d6 HP every 10 minutes), but that's at least an extra 6d6 HP for every short rest. What we're going to focus on are character builds and tactics that don't depend on expendable resources. I'll also avoid the barbarian and druid, even though they get infinite rages/wild shapes, as that only comes at 20th level.

Hotel California - You can check out any time, but you can never leave
Race: Bugbear, for the extra reach
Class: Brute fighter (or Champion, if UA isn't allowed), mostly for the regen
Fighting Styles: Tunnel Fighter (if allowed, otherwise GWF), Defense
Feats: PAM, Sentinel, Heavy Armor Master

Modus Operandi: You probably know what's coming. In a 15 foot radius around you (enough to block off a 35 foot wide hallway!) you have a zone of control where creatures provoke opportunity attacks both when they enter and when they try to leave. If you hit with an opportunity attack, Sentinel reduces their speed to 0. On your turn, depending on the needs of the moment, use your action either to Dodge or Attack, and use your bonus action for Tunnel Fighter's reactionless opportunity attacks so it doesn't matter how many enemies you have trapped, you can stop all of them from leaving.

If you have time to prepare a battlefield, Mold Earth or Shape Water can be used to create a chokepoint you can use as a killzone.

Free Hugs - Amazing chest ahead, try holding with both hands
Race: Lizardfolk, for the 1d6 bite attack
Class: As above, Brute/Champion fighter for HP regen; if you don't mind using resources now and then, EK is better (Dispel Magic, Enlarge Person, Fly)
Feats: Brawny (if not allowed, dip rogue), Mage Slayer, Heavy Armor Master, Tavern Brawler, Resilient (Wisdom)

Modus Operandi: So what weapon does this paragon of martial prowess wield? A greatsword? A rapier? Maybe a longbow? Nope, nothing. Nothing? Nothing. Of course, you can and should carry a few weapons, but most of the time you'll leave your hands empty. Grab an enemy in each hand and drag them into Hotel California's reach so they can't escape even if they break the grapple. Knock them prone and hold them in place while Hotel California wails on them (must be within 5 feet for advantage against prone targets). If a spellcaster is present, grab them first so you can keep them from casting/concentrating on spells. Once your hands are full and you're in position, either take the Dodge action or tear them apart with your bite attack.

When using a weapon, versatile weapons are probably the best choice. You can wield it with two hands when you're not grappling, but still grapple with one hand and be able to use the weapon. If you need to free up both hands, it's easier to sheathe than if you were dual wielding. Shields require an action to don or doff, so don't count on being able to free up a hand holding a shield if you need to grapple with that hand, but the extra AC might make it worth it. Thanks to Tavern Brawler, you can make an improvised attack with your shield, although biting is probably better anyway.

If you go EK instead of Brute/Champion, you lose out on the regen, but you gain some tools that can really help you deal with the more troublesome enemies you'll encounter on occasion. For spellcasters that cast Freedom of Movement, you can use Dispel Magic to remove it. Enlarge Person will let you grapple Huge monsters. Fly lets you bring airborne enemies down to earth (better yet, knock them prone in mid-air and reintroduce them to gravity). It's not resource-free, but these enemies can cause you some real problems if you aren't willing to expend some resources. Try to focus on spells with only a vocal component, otherwise you will need a free hand to cast that spell.

Long Shot - Million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten
Race: Elf (high or wood)
Class: Rogue (any) X / Champion fighter 3 (for Improved Critical, Archery fighting style)
Expertise: Stealth, Perception
Feats: Elven Accuracy, Sharpshooter, Skulker

Modus Operandi: While Hotel California and Free Hugs have your guests occupied, find a spot up to 600 feet away and start taking shots, using your bonus action to Hide before/after each one. With Elven Accuracy and Improved Critical, our chances of scoring a critical hit are unusually high, which will greatly multiply our Sneak Attack damage. Find the strongest monster and turn them into a pincushion while your two melee friends handle the cannon fodder. Alternatively, take out enemy archers.

In practice, you'll rarely be able to take advantage of that 600 foot range, but it can also be handy for bringing down flying enemies.

