D&D 5E Mike Mearl's Rogue Acrobat

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
Oh, also, with the immunity to fall damage feature, you can totally abuse this for an extra 2d6 damage per round. Just jump the 15 feet straight up, end your movement in the air, and fall on your opponent. Twice. Or four times if you have that feature.

And you've just recreated the semi-obscure Marvel Comics villain, Batroc the Leaper!
 

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Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
He uses Bonus Actions quite a bit in Happy Fun Hour. He doesn't LIKE them as a design, and thinks he could do better, but still acknowledges that they're part of the game.

But, yeah, that wording is awful. Almost as if he wrote the entire thing live on the air over the course of a single hour and didn't stop to edit or revise and just got down the first phrasing he thought of.
That’s fair.

Mearls has walked back his distaste for bonus actions: his issue is with two-weapon fighting exclusively now, and how it interacts with class features such as Cunning Action or Rage.
And thank goodness! In that, I actually agree with him. TWF really shouldn’t cost a bonus action.

And you've just recreated the semi-obscure Marvel Comics villain, Batroc the Leaper!
Haha awesome!
 


Okay, let's look at this class with an eye for improving it and making make it tighter.

Aerial Artistry
Starting at 3rd level, you gain the ability to move with incredible speed, precision, and power. Few obstacles can prevent you from reaching your destination.
When you move, you can instead take two short movements by flying. Each movement is at half your speed, and you must end each one on a creature, solid object, or ground. If you do not, you fall and your movement ends.
The idea of this power is you can fly short distances. Mechanically, you fly but narratively you parkour up an otherwise unclimbable surface.
But, as noted, this doesn't work well when you CAN climb. While you can "fly" fifteen feet (half your movement), this also means you can't really jump farther than a Thief when you gain this subclass. And the Thief might actually be able to jump *farther* at higher levels. With just 12 Strength and a 20 Dex, the Thief can jump farther than you can fly; although the Acrobat has the advantage of not needing a running start...
The fix is easy: just give the Acrobat the climbing part of Second-Story Work as well. Aerial Artistry is neat by not game breaking, so you can pair the two easily enough.
Fearless Aerialist
Starting at 9th level, you no longer take damage from falling.
This is fine.
Unchained Agility
At 13th level, your agility, speed, and flexibility allow you to escape from almost any danger. You gain the benefits of freedom of movement.
This should probably just include the text of the abilities rather than giving the class a spell. But this was almost certainly a shorthand.
Aerial Mastery
At 17th level, your Aerial Artistry feature improves. When you move, you can instead take 4 short movements by flying.
Again, this is fine but kludge. It needs to be rewritten and rephrased.


If working on this for my own homebrew document or a player wanting this in my game I'd do this:

Aerial Artistry
When you adopt this archetype at 3rd level you gain the ability to move with incredible speed, precision, and power, letting few obstacles can prevent you from reaching your destination. Climbing no longer costs you extra Movement. Additionally, during your movement you can fly up to half your speed. You must end this movement on solid surface, such as a creature or the ground, otherwise your movement ends and you fall.
You can only use this feature twice per turn.

Alternatively, I'd phrase it as:
Aerial Artistry
When you adopt this archetype at 3rd level you gain the ability to move with incredible speed, precision, and power, letting few obstacles can prevent you from reaching your destination. Climbing no longer costs you extra Movement. In addition, twice per turn you can gain a fly speed up to half your speed, but must end this movement on solid surface, such as a creature or the ground, otherwise your movement ends and you fall.

Fearless Aerialist
Starting at 9th level, you no longer take damage from falling.
Unchained Agility
At 13th level, your agility, speed, and flexibility allow you to escape from almost any danger. Your movement is unaffected by nonmagical difficult terrain, and spells and other magical effects can't reduce your speed or cause you to be paralyzed or restrained. You can also spend 5 feet of movement to automatically escape from nonmagical restraints, such as manacles or a creature that has you grappled.
Aerial Mastery
At 17th level, your Aerial Artistry feature improves. You can use your Aerial Artistry up to four times each turn.
 


Hawk Diesel

Adventurer
[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] Aerial Artistry as you wrote it is much better, but still a bit clunky. How about this?

Aerial Artistry
When you adopt this archetype at 3rd level you gain the ability to move with incredible speed, precision, and power, letting few obstacles prevent you from reaching your destination. Climbing no linger costs you extra movement. Additionally, you gain a fly speed equal to your walking speed. When using your movement to fly, you can fly no more than 15ft. When you end your flight or reach a distance of 15ft, you must land on a solid surface, such as a creature or the ground, otherwise your movement ends and you fall. Regardless of your total movement speed, you can attempt to fly with this feature no more than twice per turn.

I assume the next tier is then worded to allow this feature not just with a base move action, but also using dash and/or extra movement speed granted by race or class features. Personally, I would not put a limit on the number of "steps."

Aerial Mastery
At 17th level, your Aerial Artistry feature improves. There is no limit to the number of times you can use Aerial Artistry in a turn. However, you are still limited to your total movement speed and must land on a solid surface at least once per every 15ft of movement used, otherwise you fall and your movement immediately ends.
 

@Jester David Aerial Artistry as you wrote it is much better, but still a bit clunky. How about this?

Aerial Artistry
When you adopt this archetype at 3rd level you gain the ability to move with incredible speed, precision, and power, letting few obstacles prevent you from reaching your destination. Climbing no linger costs you extra movement. Additionally, you gain a fly speed equal to your walking speed. When using your movement to fly, you can fly no more than 15ft. When you end your flight or reach a distance of 15ft, you must land on a solid surface, such as a creature or the ground, otherwise your movement ends and you fall. Regardless of your total movement speed, you can attempt to fly with this feature no more than twice per turn.

I assume the next tier is then worded to allow this feature not just with a base move action, but also using dash and/or extra movement speed granted by race or class features. Personally, I would not put a limit on the number of "steps."

Aerial Mastery
At 17th level, your Aerial Artistry feature improves. There is no limit to the number of times you can use Aerial Artistry in a turn. However, you are still limited to your total movement speed and must land on a solid surface at least once per every 15ft of movement used, otherwise you fall and your movement immediately ends.

I considered phrasing it somewhat like that but didn’t.
Flying speed equal to your full speed but only usable in fifteen foot increments. But that seemed potentially confusing, and weird having a 30 foot fly speed that you can only use in 15 foot increments. (Edit: espcially when you can Dash as a bonus action.)
And I didn’t want to specify the exact number of the movement as halfling would have less movement. And multiclassing into monk would increase their speed...

But, yeah, it’s still imperfect.
 
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Yeah. It might work better just to be able to make standing jumps of five feet and/or increase the charcater jump in general.
Perhaps just Second-Story Work paired with ignoring difficult terrain and maybe even a speed boost.
Adding a balancing aspect and tightrope walking would be cool as well. But then I’m redesigning the subclass rather than just tightening the phrasing.
 

Elon Tusk

Explorer
This was a version I made a year or so ago. I wasn't completely happy with it and stopped working on once Mearl's mentioned he was going to do one.

https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1LHSLjGz

Screen Shot 2018-12-21 at 5.39.05 PM.png
 

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