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wyllzel · 4 months

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This is how I built Vampire Ascendant Astarion in my latest Tactician playthrough. As a dual-wielding Gloom Stalker Thief, Astarion has his canon Rogue flavoring with the added bonus of the Ranger class’s Extra Attack and other sneaky, more martial abilities.

I like to run Astarion as a Thief Rogue, but Assassin Rogue also works well (though possibly with different gear – for example, you may want to use a longbow instead of dual hand crossbows).

The vibe of this example of a Gloom Stalker Thief is a stealthy, consistent damage dealer. When you reach Act 3, Astarion can focus on a 100-200 HP enemy and take it out (or at least whittle it down) easily. Or, he can spread his many attacks across lower HP minions and take out a bunch in one round.

Ranger has some good control-type spells, but I primarily run the Gloom Stalker Thief as a ranged martial.

This build is not reliant on elixirs, illithid powers, or mods. While I don’t think this multiclass is dependent on gear, the gear I’ve listed will go a long way in ensuring Astarion is a very competent machine gun. 🤗

Disclaimer: While I tried to powergame as much as I could with this build, I also wanted to keep it easy to follow and fairly thematic. I'm not claiming that this is the most powerful Vampire Ascendant build ever!

(Fair warning: Possible spoilers ahead!)

Levelling

I like to start Astarion out in Rogue for the canon flavoring and Extra Bonus Action (Thief Rogue Level 3). But once my party reaches Level 5, I’ll go to Withers and restart Astarion as a Ranger instead for the Extra Attack (Ranger Level 5).

How you progress in the levels is up to you – I recommend reading through the BG3 Wiki pages on Ranger and Rogue and see which of the classes’ benefits you think are most useful! These are just my personal preferences. I’ve also added a star (⭐) next to each of the features I tend to prioritize or take advantage of.

To start with, this is my Astarion’s base stats:

Astarion’s Wisdom Score should be higher than his Intelligence score; any spells he’d be using are Ranger spells (and Rangers cast off Wisdom).

This build guide assumes that Astarion is not the party face – therefore, it’s fairly safe to dump his Charisma stat.

Level 1: Rogue (Level 1)

Sneak Attack ⭐

Select:

Expertise: Stealth, Sleight of Hand

Level 2: Rogue (Level 2)

Cunning Action: Dash

Cunning Action: Disengage

Cunning Action: Hide

Level 3: Rogue (Level 3)

Improved Sneak Attack Damage (+1d6) ⭐

Select:

Subclass: Thief

The Thief subclass has the following benefits:

Fast Hands (Extra Bonus Action)

Second-Story Work (Resistance to Falling Damage)

Level 4: Rogue (Level 4)

Select:

Feat: Ability Improvement (aka ASI) = +1 DEX, +1 WIS ⭐

This should take his Dexterity to 18 and his Wisdom to 16.

Level 5: Rogue (Level 5)

Proficiency Bonus

Improved Sneak Attack Damage (+1d6) ⭐

Level 6: Ranger (Level 1)

Weapon Proficiencies: Simple weapons, martial weapons

Armor Proficiencies: Light armor, medium armor, shields

Select:

1st Favored Enemy: Bounty Hunter

1st Natural Explorer: Urban Tracker

Level 7: Ranger (Level 2)

Select:

Fighting Style: Two-Weapon Fighting ⭐

Spells: Ensnaring Strike, Hunter’s Mark

The Archery Fighting Style could also be good, but I run Astarion as equally reliant on his standard Actions and Bonus Actions – therefore Two-Weapon Fighting works for my build.

Level 8: Ranger (Level 3)

Select:

Subclass: Gloom Stalker

Spells: Fog Cloud

The Gloom Stalker subclass has some awesome benefits:

Dread Ambusher (Extra Attack during the 1st round of combat) ⭐

Dread Ambusher: Hide (Basically another Cunning Action: Hide)

Umbral Shroud (Become Invisible if Obscured)

Superior Darkvision (Darkvision is now 24m / 80ft)

Disguise Self (Gain the ritual spell Disguise Self)

Dread Ambusher, Umbral Shroud, and Superior Darkvision are probably the best features for the stealthy machine gun Gloom Stalker Thief.

