Hey community, I have designed another Subclass this one was inspired by another class out of another game that really isn't played anymore. The concept in short is a order of rogues have harnessed magical tattoos to give them an edge in combat.
Now a few things that people will notice,
The 9th level and 13th level are not huge and somewhat utility and sub par, but when you really look at the benefits of the Tattoos give i feel it balances it out. I try not to make a class to powerful i would rather come in a conservative than overbearing. You gain tattoos at 3rd 6th 9th 12th 15th 18th levels at the end a Tattooed assassin should have 8 tattoo powers, providing 6 options for all levels minus 18th which only has 5 but allows for the class to be diverse in general.
At 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th levels has the following
2 weapon adjustments
2 Magical affects adjustment
2 animal or monster summoning affects
At 15th level - I have 5 Magical affects and One monster affect
at 18th level is essentially the cap stone ability for the class, it is the once a day or milder effect for once a short rest or a prema affect, the powers cover combat, summoning, espionage.
So please if you can look it over let me know your thoughts
If it was meant that you could have a certain number of each size, it was not stated.
There is no limit to the number of times a tattoo can be used.
You hinted that certain tattoos would have level requirements, but didn't label them.
Durations are too dependant on rounds and should use minutes and hours more.
Most tattoos were more combat oriented and I think a higher percentage should be utility.
The monster tattoos don't have monster statistics.
There are more than one find familiar tattoos.
Many are somewhat unclear in the extent of their usage.
Disrupting strike is weird. You will be doing 7d6 sneak attack damage by this point, but add 10 damage with a weird save.
Body of ink is not rogue like and a little too strong. Very few classes even gain resistances for limited durations.
Hey I want to thank you for your feedback, there are a few things i have noticed that seem to not show on this but is presented in character builder and I am not sure why. so let me go over it one by one and see where we come out. Again thanks for the critique and I plan to make some alterations because of it.
The number of Tattoos one could have. I thought i was clear but I can specify i will link where I was or thought I was clear, but the short answer is the amount you can have is the amount that is given to you through leveling up 3 at 3rd level, than One at 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th. Any past this starts bring the inked Mind Effects into play. Now I wish I could put into the builder on D&D beyond the ability to take as many tattoos as a player would like, that just isn't possible or at least from what I seen with out confusing people. I just left it up to the Player to add it to his notes and the DM to be able to have some room to play with it. As I have looked through I realize I wasn't clear and will make that distinction that the amount is what is given at the appropriate levels. Thank you for that.
Limitation on usage of tattoos being used. This was covered actually you may have skimmed over it. "The Tattoo Assassin can only activate as many tattoo per a short rest equal {{modifier:int}} this increases by 1 at 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th and 18th level." This essentially gives the Assassin at 3rd level access to his Tattoos a Number of times equal to his Intelligence Modifier, and goes up one of two ways, increasing the Int Modifier or by One at 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th Level, essentially giving you an extra use every time you gain a new tattoo.
Tattoos have certain level requirements. Now I listed them when I created the class, some reason they didn't show up, and admittedly i only looked at the aspect of it being on D&D Beyond and when you're in the builder at the levels you would be able to see which were available. I can defiantly go back in and add a level notation on each
Duration to depended on Rounds. Great catch but out of 35 tattoos only 5 were listed in rounds and one of which should have be listed as 1 Minute. I will cover all 5 and reasons. 1. Call to a Higher Power - This is in rounds as it is a level 18 ability and calls forth a CR 16 Creature or a dragon. this increases the Action economy of the Rogue on all creatures buy 3 per a round, and doesn't require the use of a bonus action to have them to attack. Not to mention that they still retain breath weapons and or heals or other special abilities of that Monster. So reigning in the time contrary to the powerlevel was essential with this one, or risk breaking the balance of having a Dragon, angel or Fiend of significant power around for 1 minute or 10 rounds.
2. Hasty Heart - This applies the effects of Haste spell, with out the use of having the spell. Most combats last between 3 to 6 rounds. For a non spellcasting class and not using an actual spellcaster slot i felt the round limitation was in line. Was it as long lasting as the spell? No Did it require your Wizard to prep the spell? No. It was viewed as a trade off.
