I created this Rogue/Cleric thing when I had the image of a Rogue jumping over a crate and a dagger swinging down towards an enemy in mind. And then I thought "What if he kissed a cross around his neck right before that, just for some good luck or guidance?".
I had a few other ideas as well for this one, but can only pack that much into a single class before it gets utterly destroyed/convoluted/broken, so I settled on the things you can see here. In my estimate the core class of the rogue is already quite strong, so I am not too worried about the power of the class.
Things I think are problems or that are on my list: - The Name - Level 13 feat needs some clean wording. Especially the last sentence feels out of place. - Level 17 feat. Terrible wording, had no idea what to write, just an idea of what it was supposed to do. Still unsure about the Bonus to attack and saves. I think I should just pick either of those, but not both. On the other hand, this is the slight Paladin touch the class should receive in addition to its smite-lite, and its the archetype capstone. Decisions, decisions. - Btw, should I reduce the mini smite to a d6? I think that would fall in line with the rest of sneak attack, but on the other hand a Spell Rogue only has a few Spell Slots, and I think using one for a smite, even it is mini, should feel relatively relevant still. Btw, yes. It is supposed to stack with normal smite. That is why I chose Rogue/Cleric hybrid, so the player has two to take care of two spellcasting ability modifiers if he chooses to go down that path - Gifts of the Gods (both): I think I could increase the Spell availability by picking some Paladin Spells for that as well. Any ideas which to choose? - Should I introduce a major change and make Guidance the core of this class like Mage Hand is with Arcane Trickster? I had some ideas for that, but thought that would be too streamlined and boring. - Overall I am afraid this class might try to go in too many different directions. I think it is clear what it wants to do, but pulls too hard from different angles. Like I said, I thought about making Guidance the Core ability that changes over time, but also thought the idea of Gift of the Gods was neat for a rogue and kinda tried to get both in there. - Wording is the biggest problem in my estimate. Maybe I have creator blindness and can't see the major gameplay problem the class has even though it's staring directly at me?
Edit: An issue I realized is, that the Gifts of the Gods do not state if they count towards the maximum number of Spells known (they don't). So that's on my list as well.
having a look at it...I'm getting rogue, bard and paladin vibes from it. you get to lvl 13 abilities then have another set of lvl 9 and 13 abilities then jump back to lvl 17....were they either/or option?
On the spell casting side though, limiting the spell selection to divination and abjuration is ok but then you delve into smiting type abilities which sound more evocation based, which sounds a little odd.
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
having a look at it...I'm getting rogue, bard and paladin vibes from it. you get to lvl 13 abilities then have another set of lvl 9 and 13 abilities then jump back to lvl 17....were they either/or option?
For some reason that happened after saving. It seems like the display order is ****ed. Apparently I overlooked this gross mistake.
On the spell casting side though, limiting the spell selection to divination and abjuration is ok but then you delve into smiting type abilities which sound more evocation based, which sounds a little odd.
I contemplated that as well. It kinda irked me. I thought it could work, but I am unsure what else to award at that level. Do you have an idea that could work?
Edit: I think I had a simple idea. How about rerolling 1's on your sneak attack dies if the damage is either radiant or necrotic? Too powerful maybe?
Edit 2: I think I just had a rather wild idea for a replacement for smite-lite.
"After successfully applying sneak attack damage, and if the creature did not die, for 1 hour you gain the ability to see through it's eyes and hear through it's ears as an action. While doing this, the creature is not aware that this is happening. You can not hear or see through your own eyes while doing this."
So basically turning the creature you just hit into a makeshift familiar. Don't know if that works, but I am definitely going to use that at least as an NPC ability. :D
Concept wise I like it but there is a few areas that overlap with other class abilities, I'd look to change it as follows:
Spell wise:
Guidance would be useful but it may get a little less use when you get to reliable talent at level 11, assuming other cantrips can come from any school of magic there should be enough options to options to give some versatility.
