Hi Everyone (long time lurker, first time poster and so on. Clearly non-english, I'll try my best to be understandable )


I've never really played D&D. Actually I played in a D&D-based "play by chat" in the past, but it was mostly role-playing-focused, and I literally never had to fight anything :D

In the years I've read a lot of stuff about classes, lore, skills, feats and so on, although some of the more 'technical' aspects (especially about melee combat) are still unclear and... well I'm working on it

Last year I was about to begin my first game (on a "virtual platform" for D&D players that has a big emphasis on role-playing and characterization ) and a nice guy, after I told him the kind of character I wanted to play, gave me a "build" that was a good fit.
I "studied" that build, using it to understand the game and some of the rules that still were not clear to me.

Sadly I never had the chance to start playing there, and now that I finally have the time to go back and actually play my first D&D campaign, I'd appreciate a little help with fully understand those aspects of the build that seem 'weird/wrong' to me.

I'll post a recap of the build and of his explanations, and then the three main Issues I have with it (to be clear, I changed something - about skills and stats, for example - because his build was very 'technical-PP', while I needed something that was congruent with the characterization ).

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Swashbuckler 3 - Rogue 3 - Wizard 5 - Arcane Trickster 9
(78 stat points)

STR 14 (why?)
DEX 18
CON 10
INT 16
WIS 10
CHA 10


FEATS

LIV1 Combat Expertise
LIV1 (BONUS HUMAN) Two-Weapon Fighting
LIV1 (BONUS SWASHB.) Weapon Finesse
LIV3 Improved Feint (why?)
LIV6 Daring Outlaw
LIV9 Somatic Weaponry
LIV11 (BONUS WIZ) Silent Spell
LIV12 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
LIV15 Double Hit (why?)
LIV18 Deadly Defense


With this build you'll use Wraith Strike to ignore the enemies' AC (also, you got 2 "free sneak attack" granted to Arcane Tricksters) so you can use every point of Combat Expertise to improve your AC.

Other useful spells are "Daggerspell Stance" and [...]

DOUBTS:

Thanks to this build (as in "to understand it") I've read every topic I could about sneak attacks, checks, feints... and still, there are quite some things I don't really get:

1) STATS

I understand that being a Swashbuckler means that I add my INT to my DEX for damage, so STR is not a super-important stat.
Still, for what I understand, it doesn't matter how much "DEX-oriented" a character is, more STR always means more damages.
And that's ok.

But I don't think (am I wrong?) that I need 14 STR as a prerequisite for anything in that build... and since as a melee-mage I imagine I'll often have to cast spells during fights, shouldn't Concentration (and thus CON) be more important? The original creator probably wanted to dump WIS to 8 and add those points to CON... but still, why should I put 14 to STR instead of 12 or even 10?

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2) FEATS

I understand what this build "does" (although it's mostly based on abusing WraithStrike, I suppose) and I understand that in the ideas of the original "creator", the combo Improved Feint + Double Hit was supposed to be the "Plan B" (although I'm not sure if Feinting+Double Hit means double sneak attack or not...?)

My problem is... I don't get how FEINTING in general, in D&D, is a good idea. Feinting seems "impossible" to me.
I've read that to win a feint check you need to Bluff against the enemy's Perception, but he also get to add his BAB to the result. Not only this sound very difficult to pull off often, but it also mean that you should have a decent CHARISMA, losing points elsewhere... and even with that, it's still quite random.

Is there something I don't see?

Shouldn't I choose something less situational, like Improved Initiative and/or Penetrating Strike?

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I really hope this is the right place to ask and I'm not breaking any rule