Rogue Archetype: Street Fighter

[Nowhere Girl]

Well, this is just something I felt inspired to throw together. To head off the likely inevitable question, I included the unarmed strike option mostly as a "ribbon," I guess, because it seems reasonable that you could take the same "grab and hit" approach just as easily with your fists as with a knife. And because it fits the fluff of being a street-tough thug!

You'd still obviously be much better off using an actual dagger outside of tavern brawls or situations where you've been disarmed or forced to leave behind your weapon.

In general, the intent here is to create a combat-oriented rogue archetype that employs a high-risk, high-reward style. So ... critique away. ;p

Anything Goes

You're not a martial artist; you're a street fighter! Starting at 3rd level, you're proficient with medium armor and improvised weapons, and you may use unarmed strikes, clubs and improvised weapons to deliver sneak attacks. Additionally, after using your action to attack, grapple, shove, or climb onto an enemy (see "Climb Onto a Bigger Creature," DMG page 271), if you are currently grappling or clinging to that enemy, you may make a single melee attack against the same enemy with a dagger, short sword, unarmed strike, club or small improvised weapon as a bonus action if you have a hand free to do so.

Grab and Stab

At 9th level, you have advantage on all Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple, shove or cling to an enemy, and if you deliver a melee attack against a creature you've already grappled using a dagger, short sword, club, unarmed strike or small (anything roughly the size of a light weapon) improvised weapon, you have advantage on the attack roll.

Street Tough

At 13th level, if you engage in some form of overtly physically intimidating display (e.g., punching or smashing an object, grabbing someone by the collar, taking off your shirt to show off your muscles, etc.), you have advantage on any Strength (Intimidation) check you make. In addition, you have advantage on all Strength checks made to break objects or force open doors.

Brutal Killer

Starting at 17th level, if an enemy you've grappled or climbed onto (see "Climb Onto a Bigger Creature," DMG page 271) does not successfully escape the grapple or throw you off by the end of his or her turn, as a reaction, you may make a single melee attack against that enemy with a dagger, short sword, unarmed strike, club or small improvised weapon. As the attack is made outside of your turn, sneak attack damage does apply to this attack even if you have already dealt sneak attack damage on your turn.

Edit: I just noticed someone else had already made a homebrew archetype called "thug," so I changed the name to "street fighter" to avoid confusion.

Edit 2: Added some small adjustments based on feedback (including improvised weapons and applying a fix to Street Tough).

Edit 3: Made a slight adjustment to the first-tier ability and renamed it to avoid redundancy. Heavily buffed "Street Tough" given concerns expressed by others that the archetype is underpowered.

Edit 4: Added short swords to the list of weapons that work with the archetype's features, as "short sword" pretty easily translates to "big dagger," even to the point of also being a light thrusting weapon, so it should easily be usable with that kind of attack style. Also intended as a very minor buff given concerns over power of the archetype.

Edit 5: Added some text to "Grab and Stab" to close off an unintended exploit that would have allowed the ability to be used without actually first grappling or clinging onto the target enemy.

Edit 6: Added medium armor proficiency to address survivability concerns.

Edit 7: Moved some abilities around to address possible weakness of the archetype at earlier levels. No abilities were added ... just moved.

[Ninja_Prawn]

There isn't enough power in this archetype.

Street Fighter is very situational; little better than a ribbon.

Grab and Stab doesn't let you do anything you couldn't do already by dual-wielding (I rule unarmed strikes as light, I think that's pretty common).

Street Tough also doesn't let you do anything you couldn't already. Strength (Intimidate) is explicitly called out as a valid check in the PHB.

And Brutal Killer is also pretty situational. At least it does something though.

[Mr.Moron]

Street Fighter: This benefit feels kind of weak. There are really few times when you can use your fists but not a dagger. As you note the times when this comes up is narrow. Maybe also give them proficiency with improvised weapons, or perhaps give allow them to sneak attack with a set list of "Thug" weapons that aren't

Street Tough Interesting but again, it feels kind of weak. You need to maybe bake in more incentive to pump STR.

Grab and Stab & Brutal Killer
Unfortunately these rely heavily on the grapple/shove rules, which while interesting are poorly written, degenerate rules in my opinion. The problem stems from the pass/fail on these being attached to Skill Checks, which monster entries just weren't designed to use in the same way as PCs.

