Rogue Redux

[JNAProductions]

HIT POINTS
Hit Dice: 1d8
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8+Constitution Modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (5)+Constitution Modifier

PROFICIENCIES
Armor: Light Armor
Weapons: All Simple Weapons, Hand Crossbows, Rapiers, Scimitars, Shortswords, Whips
Tools: Thieves' Tools

Saving Throws: Dexterity and Intelligence
Skills: Choose four from Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Perception, Performance, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth

EQUIPMENT
You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:
-Any two weapons you have proficiency with. If the weapon uses ammo, it comes with 20 pieces of ammo. If the weapon is thrown, it comes with two additional copies.
-Any simple weapon
-Any one pack
-Leather Armor, two Daggers, and Thieves' Tools

Rogue Redux

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Features	Trick Dice
1st	+2	Expertise, Reliable Talent	---
2nd	+2	Cunning Action, Dirty Fighting	1d4
3rd	+2	Roguish Archetype	1d4
4th	+2	Ability Score Improvement	1d4
5th	+3	Uncanny Dodge, Reliable Talent Improvement	2d6
6th	+3	Expertise, Archetype Feature	2d6
7th	+3	Evasion	2d6
8th	+3	Ability Score Improvement	3d6
9th	+4	Archetype Feature	3d6
10th	+4	Elusive	3d6
11th	+4	Reliable Talent Improvement, Improved Dirty Fighting	4d8
12th	+4	Ability Score Improvement	4d8
13th	+5	Archetype Feature	4d8
14th	+5	Blindsight	5d8
15th	+5	Slippery Mind	5d8
16th	+5	Ability Score Improvement	5d8
17th	+6	Archetype Feature, Reliable Talent Improvement	6d10
18th	+6	Elusive Improvement	6d10
19th	+6	Ability Score Improvement	6d10
20th	+6	Stroke Of Luck	7d10

Expertise
At levels one and six, a Rogue selects two skills and/or tools they have proficiency in. When making checks with that skill or tool, their proficiency bonus is doubled.

Reliable Talent
Also at level one, a Rogue has begun to master their skills to an uncanny degree. Whenever they make an ability check that adds at least their full proficiency bonus⁽¹⁾, the Rogue treats any result of 5 or less on the d20 as a 6 instead.
At level five, this increases to a minimum result on-die of 9.
At level eleven, this increases to a minimum result on-die of 12.
At level seventeen, this increases to a minimum result on-die of 15.

Spoiler: (1)

Show

This is to prevent it from combining with Jack Of All Trades or any other feature that gives HALF proficiency.
Gotta be at least fully proficient to use it!

Cunning Action
At level two, a Rogue is quick and nimble on their feet. They may use Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a bonus action.

Dirty Fighting
Also at level two, a Rogue learns to fight with dirty tricks, gaining a 1d4 Trick Die. Whenever the Rogue takes the Attack action, they may add their Trick Dice to the Attack. Before rolling to-hit, the Rogue must choose how to allocate their dice-their normal weapon attack is treated as equivalent to one Trick Die, and each Trick Die may be used in a separate attack. Only the one attack adds the Rogue's ability score modifier and any other static numbers to damage, as chosen by the Rogue.
Whenever the Rogue hits with a weapon or unarmed attack, they may reduce the damage dealt by the indicated amount to inflict the condition on a failed save. The save's DC is equal to 8+the attack modifier used for the attack. If the condition has a duration longer than until the end of the Rogue's next turn, the target may repeat the save at the end of each of their turns to shake the condition off. Only one condition may be inflicted per attack.

Blinded-10 damage, Constitution save, lasts one minute.
Deafened-4 damage, Constitution save, lasts one minute.
Frightened of the Rogue-8 damage, Wisdom save, lasts one minute.
Incapacitated-14 damage, Constitution save, lasts until the end of the Rogue's next turn.
Prone-4 damage, Strength save, instantaneous.
Stunned-18 damage, Constitution save, lasts until the end of the Rogue's next turn.

As the Rogue gains more levels, they gain more Trick Dice as indicated on the table.

