Like the title says I want to build a subclass. I want to make a unique feeling play style that incorporates some of my favorite fantasy elements. I want to try and balance it so that anyone could pick it up and put it in their game and have a fun time. So some basics, I am going to build this off the back of the fighter. There are a lot of options here but I think adding this subclass to fighter really makes fighter unique. So hopefully this will be a long and engaging thread so I’m just gonna start here with some major points.
•I wanna build a fighter subclass based around a sort of trickster archetype, not exactly cunning but tricky and a cheap shot fighter. Something that really overhauls the fighter class. I have considered giving the class two abilities that cancel out action surge and second wind. I chose fighter over rogue because I felt thematically it fit better for this class to be more combat focused and in your face.
•I want this class to be built around small damage die, I want players to be rolling a lot of dice with this class. I’ve considered giving the class kind of signature set of knives that you can hold and still use your hands and two weapon fighting, or even things like a system where you roll an attack and rolling over a certain number (or a number over the targets AC) and getting a d4 dmg die for every number over.
•I want to discourage heavy armor, I believe making this a dex based class does that, but I’ve considered bonuses to even unarmored or light armor IF it doesn’t push this class to be too powerful.
•Replacing action surge and second wind (when you choose this subclass these abilities are replaced etc); I want the class to feel like a unique fighter, so I’ve considered this to accomplish that and to put fun abilities in the class without making it too powerful with everything it will get plus action surge. So action surge is very powerful, so I do think an equally powerful ability is needed here. An idea I’ve had was something like throwing a handful of sand (with a stipulation that you could do this while still holding two weapons) and this making every attack that hits an automatic critical until the end of your turn. Unless I’m overlooking something this would be in line with action surges power. For second wind I’ve considered a rock throw or something like that, that does minimal damage but has a useful effect or set of useful effects.
•For the level 7 ability, assuming the 3rd level ability gave you something like the signature knives, I was thinking maybe additional poison damage that overcame immunity and resistance and maybe the unarmored or light armor bonuses . •Another idea is extra proficiencies in things like deception, intimidation, stealth etc. However I don’t want to build a rogue sub class, I want this class to feel like a fighter who fights dirty.
I haven’t gotten past these thoughts to be honest, because I want the base of the class to feel good as most campaigns will spend a lot of time here, any ideas are welcome. I would really appreciate corrections and suggestions because I know I’m overlooking something. Just to summarize, I want this class to be a nasty, tricky, cheap shot fighter and I want players to roll a lot of small damage dice. I think that really will make the class feel fun.
Edit: Also I do wanna take into consideration multiclassing a little bit, I know things could get out of hand without safeguards that lock some of these abilities to this subclass or this subclasses signature weapons if they do become part of the class.
First of all, it sounds like you're just trying to build a subclass that makes a fighter into a rogue. Discouraging armour, many small damage dice, rogue skills, etc. If you want a rogue, you should just have a rogue. Also, I don't like the idea of replacing second wind and action surge, two of the fighters most "iconic" abilities. No other subclasses do this, and it doesn't make it a "unique" subclass, it just makes a fighter into less of a fighter. You say you don't want to build a rogue subclass, but it really seems like you do.
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"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
The character is a fighter, not a rogue. There’s nothing sneaky about them, sneak attack doesn’t work with the class, that takes rogue out completely for me. Action surge and second wind could easily be kept, another idea was throwing away two weapon fighting, making the signature weapon a single knife and basing a lot of the abilities around the off hand being free to throw rocks or sand that have special effects.
I mean I could just make it a rogue subclass but to me that tells players to be sneaky and disarm traps instead of brawl and throw dirt in peoples face.
I do think the signature weapon ability is something I want in this class, I think that can make a lot of things balance and work better. A weapon or “form” they get at 3rd level that can be built on with abilities and buffs as they gain levels in the class. I think making it a knife sets the tone for the class as a unique fighter. I think it’s quirky but I do like the idea of it being a d4 single knife and maybe adding some kind of + damage modifier to bring it up in power or adding the off hand effects to make the d4 dmg die really shine. I think with a d4 die you could get away with abilities that auto crit or make crit chances much higher and that sounds really fun to me.
I mean, theHumbug has a point. Your four conceptual points (as opposed to the two dealing directly with class features) are basically the fundamentals of the rogue class.
Tricky with cheap shots - Deception, Sleight of Hand, Sneak Attack
Using small weapons and rolling lots of dice - that's Sneak Attack
Light armor heavily encouraged - that's all rogues get
Extra proficiencies - again, this is a base feature of rogues
I am all for taking the Class Feature Variants ball and running with it - I don't think a fighter needs to keep Second Wind or Action Surge as long as the replacements are justifiably Fighter-ish. But each class has a conceptual space that it covers, and you are deep, deep in rogue territory here. It's not just that these are things rogues have. It's that these are literally the defining elements of the class.
I guess a good place to start with this is to state what it is about Fighter that you feel is integral to this subclass, and what is it about Rogue that is incompatible with your concept? To me this concept sounds a lot closer to a thuggish rogue (which really isn't covered well by existing subclasses) than a tricky fighter.