3. Life Drinker - This is a 12th level Tattoo and gives you Half the damage dealt back to you in Health. If this was a 1 minute affect it would break the power balance. There is no 12th level spell that can give you a 1 minute affect equal to that. The intent of this Tattoo is to allow the assassin to keep fighting in the midst of being surrounded in order to kill his target, but is not a activate this and you win, just buys you a few extra seconds.
4. Magical Weapon- this is a tattoo that is 3rd Level, and gives limited access to a character at 3rd level to always having a magical weapon that most 3rd level characters don't have, it also turns anything into a magical weapon...such as a mug of ale. This is why it has a round duration, in light of balance
5. Wyld companion - this is the one that should be 1 minute
The Idea of having round based abilities is present in the game, and like stated before out of 35 different options only 4 are truly round based.
There are more combat and should be more utility. Now I went through the list and did a tally, now some can be used as both Combat and utility Like the heals, but the end number is 22 combat and 19 utility. That is a 3 tattoo difference and seeing as it is a subclass of a rogue that purpose is an assassin of sorts with a different take on the assassin vibe I feel it falls in line with a reasonable blend of utility and combat.
The Monster Tattoos don't have monsters. This is a good catch, i thought I put in a CR rating they could summon, but apparently I missed it so this will be fixed. Some of the creature summons specify a solo creature others specifically state you can summon like creatures of a certain type and CR or at least that is how it should have been stated. Again this is something I wish I could do is allow on the builder to let someone take a tattoo twice, but as of right now I don't see that as an option, which means player and DM will have to work with it and adjust. But I will be sure to go back through and add in the CR to each. Thank you for this spot.
There are more than one find familiar tattoo. Yes this is the summon tattoos I mentioned before in (6), they summon specified creature types, that act as a creature that was summoned by the Find Familiar spell. Meaning you can see through the eyes and ears of that creature. Where as Summon Monsters you can't do that. Also you have different familiar type summons, 1) Rodents type 2) Bird Types 3) is Ape Bear Orca or Giant Eagle. As you can see they would all server a varying different purpose, so taking all three would cover very different situations.
Many are somewhat unclear as to the extent of the Usage. You will have to be more specified than what you are being. Do you mean what they can be used for? Or how they can be used? Cause i just re-read all of them and then had 3 of my players read them and they all understand how each could be used in a combat social situation or what have you, so if you can be more specific i can better understand and either answer or figure out where we can change things.
Disrupting strike - this ability has a primary effect and a secondary damage that can be there or not be there. Again this is an ability that doesn't just trigger with Sneak attack it is all attacks. It primary intent is to force spell casters to roll concentration checks at disadvantage or to remove the benefits of war caster. The secondary effect is a small amount of damage on the tail end added to the base damage of the attack. Again the secondary effect is not the deciding factor of the ability, rather free damage. As far as a weird save, how is forcing a concentration check at disadvantage weird? Anytime a spellcaster is hit and have a concentration spell they have to make this check, this ability just forces it at disadvantage. So in turn it isn't creating a whole new check just modifying the check that is already taking place that the rules state must be made.
The 17th Level Body of Ink, is one I was not sure of, as far as it not being rogue like i can not agree with you on that at all, Reason; rogues have Uncanny Dodge and Evasion that are specifically damage mitigation related, which falls in line with the intent of this specified ability. So I will disagree that it is not Rogue like. As far as resistances being limited duration the Barbarian Path of the Bear totem warrior gives resistance to ALL damage minus Psychic while Raging, which in combat is generally the whole combat. but again I am not arguing that this needs tweaking. I will look at it and perhaps give it a round duration as to be used as a oh shit situation that way it falls more in line with the Evasion and Uncanny Dodge. As I think about it I feel that a 1 minute duration may be effective but still may be a bit over powered, where as a round duration Bringing the Total count of round duration abilities to 5 for the subclass would work or fit more readily. Thank you for pointing this out.
Again Thank you for your critiques, this bouncing back and forth is important to me.
