Best Gloom Stalker Alternative for Core Only Game?

[DEMON]

Hi Folks,

As the title suggest, I'm looking for suggestions to build a character similar in flavor to a Gloom Stalker (XGtE), but with only PHB available as far as classes and archetypes are concerned.

The aim is for a competent archery (preferably bow) based fighter, with stealth component and backup spellcasting.
The out of combat utility would be mainly trapfinding, scouting and also the less savory activities.

My best bet to meet this concept in Core is an Arcane Trickster build, but I'm sure it can be improved with some savvy multiclassing.

So how would you guys go about building a sneaky archer with backup spellcasting, while limited to PHB for your options?

[Dork_Forge]

Battlemater Fighter X/Arcane Trickster Rogue 4 (Stealth Expertise) should cover what you want. you'll be great at stealth, able to hide as a bonus action with cantrips and leveled spells as a fallback.

Alternatively you could do Ranger (Hunter) X//Rogue1/2, ranger spells, extra damage and expertise on stealth still.

[iTreeby]

Way of shadows monk, be a wood elf for some bow proficiency, kite around with all the movement, deflect arrows, force enemy casters closer with silence or darkness. if you get pinned down, no worries stunning strike or just ki dodge.

[AvalancheSpring]

Consider some mix of:
Battlemaster 7-11 (chassis)
Shadow Monk 3-6 (darkness spells, push to L6 for more casts and Shadow Step)
Hunter 3-4 (ranger spells, push to L4 for an ASI)

1 level of Shadow Sorc or Hexblade could get you the ability to see through your darkness spells, but they are not phb.

Edit:
- Brain fart. Of course you can take Warlock-2 to get Devil's Sight which goes well with this concept. I don't think MAD is an issue - you don't need to take any Chr dependent spells or invocations, and you still gets some solid options that match your concept (e.g. Great Old One with Devil's Sight and one of Misty Visions, Beast Speach, Mask of Many Faces).

[iTreeby]

Consider some mix of:
Battlemaster 7-11 (chassis)
Shadow Monk 3-6 (darkness spells, push to L6 for more casts and Shadow Step)
Hunter 3-4 (ranger spells, push to L4 for an ASI)

1 level of Shadow Sorc or Hexblade could get you the ability to see through your darkness spells, but they are not phb.

Hunter and shadow monk get MAD when you multiclass into sorcerer or warlock but it's doable and devils sight invocation is core and could be worth it.


OP, I noticed that you didn't explicitly rule out feats from non core books, so I'd like to draw your attention to the "wood elf magic" feat in xanathar'sgguide to everything, it is yet another way to cast darkness and longstrider.

[Dork_Forge]

Consider some mix of:
Battlemaster 7-11 (chassis)
Shadow Monk 3-6 (darkness spells, push to L6 for more casts and Shadow Step)
Hunter 3-4 (ranger spells, push to L4 for an ASI)

1 level of Shadow Sorc or Hexblade could get you the ability to see through your darkness spells, but they are not phb.

Seeing through Darkness has nothing to do with Hexblade, that's a PHB invocation Devil's Sight.

[DEMON]

Thank you for the advice, everyone.

I would like to follow up with another questions: Since the Battle Master was the suggested Fighter archetype on both occasions, which maneuvers would you recommend? And why this archetype in the first place over the other 2 options?


OP, I noticed that you didn't explicitly rule out feats from non core books, so I'd like to draw your attention to the "wood elf magic" feat in xanathar'sgguide to everything, it is yet another way to cast darkness and longstrider.

That was just a poor choice of words on my side. It's Core only for everything.
But I will check the feat out in case a less restrictive campaign comes knocking on my door :smallsmile:

[Man_Over_Game]

I'd skip out on Devil's Sight and Warlock levels, and just pick up Alert.

Alert has a nice advantage to it where it nullifies the weaknesses of being attacked while blinded. So while you attack normally in Darkness (as both of you are blind), enemies would attack you with Disadvantage.

Monk works best by having more and more Monk levels, due to its martial arts dice scaling and Ki point generation. My suggestion is to never go half-assed when it comes to Monk, either dip for a few levels into it or dip a few levels out of it, but never have a situation where you have end with 5-15 levels into Monk. You wouldn't need levels into Warlock for Darkness when you'd regenerate so many Ki points that casting it as a Monk feature wouldn't matter.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Eldrich knight with SS and XBE(no need to actually use a crossbow, it worth it just for the ability to fire in melee without disadvantage).

