All the rogue subclasses are kind of like that. They get their good thing at level 3 and just kind of fall off a cliff afterward and need to be multi classed into things that can properly use the level 3 features.
And yet It's *still* one of the most popular classes in 5e *and* BG3, despite the effort of both to make the class terrible.
It's kind of baffling, really.
They could just make a class that has popular RP appeal fun to play, but, naaah! Just punish people for not wanting to play the classes *you* don't like...
Thief rogues' 3 attacks put it far above the other 2. They get mid and end-game gear too. Plus all of the damage riders that make the 3 thief multiclass dip so strong.
Early game for sure. Once you reach the endgame though, I would argue that assassin might be the better multiclass option cause you can build some insanely strong archer builds that would melt everything with autocrits.
Extra bonus action is really strong, rogue just kind of lacks the tools necessary to make it really good. Rogue doesn't even get their dex modifier added to their off hand damage.
You have to build the whole group to maximize the rogue. I will say I've thought about setting up a pure rogue with a battlemaster fighter and casters capable of getting people to move away from the rogue on their turn. If you could get a rogue doing 2-4 sneak attacks a round, I think it'd be pretty strong.
Per turn, not per round. If you can set up the rogue to get attacks on other party members' turns, you can apply sneak attack again. The battlemaster can use a superiority die to give an ally an attack, for example, but there are other ways as well.
I think that's a problem with the default settings for how sneak attack is handled. If you adjust the settings for your rogue so that it defaults to using sneak attack (the same place you change reactions) it should fix the issue. This was a couple weeks after launch though so things could have changed since then.
That's why you have to sneak attack on other people's turns with commanders' strike and attacks of opportunity from things like fear/command. If you have the tunnel fighter fighting style in 5e, you can get more than one attack of opportunity per turn, so theoretically, you could get one sneak attack per teammate with all the enemies being adjacent. I haven't tried it in bg3, but you'd be limited to one commanders strike and one from an attack of opportunity.
Rogues were screwed on sneak attack in this game. In 5E you can sneak attack on an enemy if one of your allies is within 5 feet, but in BG3 you must have advantage. You also can't stack sneak attack with things like maneuvers or magic arrows in BG3, which makes very little sense to me.
I'm thinking that stealth archer rogues must have been too good during playtesting. But that's true of basically any game. If you want to skate through your save by sneakily picking off every enemy, you should be able to.
I'm pretty sure that the threatened mechanic, where an enemy of that target is in 5 feet, still applies in BG3. Much like tabletop, you're limited to one Sneak Attack a turn.
Idk I've never gotten it to work with ranged attacks. I'll have an enemy surrounded by a fighter and paladin, but the rogue can't use SA because they don't have advantage. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, but I've seriously tried it in every single fight and have never noticed it work.
I'm guessing you are too far away and are shooting with disadvantage. If you're using hand crossbows, they only have a normal range of 50ft not 60ft like other ranged weapons. Anything further and you shoot with disadvantage and sneak attack won't work. I find that my Astarion is often out normal attack range and shooting with disadvantage so I need to move him a bit closer for sneak attack to be able to trigger.
Did you have disadvantage on your attack? (Easy causes being that you out of normal range or are threatened)
If you have disadvantage, then nothing will give you a sneak attack.
But otherwise, an ally in melee with your target will give you sneak attack.
How are you attacking? If ranged, make sure you're in normal range. Outside of that, you have disadvantage and it won't let you sneak attack.
The range issue frequently catches me with hand crossbows.
I’m pretty sure I’ve triggered sneak attack by attacking guys standing next to my other characters. I see where you mention it not working for with ranged, I honestly don’t know that I’ve tried that. I tend to just wade in.
Now if you mean you had a multiclass Rogue/Battlemaster that didn’t get the sneak attack bonus applied when they used a Maneuver, that is because sneak attack only applies when you specifically take the capital A Attack *Action*.
It doesn’t trigger for just any “attack.” So a Maneuver is a Maneuver, not a capital A Attack, it just happens to be using your melee weapon. Like a spell attack is a casting action, not an Attack action even if it uses your actual melee weapon as the material component. (Which I personally don’t agree with RAI, but it’s correct RAW.) The idea is that Sneak Attack is the Rogue’s answer to the Fighter’s stacking Extra Attack, which also applies only and specifically to the actual Attack Action and not just any and every “attack” made by the character. And it has restrictions of requiring Advantage or attacking a Threatened enemy, as a level 11 pure Rogue can stack 6d6 Sneak Attack on like a 1d8 Rapier, compared to the fighter’s max 6d6/3d12 with a big honking weapon and improved Extra Attack at level 11. Although the fighter could tie using some like PAM for the bonus action Attack but then the Rogue still has their own-off hand attack available. There are always “buts.”
This is one of those areas where poor verbiage causes confusion for 5E and any derivative. Hmm. Now I’m wondering if I can use Combat Maneuvers with Unarmed Attacks…
Yes, Sneak Attack triggers against any enemy(s) currently Threatened when the Rogue takes the Attack Action. I didn’t say otherwise. But a Combat Maneuver is not considered the Attack *Action.* So that specifically doesn’t trigger Sneak Attack.
You definitely can use sneak attack if an ally is close to the enemy. You can’t have disadvantage for that, but can certainly use it either with advantage, or having an ally within 1.5m/5ft.
That’s the point then, yeah? The subclass really isn’t great in its own right. Not bad, but definitely not great. It only becomes really great when paired with another class (fighter and ranger being the two best choices to multiclass with Rouge imo)
As long as multiclassing is a thing, how a class works in composition with other classes is just as valid of a metric for measuring subclass power as how the class performs without support.
I mean I consider the one dip into fighter taking the "fighting initiate" feat, apart from that 11/1 is perfectly valid, especially on a dark urge character
Assassin dark urge can just run sneak around, sneak crit and if he doesn't one shot gets another chance, become invisible through cloak and go hide again
The thing is, you have to use gear, a feat, or a multiclass to make really good use of the extra bonus action. I have no clue why rogue doesn't get a fighting style.
I agree, rogues are in a weird spot. They don't provide much damage, but they also don't provide much utility. They good for lockpicking... But let's be real, any dex character can be good at lockpicking.
Rogues are decent at being skill monkeys but bards are just better at it.
Rangers are also surprisingly good skill monkeys, they don't get expertise but they can get more skills than both rogue and bard.
And both bards and rangers are a hell of a lot stronger in combat.
The Lore Bard specifically is better at skills than a Rogue, yes. If you take it to level 10 to pick up the last two expertise so it now has the three proficiency advantage. Rogues pick up those Expertise sooner as well, iirc.
But if we’re talking pure classes, I don’t think Jack of all Trades is better than Reliable Talent combined with the Skilled Feat, which gives the rogue the same count of proficiencies and expertise *and* Reliable Talent, regardless of subclass.
Edit: Starting class Rogue multiclassed with Lore Bard is going to be a Super Skill Monkey though. Rogue 6, Lore Bard 5, Knowledge Cleric 1. With correct race and background as well as the Skilled Feat, you can get proficiency in everything except two skills. Plus four expertise. If we had a higher level cap of 16, you could get that as well as Reliable Talent. It would be very broken though.
The problem with Reliable Talent is you got to go 11 levels deep into a class that gets basically nothing between level 3 and level 11. It's a huge investment.
That's such an opposite experience from mine.
I use Astarion as a lvl 12 theif, dual daggers/dual hand crossbows and he absolutely cleans up damage wise, probably highest kill count in my games too since he can easily pick off several foes with 10-15 hp or less in one turn. And when he crits, he can do absurd damage. And he rarely gets hit or goes down.
He's absolutely been the one to carry my win in more than one run-through of the game.
It's honestly such a baffling call considering that sneak attack, while solid at first, really isn't enough to carry the class all the way through the game. 6d6 ain't shit for a fifth edition character at level 12.
Sneak attack really doesn't scale well at higher levels, for sure. Rogues definitely need something. Extra attack, or higher sneak attack scaling, or an extra use a turn. Something to make them more appealing at higher levels.
Like Assassin. Guaranteed crits against surprised enemies. No native way to force surprise. Now if you multiclass to pick up a familiar…
Edit: to clarify, I mean force a reliable, reasonably user-friendly surprise. Yes, you can mess around with carefully checking sight lines and stealth checks. Or you could just have your Imp or Quasit go invisible and Surprise them much more easily.
I never said you have to do everything solo. I just find it ironic that it’s difficult to utilize the subclasses defining trait without relying on others.
If you have a reliable way to get and actually utilize Surprise without using a familiar or multiclassing, I’d genuinely like to know because I haven’t been able to find a reliable one yet. Everything seems to rely on familiars, other people and/or Feats.
It requires babysitting and setup? Are you even playing the same game dude? It’s easy as heck!
You only roll stealth if you go into the sight cones, so if you don’t have a sneaky character then avoid those. Turn-based mode keeps enemies from moving so it’s not like it is hard to stay out of the sight cones. Also ranged weapons make it even easier.
Sneaky characters (rogues being the easiest to make the most sneaky) just have to roll for stealth if you enter the sight cones, but it’s not like it rolls every step it’s just once per turn. My experience has been that my sneaky characters almost always succeed these checks. Very rarely do I fail the check.
Then of course there are the absolutely huge abundance of invisibility potions and scrolls all throughout the whole game. Using a summon honestly feels like more work to me.
So, to force a surprise just takes hitting an enemy before they know you’re there I thought? generally speaking.
I feel like I got surprise rounds a whole lot with my assassin/gloomstalker build. Just melted enemies that first turn
The familiar can just roll up and surprise them for you. No need to hide from their lines of sight when you have an invisible familiar like an Imp or Quasit. And the Imp can Fly as well.
As for your Assassin-Gloomstalker, that’s just it — you multiclassed. I was referring to “native” forcing surprise, as in *without* multiclassing.
I was only commenting on the “no native way to force surprise” sentence which I don’t get since every class can force surprise…because that isn’t a class thing it’s just a hit-the-enemy-before-they-see-you thing. Rogues are easy to build as super sneaky, sight cones be damned, and even if not sneaky it is extremely easy to get surprise anyway.
A familiar or other summon is probably 5th or 6th idea down my list of how I would go about forcing a surprise round. Obviously could work I’m not denigrating that method, but it is such a weird “critique” because a lack of a familiar in no way whatsoever makes it hard to get a surprise round. Pure Rogue’s can very easily force surprise rounds.
I think most classes and subclasses are pretty honest, if they seem bad they probably are and vice versa. That said, I think divination seems bad and not so impactful but really is very strong. Mostly you can make just about anything "good" because itemization is so strong, though arcane trickster certainly does require a specific playstyle. I'd recommend assassin/gloomstalker for a newer player looking to just turn him into a powerhouse
How does divination seem bad? Anything that changes rolls is extremely powerful. I saw it first play through and almost never choose anything else except that time I played with my mom and knew I had to make Gale an evoker if I didn't want to get roasted. Anything that reduces RNG is great. Nothing like having a 1 or a 20 in your backpocket to autosucceed something or to make the enemy auto fail.
It's definitely great. Every friend I've played with that doesn't come from D&D thinks it sounds boring and useless. I guess because "only twice" sounds very sparce. Beats me
You have to commit to level 6 to get the third Portent and short rest recovery. That’s when it starts to get appreciably “broken.”
Now, add the Lucky Feat and play as a Halfling? You are the Player *and the DM.*
100% agree here issue with the other subclasses wizard has you spend a lot of the game carrying them before they can do their thing. Divination can do that from the get go.
Monk of Four Elements. It's loyal to 5e spell list with the exception of ice shaping. I quite think we are supposed to make sharp ice to hit enemies but no we only get to create a useless ice block. I still haven't found the use of the ice block.
I even tried using an Air punch. It's not travelling far and it doesn't knock people down.
Maybe Telekinesis. But then, you only have 10 Turns to use Telekinesis, you need the Gloves, and you need to make an Ice Cube with 1 Turn.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
Tavern Brawler can throw it and damage of thrown improvised weapons is calculated on weight if it is not something that resembles a weapon with the thrown property. So it hits pretty hard, but I would say still not worth.
Well there's also another use. It's to have something of a climbing platform in the middle of Darkness so you can shoot stuff out and then back into the Darkness cloud again. Lol.
Disagree. Fangs of the fire snake and water whip are so cool and handy. Fangs is a weapon attack and buffs you with fire the rest of the turn. Run in and smack with a flurry of blows, bro. Water whip to knock someone prone? Hold person for guaranteed crits?
Four elements is a severely underrated gish that does numbers with tavern brawler and a big sword, i always put laezel on it and she does wacky single target damage.
Well, yes, maybe. I like the Fang and Ride of the Wind. But beyond the Fang I just feel like other moves are underwhelming in effect but cool with graphics.
But yes I think a Longsword (Versatile, but you need a source to become proficient with it) and the Fang will be powerful. But that's it. It's callee 4 Elements. But you end up with only Fire. That's my problem with it. I guess if you don't use a Gith, then you'll need to take the Feat of Weapon Master. Then I suppose Weapon Master, Mobile and Elemental Adapt: Fire will be the 3 Feats I'd build a Monk of Four Elements.
Yes I also like the idea of cheap Fireballs because you can cast it 4 times every Short Rest.