If you can, find a way to get Booming Blade and the Mobile feat. If you find yourself caught in melee, draw a rapier (you can even hold your bow in your other hand, but you're also proficient with shields), move in and cast Booming Blade, and thanks to Mobile you can withdraw without needing to use Disengage, allowing you to Hide or Dash instead. Even without Mobile, it's still probably worth it to get Booming Blade. This can make Arcane Trickster a good choice, as it also gives you some additional magical tricks for when you really need to burn a resource (see above on EK subclass for Free Hugs). As an AT, you can also use a bonus action with Mage Hand to get advantage on attacks (melee or ranged), allowing you to use Elven Accuracy when you can't hide.

Push Back - One step forward, two steps back
Race: Aarakocra, maybe? Variant human?
Class: Celestial warlock (Chain or Tome pact)
Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Eldritch Spear, Misty Visions, Shroud of Shadow, Eldritch Sight, (Voice of the Chain Master, Chains of Carceri) or (Book of Ancient Secrets, Witch Sight)
Feats: Spell Sniper, Inspiring Leader

Modus Operandi: You've got some resources you can spend when they're absolutely necessary, but most of the time you'll be able to just blast away, knocking enemies into Hotel California's kill zone. If Hotel California wasn't allowed to get Tunnel Fighter, this and Free Hugs will be your best bet for managing enemies trying to escape. Like Long Shot, you'll be able to blast from 600 feet away while the two regenerating tanks soak up all the damage. You can also knock enemies out of Hotel California's kill zone, forcing them to enter it again and take another opportunity attack, but this also gives them a chance to flee or circle around.

The Chain pact gives you an invisible, flying buddy that can greatly extend your utility at no cost. You can also get at-will Hold Monster for a few limited types of monsters, albeit only once per monster between long rests. Tome pact gives you a few extra cantrips and allows you to record and cast all ritual spells. Personally I'd go Chain and see if you can get the Ritual Caster feat instead.

Misty Visions gives you at-will illusions that can be used for a variety of purposes (improvised cover, for example). Eldritch Sight can be used to find candidates for Dispel Magic before Free Hugs tries to grapple them. Don't forget that Shroud of Shadow lets you cast Invisibility on other people, like Long Shot, for example. If you feel like the 600 foot range is overkill and 240 feet is plenty, you can switch out Edlritch Spear for something else.

Finally, the reason to go Celestial warlock is to mitigate the one resource we can't escape: HP. Not only do you get healing as a class feature, but you can take Cure Wounds as one of your spells, burning any remaining spell slots to heal right before a short rest in order to maximize the HP regained. Inspiring Leader also helps here, if you've got the time to use it before battle.

General Tactics

Hotel California will block off a hallway, if possible, preventing enemies from reaching Long Shot and Push Back. Free Hugs will grab two enemies, prioritizing casters, knock them prone, and drag them into Hotel California's kill zone, where the two of you can beat them to a pulp. When they're dead, grab two more and repeat. Long Shot will focus on using the burst damage from critical Sneak Attacks to take down higher HP foes, hiding every round to get advantage (and Elven Accuracy). Push Back's first job is to make sure no one can escape Hotel California's kill zone, but otherwise can heal, toss out at-will illusions, or just blast for more damage. Both Hotel California and Free Hugs can take the Dodge action if they're taking too much of a beating, letting Long Shot and Push Back take up damage dealing duty while they regenerate.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are surrounded, have everyone cluster around Hotel California. Hotel California will stop anyone entering melee range with an opportunity attack, and Push Back can push them out of Hotel California's reach again. Long Shot will take shots at the most threatening target available, using Hotel California as cover to hide behind thanks to the Skulker feat. Free Hugs will seek out and disable any casters, and otherwise hold enemies prone within reach of Hotel California so they can be quickly dispatched.

Note that precisely because of situations like the above, it's probably not a good idea for Long Shot and Push Back to hang back 600 feet behind Hotel California and Free Hugs, even if they have the range for it, as you'll want to be able to quickly get to the safety of Hotel California's kill zone as quickly as you can if ambushed.

There are some feats that all of your characters would do well to grab, if you've got the feat budget for it: Resilient, Mobile, Ritual Caster, and Magic Initiate (you can get Find Familiar as your 1st level spell, which is permanent once cast).

For Magic Initiate cantrips, Free Hugs can use Create Bonfire to hold one enemy in the flames for additional damage. Be aware, Create Bonfire has somatic components, so it requires a free hand, and it also uses concentration. Everyone else should always have a hand free for spellcasting, so maybe one of them (Hotel California?) could take Create Bonfire instead. It might be wise to pick up some AoE cantrips (Thunderclap, Sword Burst, Word of Radiance) to deal with hordes of weaker enemies, but Hotel California and Free Hugs might also be able to tear through them faster than using those cantrips would just by using their attacks. As mentioned earlier, Mold Earth and Shape Water can be used to create an arena to fight in, giving cover to Long Shot and Push Back while creating a bottleneck for Hotel California and Free Hugs to block off.

