TL;DR: I try to express the heart of the opportunistic/improvisational rogue by introducing two new resources: wits (tactical, rounds to minutes) and schemes (strategic, hours to days and up). The rogue may maintain a limited number of both, and may introduce new ones as soon as old ones are exploited (the usual goal) or cease to be relevant.
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We're still trying on thematic fits for the rogue, one that encompasses the rather diverse territory of its antecedents and manages to have mechanics that support it well. Well, here's another attempt:
The rogue is the master of contingency, of creating and exploiting opportunities.
I'm aiming for a refinement of the "live by wits" improvisational rogue, but one who has an eye on both the "short game" and the "long game", i.e. a bit more balance between spontaneity and planning. And, with sound mechanics, hopefully one that creates the feeling of meaningful character improvisation without transgressing the improvisational realm that, in D&D, is really the province of players. I'm specifically trying to avoid casting, at the class level at least, the rogue as the spiky damage dealer, or the stealth specialist, or even as the skill monkey as such. A rogue may be any of those things, but the rogue is defined less by what he does (e.g. sneaking) and more by making sure that, when it comes to do that thing, it goes his way.
Here is a sketch of a possible mechanical expression. Suppose a rogue has two basic class resources: wits and schemes. These basically operate the same, but wits are generally a tactical resource (rounds or minutes) and schemes are a long-term strategic resource (hours, days, and beyond).
Unlike other resources, wits and schemes do not start at full and refresh every so often, they are a resource that is built by action (creating a situation, possibly with some immediate effect) and then leveraged when the time is right (exploiting the situation). Once leveraged the level of wit or scheme diminishes or disappears, but the rogue can start creating opportunities all over again. The only limit on the rogue is how many "points" of wits or schemes can be juggled at once. In order to avoid a myopic class, I think it important that opportunities created by a rogue are almost always able to be exploited by anyone with enough information to know they exist.
The benefits of setting up and exploiting wits and schemes are variable, but I think there are three main principles to follow.
Lengthy in-play example
[sblock]
Suppose the party has decided they must kill, scare, or otherwise remove from the larger scenario a particular duke. As it happens, this duke is traveling alongside a caravan with a modest retinue, and the PCs choose to join up as hired help in order to at least learn information, and if lucky also enact a plan.
Now the rogue can maintain at most 3 wit points and 2 scheme points. He is, however, running a small time confidence scheme in his home town, so 1 scheme point is tied up in maintaining that venture.
He decides that he will try to gain some potentially damaging information about the duke. After some snooping he discovers a personal, but quite innocent, letter from a young noblewoman of marriageable age to one of the nobleman's retinue who is quite transparently a prospective suitor. The rogue decides he will fake another letter in the same style to the married nobleman, one which hints at a slightly less innocent nature. He decides to initiate a 1 point scheme with the goal of creating an extremely convincing fake and priming the suitor to interpret it uncharitably. Over the next several days he makes discrete inquiries, eavesdrops, and has the party wizard cast a minor divination or two. In addition, he may gently guide a conversation or two in the suitor's presence to suggest the fickleness of young women. With all this info collected he forges a cunning letter. At this point the scheme is in an exploitable state. A party that had taken all these steps without a scheme would have an excellent tool to place the suitor and the duke in a delicate situation, but a rogue could exploit the scheme for additional bonuses. This might be an extra roll at a critical juncture, or bonus to all checks during a conversation, or something more elaborate suited to how they decide to use it.
In this particular case the letter is planted where the suitor can happen across it without suspicion. Reading it, he takes the duke some distance from the caravan to confront him. The PCs take this as an opportunity to kill the duke and pin the blame on suitor. The two men are not at blows (although yelling quite loudly) but the fighter goads the suitor into drawing his weapon and attacking. While the others poorly defend the duke (and keep the suitor on-topic with a charm spell), the rogue uses his wits to maintain two separate "maneuvers." The first is a 2 wit ability which grants +1d6 damage on attacks vs. the duke while the rogue remains adjacent, and which may be exploited for +4d6 damage on a critical hit. The second is a 1 wit ability that allows the rogue to make a stealthy attack of opportunity against any adjacent creature on a critical hit, which the rogue uses to introduce a deadly poison.
Once the duke is dead, and with no damage that appears attributable to the PCs, they make short work of the suitor. The remainder of the retinue arrive, and suspiciously question the PCs about what happened. The fighter, fearful of failing a bluff check, exploits the letter to reroll a failed one: "My lords, as I have already said, when we arrived your compatriot was waving this letter quite wildly. However, as the honored duke lay near death, he bid me to destroy it. It is not my place either to read or burn such high writings, I trust you judge for yourself what was their conflict. Only, I ask you to heed his wish if it does no harm to the kingdom."
Since the letter has been exploited, the rogue ceases to maintain that particular scheme. The remainder of the retinue, hoping to avoid a scandal even larger than they have already witnessed, burn the letter and begin their own ruminations on what to say when they meet their superiors. The PCs, free from suspicion, continue with the caravan, their task fulfilled.
[/sblock]
There are a lot of question marks in my mind about how to make something like this work, particularly in combat. The notion of needing to provide active "maintenance" to maintains wits and schemes is a bit at odds with the usual mode of actions as things that are resolved just after they are declared. There may also be metagame issues with schemes in particular. For example, if one is carefully maintaining a false identity, how much maintenance is required before it is considered lost? What, if anything, does that represent in the game world? Can it be regained quickly?
I feel like the kernel of the idea and mechanics are decent and pretty roguish (and broadly so), but in need of some serious massaging. Anyone have thoughts?
