The Pirate Commander – Fighter/Rogue Multiclass Build Guide
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Why The Pirate Commander?
The Pirate Commander is mostly just a damage dealing class, but with access to both the maneuvers from Battle Master and Cunning Action from Rogue, you get a lot more versatility in combat than either class by itself would normally afford you. If that sounds appealing to you, then this is the build for you!
Quick Level Up Guide
| Level | Class Features/Feat | Notes |
| 1 – 1 Fighter | Fighting Style (Two Weapon Fighting), Second Wind, Weapon Mastery | – |
| 2 – 2 Fighter | Action Surge (x1), Tactical Mind | – |
| 3 – 3 Fighter (Battle Master) | Battle Master Combat Superiority Student of War | Menacing Attack, Precision Attack, Trip Attack |
| 4 – 4 Fighter | Feat: Dual Wielder (DEX) | – |
| 5 – 5 Fighter | Extra Attack, Tactical Shift | – |
| 6 – 5 Fighter 1 Rogue | Expertise, Sneak Attack, Thieves’ Cant, Weapon Mastery | Sneak Attack 1d6 |
| 7 – 5 Fighter 2 Rogue | Cunning Action | – |
| 8 – 5 Fighter 3 Rogue (Swashbuckler) | Fancy Footwork Rakish Audacity Steady Aim | Sneak Attack to 2d6 |
| 9 – 5 Fighter 4 Rogue | Feat: Dexterity to 20 | – |
| 10 – 5 Fighter 5 Rogue | Cunning Strike, Uncanny Dodge | Sneak Attack to 3d6 |
| 11 – 5 Fighter 6 Rogue | Expertise | – |
| 12 – 5 Fighter 7 Rogue | Evasion, Reliable Talent | Sneak Attack to 4d6 |
| 13 – 5 Fighter 8 Rogue | Feat: Defensive Duelist (DEX) | – |
| 14 – 5 Fighter 9 Rogue | Panache | Sneak Attack to 5d6 |
| 15 – 5 Fighter 10 Rogue | Feat: Constitution to 18 | – |
| 16 -5 Fighter 11 Rogue | Improved Cunning Strike | Sneak Attack to 6d6 |
| 17 – 5 Fighter 12 Rogue | Feat: Constitution to 20 | – |
| 18 – 5 Fighter 13 Rogue | Elegant Maneuver | Sneak Attack to 7d6 |
| 19 -6 Fighter 13 Rogue | Epic Boon: Boon of Combat Prowess | – |
| 20 – 6 Fighter 14 Rogue | Devious Strikes | – |
Questions About Multiclassing?
Not every inherent interaction here is going to be mentioned in the guide, so check out the multiclassing guide to help answer any additional questions you may have!
What’s The Game Plan Of The Pirate Commander?
The Pirate Commander is pretty simple as you are mostly just attacking with your turns, but you have maneuvers and a Cunning Action to consider at any point. With your Fancy Footwork, you should be dipping in and out of melee range constantly to deal a bunch of damage while mostly avoiding and shrugging off hits.
Level One Build
Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)
Attributes:
| POINT BUY | |
| STRENGTH | 8 |
| DEXTERITY | 15 (+2 background) = 17 |
| CONSTITUTION | 15 (+1 background) = 16 |
| INTELLIGENCE | 8 |
| WISDOM | 10 |
| CHARISMA | 14 |
Class: Fighter
Class Features: Fighting Style, Second Wind, Weapon Mastery
Skill Proficiencies: Insight and Perception
Background: Criminal (Alert)
Starting Equipment: Studded Leather Armor, Scimitar, Short Sword, Longbow, 20 Arrows, Quiver, Dungeoneer’s Pack, and 11 GP + 50 gp from background
Species: Goliath (Hill Giant)
For any martial character, it’s hard to justify not going for Goliath as the Hill Giant topple is so incredibly good to get advantage on attacks. There are other solid options for species as well like Human for an additional origin feat or Aasimar as they are just generally strong, but Goliath is generally going to be my choice.