Level 9: Ranger (Level 4)

Feat:

Sharpshooter (-5 to Ranged Attack Rolls, but +10 to Ranged Damage Rolls) ⭐

Level 10: Ranger (Level 5)

Extra Attack ⭐

Misty Step (from Gloom Stalker Subclass) ⭐

Select:

Spells: Spike Growth

Level 11: Ranger (Level 6)

Select:

2nd Favored Enemy: Mage Breaker

2nd Natural Explorer: Wasteland Wanderer: Fire

I selected Mage Breaker because I had Astarion’s backstory in mind – Cazador, Astarion’s ultimate antagonist, is primarily a caster during Astarion’s final quest battle. However, True Strike is a notably unhelpful cantrip, so you may want to choose a different Favored Enemy.

I selected Wasteland Wanderer: Fire because Fire is a common Damage type that enemies dole out. For the same reason, Wasteland Wanderer: Poison is also a good selection.

Level 12: Ranger (Level 7)

Select:

Spells: Silence

I picked Silence since it’s almost always useful, but if you have a Cleric (or another caster with access to Silence) on your primary team then you may want to pick a different spell.

Alternatives…

If you went 4 Rogue / 8 Ranger, you’d lose Rogue’s Uncanny Dodge and additional 1d6 damage on Sneak Attack (Level 5) – but gain Ranger’s Land’s Stride: Difficult Terrain (Level 8) and an additional Feat (Level 8).

If you went 5 Rogue / 5 Ranger / 2 Fighter, you’d lose Ranger’s additional Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer (Level 6), and additional spell (Level 7) – but gain Fighter’s Second Wind, Fighting Style (Level 1), and Action Surge (Level 2).

I picked a lot of offensive Ranger spells, but the Ranger class also has some great buff spells like Longstrider and Enhance Leap.

Final Composition

By Level 12, Astarion should have the following notable qualities:

Extra Attack and Extra Bonus Action, resulting in 4 possible Attacks per round.

Sharpshooter: On a ranged weapon hit, deal an extra +10 Damage.

Sneak Attack: On a Sneak Attack hit, deal an extra 3d6 (3-18) Damage.

Two-Weapon Fighting, which adds your Ability Score Modifier (+4) to the damage of your offhand attack.

Gear

I like to equip Gloom Stalker Thief Astarion with the following gear. The evil flavoring on some of the pieces (Helldusk, Bhaalist) definitely adds to the ambience of a Vampire Ascendant Astarion.

I’ve made a small note of why I equipped each piece of gear, but you can visit each Wiki link for the full benefits on each piece! None of this gear is really necessary (except maybe the Risky Ring), but I do recommend having Astarion dual-wield to take advantage of Thief Rogue’s Extra Bonus Action.

Headwear: Marksmanship Hat

+1 to Ranged Attack Rolls

Also, he looks cool in it. LOL.

Armor: Bhaalist Armor

Aura of Murder: Enemies within 2m / 6.5ft become Vulnerable to Piercing Damage (unless they are Resistant or Immune to it)

+2 to Initiative Rolls

Cloak: Shade-Slayer Cloak

Reduces the number needed to roll a Critical Hit while Hiding by 1

Handwear: Helldusk Gloves

+1d6 Fire Damage per Weapon Attack

+1 to Weapon Attack Rolls

Footwear: Helldusk Boots

Any boots that give Astarion the option to position himself more aptly are excellent. For example, the Disintegrating Night Walkers or Spaceshunt Boots are also very good.

Amulet: Amulet of Bhaal

On a hit, inflicts Bleeding on targets that have maximum HP

This feels very apt for a Vampire Ascendant.

Ring A: Risky Ring*

Advantage on Attack Rolls

Disadvantage on Saving Throws

*This ring is extremely important to the build, IMO! The Advantage on Attack Rolls does a lot to offset the -5 to Attack Rolls from the Sharpshooter feat.