---
We're still trying on thematic fits for the rogue, one that encompasses the rather diverse territory of its antecedents and manages to have mechanics that support it well. Well, here's another attempt:
The rogue is the master of contingency, of creating and exploiting opportunities.
I'm aiming for a refinement of the "live by wits" improvisational rogue, but one who has an eye on both the "short game" and the "long game", i.e. a bit more balance between spontaneity and planning. And, with sound mechanics, hopefully one that creates the feeling of meaningful character improvisation without transgressing the improvisational realm that, in D&D, is really the province of players. I'm specifically trying to avoid casting, at the class level at least, the rogue as the spiky damage dealer, or the stealth specialist, or even as the skill monkey as such. A rogue may be any of those things, but the rogue is defined less by what he does (e.g. sneaking) and more by making sure that, when it comes to do that thing, it goes his way.
Here is a sketch of a possible mechanical expression. Suppose a rogue has two basic class resources: wits and schemes. These basically operate the same, but wits are generally a tactical resource (rounds or minutes) and schemes are a long-term strategic resource (hours, days, and beyond).
Unlike other resources, wits and schemes do not start at full and refresh every so often, they are a resource that is built by action (creating a situation, possibly with some immediate effect) and then leveraged when the time is right (exploiting the situation). Once leveraged the level of wit or scheme diminishes or disappears, but the rogue can start creating opportunities all over again. The only limit on the rogue is how many "points" of wits or schemes can be juggled at once. In order to avoid a myopic class, I think it important that opportunities created by a rogue are almost always able to be exploited by anyone with enough information to know they exist.
The benefits of setting up and exploiting wits and schemes are variable, but I think there are three main principles to follow.
- Anyone with enough information to know about the situation will generally be able to exploit it, at least to some degree.
- They are most often "value-added" resources which enhance what anyone might try to do, not resources that make an approach possible in the first place
- They must be maintained in an exploitable state or lost.
Lengthy in-play example
[sblock]
Suppose the party has decided they must kill, scare, or otherwise remove from the larger scenario a particular duke. As it happens, this duke is traveling alongside a caravan with a modest retinue, and the PCs choose to join up as hired help in order to at least learn information, and if lucky also enact a plan.
Now the rogue can maintain at most 3 wit points and 2 scheme points. He is, however, running a small time confidence scheme in his home town, so 1 scheme point is tied up in maintaining that venture.
He decides that he will try to gain some potentially damaging information about the duke. After some snooping he discovers a personal, but quite innocent, letter from a young noblewoman of marriageable age to one of the nobleman's retinue who is quite transparently a prospective suitor. The rogue decides he will fake another letter in the same style to the married nobleman, one which hints at a slightly less innocent nature. He decides to initiate a 1 point scheme with the goal of creating an extremely convincing fake and priming the suitor to interpret it uncharitably. Over the next several days he makes discrete inquiries, eavesdrops, and has the party wizard cast a minor divination or two. In addition, he may gently guide a conversation or two in the suitor's presence to suggest the fickleness of young women. With all this info collected he forges a cunning letter. At this point the scheme is in an exploitable state. A party that had taken all these steps without a scheme would have an excellent tool to place the suitor and the duke in a delicate situation, but a rogue could exploit the scheme for additional bonuses. This might be an extra roll at a critical juncture, or bonus to all checks during a conversation, or something more elaborate suited to how they decide to use it.
In this particular case the letter is planted where the suitor can happen across it without suspicion. Reading it, he takes the duke some distance from the caravan to confront him. The PCs take this as an opportunity to kill the duke and pin the blame on suitor. The two men are not at blows (although yelling quite loudly) but the fighter goads the suitor into drawing his weapon and attacking. While the others poorly defend the duke (and keep the suitor on-topic with a charm spell), the rogue uses his wits to maintain two separate "maneuvers." The first is a 2 wit ability which grants +1d6 damage on attacks vs. the duke while the rogue remains adjacent, and which may be exploited for +4d6 damage on a critical hit. The second is a 1 wit ability that allows the rogue to make a stealthy attack of opportunity against any adjacent creature on a critical hit, which the rogue uses to introduce a deadly poison.
Once the duke is dead, and with no damage that appears attributable to the PCs, they make short work of the suitor. The remainder of the retinue arrive, and suspiciously question the PCs about what happened. The fighter, fearful of failing a bluff check, exploits the letter to reroll a failed one: "My lords, as I have already said, when we arrived your compatriot was waving this letter quite wildly. However, as the honored duke lay near death, he bid me to destroy it. It is not my place either to read or burn such high writings, I trust you judge for yourself what was their conflict. Only, I ask you to heed his wish if it does no harm to the kingdom."
Since the letter has been exploited, the rogue ceases to maintain that particular scheme. The remainder of the retinue, hoping to avoid a scandal even larger than they have already witnessed, burn the letter and begin their own ruminations on what to say when they meet their superiors. The PCs, free from suspicion, continue with the caravan, their task fulfilled.
[/sblock]
There are a lot of question marks in my mind about how to make something like this work, particularly in combat. The notion of needing to provide active "maintenance" to maintains wits and schemes is a bit at odds with the usual mode of actions as things that are resolved just after they are declared. There may also be metagame issues with schemes in particular. For example, if one is carefully maintaining a false identity, how much maintenance is required before it is considered lost? What, if anything, does that represent in the game world? Can it be regained quickly?
I feel like the kernel of the idea and mechanics are decent and pretty roguish (and broadly so), but in need of some serious massaging. Anyone have thoughts?
