Rogue/Gloomstalker ranger?

[Sfayte]

I am thinking of rolling a Rogue/Gloomstalker Ranger as my first playthrough. I have never played a Ranger in 5e yet and I want to know If I should go with Thief or Assassin sub for Rogue and which clas should be my level 1 class. Also is there a preffered race I should pick? Was thinking of either Dragonborn or Drow.

[sevensided]

Race is mostly irrelevant for this build. Drow has the good rp choices early game.

Gloomstalker/Assassin is going to be destroyer of worlds on the first turn (and good damage afterwards). And you would want to start Ranger for the first five levels, then finish with Assassin the rest of the way.

Thief does not add much to the build, not like Assassin.

[Gobarg]

My brother is playing a Gloomstalker/Assassin for our first play through and he is going Drow
The character looks absolutely nuts and I am looking forward to seeing it in action
Basically ranged death from the shadows

[ploco]

They synergize best with Assassin, wood elf for movement would be a good choice.

[Sfayte]

Originally posted by sevensided:

Race is mostly irrelevant for this build. Drow has the good rp choices.

Gloomstalker/Assassin is going to be destroyer of worlds on the first turn. And you would want to start Ranger for the first five levels, then finish with Assassin the rest of the way.

Thief does not add much to the build, not like Assassin.

Good to know. I was thinking 1st level rogue then 4 levels in ranger 3 in rogue then rest in ranger. But I wasn't too familiar with ranger so I will take your post in consideration.

[[TG] zac]

Assassin will give you auto crits on all attacks so long as its first round and you went before the enemy.

As for race they more or less did away with racial bonuses aside from if it has darkvision or a bonus spell or not. (everything gets a +2 and a +1 then a skill proff)

So anything with darkvision should be fine.

[golfan88]

Honestly, I am just going to multiclass Astarion. Why add another rogue to the party when you get one for free that already has fun "racial" traits.

To answer your specific question tho:

2 Rogue > 5 Gloom Stalker > 3 Rogue (into Assassin) > 2 Fighter (1st level Second Wind, 2nd Level Action Surge)

[sevensided]

Originally posted by Sfayte:

Originally posted by sevensided:

Race is mostly irrelevant for this build. Drow has the good rp choices.

Gloomstalker/Assassin is going to be destroyer of worlds on the first turn. And you would want to start Ranger for the first five levels, then finish with Assassin the rest of the way.

Thief does not add much to the build, not like Assassin.

Good to know. I was thinking 1st level rogue then 4 levels in ranger 3 in rogue then rest in ranger. But I wasn't too familiar with ranger so I will take your post in consideration.

You do ranger 5 first to get extra attack at lvl 5. Then do the rest in assassin to get the subclass skills and better sneak attack dice.

[golfan88]

Gloom Stalker plays really well into Assassin as both get a lot of perks in the first round of combat. Thief is super helpful though if you want 2 bonus actions which helps with offhand attacks if you are using light weapons (I believe it is light?).

[golfan88]

Also, Larian is doing weird things when it comes to subclass features (i.e. Paladin) so it is possible they mix things up with Rogue too. Normally for Rogue, you get Subclass specific stuff at level 3, 9, 13, and 17. That means half of your subclass features are definitely gone and makes it harder to multiclass with ranger for example at level 5 if we only go to level 12 at max. So the official 5e rules might not apply but we will find out tomorrow!!

It is just an educated guess at this point... but yeah 5 levels of ranger to get extra attack. However you can cheese an "extra attack" if you use your bonus action to offhand attack which with Thief you will get 2 bonus actions instead of 1. So if you don't care about 5 levels of Ranger, you could go:

3 Thief > 3 Gloom Stalker > 6 Thief

But the 9th level Rogue abilities aren't that great tbh... Assassin is more or less a better version of the Disguise Self spell and Thief is advantage on Stealth checks if you are moving slow. The only good 9th level Rogue ability is for Arcane Trickster and you didn't even consider that one.

Arcane Trickster is a Rogue Wizard essentially and when casting a spell while hidden, the target has disadvantage on any saving throw against the spell that turn.

