Low Level Character Concept - Swashless Roguelock

I couldn't DM this weekend and one of the players ran a one-shot. Another player needed a temporary one-shot character and doesn't have experience building characters whole cloth. So I offered my services, and built him the Swashless Roguelock.

Now the build I gave the player was meant to work on a ship one-shot. So I made choices that I wouldn't have made otherwise. I'll skip the basics of levels, and focus on what I did for this specific build.

Level 1-4

We went with a Swashbuckler Rogue build. Now I had a huge internal debate about going to Rogue 5 for additional sneak attack dice, or going Warlock 2 for the spell slot and evocations. The extra spell slot won out.

Our focus on Swashbuckler is to get Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity. This lets you green-flame blade later, and run away to reposition yourself better if you were out of position, and it lets you add your higher charisma (because you want high charisma for a warlock) to your initiative, allowing you to be more likely to go first in a fight.

Level 5-6

We then proceed to Fathomless Warlock. This gives a powerful ranged, bonus action attack, and also allows for swimming and water breathing in case they fell overboard.

Now, the main choices here were of course to get Agonizing and Repelling blasts. You should be pushing people off boats whenever possible.

Racial and Background Choices

This I went with something basic, I gave them a Sailor background, so they could take sail enemy ships if needed, and had them go as a Tiefling of Levistus. Legacy of Stygia gives them the Ray of Frost cantrip (slow down option since we didn't get that evocation) and Armor of Agathys (at 2nd level) and Darkness. These options are just great combat tools. Had them take the Flame of Phlegethos feat at Rogue 4, so that Green-flame Blade and Armor of Agathys causes a strong set of retributive damage to anyone attacking them.

In the end, they didn't get into melee at all (they weren't meant to TRY, the melee portions were there in case things went bad), but it also means they could have skipped the rogue levels completely.

In a longer campaign, I feel like these choices would come up more. But as of right now, I have no testing proving so.

Thanks for Reading!

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