Spoiler: In-Play Example

Show

A 5th-level Rogue with 18 Dexterity is wielding a +1 Rapier. They have 2d6 Trick Dice.
When using the Attack action, they may choose to make up to three attack rolls-one using 1d8 from their Rapier, each other one only dealing 1d6 damage from their Trick Dice. Any one of these attacks may add +5 to the damage roll from the Rogue's Dexterity modifier and the +1 bonus of the Rapier.

The Rogue chooses to make three attacks, adding their static bonuses to the Rapier's 1d8. Each attack hits.
The Rapier attack deals 1d8+5 damage.
Each other attack deals 1d6 damage.

In this instance, the Rogue hits with all three attacks, and deals 9, 4, and 2 damage respectively.
The Rogue can deal up to 15 damage, if they choose to force no saves.
The Rogue could also, if they reduce the first hit by 8 damage to 1, force the target to make a Wisdom save or become Frightened of the Rogue.

At level eleven, this ability improves. You may add your static damage modifiers to up to two attacks, and when making an Attack of Opportunity, you may add up to half your Trick Dice to the damage roll. However, you cannot split your attacks between dice when making an Attack of Opportunity.

Roguish Archetype
At levels three, six, nine, thirteen, and seventeen, gain an Archetype feature.

Ability Score Improvements
Usual levels, usual deal. No bonus ASI anymore.

Uncanny Dodge
At level five, when the Rogue is struck by an attack from a source that was not hidden from them, they may use their reaction to halve the damage.

Evasion
At level seven, whenever the Rogue is forced to make a Dexterity save for half damage, you take half damage on a failure and no damage on a success.

Elusive
At level ten, attacks against you cannot roll with Advantage unless you are Incapacitated.
At level eighteen, provided you are not incapacitated, all attacks against you are made with Disadvantage.

Blindsight
At level fourteen, the Rogue gains Blindsight out to 30'.

Slippery Mind
At level fifteen, the Rogue gains proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma saves.

Stroke Of Luck
At level twenty, the Rogue may make the final result of any d20 they roll become a 20. They may do this once, and regain the ability to do so upon completing a short or long rest.

---

Mastermind

Master Of Intrigue
At level three, you gain proficiency in any five tools and/or languages of your choice. You also gain two additional Expertise choices that must be tools.

Master Of Tactics
Also at level three, you may use Cunning Action to take the Help action, and may take the Help action from up to 30' away, provided your ally can see and/or hear you.
Finally, when you Help an ally to attack, they gain a bonus equal to your proficiency bonus to their attack roll.

Soul Of Deceit
At level six, you can present false thoughts to spells and abilities such as Detect Thoughts by using a contested Charisma (Deception) check as opposed by the user's Wisdom (Insight).
Additionally, no matter what you say, you can decide that magic that would tell the user if you are lying reads as you telling the truth. This also extends to things like Zone Of Truth registering a successful save-you may have it indicate you failed even if you actually passed.

Misdirection
At level nine, you may use your reaction to redirect an attack against you. When you do so, you force the attacker to make a Charisma save against a DC of 8+your proficiency modifier+your Dexterity modifier. On a failure, you can redirect the attack to another creature who is both within 30' of you and within range of the attack. If you can benefit from Cover from the new target, the attacker makes their save with Disadvantage.

Mass Aid
At level thirteen, when you take the Help action, you can Help a number of creatures up to your proficiency bonus.

Supreme Strategy
At level seventeen, when you take the Help action to aid with an attack, that creature may attempt to inflict a single condition, as if they possessed the Dirty Fighting feature.

---

Semi-WIP. It's playable (or at least, should be) but only has one subclass.
A few notes:
1) Dirty Fighting is probably confusing. Please ask questions to help me give clarity.
2) I did NOT crunch the numbers on damage. It's past midnight, so math brain be tired. But if the numbers are out of whack, lemme know and I can adjust.

[Kane0]

Yeah dirty fighting is a bit confusing, and potentially fairly fiddly looking at damage numbers and potential interactions elsewhere (can i use hunters mark to get an additional attack? Does that additional attack gain the hunters mark bonus damage?). It seems to me that if you took a really basic form of sneak attack (once per turn deal bonus damage dice) and layered in the ability to sacrifice some dice to do those conditions like the recent UAs have done you could achieve much the same effect, especially if one of those sacrifices were say losing two or three dice to make another attack if your first missed.