Attributes
| POINT BUY | |
| STRENGTH | 8 |
| DEXTERITY | 15 (+2 background) = 17 |
| CONSTITUTION | 15 (+1 background) = 16 |
| INTELLIGENCE | 8 |
| WISDOM | 10 |
| CHARISMA | 14 |
This is the standard stat distribution for Dexterity based Fighters as you have maxed out Dexterity, maxed out Constitution, and good Charisma as Swashbuckler cares about it! .
Proficiencies: Insight and Perception
Just excellent skill proficiencies for any character.
Background: Criminal
Good skill proficiencies, good stat distribution, and an excellent origin feat.
Starting Equipment – Studded Leather Armor, Scimitar, Short Sword, Longbow, 20 Arrows, Quiver, Dungeoneer’s Pack, and 11 GP + 50 gp from background
The standard for a DEX fighter.
Class – Fighter
Fighters get three abilities to start off with in Fighting Style, Second Wind, and Weapon Mastery.
The Fighting Style you’re going to pick is Two Weapon Fighting! Getting your DEX as bonus damage with your offhand attacks is excellent and is going to really ramp up your damage potential.
Second Wind is a cool feature where, for a bonus action, you can heal yourself a bit. This is obviously great for tough fights when you are running low on health and this not only scales with level, but also gets additional features later on.
Weapon Mastery gives you the Mastery property of three weapons and I would recommend taking the properties of your three starting weapons. To that end, make sure you are always using your Scimitar in your main hand to properly access the mastery property.
The Build Level 2 Onward
Level 2-5
Level 2
Class: 2 Fighter
Class Features: Action Surge, Tactical Mind
Level 2 brings two new features with Action Surge and Tactical Mind.
The Fighter is one of the most popular multiclass options in D&D, and Action Surge is a huge reason why. While you can only use this once every short or long rest (twice at 17), getting an additional action almost always means a whole new slew of attacks. Even at level 2, this is a powerful ability, but once you get multiple Extra Attacks, this becomes an extremely powerful feature that can dole out an obscene amount of damage. In a pinch, this can be used for other actions such as Dash as well which adds to the power and utility of this ability.
Tactical Mind is a neat new feature that allows you to use a Second Wind charge to reroll a failed ability check with a bit of a bonus. While this won’t come up too often, this is a nice feature to have for particularly important ability checks.Action Surge, Tactical Mind
Level 3
Class: 3 Fighter (Battle Master)
Class Features: Combat Superiority (Menacing Attack, Precision Attack, Trip Attack), Student of War
Level 3 brings your subclass, and for this guide, it’s Battlemaster. Battlemaster brings two abilities to the table immediately with Combat Superiority and Student of War!
Combat Superiority gives you the famous combat maneuvers and you have plenty of solid ones to choose from, and we’re starting with arguably the three strongest – Menacing Attack, Precision Attack, and Trip Attack.
Menacing Attack can potentially make the target frightened of you which means disadvantage on all attacks and ability checks for a full turn which can be really strong (especially as the build progresses).
Precision Attack lets you exchange a die to boost your attack roll which can turn known misses into potential hits!
Finally, you get Trip Attack, which as it implies, can trip an enemy! Making an enemy prone can be really strong as it gives all melee fighters advantage against that target, making it really easy to hit them.
You get another ability this level with Student of War which gives you proficiency with one set of artisan’s tools and a skill. If you like crafting, you can go with the tools of your choice, but if you can’t pick, go for Smith’s Tools as those are pretty good. For your skill, any of the available options are fine, but I’d probably pick Athletics.
Level 4
Class: 4 Fighter
Feat: Dual Wielder (DEX)
Level 4 brings your first feat, and since you’re going to be using two weapons, you have to pick up the Dual Wielder feat! In short, between this and the Nick property, you can now get three attacks a turn with your action and bonus action. Next level when you get an Extra Attack, you get four attacks and all of them get DEX in bonus damage because of Two Weapon Fighting! This is going to make your damage potential really high, just slightly less than STR users.
Level 5
Class: 5 Fighter
Class Features: Extra Attack, Tactical Shift
Easily the most exciting feature for martial characters, level 5 brings your Extra Attack! Being able to double your damage output is obviously really strong, but since you’re a Fighter, you’ll eventually get even more attacks on top of this!