Now, I'm sure there are a number of ways this could be improved. I'm not fully familiar with some of these builds, so there's probably a lot I'm forgetting or not aware of. Feel free to expand or improve on this, and lets see if we can get a mostly resourceless* adventuring party functional.

*It is inevitable that sooner or later they will encounter a situation where things like spells are almost necessary to achieve their goal. There's nothing wrong with having a competent spellcaster in the party, so long as we aren't relying on expendable resources for day-to-day adventuring. That's why I went with the warlock for the resident caster, they're just fine spamming EB all day, but have a few tricks they can pull out when they really need them. Magic items can also solve many of the same problems that would require a resource expenditure, Broom of Flying vs. the Fly spell, for example.

[BaconAwesome]

Fun! For maximum resource freedom, you'll want your warlock to have mending to minimize on broken arrows.

[LudicSavant]

I had the idea of looking into specialized builds and tactics that require a team instead of just one player doing their own thing

I wholeheartedly approve of focusing on team tactics instead of a single character in a vacuum. :smallsmile:


Now, I'm sure there are a number of ways this could be improved. I'm not fully familiar with some of these builds, so there's probably a lot I'm forgetting or not aware of. Feel free to expand or improve on this, and lets see if we can get a mostly resourceless* adventuring party functional.

You'll definitely want to get as much access to rituals as you can, such as via Tomelock. The Ritual Caster feat is nice, but doesn't give you access to all 4 lists and halves your effective caster level. For this party, you're going to want as many rituals as you can get your hands on, as soon as you can get your hands on them. Because rituals are awesome.

Rituals don't use up spell slots and make a pretty significant difference both in and out of combat. Don't forget that you can cast rituals while moving! This means that you can do things like, for example, maintain phantom steeds for the entire party during overland travel (and, in turn, enter every open-world fight with everyone having a pretty substantial mobility advantage).

Grabbing the Tomelock ritual invocation means you potentially have access to all of the following bag of toys:



Alarm
Ceremony: Why did the gods decide to hand out +2 AC for marriages? The world may never know.
Comprehend Languages
Detect Magic
Find Familiar: Familiars do lots of great things, such as handing out Advantage like candy. If you've got a Ring of Spell Storing, you can just give everyone in the party familiars if only one person can cast the ritual.
Identify
Illusory Script
Purify Food and Drink
Speak with Animals
Tenser's Floating Disk
Unseen Servant
Animal Messenger
Augury
Beast Sense
Gentle Repose
Locate Animals or Plants
Magic Mouth: Because this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?539861-The-Arcane-Programmer-Guide-(-Official-Rules-Technique-)) is a thing.
Silence
Skywrite
Feign Death
Leomund's Tiny Hut
Meld into Stone
Phantom Steed: The most important thing to remember about Phantom Steed is that you can cast rituals while moving. It makes the difference between this being trival and really valuable.
Water Breathing: Note that this targets the whole party and lasts 24 hours. Casting it should be part of your morning routine, while your Unseen Servant's brushing your teeth or something.
Water Walk
Divination
Commune
Commune with Nature
Contact Other Plane: This one is pretty notable in that it's a very powerful effect on a ritual that doesn't have a GP cost. Instead, it requires you to make a saving throw. There are a number of ways to make this saving throw nearly impossible to fail (it helps to stand next to a Paladin), and if you do so this is a mean ability to spam.
Rary's Telepathic Bond
Drawmij's Instant Summons
Forbiddance



____


Now, no party is truly resource-free. If nothing else, you always have hit points that will eventually deplete. If this concerns you, then I suggest trying to obtain Rings of Regeneration for each of your party members. The healing is slow (1d6 HP every 10 minutes), but that's at least an extra 6d6 HP for every short rest. What we're going to focus on are character builds and tactics that don't depend on expendable resources. I'll also avoid the barbarian and druid, even though they get infinite rages/wild shapes, as that only comes at 20th level.

I think the main bottleneck in resource expenditure for this sort of party might still be how much hurt the enemies lay on you (whether it's via hit point damage, status effects, etc). The Rings of Regeneration technically don't require you to rest, but they still require you to take hours worth of breaks if you want to patch up after a fight.

