Fighter Rogue Multiclass - Ultimate Guide for Dungeons & Dragons

in d d fighters are the masters of combat versatile and tough wielding all manner of weaponry and pushing the limits of physical ability through home skill and diligent training rogues are masters of stealth and subterfuge only plunging in the knife at opportune moments before disappearing back into the darkness put them together and you get a master of the battlefield able to slip in and around combat to deliver absolutely devastating killing blows if you're looking to make a killer rogue multi-class then get all those sneak attack dice ready as we go through everything you need to know in today's episode fighter is arguably the most versatile class in the game and rogue has some of the highest martial damage potential together they overcome the other's weaknesses and can be built into several different and powerful builds the rogue's sneak attack ability has an extremely high damage potential that relies on either cooperation with your allies or the ability to gain advantage while the fighter and particularly its subclass has a lot of ways to give yourself the advantage the rogue also suffers from a low number of attacks a problem that many fighter features solve in spades the fighter is typically very one-dimensional with little to do out of combat combining it with the row gives you all the wonderful skill options that class has to offer so what are the downsides as with any multi-class combination you give up on late game class features and the progression on some of your other features will be a lot slower in this case giving up on any levels of rogue will mean slower sneak attack progression and a lower sneak attack potential overall conversely giving up on any levels of fighter means you'll get fewer asis and opportunities for feats and likely giving up on a potential third extra attack as for when the fighter rogue starts to kick in as they say unlike most multi-classes a fighter row can be effective even with just one class level in each class and meshes quite well with any number of levels in either class there are a few more optimal builds of the multi-class though and most of those activate at character level 6 as they focus on combining the features of a rogue archetype and a fighter archetype both of which start at three levels in their respective classes this means that most optimized builds of fighter rogue multi-classes really take off at sixth level three levels of rogue and three levels of fighter but they still function well even before these level markers so what class features do we really care about because there's no one single way to make the fighter rogue multi-class work there's no one correct answer but very few of both classes features go unused we'll assume we're building up the multi-class for damage output but there are also some interesting skill focus builds to be had here starting with significant fighter features we're going with the hit points first while the upgrade from 1d8 to 1d10 is not huge it's worth considering that on average every level of fighter you take over rogue will make you a bit beefier they also have heavy armor you don't have to be sneaky as a rogue per se and the fighter gives you access to heavy armor and shields right off the bat now with the added bonus of sneak attacking in them depending on your dexterity you still may be better off with light armor or medium armor but now you have all the options available to you you do need to take your first level in fighter to get this benefit though so just bear that in mind and then we have fighting style obtained with only one fighter level the archery dueling two weapon fighting and thrown weapon options all provide a bit of extra damage in different ways and four different strategies the new superior technique option also provides a way to pick up a maneuver with only one fighter level and without taking up the fighter archetype and then there's the ever popular second wind also picked up with only one fighter level this feature gives a decent healing option it uses the bonus action which isn't ideal but emergency healing in the pocket is always useful to have and then there's action surge gained at second level this is merely great for fair builds and absolutely bonkers for unfair builds an extra attack action on the first round when paired with the assassinate feature can deal disgusting amounts of damage and as for archetypes we'll get into more detail about all that in a moment but a lot of the fighter archetypes and even just the initial third level features of those archetypes can be incredible for the build and then with extra attack the high damage output of the rogue is balanced out by its lack of extra attacks but if you commit enough levels to fight her you'll unbalance that right back out an additional attack doesn't mean an additional sneak attack but when your melee attacks miss you get another chance at it onto the significant rogue features starting off with the ironically obvious sneak attack raw damage on the condition that you either have advantage or your ally is within five feet of the target and the weapon must either have finesse or be ranged as we'll see there are several ways to make this damage happen using fighter features and a lot of the builds are focused on maximizing the damage potential of this feature and getting advantage on attack rolls and then with cunning action you're primarily a fighter with only a dash of rogue this feature may justify the second level allowing you to dash disengage or dodge using a bonus action and like i said with archetypes we'll go into the more relevant options and in more detail in just a second but there are several rogue archetypes that offer powerful features for the multi-class even as early as their initial