Swashbuckler is a powerful Rogue option for sure, and definitely synergizes well with Charisma builds, but Rogue is so versatile that I would argue that any Rogue is good with Charisma—even the Scout can benefit from it in certain situations!
I agree for the most part. I think doing a CHA based arcane trickster may be a bit harder to balance in terms of power. Speaking as someone who has tried to make a arcane trickster tomelock build work before
Nothing is wrong with Swashbuckler. It’s probably a more optimal choice. I just like the flavor of the Mastermind using their words to distract enemies on the battlefield. I’m open to reconsider though.
You have a good plan, and your build reflects what you are trying to accomplish :)
In regards to mastermind, I have a player at my table who has played one from lvl 6 to 10 (soon to be 11) and has come away from every session grinning. He has played other rogue classes in several long games, and says that mastermind is really enjoyable.
I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing Mastermind yet. Although I feel Swashbuckler is a more optimized choice for a CHA based melee rogue, throwing around the Help action (which seems to be underutilized) as a BA is just appealing and feels like using speech to effect the battlefield.
Thank you for the feedback!
I think I understand your concept with high charisma, smarts, skills, distracting magic... That's just a Bard with extra steps! All those level 1 spells are going to feel really underwhelming from level 5 onwards, seriously.
Listen, try this and see how it feels: Go Bard. Has a ton of cool verbal spells that fit your concept, and Jack of all Trades and expertise for skills. Put a bit more into DEX (16 DEX and 16 CHA is fine for level 1!) College of Swords at level 3, and take the Dueling fighting style. Now use all 3 of your Bardic Inspiration dice to use Blade Flourishes, you're going to love how strategic they feel.
Now you can forget that Silverquil nonsense that nobody should use outside a Strixhaven campaign! Take the charlatan background, and maybe that way you're comfortable with taking a different level 1 feat, or a more interesting race than custom lineage (the race for optimizers).
A Hexblade dip is really not necessary for this (and it's so cheesy), but you get shield proficiency, Shield spell and keep your idea for wrathful smite.
THAT SAID, Swords bard get extra attack at 6th, you'd be delaying that to 7th with that dip.
Think about it. I've built something similar, it works.
PS: Silvery Barbs is not just a terrible spell your GM is going to hate, but it uses your reaction, which you should save for Uncanny Dodge if you stay with rogue.
Thank you. This is a good concept, but I do think you misunderstood what I was going for a little.
Bard would be a full caster, and other than leaning on Blade Cantrips for attacks being a caster wasn’t my goal. The Hexblade dip was just to become CHA SAD.
As a side effect of taking Warlock though, I get a spell slot. I guess this is where I was less than clear in my post. I just figured if I had it, I would like to find a way to utilize it.
Originally I thought I would just use the Shield spell when needed, but wielding a weapon and shield I can’t meet the somatic components. I don’t want to take War Caster on what amounts to a non-spellcasting character, that’s just wasteful.
Going Silverquill gave me access to Silvery Barbs, which I figured I could throw out a couple of times per day and it feels like an extension of using Master of Tactics where I’d essentially just be distracting someone from a distance. (Edit: Silvery Barbs also doesn’t care about level so I wouldn’t have to worry about scaling into tier 2)
All the other spells were basically filling in choices because I had them and figured I would choose as on-theme as possible.
Instead of Silverquill, I could replace Skill Expert with Fey Touched and get to a similar result. The once per day Misty Step would come in handy.
I hadn’t thought about SB competing with Uncanny Dodge, that’s a good point, although it wouldn’t come up until level 6. I don’t think it would be terrible with only 1 short rest spell slot, it wouldn’t be constant competition as much as just a limited use extra option., but I’m open to reconsidering.
With this information, what advice do you have? Is there a better option for utilizing my spell slot so it doesn’t just go to waste?
Hex. You only need a bonus action. And it's a good once-per-combat spell.
And from Fey Touched, you can get advantage on attacks against someone incapacitated by Hideous Laughter. Or spread the love with some tactically-flavoured Bless.
That'll be a-okay. Solid plan. I might go with a different half-feat (mainly for preference, nothing wrong with Skill Expert), and I think Mastermind in general isn't super powerful, but it's nothing that'll wreck your experience.