Ring B: Caustic Band**

+2 Acid Damage per Weapon Attack

**This ring can add up to +10 Acid Damage, since you have four Attacks and an additional attack on your first round of combat from Dread Ambusher. However, this +8-10 may not be negligible by the time you reach Act 3 – instead, the Killer’s Sweetheart ring (basically one free Critical Hit on demand per long rest) may be more overall effective.

Melee Main Hand: Crimson Mischief

+1d4 Piercing Damage when you have Advantage on targets with <50% of their HP

+7 Piercing Damage when you have Advantage on a target

If you’re wearing the Risky Ring, you’ll almost always have Advantage, so the added Piercing Damages are basically a guarantee.

Melee Off Hand: Rhapsody

Scarlet Remittance: Gain +1 to Attack Rolls, Damage, and Spell Save DC for each foe you slay (up to +3)

Sweet Bloodletting: Possibly inflict Bleeding when hitting a target with this weapon while Hiding or Invisible

Rhapsody used to belong to Cazador – so I find it thematically fitting for a Vampire Ascendant Astarion to now use this knife. But if you’d rather avoid it, Knife of the Undermountain King is also a good one!

Ranged Main Hand: Ne’er Misser

Deals Force Damage rather than Piercing Damage

Gain one use of Magic Missile Level 3 per Short Rest

I like this hand crossbow a lot because some enemies are Resistant to Piercing Damage – but very few (if any?) are Resistant to Force Damage. But since it doesn’t deal Piercing Damage, this hand crossbow won’t benefit from the Bhaalist Armor’s Aura of Murder.

Ranged Off Hand: Hellfire Hand Crossbow

+2 Weapon Enchantment

Hellstalker: Possibly inflict Burning when attacking while Hiding or Invisible

Damage Numbers

After you finish leveling and equipping Vampire Ascendant Astarion, your final Damage stats should look something like the following table. When calculating these numbers, I assumed the following:

The target isn’t Resistant to Piercing, Force, Acid, Necrotic, or Fire Damage

No conditional Damage on Crimson Mischief

Sharpshooter is toggled on

(I tried to calculate the above numbers by hand… So apologies if my calculations are fudged due to an incorrect understanding of Damage rolls, haha! This should be approximately correct, at least.)

Example: Combat Against Githyanki

For an example of how this build plays, here’s how Level 12, Vampire Ascendant, fully equipped Gloom Stalker Thief Astarion did against a group of Vlaakith’s githyanki warriors (Elfsong Tavern) in Tactician:

Here, Astarion did 43+75+26+35 Damage, or a total of 179 Damage in one round. (And that’s with four Attacks instead of five.) This is pretty standard for how my Act 3 combats tend to go, so I think this is a fair representation of this Astarion build’s abilities.

Conclusion

Of course, there are many other builds for Vampire Ascendant Astarion that can also do ridiculous (if not far more!) Damage. For example, some powergamers will class Astarion as a Monk (usually with the Tavern Brawler feat) – whether that’s Way of the Open Hand for maximum Damage output, or Way of Shadow for more vampiric vibes – with a multiclass dip in Thief Rogue for the Extra Bonus Action. This gives Vampire Ascendant Astarion a standard six Unarmed Strikes per round of combat; he adds 1d10 Necrotic Damage to each of those for an additional 6d10 Necrotic Damage total.

And, of course, even without the Vampire Ascendant trait, this build tends to do a good deal of Damage and can work for any character (whether that be an edgy Tav, the Dark Urge, or a different Companion). For example, a lot of the infernal gear might be cool for a post-Pact Ranger Wyll.

Thanks for reading, and hope this gave you some ideas for your ranged martial builds! :)

#chelle.txt #ch.build #astarion #i have been working on this for a while now LOL #happy to finally post this!#apologies if the damage table looks wonky - i'm sure i messed up some math somewhere haha #and yes this build requires being a bit amoral since 1) ascension and 2) bhaalist gear #so it's definitely not for everyone #but i think it's fun!

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