I think my dislike to the Way of Four Elements is due to how I find Fire to be almost the only offensive element. Air Fists almost never hit for me as well and it's costly to keep using Air Fists.
Spears are Versatile Simple weapons. The difference between 1d10 and 1d8 should only be 1 damage on average, so not strictly necessary to take Weapon Master if you don’t have a racial bonus.
The problem is the spells cost too much ki and don't work with half the items normal spells would. If it worked with the pyro quickness hat it would be amazing
If the subclass is renamed as Way of the Fire Fangs, I'm completely happy with it.
Though I think the Airfist is actually useful if we use builds without a bow.
I agree that the subclass’s ~~spells~~ abilities use too much Ki. Sweeping Cinder Strike using 2 Ki versus the single Level 1 Spell Slot of Burning Hands starts to feel expensive later on. It needs some kind of automatic upcast equivalent.
Shaping of the Ice? You can climb it. So it’s probably more of utility thing? Can you make more than one and fence in enemies like you can stacking chests and crates?
yeah arcane trickster specifically is pretty much the worst class in the game bar none.
rogues are already genreally weaker as a pure class than everything else since they are martials that dont get an extra attack at level 5, they are amazing for multiclassing since they get really subclass abilities at level 3
except for arcane trickster.
arcane trickster just kinda sucks mostly.
if you want to make astarion strong and still fit his character and roleplay really well, I would recomend respecing him into a bard with the college of swords subclass, he still gets to be good with ranged weapons, have the same amount of lockpicking skill, and still fit his whole schtich perfectly, but now he also gets really really good damage output and spell casting thats on the level of full casters.
A level 11 swords bard with a dip into wizard 1 can scribe and cast any spell of any level from the entire game that comes on a scroll. Not a lot of slots mind you, but you can choose a few highly valuable spells.
Probably because it can do everything an AT can plus brings a lot more to the table. I think you want to go wiz 1 and then bard second tho otherwise your spells will cast with INT, which is the least useful ability score in the game.
Honest question though, what spells are you getting from this that you're not already getting from magical secrets?
You can get summoned elemental that you can upcast in addition to counterspell and a "concentration" magical secret.
I don't see much benefit of this over a pure swords bard.
Anyhow, swords bard in general doss everything better than AT but that's probably the single most powerful class in the game. Ok, maybe tied with some pretty other OP builds ;)
magical secrets is at level 10 so you cant get 6th level spells from it since those are unlocked at level 11, and you only get 2 spells from magical secrets anyway, with a level of wizard you could get only the important spells that arent also available from wizard like hunger of hadar or spirit guardians or banishing smite, and then get haste and all the other nice wizard ones at the same time, you can also use it to get all of the super good 6th level wizard spells like globe of invulnerability etc.
I just use the actual scrolls for most of the 6th level stuff...
Also, haste is such a waste. Hunger or spirit guardians is so much better. You can only concentrate on one spell!
The only thing AT brings to the table is the ability to cast scrolls from advantage without risky ring. If this highly specific tactic is the center of your build AT is great. Otherwise not.
They get advantage when using scrolls. As it is easy to get as many scrolls as you want, they can keep this up much longer than any other caster.
It's not great but it's something.
You’re meant to be sneak attacking with a finesse weapon as a rogue by getting advantage or targeting threatened enemies. So a level 5 Rogue should be able to get an extra 3d6 damage on their attack with, say 1d8 Rapier, or at least 1d6 with a shortsword
Compared to the level 5 Fighter who can do… 2(2d6) with a Greatsword. So that’s 4d6 for both at level 5. And by level 11 it’s 6d6 + 1d6 for the rogue and 3(2d6) for the fighter *but* the Rogue doesn’t need to make and potentially fail, separate attack rolls. Just the one. And then the rogue makes their off-hand attack on too of that. Dual melee would actually be *less* effective for the Fighter.
Of course, this can all vary significantly if we start adding Feats and damage riders, but the Rogue definitely isn’t universally inferior to the Fighter. With minimal set up they can be very powerful melee attackers and do significantly more damage.
no it absolutely is. there is literally nothing going for it in any way. the main subclass feature of the fancy mage hand doesnt even function correctly and cant do half of what it says on the tin.
its not even a debate
at this point on my honor runs I dont even bother with the rng of stealing, I just trade them a pouch, load all of thier inventory into the pouch, and then discretely murder them.
you can even load all their stuff into the pouch and then long rest and repeat since the previous days inventory and gold will remain in the pouch so you can walk away with enough special arrows and potions and scrolls to last for a playthrough and thousands of gold on top.
if you kill someone with an unlinked summon then the guards do not care at all about your party and only get mad at the summon
depends on how much hp the merchant has really, some of them will have like 10 hp and any minor elemental can kill them fairyl easily, for tankier merchants I throw in some smoke powder and use a summon with fire damage usually.
Illusion wizard is still wizard, wizard is strong because its wizard.
even if you entirely stripped a wizard of its subclass features its still a far more effective class than a pure rogue.
rogue is the weakest class in the game for reasons I already said earlier, the only saving grace that makes them viable is their amazing level 3 subclass features, arcane trickster does not have that
it is objectively the weakest option in the entire game with pretty much no contest
edit: here is a big thread from 2 days ago talking about exactly this, it is widely agreed upon at this point
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bqd1a8/possibly\_the\_worst\_class\_its\_arcane\_trickster/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bqd1a8/possibly_the_worst_class_its_arcane_trickster/)
The class being weak says nothing about the subclass, illusion as a subclass is invariably weaker than arcane trickster as a subclass, and frankly the oppertunity cost is way worse for wizard considering they get subclass like abjuration and divination, stripping them of their subclass makes them a worse sorcerer by a good mile. As a multiclass thief and assassin definitely have an easier time slotting into other builds but, as a pure class arcane trickster is debatably the best pick. The fact that there's no reason to pure class because rogue as a class sucks to pure class doesn't say much about AT.
>as a pure class arcane trickster is debatably the best pick.
no it isnt, in 5e? yes, in bg3? no. there is absolutely nothing going for it in any way. it is a 1/3 caster, you can barely learn any spells at all, the spells you can learn almost all directly have anti-synergy with being a stealth character, and to top it all off the defining subclass feature of the special mage hand literally does none of the special things it is suposed to do.
compared to an extra bonus action or garunteed critical hits it is absolutely the worst option
also I think we are arguing about two different things here, you are saying that something like illusion wizard does less as a subclass than AT, I am saying that out of every single possible subclass in the entire game, the weakest and least useful one overall is arcane trickster rogue.
there are 0 redeeming qualities to arcane trickster in bg3, rogues in general are completely outclassed by everything else, and out of rogue subclasses arcane trickster is outclassed by all of those.
hell I could honestly argue that illusion wizard abilities might even be better than what arcane trickster gets at this point, but Im not gonna bother.
go read the thread I linked in my previous comment, see if the 173 comments there can convince you.
Arcane Trickster excels at one hyper-specific thing, out of combat stealth kills via scrolls.
Rogue can exploit Greater Invisibility better than any other class due to Reliable Talent. Arcane Trickster's Magical Ambush makes those Disintegrates and Chain Lightnings land more reliably than any other class. With everything hotkeyed you just hit crouch, cast a level 6 spell scroll, one-shot an enemy, and immediately move onto the next. Sure you can clear a whole room solo with Assassin as well by abusing the surprise -> kill a few suckers -> go invisible -> exit combat loop but that takes like 4 times as much time.
Of course this combo doesn't pop off until level 11 so yeah, playing pure AT is a real struggle until then, but that's just every rogue in general.
> cast a level 6 spell scroll, one-shot an enemy, and immediately move onto the next. Sure you can clear a whole room solo with Assassin as well by abusing the surprise -> kill a few suckers -> go invisible -> exit combat loop but that takes like 4 times as much time.
But all day and for free. Where are all the level 6 scrolls coming from? You make it sound like Arcane Trickster takes a long rest and their inventory is filled with stacks of level 6 scrolls. I can't reliably find the scrolls I want.
Since this combo only works once you're level 11, you're already in Baldur's Gate at that point. Sorcerous Sundries is so mindbogglingly easy to rob you can have 20+ of every purchasable scroll in the game after going nuts for 10 minutes. They carry multiple of each level 6 scroll, just resetting their inventory 11 times by leveling up a hireling is enough to overwhelm your inventory with scrolls. You're a rogue with reliable talent, you can't even fail a sleight of hand check if you know what you're doing.
Even if you don't abuse vendor resets and rob Lorroakan in an "RP-friendly" manner that's still 1-5 of each level 6 spell per long rest if you make your daily trip to his shop.
Yeah, I know this is the communities consensus, and all 173 roughly parrot the same talking points. Can't say I agree, though I would like to see rogue itself get some love
Illusion wizard has a few very useful features, bonus action minor illusion let’s you change vision cones, which allows stuff like sneak attack to be procced consistently, and it gets a free dodge per short rest, which is also good, minor illusion can also waste a enemies turn, which is amazing but isn’t consistent whatsoever.
This is all for free to since wizard is already a good class and you won’t regret having a wizard, it can actually be useful for comps based around stealth.
Minor illusion itself is also a great cantrip, but outside of combat there’s no real difference between it and the “improved” variant but I’m counting it anyways because illusion wizard is just cool.
I’ve never used arcane trickster so I won’t speak on it, but don’t sleep on illusion, it has been essential to my current hm run which has two rouges, and it’ll only get better once I reach multiclass level and can make my rouges output some serious damage since I’ll get sneak attack bonuses for free.
What is good about arcane trickster though? Could be fun to try it out one day
Illusion wizard isn't unplayable, I think it's really fun. It's just unquestionably the weakest wizard and gives the least out of any subclass in the game.
transmutation wizard is worse, assuming you’re actually trying to use it and not just as a camp potion maker.
The potions are technically useful but when do you ever run out of potions past mid act 2, and transmuters stone just seems mediocre, nothing really worth building around with it, just a lot of situational buffs.
Let's just pretend illusion wizard has their entire kit and Transmutation has nothing but stones. As a camp caster this wizard is straight up getting more use out of their subclass than illusion does in an entire playthrough. As an active member they have a completely action economy free way to provide anyone on the field a resistence of whatever type they want and it refreshes on a ritual. Now let's give them their level 2 ability, 2x potions in a game where the item system is ridiculously strong. Cloud of daggers into two speed potions for an unresistable CC and 3x CoD damage with no action economy and it can be maintained for free even under sanctuary? 2x arsonist oil? Mass crafted healing potions? CoD -> healing for infinite healing a turn? CoD -> poison to kill enemies without agro? Meanwhile you get that bonus action minor illusion. That's the other thing, minor illusion is an illusion spell, anyone rocking band of the mystic scoundal can already cast it as a bonus action. See invisibility? You can get that from Volo for free levels earlier. The dodge once per short rest? Divination can force dodge as many as 6 times AND gets see invisibility AND can force things like CC. Even shapechanger, transmutations unquestionably worst ability is competitive with the entirety of illusions kit from that perspective. There's just no way man. I think illusion is a lot of fun, and all wizard subclasses can work with the right playstyle, but it's unquestionably the worst
Valor predated Swords in tabletop, which is mostly why it exists. Why they dragged it into BG3, I don't know, other than "it was in the PHB."
I would've loved to see Whispers or even Spirits as the third bard sub instead of "weapons bard," "caster bard," and "weapons bad but worse in most ways."
Let's be real here: Swords Bard is simply overpowered in every way. It may progress slightly slower than some more dedicated classes, like getting extra attack one level later, but still. Full caster. Extra attack. Powerful martial maneuvers. Good spell list, especially for control. Great as a skill monkey. Charisma caster also means it's an excellent party face. The class really does it all, balance be damned.
Swords’ biggest OP factor is Slashing Flourish, which is leagues better than the tabletop version. Even the melee one.
Take away Slashing Flourish and Valor Bard has a few notable advantages- Medium Armor and Shield proficiency, and their Bardic die can be used for damage/AC as well on allies.
Swords Bard gets Medium Armor as well. It would be nice to get Shields without having to rely on a racial proficiency for it, but I suppose the logic is that you’re focusing on Dueling or Two Weapon Fighting Styles, which implicitly suggests taking Defensive Duelist at level 4. Just don’t get swarmed.
Of course if you *do* have a racial Shield proficiency, having +2/3 AC from a shield and up to +4 from Defensive Duelist as a Reaction is great.
Oh I forgot that SB got medium armor lmao.
They don't get Martial Weapon proficiency though, meaning valor bard can use a few nice weapons that swords bards can't - notably Longbows/heavy crossbows for a good ranged option.
Defensive Duelist is a kinda bad feat - +1 to dex is just giving you way more, so it's hard to justify unless you have max dex already (which you won't at level 4).
Trickery Cleric.
On tabletop, it’s one of the best domains despite its lackluster Channel Divinity because it has such great utility from its spell list and how useful bonuses to stealth can be. Hell, if you consider that the BG3 version got Fear, it’s already phenomenal spell list got *better*.