Level 5 also brings a new feature with Tactical Shift. Now when you use Second Wind, you can move up to half your speed without provoking an opportunity attack. A heal, disengage, and extra movement? Sign me up!
Level 6-10
Level 6
Class: 5 Fighter 1 Rogue
Class Feature: Expertise, Sneak Attack, Thieves’ Cant, Weapon Mastery
Now that you have your Extra Attack, you can now transition into Rogue for the rest of your career!
Expertise allows you to take two of your skills and add double your proficiency bonus to them to make them extremely reliable. Since these are your main proficiencies, I would choose Athletics and Perception.
The second ability is the Rogue’s most iconic one – Sneak Attack. Sneak Attack adds extra damage if you can attack an enemy while you have advantage from any means whether that’s through having allies near, attacking from hiding, or any other means of gaining advantage you may naturally have. For you, this is mainly going to be from Rakish Audacity or your two main ways of knocking enemies prone (Hill Giant Topple or Trip Attack) which should make this pretty easy to achieve.
The third ability, which is really just pure flavor, is Thieves’ Cant. This is like its own language that only other rogues or similarly nefarious individuals would know so you can speak in code and such.
The final ability is Weapon Mastery and you already have 3 so this may not be useful anymore, but if you find yourself using additional weapons, then this is good!
Level 7
Class: 5 Fighter 2 Rogue
Class Features: Cunning Action
Normally this is one of the best abilities for Rogues, this does contend with your extra attack from the Dual Wielder feat so it is a bit awkward. Is this bad? Of course not! Having additional options is never a bad thing so your bonus action can be used to get an extra attack, the Dash action, the Disengage action, or the Hide action! Competing action economy isn’t fun, but more options is never bad!
Level 8
Class: 5 Fighter 3 Rogue (Swashbuckler)
Class Features: Fancy Footwork, Rakish Audacity, Steady Aim
3 levels in Rogue brings your subclass, Swashbuckler, and two new features to the table – Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity.
Fancy Footwork gives you a piece of the mobile feat by stopping any creature who you attacked to hit you with an opportunity attack. This is good to dip in and out of a creature’s melee range which gives you a lot of versatility in how you want to approach combat.
Rakish Audacity is the Swashbuckler’s key feature that lets them get Sneak Attacks simply by having no allies around them and being 5 feet away from the enemy. While having advantage would obviously be beneficial to help connect, being able to get Sneak Attack in this way is very good and will make your Sneak Attacks super consistent. Furthermore, being able to get a bonus to initiative is obviously always nice, even if it’s minor.
Finally, you get Steady Aim which lets you give up your bonus action and movement for a turn in order to have advantage on your next attack. This is unlikely to be something you’re going to be using, but you have it.
Level 9
Class: 5 Fighter 4 Rogue
Feat: Dexterity to 20
Class Features: None
While you could look to grab more feats to 20 Dexterity, I like just pushing it to 20 now. You have enough other feats you’d be happy with that you can just enjoy having the best attacks possible now.
Level 10
Class: 5 Fighter 5 Rogue
Class Features: Cunning Strike, Uncanny Dodge, Sneak Attack to 3d6
This level brings two new features to the table with Cunning Strike and Uncanny Dodge.
Cunning Strike is an interesting ability that lets you trade in Sneak Attack damage dice for a small, but generally good additional effect. You start with three different options for your Cunning Strike – Poison, Trip, or Withdraw.
Poison can be solid, but Constitution saving throws are generally the easiest to save out of.
Trip is definitely solid if you have other martial allies and especially if they’re behind you in the turn order (which they will likely be).
Withdraw lets you reposition without drawing opportunity attacks so you don’t have to use your Cunning Action to disengage.
Overall, this ability is pretty good as you have versatile options that can all be impactful!
Uncanny Dodge lets you use your reaction to halve the damage of one incoming attack. Unfortunately, this is a pretty bad ability as multiattacks are going to become more common making the ability to halve just one of those attacks pretty forgettable. Furthermore, Defensive Duelist is going to be taking your reaction more often than not, but if you know that you have to take some damage on a turn, then this is here for you.
