Unearthed Arcana New UA: 43 D&D Class Feature Variants

The latest Unearthed Arcana is a big 13-page document! “Every character class in D&D has features, and every class gets one or more class feature variants in today’s Unearthed Arcana! These variants replace or enhance a class’s normal features, giving you new ways to enjoy your character’s class.”

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[NotAYakk]

What a Rogue wants needs isn't to be told "you can take a -5/+10 feat too". What a Rogue needs is a PHB containing a feat that provides roughly the same relative damage increase to a sneak attacker, that the -5/+10 feats give to a fighter (or ranger etc).

Crit-range expansion might do it.

Brutal Sneak Attack
When you hit a target with advantage, you can sacrifice any number of sneak attack dice. Each sneak attack die sacrificed increases the critical threat range by 1. You regain the sacrificed sneak attack dice at the end of the turn.

I think that is quadratic in yield. If you have 5 sneak attack dice and you roll an 18, you burn 2 to make it a crit. Now you roll 3*2=6 sneak attack dice, plus 2 weapon dice.

 

[RSIxidor]

Crit-range expansion might do it.

Brutal Sneak Attack
When you hit a target with advantage, you can sacrifice any number of sneak attack dice. Each sneak attack die sacrificed increases the critical threat range by 1. You regain the sacrificed sneak attack dice at the end of the turn.

I think that is quadratic in yield. If you have 5 sneak attack dice and you roll an 18, you burn 2 to make it a crit. Now you roll 3*2=6 sneak attack dice, plus 2 weapon dice.

Honestly, I'm not sure how WOTC would template this. There's not a "critical threat range" defined in the game.

That said, something like the Champion's Improved Critical would be good. I expanded it to 18 as its in a more limited scope (whether that actually makes sense, I'm uncertain). This feels very specific to Rogues, though. While we now have racial feats, feels like most feats are class-agnostic. This could be an alternative class feature instead of being a feat, though.

Precise Critical
When you have advantage on an attack and can deal Sneak Attack Damage with that attack, your attack scores a critical hit on a roll of 18, 19 or 20.

At the same time, I rather like the idea of spending sneak attack dice to get alternative effects. Something like Battle Master maneuvers but with more roguish flavor.

 

[5ekyu]

Honestly, I'm not sure how WOTC would template this. There's not a "critical threat range" defined in the game.

That said, something like the Champion's Improved Critical would be good. I expanded it to 18 as its in a more limited scope (whether that actually makes sense, I'm uncertain). This feels very specific to Rogues, though. While we now have racial feats, feels like most feats are class-agnostic. This could be an alternative class feature instead of being a feat, though.

Precise Critical
When you have advantage on an attack and can deal Sneak Attack Damage with that attack, your attack scores a critical hit on a roll of 18, 19 or 20.

At the same time, I rather like the idea of spending sneak attack dice to get alternative effects. Something like Battle Master maneuvers but with more roguish flavor.

I was thinking similarly, advantage giving crits on 19-20 tho. It's just shy of four times as likely.

The key to remember is advantage increases chance of a hit and this increases chance of crit. It's never a bad idea.

On the other side the -5 +10 hurt your chances of hits, for bigger paydays.

So we cannot just focus on equal damage gains "assuming hits".

 

[Weiley31]

Technically, you are within 5 ft of yourself. I don't see anything that immediately disqualifies the fighter.

EDIT: I don't think that's the intent, however.

Honestly, I'd allow it. In my head, I can visualize the fighter readying him/herself for an attack, then INTERCEPTING the enemy attack(and parrying it away if the style reduced the damage to zero) when a foe tries to strike. Plus it doesn't specify allies only SOOOOOOOO......

Plus Protection and Intercept sound specific in nature: one more designed around guarding allies and the other more tactically defensive in combat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Oh, no, we tried them. But, we're capable of doing math and realize that they're generally not worth the trouble. You burn a slot, need to hit, need the bad guy to fail his save, and then need to wait multiple rounds for that extra damage to equal what I'd get just smiting.

Lol there is one smite spell that requires multiple rounds to come through on damage.



[/quote]Snort. Yeah. That greater invisible vampire wizard is in melee combat with the paladin and the paladin, despite disadvantage on both attacks, manages to tag the vampire.

Yeah, that's not a cherry picked example AT ALL. Because, we are meeting greater invisible vampire wizards so often that is pays to have this readied every day, despite it sitting there like a dead lump in my spell list for 99% of the campaign. It's going to be so much more useful than, say, lesser restoration or protection from poison.
[/QUOTE]
I mean, I literally phrased it as a rare thing, so cool yer jets bud. Also, hitting with on of your attacks in spite of disadvantage isn’t rare. Disadvantage isn’t a huge deal. It’s also possible (even easy, depending on Oath and/or group composition) to set up advantage to cancel it out.
Lastly, that was an example from play.

Later in the thread you called the benefits minor. If you think inflicting Frightened and Blinded and Banishment are minor...I’m gonna go ahead and challenge your mastery of strategy in 5e DnD. All three are more powerful than the damage difference between them and a same-level Divine Smite. Any time it’s likely to land in terms of the save, they’re more worthwhile than saving the slot for Divine Smite.

And the Paladin gets to prepare plenty of spells.

You wanna play the most basic DPR obsessed Paladin ever, have fun. The idea that the Smite spells aren’t tactically powerful is preposterous.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Rogues are woefully behind the curve in games with feats enabled unless they reliably get in that off-turn SA, since there is no feat that increases Rogue DPS like the -5/+10 feats.

