Arcane trickster. Tips?

[Ababinili]

I'm going to build Astarion as full arcane trickster. Any advice for the build?

For attacks, as i don't have many, I've the idea of going with bonks (club of hill giant + titanstring bow + risky ring + sharpshooter)

For arcane trickser spells, mainly utilities (like shield, longstrider, misty stip and whather i find as i can replace to any wizard spell).

At later act2 and act3, magical ambush my be a thing: warped Headband of Intellect or Diadem of Arcane Synergy + Scrolls. A lot of them.


Any extra advice? Any better plan?


(BTW i don't have the plan of using the dead shot. I don't mind having less accuracy, it's compensated by more base damage and the risky ring + Astarion bite. This might change but i preffer not)

[Exarch_Alpha]

It´s one of the worst specialization of one of the weakest classes. IIRC you can also choose Hold Person, so use it.

[Ababinili]

I know i know :facepalm:

It's a personal challenge: lore-friendly companions. Which means astarion arcane trickster.

BTW, replace spell on leveling with arcane trickster (and eldrithc knight) allows you to choose ANY wizard spell, meeting the level requeriments obviously

[Vexillarius]

Im mean when you say "any better plan?" Do you actually mean it? Because ascended monk thief barb Astarion is the absolutely a better plan. But it sounds like you want o be a an archer then i would go a gloom stalker fighter champion. That way you will have dread ambusher and a second attack at the very least.

[Ababinili]

i mean, a better plan in-class :)

[Vexillarius]

Originally posted by Ababinili:

i mean, a better plan in-class :)

Fair enough. Seems like its gonna be pretty rough. Enjoy

[Exarch_Alpha]

BTW if you use Astarion... respec him lol

With the item that increases dex to 17 you can make anyone a lockpicker and trap disarmer. Don´t use pure thieves unless you are pure roleplaying.

[seandeven]

Helmet of Arcane Acuity to Help your spells stick while monoclassing arcane trickster.

[Ababinili]

Originally posted by seandeven:

Helmet of Arcane Acuity to Help your spells stick while monoclassing arcane trickster.

That's on my "item's to try" checklist :D

[Bumc]

Arcane trickster lacks in damage and loses in utility to pure casters, but if you really want to go in that direction think how you would abuse the permanent invisible mage hand.

While not in combat yet it can act outside turn order, so as long as you free action drop a bottle of grease or something you can throw it at opportune time even while enemy is moving.

[Ababinili]

Interesting

[seeker1]

Astarion is better as a ninja assassin (IMHO) (*); lately, though, I've been trying him out as a sanguine stalker, pirate, or just recently, a void reaver mind weaver. (Those are all mods. BTW, I don't like any of the 5E additional subclasses for rogue, either, notably, swashbuckler, but Larian's homebrew might improve it. Pirate gives me a swashbuckler who can really do what a swashbuckler should. Oh, and shoot pistols.)

(*) With some mods that give the assassin spec some very ninja-like abilities, notably shadowstrike. There is a Ninja subclass for rogue at mod.io, but ... it's weird, like why when a ninja kills something would it rise again as a zombie. LOL. Stopped using it.

[RoboSauce]

My arcane tricksters get a familiar, and I like to give them the more trickster type spells like hideous laughter, disguise self, minor illusion, friends, grease, etc. In my mind they are a deception and harasser class. They still get sneak attack damage from a distance so there is that. Definitely more of a flavor class than munchkin class. They are also more viable if you can roll for stats, when I played in a TT campaign my lowest rolled stat was a 12 so I was able to pick a more MAD PC.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

My tip is: respec. Rogues are one of the worst classes in the game (setting aside 3-lvl multiclass dips), and Trickster is the worst subclass out of the three.

[seeker1]

Sneak attack becomes more interesting (for all rogues) once you get Cunning Strike, which you can with a mod. Cunning Strike lets you sacrifice a damage die for other outcomes, like poisoning, stunning, bleeding, or tripping the enemy. All rogues get it from lvl5 on.

Using applicable poisons, notably purple worm toxin (or some of the others that combine damaging and disabling effects), can really make your assassin far more effective also.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Drow Poison and Sleep is a lot of fun to use on an Arcane Trickster.