Yeah I think one of the main things is I don’t want a reflavored rogue, like you guys keep saying “yeah that’s this” but I’ve made it and I can tell you, it is not that.
I want the class to be based around the d4 damage die, not the d6, I want it to be unassuming but powerful
i want this class to be a fighter class small races can excel at with the 3rd level “knife form”
I simply don’t want rogue mechanics in this class lol, like at all, I want fighter mechanics like the extra attacks and ASIs.
Thematically the class fits better in fighter, of course it could go rogue but so could samurai or anything else. The class being dex based will naturally just push players to light armor, every fighter archer does that anyway. I imagine almost a brawler subclass, that used a knife and a variety of “cheap shots”
I think now instead of two weapon fighting and having the form be two daggers, I could go with one dagger and your free hand that’s used to cause different “cheap shot” effects.
I kind of want to allow a different effect with every attack as well, like one attack you can make your d4+dex regular knife attack and throw a handful of sand, the next attack you can make your attack and then use a different effect on the effect list.
I really do want a way to multiple the d4 damage dice, however I’m thinking that with 2-3 attacks you’re already going to be getting into 10-15 dmg plus 2-3d4 with 5dex. I think maybe the attack plus effects may be the way to go, make them useful but not overly powerful because you’ll be using 2-3 of the effects every time you take the attack action during your turn.
Like again, the cheap shots mechanic doesn’t work with rogue because your damage goal is built into the base class with sneak attack. With fighter I have room to add things like most fighter subclasses do that improve the base class by making your attacks more powerful.
Also a lot of fighter subclasses give bonus profs
A thuggish rogue sounds cool, and I think you could even describe your character that way while playing this subclass. I just don’t mechanically really like this sub as a rogue either.I like it better as a fighter and I think I can accomplish more of what I want to bring to my games with the fighter base.
I really appreciate the input though, I am going to work on this class and fully flesh it out. I want it to be a serious subclass as goofy as it sounds. I love playing gnomes and Halflings but a lot of the time they make really bad fighters and barbs. I don’t want to explicitly make this sub for gnomes etc but I want to make this subclass really good with small races. That’s why the “knife form” is so important I think, I call it a form because I don’t want some of the stuff you get with it to be abused with other weapons, I want it all to be balanced around the smallest damage dice. Also I want the knife to scale and be able to at some point bypass magic res somehow (making the dmg poison or cold etc instead of non magical piercing or just giving it magic for the purpose of overcoming res) Making a small unassuming weapon really formidable and maybe formidable in interesting ways I think is what is going to make this a Fun class.
Like the title says I want to build a subclass. I want to make a unique feeling play style that incorporates some of my favorite fantasy elements. I want to try and balance it so that anyone could pick it up and put it in their game and have a fun time. So some basics, I am going to build this off the back of the fighter. There are a lot of options here but I think adding this subclass to fighter really makes fighter unique.
So hopefully this will be a long and engaging thread so I’m just gonna start here with some major points.
•I wanna build a fighter subclass based around a sort of trickster archetype, not exactly cunning but tricky and a cheap shot fighter. Something that really overhauls the fighter class. I have considered giving the class two abilities that cancel out action surge and second wind. I chose fighter over rogue because I felt thematically it fit better for this class to be more combat focused and in your face.
•I want this class to be built around small damage die, I want players to be rolling a lot of dice with this class. I’ve considered giving the class kind of signature set of knives that you can hold and still use your hands and two weapon fighting, or even things like a system where you roll an attack and rolling over a certain number (or a number over the targets AC) and getting a d4 dmg die for every number over.
•I want to discourage heavy armor, I believe making this a dex based class does that, but I’ve considered bonuses to even unarmored or light armor IF it doesn’t push this class to be too powerful.
•Replacing action surge and second wind (when you choose this subclass these abilities are replaced etc); I want the class to feel like a unique fighter, so I’ve considered this to accomplish that and to put fun abilities in the class without making it too powerful with everything it will get plus action surge. So action surge is very powerful, so I do think an equally powerful ability is needed here. An idea I’ve had was something like throwing a handful of sand (with a stipulation that you could do this while still holding two weapons) and this making every attack that hits an automatic critical until the end of your turn. Unless I’m overlooking something this would be in line with action surges power. For second wind I’ve considered a rock throw or something like that, that does minimal damage but has a useful effect or set of useful effects.
•For the level 7 ability, assuming the 3rd level ability gave you something like the signature knives, I was thinking maybe additional poison damage that overcame immunity and resistance and maybe the unarmored or light armor bonuses .
•Another idea is extra proficiencies in things like deception, intimidation, stealth etc. However I don’t want to build a rogue sub class, I want this class to feel like a fighter who fights dirty.
I haven’t gotten past these thoughts to be honest, because I want the base of the class to feel good as most campaigns will spend a lot of time here, any ideas are welcome. I would really appreciate corrections and suggestions because I know I’m overlooking something. Just to summarize, I want this class to be a nasty, tricky, cheap shot fighter and I want players to roll a lot of small damage dice. I think that really will make the class feel fun.
