So, for the past year, I have been working on making this subclass for rouge. I set out to create something truly remarkable which could compete with caster classes in terms of versatility and flavor. The Saboteur was born when one of the players in my home group wondered out loud "How come PCs are always the victim of traps but there is no class that specializes in setting traps" Based on that, I started conceptualizing the class. Asking questions like, "Wouldn't it be cool if you had a guy that could just, deploy pitfall traps whenever and wherever" so I set out to make the class with a few objectives in mind.
It must compete with casters to some extent, but also do some unique things
It must be like the Battlemaster of rogues
It must give new unique ways of triggering sneak attacks and just overall work off that mechanic for more than just damage.
Without further ado, take a look at what I got so far for the Saboteur
Now that you have seen that and come back, let us discuss a few things that I would like some feedback on:
Lore: I will fully admit, I am not the greatest when it comes to making good lore. In my mind, a saboteur is someone who has spent a great deal of time studying magic and tinkering with devices. Someone who, in another life, could have been a wizard, or an artificer, but decided to go a different route altogether. They have chosen to hyper-specialize their use of magic to create arcane traps. So what do you think of this? does it sound good enough to justify the class's abilities? is there anything I should add?
The Arcane Traps: Oh boy these were hard to make (Making a subclass with so many options is a ton of work). I generally went with the idea of including classic dungeon traps, as well as others that mimic spell effects. However, I tried to add unique features to each one to differentiate them for effect. I know, for a fact, that a lot of the traps are overpowered as heck, while others are underpowered. I would like some feedback here.
Are the rules about deploying, activating, and concentrating on the traps clear enough to be easily understood?
Did you like the trap options included? Which ones do you think stand out and which ones fall flat?
If you have a cool trap idea that you think should be added please let me know!
Is proficiency + Intelligence number of uses per long rest too much? should I lower it to something else or leave it as is?
Trap Preparers: Rather than learning only a set number of traps (like a battle master); saboteurs can prepare a number of traps from the entire list every day. I did this in order to maintain the theme of versatility. They are not a one-trick pony, they thrive when they can do their homework, plan out an operation, set up the battlefield, and execute the master plan. I also considered if giving someone access to all traps was too good for only 3 levels of investment into rogue. But then I considered the following. Investing 3 levels into Cleric gives you access to 15 first-level spells and 18 second-level spells while allowing you to prepare around 7 spells and giving you 6 slots to use them. Investing 3 levels into this class gives to access to 14 traps (currently) while allowing you to prepare 2 and use them a maximum of 7 times (assuming you have 20 int)
So what do you think about them being trap preparers?
Feel free to give me as much or as little feedback as you want. The class is still a work in progress and likely to get updated based on the feedback I get.
First things first, this is super cool. I notice that sometimes my feedback looks kinda snarky when I read it afterwards. Please don't take it that way. That being said...
Rogue is the name for a sneaky trickster. Rouge is a shade of red. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you got the thread title wrong.
It's not necessary, but I recommend learning how to use tooltips, for things like the restrained condition. It's very helpful for readers, and quite simple. There's a very intuitive guide pinned in the Homebrew forums
Arcane Trap - Int+proficiency is a very high number of traps. The problem is, making it just proficiency would probably be too low, and making it just Intelligence wouldn't scale well. Perhaps making it scale similarly to the Battle Master (but maybe one fewer use) would be appropriate. Another idea that I had is to make it so that you can only use each trap that you prepared once. It would make mechanical sense- you made one bear trap, you use one bear trap- and it would greatly encourage the versatile playstyle that you seem to want, instead of using the same trap over and over again.
Concentration - it would be simpler to have all of the concentration traps fail at once if you fail a concentration check, as well as make more sense. I get how you might want to avoid that, since it could kinda suck if your whole plan got ruined at once, but it feels like a high risk/high reward sort of thing.
Deployment and Activation - make it clearer that not all traps need to be activated.
Sneak Attack - as this is explained in each of the traps individually, it feels unnecessary to have it here.
Bear Trap - restrained is very powerful. It makes a bit less sense, but mechanically it would be more balanced to have it grapple instead. Also, remember to specify Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics).
Cloaking field - based on the text, it's not entirely clear what the illusion is supposed to look like. Also, being able to hide without any action is pretty strong and also somewhat vague. Simply making anybody in the field heavily obscured to anybody outside of the field would work for the effect you want, I believe. Finally, you forgot to capitalize the title of the ability, so it is inconsistent with the other abilities.
Containment Cube - cool idea, but it would seem simpler to make the entire cube have hit points instead of each individual wall. I can't visualize a way that destroying a wall yet somehow still being crushed by the cube makes sense. Plus the current wording is ambiguous as to whether you roll the sneak attack dice for each wall, or just roll it once and apply it to all of the walls. Also, "Dexterity saving throw against your trap DC" is unnecessary verbiage. Just say Dextery saving throw, the rest is implied. Final suggestion is to make it its own action to use, instead of forgoing one of the attacks from the attack. Rogues don't get extra attack anyways, so all that does is open the door for super OP multiclassing.
Explosives Drone - it's currently ambiguous whether or not the drone can fly or not. Other than that I think it would be better if the AC were 10, to mimic the tiny construct that rock gnomes are capable of creating. Also, "Strenght" is probably a typo.
Flash Freezer - make it clearer for how long the movement speed is reduced to 0. I don't know the exact way the grammar works out, but I think as it currently stands this trap reduces a creature's speed to 0 forever.