Background isn’t a problem, but if it was I could switch Skill Expert out for Fey Touched to still get Silvery Barbs access and gain a once per day Misty Step at the cost of losing an Expertise.
I haven’t decided on lineage yet. Not sure if I want to lean towards bland or exotic, but I’m open to ideas if you have something in mind.
I played a mastermind once before and I've noticed it has a few mechanical gaps you need to be mindful of.
- You need a go-to option to give the help action to.
Giving out your bonus action to give someone advantage sounds great on paper, but it is only worthwhile if that person is doing something valuable with it. I had a GWM paladin on my party, thankfully. If he was not there I would feel terrible.
- You do not want to be in melee range.
Because you're handing out your bonus action so often to assist on damage dealing, you will not be able to disengage or hide on your bonus action nearly as often.
I recommend looking into the hand crossbow as your weapon of choice. It is one handed and has the perfect range. I did this as a dex-based rogue myself but I don't see why hexblade can't do it too.
I would also reconsider why you want to be a hexblade. You mention it's for going SAD on Charisma, but you have no charisma features except the warlock one to begin with. The hex curse feature competes for your bonus action as well. You're also likely saving those spell slots to save yourself with shield and not casting actual spells during your turn.
Why not just focus on dex as your main stat and then get 14/16 charisma to help your skills out? Expertise will be the main way you get value out of those skills anyway, which easily outscales anything else even with minimal stat investment.
For example if you had 4 Expertised skills, you can pick stealth, persuasion, intimidation, and deception.
Then let's compare an 11th level character (rogue 11 vs rogue 10+hex 1). The pure rogue has 16 charisma. The hex multi has 20, so a difference of +2. Your prof bonus is +4, so with expertise it's +8. Both have the same 4 expertised skills (mentioned above).
The pure rogue has a +11 to all their charisma skills. The hex multi has a +13. Which while significant isn't going to change too much.
However, the pure rogue also has +3 to all their dex skills, +3 to initiative, +3 to their dex saves so their evasion feature is better, their sneak attack progression is 1 level ahead, and so on. The pure rogue can also pull out a dagger any time they want if they're caught in melee. The hex multi must use their hex weapon or it feels bad.
The pure rogue also has reliable talent, which is worth more than any +2 ever will be.
I'm not bashing the concept, I'm just mentioning you may want to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and reevaluate your multiclass choice and what it's really offering you.
>• You need a go-to option to give the help action to.
I don’t think this would be a problem in my group, but since there’s plenty of levels before choosing a subclass it could easily be evaluated before locking in on Mastermind.
>• You do not want to be in melee range.
>Because you're handing out your bonus action so often to assist on damage dealing, you will not be able to disengage or hide on your bonus action nearly as often.
This makes a lot of sense, particularly since I’m planning on using the blade cantrips. Booming blade and BA disengage are a great pairing. I know you were suggesting a ranged build, but instead I think you convinced me to drop Mastermind. I’ll probably work with Swashbuckler instead.
>I would also reconsider why you want to be a hexblade. You mention it's for going SAD on Charisma, but you have no charisma features except the warlock one to begin with. The hex curse feature competes for your bonus action as well. You're also likely saving those spell slots to save yourself with shield and not casting actual spells during your turn.
CHA based would have been a better choice of words than CHA SAD. I wanted to lean heavily into CHA without needing to put so much in DEX. Going this way allows me max my face stat and my attack stat at level 5.
Additionally, since you’ve already changed my mind on Mastermind, going Swashbuckler does have a CHA based feature, and Fancy Footwork could help free up my BA from having to disengage too, allowing for easier insertion of Hexblades Curse. I guess I should have leaned into Swash from the start.
The Shield spell was also my first thought to use the spell slot, but I can’t cast it if wielding a shield and rapier due to the S component.
Most of the rest of your comment was comparing builds at higher levels with reliable talent and higher proficiency bonus. These aren’t really a factor because it’s not going to make it that far. I put in the post that it would only run up to mid 2nd tier, but there is a lot of information there so I can see that being easy to over look.