third level feature with uncanny dodge while not as important the ability to have damage from a nasty hit is worth considering and may be a juicy upside if you're just trying to maximize sneak attack anyway and then with steady aim this is a new optional feature gained at third level it essentially unlocks ranged sniper roads as you gain the ability to give yourself advantage as a bonus action if you haven't moved that turn during character creation the class you pick first dictates your multi-class proficiencies and you don't get everything you would normally get when multi-classing if you start out as a fighter you will miss out on one skill proficiency but gain heavy armor and all martial weapons proficiency and your saving throw proficiencies will be strength and constitution if you start out as a rogue you will miss out on heavy armor and all martial weapons proficiency but gain one skill proficiency and your saving throw proficiencies will be dexterity and intelligence personally i'd start out as a rogue you'll almost certainly end up using a rapier or dual short swords anyway and as a dexterity build you aren't incentivized to go for heavy armor that and you go up a skill proficiency and dexterity saving throws are by far the most common in the game and are therefore the most valuable one of the nicest things about this class combination is that they rely on the exact same abilities assuming you're going with a dex fighter you want your dexterity to be as high as possible with your constitution as a secondary consideration depending on how many fighter levels you go with you'll also be getting additional asis so you should have no problem getting your dexterity to 18 or even 20 while taking a few feats along the way after that it really just depends on what skills you care about there are several builds that would care about charisma or intelligence but those are more niche but still pretty fun still very very fun your best picks for this multi-class are essentially the same as the best picks for a typical rogue you're looking for a plus two dexterity bonus in particular and these races right here they provide everything that you need this subclass combination is incredibly flexible and doesn't have a lot of wrong ways to go even just selecting options and class levels at random will yield a pretty viable build there are however some standout builds here that may even be so powerful as to get banned at your play table if your dm is boring starting with the ronin by taking three levels of rogue and taking the swashbuckler archetype and three levels of fighter and taking the samurai archetype we're left with a dashing swordmaster that will essentially always get sneak attack both archetypes have a secondary care for charisma meaning you'll want to make charisma your third highest ability score but that shouldn't be a huge concern what we're really here for is the swashbuckler's fancy footwork and rackish audacity features and the samurai's fighting spirit feature all of which are gained at third level at that class fighting spirit is powerful in its own right up to three times per long rest you can give yourself advantage on all of your attacks for the round and give yourself five temporary hit points as a bonus action advantage is already normally great but with rogue levels it also guarantees you'll be dealing your sneak attack damage if you hit but that's just three times each long rest which is where the swashbuckler comes in the swashbuckler's rackish audacity lets you deal sneak attack damage so long as you and your target are separated and there aren't any creatures within five feet of you or your target which means nine times out of ten you'll either be among allies and getting sneak attack or alone with a single target and getting sneak attack then for those last rare times where you don't meet either of those criteria you can fall back on your fighting spirit to grant yourself advantage and get it anyway fancy footwork helps out here because it saves your bonus action for fighting spirits normally a rogue would have to spend their bonus action to duck out of melee but you need that bonus action for fighting spirit with fancy footwork you can still slip out without reprisal i also recommend taking the defensive duelist feat for this build not only because it's flavorfully awesome but because you'll likely be in the thick of it with a finesse weapon anyway and it gives you a lot of solid survivability alternatively you can accomplish a lot of what this build does by substituting in battlemaster instead of samurai you give up the easy consistency of the fighting spirit but by selecting either distracting attack or fainting attack to give yourself advantage you can gain the versatility of the other battlemaster maneuver options with this build i recommend four levels of fighter to pick up the samurai archetype and the fourth level asi and 16 levels of rogue to maximize the sneak attack potential usually starting with three levels in each taking the fourth fighter level then putting all future levels in rogue i can't believe i got through that whole segment without gushing about how cool a samurai swashbuckler pirate character sounds then we have the cy knife soul warrior by taking the psionic-powered soul knife rogue archetype in the psywarrior fighter archetype you become the ultimate psionic warrior both archetypes have a nearly identical feature at third level called psionic power that gives you a number of psionic energy dice equal to twice your proficiency bonus to spend on all your fancy psionic powers until recently it wasn't really clear how these features interacted but we have official confirmation that you get two pools of psionic power dice the catch is that you can't use one class's psionic power dice on the other class's