Illusory Projector - I like it! I would recommend allowing it to emit sound but not smell and letting the person who made it change it at will, so that it's worth the slot. Also, remember to specify an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
Lightning Trap - inflicting paralyzed in an area is pretty strong. Maybe make it so that the trap only affects one creature (and paralyzes it) and then shoots off to a couple other creatures without paralyzing them, kinda like chain lightning.
Lights-Out - making it last until the start of your next turn would make more sense, as I think technically rounds end when whoever has the lowest initiative finishes their turn. The comma after "consciousness" isn't necessary.
Loudmouth - it's a cool trap! Not much to say (besides using tooltips for deafened, but I've already said that).
Mindbreaker - pretty cool, but it could be too powerful against many spellcasters that aren't wizards. Perhaps making the target unable to cast spells of higher level than half their highest spell slot or limiting it to only cantrips would be more balanced.
Portable Pitfall - like the idea, but the way it's written is a bit odd. Coming into contact with the entrance requires a Dex saving throw to not fall, but the entrance is a hole. Normally, when you walk onto a hole, you go through it. Does this mean that if you succeed the saving throw you can just... walk on the hole? Making a Dex save to take half damage makes sense, but making a Dex save to not fall into the hole you just walked onto doesn't. I would also recommend changing it from "pops out harmlessly" to the hole moving up like an elevator until it doesn't exist anymore, mostly because the former is a weird thing to imagine. Finally, remember that it's Strength (Athletics) and Dexterity (Acrobatics).
Portal Trap - REALLY cool in concept, but the mechanics are a bit muddy. Same thing as Portable Pitfall, where going through a portal would logically mean coming out the other side, successful Dex save or not. Maybe a cooler way to do it would be to allow you to pull everybody within 10 or 15 feet of one of the portals through as a bonus action, if they fail a Strength or Dexterity saving throw
Prying Eyes - cool feature, not much to say though.
Razorwire - another good and versatile option, though it should probably require concentration.
Recycle Components - just kinda gives you more uses. Not very exciting or anything. I would recommend replacing it with Empowered Trap (or something like that), which lets you use d8s instead of d6s for one trap.
Master of Sabotage - Being able to set down multiple traps is way too powerful. The other part by itself is very powerful, so I would just leave it at that.
Deadly Contraption - the extra 3d6 and advantage on damage rolls both seem way too powerful. Perhaps having access to the entire trap list at all times would be a cool way to make you seem like the best at your craft, maybe throwing in the "regain a trap use if you have none at initiative" a la monk, sorcerer, and battle master. I would keep the double range for deployment, but maybe just an extra 5 feet for areas of effect.
And that about wraps up my feedback! Honestly, this is one of the most remarkable subclasses I have seen, even in published material. You're great at this.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Thank you so much for all this feedback! It is incredible, you really thought deeply about this. I will definitely be making some of these changes.
In response to Master of Sabotage and Deadly Contraption being potent. I am fully aware, and it's intentional. They are level 13 and 17 abilities, they require an immense level of investment into this one class at the expense of multiclassing. I also mentioned that I set out to make a class that could in some way compete with Casters, which means deploying three traps at once and having an advantage on trap damage rolls has to compete with WISH, Meteor swarm, true polymorph, etc etc.
I like your idea of making each prepared trap, be usable once. I originally thought of this idea --> being also to make as many of a trap as you think you're going to need within your allotted uses. But I didn't want to complicate the process. Also, I didn't want to be overly specific with what the traps look like, how they are made or even how they are deployed. I wanted the player to be able to define these Flavor characteristics for themselves. Maybe your traps all look like wind-up toys. Maybe they look like translucent force constructs. Maybe they look like demonic artifacts etc.
The concentration is there to explain that you have a level of control over your traps, however, the trap exists independently of you, and it is not destroyed when you lose concentration. This is to say, you and your team could also fall into your own traps if you are not careful.
The containment cube was the last trap I came up with and, in all honesty, I don't think I was able to word it accurately to how I wanted it to work. Btw, the "It takes one of your attacks instead of an action thing" Is intentional, and its there to promote multiclassing :P Consider this: You are a level 8 character that takes 5 levels in fighter, and 3 levels in rogue. You use a containment cube to crush your enemies twice, then action surge and crush them twice again. Sounds op right? Except, your enemy has a chance to escape the cube altogether when you activate it, and they have a chance to avoid damage at each one of those crushes by making a strength roll. Even then, your sneak attack dice at level 3 are only 2d6 so you are wasting all of those resources to deal and grand total of 8d6 in a 10ft area and your enemy gets 5 chances to avoid it. Now imagine you are the same level 8 character, except you took 6 levels in Wizard and 2 levels in Fighter. You then cast fireball, action surge cast fireball, you now deal 16d8s and your enemy only gets 2 chances to save. Now that I think about it, the cube kinda sucks, I got to buff it.
Your problem seems to be that you're ignoring how quickly spellcasters run out of resources, especially if they're only casting their highest level spells. Deploying three traps at once and having advantage on trap damage rolls has to compete with 9th level spells only if you have a single round of combat per long rest. And it's not like this is a completely separate class- you're still getting all the benefits of being a rogue ON TOP of these options. One of the rogue's biggest selling points is the fact that they have no limited-use features, so making them outlast AND out-damage casters is obviously ridiculous. Your 6 wizard/2 fighter could pull that stunt once a long rest (btw it's 16d6 not 16d8), and then only have access to much weaker spells for the rest of the day, especially compared to their 8th level compatriots. That being said, I don't see why you put an ability there to encourage multiclassing, and then explained why multiclassing with it is useless.