Rings of Regeneration help, but as you say they're slow. How slow depends on what level we're talking about... a level 20 Hotel California Champion with 20 Constitution is looking at around 11 hours for going from the 0hp gate back to full, meaning a long rest would actually have been faster. Of course, he wouldn't have to sleep for these 11 hours, but he doesn't exactly wanna jump into combat with 33% hp, either. Another issue is that you still want to have access to things like, say, picking an ally up off of the 0hp gate in a pinch.

So you're totally right in thinking that you'll want things like a Celestial Warlock in your back pocket to deal with hit point issues. You'll also want to watch out for long-term status effects that need to be cured, and try to boost your lockdown and elimination efficiency as high as you can. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Greywander]

You'll definitely want to get as much access to rituals as you can, such as via Tomelock. The Ritual Caster feat is nice, but doesn't give you access to all 4 lists and halves your effective caster level. For this party, you're going to want as many rituals as you can get your hands on, as soon as you can get your hands on them. Because rituals are awesome.
Chainlock pets are also awesome, so it's a tough call. If you can, their may be a way for several characters to pick up different versions of Ritual Caster. Your fighters, in particular, may be able to spare an extra feat for it. Wizard is of course the big one, but cleric and druid have some useful spells as well. I'd have to double-check the spell lists, but wizard, cleric, and druid might cover all ritual spells.


I think the main bottleneck in resource expenditure for this sort of party might still be how much hurt the enemies lay on you (whether it's via hit point damage, status effects, etc). The Rings of Regeneration technically don't require you to rest, but they still require you to take hours worth of breaks if you want to patch up after a fight.
[...]
So you're totally right in thinking that you'll want things like a Celestial Warlock in your back pocket to deal with hit point issues. You'll also want to watch out for long-term status effects that need to be cured, and try to boost your lockdown and elimination efficiency as high as you can.
Celestial warlock gets access to Revivify and Lesser and Greater Restoration, so they should be mostly able to remove long-term status effects. As far as damage, that's why I leaned heavily toward Brute/Champion fighters for our front liners, who get much speedier regeneration, albeit late and only up to half their HP, as well as Heavy Armor Master, which save you a lot of damage when dealing with hordes of weaker enemies. It's less effective against stronger enemies, like an ancient dragon, but every bit helps. I still think EK is a stronger choice for Free Hugs, but it does sacrifice some of your ability to operate without resources in favor of giving you powerful tricks you can spend resources on.

I'm curious if there's something we can exploit to get "resourceless healing". The closest things I can think of are first, as mentioned above, a Celestial warlock that uses short rest spell slots for healing, and second a coffeelock (Divine Soul or Celestial) that can have functionally infinite spell slots. The first still requires resting and is limited by the few number of spell slots the warlock gets. The second still requires downtime to replenish spell slots, and is less efficient than the first method, albeit you can save up unused spell slots indefinitely. The Ioun Stone of Regeneration gives 15 HP every hour, which isn't much, but would stack with the Ring of Regeneration, for a total of 36 average HP per hour.

I don't think there's any way to get in-combat infinite healing, only the Champion/Brute regen can accomplish this. The next best thing would be to find a way to generate temp HP consistently during combat. It doesn't need to be every round, as long as you can get more temp HP before you run out and take real damage. Dark One's Blessing is one option, but it only triggers when you kill an enemy, and it requires an investment into warlock and/or CHA to make the amount significant. Inspiring Leader might actually be able to carry you through a whole fight (except the front liners), but you still have to stop and take time to refresh it.

In the end, the best solution to the problem of hit points might just be to bring enough healing power and hope you can get a chance to rest before you run out of spell slots. The coffeelock or Celestial warlock can dip one level into Life cleric for an additional boost to healing.


As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Very true, but the best options for crowd control will inevitably cost resources anyway. A well placed Wall of Flame at the right moment can cut the enemy forces in half, making them much easier to deal with. But that costs resources that will eventually expire. Such options should definitely be considered when building any party or character, but that's not really within the purview of this thread. That's why I think EK is a better choice than Brute/Champion for Free Hugs and AT is a good choice for Long Shot; these will be more effective in practical play, but it will be because of a reliance on expendable resources.


Here's a few tweaks or improvements to the builds I posted.

