Expert class

Hi!

Is Anyone interested in an expert class with techniques both outside and inside combat inspired by Skills, which can compete with spellcasters ?

Sounds interesting.

3 levels first... There are dozens of ways to design a class based on skills. My non-spell Bard is already one example. Now we will create a more spectacular class (since debuff is not an obvious powerhouse).

A martial version would need to both deal damage and match spellcasters in their ability to create condition-altering effects, which a spell like command can already do at level 1.

It also needs to avoid being too strong at levels 1 and 2 in order to prevent abusive multiclassing and excessive front-loading, since it’s easy to end up with 100+ techniques derived from skills.

My plan:

Level 1: Expertise in 2 skills, 4 skills total.
An expert is a specialist, not a skill monkey.

At level 1, it’s also a good place to grant informational combat bonuses based on “mental” skills, somewhat like D&D 4e—a category of enemies per skill that provides information (Intelligence and Wisdom-based skills). Perception is removed because it is already extremely powerful on its own: Investigation, Religion, Arcana, Insight, Nature, Survival, History, Animal Handling, Medicine.

Each skill corresponds to an enemy category.

As a bonus action, you can analyse an enemy based on his class, according to  your skill.

a skill check that exceeds the DC equal to 10+CR  (note: 1/8=+1, ¼ +2, ½=+3, do cr 1 = 14) grants +1d6 damage for the expert and +1d4 damage to their allies up to the end of your next turn  (2 rounds, to avoid infinite bookkeeping, not necessarily for realism). Expertise is factored in.

Level 2: As a reaction, you can analyse an enemy as per the level 1 ability. A little plus for your ally if he already got a 1d4. 1d10 instead ?

Arcana: aberrations, elementals

Investigation: Constructs

Religion: undead, celestials, fiends
Insight: humanoids
History: armies (for a mass combat system)

Nature and Survival: beasts, plants

Medicine: Humanoids, oozes
Animal Handling: beasts

Level 3: choose 2 skills in which you are an Expert—this defines your archetype. This creates over 100 possible archetype combinations.

At level 3, you also select 2 skill techniques.

Since this is D&D, Dexterity and Strength-based skills should likely be prioritized. Should I require one technique tied to a Dexterity or Strength skill and one tied to a mental skill? Otherwise, it risks becoming too powerful—and also somewhat dull.

ex:

Athletics

Line breaker

When you succeed on a shove attempt by 5 or more, you can:

• push the target 10 additional feet
• or knock the target prone for free

Combat climber

You can climb at full speed without a check if your hands are free.

In combat:

• a creature on the ground does not gain opportunity attacks against you while climbing

Brutal throw

After grappling a creature:

• you can throw it 5 feet into an empty space
• it takes your Strength damage

Acrobatics

Reposition

When an attack misses you:

• you can move 5 feet without provoking opportunity attacks

Leap Over You can move through the space of a larger hostile creature without treating it as difficult terrain

etc. Good direction ?

1 - What would you define as armies? Because that sounds like it’s purely up to the dm's discretion at what constitutes as an army. Also is the extra damage per attack, or any instance of damage? The 1d4 for everyone and the expert getting a 1d6 for a few rounds is nuts, from my reading, they just suddenly get the damage with no restriction for what it benefits against. So you could just target the lowest cr enemy and get free damage as a bonus action.

2 - A 1d10 is WAY too strong, that’s practically doubling a martial class's damage. What’s stopping the expert from spamming their ability? They have no other bonus actions and very limited reaction uses, so what’s stopping them from constantly activating the ability throughout the fight, which easily surpasses even some pretty strong spells.

3 - Why would the class focus on being Dex or strength based? You’ve given it nothing to incentivise those skills at all, the class has no hit dice, no saving throw proficiency, in fact, your first level ability actively focuses on mental stats instead. Why would it be too powerful/dull? Aren’t they a specialist, not a skill monkey?

Line breaker seems fine to me, but it seems like it would really want to be part of a martial class. The 5 or more is a bit of a problem though, since your using athletics, you have to beat the target's athletics check by 5, it just seems a tad situational.

One of Brutal Throw's ability sucks though, throwing it 5 feet to an empty space would mean it’s out of your grapple. Also the takes damage equal to Strength is overpowered as all hell, you mean that they may take damage equal to 17 from a single grapple? If not, specify that it’s equal to strength modifier.

The one for acrobatics is too weak compared to Athletics, if your having two at the same time, who wouldn’t choose the one for athletics, it’s a more common skill and is far more loaded in abilities.