Meichrob7
2019-06-25, 02:45 AM
The Scimitar of Speed is a decent ‘Very rare’ magic item that does 1d6 damage at base, has +2 to damage and attack rolls, and has a bonus effect that lets the user make a single attack with the weapon as a bonus action on each of their turns.
Normally this weapon is about as effective as having two +2 scimitars with the two weapon fighting style, except you get to have your second hand free.
However there’s some interesting synergy with rogues in particular that can make this weapon far more effective. Most effects that let you make an attack as a bonus action require you to first spend your action attacking(Off hand weapons, polearm master, crossbow expert), the only real exceptions (that I know of) are the frenzy rage feature and the Scimitar of Speed (and technically quickening one of the weapon attack cantrips).
If a rogue can make an attack as a bonus action without first needing to take the attack action, they’re freed up to use their action to ready an attack. By doing this they can make one attack on their turn and one attack on another turn during the round. This becomes important because the sneak attack feature is restricted to once per turn and not once per round, meaning if you attack on your own turn and then use a readied action to attack on another turn, both of the attacks will be able to do sneak attack damage if they meet the other requirements to activate sneak attack. You can also do this with opportunity attacks or if a battlemaster gives you an attack, but reading your own attack is something you can do every round.
So hypothetically if you were a level 2 rogue and you found a Scimitar of Speed, what class would be best at using/abusing the weapon?
My initial thought would be swashbuckler. They’re one of the only rogue classes that get an additional way to activate sneak attack that doesn’t require a bonus action. This is really important for a rogue with the Scimitar because their action and bonus action will be eaten up every turn so they need other sources regularly granting them advantage or ensuring the other methods of applying sneak attack happen. The only real downside is that swashbucklers don’t have great capstone abilities and the swashbuckler feature is only letting you make sneak attacks, it’s not giving you advantage so it’s pretty easy to miss still.
I think assassin doesn’t work out super well depending on how you interpret the rules of readying an action. If you can ready an action for when you end your turn I believe you could benefit from the auto crit feature twice, but I’ve often had DMS day that the character themself isn’t aware of turns passing so it needs to be something they’d actually see happen. That means you need to have your turn and someone else’s turn before your target takes a turn and loses surprise. That being said, this combo does give you advantage before they take their turn and would do disgusting damage in the first round.
Thief is kind of good later because the extra turn means you could attack with sneak attack 4 times your first turn. However there’s no reliable way to get advantage and no extra way to proc sneak attack.
Inquisitive only needs you to spend one bonus action observing the target before all your attacks can sneak attack and at level 17 those sneak attacks get even better.
Mastermind is probably the worst here because of how support focused they are, it’s not a bad class by itself but it doesn’t really do anything special with the Scimitar that the other subclasses can’t all do as well or better
Arcane trickster is nice because a familiar can be used to get advantage on at least one of your attacks each round and eventually their illusion magic would let you get advantage all the time (also something to note, they’re the only rogue class that can do this combo without any magic weapon or multiclassing because they’d eventually be able to do it with the haste spell). A benefit that arcane trickster alone has is the fact that if your illusions are hiding you to give advantage, they’re also imposing disadvantage on the enemy attacks. This is kinda really important because your readied attack is eating your reaction every round so you can’t reduce incoming damage.
Scout also wouldn’t be awful but their level 17 feature gives them an extra sneak attack the first round, which normally would double the rogue’s damage but since you can already sneak attack twice it’s comparatively less of an increase. Also it doesn’t really have much in terms of reliable ways to get advantage or extra ways to activate sneak attack.
Normally this weapon is about as effective as having two +2 scimitars with the two weapon fighting style, except you get to have your second hand free.
However there’s some interesting synergy with rogues in particular that can make this weapon far more effective. Most effects that let you make an attack as a bonus action require you to first spend your action attacking(Off hand weapons, polearm master, crossbow expert), the only real exceptions (that I know of) are the frenzy rage feature and the Scimitar of Speed (and technically quickening one of the weapon attack cantrips).
If a rogue can make an attack as a bonus action without first needing to take the attack action, they’re freed up to use their action to ready an attack. By doing this they can make one attack on their turn and one attack on another turn during the round. This becomes important because the sneak attack feature is restricted to once per turn and not once per round, meaning if you attack on your own turn and then use a readied action to attack on another turn, both of the attacks will be able to do sneak attack damage if they meet the other requirements to activate sneak attack. You can also do this with opportunity attacks or if a battlemaster gives you an attack, but reading your own attack is something you can do every round.
So hypothetically if you were a level 2 rogue and you found a Scimitar of Speed, what class would be best at using/abusing the weapon?
My initial thought would be swashbuckler. They’re one of the only rogue classes that get an additional way to activate sneak attack that doesn’t require a bonus action. This is really important for a rogue with the Scimitar because their action and bonus action will be eaten up every turn so they need other sources regularly granting them advantage or ensuring the other methods of applying sneak attack happen. The only real downside is that swashbucklers don’t have great capstone abilities and the swashbuckler feature is only letting you make sneak attacks, it’s not giving you advantage so it’s pretty easy to miss still.
I think assassin doesn’t work out super well depending on how you interpret the rules of readying an action. If you can ready an action for when you end your turn I believe you could benefit from the auto crit feature twice, but I’ve often had DMS day that the character themself isn’t aware of turns passing so it needs to be something they’d actually see happen. That means you need to have your turn and someone else’s turn before your target takes a turn and loses surprise. That being said, this combo does give you advantage before they take their turn and would do disgusting damage in the first round.
Thief is kind of good later because the extra turn means you could attack with sneak attack 4 times your first turn. However there’s no reliable way to get advantage and no extra way to proc sneak attack.
Inquisitive only needs you to spend one bonus action observing the target before all your attacks can sneak attack and at level 17 those sneak attacks get even better.
Mastermind is probably the worst here because of how support focused they are, it’s not a bad class by itself but it doesn’t really do anything special with the Scimitar that the other subclasses can’t all do as well or better
Arcane trickster is nice because a familiar can be used to get advantage on at least one of your attacks each round and eventually their illusion magic would let you get advantage all the time (also something to note, they’re the only rogue class that can do this combo without any magic weapon or multiclassing because they’d eventually be able to do it with the haste spell). A benefit that arcane trickster alone has is the fact that if your illusions are hiding you to give advantage, they’re also imposing disadvantage on the enemy attacks. This is kinda really important because your readied attack is eating your reaction every round so you can’t reduce incoming damage.
Scout also wouldn’t be awful but their level 17 feature gives them an extra sneak attack the first round, which normally would double the rogue’s damage but since you can already sneak attack twice it’s comparatively less of an increase. Also it doesn’t really have much in terms of reliable ways to get advantage or extra ways to activate sneak attack.