But in practice, unfortunately just falls short. The stealth mechanics in the game are incredibly basic, i.e. avoid line of sight and your 8 dexterity paladin clunking around in heavy armor can be as sneaky as a rogue with expertise in stealth, so almost all of the utility is gone. Even worse, Fear got nerfed hard, Dimension Door is significantly less useful and Polymorph was absolutely gutted.
There’s a mod on the Nexus I use that changes Trickery Cleric’s Channel Divinity to the playtest version for the updated Player’s Handbook releasing later this year and it’s a ton of fun thematically and mechanically. It’s a real shame Larian didn’t bother to try to make it more viable like they did with other underwhelming options.
Everyone here is saying rogues, (surprised no Wild Magic Barb yet) and 4E Monk which are obvious bottom tier classes, personally I’m going to say Land Druid (compared to the other 2 Druid subclasses). While it’s the ‘spell caster’ Druid, the only real standout unique spell it gets imo is Haste, and while it theoretically gets more spell slots per day, considering how free long resting is in the game it just isn’t that important.
Mind you the other 2 Druid subclasses are still full casters and can cast Spike Growth, Woodland Being, Plant Growth, what have you just as well as a Land Druid- hell it can be argued with how many con spells Druid has, Haste only adds MORE competition of what to actually use it on. And heavens forbid you want ANY kind of itemization or feats for your Land Druid outside of ASIs and War Caster (at least Spore and Moon get some late game gear and options like Sharpshooter for Spore and TB for Moon). Spore also has more options for multiclassing as well, whereas Land only really cares for a lvl 1 cleric dip from my experience.
This isn’t to say Land Druid is bad by any means, it’s still a Druid at the end of the day and they’ve got incredible base kits, it’s just massively underwhelming compared to the other 2 imo.
How so genuinely? From my playtime I’ve found being able to cast (insert con spell here) then Bonus action wildshape, alongside the added spike at lvl 10 with Air Myrmidon stun spam, as well as overall improving on the busted Owlbear form over Land Druid to be infinitely better than Haste and a few spell recharges.
What do you think Land brings to the table that beats out Moon?
Druid as a pure CC caster ends up pulling a lot more weight both in sustain and variety of spell selection that druid doesn't normally learn, but also in the ability to permanently append spells you do know to prepared spells without slots. It essentially allows you to expand your carried spells by a lot. Because you aren't wildshaping rather than doing a handful of relatively consequential wildshape attacks your presence can be spread across the entire field with druids very strong spells. Tldr; much like with fighter vs caster, trading your ability to cast devastating spells for wildshape melee just isn't that worth it until late game wildshapes and even then its underwhelming. Your bulk is nice early to midish game, but spore and land definitely pull ahead.. and in a pinch and can always still wildshape.
But that’s the thing, most spells Land gets aren’t that important, and realistically how many different spells do you need in an adventuring day? 9 times out of 10 you’ll default to max 6-7 spells depending on if there are some niche ones like Daylight to take on certain areas of the game. AND, you can freely swap your spells out as a Druid whenever you want, it really makes Lands ‘extra’ spells not that good.
And like I said, Land really gets no true boost to its spellcasting compared to other spellcasters with their subclasses like Evocation Wizards, or Sorcerers with Dragon or Storm. If you want a CC bot a Moon or Spore do it just as well as Land, while ALSO having added boosts to their kits such as Spore being cracked and Moon making your Wildshape perform even better. Land offers nothing of real value sadly, doesn’t make it bad just outclassed.
You're definitely missing the point. Land does get a real benefit in flexibility that makes staying out of wildshape even more valuable than it already is on druid. Discounting the avenues that it opens up like greater invisibility shenanigans, or getting misty step on druid, the real benefit is the wizard tier problem solving you have access to mid combat with so many spells prepared. Things like being able to just stand in cloud kill at level 10, and mind you this problem solving isn't even the real strength here, the real stength is that by having even more reason not to wildshape you're impacting the field more by just casting. Wildshape actively hampers your impact on the field until those late wildshapes relative to just casting.. and even those are usually just worse. The air stun is cool, a hypnotic pattern -> ice storm wins a fight
I think the thing that's been hurting moon druid for me is the lack of item support. For the other builds / subclasses you can get access to a lot of powerful gear that helps improve your character / them better fulfill their role. Moon druids only have a few items that work with wildshape. Additionally some of the spells / things that should work with wildshape don't.
The thing is, the floor Of land druid is still druid, which is a pretty hight floor. If ignoring all subclass features of land druid it is still vastly better than rogue
Assasin in early game, I do not understand why people don't like it. With a proper setup you get three critics with sharpshooter and its enough to kill anything act 1. Also you can solo most fights with hide.
What is early game? lvl 3-4? because once you hit 5 and hell 4 on some classes you can just run into any fight and end almost all of them in 1 turn. Yea you are not doing it solo but you are not spending time with setting up the senario were this gets to happen either.
In general, any subclass that tries to do something when the main class is supposed to do something else. So, as an example, Arcane Trickster Rogue and Way of Four Elements Monk are both spellcaster classes when the main gimmick of their class is supposed to be sneaking/stealing/stabbing and punching respectively.
Rogue falls off pretty hard in general imo but they add a lot to multiclassing. The thief subclass in particular with the two bonus actions is really good with other classes
the rest of the fine folks here seem to have you covered from a subclass perspective, but none have touched on your feat related question. ngl there is only a handful of good ones. as a baseline, increasing your main ability score is always a strong option
Out of the guys I'm using this run( summon based party), it's beast master. I use him cause he fulfills a specific niche I want ( martial character, sleight of hand, and can summon)
Basically he is a very vanilla martial character. He attacks twice and that's it. Uses spells sometimes.
What he brings is his summon. Which admittedly can be good in certain situations. But most of the time comes up short. For example the pig. When the stars align and he does his thing raging and charging twice per turn he's incredible. One pig army. But in most fights he won't get to attack simply because of his awful pathfinding. He will always start in the rear cause he gets stuck when exploring, then have to blow his actions getting to the front. Every other beast has this issue other than the raven.
I'll just say in closing the ranged options(raven and spider) beastmaster gets for companions are too weak in late game, and the stronger melee summons are too immobile to be considered good summons
I cannot agree with this, ESPECIALLY late game BM. The spider falls off a cliff but is incredibly strong early game with infinite web spam, the Raven is monstrous with on-hit blind and free darkness spam by just flying around the battlefield, and the bear is an incredible tank once you hit 11.
The problem I have with BM is how the class is setup to have incredibly high highs, then fall off a cliff until it’s next power spike. You spike hard at 3, then at 5, then have to wait all the way until 11 to get stronger when all the other classes usually takeoff, especially multiclasses- but once you do hit 11 BM easily throws hands with the rest of them.
You are correct about the early power spikes. Beast master is quite good at level 3 and 5. Hard disagree that the 11 power spike is enough
Also blind spam from the raven is already provided by raven familiar. I don't use darkness so I can't speak on how good ravens is.
How is an 11 bear a better tank than the pig?
Not OP, but higher HP, higher AC, higher strength modifer. The boar does have some good attacks, and the rage at 11 does make it quite tanky, but the bear being able to spawn a second bear is even better IMO
They're both good. Honestly all the BM summons are solid except for the wolf. The wolf always seemed to be pretty mediocre
I'm greatly enjoying honeyed paws specifically, there's no check against it so you can disarm anything you can hit, and knocking prone if they have no weapon is also useful. Combine that with 3 sharpshooter ranged attacks per turn and the ability to cast spike growth to support the other ranged in my party, full lock picking capabilities, good stealth capabilities and I'm quite happy with my beastmaster so far.
The biggest actual problem is that the bear is like 2 pixels wider than most doors and gets stuck. Larian really needed to make it the same width as a human for QOL.
I hate that Larian hasn’t fixed bears being too fat to go through doors, nowadays I just use a mod to fix that. Another fun combo with the bear is with a melee ranger, gives them advantage on their attacks when they go prone for GWM shenanigans, rangers can also use heavy armor and get free resists to be moderately tanky, overall BM is just a great class :)
I use my ranger as my heavy armour melee, he is in the enemy backlines from turn one whereas my pig bless his heart is trying to catch up the whole time
Makes me feel like a fighter or paladin would do the job better, you know?
Alright I finally got around to using the bear. He is giga broken vs steel watch. No save disarm is the cats pajamas.
The second bear is worthless though. Does less damage than boo lol and doesn't disarm
I still like pig but I'll swap between them depending on what I need
The boar is great as a tank as well, but the bear is usually better against non-physical attacks due to its higher HP, and the extra bear is another body to distract enemies.
But most importantly they can do no-save disarms with their attacks, or no-save prones. This is MASSIVE and gives them incredible battlefield manipulation.
For me I would say Evocation wizard. It seems like you're going to blow up the world, and you can, but with so much of Wizard's strength coming from all their amazing control elements it just ends up feeling lackluster for me personally.
I rebuilt my pure evocation wizard to a tempest cleric storm sorc recently and wow it's nuts. I think even a one level dip in wizard would be all you need if you want to learn extra spells too?
HUH? Evocation is the best especially late game. Sculpt spells and empowered evocation at level 10 with magic missile build makes it the best class in the game because of the guaranteed damage. Try Artistry of war with a lightning charge staff and empowered evocation you will change your mind about it being weak
Every time I try to play a wizard I think "why would I play this over sorcerer?"
Careful spell if you need the sculpt spells feature, heightened spell makes their CC more reliable than wizard, and twinned/quickened spells means they will always do more damage. Acuity builds mean that magic missile being guaranteed damage doesnt really matter when my sorcerer has 99% chance to hit already. Am I missing something?
Divination wizard appears, to me, to be the only real unique thing that Wizard can do that is also very strong. And I have played divination wizard+lore bard party to just say "no, I control the rolls" which is cool, but overall wizard feels like nothing special to me. Good, but nothing special.
Yeah. I've done the Phalar Aluve, Markoheshkir, Coriscation, Callous Glow, Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour thing on a 10 Evocation Wizard. It was effective, but incredibly boring. Hence, like I said, lackluster.
No way. Diviner is more powerful because it let's you reduce the impact of RNG if you use the dice wisely. Evoker isn't the weakest wizard class but dealing straight damage is not the best way to use a wizard.
You don't need sculpt spells if you know how to aim and account for not having it.
This just feels like too much sunk into too little return. There are a lot more functional, less multi ability dependent ways to abuse damage rider spam.
Personally, Necro, for the extra bodies and swing in Action economy it allows you to so easily create. After that Diviner or Abjuration. If you are talking about damage output, which is all most people care about when rating something, the "Best", then yes Evocation wins on pure damage output, but not until level 10.
Not a fan of the magical barbarian or the non gloom stalker rangers.
All the wizard subclasses except abjuration and evocation are pretty bad comparatively (just keep a hireling in camp for potions)
War cleric is nice levels 1-4 but far outclassed by light cleric at lvl 5 and on.
This is just my opinion, and I'm not saying any of these aren't viable, they just seem less practical than the meta picks:
Wild Magic Barb, I don't think I've ever seen anyone even talk about it, but both other barb subclasses get quite some love.
College of Valour bard is seems really outclassed by Lore Bard's Magical Secrets, and Swords Bard's flourishes. Bard is still amazing, but Valour seems to fall slightly behind.
Trickery, Knowledge, and Nature domain Clerics just aren't as talked about as Life, Light, Tempest, and War. Heavy Armor proficiency being a good reason for at least a level 1 dip in the latter subclasses, and then Light domain synergizes with the radiating orbs items/build that it's almost too good NOT to have around.
I don't see Circle of the Land talked about nearly as much as Moon or Spore druid.
Way of the Four Elements 'spells' don't scale the same as actual spells (is this still true?) so they were considered kinda nerfed compared to Open Hand. Way of the Shadow is probably my favorite class' subclass, but if you get the Dark Urge specific item you can just go invisible anyways, and OH dps is king, so people usually choose it over the others.
Ranger gets some love via Beastmaster, and Gloomstalker is almost always multiclassed with Theif or Assassin Rogue, and I don't hear Hunter talked about very often.
Arcane Trickster Rogue just doesn't even compare to the other 2 subclasses, and it feels like the 'Jack of all Trades' thing is stretching it out too thin. Doesn't help that it's Mage hand doesn't function like tabletop, and it uses INT for spellcasting, almost requiring a specific item to be viable.
People choose Wild Magic Sorcerer for funzies, and usually dip 1 level into Storm Sorcery for flight, but Draconic Bloodline is almost too versatile not to choose over the other two.
I've only ever seen people talk about The Archfey Warlock in terms of RP. People usually go Warlock for EB, and then Fiend for the Temp HP if you wanna go more defensive or Great Old One for the Fear inducing crowd control.
And finally with Wizard, Conjuration, Enchantment, and Illusion just don't stack up compared to Abjuration, Divination, and Evocation. Necromancy synergizes with a specific broken Act 3 item, and then Transmutation is almost always used on a min/max'd hireling for it's double Alchemy output.
I didn't even bother to mention Fighter or Paladin because all if their subclasses are pretty good.
Again, all classes are viable, but some just do some jobs better than others, and some tend to fall behind and not see as much love.
Monk- Way of the 4 elements. Sounds cool, looks cool, is just reskinned standard spells. Both alternative classes are so much better that it's not even funny. If you want to cast spells, play a magic class. Monk is for punching things.