As for your point about concentration, I have no idea why you said that. I never asked why you have to concentrate on some traps or why they still exist if you don't concentrate on them.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Your problem seems to be that you're ignoring how quickly spellcasters run out of resources, especially if they're only casting their highest level spells. Deploying three traps at once and having advantage on trap damage rolls has to compete with 9th level spells only if you have a single round of combat per long rest. And it's not like this is a completely separate class- you're still getting all the benefits of being a rogue ON TOP of these options. One of the rogue's biggest selling points is the fact that they have no limited-use features, so making them outlast AND out-damage casters is obviously ridiculous. Your 6 wizard/2 fighter could pull that stunt once a long rest (btw it's 16d6 not 16d8), and then only have access to much weaker spells for the rest of the day, especially compared to their 8th level compatriots. That being said, I don't see why you put an ability there to encourage multiclassing, and then explained why multiclassing with it is useless.
As for your point about concentration, I have no idea why you said that. I never asked why you have to concentrate on some traps or why they still exist if you don't concentrate on them.
No, I am fully aware of how spell-casters work.
At level 17, full casters have:
4~5 Cantrips are their highest potency
1st: 4
2nd: 3
3rd: 3
4th: 3
5th: 2
6th:1
7th:1
8th:1
9th:1
For a grand total of 19 different slots. Not to mention that Most casters have the ability to regain spells slots through features like Arcane recovery, Harness Divine Power, Sorcery point conversion, Warlocks just generally taking a short rest.
A level 17 Saboteur in its current iteration (assuming their Intelligence is 20) would have access to 11 uses of their traps (or 47% fewer uses when compared to spells slots)
You mention that a Saboteur would still get the benefits of being a rogue on top of their traps. Well, Casters also get the benefits of their class regardless of their spells. Druids still have wild shapes, Bards still have bardic inspirations, Clerics still have channel divinities, etc etc. The main difference is that there are hundreds of fantastical spells out there whos power cannot be quantified. Meanwhile, the arcane traps are, not so great, and are heavily limited by my own imagination.
As an aside, most of the high-level abilities of the Rogue class are subpar in a strict combat scenario. They are mainly better mental saving throws, 10ft of blind sense (which fighters can get at level 1 as a fighting style, this is an insult for a level 14 ability)
My point is this, why is it that we have just accepted that martial and other non-casters must forever be subpar? Why is it that, it's perfectly alright for a high-level wizard to show up to the battle with two simulacrums each having its own simulacrum? Or the warlock shows up as an ancient white dragon cause he used True-polymorph on himself and now he's a legendary creature, forever. Or the cleric who uses Gate and summons a demigod onto the field. All of this, we consider totally ok and balanced. But nanosecond a martial gets a cool ability our knee-jerk reaction is to consider it overpowered and unbalanced.
To be clear, I am not criticizing you here. Far from it. If anything, I am trying to justify my own thinking. Throwing 3 traps at once cuts down the time it takes for you to set up the environment. It is there to better accommodate a faster pace of combat and to keep things moving. Around level 13 combats start taking forever, because monsters and players start getting super complicated spells and abilities that slow things down to a crawl. If you were to throw your traps 1 at a time, 20 to 30 minutes might elapse in real life before you get to throw the second one. By this point, it is entirely likely that the battle already shifted away from your traps, because someone broke the terrain with an earthquake, or decided to plane shift all of you to the place of fire. I WANT you to feel like a mastermind, I want you to come up with cool trap combinations and be able to meaningfully capitalize on your ideas QUICKLY.
Now on the damaging side, let's do a simple comparison. A rogues sneak attack dice at level 17 is 9d6 for an average of 31 points of damage. The 9th-level spell meteor swam does 20d6 fire and 20d6 bludgeoning damage for an average of 141 points of damage (and it does this to ALL creatures on a 40ft radius). A saboteur would need to use on average 4.5 traps (nearly 50% of their trap charges) to even come close to that kind of damage, in a much smaller area and affecting fewer creatures. And mind you, that meteor swam was only 1 slot, the caster still has 18 other slots they could use. Even if they cast progressively weaker and weaker spells, the saboteur would need to use several weeks' worth of trap charges to even come close to matching a caster.
Again, I am not criticizing you, and this is not meant to disparage you in any way. This is merely my thought process when determining that, 'No, those abilities are not overpowered at all" If anything they are Underpowered, but alas, no much I can do about the massive gaping difference between casters and non casters.
11 of those traps is almost definitely better than 19 spell slots of varying degrees, since all of those traps deliver the same VERY POTENT amount of damage of ANY type PLUS incredibly powerful additional effects (not to mention that they use bonus actions- this subclass can still get sneak attack normally, or even as a reaction if you have a battle master). Sure, 9th 8th and 7th level spells are probably stronger than the traps. Which is 3 spell slots. And usually they use actions too, instead of bonus actions. Saying they get 47% fewer uses is ridiculous.
Yes, druids will have wild shape. Yes, bards will have inspiration. Yes, clerics will have channel divinity. You know what happens to those features? They run out. Very quickly. You know what can never ever not-in-a-million-lifetimes happen to Sneak Attack? Run out. If there is only one round of combat between long rests, casters will do more damage. That's just how they are. If there are multiple fights before you get the chance to sleep for 8 hours, martials will be consistent sources of damage throughout them all.