I meant number of each size. I don't see any reason you can't have 9 massive tattoos.
I did skim over this. But I actually think it would be better if some tattoos could be used more than others.
Levels should be noted in descriptions.
I count 8.
Healing can be done outside of combat, but doesn't count as utility. I count only around 11 utility and they are almost all movement/stealth or scouting abilities. More social, tracking, or stealing abilities would be good.
Yeah.
There are quite a few summoning abilities, and other duplicant effects. You may want to cut down on and combine similar abilities to give them more versatile.
False realities was one that I thought was a little unclear.
Hitting a target concentrating on a spell is kind of niche (it could use some better wording to make it clear that is what it does). Does it still do 10 damage to a target not concentrating on a spell?
Uncanny dodge and evasion are reactionary, nimble abilities. Body of ink is a tanky ability. Maybe imposing disadvantage (like the changling's uncanny visage) or negating critical hits would be a cool ability.
I meant number of each size. I don't see any reason you can't have 9 massive tattoos.
I did skim over this. But I actually think it would be better if some tattoos could be used more than others.
Levels should be noted in descriptions.
I count 8.
Healing can be done outside of combat, but doesn't count as utility. I count only around 11 utility and they are almost all movement/stealth or scouting abilities. More social, tracking, or stealing abilities would be good.
Yeah.
There are quite a few summoning abilities, and other duplicant effects. You may want to cut down on and combine similar abilities to give them more versatile.
False realities was one that I thought was a little unclear.
Hitting a target concentrating on a spell is kind of niche (it could use some better wording to make it clear that is what it does). Does it still do 10 damage to a target not concentrating on a spell?
Uncanny dodge and evasion are reactionary, nimble abilities. Body of ink is a tanky ability. Maybe imposing disadvantage (like the changling's uncanny visage) or negating critical hits would be a cool ability.
Massive tattoos are Full back pieces or chest pieces, the reality is you don't have that much skin. That and Massive tattoos are high powered Tattoos for this class
Again there is a power balance here, as the rogue still retains their sneak attack and what not, the actuality of use is one par with other use classes such as barbarian and druids and what not. Also there is already a structure allowing you to use all lower tattoos that aren't Lv 18 as many times as you like.
I linked the new build, and have done this
Call to Higher Power, Hasty Heart, Life Drinker, and Magical Weapon are the only Round Tattoos, if you see something I don't please notate which one that I have not mentioned is.
Doesn't matter weather healing can be done out of combat or not it is still considered a utility skill/ support skill by standard definition but I will list all Utility and Combat Tattoos for you with an (*) that can fit into both depending on how you use them.
Combat 22 - Beckon Monster * - Call to a Higher Power - Conjure Monster * - Death Touch - Duplicitous Strike - Elemental Weapon - Fury of Air - Hasty Heart - Heal ( 3 of them) * - Knightly Defense - Life Drinker - Magical Weapon - Monster Slayer - Nature Protector * - Precision - Recall Weapon - Sinister Strike - There is no Distance - Turn Undead - Wyld companion *
Utility 20 - Beckon Monster * - Breath without Air - Conjure Monster * - False Reality - Feather Friends - Fleet of Foot - Flight of the Valkyries - Heal (3 of them) * - Hidden Knowledge - Mask of a Thousand Faces - Natures Protector * - Rodent Friendship - Shadow Step - Swarm - Third eye - Unbound Strength - Weave of Obscurity - Wyld Companion * That was being generous and not making There is no distance which isn't an actual attack thing but a supplement to making attacks IE Utility as an combat listed tattoo. Also not every Rogue steals, and tracks, also I can make up 5 million different ideas for tattoos I am not going to list them here, if the Player and DM running this want to add to the tattoos they are free to do that.
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The summoning abilities all server a different use, and instead of making something generic blanket there is a choice, again this keeps it balanced, the assassin isn't casting the spell find familiar he is summoning a specific creature unique to that tattoo that shares qualities of a familiar.
