Welcome back to the weekly D&D and Tabletop Gaming thread! Here’s a place where we can talk about Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop games that you nerds might be into. Tell us about the games you’re playing, speculate about future expansions, recruit your fellow Avocados into new groups, whatever you want.
This week we’re talking about the Scout Rogue. This is the archetype to use if you want to play a roguish character who’s more at home in the wilderness than in a city. 
If you want to play a Ranger, but none of the Ranger class options quite fit the concept of your character, there’s a good chance the Scout is what you’re looking for.
Starting at level 3, the Scout is both a Skirmisher and a Survivalist. The Skirmisher ability allows you to use a reaction to move up to half your speed without provoking opportunity attacks when an enemy ends their turn within 5 feet of you. The Survivalist ability grants you proficiency with the Nature and Survival skills, and lets you double your proficiency bonus for those skills.
When you reach level 9, you’ll have Superior Mobility, increasing your walking speed by 10 feet. Also, if you happen to have a swimming or climbing speed, the increase would apply to those speeds as well.
At level 13, you become an Ambush Master, giving you advantage on all initiative rolls. In addition, if you hit a creature with an attack during the first round of combat, that creature becomes easier for you and your allies to hit for a short time. All attack rolls against that creature have advantage until the start of your next turn. Note that this only affects the first creature you hit during that first round, so if you have multiple attacks, you can’t tag more than one enemy this way.
Finally, by the time you reach level 17, you know how to make a Sudden Strike that catches enemies off-guard even in the middle of combat. If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to make an additional attack. This additional attack can deal Sneak Attack damage, even if you’ve already used Sneak Attack on your turn, as long as your attacking a different target.
This week, we returned to the world of Eberron, where The Hayes Code is running a homebrew campaign for us. We’re playing as members of a traveling carnival, who are also known to do a little investigation or espionage work on the side.
[spoiler title=”Cast of Characters”]
- Tinka, the Warforged Battlesmith Artificer, who performs tricks with the mechanical animals she creates (The Wasp)
- Wind Over Sand, a Tabaxi Open Hand Monk and contortionist (Wafflicious)
- Clo Fullia, a Shifter Battle Master Fighter, a bearded lady who also has a tendency to shift into strange beasts (Otto)
- Tano Lyrimasyl, a blade-juggling Elven Bard of the College of Swords (TheCleverGuy)
- The Shill, a Changeling Trickery Cleric who works the crowd looking for easy marks for the rest of the carnies (Josephus Brown)
- Annabelle and Shirley Fredricks, conjoined twins, one of whom is a Human Divination Wizard (Spiny Creature)
[/spoiler]
[spoiler title=”A Visit to the Pixies”]
After returning to town, we spent some time in the morning attending to various needs. Clo sold off some of the treasures we’d obtained, while Shill and the twins purchased some costly spell components. The Shill couldn’t help themselves from messing with that gnomish jeweler again, taking an opportunity to send an illusory version of the halfling that allegedly robbed the store walking past the window while Annabelle and Shirley were shopping. Not much came of it, but I think Shill got a kick out of it anyway. In the meantime, I purchased some nice studded leather armor, for just a bit of extra protection for myself.
In the afternoon, some of the more performative members of our little troupe plied our trades in a park. I was able to gather a small crowd with my whistling daggers–I used my Mage Hand to do juggling tricks that are impossible with only two limbs. Annabelle performed some psychic readings for folks in the crowd, while Tinka sent Androcles around with a collections bin. In the end, we gathered up about 15 gp; not bad for an afternoon in a place like Arcanix.
We returned to the inn, now called the Checkered Chimp, as night fell. It was a quiet evening, except for a group of goblin merchants, who were busily chowing down on candied cockroaches at one table. Clo embarrassed one of the goblins in a game of darts, then bought a round of drinks for the house so there were no hard feelings. The goblins kept talking about bugs in the room, but we couldn’t see anything. Eventually Annabelle realized that there were some invisible pixies hanging around the bar, nipping unattended drinks. 
She asked the bartender for a few shots, and lined them up on the counter. Once she saw the level of the liquid go down, she used a Message to spell to strike up conversation with the pixie and get her and her friends to come out of hiding. They called themselves The Skimmer Gang, and after hearing about how we’d rescued their friend from that giant’s bag, they offered to give us a map to their village if we’d play some games with them first.
I noticed one of the gang had a pipe, so I challenged her to a competition to see which of could play better. I used a little bardic magic to give myself a boost, but I didn’t really need it. I was inspired. The pixie played well, too, of course, and I always try to bea supportive audience. After our individual performances, we played together, and Wind challenged another pixie to a dance-off. I’m not sure what possesses the twins to join in, though it was almost certainly Shirley’s idea. While Wind was graceful as ever, Annabelle used Mirror Image to make her and her sister’s dance more impressive, but immediately tripped over her own feet and collapsed, with the whole set of illusory copies collapsing at the same time. The pixies found this hilarious and provided us a map to their village in the Eldritch Woods.
With our business in Arcanix concluded, we decided to visit the pixies on our way to meet up with the Carnival in Passage. Following the pixie’s map, we eventually came to a bridge over a river and were stopped by a small troll–a troll that was quite obviously three tiny creatures under three separate illusion spells. The “troll” said we could cross the bridge if could answer a riddle, and we played along. The riddle was: “I am famed for having a lot of something I have little of. In hunting my greatest advantage is something I have nothing of. And if you ask me my identity I will only throw the question back at you. What am I?” Shill came up with the right answer,1 and the “troll” let us pass.
After a while we came to a second bridge, where a different “troll” appeared with another riddle. This time he said, “With my help you can build walls and make weapons, or raise an army of men that need neither food nor sleep. Though I herald a time of death, children are delighted to see me.” Annabelle had this answer,2 and we were on our way again.
Finally, we came to a third bridge, where a third riddle was printed on a sign next to a bell with a pull rope. The sign read, “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?” Clo yelled “DUNG” and rang the bell. 
An enormous angry troll came out of the bridge–it seems the Skimmer Gang had been teasing the troll all morning, calling him “Dung” repeatedly. Their trick with the riddle was the last straw. Seeing a fight coming, I cast Dissonant Whispers to make the Troll run away, but he came charging back and clawed me right away. Annabelle used Slow, and Wind stunned him with a blow from her staff. Clo and Tinka doused him with oil and grease, but the troll quickly begged for mercy before the Shill could actually set the oil alight. We felt bad for the poor troll and let him go.
After that, we made it to the pixies’ village. Those little things know how to throw a party. We ate, drank, and had a great time with the pixies for the night. Shill and I each manage to trade some of trinkets for a few doses of pixie dust. Next day, we set out to meet up with the carnival again…[/spoiler]
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