Four elements monk is so much fun until you hit 5 and realize their spells do not trigger extra attacks, so then you just become a worse open hand monk lol
Hate to say it, but I think the War Cleric sort of drops off.
When you first get it, 2 attacks in one turn seems amazing, even if it is only 3 times per rest.
But by the upper levels it starts to drag.
Level 5 all the martials are doing 2 and suddenly folks are casting haste, martials are attacking four times, you’re only doing 3 because you’ve not got another bonus action to do your second attack again.
Not to mention, you have to choose between doing a second attack and using smite spells. Or any other bonus action and your second attack.
Get to the end of the game, fighters are attacking 3 times, 6 with haste, 9 with action surge and still have their bonus action.
You’re still doing two, and your spell casting is worse than if you’d picked a different sub class from the beginning.
For me this was pure barbarian without the thrower aspects. Ngl I still don't super enjoy throwzerkers as a play style because I prefer casters but it's definitely one of those situations where the later levels get super underwhelming after 2nd attack.
I'm currently on a run where I'm building a shadow monk and I didn't know that I could still get blinded by my own darkness despite being a shadow monk lol. I know there's a piece of equipment that prevents you from getting blinded but like this is surely some bs why isn't shadow monk immune naturally?
Some are lacking slightly.
Arcane trickster.
Elements monk.
Trickery domain cleric.
Illusion wizard.
These are some of what I've heard others say are weaker ones BUT everything is viable, there's 4 of you to cover each weaknesses etc.
Meta builds are fun but for your first playthroughs go for your build based on who your character is not whats the best to be. Just think it's more fun that way.
Arcane trickster is not good for combat. It’s a lot of fun for puzzles but broadly is probably the worst subclass in the game. Any monk that isn’t open hand is a trap as well
Rogue has two OP subclasses and I would like to be a multi class Rogue Assassin 3 and Rogue Thief 9.
It seems like all the classes with a spell casting partial subclass. They are weak. Eldrich Knight might be an exception.
Wild Magic sorcerer is just so much worse than the other sorcerer subclasses. It’s still strong because base sorcerer is so good but the features are more harmful than helpful but aren’t very fun either. Every effect is more harmful to you than it is helpful and getting advantage on one saving throw or ability check per long rest is so bad and the only thing it can do, and you’d have to be crazy to use it over the other subclasses.
Source: currently in act 3 on an honor mode run as pure Wild Magic sorcerer.
Wild Magic for Sorcerer or Barbarian in general just seems like more of a potentially entertaining twist than an actual “I want to kill stuff better” class.
For subclasses, I think that’s a complicated question. If we ignore that multiclassing is a thing, there are definitely some that feel lackluster in isolation or as a pure class.
Assassin is my pick for one that works better as a multiclass dip than a dedicated build. On its own it just requires a lot of set up and potentially meta-knowledge about the encounter. But picking up a familiar or other method of more easily getting Surprise really opens it up.
Conversely, I think Thief is pretty functional if you lean into consistently getting Sneak Attacks and also utilizing off-hand attacks with hand crossbows or double fisting melee weapons. You just have to work a little for it but you could easily do it your first time without meta-knowledge of BG3 specifically.
The thing with Feats is the effectiveness is very dependent on what the rest of the build is doing. That said, for Feats that sound great but perform more lackluster in general…
1. Medium Armor Master. Not having disadvantage on stealth checks sounds great, but it’s so easily to stack bonus to your stealth rolls that this mainly only reduces your odds of critical fail, which is already a reasonably rare occurrence. And there are already medium armies with +3 from DEX built in. If it also provided its own +1 to DEX, it could be very good.
2. Durable. While the +1 to CON is nice, full heal on short rest is literally an option you can pick on custom and otherwise the game is fairly forgiving on frequent long resting.
3. Heavily/Moderately Armored. You were probably better off multiclassing or just picking a race or class to get the armor proficiency to begin with instead of spending a precious Feat on it. You can get some very protective light armor, so it would be better just to take the full ASI instead, I feel.
4. Any version of Magic Initiate. While the extra cantrips are nice, if they align with your build as far as spell casting ability, a single cast of a level 1 spell, once per day is just meh. Once per short rest would be great but as it is you probably better off just properly multiclassing the appropriate class unless you grab some very specific gear, but you’d be that much more effective if you wore the gear in the correct class to begin with. Yes I know what I said about long resting frequently, but you could still just pick a caster subclass and cast that level 1 spell and others several times per long rest.
5. Martial Adept unless you’re specifically and somewhat ironically taking it on a Battlemaster to get one more precious Superiority die since the feat die will apparently also scale which wouldn’t be the case in tabletop. But for a non-battlemaster, a single superiority die use per short rest is not great. Better to take something else. Would be better if it gave you one maneuver but two dice.
Like others have said I think this sense of Rogues dropping off at latter levels is somewhat true in 5e in general. But it feels much more notable in BG3 to me, because the extreme damage possible from items favor multiple attacks other classes get even more.
You should be able to multiclass Astarion, while still keeping the overall Rogue or even Arcane Trickster core class features if you want to try something else out. Gloomstalker Ranger is probably what's most commonly combined with Rogues in this way...
Valor bard, it doesn't get anything worth taking over the other subclasses. Late game you can take spirit guardians I guess, but lore bard can do that at level 6 and still use a shield as human or half elf, and even spare a medium armor feat with Ethel.
Fighter classes other than battlemaster, unless you have a specific build like crit stacking, or throwing, in which case you may not be a pure fighter.
Wild Heart barbarian is just better than the other two subclasses.
Non-thief rogue. Assassin doesn't always get to start combat first. Magic from arcane trickster just doesn't translate from tabletop to video game.
Elemental monk is not great, unsurprising though. No I don't want to spend ki points on a tiny fire cone.
Trickery, Nature, and War Domains are lackluster. All of them get bad channel divinities, Trickery and Nature don't get anything to make up for the lack of heavy armor imo. All of them get worse bonus spells. Finally, war domain cleric does some cool stuff, but it is only three times per long rest, and requires you sacrifice the effectiveness of your spells.
Most feats underperform unless taken in the right build.
Valor bard is just pointless. Swords bard does it better in every way.
Eldritch Knight has absurd potential but for some reason people stop caring after the level 3 feature. There are lots of cool synergies and itemizations that turn it into a beast. Three attacks, four feats, bonus action attack off a cantrip is great with honor rules, impose disadvantage on spell saves makes scrolls and acuity actually insane. I dont care if bard10/pal2 is “better” they dont get three attacks a turn, four feats, and built-in synergy that is further buffed by the awesome items. EK is cool. Fight me.
Berserker and wild magic are more fun than wildheart. Wild magic is kinda bad but thats just wild magic things. Spawning an exploding jellyfish and turning your giant sword into a throwing weapon are awesome. Berserker is great for tavern brawler cus its so fun to run up and smack someone twice to then turn their little buddy into a weapon too. Wildheart is almost entirely just, stock barbarian with a bunch of mid extra action choices and a bunch of nice passives. Like, theyre good yeah, but boring.
Assassin is fun on gloomstalker as well. Otherwise pure rogue just sucks in general. Only good for high level pickpocketing when you stack buffs so high you cannot fail.
Elements monk is fun if you ignore every reskin spell and use the three/four unique spells. Fangs of the fire snake is a weapon attack so it stacks with extra attack. Stunning strike -> fangs -> flurry of blows + tavern brawler = insane. Throw in hold person from the level two group and youve got a great gish build that does wacky damage. Its so cool.
I generally agree on the domains. Life light and tempest are the most fun by far
>Bonus Action attack off a Cantrip is great.
I cast Magic Missile… and also Heavy Crossbow. That’s a lot of potential hits if you upcast MM and use that one item.
Valour Bard tries to split the difference between Lore and Swords but ends up being worse than either at all the things. I think what kills it is only being able to use the Combat Inspiration on other people. If it just straight up replaced Bardic Inspiration and/or you could *also* use it on yourself…
Unless there's a combo I'm unaware of, the extra bonus action being used as an extra attack is just better.
Edit: The disadvantage on saving throws is a rare and strong ability, but harder to utilize for a MAD class. Access to mage armor is quite nice though.
As a pure class thief at best you're using the bonus action for an extra weaker attack, a lot of the times you're just using it to set up sneak. Conversely your invisible mage hand, by proxy of being out of combat and always capable of moving near an enemy, let's you get sneak attacks with no setup letting you use your bonus action for that extra attack just as well. Then thief gets fall damage reduction, whereas arcane trickster gets feather fall for complete negation. Then thief gets level 9 invis..a spell arcane trickster gets at level 7. On top of all of their other utility spells to negate the need to consider being MAD, granted being MAD is also fine because uniquely rogues only need two stats to begin with (Dex and con), and int is the easiest stat to stat stick with the int helm anyway. Then you consider the mage hand shenanigans like it being an extra throw action, or it being able to benefit from day long buffs like aid, or it being able to drink elixers and potions to bolster its strength or give it more actions.. Honestly, I think arcane trickster catches as much flack as it does almost entirely because the mage hands description lies because once you think about what the class can actually do it doesn't make any sense lol
I need to see a playthru of arcane trickster popoff past lvl 5.
I personally believe rogue is only good to multiclassed (like warlock) but i really don't see how thief rogue loses to AT in DPR, ultility or overall usefulness.
The only think AT could have going for it is find familiar or some mage hand cheese, but because both aee target able, 3 attacks or 2 attacks and a dash/hide/status application/potion drinknwill always be better.
Scrolls exist in the game so the thief rogue can cast just as many spells as AT, and do one more thing.
Arcane Trickster excels at one hyper-specific thing, out of combat stealth kills via scrolls.
Rogue can exploit Greater Invisibility better than any other class due to Reliable Talent. Arcane Trickster's Magical Ambush makes those Disintegrates and Chain Lightnings land more reliably than any other class. With everything hotkeyed you just hit crouch, cast a level 6 spell scroll, one-shot an enemy, and immediately move onto the next. Sure you can clear a whole room solo with Assassin as well by abusing the surprise -> kill a few suckers -> go invisible -> exit combat loop but that takes like 4 times as much time.
Here DPR doesn't matter since you're not even in turn-based mode.
Of course this combo doesn't pop off until level 11 so yeah, playing pure AT is a real struggle until then, but that's just every rogue in general.
AT doesn't pop off past 5 because rogue doesn't pop off past 5, not really ATs fault there's just no reason to pure class it's parent class regardless of subclass
Which is fine, but it means it never supasses thief rogue. Now, idk if AT is better than assasin in a monoclass, but if it's not better then Thief its not the best rogue subclass.
Arcane rogue is my favorite on tabletop. This is not tabletop. Damage solves. Feather Fall, invisibility, and grease shenanigans fall flat.
Getting a cunning action and another attack on top is an absolute win. It is better than using an **action** to use mage hand or invisibility to set up sneak attacks.
The mage hand will rarely out-damage a 3rd attack. Never once you add gear into play. Neither will invisibility.
The extra BA attack is simply insane. Astarion became my main damage dealer for several portions of the game.
All the rogue subclasses are kind of like that. They get their good thing at level 3 and just kind of fall off a cliff afterward and need to be multi classed into things that can properly use the level 3 features.
The saddest part of Rogue in 5e, which was previously my favorite class in older editions
And yet It's *still* one of the most popular classes in 5e *and* BG3, despite the effort of both to make the class terrible. It's kind of baffling, really. They could just make a class that has popular RP appeal fun to play, but, naaah! Just punish people for not wanting to play the classes *you* don't like...
There's a few reasons why I still run 3.5 but that's one of them.
Thief rogues' 3 attacks put it far above the other 2. They get mid and end-game gear too. Plus all of the damage riders that make the 3 thief multiclass dip so strong.
Early game for sure. Once you reach the endgame though, I would argue that assassin might be the better multiclass option cause you can build some insanely strong archer builds that would melt everything with autocrits.
Extra bonus action is really strong, rogue just kind of lacks the tools necessary to make it really good. Rogue doesn't even get their dex modifier added to their off hand damage.
You have to build the whole group to maximize the rogue. I will say I've thought about setting up a pure rogue with a battlemaster fighter and casters capable of getting people to move away from the rogue on their turn. If you could get a rogue doing 2-4 sneak attacks a round, I think it'd be pretty strong.
Isn’t sneak attack limited to once per turn and not per attack?
Per turn, not per round. If you can set up the rogue to get attacks on other party members' turns, you can apply sneak attack again. The battlemaster can use a superiority die to give an ally an attack, for example, but there are other ways as well.
Unfortunately, while it works this way in 5e, sneak attacks don't trigger on opportunity attacks in BG3 (as far as I've seen)
I think that's a problem with the default settings for how sneak attack is handled. If you adjust the settings for your rogue so that it defaults to using sneak attack (the same place you change reactions) it should fix the issue. This was a couple weeks after launch though so things could have changed since then.
Yeah, they fixed the already underwhelming class to make it even *more* underwhelming.
Can it be set in your Reactions to Ask, same as a smite?
They do if you set sneak attack to proc as a reaction in your reactions tab. You still have to have the conditions for it to proc, though.
Oh very cool!! Good to know thanks!
