The Whispering Death

Primary Combat Role: Single Target Damage (ranged)
Secondary Combat Roles: AoE Damage(Spike Growth)
Out of Combat Role: Scout, Lockpicker, Heals (Goodberry)
Lineage: Sylvan Elf
Background: Spy

Build Notes

We start as a Ranger, because we want to rush Archery Fighting Style and Extra Attack, and Ranger gets us both of those along with some utlity. Play is pretty straightforward, shoot stuff with a bow, for tougher fights break out Hunter's Mark or Spike Growth as needed. For our Ranger subclass, we'll tahe the Ranger Arcanist because that gets us Shield and Misty Step as well as the ability to ignore Somatic spell components, which we will use later. If you want to focus more on bow damage without the versatility/safety, go Hunter instead. We then take some Rogue levels for sneak attack dice and stealth expertise, and a couple of levels of Fighter for action surge and a second fighting style. I recommend getting 2 levels of Rogue before taking Fighter levels, so you have stealth expertise and cunning action, and action surge mainly pays off if you have a good magical bow, so I delay those levels until I think I'm close to getting one. For Rogue subclass, I recommend Darkweaver for the bonus ranged damage from good positioning and getting to ignore elevation when moving. Once we get a second fighting style, there's two ways to go. There's the safer and probably smarter option of taking Defense for the free AC, and there's the greedy and less safe option to take Two-Weapon style so that you can get 3 attacks in a round when the opportunity presents itself (something almost dead from arrows, becomes fully dead when you run up and stab it!). We will naturally take the more reckless option, because of course we will.

Revised 04-Jul-22: The original form of this build used Power Attack UB feat, which has now been changed to only affect melee weapons from the original verson which was weapon agnostic. Given that change, Power Attack really isn't great for this build anymore. To get the same basic end result, I think there's a few ways to go about given our goals of archery, maxing DEX, and opportunistic dual-wielding. Archery wants to be able to mostly ignore cover, so either Deadeye or Uncanny Accuracy handle that. Maxing our DEX is best accomplished via a half-feat, and either Uncanny Accuracy or Ambidextrous will accomplish that. Taking Uncanny Accuracy and a passive increase (like Improved Critical) or instead taking Deadeye and Ambidextrous will let us accomplish all of these goals by level 9. Which route to go is mainly a matter of taste, Deadeye is more valuable early on and Ambidextrous is more valuable later on, but that leaves DEX uncapped until 9. While taking Uncanny Accuracy right at 4 feels good for capping DEX, but the follow up feat at level 9 will be less impactful. But either roiute will achieve all the goals of the build, and achieve them well.

Ability Scores

STR: 8
DEX: 17 +2
CON: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 15 +1
CHA: 8

Level Progression

1. Ranger 1 [Favored Enemy: Undead] or [Favored Enemy: Monstrosities]
2. Ranger 2 [Fighting Style: Archery] or [Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting]
3. Ranger (Ranger Arcanist) 3
4. Ranger 4 [Feat: Deadeye] or [Feat: Uncanny Accuracy]
5. Ranger 5 [Feature: Extra Attack]
6. Rogue 1 [Expertise: Stealth] [Expertise: Thieve's Tools] [Sneak Attack: 1d6]
7. Rogue 2 [Feature: Cunning Action]
8. Rogue 3 [Feature: Spider on Wall] [Feature: Predator] [Sneak Attack: 2d6]
9. Rogue 4 [Feat: Ambidextrous] or [Feat: Improved Critical]
10. Fighter 1 [Feature: Second Wind] [Fighting Style: Two-Weapon Fighting] or [Fighting Style: Defense]
11. Fighter 2 [Feature: Action Surge]
12. Rogue 5 [Feature: Uncanny Dodge] [Sneak Attack: 3d6]

Spell Selection

1. --
2. Hunter's Mark, Goodberry
3. ^Shield, Cure Wounds
4. --
5. ^Misty Step, -Cure Wounds, Spike Growth, *Pass Without Trace
6. --
7. --
8. --
9. --
10. --
11. --
12. --

^spell denotes a spell granted by a subclass, spell denotes a recommended spell, and cantrip denotes a recommended cantrip