[Illven]

Where arcane trickster.

[Yakk]

Baseline damage would be a sword+duelist fighter with 5 rounds of fighting per short rest. Accuracy is similar, so we'll ignore it.

1: 9.5/round
2: 11.4/round
4: 12.6/round
5: 25.2/round
6: 27.6/round
11: 41.4/round
17: 48.3/round
20: 64.4/round

Now, this isn't super-smooth. Damage per round is Level * [2 to 4] + 7 - so we at least get a ballpark, or Level * 2 + [7-25]

The traditional rogue get advantage as a bonus action, or makes 2 attacks and deals almost all of its damage with bonus damage dice. Ignoring that accuracy improvement, the rogue's damage output is:
1: 10
5: 18
11: 29.5
17: 40
20: 43.5

The 5e rogue, honesty, has a scaling problem. Its damage is Level * 2 + [3 to 8] - at the lowest point it catches up to the sword and board fighter, but it falls behind further and further, and at any special level (5, 11, 17, 20) it is blown out of the water.

Your level 1 class has no offensive boost over a "commoner with a stick". I mean, you get rapier proficiency.

You can argue this is ok, because "the fighter only fights". (The L 20 fighter also has 65 more HP/short rest, a (possibly enchanted) shield's worth of extra AC, and indomitable).

...

Your rogue...

Dirty Fighting looks like it might reduce to "enemy, please make 6 save or suck rolls". Forcing a creature to do more than 1 save on a turn was a design mistake on the monk, and it is repeated here. The mistake comes from both pacing and balance issues (if the saves matter, that is too much oomph; if they don't, it is a waste of table time).

Damage wise:
L1: 6.5
L2: 9
L5: 14.5
L8: 19
L11: 26.5
L14: 31.0
L17: 41.5
L20: 47

1: 10
5: 18
11: 29.5
17: 40
20: 43.5

Subtracting 2 times your level and comparing with baseline 5e rogue:
L1: 4.5 vs 8
L2: 7 vs 8
L5: 12.5 vs 8
L8: 3 vs 6.5
L11: 4.5 vs 7.5
L14: 3 vs 5
L17: 7.5 vs 6
L20: 7 vs 3.5

Your level 1 damage is quite low, but otherwise you are roughly on track. A bit lower than the baseline rogue, except at level 5.

Your system does require a PILE of attacks. Which matches the "flurry of blows" light fighter archtype.

At level eighteen, provided you are not incapacitated, all attacks against you are made with Disadvantage.

I'd change this to "at level eighteen, you ignore all sources of disadvantage on saving throws, ability checks and saving throws".

It is an offensive ability instead of a defensive one.

Reliable Talent

I'd be very tempted to not make this a step based ability. "When you add your full proficiency to a d20 roll, treat any d20 roll you make lower than 5 plus 1/2 of your Rogue class level before modifiers as equal to 5 plus 1/2 of your Rogue class level before modifiers".

It unclutters your table.

You can even add abilities that key off this number. Have it apply to someone else, disrupt attacks whose roles are under it, etc.

[JNAProductions]

Yeah dirty fighting is a bit confusing, and potentially fairly fiddly looking at damage numbers and potential interactions elsewhere (can i use hunters mark to get an additional attack? Does that additional attack gain the hunters mark bonus damage?). It seems to me that if you took a really basic form of sneak attack (once per turn deal bonus damage dice) and layered in the ability to sacrifice some dice to do those conditions like the recent UAs have done you could achieve much the same effect, especially if one of those sacrifices were say losing two or three dice to make another attack if your first missed.

The idea behind Dirty Fighting is to let you make a large number of comparatively weak attacks, with the option of inflicting conditions based on damage.
Hunter's Mark would be added to the base weapon damage, so cannot be split off. I do get that that's not that clear, though.

Baseline damage would be a sword+duelist fighter with 5 rounds of fighting per short rest. Accuracy is similar, so we'll ignore it.