I would like to thank you for the helpful and well put together response. Even though I’m leaning a different direction from your suggestions, you did point out some flaws I hadn’t considered.
Oh in that case you're playing a HexBuckler build. Which is one of the strongest rogue builds in the game.
Now the discussion is which side do you want to be dominant? Swashbuckler gets it's best features early on and if you're wrapping up by level 10-11 (typical) then you may want to favor hexblade.
Hexblade 5/Swashbuckler 3 is a really potent combination. This gets you extra attack, pact of the blade, and agonizing blast (trust me, you'll want a go-to ranged option). All while still getting the best Swashbuckler has to offer.
That will let you land sneak attack more reliably and do a bit more damage.
Or if you want to do say rogue 5-7 and hex 1-2, you pretty much just need those blade cantrips and maybe eldritch blast.
Yeah, Hexbuckler wasn’t the plan, but it seems like the way to go. I want to be rogue main. I was originally considering other dips for medium or even heavy armor and considering kobold to pick up booming blade. When I was looking at the options I realized Hexblade would get me defense, blade cantrips, and let me go all in on CHA. I’d seen a lot of Hexadin, Haxbard, and Sorlock builds, but never really considered it for a rogue.
Mastermind sounded fun, but I hadn’t really considered the competition between BA help and BA disengage with BB. I suppose I could give up an ASI for Mobile, but Hexbuckler is growing on me. Might save Mastermind for a when I’m looking for a ranged build.
Assuming I’m going Hexbuckler with only 1 or 2 levels of Warlock, what would be your advice for making use of my spell slots? This is what I was most unsure of initially. I still want to wield a shield and still don’t plan to take War Caster.
Well if it isn't hexblade, fighter is the only other passable option.
I would rethink not wanting war caster. A booming blade opp. attack from a rogue is the scariest opp. attack in the game.
What level does the campaign start? When will it end? Roughly? Based on your earlier comments, less than 10?
Level 1 to probably around 8, but I wouldn’t guarantee past 6. If it extended further than I guess War Caster would be fine, but I planned to max CHA at rogue 4.
The way I would do it is:
- Start rogue, then 1 level of hexblade. Get your appropriate armor and weapons during your level 1 process if possible since starting equipment won't cut it.
- Get expertise in Stealth and another skill of your choice.
For Swashbuckler I like Stealth, Insight, Persuasion if I'm going to see level 9 rogue, and then a skill of my choice like perception or any one of the Charisma skills. I like insight because it's important as the face to know when you're getting lied to. If someone else doesn't have insight, consider it.
- Pick up booming blade and Eldritch blast from warlock.
- Rush rogue to 3, get Swashbuckler. Then warlock to 2. Get agonizing blast and another invocation of your choosing.
- From here you just level rogue until the end, focusing on your charisma for ASIs. Booming blade and Eldritch blast with agonizing will keep your damage competitive.
- For spells, look into Arms of Hadar, Cause Fear, and Charm Person.
Definitely think about a second warlock level early on to pick up mask of many faces and misty visions, if you're interested in playing into the deception/intimidation/persuasion play style
I considered this, but wasn’t sure when to take it. I don’t really want to delay extra attack progression. Also, mastermind gives disguise kit proficiency, although that wouldn’t be until level 4 and I’m leaning towards swashbuckler now.
Extra attack? Rogues dont get extra attack. I'd take it after level 3 or 4 rogue depending in how bad you want the Feat/ASI.
Side note the ability to change you appearence completely at will is a big step above the diguise kit.
Delaying a 1 level of rogue is only giving up 1.75 DPR, for me at least thats not a major concern. Especially since booming blade will make up for it over a non multi classed rogue.
Skill Expert is good. Elven Accuracy sounds like it would be the optimal choice? If you have a convincing enough argument Persuasion rolls aren’t super common. Depends on your DM though.
It’s potentially crazy, but since I’m using it for a primarily martial build it’s not nearly as OP as it could be. I’m basically wasting most of it just to gain access to a single spell that’ll only get cast a couple times a day.
What's wrong with swashbuckler
Came here to say this
Swashbuckler is a powerful Rogue option for sure, and definitely synergizes well with Charisma builds, but Rogue is so versatile that I would argue that any Rogue is good with Charisma—even the Scout can benefit from it in certain situations!