NPCs & Monsters are generally not even proficient in athletics while the rogue will always be both Proficient and have Expertise, this contest will always be a matter of d20+stat vs d20+stat+2*Proficiency bonus. At minimum a difference of 4, going up to a difference of 12. These kinds of builds will frequently multi class or find other methods of gaining easy advantage on these checks.

This means that opponents will roughly fall into two categories:


Those that are not immune to the mechanic (via size, or magic) and therefore have trivial chances of beating the rogue in the contest.
Those that are immune to the mechanic (via size, or magic) have zero chance of being affected.


The first category is hard to balance because you must treat the abilities as always-on, or nearly always-on instead of as true conditionals.
The secondary category is hard to balance because in these causes the rogue is entirely robbed of archetype's combat benefits.
Neither case is a particularly compelling from a game play perspective because there is no question about how things will turn out. You know before making the rolls what the results will be in the first, and you can't even make any rolls in the second.

This is a good concept, and the basic intent of the Archetype benefits are solid. However I'd strongly suggest de-coupling these from the absolutely non-functional baseline combat maneuver rules.

"High Risk, High Reward" means that you have a good chance of failure but have a big payoff for taking that risk. For something to be "high risk, high reward", what you're doing must be Possible but relatively unlikely to succeed, with real consequences for failing. Those are exactly the circumstances the framework put forward put forward by the default combat contest rules can't deliver on in the slightest.

[Nowhere Girl]

Hm. Let me address each of these in turn, and then I'll ask for suggestions on how you'd alter what I did (apart from what has already been suggested).


Street Fighter is very situational; little better than a ribbon.

The unarmed part of it was intended as a ribbon, mostly. The part where you get advantage on enemies you've grappled is the real intended meat of it, as it sets up the fighting style the archetype operates off of. It also lets you get the only meaningful benefit of the wretchedly bad Grappler feat without actually wasting one of your precious feats.


Grab and Stab doesn't let you do anything you couldn't do already by dual-wielding (I rule unarmed strikes as light, I think that's pretty common).

Doesn't it, though? You can't dual-wield while grappling an enemy because to dual-wield, you have to have a weapon in each hand. If you have an enemy in one hand and a weapon in the other, you can't dual-wield.

Other things dual-wielding doesn't give you that you're getting with Grab and Stab:

1. Automatic advantage on the attack
2. Attribute damage added to the attack (you need a fighting style to duplicate that with dual-wielding)
3. The ability to go further by shoving your grappled enemy prone, forcing said enemy to attack you with disadvantage while you continue to have advantage, without giving up your attack (and sneak attack damage) that round


Street Tough also doesn't let you do anything you couldn't already. Strength (Intimidate) is explicitly called out as a valid check in the PHB.

Is it? I missed that. Maybe it should be changed to advantage on such checks, then ...


And Brutal Killer is also pretty situational. At least it does something though.

Making it possible to do two sneak attacks per round potentially every round?

I mean, yes ... I sort of thought that was "something."


"High Risk, High Reward" means that you have a good chance of failure but have a big payoff for taking that risk. For something to be "high risk, high reward", what you're doing must be Possible but relatively unlikely to succeed, with real consequences for failing. Those are exactly the circumstances the framework put forward put forward by the default combat contest rules can't deliver on in the slightest.

To clarify: "high risk" meant in this context "you have to get into melee with your enemies, and you have to grab onto them and stay there. No hiding in the shadows and sniping from safety for you." "High reward" meant "get eventually as many as three attacks per round, all with advantage on them, adding full attribute damage to each and sneak attack damage to two of them."

The fact that the rogue will tend to succeed very consistently on the checks against most enemies (curse you, ghosts!) falls under "intended."

[Ninja_Prawn]

Hm. Let me address each of these in turn, and then I'll ask for suggestions on how you'd alter what I did (apart from what has already been suggested).



The unarmed part of it was intended as a ribbon, mostly. The part where you get advantage on enemies you've grappled is the real intended meat of it, as it sets up the fighting style the archetype operates off of. It also lets you get the only meaningful benefit of the wretchedly bad Grappler feat without actually wasting one of your precious feats.

I guess the advantage while grappling is nice. It's still fairly easy to get by other means though.


Doesn't it, though? You can't dual-wield while grappling an enemy because to dual-wield, you have to have a weapon in each hand. If you have an enemy in one hand and a weapon in the other, you can't dual-wield.

