My Goal: A divine rogue that kills enemies of the church.
Divine Study
Starting at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Religion skill.
Additionally, you can use your Religion modifier in place of Insight for ability checks involving Celestials, Fiends, and Undead.
Divine Retribution
At 3rd level, you can call upon divine power to mark a foe for retribution. As a bonus action, you designate one creature you can see within 60 feet as the target of your Divine Retribution.
While the target of your Divine Retribution is alive, you gain the following benefits:
- When you move toward your target, your walking speed increases by 10 feet for that movement.
- Once per turn, when you hit your target with an attack that qualifies for Sneak Attack, you can deal an additional 1d6 radiant damage to the target. The radiant damage increases as you gain levels in this class: to 2d6 at 9th level, 3d6 at 13th level, and 4d6 at 17th level.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.
You can change your target of Divine Retribution as an action, or immediately if the target dies.
Holy Guard
Starting at 9th level, you have advantage on saving throws against effects caused by the target of your Divine Retribution.
Additionally, when you use your Uncanny Dodge feature against an attack from the target of your Divine Retribution, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Rogue level.
Sacred Hunter
At 13th level, your divine focus ensures your prey cannot escape.
- The target of your Divine Retribution cannot hide from you. You always know the target's exact location if they are within 30 feet of you.
- As an action, you can sense the presence of Celestials, Fiends, Undead, and creatures with divine spellcasting (spellcasting derived from a deity or similar higher power) within 120 feet of you until the end of your next turn. You learn the number of such creatures and whether any of them are hostile.
Angel of Death
At 17th level, your divine power reaches its peak, allowing you to cripple your foes utterly.
When you deal Sneak Attack damage to the target of your Divine Retribution, the following effects apply:
- The target cannot breathe until the end of your next turn. While unable to breathe, it cannot use verbal components to cast spells.
- The target loses any resistance to radiant damage until the end of your next turn.
To clarify by "not very interesting" I don't mean the concept, I mean the implementation. There are no choices to be made with this subclass, it doesn't have a new/unique playstyle compared to a rogue with no subclass at all, there is no new strategy you could try out vs any other rogue. It's just a rogue but you deal a bucket more damage and are way more survivable - or to put it in a sarcastic/patronizing way : Rogue but numbers are biggerer!
I am having trouble seeing the rogue that fulfills the same role.
Assassin, Swashbuckler, Phantom, and Inquisitive all could easily fulfill the same role, simply with RP that they are hired by / are a devoted a member of a church. Pick up Religion as a proficiency from your background, and even choose it for one of your Expertises at level 1, and RP going around speaking holy phrases and targeting fiends/undead first in combat.
However, notice that each of those would be a different 'type' of rogue serving the church. The assassin would be sneaking up on the devils solo & sniping them in the head, the swashbuckler would be running up to duel the devils mano-a-mano, the Phantom would use the screams of the damned to haunt the devils and their servants and stealing the souls of the devils and forcing them to be used for good, the Inquisitive would be picking out the lies of the devils, seeing through their tricks, and spotting their weaknesses.
This zeal rogue, marks a devil then just stabs/shoots it like any other rogue could do, but happens to deal more damage to it, and taking less damage from it. And note that you always always mark it, because you have plenty of uses that recharge on a SR each of which looks like it lasts a whole combat? so there's no need to ration when to or not to mark an enemy.
This is what I mean by uninteresting, when you play this rogue you don't do anything different from what you would have done if you weren't this rogue (except for the mark), you move, attack and uncanny dodge, repeat. It's like the Champion Fighter is to Fighter, just does the same stuff as everyone else just gets more bang for their buck when doing it.
The Zeal Archetype
My Goal: A divine rogue that kills enemies of the church.
Divine Study
Starting at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Religion skill.
Additionally, you can use your Religion modifier in place of Insight for ability checks involving Celestials, Fiends, and Undead.