Because Hotel California relies so heavily on opportunity attacks, they'd benefit greatly from finding a way to grab Warcaster and Booming Blade. Those two would just about double their damage output from opportunity attacks. This is less critical if the DM doesn't allow Tunnel Fighter.

Free Hugs probably doesn't need Tavern Brawler, but it does allow them to basically make an extra attack any time they need to grapple someone. Ritual Caster, Magic Initiate, or Resilient (WIS or DEX) are probably more important.

I wonder if it would be worth it for Long Shot to go 5 levels in fighter for Extra Attack. It wouldn't help in melee (if you're using Booming Blade), but it would give you a second chance to hit with your longbow if you miss the first time. The loss in Sneak Attack damage would be made up for by the additional attack.

I was also thinking about what you might want in a 5th character for this merry band. Here's what I've got so far:

Hulk Hippy - You wouldn't like him when he's stoned
Race: Human variant (+1 to CON, CHA)
Class: Ancients paladin 12 / Hexblade warlock 8
Fighting Styles: Tunnel Fighter
Invocations: Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Beast Speech, (Voice of the Chain Master) or (Devil's Sight)
Feats: PAM, Sentinel, Warcaster, Heavy Armor Master

Modus Operandi: The key here is that Hulk Hippy can serve multiple roles, as the party requires. With PAM, Sentinel, and Tunnel Fighter, you can create a second zone of control, albeit not as effectively as Hotel California, which can be particularly useful if you get attacked from both sides in a hallway. Do note that if you want to use a glaive or halberd, you'll need to go Blade pact (assuming you're using CHA for attack and damage rolls). If you go Chain pact, you're stuck using a quarterstaff and shield, but you'll free Push Back up to go Tome pact instead (although, having two invisible flying buddies might let you get up to even more mischief). With Warcaster, we can use Booming Blade with our opportunity attacks. And don't forget, all your attacks add Improved Divine Smite for dealing with those rare undead that need a dash of radiant damage to properly eliminate, like vampires.

We can also use Eldritch Blast to attack from range (only 120 feet, though), and can push enemies back while Push Back is busy or if you get overwhelmed and need some extra pushing power. You can even do this while using Tunnel Fighter to create a zone of control, though do be aware that you'll have disadvantage on ranged attacks if an enemy is within 5 feet of you.

You also bring Auras of Protection, Courage, and Warding to the table. Your allies need to be within 10 feet of you, but this can save your bacon when you need to bunch up. If you go Chain pact and use a shield, you might consider switching Heavy Armor Master for Shield Master, allowing you to negate many sources of AoE damage (to yourself, at least), which can be an issue when your party is clustered together.

Lastly, you bring additional healing to the table to help keep your HP up until you can rest.

Hulk Hippy seems to have tight tolerances for feats/ASIs. You want to push CHA to 20 while having respectable CON, but you also need STR 15 for plate armor, and multiclassing requires STR 13 anyway. Alternatively, take the Fiend patron instead and move some points from CON to STR. You'll need to decide if STR or CHA is more important (I'd go with CHA), but you'll be able to get temp HP every time you kill something, and you'll be free to use your choice of a glaive or a quarterstaff and shield, albeit with STR instead of CHA.

Your marching order should be: Hotel California, Free Hugs, Push Back, Long Shot, Hulk Hippy. Your squishiest member is in the middle, and the two tankiest members are on either end. (Free Hugs is probably tankier than Hulk Hippy, but isn't able to offer the same lockdown without PAM and Sentinel.)


Now I wonder if the tankiest party isn't a group of rogues that have dipped into Fiend warlock, and possibly started as fighters for heavy armor? Between Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Heavy Armor Master, and Defensive Duelist, plus temp HP every time they kill something, they'll be pretty tough and slippery. Throw in a Champion/Brute with Sentinel who stands next to the rogues, and people will be afraid of attacking them anyway. Maybe give the fighter Shield Master for faux Evasion against AoE. Better still, have the fighter grapple and knock prone a victim or two, who can then be stabbed to death by the rogues.

[LudicSavant]

The closest things I can think of are first, as mentioned above, a Celestial warlock that uses short rest spell slots for healing, and second a coffeelock (Divine Soul or Celestial) that can have functionally infinite spell slots.


That's why I think EK is a better choice than Brute/Champion for Free Hugs and AT is a good choice for Long Shot; these will be more effective in practical play, but it will be because of a reliance on expendable resources.

I think we could use a little bit of clarification here. How exactly are we measuring whether something's better or worse for your team, if not effectiveness in practical play? Why is a short rest healer "closer" to resourceless than any other one?

