Arcane Trickster – the best subclass available to Rogue, and its most distinct, being a 1/3 caster and this being able to somewhat alleviate Rogue’s issues. Unfortunately, being a 1/3 caster still has problems, so let’s get into it.
Spellcasting – Level 3
“When you reach 3rd level, you gain the ability to cast spells. See chapter 10 for the general rules of spellcasting and chapter 11 for the wizard spell list.
Cantrips. You learn three cantrips: mage hand and two other cantrips of your choice from the wizard spell list. You learn another wizard cantrip of your choice at 10th level.
Spell Slots. The Arcane Trickster Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your wizard spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.
For example, if you know the 1st-level spell charm person and have a 1st-level and a 2nd-level spell slot available, you can cast charm person using either slot.
Spells Known of 1st-Level and Higher. You know three 1st-level wizard spells of your choice, two of which you must choose from the enchantment and illusion spells on the wizard spell list.
The Spells Known column of the Arcane Trickster Spellcasting table shows when you learn more wizard spells of 1st level or higher. Each of these spells must be an enchantment or illusion spell of your choice, and must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 7th level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.
The spells you learn at 8th, 14th, and 20th level can come from any school of magic.
Whenever you gain a level in this class, you can replace one of the wizard spells you know with another spell of your choice from the wizard spell list. The new spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots, and it must be an enchantment or illusion spell, unless you’re replacing the spell you gained at 3rd, 8th, 14th, or 20th level from any school of magic.
Spellcasting Ability. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your wizard spells, since you learn your spells through dedicated study and memorization. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a wizard spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.
Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier
Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier”
This is the real reason to play an Arcane Trickster – its spellcasting. However, being a 1/3 caster, the Trickster has an extremely limited pool of spell slots (and slow spell scaling), with only two 1st-level slots at this level, and not much better at higher levels, ending on a total of 11 spell slots at most at 20th level.
We do, however, get some cantrips, getting the signature Mage Hand as well as two other Wizard cantrips of our choice – note that these are not school-restricted like Arcane Trickster’s other spells. What you do with your two free cantrip choices (as one is automatically taken up by Mage Hand) is up to you, though some half-decent options include Mind Sliver, Minor Illusion, Mold Earth, Ray of Frost, and Shape Water. Booming nor Green-Flame Blade are good, contrary to popular belief, and may be explained in its own article, but for now, I recommend against them.
You receive one additional cantrip once you reach 10th level in Rogue, and well… choose whatever you want I suppose.
The meat here though is our leveled spells, giving us three to start off with. Do note that Arcane Trickster is a known spellcaster, meaning it can only change its spells once it levels up. As such, we need to focus on spells that will be usable throughout their levels, hampered by this line:
“…two of which you must choose from the enchantment and illusion spells on the wizard spell list.”
This severely restricts what we can choose when we first get this subclass, only allowing for 1 totally free choice. Granted, the Wizard spell list is full of goodies, so it’s not all lost (and we get more free choices at later levels), but it is still rather limiting. Your free choice at this level should absolutely be Shield. The defensive potency of Shield simply outclasses anything else for the entirety of the game – you can always pick up Absorb Elements later on. Your other two spell choices, which are restricted to Enchantment and Illusion, are extremely limited. I would recommend Silvery Barbs and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter to make yourself somewhat useful, but if you’re unable to get Silvery Barbs because your DM (wrongly) banned/nerfed it, then Disguise Self or Silent Image will have to suffice. Spells for following levels will be discussed shortly.
Lastly is our spellcasting ability – Intelligence. Being an off-stat, this can make score distribution to become rather difficult – as you aren’t getting your spellcasting at 1st or 2nd level, you have to worry about Dexterity to make your ranged attacks initially, as well as Constitution for general defenses and concentration protection, and Wisdom for mental save protection. Now, being an off-stat is fair, but it is something to keep in mind. Do keep in mind however that you should not spend everything on ASIs – remember that feats are often better.
Spells at Higher Levels
4th-6th Level
While we don’t get any new spells, we do see an increase in spells known and spell slots for 1st-level. Unfortunately, after the inital spell picks layed out, there’s nothing really left to take. Take whatever Illusion or Enchantment spell(s) you didn’t pick up at 3rd level.