ET rouge can also fit but the fighter have the action surge for the feel of the first turn extra strike and more attacks to mimic swift quiver.

[Keravath]

There are several ways you could go about getting a stealthy ranged attacker depending on how much multiclassing you want to do.

Battle master or eldritch knight fighter - battlemaster has maneuvers that can work well with the sharpshooter feat - eldritch knight has spells ... both have access to the archery fighting style.

Rogue levels - this offers expertise in stealth but honestly, the gloomstalker has invisibility not expertise in stealth. Arcane trickster gives some interesting spell choices.

To get an invisibility like effect you would need either 3 levels of shadow sorcerer who can see through magical darkness cast using sorcery points OR 3 levels of warlock for the darkness spell plus devils sight. Either of these options can work pretty well to provide a feature similar to the invisibility of the gloomstalker but at the expense of multiclassing.

The shadow sorcerer gives 120' darkvision at level 1 while 2 levels of warlock gives 120' see perfectly in the dark from devils sight. Either of these will help if you play a race that starts without darkvision (e.g. variant human).

An archery/DPS expert might want both the Xbow Xpert feat and the Sharpshooter feat. A variant human fighter can have both feats, the archery fighting style and max their attack stat by level 8 in fighter.

So some combination of fighter/rogue/sorcerer/warlock will give a character that is excellent at ranged attacks, stealthy, able to see in the dark and can replicate the invisibility effect using darkness+devils sight. It just depends on which gloomstalker-like features you value more than others.

Other options include a 1 fighter/blade pact warlock X which will have a wider selection of spells. You can still make a bow your pact weapon though this is easier with the improved pact weapon feat from Xanathar's or possibly an arcane trickster rogue X/warlock 3 or 5 ... throwing in a level of fighter gives the archery fighting style.

[Specter]

What you want from Gloomstalker are things like Darkvision/Rope Trick and some surprise goodness, so a build like Rogue 3/Wizard 3/Ranger 14 should do the trick.

[MaxWilson]

Rogue 2, Stalker feat, then lots of archery levels (Fighter or Ranger, your choice).

Stalker lets you hide when lightly obscured, and in darkness you'll be lightly obscured to creatures with darkvision, so you can vanish with Cunning Action and Stealth Expertise.

[iTreeby]

Rogue 2, Stalker feat, then lots of archery levels (Fighter or Ranger, your choice).

Stalker lets you hide when lightly obscured, and in darkness you'll be lightly obscured to creatures with darkvision, so you can vanish with Cunning Action and Stealth Expertise.

I think you mean skulker. What an amazing feat, it includes halfling hide and wood elf hide in its wording, so you can basically always hide. I think you can even hide behind enemies, it's bananas... It combo's really well with sharpshooter, if you r enemies ready an action to attack when you fire, you can attack from cover and not be penalized on the attack, and if you miss, they would never get a chance to shoot at you.

[MaxWilson]

I think you mean skulker. What an amazing feat, it includes halfling hide and wood elf hide in its wording, so you can basically always hide. I think you can even hide behind enemies, it's bananas... It combo's really well with sharpshooter, if you r enemies ready an action to attack when you fire, you can attack from cover and not be penalized on the attack, and if you miss, they would never get a chance to shoot at you.

Whoops, yes. I don't know how I got that wrong. I blame Costco for distracting me. :)

Hiding behind enemies, probably not (half cover doesn't normally create light obscurement), but otherwise you should be good to go in heavy rain, darkness, etc.

Remember that enemies relying on Darkvision to see you in the dark have disadvantage on Perception, therefore -5 to passive Perception, so typically their passive Perception will be between 4 and 9. Combined with Stealth Expertise you should pretty much auto-succeed.

[DEMON]

I'll probably (95% decided) go with Hunter (Rgr) / Assassin (Rog) in a 3:2 split (i.e. Rgr 12 / Rog 8 @ lvl 20).

I'll have to work out the details, like the race, background, feats and level by level progression, but I believe this should hit the spot I'm aiming for.
Even though the "backup spellcasting" bit isn't too hot, the "surprise goodness" (as fittingly named by Specter) is through the roof :smallbiggrin:

Thanks everyone for your input and insight.