False realities you create an illusion that makes the person viewing it not think anything strange about it. E.G. My assassin breaks in and steals a manifesto that will proof the bad guy guilty of crimes, but I need time to get out of the building without him realizing it is gone, I use False reality to make another one, so long as the bad guy has no reason to pick the unique item up nothing appears out of place. E.G. 2: Your assassin is being chased through the streets you turn an corner see 4 barrels behind a tavern you use False reality to create a 5th barrel that you then hide in letting the illusion cover you up. The guard since there are multiple and none are uniquely important if they search them will ignore the one you created and assume it has already been cleared and looked through.
Not sure what you mean by Niche, any encounter with a caster that becomes key, not seeing where the language is confusing it is plain as day, when you hit a target forcing them to make a concentration check at disadvantage. If they have War Caster feat they make the check at a Normal check. Fighters and Martial classes don't take War Caster feat unless they are casting spells. No they don't have to make a concentration check
You can classify them how ever you would like to, but the end result of what they actually do is mitigate the damage you would have taken is the ultimate end goal of both of those rogue abilities, no matter how you decided to word what they do, the end result is a mitigation of damage that would have happen
Evasion
Beginning at 7th level, you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as an ancient red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail. That is damage mitigation regardless of how the flavor text reads
Uncanny Dodge
Starting at 5th level, when an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you. That mitigates the damage dealt to you
The Body of Ink has been changed to reflect Intelligence modifier in Rounds you become Resistant to all damage, meaning for 5 rounds you have damage mitigation. The Intent again is the Assassin goes in to kill a hard target and doesn't kill him in the first attack he is surrounded by body guards, and he has to kill his target, he activates the Body of Ink to give him a few more precious seconds to complete his task and get out. Even at High end of play the average damage being dealt out is 40 to 80 so 20 to 40 damage on an average rogue at level 20 with 150 to 200 health is still being hurt badly and can't take that punishment long. As far as negative critical hits that is a niche ability for a capstone ability, and simply imposing disadvantage for a cap stone ability is a bit weak. I think with the reformatting of round cap to Int Mod works well here, it isn't a perma effect and the ability to use it once per a short rest is a solid idea
Now I still appreciate your input and I am glad to have the back and forth with you, if you were confused by any other ability other than False reality please feel free to let me know
Hey community, I have designed another Subclass this one was inspired by another class out of another game that really isn't played anymore. The concept in short is a order of rogues have harnessed magical tattoos to give them an edge in combat.
Now a few things that people will notice,
The 9th level and 13th level are not huge and somewhat utility and sub par, but when you really look at the benefits of the Tattoos give i feel it balances it out. I try not to make a class to powerful i would rather come in a conservative than overbearing. You gain tattoos at 3rd 6th 9th 12th 15th 18th levels at the end a Tattooed assassin should have 8 tattoo powers, providing 6 options for all levels minus 18th which only has 5 but allows for the class to be diverse in general.
At 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th levels has the following
At 15th level - I have 5 Magical affects and One monster affect
at 18th level is essentially the cap stone ability for the class, it is the once a day or milder effect for once a short rest or a prema affect, the powers cover combat, summoning, espionage.
So please if you can look it over let me know your thoughts
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/subclasses/90966-tattooed-assasins
This is neat. A handful of issues I noticed:
Disrupting strike is weird. You will be doing 7d6 sneak attack damage by this point, but add 10 damage with a weird save.
Body of ink is not rogue like and a little too strong. Very few classes even gain resistances for limited durations.
Hey I want to thank you for your feedback, there are a few things i have noticed that seem to not show on this but is presented in character builder and I am not sure why. so let me go over it one by one and see where we come out. Again thanks for the critique and I plan to make some alterations because of it.
"The Tattoo Assassin can only activate as many tattoo per a short rest equal {{modifier:int}} this increases by 1 at 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th and 18th level."
This essentially gives the Assassin at 3rd level access to his Tattoos a Number of times equal to his Intelligence Modifier, and goes up one of two ways, increasing the Int Modifier or by One at 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th Level, essentially giving you an extra use every time you gain a new tattoo.
