D&D 5E The Thug, A Subclass for Strength Rogues

I've updated the class.

[sblock=Thug]
Bonus Proficiency
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor.

Dirty Work
Starting at 3rd level, you have advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple or shove creatures that are surprised.
In addition, you can use any weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or heavy property with your attack roll to use your Sneak Attack. All the other rules for the Sneak Attack class feature still apply to you.

Coercive Presence
At 9th level, you can use your menacing demeanor to browbeat others into submission. As an action, you can make a Charisma (Intimidation) check contested by an adjacent creature's Wisdom (Insight) check. The creature must be able to hear you, and the two of you must share a language. If you succeed on the check, the creature becomes frightened for 1 minute. This effect ends if you take damage, if you become incapacitated, frightened, or restrained, or if you and the target are more than 30 feet apart. While frightened, your allies have advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature. If the creature's Wisdom (Insight) check is successful or if the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to this feature for the next 24 hours.

Manhandler
By 13th level, you have become adept at leveraging your strength against your enemies. When you successfully grapple a creature using two free hands, you can drag or carry the grappled creature at full speed rather than half, and the grappled creature can’t speak and can’t cast spells that include a verbal component.
In addition, when you successfully shove a creature, you can knock the target prone and push it up to 10 feet away from you.

Cheap Shot
When you reach 17th level, you've honed your ability to strike when the opportunity presents itself. When you use your action to grapple or shove a creature, you can use your bonus action to make a weapon attack against that creature.[/sblock]

Things I'd like to add but am unsure about:

- adding unarmed strike for Sneak Attack (ie eye gouging, fish hooking, headbutting), would work great (too great?) with grappling.
- a version of the Mastermind's 13th lvl feature Misdirection, "use a reaction to force an attack to target the creature you're grappling with instead of you". Idea stemmed from [MENTION=55816]Larrin[/MENTION]'s input.
- Delete Dirty Work's advantage on grapple/shove checks (with expertise & reliable talent, adv. is just overkill) and replace with Cheap Shot. Too powerful at 3rd level?


Things I thought about:
- [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s reaction v. prone, but thought 1) it requires teammates, limited use when no one else can prone for you, 2) if teammates can prone for you, theoretically limitless source of off-turn reaction sneak attacks (two sneak attacks per round) is more powerful than comparable features (Thief's Reflexes, Death Strike).
- [MENTION=57494]Xeviat[/MENTION] [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] , I have no issue with the mechanical balance of Sneak Attacking with any weapon. Personally I just prefer the image of thugs using one-handed weapons; grab enemy with one hand, shank/bash with the other. I left versatile in mostly because of wording issues, and justified it to myself with baseballs bats (versatile quarterstaves) seeming thematic.

clutchbone said:

I've updated the class.

[sblock=Thug]
Bonus Proficiency
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor.

Dirty Work
Starting at 3rd level, you have advantage on Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple or shove creatures that are surprised.
In addition, you can use any weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or heavy property with your attack roll to use your Sneak Attack. All the other rules for the Sneak Attack class feature still apply to you.

Coercive Presence
At 9th level, you can use your menacing demeanor to browbeat others into submission. As an action, you can make a Charisma (Intimidation) check contested by an adjacent creature's Wisdom (Insight) check. The creature must be able to hear you, and the two of you must share a language. If you succeed on the check, the creature becomes frightened for 1 minute. This effect ends if you take damage, if you become incapacitated, frightened, or restrained, or if you and the target are more than 30 feet apart. While frightened, your allies have advantage on any ability check to interact socially with the creature. If the creature's Wisdom (Insight) check is successful or if the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to this feature for the next 24 hours.

Manhandler
By 13th level, you have become adept at leveraging your strength against your enemies. When you successfully grapple a creature using two free hands, you can drag or carry the grappled creature at full speed rather than half, and the grappled creature can’t speak and can’t cast spells that include a verbal component.
In addition, when you successfully shove a creature, you can knock the target prone and push it up to 10 feet away from you.

Click to expand...