Other things dual-wielding doesn't give you that you're getting with Grab and Stab:

1. Automatic advantage on the attack
2. Attribute damage added to the attack (you need a fighting style to duplicate that with dual-wielding)
3. The ability to go further by shoving your grappled enemy prone, forcing said enemy to attack you with disadvantage while you continue to have advantage, without giving up your attack (and sneak attack damage) that round

Well 1 comes from the previous feature and could be duplicated by action shove prone / bonus action dual wield.
2 is a fairly minor benefit given how easy it is to get a fighting style (and how many fringe benefits you'd get from a fighter dip).
And I'm not clear on exactly how 3 is supposed to work...

And I feel like grappling and BA offhand attacks should be allowed for everyone. That's why I missed the fact that they're not.


Making it possible to do two sneak attacks per round potentially every round?

I mean, yes ... I sort of thought that was "something."

I meant it's situational because Climb onto a Bigger Creature is an optional variant rule and even if it's allowed you can only use it against larger creatures, which you can't reliably assume you'll be fighting unless you're small (and a feature that's only worth having for small characters is poorly designed).

And it was always possible to get two Sneak Attacks per round. You've just added one more avenue to doing it.

Overall, I still say the archetype needs more power and more things to do besides grappling. The other Rogue archetypes get some pretty huge features, after all.

[GanonBoar]

Disappointed there's no Hadouken skill. Or Shoryuken, for that matter.
But yeah, this seems really underpowered tbh.

[Nowhere Girl]

Well 1 comes from the previous feature and could be duplicated by action shove prone / bonus action dual wield.

And now you're wasting a bonus action on it every round, while this archetype can shove them prone next round, keep them there, and still attack.


2 is a fairly minor benefit given how easy it is to get a fighting style (and how many fringe benefits you'd get from a fighter dip).

A fighting style ... such as Dueling? While you're just getting the ability to add attribute damage, I can at the same time go grab +2 damage to all of my attacks since I had attribute damage already.


I meant it's situational because Climb onto a Bigger Creature is an optional variant rule and even if it's allowed you can only use it against larger creatures, which you can't reliably assume you'll be fighting unless you're small (and a feature that's only worth having for small characters is poorly designed).

But Brutal Killer works for grappling AND "climb onto a bigger creature," so I don't really see your point.


And it was always possible to get two Sneak Attacks per round. You've just added one more avenue to doing it.

Yes, a generally easier and more reliable avenue ...


Overall, I still say the archetype needs more power and more things to do besides grappling. The other Rogue archetypes get some pretty huge features, after all.

It's doing three attacks per round, making two of them reliably sneak attacks, and getting advantage on all of them constantly while scaring the pants off of everyone socially. What do you want from it? :p

By all means, make suggestions ...

[Ninja_Prawn]

Did you change the wording on that? I could have sworn it only said you got the reaction when climbing...

As for suggestions, the first thing I associate with 'thugs' is bludgeoning weapons. Finding a way to allow Sneak Attack on bludgeoning weapons would have been at the top of my list. Probably at level 3.

Next is Intimidation, which you have. Maybe beef it up an exploration-focussed ability that ties into the fact that thugs often have to do other people's dirty work somehow?

[Nowhere Girl]

Did you change the wording on that? I could have sworn it only said you got the reaction when climbing...

No, that was already there.


As for suggestions, the first thing I associate with 'thugs' is bludgeoning weapons. Finding a way to allow Sneak Attack on bludgeoning weapons would have been at the top of my list. Probably at level 3.

You mean like the improvised weapons I added at another's suggestion? Table legs are a go! I guess I could add clubs as well, since they're basically just "anything that is a stick" and practically improvised weapons themselves.


Next is Intimidation, which you have. Maybe beef it up an exploration-focussed ability that ties into the fact that thugs often have to do other people's dirty work somehow?

Well, I was going more for "generalized street tough" than specifically "Mafia enforcer," but what would you add? Between Expertise and getting advantage, we're mostly succeeding on all Intimidation checks forever, which can be used for information gathering ("sometimes I ask pretty hard") and "persuasion" as well. What else do we need here?