Spells of level 1-4, Abjuration and Divination give lots of options, most would be useful for scouting activities such as detect magic, detect poison and disease etc. You could add: "When taking this subclass choose a Paladin Oath, you not bound by this oath but strive to honor its tenets, whenever you gain a new spell from this class you can choose a spell from the Cleric spell list or from that Oaths spell list, the spell must be one of a level you could normally cast and if from the Cleric list must come from the Abjuration or Divination schools".
You could have the Scout subclass act like the investigative wing of a paladin order or religious group, they go in undercover and call in the paladins if something needs to be cleansed in holy fire etc.
lvl 3: Guided by faith: I feel this might be better keeping the somatic component but have it as making a sign (like you would if you made the sign of the cross in a christian church but tailored to whatever faith the scout is from) or have it as some lucky sign (such as kissing the blade of the dagger), I might limit it to self only using this ability, no casting it subtly on other people, its more the rouge doing something to affirm their own faith before they do something but it uses a bonus action instead of a action to do so it is just another form of their cunning action.
lvl 9: Driven By Purpose: I think mirror the paladin smite ability, burn a spell slot add d8 necrotic or radiant damage pr spell level to the damage roll. That way it is a resource to burn instead of an "always on" ability but I can also see it done in the same way as the Ranger/Horizon Walker Planar Warrior ability.
lvl 13: Unwavering Believe: Ignoring verbal components is a big one, you've effectively got the sorcerer subtle spell meta-magic which makes you immune to silence and removes the easiest way of detecting a spell caster so I'd use the other option: Acolyte of the Divine and say the rogue subclass counts as a paladin and a cleric for the purpose of using magic items/attuning to them that's in line with the level 13 ability for thief.
lvl 17: Gift of the Gods: You gain the level 7 ability of the Paladin Oath you chose at level 3.
I think that all works, I flip/flopped on the smiting side of things
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When you reach 3rd level, you become able to cast cleric and paladin Spells. When taking this subclass choose a Paladin Oath. You are not strictly bound by this oath but strive to honor its tenets.
Cantrips
You learn 3 cantrips: Guidance and two additional cleric cantrips. You learn another Cleric cantrip of your choice when reaching 10th Level.
The Acolyte of Shadow works the same way as an Arcane Trickster, however when you gain a new spell from this class you can choose a spell from the Cleric spell list or from the Oaths spell list you chose. The spell must be one of a level you could normally cast and if from the Cleric list must come from the Abjuration or Divination schools.
The Spell you learn on 8th, 14th and 20th level can be from any school of magic. When picking this Subclass, two of the three spells you choose must come from the Divination or Abjuration School.
Guided by Faith
Starting at 3rd level, you can cast Guidance without using Verbal components. The somatic component depends on your faith and clerical affiliation. A cultist of an evil god might kiss the blade of their dagger while the follower of a lawful good deity might make a sign in front of their chest.
In addition, you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to cast this Spell as long as you target yourself.
Driven by Purpose
Starting at 9th level, you channel your faith and believe into a devastating attack. You use a Bonus Action and expend a Spell Slot to determine a target that you can see. Your next attack that hits the target that deals either radiant or necrotic damage depending on the alignment of your god (radiant when good aligned or necrotic when evil aligned). If you are neutral, you can choose the damage type. You deal an additional d6 damage of the appropriate type per level of the Spell Slot used. (I am super unsure about the last sentence. I have problems finding a happy middle for this and am even considering scraping the idea of a smite, however I like the idea of using a bonus action to change the damage type)
Gift of the Gods
Starting at 9th Level you gain a single blessing of the deity you are worshiping depending on the Alignment of that deity.
Evil Alignment
Choose one of those Spells if your deity is Evil aligned.
Choose one of those Spells if your deity is Neutrally aligned. Ceremony is the other spell, however it is not in this dropdown menu due to licensing issues. Therefore the other choice is Shatter, as a placeholder for Ceremony.
Starting at 13th Level, the characters soul is so infused with divine energies, that they reform his soul. For the purpose of magic Items, the character counts as both a Paladin and a Cleric.
