Support rogue.

[Alexwellace]

I'm looking at the idea of a support rogue, going for a very Artemis Fowl kind of vibe. A very young person, maybe even literally a child/teenager, who sits in the back while her big burely brute fighter friend goes to work on the enemies. But when people under-estimate her, she whips out some throwing daggers and catches people off guard (sneak attack).

I'm thinking about taking Ghostwise Halfling as my race, as the telepathic communication would allow me to fluff my 30ft Help action as a telepathic warning (Behind you! Duck! His left leg is limping), then at level 4 I'd take either Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster for Find Familiar, probably an Owl, who can also provide the Help action. So giving out two help actions per turn, with my bonus action and for free. Then at level 8 I'd take the boundless luck feat (Xanathars racial feats) allowing me to use my reaction to extend my Lucky to someone else. By then I'd probably need to start taking ASI's to beef up my Dex.

Does this sound like an interesting build? I quite like the idea of a telepathic mastermind of an operation being a calculating young girl, who is extremely acrobatic and dexterous is combat ever comes her way (disengage and uncanny dodge).

Any advise on Magic initiate vs Ritual Caster for a build like this? Magic initiate gives me Mage Hand and Minor Illusion for utility, but Ritual Caster gives me an Alarm to set every night and I also quite like the 'knowledge seeker' motivation having a ritual book gives you.

[nickl_2000]

Let me make a few suggestions here.

1) Go with a teenager over a child. There are many tables where playing a child will be hard on the players, and there is some possible emotional baggage that could take away the fun from the people. A teenager will just go easier overall.
2) It sounds like you are playing a mastermind rogue, that's a good choice for this build and should work well.
3) I would plan from the beginning to be attacking with your action every round, because if you are using your action to help you really are weakening yourself overall and will harm the party.
4) I would also look at bows as a possibility. It would be nice to have a 1d6 in damage and a longer range possibility verses the short ranger and 1d4 damage of a dagger


Now as for MI vs Ritual Caster. Either one should give you what you are looking for. They both provide a familiar and other utility, so it comes down to a question of what will help the party more and what will be more fun for you.

Ritual Caster (Wizard) - This nets you a lot of knowledge spells, which would be very fitting of a rich, young genius (Comprehend Languages, unseen servant, identify, detect magic, and more). However, you only get two of them and you need to find more and pay to put them into your ritual book. So, it can be expensive and sometimes hard to find scrolls/magic books to get these spells. I would talk to the DM and make sure that it will be possible to find the spells, because if the adventure won't make it possible this is a bad choice.

MI (wizard) - Minor Illusion is goes from fun to amazing depending on the DM and your imagination. Ask the DM to find out how much you can get away with on here. That could make or break this spell. Personally, I'm less of a fan of illusions, but that is because I don't think quickly enough as to when they will be the most useful. Mage Hand is a great utility spell as long as no one else has it. However, it would be fitting of your character to hold back and let the meatshield (bodyguard) open the doors for you. So, it isn't as necessary. Other options that are good are control water, mold earth, gust, light, message, mending, prestidigation, and friends. All worth looking at more carefully if you want to go the MI route.


Do you know what other races/classes will be in the party?

[R.Shackleford]

Rogue/Sorcerer multiclass.

Halfling Rogue (Mastermind) 3/ Sorcerer (Shadow) 3

Subtle Spell is your friend and is quicken/twin/careful depending on which way you want to go. Subtle is key tho!

Shadow Sorcerer fits rather well. Drop a darkness, that you can see through, and then use a bonus action to help an ally (advantage to attack, so they have a normal shot at hitting the enemy but the enemy has disadvantage).

You could be hidden and use subtle spell to make it look like your allies are the one casting spells.


Edit: I would go sorcerer as my first level for the better saves.

[iTreeby]

Three levels of warlock can get you the pact boon tome of shadow which can also get you rituals as well as find familiar. Because you would actually need to get the rituals in game, it could make your character feel like an active schemer

[clash]

This sounds like a bard to me. They get far more support features and I think bardic inspiration works better than the help action for what you are suggesting. In fact bards can even do both help and give inspiration. If you want to go rogue I would do Arcane Trickster for mage hand ledgerman or Mastermind for bonus action help.

[strangebloke]

A huge part of the Rogue's power is in sneak attack, so if you're not using that you'll be weaker, but I think everyone here is being a little bit hyperbolic. If your DM is running a high-challenge campaign, you will probably find yourself sneak attacking more. If he isn't, you won't.

I would say that this character looks mostly fine. I would personally recommend ritual caster here over against magic initiate, unless there's a few cantrips you really want. Other feats to consider include healer, inspiring leader, and gourmand.

[Jamesps]

A huge part of the Rogue's power is in sneak attack, so if you're not using that you'll be weaker, but I think everyone here is being a little bit hyperbolic. If your DM is running a high-challenge campaign, you will probably find yourself sneak attacking more. If he isn't, you won't.


I imagine it depends a bit on who they're helping. A character with Great Weapon Master might actually do more damage with a help action than a low level rogue. That's probably only true at low levels though before too much sneak attack accrues.

I think a Hexblade with GWM would have the best return on a help action, assuming they have a curse available. Assuming a 25% increase in their damage potential and a 10% increase in their chance to critical you'd be looking at trading your action for...

.25 (7 + 2 + 3 + 10) + .09 (7) + (.09) (.75) (7 +2 + 3 + 10) = 7.615 damage assuming a 50% base chance of hitting.

GWM champions should have similar returns, making the help action better than an attack up to 5th level assuming you have enough Champions and Hexblades with GWM in the party to make use of all your help actions.

