Question about Gloomthief? (Gloomstalker5/Thief7)

[Nothing]

So, when playing a dex gloomstalker/thief with archery and you get only 2 feats and your first feat is "athlete (+1dex)" would you rather leave dex at 18 and take sharshooter or asi to get dex to 20 as a second feat?

I am kind of in between and no hags hair nor permabuffs or item reliance.
just curious what option is more valuable?

Thx for answering in advance.

[Nauct]

You'll have advantage a lot with ambusher and hiding, take sharpshooter would be worth it.

Personally I'd stop at 3 Thief, 5 Ranger and then go 4 Fighter

[Angel]

well, I wouldn't take athlete that's for sure, sharpshooter is a must imo

[AokiYakumo]

So, the simple answer to your question is Sharpshooter. Simple as.

Here's why:

Gloom 5 / Thief 3 (at level 8) gets Sharpshooter at 4th. With 17 DEX you'd get a +1 to hit for 1d6+14 damage using 2 +1 Hand crossbows. With 4 attacks per round, you average 21 damage per hit amounting to 84 damage per round, not counting Sneak Attack or damage amps like Helldusk Gloves, or accounting for special arrows like scattershot. Going Athlete here cuts 36 damage off for a slightly better to hit chance.

By 8th you should be able to get to Araj and Lann Tarv. Here's where we get busted:
- Hunting Circlet from Araj since you'll have 6 Hunter's Mark slots, meaning it's up for most of each day. This is +1d4 to attack, average of +3.5.
- Risky Ring is sold here, granting blanket advantage provided you can handle having sh*t saving throws. 2 rolls at +3.5 on average, assuming AC 16 is 86% chance to hit. With KotUK, you'll also have 19% CRIT Rate, which isn't much considering this build's mostly gonna be flat modifiers that don't benefit from crits, but turning a 2d6+1d4 into a 4d6+2d4 is still a big damage spike when it happens (+9.5 on average)
- For dice amp (when you want to critfish later), Helldusk Gloves and Strange Conduit add 1d4 each, averaging +2.5 per. For flat modifiers, Callous Glow (if you're running a Radiant Orb CLC) or Caustic Band, and Bracers of Archery each give flat +2s, which can be slightly better with bad dice luck and slightly worse with good dice luck. It's still 2d6+18 with this setup anyways which is still really good damage, and frees up items for other builds.
- Bless. Bless. Bless. Under-rated spell. If you're having accuracy issues, adding a +1d4 or +2d4 (with the Blessing Staff from Lenore's Tower) drastically increases your hit chance and makes tagging enemies with bigd*qk damn-age that much easier. If you have a healer, bonus: an amulet you can get from Kagha (through pickpocketing or through killing her) adds 1d6 poison to your attacks after you get healed, so someone with Whispering Promise can end up being a REALLY potent buffer (Put it on Minthara and let her throw healing pots at you, it'll trigger both effects, all the while letting her add 2d4+1 to one attack per round on top of that with a BA Soulbrand, making her unironically one of the best buffers in the game).

Adding all of this up, we take +1 to hit for 2d6+14 (assuming Hunter's Mark), all the way up to +8.5 to hit for 2d6+2d4+14 per hit with 2d6+2d4+1 on the first attack that turn (scattershot this, seriously, it's a screen-nuke for 39 damage on average or 63 on a crit), all with 19% CRIT rate. Bear in mind, a bog-standard Smite-adin without GWM and with 20 STR has +8 by this point for 2d6+1d4+5 plus smites (assuming greatsword or maul; I usually just go sword & board because the good shields are lowkey busted) and only get 2 attacks per turn without buffs. You get 4 without buffs.

[DigginTiger]

Originally posted by Angel:

well, I wouldn't take athlete that's for sure, sharpshooter is a must imo

i AGREE WITH THIS. And if i may add, i would personnally go 4 rogue/ 8 fighter or even 4 rogue/ 8 gloom, in both cases you keep the extra attack and you can use your third feat for athlete if that's what you want. The difference here is that the fighter multiclassing is better at accuracy while gloom is better at initiative and first round raw damage.

Have fun !

[Nauct]

Originally posted by AokiYakumo:

- Bless. Bless. Bless. Under-rated spell. If you're having accuracy issues, adding a +1d4 or +2d4 (with the Blessing Staff from Lenore's Tower) drastically increases your hit chance and makes tagging enemies with bigd*qk damn-age that much easier. If you have a healer, bonus: an amulet you can get from Kagha (through pickpocketing or through killing her) adds 1d6 poison to your attacks after you get healed, so someone with Whispering Promise can end up being a REALLY potent buffer (Put it on Minthara and let her throw healing pots at you, it'll trigger both effects, all the while letting her add 2d4+1 to one attack per round on top of that with a BA Soulbrand, making her unironically one of the best buffers in the game).

Isn't that considered the best spell in DnD? Like what other spell comes close. Haste, Counterspell? Nothing comparable in the level 1 slot, Command maybe

[Nothing]

Originally posted by DigginTiger:

Originally posted by Angel:

well, I wouldn't take athlete that's for sure, sharpshooter is a must imo

i AGREE WITH THIS. And if i may add, i would personnally go 4 rogue/ 8 fighter or even 4 rogue/ 8 gloom, in both cases you keep the extra attack and you can use your third feat for athlete if that's what you want. The difference here is that the fighter multiclassing is better at accuracy while gloom is better at initiative and first round raw damage.

Have fun !

hmm, that gloom8/thief4 could work since then i would not have to choose one or the other feat but would lose 2d6 sneak attack damage, dodge and evasion. As a bonus i would get to ignore difficult terrain and iron mind.

PS: i like athlete because of the +50% jump since i put a couple of points in str and its a good way to round my dex to 18.

thx.

[Bloodwest]

Sharpshooter is better, damage increase is huge while there gonna be plenty of ways to compensate the penalty. +1 to attack rolls from ASI is overrated.

Going rogue post-4 is pretty much worthless, you can even stop at lvl 3 if you dc about feat.

[Nauct]

I would only go thief if I was planning on attacking with my offhand, in which case two-weapon fighting would be best. If you want to stay ranged I'd use hand crossbows.

If you had 3 Thief, 5Gloomstalker, 2 Fighter, then you'd have access to another fighting style, so you could grab two-weapon fighting and you'd also have action surge. Two mainhand attacks, two offhand attacks with DEX added to damage, and the best ability in the game Action Surge. Only taking the Sharpshooter feat from Gloomstalker