Additional Gift of the Gods
Starting at 17th level you gain an additional Gift of the Gods depending on your deities alignment.
Evil Alignment
Choose one of these gifts if your deity is Evil aligned.
Just one more thing...You should only have a single level 9 and a single level 17 ability so you could scrap the smiting bit and keep the level 9 Gift of the Gods but you haven't said how they work, i assume they are just freebees added to the characters spell list?
You could manage it like a warlock invocation, and have a free level 2 casting of one of those spells x1 per long rest.
You could then do a similar thing for the level 17 Gift of the Gods and have it as a free level 3 casting of one of those spells x1 per long rest instead of the Divine Purpose.
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* Need a character idea? Search for "Rob76's Unused" in the Story and Lore section.
I like the general theme of this , but I'm not sure I like how tied into Paladin oaths it is. The Self-Guidance is a great piece of flavour.
I an old forum RPG I played our dual class for the cleric-equivalent and the thieves was the Witness.
Witnesses whole deal was dedication to truth, the discovery of secrets and presenting evidence. They had a magical equivalent of a memory palace that allowed them to enter a regurgitative trance. So they could sneak into the head-quarters of a corrupt official, read their ledgers and then spit out the information perfectly in a manner that.
Their position as evidence-chasers gave them leeway with the law and their word was considered evidence in itself.
Might be worth considering something specific to the concept of a Rogue with a divine mandate rather than just being a 'splash of paladin'?
I kinda wanted that mix. Paladin is just a small, while still viable, part of this idea. If you want, feel free and use this and change it as you want. :) I cant publish it, because of Spells that are not SRD, so people will have to do that anyway, if they want to play it. :D
I created this Rogue/Cleric thing when I had the image of a Rogue jumping over a crate and a dagger swinging down towards an enemy in mind. And then I thought "What if he kissed a cross around his neck right before that, just for some good luck or guidance?".
I had a few other ideas as well for this one, but can only pack that much into a single class before it gets utterly destroyed/convoluted/broken, so I settled on the things you can see here. In my estimate the core class of the rogue is already quite strong, so I am not too worried about the power of the class.
Things I think are problems or that are on my list:
- The Name
- Level 13 feat needs some clean wording. Especially the last sentence feels out of place.
- Level 17 feat. Terrible wording, had no idea what to write, just an idea of what it was supposed to do. Still unsure about the Bonus to attack and saves. I think I should just pick either of those, but not both. On the other hand, this is the slight Paladin touch the class should receive in addition to its smite-lite, and its the archetype capstone. Decisions, decisions.
- Btw, should I reduce the mini smite to a d6? I think that would fall in line with the rest of sneak attack, but on the other hand a Spell Rogue only has a few Spell Slots, and I think using one for a smite, even it is mini, should feel relatively relevant still. Btw, yes. It is supposed to stack with normal smite. That is why I chose Rogue/Cleric hybrid, so the player has two to take care of two spellcasting ability modifiers if he chooses to go down that path
- Gifts of the Gods (both): I think I could increase the Spell availability by picking some Paladin Spells for that as well. Any ideas which to choose?
- Should I introduce a major change and make Guidance the core of this class like Mage Hand is with Arcane Trickster? I had some ideas for that, but thought that would be too streamlined and boring.
- Overall I am afraid this class might try to go in too many different directions. I think it is clear what it wants to do, but pulls too hard from different angles. Like I said, I thought about making Guidance the Core ability that changes over time, but also thought the idea of Gift of the Gods was neat for a rogue and kinda tried to get both in there.
- Wording is the biggest problem in my estimate. Maybe I have creator blindness and can't see the major gameplay problem the class has even though it's staring directly at me?
Edit: An issue I realized is, that the Gifts of the Gods do not state if they count towards the maximum number of Spells known (they don't). So that's on my list as well.
Thank you for your help in advance.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/subclasses/263252-acolyte-of-shadow
having a look at it...I'm getting rogue, bard and paladin vibes from it. you get to lvl 13 abilities then have another set of lvl 9 and 13 abilities then jump back to lvl 17....were they either/or option?