7th-12th
We now have access to 2nd-level spells, with their associated slots, as well an increase in spells known. At 7th level, we are still restricted to Enchantment and Illusion, so my recommendations are Phantasmal Force, Suggestion, or Tasha’s Mind Whip, with an honorable mention to Magic Mouth if you are able to obtain ritual casting through some means, for reasons outlined here.
However, once we reach 8th level, we can learn one spell that is any school of magic from the Wizard list – a free choice. While there are some fair options, with our limited spell picks and known spells, we want the absolute most efficiency for our slot, and no spell delivers better for in-slot efficiency than Web. Some honorable mentions got to Levitation, Pyrotechnics, and Rime’s Binding Ice, but they simply are nowhere near as efficient for its slot level as Web.
For our increase to known spells at 10th and 12th level, we are fully restricted once more. Sadly, there’s nothing of value left here, so take whatever you feel like would help as a niche pick – perhaps Invisibility or Nystul’s Magic Aura.
13th-18th
We gain access to 3rd-level spells and more known spells. Due to the low amount of 3rd level slots we have in total, as well as very little slots to upcast with (that we only get at very high levels too), we once again want spells most efficient for their slot. While there is nothing to be found from the Enchantment school of magic, the Illusion school of magic picks up and provides – my recommended options would be Fear, Hypnotic Pattern, or if you have ritual casting in some capacity, Phantom Steed.
Similar to 8th level, once we reach 14th level we can pick up one spell of any school of our choice, giving us a plethora of options – Animate Dead, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Fireball, Leomund’s Tiny Hut, and Sleet Storm as all solid picks. However, as we want value for slot, look no further than Animate Dead or Sleet Storm. Choose the former if you prefer to play more conservatively with your 3rd-level slots, turning them into summons you can control, or choose the latter if you think you need such a powerful control spell. Just remember – you at the absolute best have three 3rd-level slots and one 4th-level slot. Conserve your resources when you can.
We get an increase to known spells at 16th as well, which is once again restricted. There’s not much to take here – grab what you didn’t get at 13th level I suppose.
19th-20th Level
4th-level spells, wooooooo… if there were any half-decent choices for us. We only have a single 4th-level slot, so value for slot is of upmost importance. At 19th level, there are pretty much no good options for Enchantment or Illusion – choose whatever you want out of your options, or go for some lower-level spells.
For 20th level though, we get our last known spell increase, and our last free choice – There’s quite a bit to choose here. Conjure Minor Elementals, Control Water, Dimension Door, Evard’s Black Tentacles, Fabricate, Summon Greater Demon, and Wall of Fire, all being reasonable choices for the slot. However, I find the summoning spells to be the best, mostly for their staying power and their ability to be planar-bound by some 20th-level fullcaster who no doubt is much, much better than you, but there’s not much we can do about that.
In any case, you can see how limited our spell selections are, as well as needing to play conservatively due to our limited slots – even half-casters don’t have to play as conservatively as Arcane Trickster. Enchantment and Illusion are very limiting schools of magic with few good spells to choose from, which hinders us further.
Mage Hand Legerdemain – Level 3
“Starting at 3rd level, when you cast mage hand, you can make the spectral hand invisible, and you can perform the following additional tasks with it:
- You can stow one object the hand is holding in a container worn or carried by another creature.
- You can retrieve an object in a container worn or carried by another creature.
- You can use thieves’ tools to pick locks and disarm traps at range.
You can perform one of these tasks without being noticed by a creature if you succeed on a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check contested by the creature’s Wisdom (Perception) check.
In addition, you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to control the hand.”
There’s not a lot to say about this feature, it’s mostly just some exra flavor. The first bullet does nothing new since stowing would fall under manipulating an object. The spell itself doesn’t even have a worn or carried restriction. The second bullet also has the same problem, since you could make an argument that “manipulating and object” could be these bullets. As such, the only thing new is the third bullet, being able to use thieves’ tools at range, which is neat, I suppose. It lets you stay at a safe range from traps, but then again, you could just shoot whatever you’re picking or ask the Wizard to Fire Bolt it unless keeping it intact is of upmost importance.
For the remainder of the feature, the second part is… interesting. While it in itself is mechanically clear, it’s made unclear whether or not you’d perform this check to begin with by performing these actions with Mage Hand on its own. As such, depending on the DM, this second part is either somewhat useful for yoinking the keys off a guard unseen or is completely useless since you could do it with Mage Hand on its own anyways. Either way, very niche and nothing noteworthy.