Meteor swarm can only ever be used once per long rest. It is an action, deals partial fire damage (the most common kind for resistance/immunity), deals collateral damage in every situation, is pretty much unusable indoors, and is often very difficult to avoid friendly fire with. These traps let you choose the damage type, have very powerful effects alongside damage, and (for the most part) completely operate on bonus actions, leaving actions free to do things like Sneak Attack (which, if I didn't mention, will never run out). Let us not ignore that the only two classes that can cast meteor swarm both have 1d6 hit dice and infamously low AC. Compare this to the rogue, whose main stat is Dex, can wear some armor (though admittedly not a ton), has Evasion and Uncanny dodge, 1d8 hit dice, an extra ASI, proficiency in Dex saving throws, and the ability to hide, disengage, or dash as a bonus action.
A subclass is marked as overpowered not when it's more powerful than other classes, but when it's more powerful than other subclasses. If there's absolutely no reason to justify NOT taking this subclass when you play a rogue, then it's overpowered. As it currently stands, it is definitely overpowered.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
11 of those traps is almost definitely better than 19 spell slots of varying degrees, since all of those traps deliver the same VERY POTENT amount of damage of ANY type PLUS incredibly powerful additional effects (not to mention that they use bonus actions- this subclass can still get sneak attack normally, or even as a reaction if you have a battle master). Sure, 9th 8th and 7th level spells are probably stronger than the traps. Which is 3 spell slots. And usually they use actions too, instead of bonus actions. Saying they get 47% fewer uses is ridiculous.
Yes, druids will have wild shape. Yes, bards will have inspiration. Yes, clerics will have channel divinity. You know what happens to those features? They run out. Very quickly. You know what can never ever not-in-a-million-lifetimes happen to Sneak Attack? Run out. If there is only one round of combat between long rests, casters will do more damage. That's just how they are. If there are multiple fights before you get the chance to sleep for 8 hours, martials will be consistent sources of damage throughout them all.
Meteor swarm can only ever be used once per long rest. It is an action, deals partial fire damage (the most common kind for resistance/immunity), deals collateral damage in every situation, is pretty much unusable indoors, and is often very difficult to avoid friendly fire with. These traps let you choose the damage type, have very powerful effects alongside damage, and (for the most part) completely operate on bonus actions, leaving actions free to do things like Sneak Attack (which, if I didn't mention, will never run out). Let us not ignore that the only two classes that can cast meteor swarm both have 1d6 hit dice and infamously low AC. Compare this to the rogue, whose main stat is Dex, can wear some armor (though admittedly not a ton), has Evasion and Uncanny dodge, 1d8 hit dice, an extra ASI, proficiency in Dex saving throws, and the ability to hide, disengage, or dash as a bonus action.
A subclass is marked as overpowered not when it's more powerful than other classes, but when it's more powerful than other subclasses. If there's absolutely no reason to justify NOT taking this subclass when you play a rogue, then it's overpowered. As it currently stands, it is definitely overpowered.
Let's do a little experiment, working off my previous post. Let's assume that a level 17 wizard uses all of their slots to cast only damaging spells with a casting time of 1 action and instantaneous effects. For this purpose of this, we will ignore the area of effect and the conditions cause by the spells and the arcane traps and look only at the traps.
This gives us total average damage of 713 as a result of using all of their spells slots from 1 day. Now let's look at a level 17 rogue Saboteur. they have a sneak attack dice of 9d6 dealing an average of 31 damage per activation. Meaning that a Saboteur would need to trigger 23 traps (or more than double their daily traps) in order to match the output of a caster with traps alone.
Sure, they can still trigger a sneak attack with their singular attack action. Well, casters can still push out respectable damage with unlimited cantrip usage. For instance, Firebolt does an average of 22 damage at level 17. Eldritch Blast + agonizing blast does an average of 42 damage (assuming 20 charisma)
I will say this, casters are better than martial at EVERYTHING. Also, the biggest lie ever told is the idea that casters are squishy. Low AC? Mage Armor [Tooltip Not Found] Need more HP? have you seen anything the clerics and bards can do?
Traps use bonus actions. EVERY SINGLE ONE of those spells use actions. I don't see where your thought process is going with this. Eldritch blast damage is irrelevant, on account of warlocks having a pitiful amount of spell slots. That's like saying druids are OP because they have Wild Shape and Channel Divinity. They just don't. At level 17, cantrips (excluding EB) do NOT do respectable damage. Just saying that you want to ignore the areas of effect and conditions doesn't make them go away; NONE of your examples have ANY secondary effects, whereas each and every one of the traps have VERY strong conditions that they apply (and a ton of diversity with damage type).
Casters are NOT better than martials at everything. Casters ARE squishy. Mage armor won't give you an AC like martials, especially by level 17. Also, here's a fun fact: clerics and bards can cast healing spells on martials as well, not just other casters. That point is just completely poot. Between evasion, uncanny dodge, dex save proficiency, and everything else that I ALREADY listed, I have genuinely no idea how you think a sorcerer or wizard could compare to a rogue in survivability.
I don't know why this message seems to stop right before your skull, but casters WILL outperform martials if you have a single round of combat per long rest. I'm sorry if you don't like that, I'm sorry if you think that isn't fair, and I'm sorry for any other grievances you might have with that idea. But martials have abilities that last much longer into the day than casters. I've said this many times now, and it seems like I'll have to say it many more.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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"Warlocks have a pitiful amount of spells slots" ---> At level 17 warlocks have 4 pact slots at 5th level and a mystic arcanum for levels 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th. Assuming the party takes 2 short rests on a given adventuring day the warlock can cast 12 -5th level spells and 4 other spells from mystic arcanum, which brings them to a total of 16 spells on a given day. If you add to that all the spells that they gain from Invocations, they are very much in line with all other casters in terms of the number of casts per day.