I'd restrict somatic instead of verbal components myself.

clutchbone said:

Cheap Shot
When you reach 17th level, you've honed your ability to strike when the opportunity presents itself. When you use your action to grapple or shove a creature, you can use your bonus action to make a weapon attack against that creature.[/sblock]

Things I'd like to add but am unsure about:

- adding unarmed strike for Sneak Attack (ie eye gouging, fish hooking, headbutting), would work great (too great?) with grappling.
- a version of the Mastermind's 13th lvl feature Misdirection, "use a reaction to force an attack to target the creature you're grappling with instead of you". Idea stemmed from [MENTION=55816]Larrin[/MENTION]'s input.
- Delete Dirty Work's advantage on grapple/shove checks (with expertise & reliable talent, adv. is just overkill) and replace with Cheap Shot. Too powerful at 3rd level?

Click to expand...

Sneak Attack for unarmed strike? I get the idea, but it feels like the extra SA damage would be too much for an unarmed strike. Not from a balance, but a believability standpoint. Yes, I get that you can kill somebody with a single punch, so I'd have to think it through.

The "use a reaction to force an attack to target the grappled creature" is a cool idea. Basically using the grappled creature as a shield. I have a similar maneuver, but this is elegant. I like it.

Remember, my version was written for a fighter with no expertise. But that certainly makes sense for a rogue. Instead I might allow it as a bonus action.

clutchbone said:

Things I thought about:
- [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s reaction v. prone, but thought 1) it requires teammates, limited use when no one else can prone for you, 2) if teammates can prone for you, theoretically limitless source of off-turn reaction sneak attacks (two sneak attacks per round) is more powerful than comparable features (Thief's Reflexes, Death Strike).
- [MENTION=57494]Xeviat[/MENTION] [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION] , I have no issue with the mechanical balance of Sneak Attacking with any weapon. Personally I just prefer the image of thugs using one-handed weapons; grab enemy with one hand, shank/bash with the other. I left versatile in mostly because of wording issues, and justified it to myself with baseballs bats (versatile quarterstaves) seeming thematic.

Click to expand...

The original intention was for you to leverage your Dirty Work to knock the creature prone, thus getting an extra attack with advantage. Again, this was written as a fighter for my campaign. For a rogue, you could state, "When you knock somebody prone" which would remove the opportunity for a double sneak attack, but allow you to set up conditions for a sneak attack alone (advantage against a prone creature), and make it more likely you'd hit (although that might be less important by 17th level).

Generally good. I still don't like "you can use any weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or heavy property with your attack roll to use your Sneak Attack."

Most rouges won't be proficient in the weapons this includes, and the inclusion of warhammer/battle axe/longsword versatile weapons seems off for the ability.

My preference still, instead of "any weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or heavy property", is for "simple weapons" or "simple weapons and unarmed strike" or (if you must) "rogue weapons" (and so including longsword). I don't want "any weapon in which you are proficient" since that encourages a 1-level dip in fighter. This gives you the (cool) bludgeoning weapons, and thuggish use of clubs, q'staff, even spear in a way that doesn't break things.

Otherwise, really fun.

That is about what I would expect from a roguebased thug.

Kobold Stew said:

Generally good. I still don't like "you can use any weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or heavy property with your attack roll to use your Sneak Attack."

Most rouges won't be proficient in the weapons this includes, and the inclusion of warhammer/battle axe/longsword versatile weapons seems off for the ability.

My preference still, instead of "any weapon that doesn't have the two-handed or heavy property", is for "simple weapons" or "simple weapons and unarmed strike" or (if you must) "rogue weapons" (and so including longsword). I don't want "any weapon in which you are proficient" since that encourages a 1-level dip in fighter. This gives you the (cool) bludgeoning weapons, and thuggish use of clubs, q'staff, even spear in a way that doesn't break things.

Otherwise, really fun.

Click to expand...

Y'know, I think I agree. Three things were driving my initial wording; wanting to exclude greatclubs (for image reasons), wanting to include longswords (it's such a tease having proficiency there and not being able to SA with it), and wanting to include more one-handed d8 options to compete with rapiers. But I just noticed that lances are neither two-handed nor heavy. I certainly don't want a multiclass thug/fighter sneak attacking with one of those!