[Ninja_Prawn]

Well, I was going more for "generalized street tough" than specifically "Mafia enforcer," but what would you add? Between Expertise and getting advantage, we're mostly succeeding on all Intimidation checks forever, which can be used for information gathering ("sometimes I ask pretty hard") and "persuasion" as well. What else do we need here?

Hmm... *thinks a bit harder* I think maybe something like the Thief's Second-Story Work, but for a different type of location. Like, the street-smart thug has to know their way around cramped spaces so maybe they don't suffer penalties when squeezing past people in a 5-foot corridor and have advantage on attempts to smash down doors or something. Does that make sense?

That would also compensate for the fact that they're generally incentivised to prioritise Strength and Constitution over Dexterity, so their lockpicking skills might suffer in comparison to other rogues.

[Pyon]

Disappointed there's no Hadouken skill. Or Shoryuken, for that matter.
But yeah, this seems really underpowered tbh.

My feelings exactly.

[Nowhere Girl]

My feelings exactly.

You're disappointed there's no hadouken? :smalltongue:

[Nowhere Girl]

/bump

I've made some adjustments based on feedback given ... thoughts on the revised version? :)

[Pyon]

You're disappointed there's no hadouken? :smalltongue:

Yeah :c We need hadoukens soryukens and whatever hurricane kick

[Nowhere Girl]

Yeah :c We need hadoukens soryukens and whatever hurricane kick

I think that's going to be more of a monk thing. :p

In fact, isn't there a fan-made Elements monk that is actually functional (unlike the book one)? You can probably go to that for all of your hadouken-flinging needs. ;)

[Ninja_Prawn]

I think that's going to be more of a monk thing. :p

In fact, isn't there a fan-made Elements monk that is actually functional (unlike the book one)? You can probably go to that for all of your hadouken-flinging needs. ;)

It's totally a monk thing. And the Sun Soul from SCAG basically does Hadouken all day long.

I think the reason for the comments might have something to do with your revised archetype name. If you wanted to avoid disappointing fans of the game, you might consider renaming it again... perhaps something like Streetwise Bruiser?

[Nowhere Girl]

It's totally a monk thing. And the Sun Soul from SCAG basically does Hadouken all day long.

I think the reason for the comments might have something to do with your revised archetype name. If you wanted to avoid disappointing fans of the game, you might consider renaming it again... perhaps something like Streetwise Bruiser?

Nah. I'll get more views if I keep them confused by making them think they're going to see Ryu or Chun Li. :D

Besides, I like the name. :3

Separately: did you look at the changes I made yet? What do you think?

[Ninja_Prawn]

I looked at the changes. I think it's better, but I'm still on the fence due to Mr. Moron's comments regarding the functionality of grappling on the core rules. I've only used it a few times, and never in situations that were 'stressful' rules-wise, so I don't feel qualified to contradict him.

[Nowhere Girl]

I looked at the changes. I think it's better, but I'm still on the fence due to Mr. Moron's comments regarding the functionality of grappling on the core rules. I've only used it a few times, and never in situations that were 'stressful' rules-wise, so I don't feel qualified to contradict him.

Grappling is without a doubt ... pretty ridiculously powerful in 5e. And you can do more than just ragdoll and stab your enemies, too -- tactical options such as "drag the enemy beatstick away from the squishy wizard" as well as "and then push him off of a cliff" become available.

[Mr.Moron]

Grappling is without a doubt ... pretty ridiculously powerful in 5e. And you can do more than just ragdoll and stab your enemies, too -- tactical options such as "drag the enemy beatstick away from the squishy wizard" as well as "and then push him off of a cliff" become available.

I looked at the changes. I think it's better, but I'm still on the fence due to Mr. Moron's comments regarding the functionality of grappling on the core rules. I've only used it a few times, and never in situations that were 'stressful' rules-wise, so I don't feel qualified to contradict him.



My objection is less a from a raw power standpoint, at least for the base rules and more from a general design standpoint: It's that there isn't any real question about what will happen. They're either immune or they're not. If something isn't immune to grapple: You grapple it and it never gets out of the grapple. If it's immune to grapple you don't grapple it.