"Casters ARE squishy" and "Mage armor doesn't give you an AC like a martial" ----> let's say a level 17 wizard has 20 DEX (which isn't hard to imagine since Dex is the best stat in the game and everyone needs it). If this wizard casts Mage Armor their AC is now 18, congratulations, you have the equivalent of plate mail on. If this wizard casts Shield they can make their AC become 23 whenever they want. Let's say this wizard wants to be a little extra safe, they can cast Blur and now enemies have a permanent disadvantage on attacks against them. Ok, but what about saving throws, what if the enemy uses an area-of-effect spell on them? No problem, just cast Absorb Elements and give yourself resistance to that damage why don't you? Mind you, this is just a wizard, clerics and druids are different beasts entirely, with better armor and shield proficiencies and a plethora of defensive, restorative, and control spells which makes damaging them a nightmare.
"Arcane traps apply very strong conditions" ---> Almost every single one of the traps is a downgraded version of an existing spell and scales to be weaker than that spell cast at the respective level. For example, in one of your previous comments, you mentioned that the trap "Mind Breaker" was too overpowered because it completely shuts down casters. May I introduce you to the 2nd level spell Hold Person? Under the effects of Mind breaker, a creature cannot casts spells for one singular round, but can otherwise move, and take all other actions besides casting spells. A creature under Hold person is completely screwed, they can't cast spells, they can't move, they can't do anything AND attacks against them are auto crits. You mentioned that the restrained on "Bear Trap" is too strong, but then again, a hold person exists.
"Casters run out of steam while martial have unlimited damage" --> Did you pay any attention at all to my previous post? a caster can take 19 turns of combat, casting a spell every single time before they run out. keep in mind that some of their spells have powers that can't really be quantified, last for long periods of time, and affects huge areas and a multitude of creatures. Realistically, if a singular combat encounter takes you 19 turns you are going to take a long rest at this point, but even if you don't, you still have cantrips to fall back upon.
Mystic Arcanum seems a lot more useful than it is. Being limited to one spell means it's rarely going to be put to full use, especially with such a limited spell list of mostly out-of-combat spells.
20 dex is pretty hard to imagine. It's generally a secondary ability, and there are a number of feats that a wizard would sooner take to improve spellcasting before using an ASI for dex. 18 AC is by no means impressive for a 17th level character. Shield and absorb elements burn through spell slots like hell, and a wizard will very rarely concentrate on a 2nd level spell at 17th level.
Hold person doesn't do damage. Nearly every single trap does. Hold person is an action. Every trap is a bonus action. Plus, the trap that inflicts paralyzed affects multiple creatures in an area, AND isn't limited to humanoids, so more akin to an improved version of hold monster.
19 turns of combat (unless they cast mage armor, shield, or absorb elements, as per your suggestions) aren't all that spells are used for. If your casters never use ANY out-of-combat spells, then they could probably keep going for most adventuring days. Casters always use out-of-combat spells. Plus, those last 10 or so turns are generally going to have on par/weaker damage output than martials.
I'd also like to mention that you've yet to address the fact that there's no reason NOT to take this subclass if you play a rogue. That means it's overpowered.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Look man, at this point I think both of us are deeply entrenched in our respective opinions. I respect that, and I respect you. You have given me a lot of valuable feedback which I will use to balance out the Saboteur. I thank you immensely for that, and I hope that when I publish an update for it you will give me feedback again.
I am fully aware that some aspects of the Saboteur are overpowered, but I am ok with that. My goals as stated in the original post were to "Create a class that can be "the battle master" of rouges" and "Can compete with casters to some degree"
I personally believe that martial classes fall short of casters in every single aspect imaginable. Without multiclassing, you can build a caster to outperform a martial in every facet you choose. No amount of argumentation will convince me otherwise. To me, this is a fact of DnD. A level 20 wizard casts Blade of Disaster and he will do more damage than a level 20 fighter or rogue blow for blow. A level 20 wizard cast Invulnerability and he will be Tankier than a level 20 barbarian. A level 20 wizard can cast Wish and instantly cast any spell or 8th level or lower without any material components, he has access to almost every spell in the game and can solve almost every situation. And what do martial get for their pinnacle abilities? make 4 attacks? turn a miss into a hit once? regain 4 ki points on initiative (only if you have none)? Man, that's really exciting and engaging, I sure am glad I stuck with this class for 20 levels.
You've got a good point. As my last thing to say in defense of martials, I will say that yeah, most of the level 20 martial abilities are ass. Fighters should get subclass features at level 20 and 4 attacks at level 17 like warlocks. Rogue is so limited it hurts, and monk is just painful. Barbarian is cool. But, to be fair, the casters' 20th levels are mixed bags too. Sorcerers and bards are the same as monks. Clerics have a once/7 days feature. Rangers are like worse Potent Cantrips. Wizards get 2 extra 3rd level spell slots only for fireball and another spell you choose, way lamer than the 18th level. Warlocks are versatile in most campaigns, where there isn't always an hour to spare. Paladins are good and druids can be nice (depending on subclass). Judging a class by its 20th level feature is like rolling 1d4 to see how much you like it.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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So, for the past year, I have been working on making this subclass for rouge. I set out to create something truly remarkable which could compete with caster classes in terms of versatility and flavor. The Saboteur was born when one of the players in my home group wondered out loud "How come PCs are always the victim of traps but there is no class that specializes in setting traps" Based on that, I started conceptualizing the class. Asking questions like, "Wouldn't it be cool if you had a guy that could just, deploy pitfall traps whenever and wherever" so I set out to make the class with a few objectives in mind.
