How to play a savage ambusher?

[Ghghj2]

Hello! I'll join a new campaign and after some wizards and clerics, im planning on playing a (mostly) physical attacker, that relies on cunning and ambushes. Wanted him to be a lizardfolk, biting and slashing when jumping on prey and causing a mess from surprise. Rougue seems obvious, but how to make him more durable and attack more when ambush is over? Any other tips or ideas? Thanks in advance!

[RogueJK]

Take 1 level of Rogue, then 5 levels of Gloomstalker Ranger, then continue on as an Assassin Rogue until Rogue 12, then finish out with Gloomstalker Ranger to Ranger 8 (if you make it that high).

The initial 5 Gloomstalker levels get you an Extra Attack, Darkvision (which is nice for a Lizardfolk), an Initiative boost, a few 1st and 2nd Level spells to aid your stealth and ambushing, some Nature abilities to complement your "savage"/"natural" concept, and a lot of additional power in the 1st round when your ambush kicks off, especially once combined with your Assassin 1st round capabilities.

Even after the 1st round ambush nova, you'll still have multiple attacks per round to fall back on, and have the ability to more easily generate Advantage for continued Sneak Attack damage since you're effectively invisible in dark areas and can Cunning Action Hide.

Take Perception and Stealth as your two Racial skills, and use your initial Rogue Expertise on these two. Use your 7 other Rogue (4), Ranger (1), and Background (2) skills to get Acrobatics, Nature, Survival, Animal Handling, Investigation, Insight, and Sleight of Hand.

Make DEX your highest starting stat, WIS next, then CON. (If you end up playing with the flexible racial stat modifiers from Tasha's, move that Lizardfolk +2 to DEX instead of CON.)

From there, get DEX to 20 ASAP. Then you'll likely want the Alert feat eventually, to get you +DEX+WIS+5 to your Initiative roll, helping to guarantee that you're able to go before any enemies in the first round of combat to make the most of your Gloomstalker and Assassin abilities. This will probably be at Rogue 8 or Rogue 10, since you'll likely be spending your first 2 or 3 ASIs at Ranger 4 and Rogue 4/8 on DEX.


Understand that as a DEX-based character, you won't be able to take full advantage of the Lizardfolk's bite attack, which is a STR-based attack. Importantly, you also won't be able to Sneak Attack with your bite attack, since it's neither a Finesse nor Ranged weapon. And you won't be able to benefit from any of your Ranger Fighting Styles using your bite. Therefore, ignore the bite attack. You're better off with a Longbow and the Archery Fighting Style or a rapier and the Dueling fighting style. (Or possibly two short swords and the Two Weapon Fighting Style, but that competes for your Bonus Action with Cunning Action and Ranger spells like Hunter's Mark and Ensnaring Strike.)

[micahaphone]

Gloomstalker multiclass could be nice, to really create an alpha strike. It would also give you darkvision.

If you want to continue your attack after the ambush, I might recommend the inquisitive rogue, letting you still do sneak attack damage while one-on-one with an enemy. It'd make sense as your "hunter's intuition" being your version of the Insightful Fighting ability.

[iTreeby]

Gloomstalker is definitely worth considering just want to say that if you are taking rogue to level 13, consider scout over assassin. Also consider the possibility of echo knight, it gives action surge as well as con mod amount of extra attacks a long rest. I'd probably take gloomstalker over echo knight if I had to choose between them but I'd definitely say scout rogue is almost everything you need by itself.

[Sorinth]

Barbarian/Rogue is a strong option.

They can always sneak attack via Reckless Attack, can absorb tons of damage between rage and Uncanny Dodge. They don't need armour with a stealth penalty, they are also top-notch grapplers.

[RogueJK]

Barbarian/Rogue is a strong option.

They can always sneak attack via Reckless Attack, can absorb tons of damage between rage and Uncanny Dodge. They don't need armour with a stealth penalty, they are also top-notch grapplers.

At the cost of being more MAD, needing a high STR, DEX, and CON.

[Sorinth]

At the cost of being more MAD, needing a high STR, DEX, and CON.

Thanks to expertise in Stealth you don't actually need a super high DEX, having a +1 or +2 is more then adequate.