Divine Retribution
At 3rd level, you can call upon divine power to mark a foe for retribution. As a bonus action, you designate one creature you can see within 60 feet as the target of your Divine Retribution.
While the target of your Divine Retribution is alive, you gain the following benefits:
- When you move toward your target, your walking speed increases by 10 feet for that movement.
- Once per turn, when you hit your target with an attack that qualifies for Sneak Attack, you can deal an additional 1d6 radiant damage to the target. The radiant damage increases as you gain levels in this class: to 2d6 at 9th level, 3d6 at 13th level, and 4d6 at 17th level.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.
You can change your target of Divine Retribution as an action, or immediately if the target dies.
Holy Guard
Starting at 9th level, you have advantage on saving throws against effects caused by the target of your Divine Retribution.
Additionally, when you use your Uncanny Dodge feature against an attack from the target of your Divine Retribution, you gain temporary hit points equal to your Rogue level.
Sacred Hunter
At 13th level, your divine focus ensures your prey cannot escape.
- The target of your Divine Retribution cannot hide from you. You always know the target's exact location if they are within 30 feet of you.
- As an action, you can sense the presence of Celestials, Fiends, Undead, and creatures with divine spellcasting (spellcasting derived from a deity or similar higher power) within 120 feet of you until the end of your next turn. You learn the number of such creatures and whether any of them are hostile.
Angel of Death
At 17th level, your divine power reaches its peak, allowing you to cripple your foes utterly.
When you deal Sneak Attack damage to the target of your Divine Retribution, the following effects apply:
- The target cannot breathe until the end of your next turn. While unable to breathe, it cannot use verbal components to cast spells.
- The target loses any resistance to radiant damage until the end of your next turn.
no
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/forum-games/181058-the-court
It is OP and not very interesting.
This is why I asked for criticism. Furthermore, interesting is subjective. My friends and I actually love the concept.
no
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/forum-games/181058-the-court
To clarify by "not very interesting" I don't mean the concept, I mean the implementation. There are no choices to be made with this subclass, it doesn't have a new/unique playstyle compared to a rogue with no subclass at all, there is no new strategy you could try out vs any other rogue. It's just a rogue but you deal a bucket more damage and are way more survivable - or to put it in a sarcastic/patronizing way : Rogue but numbers are biggerer!
I am having trouble seeing the rogue that fulfills the same role.
no
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/forum-games/181058-the-court
Assassin, Swashbuckler, Phantom, and Inquisitive all could easily fulfill the same role, simply with RP that they are hired by / are a devoted a member of a church. Pick up Religion as a proficiency from your background, and even choose it for one of your Expertises at level 1, and RP going around speaking holy phrases and targeting fiends/undead first in combat.
However, notice that each of those would be a different 'type' of rogue serving the church. The assassin would be sneaking up on the devils solo & sniping them in the head, the swashbuckler would be running up to duel the devils mano-a-mano, the Phantom would use the screams of the damned to haunt the devils and their servants and stealing the souls of the devils and forcing them to be used for good, the Inquisitive would be picking out the lies of the devils, seeing through their tricks, and spotting their weaknesses.
This zeal rogue, marks a devil then just stabs/shoots it like any other rogue could do, but happens to deal more damage to it, and taking less damage from it. And note that you always always mark it, because you have plenty of uses that recharge on a SR each of which looks like it lasts a whole combat? so there's no need to ration when to or not to mark an enemy.
This is what I mean by uninteresting, when you play this rogue you don't do anything different from what you would have done if you weren't this rogue (except for the mark), you move, attack and uncanny dodge, repeat. It's like the Champion Fighter is to Fighter, just does the same stuff as everyone else just gets more bang for their buck when doing it.
I realize my wording is very unclear. You can mark creatures infinitely, but the bonus damage is what is the limited feature.
Making a creature a target of Divine Retribution = Infinite
The bonus damage = PB uses per rest.
Not that this necessarily makes it more interesting, but this was my intention when writing this. I'm surprised nobody noticed.
no
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/forum-games/181058-the-court