[Rumsar]

4 Thief, 4 Gloom Stalker, 4 Thief.

You get access to all the level feats
The rogues sneak attack powerup.
Extra attack with the thief bonus action (if a weaker one but give more utility)
(I suppose you could drop a feat for an extra attack and its wouldn't drop your sneak attack damage.)

Thief>Assassin

Assassin is a one shot wonder but after that it's done. Thief gives much more utility and can potentially do more damage over all with its extra offhand attack.
Gloom stalker fixes that a little bit with its first round bonus (not depending on going first) Also getting access to hunters mark as a bonus action you can mark, hide, and sneak attack all in one round (as a thief) for super damage spikes.

I wonder if you slip in and out of combat if you get the bonuses for the gloom stalker again as if you're out of combat then stealth back in (with double dash cunning) might be a be bad due to the distance you'd have to run so maybe not.

[Vλgaβoηđ]

If this of interest, in my current playthrough I made Astarion a 4 Assassin/4 Gloom Stalker Archer during Act 2. After getting a specific bow and armor Astarion managed to solo kill a certain lvl 10 fiend with 100 HP. If used right and utilizing dread ambush plus knowing how to trigger consistently sneak attack you basically remove at the start of battle every time at least 1 enemy OR heavily damage a boss/mini-boss. Don't forget about using potion of speed which is OP.

[WeenerTuck813]

Eh. There's a lot of incorrect or misleading info in here. Im currently choosing between thief and Assassin right this moment. Here's the skinny (My opinion);

1.) You don't need to pick a race with Darkvision like someone recommended above. Gloomstalker gets Darkvision as a class regardless of race. You'll get FARTHER darkvision if your class already had it, but it's not really necessary. Someone mentioned Woof Elf for movement - that's a great option.

2.) Assassin does NOT auto-crit first round. Assassin will only auto-crit on SURPRISE rounds. You'll get Advantage on attacks first round if you went before the enemies (you almost always will). So on fights you see ahead, you can sneak over and fire an auto-crit attack to start combat, but that's the only auto crit you get.
Thief gets an extra bonus action, which is SUPER useful. Re-casting hunter's Mark costs a bonus action, so without Thief you WILL NOT be able to Hide to utilize Sneak Attack as often. Having 2x Bonus actions is super super useful, because you will regularly need both for Hide and Hunter's Mark.

3.) There's a lot of level pathways in here that are just bad, unless you just like the RP. You want to start 5 Gloomstalker. Period. Get the extra attack. Dont go 8 rogue/4 ranger. Thats a bad move. Dont go 2 rogue/5 ranger/XXX. B-Line straight for 5 Ranger so you get multiple attacks. Then, get 4 rogue (Either thief or assassin). Then is the real choice to either finish out ranger or rogue.

You either want to go 5 Ranger/4 Rogue/3 Ranger (This will give you all 3 ASI) OR 5 Ranger/7 Rogue (This will only give 2 ASI, but will progress Sneak Attack by 2d6 more).

1.) I personally would rather have 1 ASI than 2 additional Sneak Attack die.
2.) I personally would rather have the Advantage in the first round + Auto-Crit on Surprise round than the extra bonus action BECAUSE i am getting Sharpshooter, and i want the -5 attack +10 Damage buffed by Adv+Crits.


TLDR;
1.) Go 5 Ranger to start.
2.) EITHER
--2a.) go 4 Rogue (assassin) then 3 Ranger (to utilize Sharpshooter better)
--2b.) go 7 Rogue (thief) to get 2d6 more sneak attack die and an extra Bonus Action to
Hide so you can Sneak Attack better/more often

[Grumpy Old Guy]

If you're going ranger 3 you might as well go ranger 5. Extra attack is better than any feat in the game bar none. Assassin is a waste of time, it's way better to be a thief because of the permanent extra bonus action. So 5/3 leaves you with 4 more levels. Fighter 4 might be good for battle master and action surge but personally I'd just stick with thief for the sneak attack damage.