Gloomstalker/ Scout build

[Raven Darkcloud]

Wondering if anyone has any pointers on this. I was thinking 5 levels Gloomstalker rest Scout. Rolling a Human Variant with xbow expert. Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.

[CTurbo]

This is a very good and very straight forward combo.

I really like the Scout for archer builds. The ability to get out of melee is nice easily is nice making you a very hard character to pin down. Ranger/Rogue goes together quite well in general. All you need is as much Dex as you can get and a pinch of Wis.

I'd start 16 Dex, 14 Con, 14 Wis and Crossbow Expert. Take Archery Style at Ranger 2. +2 Dex at level 4. Expertise in Stealth and Perception. Take Sharpshooter at Rogue 5 and max Dex at Rogue 8.

You'll have 3 attacks to get your sneak damage, use the -5/+10 from Sharpshooter for all other attacks each round after landing your Sneak Attack. You'll do a lot of damage. You'll be extra sneaky. No overly glaring weaknesses.

[arnin77]

I agree, I have a 5 hunter ranger/ 9 scout rogue. Elven accuracy is very helpful to land attacks and get more crits; doubling the sneak attack dice. Also sharpshooter for extra damage as well. Plus being super skillful.

I would recommend wood elf to get EA to help land those hits since you’ll have rogue levels to get advantage easier.

The only drawback I had was that I wanted to play a Ranger and this is more of a “spell-limited” build; so you might want to find ways of getting magic if that’s what you want.

[Raven Darkcloud]

Thank you both for your input currently lvl 2 vhuman ranger will be taking gloomstalker at 3 if I live.

[CheddarChampion]

I suggest boosting your Dex to 20 before taking Sharpshooter unless you mostly fight low AC enemies or enemies that use cover a lot.

Higher Dex gives you a higher AC, a better initiative bonus, better Dex skills (including stealth), and a better Dex save. It also gives +1 to hit and +1 to damage.

Comparatively, Sharpshooter is -6/+9. That's -5/+10 adjusted for lacking a +1 to Dex. Then compare ignoring 1/2 and 3/4 cover to +1 to AC, Dex skills, initiative, and Dex saves.

I think +1 Dex is better, but it's subjective.