[Vogie]

I'd second the 2-level dip in Wizard. You get ritual casting, a small smattering of spells including find familiar, and those very powerful 2nd level abilities. I'd say War Magic, Divination, Abjuration, and Conjuration would fit your character

[Jamesps]

I imagine it depends a bit on who they're helping. A character with Great Weapon Master might actually do more damage with a help action than a low level rogue. That's probably only true at low levels though before too much sneak attack accrues.

I think a Hexblade with GWM would have the best return on a help action, assuming they have a curse available. Assuming a 25% increase in their damage potential and a 10% increase in their chance to critical you'd be looking at trading your action for...

.25 (7 + 2 + 3 + 10) + .09 (7) + (.09) (.75) (7 +2 + 3 + 10) = 7.615 damage assuming a 50% base chance of hitting.

GWM champions should have similar returns, making the help action better than an attack up to 5th level assuming you have enough Champions and Hexblades with GWM in the party to make use of all your help actions.

Disclaimer: This math is based on fighting a steady stream of Ogres wearing chain shirts. I suggest you put that in the paperwork for your party. This will give you leeway to claim that GMs that throw your party against other sorts of encounters were using your party for purposes outside their specifications and thus deny any refund they might get from breaking this adventuring party.

[Armored Walrus]

Does this sound like an interesting build?

It does to me. I'd enjoy DMing for a character like this, and any big brutes in your party will love the frequent Advantage.



Any advise on Magic initiate vs Ritual Caster for a build like this? Magic initiate gives me Mage Hand and Minor Illusion for utility, but Ritual Caster gives me an Alarm to set every night and I also quite like the 'knowledge seeker' motivation having a ritual book gives you.

Personally I'd go Ritual Caster. That fluff is cool, plus you get some nice spells down the road. Leomund's Tiny Hut is a great spell, and Rary's Telepathic Bond fits your fluff extremely well, if you ever manage to pick it up.

Am I wrong, or are the folks pointing out that not sneak attacking is suboptimal kind of missing the point of your post? I don't see anywhere that you said you would not sneak attack. That's the whole point of going Mastermind, right? (bonus action Help from range, then chuck a throwing dagger?)

[Keravath]

Rogue/Sorcerer multiclass.

Halfling Rogue (Mastermind) 3/ Sorcerer (Shadow) 3

Subtle Spell is your friend and is quicken/twin/careful depending on which way you want to go. Subtle is key tho!

Shadow Sorcerer fits rather well. Drop a darkness, that you can see through, and then use a bonus action to help an ally (advantage to attack, so they have a normal shot at hitting the enemy but the enemy has disadvantage).

You could be hidden and use subtle spell to make it look like your allies are the one casting spells.


Edit: I would go sorcerer as my first level for the better saves.

Shadow sorcerer might be a cool combination. However, you can't give advantage to someone who can't see in darkness.

If you have two creatures who can't see each other then they are both suffering advantage since the other creature can't see them and disadvantage since they can't see the other creature. Adding advantage or disadvantage from another source doesn't counteract the fact that they already have advantage/disadvantage which are cancelling out. Additional sources of advantage/disadvantage don't stack.

A couple of other examples ... casting darkness negates the disadvantage for firing a ranged weapon at point blank range assuming that neither the attacker nor defender can see in the darkness. Darkness will also remove the advantage a melee attack usually has against a prone target because again the effects cancel out. A Barbarian reckless attack can negate disadvantage if they are blinded and their target is not but will never give them advantage even if neither they nor their target can see each other.

[Alexwellace]

Thanks for the answers guys! I didn't actually consider multiclassing that much, since Rogues get so many cool features that they are one of the few classes I'd like to play pure. But I do like the idea of the 2 lvl wizard dip for Divination Wizard. It seems to me that the portent dice don't use up any action economy, just like directing the familiar doesn't.

So on a theoretical turn I can direct my familiar to provide the help action, bonus action provide the help action myself, use my reaction to let any ally re-roll a single 1 they roll AND use my portent dice to automatically give us a good roll or the opponent a bad one? AND still attack myself. That's quite a lot of things going on in a single turn and does scream Mastermind to me. Yeah, I will still be attacking (hopefully Sneak attacking) myself with a thrown dagger (dagger > bow for coolness and versitility), of which I shall try to attain as many as possible as quick as possible!


-clarification- By Child I meant teenager, 15/16, child genius sorta deal. Party-wise I don't know who i'll have apart from a single player who's playing a UA Brute Fighter who's essentially playing as my bodyguard/father figure type character. So I want to work well with him, telepathically helping him as often as I can and throwing daggers while he takes the heat off of me.

[R.Shackleford]

Shadow sorcerer might be a cool combination. However, you can't give advantage to someone who can't see in darkness.

If you have two creatures who can't see each other then they are both suffering advantage since the other creature can't see them and disadvantage since they can't see the other creature. Adding advantage or disadvantage from another source doesn't counteract the fact that they already have advantage/disadvantage which are cancelling out. Additional sources of advantage/disadvantage don't stack.

A couple of other examples ... casting darkness negates the disadvantage for firing a ranged weapon at point blank range assuming that neither the attacker nor defender can see in the darkness. Darkness will also remove the advantage a melee attack usually has against a prone target because again the effects cancel out.

As a mastermind rogue, the target needs to be able to see or hear me and be within 30.

Help has no restrictions on seeing the target.

Perhaps if the target was hidden, both unseen and unheard, you might have a case... But if my Rogue can see it then it is no longer hidden.

The advantage was about negating disadvantage, not gaining advantage. Though I did forget about the equal footing issue already going on and was thinking normal darkness XD for a second. Brain fart.

Though I guess it does pair up well with Warlocks... Hmm I need to make a blackout team.