In these games (which I suspect is "most games) the Rogue is a middling melee combatant; weak defenses and only average offense. To excuse the weak defense the class' DPS needed to be stellar. In games without feats that might actually happen, but I've never played 5E without feats.

most games don’t use feats, first of all.

Second, the rogue has at least 3 feats that increase their damage output, they just don’t have a -5/+10 feat.

Tl;dr: until there's a feat that ups the Rogue's DPS to a substantial degree, comparable to the Fighter feats, a Rogue desperately needs to unlock the 2nd SA potential.

You can call this "hyperbolic CharOp nonsense" all you want, but that just amounts to you sticking your head in the sand. It is stark reality in actual play experience talking here.

Nope. It’s nonsense that of all the people I discuss dnd with, play dnd with, or watch play dnd online, only you have ever complained about and claimed was a terrible weakness of the class.
And survey feedback and play stats seem to point to broad player satisfaction with the Rogue.

I would agree, except that, unlike you, I empathize with the millions of players that find it very hard and not trivial at all. I would even theorize the majority of players have no idea they can do this at all.

In fact, out of the core rulebook mechanisms, I would say this (the way the Rogue gets 2 SAs per round) is the most convoluted, least 5E-friendly mechanism of them all.

It’s also unnecessary, and not part of the balance assumptions of the class.

I would say Rogues drop more often, and the extra skill monkey just isn't worth it.

That is, there is a fundamental flaw in the Rogue class design.

My rogue that isn’t multiclassed and doesn’t focus on getting off turn attacks drops almost never.

It’s almost like there are trade offs.

 

[Salthorae]

Mearls on the Happy Fun Hour when they covered Paladins discussed how they found people in practice have hoarded their Slots just for the standard Smite

I would argue that is because Divine Smite is too good, not because the Smite spells are too weak. If an option is SO good that everyone ignores everything else in favor of it... it means it's too effective/good.

You're going to show me how you arrange things so that you don't take damage for 10 rounds

Never said that you always get 100% of all 10 rounds on a searing smite. I said you have the potential of it. IME most often the target ends up taking an action to douse the flames. Which I have no problem with them wasting an entire action just to deal with my bonus action 1st level spell

 

[Gladius Legis]

I would argue that is because Divine Smite is too good, not because the Smite spells are too weak. If an option is SO good that everyone ignores everything else in favor of it... it means it's too effective/good.

I'd say in this particular case it has more to do with Divine Smite being the easiest choice than it actually being too good.

I do think a lot of Paladin spells are worth casting instead of Divine Smite in various different situations, as we've demonstrated. But at the same time, while Divine Smite may not always be the best use of a spell slot in a given situation, it is almost always a very good one.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Rogues are woefully behind the curve in games with feats enabled unless they reliably get in that off-turn SA, since there is no feat that increases Rogue DPS like the -5/+10 feats.

Well, feats are optional, so not too serious an issue, really. Balance around the standard game would have to be the priority.

You can call this "hyperbolic CharOp nonsense" all you want

Oh, there's nothing non-sensical about analyzing how the rules actually work, it's just that, in a game that could not have been balanced well, given it's other, much-higher-priority goals, if we do want balance, we should start with the game's standard form, the no-feats, no-MCing campaign, that averages 6-8 encounters & 2-3 short rests per adventuring day and doesn't use magic items. That's the closest we can expect to come as a balanced starting point, and the best starting point of a DM interested in imposing any sort of class balance.

most games don’t use feats, first of all.

Feats are optional, not part of the standard game, as presented. It seem like a lot games use them, but whether it's some, or many, or few makes no difference to their status as an opt-in tool for the DM.

And survey feedback and play stats seem to point to broad player satisfaction with the Rogue.

Or broad popularity of the archetypes it models.

It’s also unnecessary, and not part of the balance assumptions of the class.

Indeed, the rogue is easily the class least dependent on limited resources, and most dependent on situations, to maximize DPR. A good, diverse, 6-8 encounter day has a lot more to do with how it'll balance, DPR-wise, with an Action-Surging fighter or Smiting Paladin or the like.

it doesn't specify allies only SOOOOOOOO......
Plus Protection and Intercept sound specific in nature: one more designed around guarding allies and the other more tactically defensive in combat.

I don't think 5e has a specific jargon meaning of allies, so it uses phrasing like that found in protection style "..targets a creature other than you..." while Intercept omits part of that phrasing. Both are natural language, the presence of one strongly suggests one possible interpretation of the other, yet if the game were truly exception-based we wouldn't be expected to rule by analogy or precedent like that.

So, maybe an oversight in the phrasing (my guess), maybe just natural language not always being identical when saying the same thing at different times (lacking the precision of specialized jargon), or maybe intercept phrasing is less explicit precisely because it's an optional rule DMs may wish to implement in subtly different ways.
Whichever, it's up to the DM to make a ruling, and incumbent on players to understand & accept that it's the Ruling, not the Rule, that counts.

 

[NotAYakk]

Precise Critical
When you have advantage on an attack and can deal Sneak Attack Damage with that attack, your attack scores a critical hit on a roll of 18, 19 or 20.

Precise Critical
When you could deal sneak attack damage with an attack, you may choose to expend some of the sneak attack dice to change the die roll. Every die expended increases the d20 roll by 1; this can change the roll to be a critical. If you do so, you must apply sneak attack damage if it hits, and roll one fewer sneak attack dice per die expended.

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This means 6d6 sneak attack dice can be traded for up to a +6 to hit, or a critical hit range of up to 14-20.

Its interaction with sharpshooter is interesting, and not asntrivial to model as standard attacks.