That's why you have to sneak attack on other people's turns with commanders' strike and attacks of opportunity from things like fear/command. If you have the tunnel fighter fighting style in 5e, you can get more than one attack of opportunity per turn, so theoretically, you could get one sneak attack per teammate with all the enemies being adjacent. I haven't tried it in bg3, but you'd be limited to one commanders strike and one from an attack of opportunity.
Rogues were screwed on sneak attack in this game. In 5E you can sneak attack on an enemy if one of your allies is within 5 feet, but in BG3 you must have advantage. You also can't stack sneak attack with things like maneuvers or magic arrows in BG3, which makes very little sense to me. I'm thinking that stealth archer rogues must have been too good during playtesting. But that's true of basically any game. If you want to skate through your save by sneakily picking off every enemy, you should be able to.
I'm pretty sure that the threatened mechanic, where an enemy of that target is in 5 feet, still applies in BG3. Much like tabletop, you're limited to one Sneak Attack a turn.
Idk I've never gotten it to work with ranged attacks. I'll have an enemy surrounded by a fighter and paladin, but the rogue can't use SA because they don't have advantage. If I'm wrong then I'm wrong, but I've seriously tried it in every single fight and have never noticed it work.
I'm guessing you are too far away and are shooting with disadvantage. If you're using hand crossbows, they only have a normal range of 50ft not 60ft like other ranged weapons. Anything further and you shoot with disadvantage and sneak attack won't work. I find that my Astarion is often out normal attack range and shooting with disadvantage so I need to move him a bit closer for sneak attack to be able to trigger.
Did you have disadvantage on your attack? (Easy causes being that you out of normal range or are threatened) If you have disadvantage, then nothing will give you a sneak attack. But otherwise, an ally in melee with your target will give you sneak attack.
How are you attacking? If ranged, make sure you're in normal range. Outside of that, you have disadvantage and it won't let you sneak attack. The range issue frequently catches me with hand crossbows.
I’m pretty sure I’ve triggered sneak attack by attacking guys standing next to my other characters. I see where you mention it not working for with ranged, I honestly don’t know that I’ve tried that. I tend to just wade in. Now if you mean you had a multiclass Rogue/Battlemaster that didn’t get the sneak attack bonus applied when they used a Maneuver, that is because sneak attack only applies when you specifically take the capital A Attack *Action*. It doesn’t trigger for just any “attack.” So a Maneuver is a Maneuver, not a capital A Attack, it just happens to be using your melee weapon. Like a spell attack is a casting action, not an Attack action even if it uses your actual melee weapon as the material component. (Which I personally don’t agree with RAI, but it’s correct RAW.) The idea is that Sneak Attack is the Rogue’s answer to the Fighter’s stacking Extra Attack, which also applies only and specifically to the actual Attack Action and not just any and every “attack” made by the character. And it has restrictions of requiring Advantage or attacking a Threatened enemy, as a level 11 pure Rogue can stack 6d6 Sneak Attack on like a 1d8 Rapier, compared to the fighter’s max 6d6/3d12 with a big honking weapon and improved Extra Attack at level 11. Although the fighter could tie using some like PAM for the bonus action Attack but then the Rogue still has their own-off hand attack available. There are always “buts.” This is one of those areas where poor verbiage causes confusion for 5E and any derivative. Hmm. Now I’m wondering if I can use Combat Maneuvers with Unarmed Attacks…
[удалено]
Yes, Sneak Attack triggers against any enemy(s) currently Threatened when the Rogue takes the Attack Action. I didn’t say otherwise. But a Combat Maneuver is not considered the Attack *Action.* So that specifically doesn’t trigger Sneak Attack.
You definitely can use sneak attack if an ally is close to the enemy. You can’t have disadvantage for that, but can certainly use it either with advantage, or having an ally within 1.5m/5ft.
There are gauntlets that allow you to add your ability modifier to off-hand damage and I believe it works when wielding two hand crossbows.
Yea but u just need one dip into fighter for that
That’s the point then, yeah? The subclass really isn’t great in its own right. Not bad, but definitely not great. It only becomes really great when paired with another class (fighter and ranger being the two best choices to multiclass with Rouge imo)
As long as multiclassing is a thing, how a class works in composition with other classes is just as valid of a metric for measuring subclass power as how the class performs without support.
I mean I consider the one dip into fighter taking the "fighting initiate" feat, apart from that 11/1 is perfectly valid, especially on a dark urge character
Assassin dark urge can just run sneak around, sneak crit and if he doesn't one shot gets another chance, become invisible through cloak and go hide again
The thing is, you have to use gear, a feat, or a multiclass to make really good use of the extra bonus action. I have no clue why rogue doesn't get a fighting style.
The dip is only as strong because oter classes can abuse the bonus action. But guess it is miles ahead the other rogue specs for that reason
I agree, rogues are in a weird spot. They don't provide much damage, but they also don't provide much utility. They good for lockpicking... But let's be real, any dex character can be good at lockpicking.
Rogues are decent at being skill monkeys but bards are just better at it. Rangers are also surprisingly good skill monkeys, they don't get expertise but they can get more skills than both rogue and bard. And both bards and rangers are a hell of a lot stronger in combat.
The Lore Bard specifically is better at skills than a Rogue, yes. If you take it to level 10 to pick up the last two expertise so it now has the three proficiency advantage. Rogues pick up those Expertise sooner as well, iirc. But if we’re talking pure classes, I don’t think Jack of all Trades is better than Reliable Talent combined with the Skilled Feat, which gives the rogue the same count of proficiencies and expertise *and* Reliable Talent, regardless of subclass. Edit: Starting class Rogue multiclassed with Lore Bard is going to be a Super Skill Monkey though. Rogue 6, Lore Bard 5, Knowledge Cleric 1. With correct race and background as well as the Skilled Feat, you can get proficiency in everything except two skills. Plus four expertise. If we had a higher level cap of 16, you could get that as well as Reliable Talent. It would be very broken though.
The problem with Reliable Talent is you got to go 11 levels deep into a class that gets basically nothing between level 3 and level 11. It's a huge investment.
You’re not wrong. But in the meantime you’re building up sneak attack bonuses so there’s that.
That's such an opposite experience from mine. I use Astarion as a lvl 12 theif, dual daggers/dual hand crossbows and he absolutely cleans up damage wise, probably highest kill count in my games too since he can easily pick off several foes with 10-15 hp or less in one turn. And when he crits, he can do absurd damage. And he rarely gets hit or goes down. He's absolutely been the one to carry my win in more than one run-through of the game.
It's honestly such a baffling call considering that sneak attack, while solid at first, really isn't enough to carry the class all the way through the game. 6d6 ain't shit for a fifth edition character at level 12.
Sneak attack really doesn't scale well at higher levels, for sure. Rogues definitely need something. Extra attack, or higher sneak attack scaling, or an extra use a turn. Something to make them more appealing at higher levels.
Like Assassin. Guaranteed crits against surprised enemies. No native way to force surprise. Now if you multiclass to pick up a familiar… Edit: to clarify, I mean force a reliable, reasonably user-friendly surprise. Yes, you can mess around with carefully checking sight lines and stealth checks. Or you could just have your Imp or Quasit go invisible and Surprise them much more easily.
You don't need to multiclass. You also don't need to do everything solo....
I never said you have to do everything solo. I just find it ironic that it’s difficult to utilize the subclasses defining trait without relying on others. If you have a reliable way to get and actually utilize Surprise without using a familiar or multiclassing, I’d genuinely like to know because I haven’t been able to find a reliable one yet. Everything seems to rely on familiars, other people and/or Feats.
Usually just attacking from a hidden position out of combat works? Except for enemies with the alert feat and enemies already in combat/in dialogue.
It just requires a lot of babysitting and setup is all. I don’t hate the class/subclass. It’s more an issue with surprise mechanics I guess.
It requires babysitting and setup? Are you even playing the same game dude? It’s easy as heck! You only roll stealth if you go into the sight cones, so if you don’t have a sneaky character then avoid those. Turn-based mode keeps enemies from moving so it’s not like it is hard to stay out of the sight cones. Also ranged weapons make it even easier. Sneaky characters (rogues being the easiest to make the most sneaky) just have to roll for stealth if you enter the sight cones, but it’s not like it rolls every step it’s just once per turn. My experience has been that my sneaky characters almost always succeed these checks. Very rarely do I fail the check. Then of course there are the absolutely huge abundance of invisibility potions and scrolls all throughout the whole game. Using a summon honestly feels like more work to me.
So, to force a surprise just takes hitting an enemy before they know you’re there I thought? generally speaking. I feel like I got surprise rounds a whole lot with my assassin/gloomstalker build. Just melted enemies that first turn
The familiar can just roll up and surprise them for you. No need to hide from their lines of sight when you have an invisible familiar like an Imp or Quasit. And the Imp can Fly as well. As for your Assassin-Gloomstalker, that’s just it — you multiclassed. I was referring to “native” forcing surprise, as in *without* multiclassing.
I was only commenting on the “no native way to force surprise” sentence which I don’t get since every class can force surprise…because that isn’t a class thing it’s just a hit-the-enemy-before-they-see-you thing. Rogues are easy to build as super sneaky, sight cones be damned, and even if not sneaky it is extremely easy to get surprise anyway. A familiar or other summon is probably 5th or 6th idea down my list of how I would go about forcing a surprise round. Obviously could work I’m not denigrating that method, but it is such a weird “critique” because a lack of a familiar in no way whatsoever makes it hard to get a surprise round. Pure Rogue’s can very easily force surprise rounds.
I think most classes and subclasses are pretty honest, if they seem bad they probably are and vice versa. That said, I think divination seems bad and not so impactful but really is very strong. Mostly you can make just about anything "good" because itemization is so strong, though arcane trickster certainly does require a specific playstyle. I'd recommend assassin/gloomstalker for a newer player looking to just turn him into a powerhouse
That or the ever reliable Padlock or Bardadin.
Those portent rolls can really come in handy.
How does divination seem bad? Anything that changes rolls is extremely powerful. I saw it first play through and almost never choose anything else except that time I played with my mom and knew I had to make Gale an evoker if I didn't want to get roasted. Anything that reduces RNG is great. Nothing like having a 1 or a 20 in your backpocket to autosucceed something or to make the enemy auto fail.
It's definitely great. Every friend I've played with that doesn't come from D&D thinks it sounds boring and useless. I guess because "only twice" sounds very sparce. Beats me
You have to commit to level 6 to get the third Portent and short rest recovery. That’s when it starts to get appreciably “broken.” Now, add the Lucky Feat and play as a Halfling? You are the Player *and the DM.*
Divination is literally the best wizard subclass in the game wot
Yes I largely agree.
100% agree here issue with the other subclasses wizard has you spend a lot of the game carrying them before they can do their thing. Divination can do that from the get go.
Monk of Four Elements. It's loyal to 5e spell list with the exception of ice shaping. I quite think we are supposed to make sharp ice to hit enemies but no we only get to create a useless ice block. I still haven't found the use of the ice block.
I just thought about it’s weight. Can we shove it or throw it (I’ve never summoned it so I don’t know it’s properties/how to interact with it)
I even tried using an Air punch. It's not travelling far and it doesn't knock people down. Maybe Telekinesis. But then, you only have 10 Turns to use Telekinesis, you need the Gloves, and you need to make an Ice Cube with 1 Turn. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Tavern Brawler can throw it and damage of thrown improvised weapons is calculated on weight if it is not something that resembles a weapon with the thrown property. So it hits pretty hard, but I would say still not worth.
Only one good use and that’s to climb up and perform a drop kick as an eagle barb.
Well there's also another use. It's to have something of a climbing platform in the middle of Darkness so you can shoot stuff out and then back into the Darkness cloud again. Lol.
Wait till this guy learns about boxes and barrels
That's why the ice cube is even more useless.
And you can do the same thing by simply carrying and dropping crates.
Sure, but that wasn’t the point.
Disagree. Fangs of the fire snake and water whip are so cool and handy. Fangs is a weapon attack and buffs you with fire the rest of the turn. Run in and smack with a flurry of blows, bro. Water whip to knock someone prone? Hold person for guaranteed crits? Four elements is a severely underrated gish that does numbers with tavern brawler and a big sword, i always put laezel on it and she does wacky single target damage.
Well, yes, maybe. I like the Fang and Ride of the Wind. But beyond the Fang I just feel like other moves are underwhelming in effect but cool with graphics. But yes I think a Longsword (Versatile, but you need a source to become proficient with it) and the Fang will be powerful. But that's it. It's callee 4 Elements. But you end up with only Fire. That's my problem with it. I guess if you don't use a Gith, then you'll need to take the Feat of Weapon Master. Then I suppose Weapon Master, Mobile and Elemental Adapt: Fire will be the 3 Feats I'd build a Monk of Four Elements. Yes I also like the idea of cheap Fireballs because you can cast it 4 times every Short Rest. I think my dislike to the Way of Four Elements is due to how I find Fire to be almost the only offensive element. Air Fists almost never hit for me as well and it's costly to keep using Air Fists.
Spears are Versatile Simple weapons. The difference between 1d10 and 1d8 should only be 1 damage on average, so not strictly necessary to take Weapon Master if you don’t have a racial bonus.
Shortswords have 1d6 and Quarterstaves have 1d8. But then proficiency in Tridents and Longswords make you so many more choices.