There is no space for true variance when you're using a grapple. With just about every other action in the game before rolling the dice the outlook is this: "I'm taking an action. It's likely that I could succeed or could fail. While one outcome is more likely than the other, neither is the overwhelmingly likely result. The outcome of this action is therefore uncertain and carries with it some meaningful amount of emotional tension, risk management elements and need to adapt"

In just about every case where you grapple it is instead: "I'm taking this action. It's overwhelmingly likely I'll succeed. The chance of this turning out any way but one is marginal and the outcome is therefore all but certain and carries little to no tension, no risk management, and little need to adapt"

You can tune an "Always happens" ability like these so they're line with the average results produced by more dicey options and that ultimately will probably create power parity, so long as you downward tune to account for the value to be had in reliability itself.

It's just why have those rules instead of something like:


You attempt to grapple an opponent in place of an attack. They must make a dexterity or strength saving throw against DC 8 + Your Strength or Dexterity Modifier + Your Profiency Bonus. On a failure you grapple them. They may attempt to get out of this grapple by giving up an attack and repeating the save on their turn.

All of sudden grappling conforms to the general principles on which the rest of the game runs. If grapples are supposed to be a bit harder to get out of make the base of the formula 10 or 12. At least it interacts with the proficiency system since monsters do have strength and dex saves sometimes. There is also no weird doubling mechanic and doesn't work with easy to gain advantage.

[Satyrnine]

Dear OP,

I love this homebrew. You've done a swell job of bringing giant and huge creatures onto the grappler's horizon. My quick hunch is that survivability is going to be an issue.

Consider allowing the use of str in place of dex while grappling for saving throws and AC adjustment. Perhaps with an unarmored or lightly armored requirement.

Cheers!

[Nowhere Girl]

Dear OP,

I love this homebrew. You've done a swell job of bringing giant and huge creatures onto the grappler's horizon. My quick hunch is that survivability is going to be an issue.

Consider allowing the use of str in place of dex while grappling for saving throws and AC adjustment. Perhaps with an unarmored or lightly armored requirement.

Cheers!

It is a thought, but my concern is that it would put the street fighter head-and-shoulders above other rogues when it comes to defense. Keep in mind, too, that you can shove prone an enemy you're already grappling (and this archetype is designed specifically to be able to do that while continuing to deliver sneak attacks), and then they have disadvantage on attacks against you and can't stand up because grappled creatures have 0 movement. Meanwhile, not only you but all of your melee friends enjoy advantage on attacks against that enemy, which is really good for focusing down priority targets quickly.

And when it comes to clinging to the back of a larger creature, the DMG pretty much outright suggests that the creature may not be able to attack you while you're clinging to it (realistically, it should depend on the creature's anatomy -- the tarrasque for example probably shouldn't be able to bite you if you're on its back, but there's no reason it couldn't reach back there with those clawed arms it has), and I would imagine that many DMs might also impose disadvantage on attacks the creature could make if you were clinging to, say, its back. Still, admittedly, that reasoning relies solely on DM fiat ...

But yes, the archetype is going to perform relatively poorly when it comes to dealing with multiple enemies swarming it. It's intended as a high-risk, high-reward single-target controller/killer, after all.

I'll ... wait and see what others think about your suggestion. If the general consensus turns out to be that it needs more survivability, then I'll see what I can do to buff that in the design. ;)

Meanwhile, thanks for the positive feedback! :)

[Amnoriath]

You have a concept the problem is though that it is actually quite narrow in its set of abilities as well as what strategy it uses. While you have a couple new options for something that is suppose to wade into melee for these abilities it is no more hardy than any of the others. In fact the last ability while good actually decreases your defense because you expended your reaction. Additionally while you have the flavor of using any tactic necessary there is no incentive to use improvised weapons or your unarmed strikes because you don't increase its die meaning you still need a feat just to get a d4 base. Here is what you have:
1. A proficiency to random tools with a specific advantage on little weapons
2. Glorified two weapon fighting with more than likely worse weapons.
3. A single advantage requiring another action, but other decent advantages that could have been taken by a multi-class dip or a race.
4. A powerful capstone that is bound by one kind of strategy.

[Nowhere Girl]

You have a concept the problem is though that it is actually quite narrow in its set of abilities as well as what strategy it uses. While you have a couple new options for something that is suppose to wade into melee for these abilities it is no more hardy than any of the others. In fact the last ability while good actually decreases your defense because you expended your reaction. Additionally while you have the flavor of using any tactic necessary there is no incentive to use improvised weapons or your unarmed strikes because you don't increase its die meaning you still need a feat just to get a d4 base. Here is what you have:
1. A proficiency to random tools with a specific advantage on little weapons
2. Glorified two weapon fighting with more than likely worse weapons.
3. A single advantage requiring another action, but other decent advantages that could have been taken by a multi-class dip or a race.
4. A powerful capstone that is bound by one kind of strategy.