On the spell casting side though, limiting the spell selection to divination and abjuration is ok but then you delve into smiting type abilities which sound more evocation based, which sounds a little odd.
For some reason that happened after saving. It seems like the display order is ****ed. Apparently I overlooked this gross mistake.
Edit: Display Order corrected
I contemplated that as well. It kinda irked me. I thought it could work, but I am unsure what else to award at that level. Do you have an idea that could work?
Edit: I think I had a simple idea. How about rerolling 1's on your sneak attack dies if the damage is either radiant or necrotic? Too powerful maybe?
Edit 2: I think I just had a rather wild idea for a replacement for smite-lite.
"After successfully applying sneak attack damage, and if the creature did not die, for 1 hour you gain the ability to see through it's eyes and hear through it's ears as an action. While doing this, the creature is not aware that this is happening. You can not hear or see through your own eyes while doing this."
So basically turning the creature you just hit into a makeshift familiar. Don't know if that works, but I am definitely going to use that at least as an NPC ability. :D
Concept wise I like it but there is a few areas that overlap with other class abilities, I'd look to change it as follows:
Spell wise:
Guidance would be useful but it may get a little less use when you get to reliable talent at level 11, assuming other cantrips can come from any school of magic there should be enough options to options to give some versatility.
Spells of level 1-4, Abjuration and Divination give lots of options, most would be useful for scouting activities such as detect magic, detect poison and disease etc. You could add: "When taking this subclass choose a Paladin Oath, you not bound by this oath but strive to honor its tenets, whenever you gain a new spell from this class you can choose a spell from the Cleric spell list or from that Oaths spell list, the spell must be one of a level you could normally cast and if from the Cleric list must come from the Abjuration or Divination schools".
You could have the Scout subclass act like the investigative wing of a paladin order or religious group, they go in undercover and call in the paladins if something needs to be cleansed in holy fire etc.
lvl 3: Guided by faith: I feel this might be better keeping the somatic component but have it as making a sign (like you would if you made the sign of the cross in a christian church but tailored to whatever faith the scout is from) or have it as some lucky sign (such as kissing the blade of the dagger), I might limit it to self only using this ability, no casting it subtly on other people, its more the rouge doing something to affirm their own faith before they do something but it uses a bonus action instead of a action to do so it is just another form of their cunning action.
lvl 9: Driven By Purpose: I think mirror the paladin smite ability, burn a spell slot add d8 necrotic or radiant damage pr spell level to the damage roll. That way it is a resource to burn instead of an "always on" ability but I can also see it done in the same way as the Ranger/Horizon Walker Planar Warrior ability.
lvl 13: Unwavering Believe: Ignoring verbal components is a big one, you've effectively got the sorcerer subtle spell meta-magic which makes you immune to silence and removes the easiest way of detecting a spell caster so I'd use the other option: Acolyte of the Divine and say the rogue subclass counts as a paladin and a cleric for the purpose of using magic items/attuning to them that's in line with the level 13 ability for thief.
lvl 17: Gift of the Gods: You gain the level 7 ability of the Paladin Oath you chose at level 3.
I think that all works, I flip/flopped on the smiting side of things
Spellcasting
When you reach 3rd level, you become able to cast cleric and paladin Spells. When taking this subclass choose a Paladin Oath. You are not strictly bound by this oath but strive to honor its tenets.
Cantrips
You learn 3 cantrips: Guidance and two additional cleric cantrips. You learn another Cleric cantrip of your choice when reaching 10th Level.
The Acolyte of Shadow works the same way as an Arcane Trickster, however when you gain a new spell from this class you can choose a spell from the Cleric spell list or from the Oaths spell list you chose. The spell must be one of a level you could normally cast and if from the Cleric list must come from the Abjuration or Divination schools.
The Spell you learn on 8th, 14th and 20th level can be from any school of magic. When picking this Subclass, two of the three spells you choose must come from the Divination or Abjuration School.