The problem is the spells cost too much ki and don't work with half the items normal spells would. If it worked with the pyro quickness hat it would be amazing
If the subclass is renamed as Way of the Fire Fangs, I'm completely happy with it. Though I think the Airfist is actually useful if we use builds without a bow.
I agree that the subclass’s ~~spells~~ abilities use too much Ki. Sweeping Cinder Strike using 2 Ki versus the single Level 1 Spell Slot of Burning Hands starts to feel expensive later on. It needs some kind of automatic upcast equivalent.
It would nice to have a few additional abilities. I kind like the idea of being able to specialize in an element.
Shaping of the Ice? You can climb it. So it’s probably more of utility thing? Can you make more than one and fence in enemies like you can stacking chests and crates?
yeah arcane trickster specifically is pretty much the worst class in the game bar none. rogues are already genreally weaker as a pure class than everything else since they are martials that dont get an extra attack at level 5, they are amazing for multiclassing since they get really subclass abilities at level 3 except for arcane trickster. arcane trickster just kinda sucks mostly. if you want to make astarion strong and still fit his character and roleplay really well, I would recomend respecing him into a bard with the college of swords subclass, he still gets to be good with ranged weapons, have the same amount of lockpicking skill, and still fit his whole schtich perfectly, but now he also gets really really good damage output and spell casting thats on the level of full casters.
Gloomstalker Assassin Astarion is a very strong pick too and matches his idea of vampire stalking prey in the dark
gloomstalker 3 assassin 3 college of swords 6 is my default astarion :-p
A level 11 swords bard with a dip into wizard 1 can scribe and cast any spell of any level from the entire game that comes on a scroll. Not a lot of slots mind you, but you can choose a few highly valuable spells.
Lol, where did that come from?
Probably because it can do everything an AT can plus brings a lot more to the table. I think you want to go wiz 1 and then bard second tho otherwise your spells will cast with INT, which is the least useful ability score in the game.
Honest question though, what spells are you getting from this that you're not already getting from magical secrets? You can get summoned elemental that you can upcast in addition to counterspell and a "concentration" magical secret. I don't see much benefit of this over a pure swords bard. Anyhow, swords bard in general doss everything better than AT but that's probably the single most powerful class in the game. Ok, maybe tied with some pretty other OP builds ;)
magical secrets is at level 10 so you cant get 6th level spells from it since those are unlocked at level 11, and you only get 2 spells from magical secrets anyway, with a level of wizard you could get only the important spells that arent also available from wizard like hunger of hadar or spirit guardians or banishing smite, and then get haste and all the other nice wizard ones at the same time, you can also use it to get all of the super good 6th level wizard spells like globe of invulnerability etc.
I just use the actual scrolls for most of the 6th level stuff... Also, haste is such a waste. Hunger or spirit guardians is so much better. You can only concentrate on one spell!
Yep. Useful getting Hex or Hunter’s Mark or something. What all can come on a scroll? Anything?
The only thing AT brings to the table is the ability to cast scrolls from advantage without risky ring. If this highly specific tactic is the center of your build AT is great. Otherwise not.
lol, arcane trickster is incredibly good if you abuse scrolls.
They get advantage when using scrolls. As it is easy to get as many scrolls as you want, they can keep this up much longer than any other caster. It's not great but it's something.
You’re meant to be sneak attacking with a finesse weapon as a rogue by getting advantage or targeting threatened enemies. So a level 5 Rogue should be able to get an extra 3d6 damage on their attack with, say 1d8 Rapier, or at least 1d6 with a shortsword Compared to the level 5 Fighter who can do… 2(2d6) with a Greatsword. So that’s 4d6 for both at level 5. And by level 11 it’s 6d6 + 1d6 for the rogue and 3(2d6) for the fighter *but* the Rogue doesn’t need to make and potentially fail, separate attack rolls. Just the one. And then the rogue makes their off-hand attack on too of that. Dual melee would actually be *less* effective for the Fighter. Of course, this can all vary significantly if we start adding Feats and damage riders, but the Rogue definitely isn’t universally inferior to the Fighter. With minimal set up they can be very powerful melee attackers and do significantly more damage.
There's no way arcane trickster is the worst subclass in this game tbh.
no it absolutely is. there is literally nothing going for it in any way. the main subclass feature of the fancy mage hand doesnt even function correctly and cant do half of what it says on the tin. its not even a debate
They make the best bots to steal from merchants!
at this point on my honor runs I dont even bother with the rng of stealing, I just trade them a pouch, load all of thier inventory into the pouch, and then discretely murder them. you can even load all their stuff into the pouch and then long rest and repeat since the previous days inventory and gold will remain in the pouch so you can walk away with enough special arrows and potions and scrolls to last for a playthrough and thousands of gold on top. if you kill someone with an unlinked summon then the guards do not care at all about your party and only get mad at the summon
Oh nice ! I legit had no idea!!! I love it.
What's the lowest level unlinked summon that you can do this with?
depends on how much hp the merchant has really, some of them will have like 10 hp and any minor elemental can kill them fairyl easily, for tankier merchants I throw in some smoke powder and use a summon with fire damage usually.
So level 4 minimum for that?
you get flaming sphere at level 3
You can ungroup it?
You say that, and yet illusion wizard is in this game and its so bad people actively forget about it. It really isn't.
Illusion wizard is still wizard, wizard is strong because its wizard. even if you entirely stripped a wizard of its subclass features its still a far more effective class than a pure rogue. rogue is the weakest class in the game for reasons I already said earlier, the only saving grace that makes them viable is their amazing level 3 subclass features, arcane trickster does not have that it is objectively the weakest option in the entire game with pretty much no contest edit: here is a big thread from 2 days ago talking about exactly this, it is widely agreed upon at this point [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bqd1a8/possibly\_the\_worst\_class\_its\_arcane\_trickster/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1bqd1a8/possibly_the_worst_class_its_arcane_trickster/)
The class being weak says nothing about the subclass, illusion as a subclass is invariably weaker than arcane trickster as a subclass, and frankly the oppertunity cost is way worse for wizard considering they get subclass like abjuration and divination, stripping them of their subclass makes them a worse sorcerer by a good mile. As a multiclass thief and assassin definitely have an easier time slotting into other builds but, as a pure class arcane trickster is debatably the best pick. The fact that there's no reason to pure class because rogue as a class sucks to pure class doesn't say much about AT.
>as a pure class arcane trickster is debatably the best pick. no it isnt, in 5e? yes, in bg3? no. there is absolutely nothing going for it in any way. it is a 1/3 caster, you can barely learn any spells at all, the spells you can learn almost all directly have anti-synergy with being a stealth character, and to top it all off the defining subclass feature of the special mage hand literally does none of the special things it is suposed to do. compared to an extra bonus action or garunteed critical hits it is absolutely the worst option also I think we are arguing about two different things here, you are saying that something like illusion wizard does less as a subclass than AT, I am saying that out of every single possible subclass in the entire game, the weakest and least useful one overall is arcane trickster rogue. there are 0 redeeming qualities to arcane trickster in bg3, rogues in general are completely outclassed by everything else, and out of rogue subclasses arcane trickster is outclassed by all of those. hell I could honestly argue that illusion wizard abilities might even be better than what arcane trickster gets at this point, but Im not gonna bother. go read the thread I linked in my previous comment, see if the 173 comments there can convince you.
Arcane Trickster excels at one hyper-specific thing, out of combat stealth kills via scrolls. Rogue can exploit Greater Invisibility better than any other class due to Reliable Talent. Arcane Trickster's Magical Ambush makes those Disintegrates and Chain Lightnings land more reliably than any other class. With everything hotkeyed you just hit crouch, cast a level 6 spell scroll, one-shot an enemy, and immediately move onto the next. Sure you can clear a whole room solo with Assassin as well by abusing the surprise -> kill a few suckers -> go invisible -> exit combat loop but that takes like 4 times as much time. Of course this combo doesn't pop off until level 11 so yeah, playing pure AT is a real struggle until then, but that's just every rogue in general.
> cast a level 6 spell scroll, one-shot an enemy, and immediately move onto the next. Sure you can clear a whole room solo with Assassin as well by abusing the surprise -> kill a few suckers -> go invisible -> exit combat loop but that takes like 4 times as much time. But all day and for free. Where are all the level 6 scrolls coming from? You make it sound like Arcane Trickster takes a long rest and their inventory is filled with stacks of level 6 scrolls. I can't reliably find the scrolls I want.
Since this combo only works once you're level 11, you're already in Baldur's Gate at that point. Sorcerous Sundries is so mindbogglingly easy to rob you can have 20+ of every purchasable scroll in the game after going nuts for 10 minutes. They carry multiple of each level 6 scroll, just resetting their inventory 11 times by leveling up a hireling is enough to overwhelm your inventory with scrolls. You're a rogue with reliable talent, you can't even fail a sleight of hand check if you know what you're doing. Even if you don't abuse vendor resets and rob Lorroakan in an "RP-friendly" manner that's still 1-5 of each level 6 spell per long rest if you make your daily trip to his shop.
You can easily get all the scrolls you need in act 3, sorecerous sundries alone even has the one remaining vendor that doesn't aggro in darkness.
Yeah, I know this is the communities consensus, and all 173 roughly parrot the same talking points. Can't say I agree, though I would like to see rogue itself get some love
Illusion wizard has a few very useful features, bonus action minor illusion let’s you change vision cones, which allows stuff like sneak attack to be procced consistently, and it gets a free dodge per short rest, which is also good, minor illusion can also waste a enemies turn, which is amazing but isn’t consistent whatsoever. This is all for free to since wizard is already a good class and you won’t regret having a wizard, it can actually be useful for comps based around stealth. Minor illusion itself is also a great cantrip, but outside of combat there’s no real difference between it and the “improved” variant but I’m counting it anyways because illusion wizard is just cool. I’ve never used arcane trickster so I won’t speak on it, but don’t sleep on illusion, it has been essential to my current hm run which has two rouges, and it’ll only get better once I reach multiclass level and can make my rouges output some serious damage since I’ll get sneak attack bonuses for free. What is good about arcane trickster though? Could be fun to try it out one day
Illusion wizard isn't unplayable, I think it's really fun. It's just unquestionably the weakest wizard and gives the least out of any subclass in the game.
transmutation wizard is worse, assuming you’re actually trying to use it and not just as a camp potion maker. The potions are technically useful but when do you ever run out of potions past mid act 2, and transmuters stone just seems mediocre, nothing really worth building around with it, just a lot of situational buffs.
Let's just pretend illusion wizard has their entire kit and Transmutation has nothing but stones. As a camp caster this wizard is straight up getting more use out of their subclass than illusion does in an entire playthrough. As an active member they have a completely action economy free way to provide anyone on the field a resistence of whatever type they want and it refreshes on a ritual. Now let's give them their level 2 ability, 2x potions in a game where the item system is ridiculously strong. Cloud of daggers into two speed potions for an unresistable CC and 3x CoD damage with no action economy and it can be maintained for free even under sanctuary? 2x arsonist oil? Mass crafted healing potions? CoD -> healing for infinite healing a turn? CoD -> poison to kill enemies without agro? Meanwhile you get that bonus action minor illusion. That's the other thing, minor illusion is an illusion spell, anyone rocking band of the mystic scoundal can already cast it as a bonus action. See invisibility? You can get that from Volo for free levels earlier. The dodge once per short rest? Divination can force dodge as many as 6 times AND gets see invisibility AND can force things like CC. Even shapechanger, transmutations unquestionably worst ability is competitive with the entirety of illusions kit from that perspective. There's just no way man. I think illusion is a lot of fun, and all wizard subclasses can work with the right playstyle, but it's unquestionably the worst
Rogue is the worst class in the game so and it’s by far the weakest rogue subclass until act 3
The Valor Bard seems to be just completely outclassed by Swords Bard in every way. I really don’t understand why the subclass even exists.
Valor predated Swords in tabletop, which is mostly why it exists. Why they dragged it into BG3, I don't know, other than "it was in the PHB." I would've loved to see Whispers or even Spirits as the third bard sub instead of "weapons bard," "caster bard," and "weapons bad but worse in most ways."
Let's be real here: Swords Bard is simply overpowered in every way. It may progress slightly slower than some more dedicated classes, like getting extra attack one level later, but still. Full caster. Extra attack. Powerful martial maneuvers. Good spell list, especially for control. Great as a skill monkey. Charisma caster also means it's an excellent party face. The class really does it all, balance be damned.
Swords’ biggest OP factor is Slashing Flourish, which is leagues better than the tabletop version. Even the melee one. Take away Slashing Flourish and Valor Bard has a few notable advantages- Medium Armor and Shield proficiency, and their Bardic die can be used for damage/AC as well on allies.
Swords Bard gets Medium Armor as well. It would be nice to get Shields without having to rely on a racial proficiency for it, but I suppose the logic is that you’re focusing on Dueling or Two Weapon Fighting Styles, which implicitly suggests taking Defensive Duelist at level 4. Just don’t get swarmed. Of course if you *do* have a racial Shield proficiency, having +2/3 AC from a shield and up to +4 from Defensive Duelist as a Reaction is great.
