The Tales of the Valiant roleplaying game has introduced Luck in the Player’s Guide as one of its signature resources for players. Once per turn, when you fail to hit with an attack or fail a save, you gain 1 Luck. You can spend Luck either to add a 1-for-1 bonus to any check you make (which includes attack rolls, ability checks, or saves), or you can spend 3 Luck to reroll a d20 roll that didn’t go the way you liked the first time.
You can have a maximum of 5 Luck at one time, so you are encouraged to use it regularly instead of saving it for too long. If you already have 5 Luck and gain more, you must immediately roll a d4 and reset your Luck total to the number rolled. Also notably, Luck can’t stop a critical miss on a 1 and can’t create a critical hit by adding Luck up to 20.
A DM can also award Luck for clever ideas, excellent roleplaying, or achieving story goals. It’s a meaningful resource to use regularly rather than a static get-out-of-jail free card that some players store on their character sheet with the cool potions and consumables that they were afraid to waste.
This short series isn’t about power gaming. The goal is to showcase some interesting builds unique to Tales of the Valiant and describe why some choices may be strong options. Player builds don’t need to be optimal to have fun. Sometimes a build can even revolve around doing something suboptimal that is more fun than being maximally effective.
Luck inherently makes rogues stronger because the majority of their combat power from Sneak Attack is tied to getting a single hit. Missing less and rerolling more for a critical hit greatly improves the consistency for rogues since they don’t get Multiattack like other martial characters. If you’ve never played a Rogue, there is no greater dopamine rush in combat than rolling a critical hit on a Sneak Attack and grabbing a fistful of dice to roll for a huge burst of damage.
So let’s start building: The Lucky Strike.
Level 1: Starting out.
Paladins can also benefit from ideas in this build because they can use their Smite feature on critical hits for similar effects. However, they have so many options for martial talents, you might go a different direction. Rogues also get the Precise Critical feature at 13th level, increasing the crit chance to 10% by rolling a 19 or 20.
Choose the rogue class
For 1st-level class features, Expertise in thieves’ tools and stealth are going to be used often, the thieves’ cant language is flavorful, and Sneak Attack is the main combat mechanic of the class.
The standard equipment for rogues is a shortbow for ranged combat, dual wielding light, finesse weapons like shortswords and daggers for melee, and studded leather armor.
Ability Scores
Using the point buy method, a balanced set of ability scores looks like this:
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
| 8 | 18 | 14 | 10 | 13 | 10 |
DEX-based characters that use bows and finesse weapons generally love starting at 18 DEX because it improves not only damage, but also armor class and initiative. For this build, the plan is to increase DEX by 2 for DEX 20 with the Improvement at 4th level.
Lineage
Picking human nets you the Ambitious lineage feature which gives you a talent and proficiency in one skill of your choice. Choose the Bottomless Luck talent and proficiency in either Investigation or Athletics. Â
Bottomless Luck is vital to this build. As much as possible, you want to spend 3 Luck to reroll misses to shoot for a critical hit with Sneak Attack. This talent has great synergy with this gameplan. When you roll a 20 on a d20, you also support your teammates since this talent lets one ally gain 1 Luck. If you wind up with 5 Luck and have to reset, you can roll two dice and keep the result you prefer, minimizing mistakes in managing Luck points.
The most important part of this talent is the third bullet point. When you spend Luck to reroll a d20, roll two dice and keep the result you prefer. Including the initial roll to attack, if you miss and spend Luck to reroll two dice, you’ve rolled three times to try to crit. The math comes out to a 14.3% chance, or about 1 in 7, to roll at least one 20 on three d20 rolls.
Neither spending Luck to reroll nor rerolling with two dice counts as advantage! If you also have advantage (using any of the typical methods that rogues like to use), roll two dice on the attack as usual. Then if you miss on your advantaged attack, you can spend Luck to reroll one die, and Bottomless Luck makes that reroll with two dice. Overall, the probability to roll at least one 20 on four d20 rolls is 18.5%, or 1 in 5.4.
Heritage
There’s flexibility here. Anything that fits your larger character concept is fine. Some good options include:
1) Cloud. Take guidance or resistance as a cantrip you cast before checking doors and disarming traps.
2) Grove. A climbing speed equal to your walking speed helps with mobility and advantage on DEX (Stealth) checks while lightly obscured to take the Hide action in nature.
3) Supplicant. Taking a bonus action to move 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks is slightly redundant to your Cunning Action feature, but it does give you extra movement when you Disengage.
Background
Take Criminal. Choose the Touch of Luck talent. This gives you 2 Luck when you fail an attack roll or save. It also increases the roll to reset luck to 1d4 +1 when you already have 5 Luck and gain more.
Because you want to stack up 3 Luck to reroll dice to try for a critical hit, you want Luck quickly and you want to use it often. You can only get Luck once a turn, so with the Touch of Luck talent, you can do that on every third turn (assuming you miss in two consecutive turns). However, if you fail a save or miss with an opportunity attack, you can roll it up even faster. (A reaction used for an opportunity attack happens on someone else’s turn, not yours!)
Assuming a worst case scenario where your dice fight you, a possible sequence of turns to play aggressively could be:
Turn 1. Take the Attack action and miss. Gain 2 Luck. Then use your bonus action to Disengage or make an offhand attack to try again for Sneak Attack.
Turn 2. Take the Attack action and miss. Gain 2 Luck for a total of 4 Luck. Use your bonus action to make an offhand attack, and spend 3 Luck to reroll if you miss.
Turn 3. Take the Attack action and miss. Gain 2 Luck for a total of 3 Luck. Use your bonus action to make an offhand attack, and spend 3 Luck to reroll if you miss.