features but you're still getting essentially four times your proficiency modifier and dice to power your features and all the abilities are running off intelligence this means that by making intelligence a secondary ability score so get it to 14 or 16 we can effectively combine both psionic subclasses into a delicious master of mental stabbing one of the nicest potentials here is using the fighter psionic strike in conjunction with the soul knife's psychic blades with five levels in both fighter and rogue you'll be typically doing two d6 plus one d4 plus 12 sidekick damage one d8 plus four force damage and three d6 sneak attack damage for a respectable 41 average damage around and some of the least resisted damage types in the game between your first attack and an additional weapon attack i really find this to be a fun class combination as the numerous psionic abilities give you a ton of versatility and options even outside of combat and you'll end up feeling like a spellcaster even as a martial build you get a damage reduction ability a sidekick communication ability and you just get way more options than a simple melee character i recommend 5 levels of fighter to get your fighters psionic dice up to d8 and for the extra attack and then 15 levels of rogue to maximize sneak attack i'd start with three levels of rogue and then get the five fighter levels then take rogue levels from that point on and then there's the arcane assassin of all the potential builds for this multi-class this is one of the most likely to get banned by dungeon masters at your game table for the absolutely obscene amounts of damage you can do we're taking range-based archetypes and making the absolute best use of each class feature for this build you'll need at least three levels of the arcane archer fighter archetype and three levels of the assassin rogue archetype we're trying to do one simple thing with this build kill the target on one turn without even giving them a round and here's how that works firstly we have the assassinate feature that gives us advantage on attacks against enemies that haven't acted an initiative yet and it turns any hits against such creatures into critical hits next with the arcane shot feature we can shoot magic arrows that do extra effects and additional damage very importantly some of these options will work their damage will be multiplied on critical hits but some won't up here on screen are a list of arrows that will work and as for the grasping arrow it will work for the initial poison damage but not the thorny vine damage i recommend the shadow arrow not only for the flavor win but also if your target survives they'll likely be blinded and allow you another round to finish the job now with your magic arrows in hand you can sneak up into a tree or some other vantage point and take aim from up to 150 feet away and loose your deadly payload upon the enemy with advantage you're extremely likely to hit and here's where it gets really spicy assuming you are only six level that's one d8 from the longbow three from your dexterity modifier to d6 sneak attack damage and another 2d6 psychic damage from the shadow arrow but it's an automatic crit so now you're looking at 2 d8 plus 8 d6 plus 3 for an average of 40 crit damage and if that doesn't finish off your target you still have an action surge to fire off another shot though you can't do the magic arrow or sneak attack more than once per turn every few rogue levels this damage gets exponentially higher and at tenth level seven rogue levels and three fighter levels you're already up to two d8 12 d6 plus four for a single shot which is nutty no matter how you slice it this build used to be significantly worse before tasha's because getting sneak attack after the first round was difficult now though with the take aim feature you can simply spend your bonus action and keep making sniper shot sneak attacks every round they won't be auto crits but a 1d8 plus 6d6 plus 4 magic arrow is nothing to sneeze at it may also be a good idea to take the sharpshooter feet for this build less so for the extra damage though that's lovely on easier to hit shots but because it also allows you to make these sniper shots from even further away potentially engaging your opponent from 300 feet away where they are unlikely to even be aware of your existence and your dm is unlikely to have a grid board that can account for that i recommend just three levels of fighter to get your arcane shots and then 17 levels of rogue to maximize sneak attack and potentially even reach the assassin capstone i'd start with one level of rogue and then get three levels of fighter and then take on only rogue levels from that point onward this is definitely the most requested multi-class i think i've gotten in the comments uh and i can kind of see why from that last build that we went over but hey i'm all about creative ways of killing your foes i guess in rpgs specifically don't take that out of context thank you guys so much for watching i really appreciate it be sure to like and subscribe because we put out new videos like this every week and if you guys are making a fighter rogue character please let me know all about them down in the comments i love reading about your guys characters thanks again for watching my name is patrick ferguson from skull splitter dice and until next time farewell [Music] you

Channel: SkullSplitter Dice

Views: 66,546

Keywords: dnd, d&d, dnd5e, dungeons and dragons, 5e, fighterrogue, fighterrogue 5e, 5e fighterrogue, d&d 5e fighterrogue, d&d fighterrogue, fighterrogue d&d, fighterrogue dnd, dnd 5e fighterrogue, the fighterrogue, fighterrogue 5e stats, fighterrogue stats 5e, pathfinder fighterrogue, fighterrogue multiclass, multiclass

Id: A55M6BWRQwE

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 22 2022