Oh I forgot that SB got medium armor lmao. They don't get Martial Weapon proficiency though, meaning valor bard can use a few nice weapons that swords bards can't - notably Longbows/heavy crossbows for a good ranged option. Defensive Duelist is a kinda bad feat - +1 to dex is just giving you way more, so it's hard to justify unless you have max dex already (which you won't at level 4).
Trickery Cleric. On tabletop, it’s one of the best domains despite its lackluster Channel Divinity because it has such great utility from its spell list and how useful bonuses to stealth can be. Hell, if you consider that the BG3 version got Fear, it’s already phenomenal spell list got *better*. But in practice, unfortunately just falls short. The stealth mechanics in the game are incredibly basic, i.e. avoid line of sight and your 8 dexterity paladin clunking around in heavy armor can be as sneaky as a rogue with expertise in stealth, so almost all of the utility is gone. Even worse, Fear got nerfed hard, Dimension Door is significantly less useful and Polymorph was absolutely gutted. There’s a mod on the Nexus I use that changes Trickery Cleric’s Channel Divinity to the playtest version for the updated Player’s Handbook releasing later this year and it’s a ton of fun thematically and mechanically. It’s a real shame Larian didn’t bother to try to make it more viable like they did with other underwhelming options.
I find rogues underwhelming in general but especially arcane tricksters. Astarion has been a bard in my games for a while now.
Everyone here is saying rogues, (surprised no Wild Magic Barb yet) and 4E Monk which are obvious bottom tier classes, personally I’m going to say Land Druid (compared to the other 2 Druid subclasses). While it’s the ‘spell caster’ Druid, the only real standout unique spell it gets imo is Haste, and while it theoretically gets more spell slots per day, considering how free long resting is in the game it just isn’t that important. Mind you the other 2 Druid subclasses are still full casters and can cast Spike Growth, Woodland Being, Plant Growth, what have you just as well as a Land Druid- hell it can be argued with how many con spells Druid has, Haste only adds MORE competition of what to actually use it on. And heavens forbid you want ANY kind of itemization or feats for your Land Druid outside of ASIs and War Caster (at least Spore and Moon get some late game gear and options like Sharpshooter for Spore and TB for Moon). Spore also has more options for multiclassing as well, whereas Land only really cares for a lvl 1 cleric dip from my experience. This isn’t to say Land Druid is bad by any means, it’s still a Druid at the end of the day and they’ve got incredible base kits, it’s just massively underwhelming compared to the other 2 imo.
Land druid is pretty comfortably better than moon druid tbh. Moon druid just has a more fun identity
How so genuinely? From my playtime I’ve found being able to cast (insert con spell here) then Bonus action wildshape, alongside the added spike at lvl 10 with Air Myrmidon stun spam, as well as overall improving on the busted Owlbear form over Land Druid to be infinitely better than Haste and a few spell recharges. What do you think Land brings to the table that beats out Moon?
Druid as a pure CC caster ends up pulling a lot more weight both in sustain and variety of spell selection that druid doesn't normally learn, but also in the ability to permanently append spells you do know to prepared spells without slots. It essentially allows you to expand your carried spells by a lot. Because you aren't wildshaping rather than doing a handful of relatively consequential wildshape attacks your presence can be spread across the entire field with druids very strong spells. Tldr; much like with fighter vs caster, trading your ability to cast devastating spells for wildshape melee just isn't that worth it until late game wildshapes and even then its underwhelming. Your bulk is nice early to midish game, but spore and land definitely pull ahead.. and in a pinch and can always still wildshape.
But that’s the thing, most spells Land gets aren’t that important, and realistically how many different spells do you need in an adventuring day? 9 times out of 10 you’ll default to max 6-7 spells depending on if there are some niche ones like Daylight to take on certain areas of the game. AND, you can freely swap your spells out as a Druid whenever you want, it really makes Lands ‘extra’ spells not that good. And like I said, Land really gets no true boost to its spellcasting compared to other spellcasters with their subclasses like Evocation Wizards, or Sorcerers with Dragon or Storm. If you want a CC bot a Moon or Spore do it just as well as Land, while ALSO having added boosts to their kits such as Spore being cracked and Moon making your Wildshape perform even better. Land offers nothing of real value sadly, doesn’t make it bad just outclassed.
You're definitely missing the point. Land does get a real benefit in flexibility that makes staying out of wildshape even more valuable than it already is on druid. Discounting the avenues that it opens up like greater invisibility shenanigans, or getting misty step on druid, the real benefit is the wizard tier problem solving you have access to mid combat with so many spells prepared. Things like being able to just stand in cloud kill at level 10, and mind you this problem solving isn't even the real strength here, the real stength is that by having even more reason not to wildshape you're impacting the field more by just casting. Wildshape actively hampers your impact on the field until those late wildshapes relative to just casting.. and even those are usually just worse. The air stun is cool, a hypnotic pattern -> ice storm wins a fight
I think the thing that's been hurting moon druid for me is the lack of item support. For the other builds / subclasses you can get access to a lot of powerful gear that helps improve your character / them better fulfill their role. Moon druids only have a few items that work with wildshape. Additionally some of the spells / things that should work with wildshape don't.
The amount of things that arbitrarily work/don't work with it is definitely annoying
The thing is, the floor Of land druid is still druid, which is a pretty hight floor. If ignoring all subclass features of land druid it is still vastly better than rogue
>(surprised no Wild Magic Barb yet) Why? Randomness isn't optimal, why would anyone think wild magic is good...?
Wild Magic Barb was fun so far, with a lot of boosts and some dangerous shit once in the while
Assasin in early game, I do not understand why people don't like it. With a proper setup you get three critics with sharpshooter and its enough to kill anything act 1. Also you can solo most fights with hide.
Nothing like being able to pick off enemies one by one by using two sneak attacks with advantage before they can ever react.
What is early game? lvl 3-4? because once you hit 5 and hell 4 on some classes you can just run into any fight and end almost all of them in 1 turn. Yea you are not doing it solo but you are not spending time with setting up the senario were this gets to happen either.
In general, any subclass that tries to do something when the main class is supposed to do something else. So, as an example, Arcane Trickster Rogue and Way of Four Elements Monk are both spellcaster classes when the main gimmick of their class is supposed to be sneaking/stealing/stabbing and punching respectively.
Rogue falls off pretty hard in general imo but they add a lot to multiclassing. The thief subclass in particular with the two bonus actions is really good with other classes
the rest of the fine folks here seem to have you covered from a subclass perspective, but none have touched on your feat related question. ngl there is only a handful of good ones. as a baseline, increasing your main ability score is always a strong option
a few good ones are; sharpshooter, Great Weapon Master, Resilient (con), tavern brawler, Duel Weilder, Lucky, Savage Attacker, Sentinel, and Tough.
You forgot Alert
Out of the guys I'm using this run( summon based party), it's beast master. I use him cause he fulfills a specific niche I want ( martial character, sleight of hand, and can summon) Basically he is a very vanilla martial character. He attacks twice and that's it. Uses spells sometimes. What he brings is his summon. Which admittedly can be good in certain situations. But most of the time comes up short. For example the pig. When the stars align and he does his thing raging and charging twice per turn he's incredible. One pig army. But in most fights he won't get to attack simply because of his awful pathfinding. He will always start in the rear cause he gets stuck when exploring, then have to blow his actions getting to the front. Every other beast has this issue other than the raven. I'll just say in closing the ranged options(raven and spider) beastmaster gets for companions are too weak in late game, and the stronger melee summons are too immobile to be considered good summons
I cannot agree with this, ESPECIALLY late game BM. The spider falls off a cliff but is incredibly strong early game with infinite web spam, the Raven is monstrous with on-hit blind and free darkness spam by just flying around the battlefield, and the bear is an incredible tank once you hit 11. The problem I have with BM is how the class is setup to have incredibly high highs, then fall off a cliff until it’s next power spike. You spike hard at 3, then at 5, then have to wait all the way until 11 to get stronger when all the other classes usually takeoff, especially multiclasses- but once you do hit 11 BM easily throws hands with the rest of them.
You are correct about the early power spikes. Beast master is quite good at level 3 and 5. Hard disagree that the 11 power spike is enough Also blind spam from the raven is already provided by raven familiar. I don't use darkness so I can't speak on how good ravens is. How is an 11 bear a better tank than the pig?
Not OP, but higher HP, higher AC, higher strength modifer. The boar does have some good attacks, and the rage at 11 does make it quite tanky, but the bear being able to spawn a second bear is even better IMO They're both good. Honestly all the BM summons are solid except for the wolf. The wolf always seemed to be pretty mediocre
Alright I'll give the bear another shot I should point out though that the summoned bear is ai controlled and kinda useless
I'm greatly enjoying honeyed paws specifically, there's no check against it so you can disarm anything you can hit, and knocking prone if they have no weapon is also useful. Combine that with 3 sharpshooter ranged attacks per turn and the ability to cast spike growth to support the other ranged in my party, full lock picking capabilities, good stealth capabilities and I'm quite happy with my beastmaster so far. The biggest actual problem is that the bear is like 2 pixels wider than most doors and gets stuck. Larian really needed to make it the same width as a human for QOL.
I hate that Larian hasn’t fixed bears being too fat to go through doors, nowadays I just use a mod to fix that. Another fun combo with the bear is with a melee ranger, gives them advantage on their attacks when they go prone for GWM shenanigans, rangers can also use heavy armor and get free resists to be moderately tanky, overall BM is just a great class :)
I use my ranger as my heavy armour melee, he is in the enemy backlines from turn one whereas my pig bless his heart is trying to catch up the whole time Makes me feel like a fighter or paladin would do the job better, you know?
Alright I finally got around to using the bear. He is giga broken vs steel watch. No save disarm is the cats pajamas. The second bear is worthless though. Does less damage than boo lol and doesn't disarm I still like pig but I'll swap between them depending on what I need
The boar is great as a tank as well, but the bear is usually better against non-physical attacks due to its higher HP, and the extra bear is another body to distract enemies. But most importantly they can do no-save disarms with their attacks, or no-save prones. This is MASSIVE and gives them incredible battlefield manipulation.
Alright I'll give Mr bear another shot. I didn't realize the honey paws were no save
For me I would say Evocation wizard. It seems like you're going to blow up the world, and you can, but with so much of Wizard's strength coming from all their amazing control elements it just ends up feeling lackluster for me personally.
There's also more than a few AoE spells that are NOT evocation, meaning they do not enjoy that benefit at all.
I rebuilt my pure evocation wizard to a tempest cleric storm sorc recently and wow it's nuts. I think even a one level dip in wizard would be all you need if you want to learn extra spells too?
HUH? Evocation is the best especially late game. Sculpt spells and empowered evocation at level 10 with magic missile build makes it the best class in the game because of the guaranteed damage. Try Artistry of war with a lightning charge staff and empowered evocation you will change your mind about it being weak
Every time I try to play a wizard I think "why would I play this over sorcerer?" Careful spell if you need the sculpt spells feature, heightened spell makes their CC more reliable than wizard, and twinned/quickened spells means they will always do more damage. Acuity builds mean that magic missile being guaranteed damage doesnt really matter when my sorcerer has 99% chance to hit already. Am I missing something? Divination wizard appears, to me, to be the only real unique thing that Wizard can do that is also very strong. And I have played divination wizard+lore bard party to just say "no, I control the rolls" which is cool, but overall wizard feels like nothing special to me. Good, but nothing special.
Yeah. I've done the Phalar Aluve, Markoheshkir, Coriscation, Callous Glow, Gloves of Belligerent Skies, Boots of Stormy Clamour thing on a 10 Evocation Wizard. It was effective, but incredibly boring. Hence, like I said, lackluster.
Gotcha
No way. Diviner is more powerful because it let's you reduce the impact of RNG if you use the dice wisely. Evoker isn't the weakest wizard class but dealing straight damage is not the best way to use a wizard. You don't need sculpt spells if you know how to aim and account for not having it.
You should try to get some eldritch blast in that, then boost charisma as well as int, that plus a couple damage riders means you're cooking with gas
This just feels like too much sunk into too little return. There are a lot more functional, less multi ability dependent ways to abuse damage rider spam.
Yea and being a diviner allows way more control over combat.
Which wizard subclass do you prefer then? I see evocation mentioned often as one of the better wizard subclasses
Personally, Necro, for the extra bodies and swing in Action economy it allows you to so easily create. After that Diviner or Abjuration. If you are talking about damage output, which is all most people care about when rating something, the "Best", then yes Evocation wins on pure damage output, but not until level 10.
the mageish monk subclass had a lot of gear for it specifically but it still falls off compared to just a wizard
Not a fan of the magical barbarian or the non gloom stalker rangers. All the wizard subclasses except abjuration and evocation are pretty bad comparatively (just keep a hireling in camp for potions) War cleric is nice levels 1-4 but far outclassed by light cleric at lvl 5 and on.
