D&D General Rogue as Assassin and Rogue as Jack

[doctorbadwolf]

So I have for a long time wanted to split the rogue into two classes,

one dedicated to being a sneaky classic assassin complete with mystical associations (the historical group that gives the archetype its name had mystical beliefs and elements of their practices), special tools and tactics you can specialize in, and big damage spikes when you set them up

The other dedicated to being the all around skill king who can specialize in devices, gadgets, theft, acrobatics, lying, or just being a nimble lucky bastard.

I’ve also always hated that the Jack of all trades in D&D is The Bard. I think that is completely bunk. That should be the Rogue, and the Ranger.

I’ll deal with the bard in another thread, but here I want to lay out what I think each rogue class should have as features, now that I’ve established goals.

I’ll do so in two follow up posts in this thread.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Jack​

The Jack is the skill monkey, the plucky lucky hero who wins with wits and skill and tricks and tools.

Core features

• Jack of All Trades, at level 1
  

  • Prof 3 skills, and a tool​
• Specialization Feature, choose one
  

  • Gadgets. Non-magical inventor​
  • Tricks, either very limited spells or some sort of addition to cunning action. Trickster​
  • Weapon Mastery and a fighting style. Swashbuckler​
  • Expertise. The Expert​
  • Ritual spells and a cantrip? Detect magic, identify, find familiar. Arcane Dabbler​
• Sneak Attack. Yes, the Jack gets this, and doesn’t get Extra Attack​
• Cunning Action
  

  • Fast Talk (charm or taunt as a bonus action)​
• Uncanny Dodge and Evasion​

Subclasses, Swashbuckler (gets manuevers, specifically melee focused), Thief, Acrobat, Arcane Trickster, Shadow Dancer, Gadgeteer, Trickshot (guns or crossbows, gets manuevers)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Assassin
​

Concepts - Heroic expert in asymmetrical combat, with a mystical twist. Light esotericism with select ritual spells and the option to lean into or away from that aspect more both in the “Assassin’s Tactics” options and the subclasses.

Core Features -

• Mystical connection to death - You get some rituals, some of which are exclusive to the assassin​
• Prof stealth and 3 other skills​
• Focus - Like the monk, with different actions
  

  • Hide, Dash, gain advantage, Study, add an extra die of damage when you hit, or make an extra attack. Spend focus to hide and do any one other shadow move, place a mark, or cast one of your rituals as an action.​
• Assassin’s Mark - Bonus Action. Mark a target, gaining advantage on checks with the Study and Search actions against them. You can invoke and end the Mark to do a major damage spike.
  

  • Mark deals more damage if target is Vulnerable. A creature is Vulnerable if you are hidden from them, or they are incapacitated.​
• Specialized tactics - gain expertise in stealth and a skill associated with your chosen tactic
  

  • More magic - arcana, Ability to spend a focus to become a shadow until the end of your next turn, gaining resistance to most damage and advantage on stealth, Misty step always prepared. Gain access to more spells using your focus​
  • Hidden weapons - sleight of hand, gain a melee and a ranged weapon, must be light or a light crossbow or short bow, indistinguishable from mundane object or tool when not in use, can still be drawn as part of attack, ranged loses loading property and disad on long range, melee has advantage on first attack with in during an encounter​
  • Disguises - Deception, gain int mod disguises that take BA to Don or discard, come with persona and forged documents, can make disguises for others​
  • Poisons - resist poison, ignore poison resistance, half time to make poisons, can make specialty poisons that target specific types of creatures​
• Lethal - Level 5, gain expanded crit range against Mark, when you drop a critter to HP equal to or less than twice your assassin level, they drop to 0hp, can attack additional time with action by spending a focus when you crit or kill​
• Deflect attacks. You can also use a shadow move when you would make the counter attack, or spend a second focus to do both​
• Evasion​
• Additional specialized tactic - gain expertise in another skill, and choose a second specialty​
• ​

Subclasses - Wraith (ramp up magic and shadow stuff, Classic assassin (parkour, big jumps, extra damage when dropping or charging at an enemy, keen senses), Soul Knife, Sniper, vampiric hunter (gain vampire stuff)

 

[Horwath]

Option to trade away sneak attack die improvement and every instance of cunning strike and improvements for:

1. 3 skill proficiency
2. 2 skill expertise
3. combination of 4 tools, languages or weapons
4. 2 cantrips

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Option to trade away sneak attack die improvement and every instance of cunning strike and improvements for:

1. 3 skill proficiency
2. 2 skill expertise
3. combination of 4 tools, languages or weapons
4. 2 cantrips

Interesting. I don’t know that I’d go that way, but I do think that the Jack should be able to trade SA dice for tactical tricksters benefits, while the assassin should be able to gain advantage with no action economy cost by dropping a die, with their mark also increasing crit range (at level 5) and make it so they drop their mark target if they drop them to HP< 2xassassin level.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Updated assassin post

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Subclass spotlight

Acrobatic Jack -

• Increased speed
• climb speed
• ignore difficult terrain
• Gain special attack rider options when you move at least 10ft before attacking
• Enemies have disadvantage on opportunity attacks
• Quarterstaff counts as light and finesse, as do unarmed strikes, unarmed strikes do d6 damage
• Maybe make it so you can give staff or unarmed strikes weapon masteries?
• Jump distance determined with Dex
• Drop a SA die to gain advantage on next acrobatics or athletics check
• Can do any acrobatics check as a BA

 

[aco175]

What is the reason for not just making them subclasses, for 5e at least? If they have the same core starting stuff, then at 3rd level they can split. It just seems like a lot of work for little return.

Could this idea also apple to other classes like the fighter that could be viewed at a plate-mail knight or a Conan-lucky warrior?

 

[Charlaquin]

I agree with the core idea - rogue has long had an identity crisis between the AD&D style boxman who’s there to crack locks and disable traps but isn’t really cut out for a fair fight and has to rely on cheap tricks to contribute to combat, vs the WoW style DPS king who’s squishy but rips enemies to shreds as long as the tougher party members can hold the aggro. I’m certainly open to the idea of trying to separate those two identities into distinct classes, but I fear the AD&D style “jack” rogue would struggle in today’s highly combat-centric D&D.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I agree with the core idea - rogue has long had an identity crisis between the AD&D style boxman who’s there to crack locks and disable traps but isn’t really cut out for a fair fight and has to rely on cheap tricks to contribute to combat, vs the WoW style DPS king who’s squishy but rips enemies to shreds as long as the tougher party members can hold the aggro. I’m certainly open to the idea of trying to separate those two identities into distinct classes, but I fear the AD&D style “jack” rogue would struggle in today’s highly combat-centric D&D.

agreed, being a skillmonkey or the like really isn't a viable standalone class concept in 5e