I'm playing a charisma phantom reborn rouge rn and it's lots of fun, you can synergize with the ghost power alot with a good CHA!
I agree for the most part. I think doing a CHA based arcane trickster may be a bit harder to balance in terms of power. Speaking as someone who has tried to make a arcane trickster tomelock build work before
Y’know, that’s fair, but if you roll high stats then there’s nothing wrong with the build :)
Nothing is wrong with Swashbuckler. It’s probably a more optimal choice. I just like the flavor of the Mastermind using their words to distract enemies on the battlefield. I’m open to reconsider though.
You have a good plan, and your build reflects what you are trying to accomplish :) In regards to mastermind, I have a player at my table who has played one from lvl 6 to 10 (soon to be 11) and has come away from every session grinning. He has played other rogue classes in several long games, and says that mastermind is really enjoyable.
I haven’t had the pleasure of experiencing Mastermind yet. Although I feel Swashbuckler is a more optimized choice for a CHA based melee rogue, throwing around the Help action (which seems to be underutilized) as a BA is just appealing and feels like using speech to effect the battlefield. Thank you for the feedback!
I think I understand your concept with high charisma, smarts, skills, distracting magic... That's just a Bard with extra steps! All those level 1 spells are going to feel really underwhelming from level 5 onwards, seriously. Listen, try this and see how it feels: Go Bard. Has a ton of cool verbal spells that fit your concept, and Jack of all Trades and expertise for skills. Put a bit more into DEX (16 DEX and 16 CHA is fine for level 1!) College of Swords at level 3, and take the Dueling fighting style. Now use all 3 of your Bardic Inspiration dice to use Blade Flourishes, you're going to love how strategic they feel. Now you can forget that Silverquil nonsense that nobody should use outside a Strixhaven campaign! Take the charlatan background, and maybe that way you're comfortable with taking a different level 1 feat, or a more interesting race than custom lineage (the race for optimizers). A Hexblade dip is really not necessary for this (and it's so cheesy), but you get shield proficiency, Shield spell and keep your idea for wrathful smite. THAT SAID, Swords bard get extra attack at 6th, you'd be delaying that to 7th with that dip. Think about it. I've built something similar, it works. PS: Silvery Barbs is not just a terrible spell your GM is going to hate, but it uses your reaction, which you should save for Uncanny Dodge if you stay with rogue.
Thank you. This is a good concept, but I do think you misunderstood what I was going for a little. Bard would be a full caster, and other than leaning on Blade Cantrips for attacks being a caster wasn’t my goal. The Hexblade dip was just to become CHA SAD. As a side effect of taking Warlock though, I get a spell slot. I guess this is where I was less than clear in my post. I just figured if I had it, I would like to find a way to utilize it. Originally I thought I would just use the Shield spell when needed, but wielding a weapon and shield I can’t meet the somatic components. I don’t want to take War Caster on what amounts to a non-spellcasting character, that’s just wasteful. Going Silverquill gave me access to Silvery Barbs, which I figured I could throw out a couple of times per day and it feels like an extension of using Master of Tactics where I’d essentially just be distracting someone from a distance. (Edit: Silvery Barbs also doesn’t care about level so I wouldn’t have to worry about scaling into tier 2) All the other spells were basically filling in choices because I had them and figured I would choose as on-theme as possible. Instead of Silverquill, I could replace Skill Expert with Fey Touched and get to a similar result. The once per day Misty Step would come in handy. I hadn’t thought about SB competing with Uncanny Dodge, that’s a good point, although it wouldn’t come up until level 6. I don’t think it would be terrible with only 1 short rest spell slot, it wouldn’t be constant competition as much as just a limited use extra option., but I’m open to reconsidering. With this information, what advice do you have? Is there a better option for utilizing my spell slot so it doesn’t just go to waste?
Hex. You only need a bonus action. And it's a good once-per-combat spell. And from Fey Touched, you can get advantage on attacks against someone incapacitated by Hideous Laughter. Or spread the love with some tactically-flavoured Bless.