Without further ado, take a look at what I got so far for the Saboteur
Now that you have seen that and come back, let us discuss a few things that I would like some feedback on:
Lore: I will fully admit, I am not the greatest when it comes to making good lore. In my mind, a saboteur is someone who has spent a great deal of time studying magic and tinkering with devices. Someone who, in another life, could have been a wizard, or an artificer, but decided to go a different route altogether. They have chosen to hyper-specialize their use of magic to create arcane traps. So what do you think of this? does it sound good enough to justify the class's abilities? is there anything I should add?
The Arcane Traps: Oh boy these were hard to make (Making a subclass with so many options is a ton of work). I generally went with the idea of including classic dungeon traps, as well as others that mimic spell effects. However, I tried to add unique features to each one to differentiate them for effect. I know, for a fact, that a lot of the traps are overpowered as heck, while others are underpowered. I would like some feedback here.
Trap Preparers: Rather than learning only a set number of traps (like a battle master); saboteurs can prepare a number of traps from the entire list every day. I did this in order to maintain the theme of versatility. They are not a one-trick pony, they thrive when they can do their homework, plan out an operation, set up the battlefield, and execute the master plan. I also considered if giving someone access to all traps was too good for only 3 levels of investment into rogue. But then I considered the following. Investing 3 levels into Cleric gives you access to 15 first-level spells and 18 second-level spells while allowing you to prepare around 7 spells and giving you 6 slots to use them. Investing 3 levels into this class gives to access to 14 traps (currently) while allowing you to prepare 2 and use them a maximum of 7 times (assuming you have 20 int)
So what do you think about them being trap preparers?
Feel free to give me as much or as little feedback as you want. The class is still a work in progress and likely to get updated based on the feedback I get.
First things first, this is super cool. I notice that sometimes my feedback looks kinda snarky when I read it afterwards. Please don't take it that way. That being said...
And that about wraps up my feedback! Honestly, this is one of the most remarkable subclasses I have seen, even in published material. You're great at this.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Thank you so much for all this feedback! It is incredible, you really thought deeply about this. I will definitely be making some of these changes.
Your problem seems to be that you're ignoring how quickly spellcasters run out of resources, especially if they're only casting their highest level spells. Deploying three traps at once and having advantage on trap damage rolls has to compete with 9th level spells only if you have a single round of combat per long rest. And it's not like this is a completely separate class- you're still getting all the benefits of being a rogue ON TOP of these options. One of the rogue's biggest selling points is the fact that they have no limited-use features, so making them outlast AND out-damage casters is obviously ridiculous. Your 6 wizard/2 fighter could pull that stunt once a long rest (btw it's 16d6 not 16d8), and then only have access to much weaker spells for the rest of the day, especially compared to their 8th level compatriots. That being said, I don't see why you put an ability there to encourage multiclassing, and then explained why multiclassing with it is useless.
As for your point about concentration, I have no idea why you said that. I never asked why you have to concentrate on some traps or why they still exist if you don't concentrate on them.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
No, I am fully aware of how spell-casters work.
At level 17, full casters have:
4~5 Cantrips are their highest potency
1st: 4
2nd: 3
3rd: 3
4th: 3
5th: 2
6th:1
7th:1
8th:1
9th:1
For a grand total of 19 different slots. Not to mention that Most casters have the ability to regain spells slots through features like Arcane recovery, Harness Divine Power, Sorcery point conversion, Warlocks just generally taking a short rest.
A level 17 Saboteur in its current iteration (assuming their Intelligence is 20) would have access to 11 uses of their traps (or 47% fewer uses when compared to spells slots)
You mention that a Saboteur would still get the benefits of being a rogue on top of their traps. Well, Casters also get the benefits of their class regardless of their spells. Druids still have wild shapes, Bards still have bardic inspirations, Clerics still have channel divinities, etc etc. The main difference is that there are hundreds of fantastical spells out there whos power cannot be quantified. Meanwhile, the arcane traps are, not so great, and are heavily limited by my own imagination.
As an aside, most of the high-level abilities of the Rogue class are subpar in a strict combat scenario. They are mainly better mental saving throws, 10ft of blind sense (which fighters can get at level 1 as a fighting style, this is an insult for a level 14 ability)
My point is this, why is it that we have just accepted that martial and other non-casters must forever be subpar? Why is it that, it's perfectly alright for a high-level wizard to show up to the battle with two simulacrums each having its own simulacrum? Or the warlock shows up as an ancient white dragon cause he used True-polymorph on himself and now he's a legendary creature, forever. Or the cleric who uses Gate and summons a demigod onto the field. All of this, we consider totally ok and balanced. But nanosecond a martial gets a cool ability our knee-jerk reaction is to consider it overpowered and unbalanced.
To be clear, I am not criticizing you here. Far from it. If anything, I am trying to justify my own thinking. Throwing 3 traps at once cuts down the time it takes for you to set up the environment. It is there to better accommodate a faster pace of combat and to keep things moving. Around level 13 combats start taking forever, because monsters and players start getting super complicated spells and abilities that slow things down to a crawl. If you were to throw your traps 1 at a time, 20 to 30 minutes might elapse in real life before you get to throw the second one. By this point, it is entirely likely that the battle already shifted away from your traps, because someone broke the terrain with an earthquake, or decided to plane shift all of you to the place of fire. I WANT you to feel like a mastermind, I want you to come up with cool trap combinations and be able to meaningfully capitalize on your ideas QUICKLY.