It’s risky for a rogue to stay in melee rather than use the Cunning Action feature to Disengage and weave in and out of danger. However, the potential to use Luck to reroll twice in three turns illustrates how powerful this talent is, even when rolls don’t go your way.
The best thing about this build is that you have all your tools at level 1. A short bow or dual-wielding shortswords looks like: +6 to hit, 1d6 + 4 piercing damage, +1d6 piercing damage for Sneak Attack. This should one-shot or two-shot some basic enemies you would be encounter in the start of the campaign.
Finally, don’t forget skill proficiency in Insight and Deception to help navigate the criminal underworld.
Skills
Acrobatics, Stealth, and Sleight of Hand are all great skill proficiency picks with high DEX. Perception is also very important for finding traps while exploring.
Level 2: Get Cunning Action.
The bread and butter for rogues is often either:
1) Take a bonus action to hide, then an Attack action to fire a bow with advantage from being unseen, which gets you Sneak Attack damage.
2) Move in to a target that is in melee with an ally, take the Attack action with a melee weapon to trigger Sneak Attack damage, take a bonus action to Disengage, and then move away with whatever movement is left.
In addition, having the option to take a bonus action to Dash gives you a lot of mobility to stay away from danger when attacking from a distance, since you won’t need to hide to get advantage if you target an enemy that one of your allies is in melee with.
Level 3: Choose Your Subclass.
Either subclass works for this build. The Enforcer is more combat focused, while the Thief is better at exploration.
If your campaign involves infiltration for a heist or rescue, or your party is fine with you sneakily scouting ahead in the dungeon, the Thief’s Second-Story Work feature helps to overcome obstacles that would typically require higher STR and proficiency in Athletics. If your party is missing a wizard, the Thief’s Appraising Eye and Trap Specialist features offer opportunities to interact with magical items and traps that most martial classes can’t access.
For this build, choose the Enforcer subclass. The 3rd-level Ambush feature is an easy, consistent way to get advantage on attacks and quickly assassinating a softer target can shift combat to your favor from the start. Because you’re hoping to cri often, the Cold-Blooded feature should trigger routinely, adding an additional weapon attack immediately to improve overall damage for efficient action economy. The Expanded Talent List also opens up martial talent options for later in the build.
Level 4: Use Your Improvement.
Increase DEX by 2 to max DEX at 20. With studded leather, your armor class is 17, which is as good as it will get without magic items. Your accuracy to hit should be slightly ahead of curve for the standard creature difficulty, and the scaling on Sneak Attack should still be good over these levels.
Levels 5–6: Pick up the Defense.
The two main situational defensive features for rogues are Uncanny Dodge to reduce one attack’s damage by half and Evasion to reduce damage on an effect with a DEX save to halve damage on a failed save or no damage on a successful save.
Level 7: The Gang’s Brawl Here.
The Brawler subclass feature gives the option to adjust tactics with Sneak Attack. Instead of peekaboo ranged combat of hiding or targeting an enemy next to an ally to generate advantage, you can now fight as more of a duelist, trying to isolate a single target.
You can also Sneak Attack a target in melee if no other creatures, including enemies and allies, are within 5 feet of you. If an enemy is next to your target, that’s fine. Sneak Attack will still trigger, but be careful not to get swarmed on the enemy’s turn.
Moving away without disengaging still provokes an opportunity attack, so saving your bonus action to Disengage is necessary as an escape hatch before the enemy’s turn.
Finally, you can Sneak Attack on unarmed strikes, but that’s not applicable for this build.
Level 8: Improvement Number Two-vement.
Are you interested in multiclassing next level? That’s the big question here.
Sneak Attack is currently at 4d6, which is an average of 14 damage. You can deal up to 8d6 or 28 average damage on a critical hit. If you want to multiclass into fighter for the Action Surge feature, ranger for a Beast Spirit companion, or paladin for Divine Smite (adjust your starting ability score to 13 CHA for that), the features you took for Luck are still helpful.
Consider whether benefits like higher hit points, Martial Actions such as Quick Strike, and Multiattack after 5 levels outweigh the features for continuing as a rogue. If you stay put, Sneak Attack deals an additional 3d6, or10.5 average damage over 5 levels, Reliable Talent makes for very reliable ability checks, and the Heroic Boon feature at 10th-level gives you the very nice choice of Escape Artist or Jack of All Trades.
If you want to multiclass starting at levels 9 through 13, take the Critical Training talent at level 8 because you’ll miss out on the rogue’s 13th-level feature, Precise Critical. This would give you the improved critical hit range much earlier, but you probably don’t want many more rogue levels since the Critical Training talent doesn’t stack with Precise Critical.
If you want to stay with rogue, take Weapon Discipline for shortswords, as the +1 bonus to attack and damage applies to both main and offhand attacks, you roll an additional weapon damage die for critical hits, and you gain a small number of temporary hit points when you reduce a creature to 0 HP, triggering with the Cold-Blooded feature from earlier.
Remember, when you take a talent for the Improvement, you also gain +1 to any stat, likely increasing WIS by 1 to 14 WIS.
Level 9 and on
Either staying with rogue to get the Precise Critical feature at level 13 or multiclassing into something martial for five levels to get Multiattack, you’re playing the same party role as striker for bursts of damage aiming for squishy or high priority targets. Look for magic shortswords and daggers, magic studded leather, probably one defensive magic item like a ring of protection to help survivability. Out of combat, you should be great at sneaking around, scouting, checking for traps and unlocking doors, and some social encounters with shady characters. Just keep cranking it up!