1: 9.5/round
2: 11.4/round
4: 12.6/round
5: 25.2/round
6: 27.6/round
11: 41.4/round
17: 48.3/round
20: 64.4/round

Now, this isn't super-smooth. Damage per round is Level * [2 to 4] + 7 - so we at least get a ballpark, or Level * 2 + [7-25]

The traditional rogue get advantage as a bonus action, or makes 2 attacks and deals almost all of its damage with bonus damage dice. Ignoring that accuracy improvement, the rogue's damage output is:
1: 10
5: 18
11: 29.5
17: 40
20: 43.5

The 5e rogue, honesty, has a scaling problem. Its damage is Level * 2 + [3 to 8] - at the lowest point it catches up to the sword and board fighter, but it falls behind further and further, and at any special level (5, 11, 17, 20) it is blown out of the water.

Your level 1 class has no offensive boost over a "commoner with a stick". I mean, you get rapier proficiency.

You can argue this is ok, because "the fighter only fights". (The L 20 fighter also has 65 more HP/short rest, a (possibly enchanted) shield's worth of extra AC, and indomitable).

...

Your rogue...

Dirty Fighting looks like it might reduce to "enemy, please make 6 save or suck rolls". Forcing a creature to do more than 1 save on a turn was a design mistake on the monk, and it is repeated here. The mistake comes from both pacing and balance issues (if the saves matter, that is too much oomph; if they don't, it is a waste of table time).

Damage wise:
L1: 6.5
L2: 9
L5: 14.5
L8: 19
L11: 26.5
L14: 31.0
L17: 41.5
L20: 47

1: 10
5: 18
11: 29.5
17: 40
20: 43.5

Subtracting 2 times your level and comparing with baseline 5e rogue:
L1: 4.5 vs 8
L2: 7 vs 8
L5: 12.5 vs 8
L8: 3 vs 6.5
L11: 4.5 vs 7.5
L14: 3 vs 5
L17: 7.5 vs 6
L20: 7 vs 3.5

Your level 1 damage is quite low, but otherwise you are roughly on track. A bit lower than the baseline rogue, except at level 5.

Your system does require a PILE of attacks. Which matches the "flurry of blows" light fighter archtype.


I'd change this to "at level eighteen, you ignore all sources of disadvantage on saving throws, ability checks and saving throws".

It is an offensive ability instead of a defensive one.



I'd be very tempted to not make this a step based ability. "When you add your full proficiency to a d20 roll, treat any d20 roll you make lower than 5 plus 1/2 of your Rogue class level before modifiers as equal to 5 plus 1/2 of your Rogue class level before modifiers".

It unclutters your table.

You can even add abilities that key off this number. Have it apply to someone else, disrupt attacks whose roles are under it, etc.

I'm not super worried about level one-it lasts approximately five minutes. Tier One as a whole has some staying power, but you obviously pick up Dirty Fighting at level two.

Agreed on the "Many saves can be problematic," issue, but I'm not entirely sure how to fix that without ditching Dirty Fighting entirely-and Dirty Fighting is the big combat change here.

I'd prefer to keep Elusive as I have it written.

I don't think an additional RT every tier makes the table super cluttered.
Where do you think it might be appropriate to add other RT-based abilities?

[Catullus64]

Dirty Fighting, which seems like the main thrust of this rework, is exceedingly complicated, and the language describing its use is fairly unclear. Assuming I understand it right, here's the language I would use, which is both clearer and more in line with how other features are usually described:

"At 2nd level, you learn to fight with dirty tricks. You gain a single Trick Die, which is a d4. Your Trick Dice improve as you level up; consult the Trick Dice column in the Rogue Table to see how many and what kind of Trick Dice you have.

When you take the Attack action, you may make a number of additional attacks, one for each Trick Die. These extra attacks deal damage equal to one of your Trick Dice. Only one of your attacks each turn adds your ability score modifier to damage (you choose which)."

The other parts of Dirty Fighting really ought to be separated out into separate features; the various condition effects seem effectively disconnected from the Trick Dice. I would rename the 2nd-level feature to Trick Attack, and have a separate feature called Dirty Fighting that allows you to inflict conditions. The Level 11 improvement should also be a separate line-item.

That's just regarding clarity and readability. Regarding my actual thoughts on these mechanics, I like them overall, but think there could be some improvement. As a matter of playability, making seven or eight attacks every round at high levels sounds very dull; even making 4-5 attacks at mid-level sounds a little tedious.