Now on the damaging side, let's do a simple comparison. A rogues sneak attack dice at level 17 is 9d6 for an average of 31 points of damage. The 9th-level spell meteor swam does 20d6 fire and 20d6 bludgeoning damage for an average of 141 points of damage (and it does this to ALL creatures on a 40ft radius). A saboteur would need to use on average 4.5 traps (nearly 50% of their trap charges) to even come close to that kind of damage, in a much smaller area and affecting fewer creatures. And mind you, that meteor swam was only 1 slot, the caster still has 18 other slots they could use. Even if they cast progressively weaker and weaker spells, the saboteur would need to use several weeks' worth of trap charges to even come close to matching a caster.
Again, I am not criticizing you, and this is not meant to disparage you in any way. This is merely my thought process when determining that, 'No, those abilities are not overpowered at all" If anything they are Underpowered, but alas, no much I can do about the massive gaping difference between casters and non casters.
11 of those traps is almost definitely better than 19 spell slots of varying degrees, since all of those traps deliver the same VERY POTENT amount of damage of ANY type PLUS incredibly powerful additional effects (not to mention that they use bonus actions- this subclass can still get sneak attack normally, or even as a reaction if you have a battle master). Sure, 9th 8th and 7th level spells are probably stronger than the traps. Which is 3 spell slots. And usually they use actions too, instead of bonus actions. Saying they get 47% fewer uses is ridiculous.
Yes, druids will have wild shape. Yes, bards will have inspiration. Yes, clerics will have channel divinity. You know what happens to those features? They run out. Very quickly. You know what can never ever not-in-a-million-lifetimes happen to Sneak Attack? Run out. If there is only one round of combat between long rests, casters will do more damage. That's just how they are. If there are multiple fights before you get the chance to sleep for 8 hours, martials will be consistent sources of damage throughout them all.
Meteor swarm can only ever be used once per long rest. It is an action, deals partial fire damage (the most common kind for resistance/immunity), deals collateral damage in every situation, is pretty much unusable indoors, and is often very difficult to avoid friendly fire with. These traps let you choose the damage type, have very powerful effects alongside damage, and (for the most part) completely operate on bonus actions, leaving actions free to do things like Sneak Attack (which, if I didn't mention, will never run out). Let us not ignore that the only two classes that can cast meteor swarm both have 1d6 hit dice and infamously low AC. Compare this to the rogue, whose main stat is Dex, can wear some armor (though admittedly not a ton), has Evasion and Uncanny dodge, 1d8 hit dice, an extra ASI, proficiency in Dex saving throws, and the ability to hide, disengage, or dash as a bonus action.
A subclass is marked as overpowered not when it's more powerful than other classes, but when it's more powerful than other subclasses. If there's absolutely no reason to justify NOT taking this subclass when you play a rogue, then it's overpowered. As it currently stands, it is definitely overpowered.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Let's do a little experiment, working off my previous post. Let's assume that a level 17 wizard uses all of their slots to cast only damaging spells with a casting time of 1 action and instantaneous effects. For this purpose of this, we will ignore the area of effect and the conditions cause by the spells and the arcane traps and look only at the traps.
This gives us total average damage of 713 as a result of using all of their spells slots from 1 day. Now let's look at a level 17 rogue Saboteur. they have a sneak attack dice of 9d6 dealing an average of 31 damage per activation. Meaning that a Saboteur would need to trigger 23 traps (or more than double their daily traps) in order to match the output of a caster with traps alone.
Sure, they can still trigger a sneak attack with their singular attack action. Well, casters can still push out respectable damage with unlimited cantrip usage. For instance, Firebolt does an average of 22 damage at level 17. Eldritch Blast + agonizing blast does an average of 42 damage (assuming 20 charisma)
I will say this, casters are better than martial at EVERYTHING. Also, the biggest lie ever told is the idea that casters are squishy. Low AC? Mage Armor [Tooltip Not Found] Need more HP? have you seen anything the clerics and bards can do?
Traps use bonus actions. EVERY SINGLE ONE of those spells use actions. I don't see where your thought process is going with this. Eldritch blast damage is irrelevant, on account of warlocks having a pitiful amount of spell slots. That's like saying druids are OP because they have Wild Shape and Channel Divinity. They just don't. At level 17, cantrips (excluding EB) do NOT do respectable damage. Just saying that you want to ignore the areas of effect and conditions doesn't make them go away; NONE of your examples have ANY secondary effects, whereas each and every one of the traps have VERY strong conditions that they apply (and a ton of diversity with damage type).
Casters are NOT better than martials at everything. Casters ARE squishy. Mage armor won't give you an AC like martials, especially by level 17. Also, here's a fun fact: clerics and bards can cast healing spells on martials as well, not just other casters. That point is just completely poot. Between evasion, uncanny dodge, dex save proficiency, and everything else that I ALREADY listed, I have genuinely no idea how you think a sorcerer or wizard could compare to a rogue in survivability.
I don't know why this message seems to stop right before your skull, but casters WILL outperform martials if you have a single round of combat per long rest. I'm sorry if you don't like that, I'm sorry if you think that isn't fair, and I'm sorry for any other grievances you might have with that idea. But martials have abilities that last much longer into the day than casters. I've said this many times now, and it seems like I'll have to say it many more.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Ok, let's break down things one by one.
