Been playing about with the idea of making a thuggish character using a blend of barbarian, battlemaster (with class variants UA) and thief, plays initially as a brawler able to physically control opponents up to large with a couple of possible tricks for larger foes. But as he levels up his skill set broadens some what and I can see the character developing into a thief catcher in a sort of bad guy-made-not so bad guy.
However, by the time this play style comes online your average everyday shackle won't got far and magic use will become more prevalent, our mere mundane mortal will require more tricks up his sleeve.
I've got a couple of of ideas my self for a couple of manouvers. First, following the dmg's suggestions for contesting skill checks with their example for disarm; an attack and free hand could be used to gag an opponent for either a turn or with a recurring skill check, allowing you to silence guards or spell casters. Not sure which would be appropriate and if either which skill check to use, athletics is the obvious choice but other special attacks rely on it and make things seem to ne sides wod slight of hand be more balance?
To shackle an opponent they must first be either incapacitated or 'over powered' by being disarmed and grappled + proned /restrained then the item used as an action with another accompanying athletics contest. The shackles will keep the opponent in this state until release/they escape. A pretty powerful effect, hoping its balanced by the number of actions and number of successful checks required, though I'm not so sure as 11 fighter/3 thief could do it in a single round and while by no means certain, with expertise has a reasonable chance to pull of the 4 skill contests required.
Secondly, while dimensional shackles would be a nice goal to work towards I feel that the character starting out in this role would only have access to more mundane items, unfortunately there is a bit of a gulf between normal shackles and the dimensional variety. Has anyone seen other varieties homebrew or otherwise, out there which might be viable at tier 3?
This brings us finally to capturing casters, its all very well chaining them up but when a verbal only spell can have them the other side of the continent, this every day chap is going to struggle to keep his quarry. After all he can't walk around all day with his hand over their gob. Has anyone seen or got suggestions for a gag or even Hanibal Lecter-style face shackle? Ideally in a range of qualities so they are neither overpower or immediately outclassed?
Chain, Rope, Net, Web, there's lots of different things that can restrain opponents. You can homebrew magic items that are variants of those. Also fyi an item's rarity refers to just that - how rare it is, not how powerful it is. You could basically homebrew a Common dimensional shackles if you wanted.
What you're really looking for when it comes to teleportation is something that specifically keeps them from teleporting, not a gag. Some kind of magical item with a "hold" type effect would work. You could also just outright silence them. I'm not entirely sure how teleportation factors in for verbal components when silencing illusions are cast on an area, but that's something to look into.
Chain, Rope, Net, Web, there's lots of different things that can restrain opponents. You can homebrew magic items that are variants of those. Also fyi an item's rarity refers to just that - how rare it is, not how powerful it is. You could basically homebrew a Common dimensional shackles if you wanted.
What you're really looking for when it comes to teleportation is something that specifically keeps them from teleporting, not a gag. Some kind of magical item with a "hold" type effect would work. You could also just outright silence them. I'm not entirely sure how teleportation factors in for verbal components when silencing illusions are cast on an area, but that's something to look into.
With the dimensional shackles it's how much better they are than the mundane variety than their rarity value. Same goes for the net really, nets and manacles may last a couple of turns if your lucky at the lowest tier, but there's no chance of that at any higher levels.
The gag was just an example of how a mundane item could accomplish preventinh teleportation with out requiring magic itself as misty step, teleport and thunder step all have verbal components (yes subtle spell sorcerers cod still escape, but I guess it should have some flaws to keep it interesting and make the the advancement to dimensional shackles worth while).
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Been playing about with the idea of making a thuggish character using a blend of barbarian, battlemaster (with class variants UA) and thief, plays initially as a brawler able to physically control opponents up to large with a couple of possible tricks for larger foes. But as he levels up his skill set broadens some what and I can see the character developing into a thief catcher in a sort of bad guy-made-not so bad guy.
However, by the time this play style comes online your average everyday shackle won't got far and magic use will become more prevalent, our mere mundane mortal will require more tricks up his sleeve.
I've got a couple of of ideas my self for a couple of manouvers. First, following the dmg's suggestions for contesting skill checks with their example for disarm; an attack and free hand could be used to gag an opponent for either a turn or with a recurring skill check, allowing you to silence guards or spell casters. Not sure which would be appropriate and if either which skill check to use, athletics is the obvious choice but other special attacks rely on it and make things seem to ne sides wod slight of hand be more balance?
To shackle an opponent they must first be either incapacitated or 'over powered' by being disarmed and grappled + proned /restrained then the item used as an action with another accompanying athletics contest. The shackles will keep the opponent in this state until release/they escape. A pretty powerful effect, hoping its balanced by the number of actions and number of successful checks required, though I'm not so sure as 11 fighter/3 thief could do it in a single round and while by no means certain, with expertise has a reasonable chance to pull of the 4 skill contests required.
Secondly, while dimensional shackles would be a nice goal to work towards I feel that the character starting out in this role would only have access to more mundane items, unfortunately there is a bit of a gulf between normal shackles and the dimensional variety. Has anyone seen other varieties homebrew or otherwise, out there which might be viable at tier 3?
This brings us finally to capturing casters, its all very well chaining them up but when a verbal only spell can have them the other side of the continent, this every day chap is going to struggle to keep his quarry. After all he can't walk around all day with his hand over their gob. Has anyone seen or got suggestions for a gag or even Hanibal Lecter-style face shackle? Ideally in a range of qualities so they are neither overpower or immediately outclassed?
Chain, Rope, Net, Web, there's lots of different things that can restrain opponents. You can homebrew magic items that are variants of those. Also fyi an item's rarity refers to just that - how rare it is, not how powerful it is. You could basically homebrew a Common dimensional shackles if you wanted.
What you're really looking for when it comes to teleportation is something that specifically keeps them from teleporting, not a gag. Some kind of magical item with a "hold" type effect would work. You could also just outright silence them. I'm not entirely sure how teleportation factors in for verbal components when silencing illusions are cast on an area, but that's something to look into.
With the dimensional shackles it's how much better they are than the mundane variety than their rarity value. Same goes for the net really, nets and manacles may last a couple of turns if your lucky at the lowest tier, but there's no chance of that at any higher levels.
The gag was just an example of how a mundane item could accomplish preventinh teleportation with out requiring magic itself as misty step, teleport and thunder step all have verbal components (yes subtle spell sorcerers cod still escape, but I guess it should have some flaws to keep it interesting and make the the advancement to dimensional shackles worth while).