1. Call to a Higher Power - This is in rounds as it is a level 18 ability and calls forth a CR 16 Creature or a dragon. this increases the Action economy of the Rogue on all creatures buy 3 per a round, and doesn't require the use of a bonus action to have them to attack. Not to mention that they still retain breath weapons and or heals or other special abilities of that Monster. So reigning in the time contrary to the powerlevel was essential with this one, or risk breaking the balance of having a Dragon, angel or Fiend of significant power around for 1 minute or 10 rounds.
2. Hasty Heart - This applies the effects of Haste spell, with out the use of having the spell. Most combats last between 3 to 6 rounds. For a non spellcasting class and not using an actual spellcaster slot i felt the round limitation was in line. Was it as long lasting as the spell? No Did it require your Wizard to prep the spell? No. It was viewed as a trade off.
3. Life Drinker - This is a 12th level Tattoo and gives you Half the damage dealt back to you in Health. If this was a 1 minute affect it would break the power balance. There is no 12th level spell that can give you a 1 minute affect equal to that. The intent of this Tattoo is to allow the assassin to keep fighting in the midst of being surrounded in order to kill his target, but is not a activate this and you win, just buys you a few extra seconds.
4. Magical Weapon- this is a tattoo that is 3rd Level, and gives limited access to a character at 3rd level to always having a magical weapon that most 3rd level characters don't have, it also turns anything into a magical weapon...such as a mug of ale. This is why it has a round duration, in light of balance
5. Wyld companion - this is the one that should be 1 minute
The Idea of having round based abilities is present in the game, and like stated before out of 35 different options only 4 are truly round based.
Again Thank you for your critiques, this bouncing back and forth is important to me.
Ok I have updated the class to reflect the errors fixed, I also added additional abilities to take The Monster Tattooed and the Monster slayer
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/subclasses/90966-tattooed-assasins
Combat 22
- Beckon Monster *
- Call to a Higher Power
- Conjure Monster *
- Death Touch
- Duplicitous Strike
- Elemental Weapon
- Fury of Air
- Hasty Heart
- Heal ( 3 of them) *
- Knightly Defense
- Life Drinker
- Magical Weapon
- Monster Slayer
- Nature Protector *
- Precision
- Recall Weapon
- Sinister Strike
- There is no Distance
- Turn Undead
- Wyld companion *
Utility 20
- Beckon Monster *
- Breath without Air
- Conjure Monster *
- False Reality
- Feather Friends
- Fleet of Foot
- Flight of the Valkyries
- Heal (3 of them) *
- Hidden Knowledge
- Mask of a Thousand Faces
- Natures Protector *
- Rodent Friendship
- Shadow Step
- Swarm
- Third eye
- Unbound Strength
- Weave of Obscurity
- Wyld Companion *
That was being generous and not making There is no distance which isn't an actual attack thing but a supplement to making attacks IE Utility as an combat listed tattoo. Also not every Rogue steals, and tracks, also I can make up 5 million different ideas for tattoos I am not going to list them here, if the Player and DM running this want to add to the tattoos they are free to do that.
Evasion
Beginning at 7th level, you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as an ancient red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.
That is damage mitigation regardless of how the flavor text reads
Uncanny Dodge
Starting at 5th level, when an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.
That mitigates the damage dealt to you
The Body of Ink has been changed to reflect Intelligence modifier in Rounds you become Resistant to all damage, meaning for 5 rounds you have damage mitigation. The Intent again is the Assassin goes in to kill a hard target and doesn't kill him in the first attack he is surrounded by body guards, and he has to kill his target, he activates the Body of Ink to give him a few more precious seconds to complete his task and get out. Even at High end of play the average damage being dealt out is 40 to 80 so 20 to 40 damage on an average rogue at level 20 with 150 to 200 health is still being hurt badly and can't take that punishment long. As far as negative critical hits that is a niche ability for a capstone ability, and simply imposing disadvantage for a cap stone ability is a bit weak.
I think with the reformatting of round cap to Int Mod works well here, it isn't a perma effect and the ability to use it once per a short rest is a solid idea
Now I still appreciate your input and I am glad to have the back and forth with you, if you were confused by any other ability other than False reality please feel free to let me know