Lastly is using your bonus action to control the hand instead of an action – this is just a nice little bonus for freeing up your action when using this utility spell, though that said, you will often be using Mage Hand outside of combat, where your action is quite free anyways.
All in all, a fairly mediocre feature with unclear aspects pertaining to Mage Hand, as well as being focused on being out-of-combat when 5th Edition simply doesn’t really have existent out-of-combat mechanics, with everything needing to be pieced together by the DM.
Magical Ambush – Level 9
“Starting at 9th level, if you are hidden from a creature when you cast a spell on it, the creature has disadvantage on any saving throw it makes against the spell this turn.”
While good on paper, this feature really isn’t much to talk about, with its biggest glaring issue being that it only applies to that given spell you cast while hidden. This can be useful for initially getting things to fail saves on spells like Web, given that Rogue has little trouble actually Hiding, does pretty much nothing afterwards except for slightly buffing any save-based cantrips you may have – Rogue has too few slots to actually be blasting all the time, meaning this feature won’t see much use outside of initial castings on control spells. Also, it comes 6 levels after your previous subclass features, which is a bit of a problem.
Versatile Trickster – Level 13
“At 13th level, you gain the ability to distract targets with your mage hand. As a bonus action on your turn, you can designate a creature within 5 feet of the spectral hand created by the spell. Doing so gives you advantage on attack rolls against that creature until the end of the turn.”
This is certainly a feature of all time. It helps alleviate the need to use Steady Aim, as it doesn’t entirely restrict your movement, but it otherwise doesn’t really do anything you couldn’t do 10 levels ago.
Also like Steady Aim, it takes up a bonus action, so unless you’re running that Elven Accuracy + Longbow setup, it’s competing with the bonus action attack from Crossbow Expert, or hell, Two-Weapon Fighting if that’s what you’re doing for some reason.
Spell Thief – Level 17
“At 17th level, you gain the ability to magically steal the knowledge of how to cast a spell from another spellcaster.
Immediately after a creature casts a spell that targets you or includes you in its area of effect, you can use your reaction to force the creature to make a saving throw with its spellcasting ability modifier. The DC equals your spell save DC. On a failed save, you negate the spell’s effect against you, and you steal the knowledge of the spell if it is at least 1st level and of a level you can cast (it doesn’t need to be a wizard spell). For the next 8 hours, you know the spell and can cast it using your spell slots. The creature can’t cast that spell until the 8 hours have passed.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.”
This has potential uses, as there is no school or even class restriction, allowing you to just ask any caster in the party to throw something onto you for you to nab. Only issue is, unless it’s something like a Ranger, it’s pretty likely that at this level that caster has significantly better saves than your DC. But, if they do fail it, free spell!
However, due to this lasting for 8 hours, you could technically speaking rest cast the ability, allowing you and your fellow caster to save slots and uses of this ability.
In terms of spells, there’s too many to really make proper recommendations without making this article longer than it needs to be – just look at sites such as Form of Dread to determine what the optimal spells to pick up given your limited slots are.
However, at the end of the day, despite the potential of the feature, it still ultimately kind of sucks due to how late you get it, coupled with the limitations of the Rogue iteself, discussed previously. Additionally, the feature isn’t helped by the limited amount of spells Arcane Trickster can cast at maximum. Essentially, the feature ends up being sort of bad more by proxy of Rogue being bad, rather than the feature itself being bad. That said, I would still call this a reasonable conclusion to the Arcane Trickster.
Conclusion
While I did speak mostly positively, especially in regards to Spellcasting, the Arcane Trickster still at the end of the day is a Rogue. It has essentially nothing from the base class, as well as both a very limited spell slot pool and spells it can draw from. For a class drawing on such a large spell list, it’s only able to ever experience a fraction of it, which would be helped if it simply wasn’t confined to limited known spells, two schools of magic that have very few good spells, as well as limited slots in itself.
Arcane Trickster is often seen as sort of a “golden trashbag” within the Rogue archetypes – the best of the worst. This is due to having spellcasting, the arguably most powerful PC feature in the whole game, and even only being to experience a small fraction of the best caster overall is enough to put it above the rest of its archetypes, though unfortunately, not above something like a Fighter, a Gunk (Gun Monk), or any of the casters (full and half).
Anyhow, up next is the Phantom – stay tuned for that!
– Mistral Umaimon
Mistral's Swarmkeeping 