A powerful, imposing Rogue who relies on brute strength and fear to capture and eliminate their targets.

Ardak Grummel was making his way home from The Tavern after a long night of drinking and gambling, contently rummaging through the large sack of gold coins he had acquired that night. "They say 'The House Always Wins', but this time it's Ardak's turn." he muses to himself walks down the darkened alleyways. Ardak had recently come into possession of a Truesight potion, and after a long night of seeing through his opponent's hands at the Pixie-Poker table, he had made off like a bandit without anyone being the wiser. As he turned into a particularly dark and dank alley however, he suddenly felt a chill go down his spine, and the feeling that something very large was standing behind him. "Heard you was cheatin'." said a deep, gruff voice from behind him. "You know the Boss don't take kindly to cheatin'." "I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! Please! Take the gold, take the potion, take anything you want, just please let me go!" Stammers Ardak as he turns; shaking. Suddenly two large muscular arms shoot out of the darkness, and a pair of giant hands clasp themselves around Ardak's neck. The voice chuckles. "Too bad mate. Thems the rules." The last thing Ardak sees he as struggles to breathe and the life leaves his body is a wide, crooked smile.

 Sneaky, strong, and terrifying, these highway thugs, back alley muggers, and contract killers are masters of their craft, able to efficiently capture, or brutally kill just about anybody for the right coin.

Special thanks to SkeletalHammer, Berserker_EUW, and Bioimportance for publishing their work and inspiring the creation of this subclass.

Modus Operandi

Your career is it a hired goon or a back alley mugger has made you tough and tenacious. When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor and you gain +3 hit points. Each additional level in this class gained after the 3rd grants one additional hit point. 

'Tween the Ribs. Whatever you successfully grapple or shove a creature using your action, you may make an attack with a melee weapon you are holding as a bonus action. 

Next Victim

Your presence alone is enough to make some quake in their boots. Starting at 3rd level, you learn to use fear as a weapon in combat. As a bonus action, you can make a Strength or Charisma (Intimidation) check against a creature you are aware of within 60 feet that can see or hear you and is not immune to being frightened, contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Wisdom (Insight) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you succeed, you can use your Sneak Attack against that target even if you don't have advantage on the attack roll, but not if you have disadvantage on it, until you successfully use this feature against a different target. If the target fails the contested check by 10 or more the target is frightened for 1 minute. Additionally, you gain proficiency in the Intimidation skill.

Snatch 'n Grab

Starting at 3rd level, you can perform special grapple actions that require two free hands.

Kidnap. As an action, you can use two free hands to attempt a grapple on a suitable creature your size or smaller. Ability checks made to escape this grapple have disadvantage. Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, cannot cast spells that require somatic components, and it also cannot speak or cast spells that require verbal components if it needs to breathe. Your speed is not halved when dragging or carrying a creature grappled in this way. In addition, you can free one of your hands at any time by switching to a normal grapple.

Strangle. As an action, you can use two free hands to attempt a grapple on a suitable creature that has a neck thin enough for your hands or a garrote to wrap around. You have disadvantage on the initial grapple check if you cannot Sneak Attack the target. Until this grapple ends, the target is choking and can't speak or cast spells that require verbal components if it needs to breathe. While choking it can survive for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum of 1 round). At the start of its next turn, it drops to 0 hit points and is dying, and it can't regain hit points or be stabilized until it can breathe again. In addition, the condition ends if you let go of the target with either hand at any time or dash.

Problem Solver

Starting at 9th level, you have become quite capable of crushing your enemies and covering your tracks.

Break 'Em. Whenever you have a creature grappled using one of the special grapples from Snatch 'n Grab and you have not used your Sneak Attack this turn, you may use a bonus action to crush the creature you are grappling, dealing Force damage equal to your Sneak Attack.

 Bury 'Em. You can spend 5 minutes creating a cover-up and/or attempting to dispose of evidence, provided you have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, debris, fire or any other simple resource permitted by the DM. Using Hide the Evidence in this way imposes disadvantage on any investigation or perception checks used by others to determine what happened in the next 48 hours.

Bump in the Night

Starting at 13th level, you have mastered the art surprising your opponents with terrifying results. You have advantage on acrobatics, athletics, deception, and intimidation checks against creatures that you are hidden from, or that have disadvantage on or automatically fail Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight to perceive you unless they can currently perceive you with special senses such as blindsight or tremorsense.

Underworld Menace

Those face you in close quarters are right to be afraid. Starting at level 17, whenever you damage a creature in melee combat the damage dice you roll that come up 1’s count as 2’s instead. While damaging a creature that is frightened or that you have grappled 1’s and 2’s rolled now count as 3’s.