Honestly, the ability to use improvised weapons and/or unarmed strikes for it isn't meant to be optimal -- a short sword (basically a big knife) is better because it's just better; no sane street fighter would resort to fists when there's a shiv handy! it's a superior weapon for the task and should remain so. What those proficiencies do is give you options in situations where you don't have the optimal weapon at hand, perhaps because you've been asked to disarm or because you're in a social situation where weapons would be completely inappropriate. Depending on the type of campaign and DM, those situations may come up anywhere between "never" and "constantly."

In those cases, though, you can still use "good ol' fisticuffs" or whatever happens to be handy to get results rather than being virtually helpless because you don't have a finesse weapon in hand -- that's the general intent behind it.

And yes, choosing to use "Brutal Killer" is a trade-off because you can't use that reaction to instead halve the damage of the attack. I realize that. That means making choices some rounds: "Do I want to be able to deal the extra damage by going all-out, or do I really need to soak a hit?" In a way, it's like a barbarian asking, "Do I want to use Reckless Attack to hit more reliably, or am I trying to be more tanky right now?"

As for it being an "inferior" form of pseudo two-weapon fighting, well ... let's do a quick comparison. With a one-level fighter dip (the only way you're going to compete with Grab and Stab at all) and no feats spent, you can grab the two-weapon style and do 1d6 (1-6) plus attribute damage per strike. Meanwhile, with the same one-level dip and no feats spent, a street fighter rogue can grab dueling from fighter and do 1d6 + 2 (3-8) plus attribute damage per strike for all strikes. You can spend a feat on Dual Wielder to be able to use rapiers or longswords instead, but now you're just doing 1d8 (1-8) plus attribute damage, which is still less, and you had to burn a feat to get there. So if anything, it's a blatantly superior form of "glorified two-weapon fighting," and I'm not even sure that allowing short swords to work with it isn't outright overpowered.

Finally, I realize the focus of the archetype is fairly narrow, but actually go back and look at assassins for comparison. They get a combat ability that limits them to a very narrow choice of tactic (get surprise or bust), two utility abilities geared toward very narrow social tricks (basically pretending to be someone else is all you can do with them), and a combat ability that limits them to the same narrow tactic as the first one, or even more so really since it does nothing at all if they don't get surprise.

This archetype as designed first grants a collection of combat options that expand your social options (you can disarm and still be ready to perform a near optimal capacity if needed), then an outright combat ability, then utility/social abilities, then a combat capstone. It's really no more narrow than the assassin -- less so, in fact; in combat, assassins have nothing special to offer after the surprise round (and nothing at all to offer if you don't GET a surprise round), and outside of combat, all they're good at is impersonation.

[Amnoriath]

Honestly, the ability to use improvised weapons and/or unarmed strikes for it isn't meant to be optimal -- a short sword (basically a big knife) is better because it's just better; no sane street fighter would resort to fists when there's a shiv handy! it's a superior weapon for the task and should remain so. What those proficiencies do is give you options in situations where you don't have the optimal weapon at hand, perhaps because you've been asked to disarm or because you're in a social situation where weapons would be completely inappropriate. Depending on the type of campaign and DM, those situations may come up anywhere between "never" and "constantly."

In those cases, though, you can still use "good ol' fisticuffs" or whatever happens to be handy to get results rather than being virtually helpless because you don't have a finesse weapon in hand -- that's the general intent behind it.

And yes, choosing to use "Brutal Killer" is a trade-off because you can't use that reaction to instead halve the damage of the attack. I realize that. That means making choices some rounds: "Do I want to be able to deal the extra damage by going all-out, or do I really need to soak a hit?" In a way, it's like a barbarian asking, "Do I want to use Reckless Attack to hit more reliably, or am I trying to be more tanky right now?"