Level 11-15
Level 11
Class: 5 Fighter 6 Rogue
Class Features: Expertise
You get two more bouts of Expertise so you can put this on any skill you’re both proficient in and are using often.
Level 12
Class: 5 Fighter 7 Rogue
Class Features: Evasion, Reliable Talent
7 levels in Rogue brings two neat abilities with Evasion and Reliable Talent.
Evasion is a really solid ability that makes any effects that forces Dexterity based saving throws way worse against you as you naturally mitigate half of their effect and potentially the whole effect if you pass the save.
Reliable Talent is a cool ability that makes all rolls for skills you’re proficient in be a minimum of a 10, which means you have a much higher chance of passing skill checks with skills you are proficient in and you’ll very rarely fail checks involving skills you have Expertise in. Not super relevant for this build in particular, but I’m definitely not complaining.
Level 13
Class: 5 Fighter 8 Rogue
Feat: Defensive Duelist (DEX)
While this build doesn’t need more DEX, Defensive Duelist is too good of a feat to not grab at this point! As this build has little to do with their reaction (beyond Uncanny Dodge, but I do not like that ability unless you’re desperate), getting a functional Shield every turn that consumes zero resources is really powerful.
Level 14
Class: 5 Fighter 9 Rogue
Class Features: Panache
9 levels in Rogue brings your next subclass ability with Panache!
Panache is a strange ability that makes you an unparalleled smooth or smack talker. You can use your action and make a contested Persuasion/Insight roll in order to charm the target in one of two ways. If they’re hostile to you, they’ll have disadvantage on attacks not aimed at you for a minute or until an ally decides to hit them. If they’re neutral or friendly to you, they are charmed and regard you as a friendly acquaintance. This ability is definitely not strong enough to use in battle, but outside of battle this is a good way to persuade people to do things for you that a normal Persuasion roll may not have normally succeeded in. Not special for this build, but it’s a thing.
Level 15
Class: 5 Fighter 10 Rogue
Feat: Constitution to 18
Class Features: None
You get yet another feat and you may as well start buffing your Constitution for better health and saving throws!
Level 16-20
Level 16
Class: 5 Fighter 11 Rogue
Class Features: Improved Cunning Strike
11 levels in Rogue brings an improvement to your Cunning Strike! Now you can use two Cunning Strike features simultaneously, and while you still have to pay the associated costs, this is still a pretty solid ability!
Level 17
Class: 5 Fighter 12 Rogue
Feat: Constitution to 20
You get your final feat for this build, and once again, I would just bolster your Constitution. A little boring, but effective.
Level 18
Class: 5 Fighter 13 Rogue
Class Features: Elegant Maneuver
Your next subclass feature is Elegant Maneuver, which you can use your Bonus Action to gain advantage on Acrobatics or an Athletics check on your turn. I guess this is helpful when you really need to pass an Acrobatics roll, but this ability is extremely disappointing.
Level 19
Class: 6 Fighter 13 Rogue
Epic Boon: Boon of Combat Prowess (DEX)
Class Features: None
Going one more level in Fighter lets you take an Epic Boon, and for any martial character, you’re looking for the Boon of Combat Prowess! Being able to convert a miss into a hit is just way too good to ignore!
Level 20
Class: 6 Fighter 14 Rogue
Class Features: Devious Strikes
You get your final upgrades to your Cunning Strikes with Devious Strikes!
Like the original Cunning Strikes, you get three more options that have both higher costs and more powerful effects with Daze, Knock Out, and Obscure.
Daze can limit somewhat limit what an enemy does on their turn, but considering not many monsters have uses for their Bonus Action, this probably isn’t that good of a feature.
Knockout takes out most of your Sneak Attack dice, but you have a chance to render an enemy unconscious until it passes the save or takes damage. This ability could have been strong if they were stunned for a full turn cycle, but just one ally being able to take advantage of this makes this pretty bad.
Obscure is easily the best of these options as you can potentially blind an enemy which is a pretty brutal status condition.
Overall, this ability is not particularly great, but they can’t all be winners.