[Nhorianscum]

Hello! I'll join a new campaign and after some wizards and clerics, im planning on playing a (mostly) physical attacker, that relies on cunning and ambushes. Wanted him to be a lizardfolk, biting and slashing when jumping on prey and causing a mess from surprise. Rougue seems obvious, but how to make him more durable and attack more when ambush is over? Any other tips or ideas? Thanks in advance!

Playing this sort of character is all about play optimization over character optimization and requires a lot of party buy in.

That said as with many other concepts the thief rouge is my preference for this as it's just the best non-magical option for playing a crafty melemancer.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

You have a few different options here depending on how you want to go. Though if you are wanting to use the bite attack that Lizardfolk get then you will need to up Strength. A barbarian and rogue combo will do nicely together but depending on what archetypes you combine. If going this route I would recommend totem barbarian/scout rogue. Both archetypes play nicely with one another's abilities and you have options via the totems. Bear is the classic way to go for defense, wolf to help on keeping advantage, deer/eagle for mobility, or tiger for pounce attacks.

Rogue/Ranger is nice but instead of Gloomstalker I would go with either Hunter or Horizon Walker. Hunter has decent abilities that can help in dealing with multiple foes at once or do some damage to single targes while Horizon Walker gets you a nice set of spells for quick mobility.

Also a Warlock/Rogue paring could work. Sneak Attack combined with the deadly Darkness-Devil Sight combo is nothing to scoff at. Also one of the nifty spells you get is Shadow Blade which will work with Sneak Attack both melee and distance.

So you have a few options to go around. These are general ideas but depends ultimately what you want to do.

[pr4wn]

Maybe not the most optimal, but should fit the aesthetic...


Start with Ranger, go to 3rd level and take Gloomstalker.
1 level of Rogue, take stealth and athletics for Expertise.
Back to Ranger until 5th level of ranger for extra attack.
2 levels of Fighter for action surge.


After that, I would take whatever levels you want in those three classes. I probably wouldn't go above 3rd level in Rogue. You want to be savage, and can't sneak attack with a bite...

I would have strength as your highest stat. At 8th level your ambush routine is:


Attack action, 1st Grapple, 2nd Shove prone.
Gloomstalker additional attack (with advantage), bite D6 + D8 + STR mod.
Bonus action: Hungry Jaws attack (with advantage), D6 + STR mod.
Action Surge: Attack action (with advatage), 2 bites, D6 + STR mod.
Gloomstalker additional attack (with advantage), bite D6 + D8 +STR mod.


Basically, grab them by the throat, shove them to the ground and gnaw their face off. You get 5 bite attacks with advantage, two of them with an additional D8 due to Gloomstalker. You may get higher damage potential with another build, but if you are looking for the savage vibe, I think this does pretty well.

After the first round, draw your weapon (or continue to use bite) for two attacks a round.

-pr4wn

[CTurbo]

Ok here's my take

Option #1
Ranger 1-3(Gloom Stalker)
Monk 1
Ranger 4-5
Rogue 1-5(Assassin)
Fighter 2
Rogue 6-12

Option #2
Ranger 1-3(Gloom Stalker)
Rogue 1
Monk 1-6(Shadow)
Rogue 2-3(Assassin)
Fighter 2
Rogue 4-9


Why did I add in Monk? Just 1 level allows you to use Dex with your Bite attack AND allow you to Bite with your Bonus Action reliably. If you wanted to go 6 levels, Shadow Monk meshes excellently with Gloom Stalker.

Option #1 gives you 5 ASI/feats while option #2 gives you 3 ASI/feats, but all you really need for this to work is a maxed Dex and maybe Alert. Lucky, Mobile, and Magic Initiate(Minor Illusion, Control Flames, and Find Familiar) would be great too.

[micahaphone]

I didn't know natural weapons could be monk weapons.

[x3n0n]

I didn't know natural weapons could be monk weapons.

As far as I can tell, it's not that natural weapons are monk weapons, it's that the natural weapon in question "is used to make unarmed strikes" in the wording, and those unarmed strikes benefit from the Monk Martial Arts feature.

[Ghghj2]

Lots of great ideas thanks guys! Always fun to get opinions on builds gloomstalker scout seems pretty great, but i also liked the totem rogue a lot! Thanks!