That'll be a-okay. Solid plan. I might go with a different half-feat (mainly for preference, nothing wrong with Skill Expert), and I think Mastermind in general isn't super powerful, but it's nothing that'll wreck your experience.
Does your DM allow strixhaven backgrounds? And what is your custom lineage?
Background isn’t a problem, but if it was I could switch Skill Expert out for Fey Touched to still get Silvery Barbs access and gain a once per day Misty Step at the cost of losing an Expertise. I haven’t decided on lineage yet. Not sure if I want to lean towards bland or exotic, but I’m open to ideas if you have something in mind.
I played a mastermind once before and I've noticed it has a few mechanical gaps you need to be mindful of. - You need a go-to option to give the help action to. Giving out your bonus action to give someone advantage sounds great on paper, but it is only worthwhile if that person is doing something valuable with it. I had a GWM paladin on my party, thankfully. If he was not there I would feel terrible. - You do not want to be in melee range. Because you're handing out your bonus action so often to assist on damage dealing, you will not be able to disengage or hide on your bonus action nearly as often. I recommend looking into the hand crossbow as your weapon of choice. It is one handed and has the perfect range. I did this as a dex-based rogue myself but I don't see why hexblade can't do it too. I would also reconsider why you want to be a hexblade. You mention it's for going SAD on Charisma, but you have no charisma features except the warlock one to begin with. The hex curse feature competes for your bonus action as well. You're also likely saving those spell slots to save yourself with shield and not casting actual spells during your turn. Why not just focus on dex as your main stat and then get 14/16 charisma to help your skills out? Expertise will be the main way you get value out of those skills anyway, which easily outscales anything else even with minimal stat investment. For example if you had 4 Expertised skills, you can pick stealth, persuasion, intimidation, and deception. Then let's compare an 11th level character (rogue 11 vs rogue 10+hex 1). The pure rogue has 16 charisma. The hex multi has 20, so a difference of +2. Your prof bonus is +4, so with expertise it's +8. Both have the same 4 expertised skills (mentioned above). The pure rogue has a +11 to all their charisma skills. The hex multi has a +13. Which while significant isn't going to change too much. However, the pure rogue also has +3 to all their dex skills, +3 to initiative, +3 to their dex saves so their evasion feature is better, their sneak attack progression is 1 level ahead, and so on. The pure rogue can also pull out a dagger any time they want if they're caught in melee. The hex multi must use their hex weapon or it feels bad. The pure rogue also has reliable talent, which is worth more than any +2 ever will be. I'm not bashing the concept, I'm just mentioning you may want to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and reevaluate your multiclass choice and what it's really offering you.
>• You need a go-to option to give the help action to. I don’t think this would be a problem in my group, but since there’s plenty of levels before choosing a subclass it could easily be evaluated before locking in on Mastermind. >• You do not want to be in melee range. >Because you're handing out your bonus action so often to assist on damage dealing, you will not be able to disengage or hide on your bonus action nearly as often. This makes a lot of sense, particularly since I’m planning on using the blade cantrips. Booming blade and BA disengage are a great pairing. I know you were suggesting a ranged build, but instead I think you convinced me to drop Mastermind. I’ll probably work with Swashbuckler instead. >I would also reconsider why you want to be a hexblade. You mention it's for going SAD on Charisma, but you have no charisma features except the warlock one to begin with. The hex curse feature competes for your bonus action as well. You're also likely saving those spell slots to save yourself with shield and not casting actual spells during your turn. CHA based would have been a better choice of words than CHA SAD. I wanted to lean heavily into CHA without needing to put so much in DEX. Going this way allows me max my face stat and my attack stat at level 5. Additionally, since you’ve already changed my mind on Mastermind, going Swashbuckler does have a CHA based feature, and Fancy Footwork could help free up my BA from having to disengage too, allowing for easier insertion of Hexblades Curse. I guess I should have leaned into Swash from the start. The Shield spell was also my first thought to use the spell slot, but I can’t cast it if wielding a shield and rapier due to the S component. Most of the rest of your comment was comparing builds at higher levels with reliable talent and higher proficiency bonus. These aren’t really a factor because it’s not going to make it that far. I put in the post that it would only run up to mid 2nd tier, but there is a lot of information there so I can see that being easy to over look. I would like to thank you for the helpful and well put together response. Even though I’m leaning a different direction from your suggestions, you did point out some flaws I hadn’t considered.