One thing I'm unsure about is the damage numbers which you need to sacrifice for conditions. 4-10 damage seems fine, but 14-18? A Rogue who maxes Dexterity and has a +3 weapon is dealing 9-16 per hit, and a +3 weapon is far from guaranteed. Many Rogues will never be dealing enough damage per hit to use those features, and Trick Dice are no help since, as I understand it, the conditions have to sacrifice damage from a single attack, and Trick Dice are separate attacks. Some of these conditions are also, in my opinion, way too strong to be inflicted at-will, at least at lower levels.

My revised version would look something like this:

Cheap Shot

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack, you may forego dealing damage with the attack to instead inflict one of the following conditions on the target. The DC for any save against one of these effects is 8 + your Dexterity modifier + your Proficiency Bonus. You may also use this feature on an attack granted by your Trick Dice, in which case the DC is 8 + the number rolled on the die. You gain new options for this feature as you level up.

2nd Level:

Hamstring: The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be knocked Prone.
Ear Cuff: The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be Deafened for up to one minute. The target may repeat the save at the start of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Disarm: The target must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or drop one object it is holding (you choose which).

5th Level:

Envenom: The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be Poisoned until the end of its next turn.
Mind Games The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be Frightened of you until the end of its next turn.

9th Level:

Gouge: The target must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or be Blinded for up to one minute. The target may repeat the save at the start of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.
Nerve Strike: The target must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be Incapacitated until the end of its next turn.

[JNAProductions]

You can add Trick Dice to any given attack.

So, at level nine with a Rapier and 20 Dex, you can make a single attack of 1d8+5+3d6 damage, or four attacks as described above, or two attacks, splitting the dice however you see fit.

[Catullus64]

You can add Trick Dice to any given attack.

So, at level nine with a Rapier and 20 Dex, you can make a single attack of 1d8+5+3d6 damage, or four attacks as described above, or two attacks, splitting the dice however you see fit.

That helps a little with the conditions, but is not at all clear from the existing language. I think this set of features needs a ground-up rewording.

As a matter of personal taste, I don't like it as much as Sneak Attack; it feels less dynamic. Sneak Attack incentivizes coordinating positioning with other melee allies, and seeking out sources of advantage. It's not especially difficult for an experienced player to get consistent Sneak Attacks, but it rewards thinking about allies and the environment, and it especially incentivizes the class's hallmark activity, sneaking. It's a good fit for the fantasy of the tricksy fighter, because what the player is doing mentally (looking for advantage and flanking opportunities) maps closely onto what the character is doing physically (using clever tricks to gain the upper hand.)

By contrast, Dirty Fighting is a very automatic feature; though the ability to allocate dice between a single attack and and multiple attacks is nifty, the decision-making process of doing so is pretty isolated from the context of an encounter. You can duel an Ogre head-on with no tricks, and your damage output in that fight will be unaffected. The element of cunning has been abstracted away into the dice.

What if, rather than being something you have automatically, Trick Dice had to be contextually earned? Maybe you always have some base number of dice (1d6 at Levels 1-4, up to 5d6 at Levels 17-20, just for one paradigm). You then also get +1 die for every non-incapacitated ally within 5 feet of the target, +1 die for every source of advantage, -1 die for every source of disadvantage, down to 0 dice. That keeps the flexibility, but now rewards creative thinking.

[Kane0]

Dirty Fighting: 1 Die by default, max amount of dice you can gain is prof bonus. If you have advantage, you gain an extra die.
Tier 1: For each additional hostile threatening your target, you gain an extra die
Tier 2: You can use your bonus action to add an extra die
Tier 3: You gain a second die by default

Assassin: If you act before the target in initiative, you gain an extra die
Thief: If you used your cunning action to Hide successfully, you gain an extra die
Scout: If you move at least half your speed before attacking on your turn, you gain an extra die
Swashbuckler: If you are the only creature threatening the target in melee, you gain an extra die
Soulknife: If you hit with your psychic blade, you gain an extra die

etc, etc, etc

And instead of trading damage dealt for a condition (I suggest once per turn), trade a number of dice (speeding up math-time).