Best Feats for Thief Rogue 5e
by Prince Phantom
Often seen as the quintessential Rogue subclass, the Thief… doesn’t earn that title in the slightest. Yeah these features are severely lacking across the board with the exception of our capstone, but you should never pick a subclass for its capstone unless you are starting at very high levels. This will frequently feel like playing a subclassless Rogue, unless we take advantage of one tiny little aspect of our Fast Hands ability.
The potential to use an object as a bonus action. Now what that means exactly is pretty hard to parse, especially for new players, hence why this is a terrible subclass for beginners and I hate that it is commonly recommended to them. However, this is a best feats list, so we’ll get to that point once we reach the feat that interacts with it.
Best Feats for Thief Rogue 5e
Tavern Brawler (Lv 4): This is definitely the only time you will ever see me recommend this feat, and it’s for good reason. On the majority of characters, taking advantage of any of tavern brawler’s 3 bullet points will likely be worse than whatever our character would normally be doing. The reason we want it is because acid vials, alchemist’s fires, and other such items require the “use an object” action to be thrown, and count as improvised weapons. This allows us to add our proficiency bonus to the attack rolls with those items, which is necessary if we want to incorporate them into our playstyle. With this, we can attack with something like a light crossbow as our action, then throw a vial of acid as our bonus action. That vial of acid is dealing 2d6+Dex, more than any other ranged weapon besides firearms! Big shoutout to all the amazing poisons you can dish out with this as well. A thrown vial of Essence of Ether has a DC 15 con save or your target is incapacitated for quite a while. A tangler grenade is like a mini-Web spell, great for contributing to your parties control capabilities. If you have trouble acquiring these items regularly, take 2 levels of Conjuration Wizard for the ability to create them yourself at will! You will need to discuss with your DM as to whether you can sneak attack with these items or not, as the rules are unclear. They are ranged weapons when thrown, so they should work, and it definitely isn’t overpowered if they do.
Magic Initiate (Lv 8): The Thief is already dipping into a bit of magic with their ability to use any magic item regardless of prerequisites, so expanding on that certainly isn’t a bad idea. A familiar can be used to give us advantage on our attacks through the help action, but if your group doesn’t like this or you find your familiar is targeted and killed a lot, you can always just use them as an ally within 5ft of your target, fulfilling the requirements for sneak attack without showing themselves as an obvious threat. Minor Illusion is definitely a cantrip I’d pick up here, and if you plan on being in melee (don’t, but if you do), Booming Blade will be a big increase to your total DPR.
Sharpshooter (Lv 8): So to be clear, Sharpshooter does not apply to throwing an acid vial or similar object. This sucks and your DM should overrule this because you’re playing a Rogue and you need the buff. Even in the case where your DM is a big meanie, this might still be worth it, but I’d only take it if you can consistently get advantage on your attacks or have some other way to boost your accuracy like the Archery Fighting Style.
Ritual Caster (Lv 8): I consider this better than Magic Initiate specifically if you have easy access to ritual spells to copy down. A wizard in your party, a very prolific magic shop, etc. All of these would be sufficient to fill your ritual book with everything you could possibly need. I don’t even need to list the good rituals, you can just take all of them. Having rituals really opens up the potential of an otherwise spell-less Rogue, both in and out of combat, and you probably put enough into either your Wisdom or Intelligence to qualify for this.
Alert (Lv 12): With our mundane items like tangler grenades and poisons that heavily debilitate our opponents, we actually have a slight amount of control we can perform, and control is always best as early in combat as possible. The other benefits are nice, but the initiative bonus is the most important thing here.
Eldritch Adept: Misty Visions (Lv 12): Silent Image as a cantrip is just perfect for a Rogue. It’s even better for us, because we can cast the spell in combat to create cover, then attack with our bonus action with a vial of acid or other mundane item. If we were relying on something like Crossbow Expert for a bonus action attack, we would have to take the whole turn off of attacking to cast a spell.
Healer (Lv 12): Also the only time I’ll ever recommend this feat, our ability to use healer’s kits as a bonus action to heal an ally actually makes this worth it for us. You can essentially think of it like a 5ft range Healing Word, and it’s best used in the same way that that spell is used; reviving downed allies.
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