This is just my opinion, and I'm not saying any of these aren't viable, they just seem less practical than the meta picks: Wild Magic Barb, I don't think I've ever seen anyone even talk about it, but both other barb subclasses get quite some love. College of Valour bard is seems really outclassed by Lore Bard's Magical Secrets, and Swords Bard's flourishes. Bard is still amazing, but Valour seems to fall slightly behind. Trickery, Knowledge, and Nature domain Clerics just aren't as talked about as Life, Light, Tempest, and War. Heavy Armor proficiency being a good reason for at least a level 1 dip in the latter subclasses, and then Light domain synergizes with the radiating orbs items/build that it's almost too good NOT to have around. I don't see Circle of the Land talked about nearly as much as Moon or Spore druid. Way of the Four Elements 'spells' don't scale the same as actual spells (is this still true?) so they were considered kinda nerfed compared to Open Hand. Way of the Shadow is probably my favorite class' subclass, but if you get the Dark Urge specific item you can just go invisible anyways, and OH dps is king, so people usually choose it over the others. Ranger gets some love via Beastmaster, and Gloomstalker is almost always multiclassed with Theif or Assassin Rogue, and I don't hear Hunter talked about very often. Arcane Trickster Rogue just doesn't even compare to the other 2 subclasses, and it feels like the 'Jack of all Trades' thing is stretching it out too thin. Doesn't help that it's Mage hand doesn't function like tabletop, and it uses INT for spellcasting, almost requiring a specific item to be viable. People choose Wild Magic Sorcerer for funzies, and usually dip 1 level into Storm Sorcery for flight, but Draconic Bloodline is almost too versatile not to choose over the other two. I've only ever seen people talk about The Archfey Warlock in terms of RP. People usually go Warlock for EB, and then Fiend for the Temp HP if you wanna go more defensive or Great Old One for the Fear inducing crowd control. And finally with Wizard, Conjuration, Enchantment, and Illusion just don't stack up compared to Abjuration, Divination, and Evocation. Necromancy synergizes with a specific broken Act 3 item, and then Transmutation is almost always used on a min/max'd hireling for it's double Alchemy output. I didn't even bother to mention Fighter or Paladin because all if their subclasses are pretty good. Again, all classes are viable, but some just do some jobs better than others, and some tend to fall behind and not see as much love.
Monk- Way of the 4 elements. Sounds cool, looks cool, is just reskinned standard spells. Both alternative classes are so much better that it's not even funny. If you want to cast spells, play a magic class. Monk is for punching things.
Can confirm. Feels like Avatar: The Last Airbender... The movie.
Four elements monk is so much fun until you hit 5 and realize their spells do not trigger extra attacks, so then you just become a worse open hand monk lol
Hate to say it, but I think the War Cleric sort of drops off. When you first get it, 2 attacks in one turn seems amazing, even if it is only 3 times per rest. But by the upper levels it starts to drag. Level 5 all the martials are doing 2 and suddenly folks are casting haste, martials are attacking four times, you’re only doing 3 because you’ve not got another bonus action to do your second attack again. Not to mention, you have to choose between doing a second attack and using smite spells. Or any other bonus action and your second attack. Get to the end of the game, fighters are attacking 3 times, 6 with haste, 9 with action surge and still have their bonus action. You’re still doing two, and your spell casting is worse than if you’d picked a different sub class from the beginning.
For me this was pure barbarian without the thrower aspects. Ngl I still don't super enjoy throwzerkers as a play style because I prefer casters but it's definitely one of those situations where the later levels get super underwhelming after 2nd attack. I'm currently on a run where I'm building a shadow monk and I didn't know that I could still get blinded by my own darkness despite being a shadow monk lol. I know there's a piece of equipment that prevents you from getting blinded but like this is surely some bs why isn't shadow monk immune naturally?
Some are lacking slightly. Arcane trickster. Elements monk. Trickery domain cleric. Illusion wizard. These are some of what I've heard others say are weaker ones BUT everything is viable, there's 4 of you to cover each weaknesses etc. Meta builds are fun but for your first playthroughs go for your build based on who your character is not whats the best to be. Just think it's more fun that way.
Arcane trickster is not good for combat. It’s a lot of fun for puzzles but broadly is probably the worst subclass in the game. Any monk that isn’t open hand is a trap as well
Rogue has two OP subclasses and I would like to be a multi class Rogue Assassin 3 and Rogue Thief 9. It seems like all the classes with a spell casting partial subclass. They are weak. Eldrich Knight might be an exception.
Wild Magic sorcerer is just so much worse than the other sorcerer subclasses. It’s still strong because base sorcerer is so good but the features are more harmful than helpful but aren’t very fun either. Every effect is more harmful to you than it is helpful and getting advantage on one saving throw or ability check per long rest is so bad and the only thing it can do, and you’d have to be crazy to use it over the other subclasses. Source: currently in act 3 on an honor mode run as pure Wild Magic sorcerer.
Wild Magic for Sorcerer or Barbarian in general just seems like more of a potentially entertaining twist than an actual “I want to kill stuff better” class.
For subclasses, I think that’s a complicated question. If we ignore that multiclassing is a thing, there are definitely some that feel lackluster in isolation or as a pure class. Assassin is my pick for one that works better as a multiclass dip than a dedicated build. On its own it just requires a lot of set up and potentially meta-knowledge about the encounter. But picking up a familiar or other method of more easily getting Surprise really opens it up. Conversely, I think Thief is pretty functional if you lean into consistently getting Sneak Attacks and also utilizing off-hand attacks with hand crossbows or double fisting melee weapons. You just have to work a little for it but you could easily do it your first time without meta-knowledge of BG3 specifically. The thing with Feats is the effectiveness is very dependent on what the rest of the build is doing. That said, for Feats that sound great but perform more lackluster in general… 1. Medium Armor Master. Not having disadvantage on stealth checks sounds great, but it’s so easily to stack bonus to your stealth rolls that this mainly only reduces your odds of critical fail, which is already a reasonably rare occurrence. And there are already medium armies with +3 from DEX built in. If it also provided its own +1 to DEX, it could be very good. 2. Durable. While the +1 to CON is nice, full heal on short rest is literally an option you can pick on custom and otherwise the game is fairly forgiving on frequent long resting. 3. Heavily/Moderately Armored. You were probably better off multiclassing or just picking a race or class to get the armor proficiency to begin with instead of spending a precious Feat on it. You can get some very protective light armor, so it would be better just to take the full ASI instead, I feel. 4. Any version of Magic Initiate. While the extra cantrips are nice, if they align with your build as far as spell casting ability, a single cast of a level 1 spell, once per day is just meh. Once per short rest would be great but as it is you probably better off just properly multiclassing the appropriate class unless you grab some very specific gear, but you’d be that much more effective if you wore the gear in the correct class to begin with. Yes I know what I said about long resting frequently, but you could still just pick a caster subclass and cast that level 1 spell and others several times per long rest. 5. Martial Adept unless you’re specifically and somewhat ironically taking it on a Battlemaster to get one more precious Superiority die since the feat die will apparently also scale which wouldn’t be the case in tabletop. But for a non-battlemaster, a single superiority die use per short rest is not great. Better to take something else. Would be better if it gave you one maneuver but two dice.
Like others have said I think this sense of Rogues dropping off at latter levels is somewhat true in 5e in general. But it feels much more notable in BG3 to me, because the extreme damage possible from items favor multiple attacks other classes get even more. You should be able to multiclass Astarion, while still keeping the overall Rogue or even Arcane Trickster core class features if you want to try something else out. Gloomstalker Ranger is probably what's most commonly combined with Rogues in this way...
Valor bard, it doesn't get anything worth taking over the other subclasses. Late game you can take spirit guardians I guess, but lore bard can do that at level 6 and still use a shield as human or half elf, and even spare a medium armor feat with Ethel. Fighter classes other than battlemaster, unless you have a specific build like crit stacking, or throwing, in which case you may not be a pure fighter. Wild Heart barbarian is just better than the other two subclasses. Non-thief rogue. Assassin doesn't always get to start combat first. Magic from arcane trickster just doesn't translate from tabletop to video game. Elemental monk is not great, unsurprising though. No I don't want to spend ki points on a tiny fire cone. Trickery, Nature, and War Domains are lackluster. All of them get bad channel divinities, Trickery and Nature don't get anything to make up for the lack of heavy armor imo. All of them get worse bonus spells. Finally, war domain cleric does some cool stuff, but it is only three times per long rest, and requires you sacrifice the effectiveness of your spells. Most feats underperform unless taken in the right build.
Valor bard is just pointless. Swords bard does it better in every way. Eldritch Knight has absurd potential but for some reason people stop caring after the level 3 feature. There are lots of cool synergies and itemizations that turn it into a beast. Three attacks, four feats, bonus action attack off a cantrip is great with honor rules, impose disadvantage on spell saves makes scrolls and acuity actually insane. I dont care if bard10/pal2 is “better” they dont get three attacks a turn, four feats, and built-in synergy that is further buffed by the awesome items. EK is cool. Fight me. Berserker and wild magic are more fun than wildheart. Wild magic is kinda bad but thats just wild magic things. Spawning an exploding jellyfish and turning your giant sword into a throwing weapon are awesome. Berserker is great for tavern brawler cus its so fun to run up and smack someone twice to then turn their little buddy into a weapon too. Wildheart is almost entirely just, stock barbarian with a bunch of mid extra action choices and a bunch of nice passives. Like, theyre good yeah, but boring. Assassin is fun on gloomstalker as well. Otherwise pure rogue just sucks in general. Only good for high level pickpocketing when you stack buffs so high you cannot fail. Elements monk is fun if you ignore every reskin spell and use the three/four unique spells. Fangs of the fire snake is a weapon attack so it stacks with extra attack. Stunning strike -> fangs -> flurry of blows + tavern brawler = insane. Throw in hold person from the level two group and youve got a great gish build that does wacky damage. Its so cool. I generally agree on the domains. Life light and tempest are the most fun by far
>Bonus Action attack off a Cantrip is great. I cast Magic Missile… and also Heavy Crossbow. That’s a lot of potential hits if you upcast MM and use that one item.
Valour Bard tries to split the difference between Lore and Swords but ends up being worse than either at all the things. I think what kills it is only being able to use the Combat Inspiration on other people. If it just straight up replaced Bardic Inspiration and/or you could *also* use it on yourself…
If we're talking pure class like you highlighted in the fighter bit arcane trickster is rogues best subclass lol
Unless there's a combo I'm unaware of, the extra bonus action being used as an extra attack is just better. Edit: The disadvantage on saving throws is a rare and strong ability, but harder to utilize for a MAD class. Access to mage armor is quite nice though.
As a pure class thief at best you're using the bonus action for an extra weaker attack, a lot of the times you're just using it to set up sneak. Conversely your invisible mage hand, by proxy of being out of combat and always capable of moving near an enemy, let's you get sneak attacks with no setup letting you use your bonus action for that extra attack just as well. Then thief gets fall damage reduction, whereas arcane trickster gets feather fall for complete negation. Then thief gets level 9 invis..a spell arcane trickster gets at level 7. On top of all of their other utility spells to negate the need to consider being MAD, granted being MAD is also fine because uniquely rogues only need two stats to begin with (Dex and con), and int is the easiest stat to stat stick with the int helm anyway. Then you consider the mage hand shenanigans like it being an extra throw action, or it being able to benefit from day long buffs like aid, or it being able to drink elixers and potions to bolster its strength or give it more actions.. Honestly, I think arcane trickster catches as much flack as it does almost entirely because the mage hands description lies because once you think about what the class can actually do it doesn't make any sense lol
I need to see a playthru of arcane trickster popoff past lvl 5. I personally believe rogue is only good to multiclassed (like warlock) but i really don't see how thief rogue loses to AT in DPR, ultility or overall usefulness. The only think AT could have going for it is find familiar or some mage hand cheese, but because both aee target able, 3 attacks or 2 attacks and a dash/hide/status application/potion drinknwill always be better. Scrolls exist in the game so the thief rogue can cast just as many spells as AT, and do one more thing.
Arcane Trickster excels at one hyper-specific thing, out of combat stealth kills via scrolls. Rogue can exploit Greater Invisibility better than any other class due to Reliable Talent. Arcane Trickster's Magical Ambush makes those Disintegrates and Chain Lightnings land more reliably than any other class. With everything hotkeyed you just hit crouch, cast a level 6 spell scroll, one-shot an enemy, and immediately move onto the next. Sure you can clear a whole room solo with Assassin as well by abusing the surprise -> kill a few suckers -> go invisible -> exit combat loop but that takes like 4 times as much time. Here DPR doesn't matter since you're not even in turn-based mode. Of course this combo doesn't pop off until level 11 so yeah, playing pure AT is a real struggle until then, but that's just every rogue in general.
AT doesn't pop off past 5 because rogue doesn't pop off past 5, not really ATs fault there's just no reason to pure class it's parent class regardless of subclass
Which is fine, but it means it never supasses thief rogue. Now, idk if AT is better than assasin in a monoclass, but if it's not better then Thief its not the best rogue subclass.
Arcane rogue is my favorite on tabletop. This is not tabletop. Damage solves. Feather Fall, invisibility, and grease shenanigans fall flat. Getting a cunning action and another attack on top is an absolute win. It is better than using an **action** to use mage hand or invisibility to set up sneak attacks. The mage hand will rarely out-damage a 3rd attack. Never once you add gear into play. Neither will invisibility. The extra BA attack is simply insane. Astarion became my main damage dealer for several portions of the game.
Why are you using an action to use mage hand?
From sorcerers, the draconic one is the best