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For this level 11, I decided to ditch Astarion as well and continue on a duo only with Shadowheart. I didn't manage to find a build that I liked with Astarion, and he was most of the time in the back row, not doing much.

I also plan to do my next playthrough AS Astarion, so I'm ok not finishing his questline right now. Also, doing it duo will potentially make it more challenging. But my game is already pretty cheesy, my two builds are powerful, so it might make it more enjoyable.

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Woops, I forgot my gold in the travel chest.

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I put all my gold into the secondary stacked ribcage. I wonder if I can pay with it.

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Hmm, no. It needs to be on my person.

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The UI displays double my money because I put my pile of gold in the shared container.

For Shadowheart, I gave her Dual Wielding Fighting style, and the Dual Wielder feat.

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I'm also thinking of rerolling damage die to take the highest, as she will be adding lots of dices to her damage, that could really have a nice effect. I'm gonna try that, and if it's not good enough I'll try the one where she can do an attack of opportunity when someone comes close to her.

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I ended up with a Fighter 1 (for the heavy armor proficiency and dual wielding figthing style), Thief 4 (for the 2 bonus actions and a feat) and Monk 6 (for the shadow art). The spread of levels is perfect.

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For Naeblys I tried something different. I picked Ranger 5 because I wanted a second attack and Dual Wielding fighting style. Only Fighter and Ranger have that (Paladin do not provide Dual Wielding fighting style). Well, now that I'm writing that I think a more straightforward Eldritch Knight 6 / Rogue 5 would be better.

EK 6 because it gives me another feat at level 6, which would allow me to not take one level of sorcerer because I would take a Sorcerer Caster feat instead. It's pretty much the same, but it would make my levels more uniform and I would get more HP for a Fighter level up than a Sorcerer level up.

Actually, as an Eldritch Knight, I'll have Shield, Longstrider, Disguise Self, Magic Missile as level 1 spells. Friends and Minor Illusion as Cantrips.

As my third feat, I'm having a hard time picking one.

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ASI can't go over 20, and I already have 20 DEX (19 here, and +1 thanks to Auntie Ethel). I could probably increase STR to help carrying stuff.

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+5 to Initiative can be great with the Assassin subclass I picked, actually.

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So now I want to test if "Unimpeded by Difficult Terrain" means I'm immune to slipping on ice.

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Absolutely not. I hit and fell on the floor.

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Now, what if I fire an arrow of lightning on the ice. Does it have any effect? Ahem, I misclicked when alt-tabbing back to the game and actually shot in the far corner of the room.

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Wait, she only has 19 AC. Hmm, I removed her +1 ring for one of lightning protection for this test, and also swap her +1 cloak for one that gives Blur.

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Firing the lightning arrow at the target didn't trigger anything on the ground.

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Taking Savage Attacker really helped. Rerolling damage with all those dice rolls should help.

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Seems like it always take the second result, even if not as good. I'm not so sure it's useful, actually.

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Hmm, the tooltip is really weird. The 4 is crossed, but the final tooltip seem to be using it still. Maybe it's just a display issue in the tooltip.

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Hmm, the cloak was supposed to keep blur until I take damage, but it seem it stopped working as soon as I was attacked, even if they missed.

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I fire the arrow on the ice this time.

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I somehow did critical damage to the monster.

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And missed Shadowheart. So maybe it's rolling an attack on each creature in the area of effect, to see if it hits.

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It's so weird because it also indicated that Somi failed a save against it (DC 12), but what is it for?

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And that Shadowheart succeeded. But why is there an attack roll and a save?

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This time I fired an arrow on the floor, and both had to do a save. Then it is asking me if I want to do a Sneak Attack, so probably the first save was for the ligthning.

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I did the sneak attack, which did deal damage to one of them only. There was no "to hit" roll.

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Hmm, I then attacked the other one, and this time I can see a +1 Arcane Synergy. It's supposed to add my Spell Casting Modifier.

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Oh shit, because I picked Fighter as my first class, my spellcasting modifier is STR? That's not very good. Maybe if I had picked Paladin as my main martial class I would have used CHA instead?

The more I think about this build, the less sure I am that I need two attacks. With a double bonus action and dual wielding I can already attack twice for the same effect, and can even use my bonus action to do more things.

But as I picked Assassin instead of Thief this time, I won't have double bonus action, so I do need double attack to compensate. So yeah, Paladin might be better if the bonus is based on CHA.

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The save DC of Smite the Graceless is based on the wearer WIS, and its Proficiency. Interesting, as it means it's scaling with the wearer, so would be good on a (real) monk.

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As a Paladin, I now have a +3 added from the Spellcasting Ability Modifier.

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Weirdly enough, my sheet still has STR marked as the main attribute, but it used CHA for sure as it's the only one with +3.

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I also suggests either a Sneak Attack, or a Divine Smite. Doesn't seem like I can do both.

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It did 22 Radiant (level 1), and now the off-hand hit as well for 11 damage, and ask for a Sneak Attack. No Divine Smite this time, either because it might be only once per turn, or because it only works on the main hand.

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The Sneak Attack was 11.