Ah well. I'll work on the wording, and decide between "simple weapons" and "simple weapons & longswords". Versatile longswords would be the obvious best melee option with d10 damage, but with no hands free you're sacrificing your subclass grapple buffs, so it's probably okay.

Ilbranteloth said:

I'd restrict somatic instead of verbal components myself.

Sneak Attack for unarmed strike? I get the idea, but it feels like the extra SA damage would be too much for an unarmed strike. Not from a balance, but a believability standpoint. Yes, I get that you can kill somebody with a single punch, so I'd have to think it through.
.

Click to expand...

I'd need the Restrained condition to justify restricting somatic components to myself, and that goes against my goal of not making existing features obsolete (ie Grappler feat). For verbal components, it's just clamping your second hand over their mouth. Originally I just wanted a feature that would prevent the target from shouting out after being grabbed and I realized that preventing verbal components would be a natural side effect so I codified it to prevent rules arguments.

Yeah, unarmed strike doesn't work, you're right. At high levels the thug would be punching clean through someone's head. Not the visual I was going for.

UngeheuerLich said:

That is about what I would expect from a roguebased thug.

Click to expand...

To me, that's high praise indeed, thank you!

clutchbone said:

To me, that's high praise indeed, thank you!

Click to expand...

It was meant as such. It is not complicated, useful and not over the top.
It allows playing a class in a different way as usual mainly offsetting the disadvantages of doing so. Adding just a bit of extra damage by allowing versatile weapons. The grapple bonus works only in surprise rounds which favours tactics of surprising opponents instead of making complicated turn by turn decisions (Like the assassin attack).

So. That is my train of thought. You go into a dark alley. Suddenly someone grabs you and pulls you into an even darker place. And then you are hit with clubs or worse.
One thing I might add is giving advantage to people you have grabbed. But that is easily remedied by shoving prone or taking the grappler feat.



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clutchbone said:

Ah well. I'll work on the wording, and decide between "simple weapons" and "simple weapons & longswords". Versatile longswords would be the obvious best melee option with d10 damage, but with no hands free you're sacrificing your subclass grapple buffs, so it's probably okay.

Click to expand...

Why not simply "simple or versatile"? The versatile weapon use case (you have a common combat option that requires a hand free, and another common option that doesn't) isn't really super common in 5e, but your subclass actually has a pretty legitimate use for them.

I also don't feel a dwarven thug using a battleaxe or a warhammer would be outside the thematic scope of the subclass.

Firstly - I admire your restraint. I've seen a few efforts at a grappler Rogue and they got broken fast (I think I managed to get a level 6 rogue with enlarge to solo grapple-kill a CR8 Frost Giant for the loss of about half hitpoints.

I'm always a little leary of giving players a helpful signpost towards grappling because you can quite easily go over the top - especially where extra ASIs are concerned. The Grappler Feat with a STR rogue is already a scary thing (Grapple then take-down, advantage for SA, Disadvantage & Uncanny dodge to survive - and if they try and excape they can't attack, will probably fail, and even if they succeed, they can only run away....at which point, rinse repeat). But having said that I thin you've done a great job of giving enough reasons to grapple without obvious boosts - like I said, it's just a bit of a design thing where you're kinda signposting a bit of power-gaming.

I dunno - that might be an unfounded fear and it never comes up at the table.

Otherwise - I don't have much of a truck with SA with the Rogue suite of weapons. Thematically "Sneak Attack" and "4ft Sword" have a tricky time together, but narratively you can turn "Sneak Attack" into "Opportunists Attack" easy enough.

A buff to intimidate is thematically nice, as is the "exfiltration" idea. I'd perhaps lump both of those with the same restriction that it is only on humanoid & intelligent...or something like that. Something that you can threaten into mild compliance and know how to keep quite, restrain. I find the concept of exfiltrating or bluff intimidating a Death Dog or an Ooze a bit odd.....

I also kind agree I'd like something a bit more awesome for a capstone. Maybe something halfway between quivering Palm and Death Strike?

But on the whole, a very sober and well thought out effort.....Top work.