Guided by Faith
Starting at 3rd level, you can cast Guidance without using Verbal components. The somatic component depends on your faith and clerical affiliation. A cultist of an evil god might kiss the blade of their dagger while the follower of a lawful good deity might make a sign in front of their chest.
In addition, you can use the bonus action granted by your Cunning Action to cast this Spell as long as you target yourself.
Driven by Purpose
Starting at 9th level, you channel your faith and believe into a devastating attack. You use a Bonus Action and expend a Spell Slot to determine a target that you can see. Your next attack that hits the target that deals either radiant or necrotic damage depending on the alignment of your god (radiant when good aligned or necrotic when evil aligned). If you are neutral, you can choose the damage type. You deal an additional d6 damage of the appropriate type per level of the Spell Slot used. (I am super unsure about the last sentence. I have problems finding a happy middle for this and am even considering scraping the idea of a smite, however I like the idea of using a bonus action to change the damage type)
Gift of the Gods
Starting at 9th Level you gain a single blessing of the deity you are worshiping depending on the Alignment of that deity.
Evil Alignment
Choose one of those Spells if your deity is Evil aligned.
Inflict Wounds, Locate Object
Good Alignment
Choose from these Spells if your deity is Good aligned.
Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration
Neutral Alignment
Choose one of those Spells if your deity is Neutrally aligned. Ceremony is the other spell, however it is not in this dropdown menu due to licensing issues. Therefore the other choice is Shatter, as a placeholder for Ceremony.
Ceremony, Silence
Acolyte of the Divine
Starting at 13th Level, the characters soul is so infused with divine energies, that they reform his soul. For the purpose of magic Items, the character counts as both a Paladin and a Cleric.
Additional Gift of the Gods
Starting at 17th level you gain an additional Gift of the Gods depending on your deities alignment.
Evil Alignment
Choose one of these gifts if your deity is Evil aligned.
Evil Alignment: Bestow Curse, Speak with Dead
Good Alignment
Choose one of these gifts if your deity is Good aligned.
Good Alignment: Daylight, Mass Healing Word
Neutral Alignment
Choose one of these gifts if your deity is Neutrally aligned.
Neutral Alignment: Dispel Magic, Water Walk
Divine Purpose
Beginning at 17th level the character becomes a conduit of divine purpose. You gain the level 7 ability of the paladin oath you chose.
Your input was amazing! Thank you very much. It still needs work, but I think that is only going to be wording and the smite/damage type change thing.
Just one more thing...You should only have a single level 9 and a single level 17 ability so you could scrap the smiting bit and keep the level 9 Gift of the Gods but you haven't said how they work, i assume they are just freebees added to the characters spell list?
You could manage it like a warlock invocation, and have a free level 2 casting of one of those spells x1 per long rest.
You could then do a similar thing for the level 17 Gift of the Gods and have it as a free level 3 casting of one of those spells x1 per long rest instead of the Divine Purpose.
I had it planned as a free spell you get that does not count towards the maximum number of spells known.
I like the general theme of this , but I'm not sure I like how tied into Paladin oaths it is. The Self-Guidance is a great piece of flavour.
I an old forum RPG I played our dual class for the cleric-equivalent and the thieves was the Witness.
Witnesses whole deal was dedication to truth, the discovery of secrets and presenting evidence. They had a magical equivalent of a memory palace that allowed them to enter a regurgitative trance. So they could sneak into the head-quarters of a corrupt official, read their ledgers and then spit out the information perfectly in a manner that.
Their position as evidence-chasers gave them leeway with the law and their word was considered evidence in itself.
Might be worth considering something specific to the concept of a Rogue with a divine mandate rather than just being a 'splash of paladin'?
My DM's Guild Content - Mostly quick rules and guides.
I kinda wanted that mix. Paladin is just a small, while still viable, part of this idea. If you want, feel free and use this and change it as you want. :) I cant publish it, because of Spells that are not SRD, so people will have to do that anyway, if they want to play it. :D