D&D 5E (2014) The Revised Fighter, Barbarian & Rogue (Please help with the Rogue!)

[HabakkukVIII]

How the mod is doing things.

Oh, I was asking what the mod is doing, not how it does it.

I tried looking it up but couldn't find the mod you were referring to, so I have no idea what mechanics it introduces.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh, I was asking what the mod is doing, not how it does it.

I tried looking it up but couldn't find the mod you were referring to, so I have no idea what mechanics it introduces.

Wife installed it. Idk what one it is. She installed around 20.

 

[HabakkukVIII]

Wife installed it. Idk what one it is. She installed around 20.

Surely you could ask her which mod, or at least to describe the mechanics of the mod.

 

[Zardnaar]

Surely you could ask her which mod, or at least to describe the mechanics of the mod.

Yeah thats a few hours away.

 

[HabakkukVIII]

Yeah thats a few hours away.

Of course. No rush. Just let me know whenever you get an answer

 

[Zardnaar]

Of course. No rush. Just let me know whenever you get an answer

I think its called DnD 5.5e All in One BEYOND classes.

 

[NotAYakk]

So thinking about an trap based rogue that avoids expending resources every turn.

First, build your traps during short rests. You can maintain a limited number of them at once. Do so using basically worthless debris, and can recycle parts.

These "free" or "improvised" traps should last less time than it takes to build them.

Second, traps only expend when they connect. Setting up a trap and recovering it or other forms of "misses" doesn't use up the resource (unless, say, you need to run away).

Third, multi-action budgets on the part of the trap master. If using a trap is a 2 round process, the impact of the trap going off can be larger, and fewer objects expended. Like a setup, and deploy. Be careful this doesn't turn into a universal "setup before the encounter, deploy on round 1" for an alpha strike situation?

---

I put together a gadgeteer artificer. It had (level) gadget points, and in a short rest it could build gadgets based off artificer spells (because I'm lazy). The artificer had to constantly fix and tweak the gadgets, and could only maintain that many points at once. Each gadget had a chance of failure after the first time it was used (4+ on a d6 it wouldn't work); checking if it still works required an action, the same cost as using it (basically pre-rolling).

Cantrips where Gizmos, basically gadgets that don't fail that way.

I hand waved the parts required to build these Gadgets and Gizmos as being stuff out of a Tinker's Kit (or other crafting tools).

Making a Trapmaster on a vaguely similar chassis could work. But I'd lean into the prepare and trigger steps.

 

[HabakkukVIII]

So thinking about an trap based rogue that avoids expending resources every turn.

First, build your traps during short rests. You can maintain a limited number of them at once. Do so using basically worthless debris, and can recycle parts.

These "free" or "improvised" traps should last less time than it takes to build them.

Second, traps only expend when they connect. Setting up a trap and recovering it or other forms of "misses" doesn't use up the resource (unless, say, you need to run away).

Third, multi-action budgets on the part of the trap master. If using a trap is a 2 round process, the impact of the trap going off can be larger, and fewer objects expended. Like a setup, and deploy. Be careful this doesn't turn into a universal "setup before the encounter, deploy on round 1" for an alpha strike situation?

I think we arrived at some similar conclusions!

I have a very loose idea for the Trapmaker subclass. The 1st level feature that lets you set traps consisting of (a) a trigger mechanism of your choice and (b) a weapon or hazardous object of yours that the trap wields on your behalf, meaning that you can only set a finite number of traps at any given moment, yet you can disassemble them and reassemble them an infinite number of times, more or less guaranteeing that you have the option to set a trap every turn.

My biggest concerns with what I have are:

• The trapmaking mechanic is terribly wordy. I suppose spellcasting is a similarly wordy 1st level feature, but if I can make it more concise I'd be happy to.
• Trapmaking hardly scales as you gain levels, meaning that a 20th level Rogue would basically be setting trip wires and unleashing crossbow bolts and caltrops, same as a 1st level Rogue.
• There are very poor incentives for setting traps rather than using items outright in most encounters. It's great to have traps already set and already hidden to tilt the odds in your favor, but there isn't much use to setting them in plain sight and hoping that enemies run into them.

I wrote a 3rd level feature that gives the Trapmaker a little bit of a head start, and a 7th level feature that helps the Trapmaker sneak around in plain sight, but I'm not confident that that's enough to make the Trapmaker a truly effective area controller. You're definitely right to worry about alpha strikes in a situation where the Trapmaker has traps set up before the encounter begins. But then, I'm not sure how else to make traps viable.

 

[aco175]

The 5.5e rogue has the idea of doing less sneak attack dice damage to let you do other things. This must be to balance things out some. The poisoner can give up 2d6 damage to now apply the Poisoned condition or give up 3d6 to have the target Dazed for one round if a bomb goes off. It is not on top of sneak attack- it becomes either/or.

 

[HabakkukVIII]

The 5.5e rogue has the idea of doing less sneak attack dice damage to let you do other things. This must be to balance things out some. The poisoner can give up 2d6 damage to now apply the Poisoned condition or give up 3d6 to have the target Dazed for one round if a bomb goes off. It is not on top of sneak attack- it becomes either/or.

Oh, I'm aware of Cunning Strikes! I'm just trying to go further than that.

Rather than giving up some Sneak Attack damage to inflict a minor effect on the target, I'm aiming to give the Rogue options that don't involve weapon attacks at all (like the features of the Kidnapper, Magic Trickster, Mastermind, & Thief that I have so far), or that cost all of your Sneak Attack dice to draw a clear line between going for damage or going for a condition (like my Assassin's Maim or my Poisoner's Microdose).

The idea is that pairing effects with weapon attacks (and especially with Sneak Attack damage) limits them to one target and eats up a lot of their power budget, and hence limits how much they can do to expand the Rogue's role. Does that make sense?