"Warlocks have a pitiful amount of spells slots" ---> At level 17 warlocks have 4 pact slots at 5th level and a mystic arcanum for levels 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th. Assuming the party takes 2 short rests on a given adventuring day the warlock can cast 12 -5th level spells and 4 other spells from mystic arcanum, which brings them to a total of 16 spells on a given day. If you add to that all the spells that they gain from Invocations, they are very much in line with all other casters in terms of the number of casts per day.
"Casters ARE squishy" and "Mage armor doesn't give you an AC like a martial" ----> let's say a level 17 wizard has 20 DEX (which isn't hard to imagine since Dex is the best stat in the game and everyone needs it). If this wizard casts Mage Armor their AC is now 18, congratulations, you have the equivalent of plate mail on. If this wizard casts Shield they can make their AC become 23 whenever they want. Let's say this wizard wants to be a little extra safe, they can cast Blur and now enemies have a permanent disadvantage on attacks against them. Ok, but what about saving throws, what if the enemy uses an area-of-effect spell on them? No problem, just cast Absorb Elements and give yourself resistance to that damage why don't you? Mind you, this is just a wizard, clerics and druids are different beasts entirely, with better armor and shield proficiencies and a plethora of defensive, restorative, and control spells which makes damaging them a nightmare.
"Arcane traps apply very strong conditions" ---> Almost every single one of the traps is a downgraded version of an existing spell and scales to be weaker than that spell cast at the respective level. For example, in one of your previous comments, you mentioned that the trap "Mind Breaker" was too overpowered because it completely shuts down casters. May I introduce you to the 2nd level spell Hold Person? Under the effects of Mind breaker, a creature cannot casts spells for one singular round, but can otherwise move, and take all other actions besides casting spells. A creature under Hold person is completely screwed, they can't cast spells, they can't move, they can't do anything AND attacks against them are auto crits. You mentioned that the restrained on "Bear Trap" is too strong, but then again, a hold person exists.
"Casters run out of steam while martial have unlimited damage" --> Did you pay any attention at all to my previous post? a caster can take 19 turns of combat, casting a spell every single time before they run out. keep in mind that some of their spells have powers that can't really be quantified, last for long periods of time, and affects huge areas and a multitude of creatures. Realistically, if a singular combat encounter takes you 19 turns you are going to take a long rest at this point, but even if you don't, you still have cantrips to fall back upon.
Mystic Arcanum seems a lot more useful than it is. Being limited to one spell means it's rarely going to be put to full use, especially with such a limited spell list of mostly out-of-combat spells.
20 dex is pretty hard to imagine. It's generally a secondary ability, and there are a number of feats that a wizard would sooner take to improve spellcasting before using an ASI for dex. 18 AC is by no means impressive for a 17th level character. Shield and absorb elements burn through spell slots like hell, and a wizard will very rarely concentrate on a 2nd level spell at 17th level.
Hold person doesn't do damage. Nearly every single trap does. Hold person is an action. Every trap is a bonus action. Plus, the trap that inflicts paralyzed affects multiple creatures in an area, AND isn't limited to humanoids, so more akin to an improved version of hold monster.
19 turns of combat (unless they cast mage armor, shield, or absorb elements, as per your suggestions) aren't all that spells are used for. If your casters never use ANY out-of-combat spells, then they could probably keep going for most adventuring days. Casters always use out-of-combat spells. Plus, those last 10 or so turns are generally going to have on par/weaker damage output than martials.
I'd also like to mention that you've yet to address the fact that there's no reason NOT to take this subclass if you play a rogue. That means it's overpowered.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
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Look man, at this point I think both of us are deeply entrenched in our respective opinions. I respect that, and I respect you. You have given me a lot of valuable feedback which I will use to balance out the Saboteur. I thank you immensely for that, and I hope that when I publish an update for it you will give me feedback again.
I am fully aware that some aspects of the Saboteur are overpowered, but I am ok with that. My goals as stated in the original post were to "Create a class that can be "the battle master" of rouges" and "Can compete with casters to some degree"
I personally believe that martial classes fall short of casters in every single aspect imaginable. Without multiclassing, you can build a caster to outperform a martial in every facet you choose. No amount of argumentation will convince me otherwise. To me, this is a fact of DnD. A level 20 wizard casts Blade of Disaster and he will do more damage than a level 20 fighter or rogue blow for blow. A level 20 wizard cast Invulnerability and he will be Tankier than a level 20 barbarian. A level 20 wizard can cast Wish and instantly cast any spell or 8th level or lower without any material components, he has access to almost every spell in the game and can solve almost every situation. And what do martial get for their pinnacle abilities? make 4 attacks? turn a miss into a hit once? regain 4 ki points on initiative (only if you have none)? Man, that's really exciting and engaging, I sure am glad I stuck with this class for 20 levels.
You've got a good point. As my last thing to say in defense of martials, I will say that yeah, most of the level 20 martial abilities are ass. Fighters should get subclass features at level 20 and 4 attacks at level 17 like warlocks. Rogue is so limited it hurts, and monk is just painful. Barbarian is cool. But, to be fair, the casters' 20th levels are mixed bags too. Sorcerers and bards are the same as monks. Clerics have a once/7 days feature. Rangers are like worse Potent Cantrips. Wizards get 2 extra 3rd level spell slots only for fireball and another spell you choose, way lamer than the 18th level. Warlocks are versatile in most campaigns, where there isn't always an hour to spare. Paladins are good and druids can be nice (depending on subclass). Judging a class by its 20th level feature is like rolling 1d4 to see how much you like it.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)