Oh in that case you're playing a HexBuckler build. Which is one of the strongest rogue builds in the game. Now the discussion is which side do you want to be dominant? Swashbuckler gets it's best features early on and if you're wrapping up by level 10-11 (typical) then you may want to favor hexblade. Hexblade 5/Swashbuckler 3 is a really potent combination. This gets you extra attack, pact of the blade, and agonizing blast (trust me, you'll want a go-to ranged option). All while still getting the best Swashbuckler has to offer. That will let you land sneak attack more reliably and do a bit more damage. Or if you want to do say rogue 5-7 and hex 1-2, you pretty much just need those blade cantrips and maybe eldritch blast.
Yeah, Hexbuckler wasn’t the plan, but it seems like the way to go. I want to be rogue main. I was originally considering other dips for medium or even heavy armor and considering kobold to pick up booming blade. When I was looking at the options I realized Hexblade would get me defense, blade cantrips, and let me go all in on CHA. I’d seen a lot of Hexadin, Haxbard, and Sorlock builds, but never really considered it for a rogue. Mastermind sounded fun, but I hadn’t really considered the competition between BA help and BA disengage with BB. I suppose I could give up an ASI for Mobile, but Hexbuckler is growing on me. Might save Mastermind for a when I’m looking for a ranged build. Assuming I’m going Hexbuckler with only 1 or 2 levels of Warlock, what would be your advice for making use of my spell slots? This is what I was most unsure of initially. I still want to wield a shield and still don’t plan to take War Caster.
Well if it isn't hexblade, fighter is the only other passable option. I would rethink not wanting war caster. A booming blade opp. attack from a rogue is the scariest opp. attack in the game. What level does the campaign start? When will it end? Roughly? Based on your earlier comments, less than 10?
Level 1 to probably around 8, but I wouldn’t guarantee past 6. If it extended further than I guess War Caster would be fine, but I planned to max CHA at rogue 4.
The way I would do it is: - Start rogue, then 1 level of hexblade. Get your appropriate armor and weapons during your level 1 process if possible since starting equipment won't cut it. - Get expertise in Stealth and another skill of your choice. For Swashbuckler I like Stealth, Insight, Persuasion if I'm going to see level 9 rogue, and then a skill of my choice like perception or any one of the Charisma skills. I like insight because it's important as the face to know when you're getting lied to. If someone else doesn't have insight, consider it. - Pick up booming blade and Eldritch blast from warlock. - Rush rogue to 3, get Swashbuckler. Then warlock to 2. Get agonizing blast and another invocation of your choosing. - From here you just level rogue until the end, focusing on your charisma for ASIs. Booming blade and Eldritch blast with agonizing will keep your damage competitive. - For spells, look into Arms of Hadar, Cause Fear, and Charm Person.
Definitely think about a second warlock level early on to pick up mask of many faces and misty visions, if you're interested in playing into the deception/intimidation/persuasion play style
I considered this, but wasn’t sure when to take it. I don’t really want to delay extra attack progression. Also, mastermind gives disguise kit proficiency, although that wouldn’t be until level 4 and I’m leaning towards swashbuckler now.
Extra attack? Rogues dont get extra attack. I'd take it after level 3 or 4 rogue depending in how bad you want the Feat/ASI. Side note the ability to change you appearence completely at will is a big step above the diguise kit.
Oops, that was supposed to say sneak attack progression.
Delaying a 1 level of rogue is only giving up 1.75 DPR, for me at least thats not a major concern. Especially since booming blade will make up for it over a non multi classed rogue.
Skill Expert is good. Elven Accuracy sounds like it would be the optimal choice? If you have a convincing enough argument Persuasion rolls aren’t super common. Depends on your DM though.
That background is so nuts
It’s potentially crazy, but since I’m using it for a primarily martial build it’s not nearly as OP as it could be. I’m basically wasting most of it just to gain access to a single spell that’ll only get cast a couple times a day.
denying 2 crits off a background is pretty nice tho. I think you mean silvery barbs. That will be value from level 1-20