[Man_Over_Game]

Another option to include is a group of Swashbuckler Rogue Halflings as a Skirmisher party. They squeeze past Hotel California, attack with no risk of AoO, land a few sneak attacks on anything that gets near Hotel California, and dash back behind them to attack the next wave.

Make Long Shot a group of Masterminds who all Help each other and have advantage on every turn, which is a lot more reliable than Hide.

[Greywander]

I think we could use a little bit of clarification here. How exactly are we measuring whether something's better or worse for your team, if not effectiveness in practical play? Why is a short rest healer "closer" to resourceless than any other one?
Because most healing classes, such as cleric, paladin, druid, and bard, are dependent on long rests to refresh the resources they use for healing. Only needing a short rest to get your healing resources back makes it much easier to take a break then keep going instead of having to stop for the night. It's a lot easier to find the time for a short rest than a long rest.

I suppose we're starting to wander a bit from the original topic of this thread, which was a party that can fight effectively (and/or engage in non-combat tasks) without needing to expend resources, thus allowing them to stay active all day without needing to rest. The reality is restricting ourselves to never using resources means that there are some encounters (combat, puzzle, social, etc.) that such a team will not be able to deal with effectively unless they expend some resources, but such encounters should be rare enough that it shouldn't be a problem if you spend long-rest resources dealing with that encounter, as you'll probably get a chance to rest before you run out of resources (assuming you're still taking one long rest per day).

Hit points are a bit different, since you can lose them in any combat encounter, not just the rare special case encounters. No-rest healing is optimal, but limited. The Healer feat still requires you to rest before you can benefit from it again, potions cost money, and the Ring/Ioun Stone of Regeneration both work too slowly to do more than just take the edge off. Sooner or later, we need to either take a short rest and spend valuable hit dice, or bring in a real healer. So the best case scenario I'm seeing is using a healer that relies on short rests rather than long rests to get their healing back.

So, from a theorycrafting white room perspective, I've been focusing mainly on tactics that don't spend any resources (which is why I haven't mentioned things like Action Surge or Second Wind, or talked much about non-cantrip spells). But I've also tried to acknowledge the practical reality that it's good to have some short- or long-rest resources you can lean on in a tight situation. Maybe what this team needs is a dedicated cleric or wizard, not because they're not resource dependent, but because they are resource dependent, and are much better equipped to deal with the situations that the resourceless party members can't handle on their own.


Make Long Shot a group of Masterminds who all Help each other and have advantage on every turn, which is a lot more reliable than Hide.
Masterminds still need to be within 30 feet to take the help action. One of the key features of Long Shot is that they can attack from up to 600 feet away. There are some situations where it would be useful, but I think the situational usefulness of an Arcane Trickster would be overall more beneficial.

The way I'm reading it, though, there's no range limit on how far away the ally being helped can be, so you could have a Mastermind rogue engaged in melee (or no more than 30 feet away, at least), using their bonus action to Help Long Shot, even if Long Shot is 600 feet away. I do think there would be a place for a Mastermind in this party. How much resource-free buffing is there? They could get Guidance and Resistance, but I'm not aware of too many other buffs you can hand out for free. Maybe handling things like Create Bonfire could also be part of this character's purview. Maybe mix in a bit of Divine Soul coffeelock just to get spammable Bless (which would interfere with Create Bonfire).

[the secret fire]

@Longshot:

How one levels a Champion/Rogue (which is a beautiful combination, btw) is a matter of taste, I think. Stopping at Champion 3 allows you to get 17th level Rogue features as the capstone. If you care about a capstone and are playing an Assassin or Thief, I can definitely see why you might want to go Champion 3/Rogue 17.

Generally, though, I think going to Champion 5 fairly early in the PC's life in a good idea. Fighter 4 is a good level, as early ASIs tend to be quite valuable, and two attacks are a godsend on a Rogue, even more so a crit fisher with elven accuracy. I'd prolly go:

Rogue 1/Fighter (Champion) 5/Rogue (whatever you want) 15

Also, Sharpshooter is far from a slam dunk here, as Rogues will rarely want to take that +5/-10 trade and risk losing their sneak attack, entirely. The feat is quite useful to negate range and cover penalties, anyway, but it's not necessarily what you want here (though Skulker and EA certainly are necessary, I'd say). Crossbow Expert is also a legit consideration.