As for it being an "inferior" form of pseudo two-weapon fighting, well ... let's do a quick comparison. With a one-level fighter dip (the only way you're going to compete with Grab and Stab at all) and no feats spent, you can grab the two-weapon style and do 1d6 (1-6) plus attribute damage per strike. Meanwhile, with the same one-level dip and no feats spent, a street fighter rogue can grab dueling from fighter and do 1d6 + 2 (3-8) plus attribute damage per strike for all strikes. You can spend a feat on Dual Wielder to be able to use rapiers or longswords instead, but now you're just doing 1d8 (1-8) plus attribute damage, which is still less, and you had to burn a feat to get there. So if anything, it's a blatantly superior form of "glorified two-weapon fighting," and I'm not even sure that allowing short swords to work with it isn't outright overpowered.

Finally, I realize the focus of the archetype is fairly narrow, but actually go back and look at assassins for comparison. They get a combat ability that limits them to a very narrow choice of tactic (get surprise or bust), two utility abilities geared toward very narrow social tricks (basically pretending to be someone else is all you can do with them), and a combat ability that limits them to the same narrow tactic as the first one, or even more so really since it does nothing at all if they don't get surprise.

This archetype as designed first grants a collection of combat options that expand your social options (you can disarm and still be ready to perform a near optimal capacity if needed), then an outright combat ability, then utility/social abilities, then a combat capstone. It's really no more narrow than the assassin -- less so, in fact; in combat, assassins have nothing special to offer after the surprise round (and nothing at all to offer if you don't GET a surprise round), and outside of combat, all they're good at is impersonation.

1. But you have abilities keyed off of it. If they are inferior on abilities that lackluster in the first place than they are mostly bad options to use.
2. Except you forget your qualification. You need to be in a grapple of sorts. So, at least one of the attacks was used to grab onto them and you aren't mobile or choosing targets. Besides I didn't say inferior style, I said inferior weapons.
3. They get another proficiency and the way they can disguise themselves and mimic has far more ramifications and uses then a simple shirt rip. Also the Death Strike is not a burst ability it is passive as long as they meet the conditions and the enemy fails the save it is double damage.
4. No it doesn't, all rogues can intimidate all this does give a single advantage using another action.

[Nowhere Girl]

1. But you have abilities keyed off of it. If they are inferior on abilities that lackluster in the first place than they are mostly bad options to use.

So your contention is that having additional options that are admittedly situational in addition to a primary option that's optimal is bad because the situational options aren't as powerful?

So it's better to have fewer options so that you'll only have the one optimal trick and not additional options to use when your optimal trick isn't available to use?

Or, to make it very simple: more options < fewer options?

Sorry, does not compute.


2. Except you forget your qualification. You need to be in a grapple of sorts. So, at least one of the attacks was used to grab onto them and you aren't mobile or choosing targets.

You need to be in a grapple, but look at the wording: you can initiate the grapple as your one attack as a rogue, then immediately qualify to stab (with advantage) as a bonus action. You can then (if you want) next round shove your opponent prone so that he/she is stuck attacking at disadvantage while all of your friends attack with advantage, then still qualify to stab again as a bonus action. Essentially, it's a more versatile version of "two-weapon fighting" that allows you to combine a grapple or a shove with an attack in addition to combining an attack with an attack, with the counterbalancing limiting factor being that the bonus action can only be taken after you've successfully grappled an enemy.

It's essentially meant to emulate a "prison-yard rush" style of attacking, incidentally, but the argument that you had to use an attack to grab them doesn't hold much water as meaningful given two-weapon fighting wouldn't even allow you to grapple with your attack and then follow up with a bonus action stab ... at all, ever!

Nor does your argument about lack of mobility in choosing targets hold water (even apart from the fact that the optimal melee-damage dealer approach tends to be "single-target focus enemies down one at a time" anyway), because you can release a grapple as free action, move and grapple another person, then bonus-action stab with advantage all in the same round. You can also drag grappled enemies around at half your move, by the way, doing things like "drag away from the squishy wizard" and "shove off of a cliff." Things a traditional rogue can't do.


Besides I didn't say inferior style, I said inferior weapons.

But you're incorrect. Two-weapon fighting requires light weapons (e.g., short swords) unless you actually burn a precious feat to get a whole measly +1 additional damage per attack, which honestly is a little like setting your feat on fire given how useless doing that is especially for a rogue. Since a short sword is not inferior to a short sword (nor to a scimitar), the claim of "inferior weapons" is not valid.


3. They get another proficiency and the way they can disguise themselves and mimic has far more ramifications and uses then a simple shirt rip.