Edit: Also I do wanna take into consideration multiclassing a little bit, I know things could get out of hand without safeguards that lock some of these abilities to this subclass or this subclasses signature weapons if they do become part of the class.
First of all, it sounds like you're just trying to build a subclass that makes a fighter into a rogue. Discouraging armour, many small damage dice, rogue skills, etc. If you want a rogue, you should just have a rogue. Also, I don't like the idea of replacing second wind and action surge, two of the fighters most "iconic" abilities. No other subclasses do this, and it doesn't make it a "unique" subclass, it just makes a fighter into less of a fighter. You say you don't want to build a rogue subclass, but it really seems like you do.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
The character is a fighter, not a rogue. There’s nothing sneaky about them, sneak attack doesn’t work with the class, that takes rogue out completely for me. Action surge and second wind could easily be kept, another idea was throwing away two weapon fighting, making the signature weapon a single knife and basing a lot of the abilities around the off hand being free to throw rocks or sand that have special effects.
I mean I could just make it a rogue subclass but to me that tells players to be sneaky and disarm traps instead of brawl and throw dirt in peoples face.
I do think the signature weapon ability is something I want in this class, I think that can make a lot of things balance and work better. A weapon or “form” they get at 3rd level that can be built on with abilities and buffs as they gain levels in the class. I think making it a knife sets the tone for the class as a unique fighter. I think it’s quirky but I do like the idea of it being a d4 single knife and maybe adding some kind of + damage modifier to bring it up in power or adding the off hand effects to make the d4 dmg die really shine. I think with a d4 die you could get away with abilities that auto crit or make crit chances much higher and that sounds really fun to me.
Also I thought there were subclasses that change or modify certain class abilities? May be wrong.
I mean, theHumbug has a point. Your four conceptual points (as opposed to the two dealing directly with class features) are basically the fundamentals of the rogue class.
I am all for taking the Class Feature Variants ball and running with it - I don't think a fighter needs to keep Second Wind or Action Surge as long as the replacements are justifiably Fighter-ish. But each class has a conceptual space that it covers, and you are deep, deep in rogue territory here. It's not just that these are things rogues have. It's that these are literally the defining elements of the class.
I guess a good place to start with this is to state what it is about Fighter that you feel is integral to this subclass, and what is it about Rogue that is incompatible with your concept? To me this concept sounds a lot closer to a thuggish rogue (which really isn't covered well by existing subclasses) than a tricky fighter.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Yeah I think one of the main things is I don’t want a reflavored rogue, like you guys keep saying “yeah that’s this” but I’ve made it and I can tell you, it is not that.
I want the class to be based around the d4 damage die, not the d6, I want it to be unassuming but powerful
i want this class to be a fighter class small races can excel at with the 3rd level “knife form”
I simply don’t want rogue mechanics in this class lol, like at all, I want fighter mechanics like the extra attacks and ASIs.
Thematically the class fits better in fighter, of course it could go rogue but so could samurai or anything else. The class being dex based will naturally just push players to light armor, every fighter archer does that anyway. I imagine almost a brawler subclass, that used a knife and a variety of “cheap shots”
I think now instead of two weapon fighting and having the form be two daggers, I could go with one dagger and your free hand that’s used to cause different “cheap shot” effects.
I kind of want to allow a different effect with every attack as well, like one attack you can make your d4+dex regular knife attack and throw a handful of sand, the next attack you can make your attack and then use a different effect on the effect list.
I really do want a way to multiple the d4 damage dice, however I’m thinking that with 2-3 attacks you’re already going to be getting into 10-15 dmg plus 2-3d4 with 5dex. I think maybe the attack plus effects may be the way to go, make them useful but not overly powerful because you’ll be using 2-3 of the effects every time you take the attack action during your turn.
Like again, the cheap shots mechanic doesn’t work with rogue because your damage goal is built into the base class with sneak attack. With fighter I have room to add things like most fighter subclasses do that improve the base class by making your attacks more powerful.
Also a lot of fighter subclasses give bonus profs
A thuggish rogue sounds cool, and I think you could even describe your character that way while playing this subclass. I just don’t mechanically really like this sub as a rogue either.I like it better as a fighter and I think I can accomplish more of what I want to bring to my games with the fighter base.
I really appreciate the input though, I am going to work on this class and fully flesh it out. I want it to be a serious subclass as goofy as it sounds. I love playing gnomes and Halflings but a lot of the time they make really bad fighters and barbs. I don’t want to explicitly make this sub for gnomes etc but I want to make this subclass really good with small races. That’s why the “knife form” is so important I think, I call it a form because I don’t want some of the stuff you get with it to be abused with other weapons, I want it all to be balanced around the smallest damage dice. Also I want the knife to scale and be able to at some point bypass magic res somehow (making the dmg poison or cold etc instead of non magical piercing or just giving it magic for the purpose of overcoming res) Making a small unassuming weapon really formidable and maybe formidable in interesting ways I think is what is going to make this a Fun class.