The Charlatan-Another new base class

[Ismaul]

Looks underpowered now, depending on how trick is constructed. IMO, it's a bad idea to give a fighting character a 1/2 BAB. He's a melee fighter right now, so it would be much better IMO to cut on abilities than on BAB.

Here's a suggestion. Instead of sneak attack and feinting, why not grant him a variant impromptu sneak attack ability (arcane trickster). Its an automatic sneak attack, which kind of fits better than feinting (or not, depending on your ideas). There's a couple of ways you could do that.

• You could follow the rogue's sneak attack progression, but instead of granting +1d6 SA each time, you alternate between SA +1d6 and Impromptu SA +1/day.
• You could follow the rogue's sneak attack progression, but replace sneak attack with a modified version of impromptu sneak attack, see here:

[b]Level	Special[/b]
1	Impromptu SA 1/day (+1d6)
3	Impromptu SA 2/day
5	Impromptu SA 3/day (+2d6)
7	Impromptu SA 4/day
9	Impromptu SA 5/day (+3d6)
11	Impromptu SA 6/day
13	Impromptu SA 7/day (+4d6)
15	Impromptu SA 8/day
17	Impromptu SA 9/day (+5d6)
19	Impromptu SA 10/day

So, he will only be able to sneak attack a certain number of times per day with the listed damage. I don't know if 10/day is too much, so maybe you could reduce the progression to 5/day. This option is less powerful than standard sneak attack, so it leaves place to a 3/4 BAB and lots of abilities. Maybe 1/day at start is too less, so you could up that a bit. Or, you could up the benefit of the ability, giving the standard SA damage. Here:

[b]Level	Special[/b]
1	Impromptu SA 1/day (+1d6)
3	Impromptu SA 1/day (+2d6)
5	Impromptu SA 2/day (+3d6)
7	Impromptu SA 2/day (+4d6)
9	Impromptu SA 3/day (+5d6)
11	Impromptu SA 3/day (+6d6)
13	Impromptu SA 4/day (+7d6)
15	Impromptu SA 4/day (+8d6)
17	Impromptu SA 5/day (+9d6)
19	Impromptu SA 5/day (+10d6)

This is better than the first table IMO.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Looks underpowered now, depending on how trick is constructed. IMO, it's a bad idea to give a fighting character a 1/2 BAB. He's a melee fighter right now, so it would be much better IMO to cut on abilities than on BAB.

Well, I'm still on the borderline about the BAB. Tricks I plan on making equivalent to fairly low-level, single-target spells, except at will with scaling DC (balance-wise, this is conceptually similar to the warlock but less powerful). Temporary status effects, penalties to the target's rolls, maybe other things.

Here's a suggestion. Instead of sneak attack and feinting, why not grant him a variant impromptu sneak attack ability (arcane trickster).

Well for one thing, I'm not a big fan of daily usage limits. Once he runs out of them he's really sunk-it's sort of all or nothing. This character needs to be able to stab people good whenever he can get them off their guard.
For another, I like feinting, and it gives him a reason to load up on charisma. Also, feinting reduces most enemies' AC, awfully important since even with 3/4 the charlatan doesn't have that great of an attack bonus (especially since his best two scores probably go to int and cha, which don't help attack rolls). And feinting is pretty weak in the core rules, so I want to make feint as a maneuver more viable, to the sort of character that should be doing it.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Updated with a sizable allotment of tricks. It's a completely different class. Better?