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And because I'm an Assassin, it's now my turn, with all my actions/bonus actions.

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Target was surprised, so it counted as a Critical Hit again (with the offhand). I had been prompted for a Divine Smite but I rejected it as he was already dead.

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I didn't turn invisible, though.

I now have to weight if Paladin was a good choice for the second attack. Smiting is great, but as I can already Sneak Attack. Branding does 2d8 or 3d8 damage, while sneak attack is a consistent 3d6. Branding is on limited supply, and I can't use both. Gotta see if worth it. There is a plethora of other Paladin spell that I don't use.

As I'm using Medium Armor maybe I should go Barbarian? Reckless Attack would give me auto ADV, and that could be fun. Level 6 I'll also have fast movement (as long as I'm not wearing heavy armor).

Sure Assassin can deal a lot of damage with its guarateed critical, but coming from Thief, losing a Bonus Action means I need to have a double attack to make it worth it, so invest at least 5 levels in a martial class. As I also need Medium Armor, it means either Ranger, Fighter, Paladin or Barbarian.

I'll stop respecing and test the Paladin a bit. If I don't like it I might try the Barbarian.

I can't seem to find the perfect level spread between Assassin and a martial class to get spells, medium armor proficiency and 2 attacks.

I'm level 11. Martial classes got the double attack at level 5, and Assassin comes online at 3rd level, so it means only 3 more levels to dip into what I need. Additional feats are at level 4, so it makes sense to push Rogue to level 4. Which make it only 2 more levels to try things. One of them need to be a Sorcerer level for the spells I need, unless my martial class has enough spells.

Eldritch Knight was a good one because it gives a nice variety of spells, basically all the spells I like for this build, but they seem to be based off INT so it makes Arcane Synergy not as good as with a one level dip in Sorcerer.

Which makes me wonder what is the default spellcasting ability of non-casting classes like rogue or fighter or barbarian. This requires more testing.

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I'll be using this ability spread. I have items to set STR, DEX or INT at a specific value, so it would be easy to test with or without the item. I put the others (CON, WIS and CHA) to different modifiers to see which one applies.

Ah no, I can't have the headband of intellect AND the item that gives Arcane Synergy.

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Hmm, I did not get Arcane Synergy...

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I put my armor, and still didn't get Arcane Synergy.

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Hmm, I put back all my gear, and still no arcane synergy...

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Ok, I need to attack something first, like a stool, to get the buff, then attack Shadowheart.

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Ok, this time it works. As a barbarian, I added +2. Based on my attributes, +2 seems to be CHA. I'll reroll my attributes and check again.

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I put my CHA to 17, and it move to +3, so Barbarians are using CHA for their spellcasting modifier. Ok, why not. Now checking if still true for every flavor of Barbarian. Yep, I tested all three subclasses, and they all kept adding the CHA bonus.

Now what happens if I multiclass to a class that clearly doesn't use CHA?

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I multiclassed to Cleric, and got now only +1. What will happen if I add more levels in Barbarian now?

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I put another level in Barbarian, but it kept the bonus of WIS.

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I added a level of Wizard and quickly equipped the Headband of Intellect while under the Arcane Synergy buff, to get 17 INT, and sure enough it applied the +3 bonus. So it seems to take the spellcasting from the last class I multiclassed to (even if I add more levels to an already added class later).

In practice, because Naeblys will have high CHA, it makes multiclassing as Paladin or Barbarian more interesting.

Now I need to test what the spellcasting is for Rogues. I assume it's going to be INT as it's what the Arcane Trickster is using, but there is only one way to find out. Yep, I tested it and Rogues uses INT. I know Fighters do as well, and Paladins uses CHA. I think Rangers will be using WIS, same as monks.

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After lots of tries, I'm going to settle on this for now. Level 1 Ranger, and I'm not even sure why I thought this would be better than a level of fighter. Hmm.

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SO. This time I made him a Fighter / Rogue. Fighter is to get the Two-Weapon Fighting style, to add my DEX bonus to my off-hand, making it the same as the main hand. It also gives me proficiency in all weapons and armor, allowing me to try several items.

The 10 levels of Rogue is to focus on the Sneak Attack build. I had 3 feat, so I increased my DEX to 20, added Savage Attacker to hopefully increase even more the Sneak Attack damage, and some Sorcerer casting. It's less spells than a Sorcerer dip (only Friends, Minor Illusion and Shield, which are the best anyway). The Sorcerer dip is interesting early game, as it also gives a nice boots to AC and lots of spells, but with me wearing any armor (including the Yuan-Ti Scalemail, with no DEX bonus cap), that's not so important.

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It means I no longer need to wear those gloves, and can focus on ones that add to Sneak Attack damages.

I did some tests with the Assassin, but getting the surprise round seems harder than expected. I attacked from Stealth and didn't always get it. Maybe it was because I was attacking Neutral targets, or maybe because I had someone in a cone of sight, I don't know, it requires more testing.

Just for the sake of it, I'll write down my final respec in case the Assassin build doesn't work; It's pretty close to what I had before all those respec shenanigans.