Honestly it's pretty ridiculously situational, and by the time assassins can do it, it's also pretty useless because casters do it faster and better with magic. I'd take being able to make people back down and answer my questions pretty much at will over crying because the full casters crap all over all of my utility abilities any day of the week.

I'd file that under "who seriously ever uses non-magical disguises"?


Also the Death Strike is not a burst ability it is passive as long as they meet the conditions and the enemy fails the save it is double damage.

It's a "works only if they're surprised, period, ever" ability. Extremely situational, first round only, must hit and cause a failed save, and ... if you fail to get surprise, you can't even attempt to use it at all.


4. No it doesn't, all rogues can intimidate all this does give a single advantage using another action.

All rogues can intimidate badly. This is one that can intimidate extremely well, in part because it was prioritizing Strength for very good reasons anyway but also because advantage is basically equivalent to another +5 to the check, which in 5e is huge.

[Amnoriath]

So your contention is that having additional options that are admittedly situational in addition to a primary option that's optimal is bad because the situational options aren't as powerful?

So it's better to have fewer options so that you'll only have the one optimal trick and not additional options to use when your optimal trick isn't available to use?

Or, to make it very simple: more options < fewer options?

Sorry, does not compute.



You need to be in a grapple, but look at the wording: you can initiate the grapple as your one attack as a rogue, then immediately qualify to stab (with advantage) as a bonus action. You can then (if you want) next round shove your opponent prone so that he/she is stuck attacking at disadvantage while all of your friends attack with advantage, then still qualify to stab again as a bonus action. Essentially, it's a more versatile version of "two-weapon fighting" that allows you to combine a grapple or a shove with an attack in addition to combining an attack with an attack, with the counterbalancing limiting factor being that the bonus action can only be taken after you've successfully grappled an enemy.

It's essentially meant to emulate a "prison-yard rush" style of attacking, incidentally, but the argument that you had to use an attack to grab them doesn't hold much water as meaningful given two-weapon fighting wouldn't even allow you to grapple with your attack and then follow up with a bonus action stab ... at all, ever!

Nor does your argument about lack of mobility in choosing targets hold water (even apart from the fact that the optimal melee-damage dealer approach tends to be "single-target focus enemies down one at a time" anyway), because you can release a grapple as free action, move and grapple another person, then bonus-action stab with advantage all in the same round. You can also drag grappled enemies around at half your move, by the way, doing things like "drag away from the squishy wizard" and "shove off of a cliff." Things a traditional rogue can't do.



But you're incorrect. Two-weapon fighting requires light weapons (e.g., short swords) unless you actually burn a precious feat to get a whole measly +1 additional damage per attack, which honestly is a little like setting your feat on fire given how useless doing that is especially for a rogue. Since a short sword is not inferior to a short sword (nor to a scimitar), the claim of "inferior weapons" is not valid.



Honestly it's pretty ridiculously situational, and by the time assassins can do it, it's also pretty useless because casters do it faster and better with magic. I'd take being able to make people back down and answer my questions pretty much at will over crying because the full casters crap all over all of my utility abilities any day of the week.

I'd file that under "who seriously ever uses non-magical disguises"?



It's a "works only if they're surprised, period, ever" ability. Extremely situational, first round only, must hit and cause a failed save, and ... if you fail to get surprise, you can't even attempt to use it at all.



All rogues can intimidate badly. This is one that can intimidate extremely well, in part because it was prioritizing Strength for very good reasons anyway but also because advantage is basically equivalent to another +5 to the check, which in 5e is huge.

1. You don't give that many in the first place. In fact your number is numerically the same as the Assassin but arguably worse in each one except the capstone. 2 suboptimal proficiencies, one conditional bonus action option, and late Barbarian stuff with single advantage
2. You forgot that there are other weapons of different damage types in which yours doesn't and yours has no room to grow. Also a rogue doesn't get an extra attack so you forsaking an attack to grab means that your Dueling dip needs to spend about 2-3 rounds making up the lost damage with the bonus.
3. Are you really saying casters can't cause Fear? A caster can't create an identity nor can they necessarily mimic a person's habits. Your 13th level abilities are also something Goliaths or Barbarians have been doing in low levels.
4. Passive can be situational and often is in this edition. The problem is your situational abilities yield very little for the party. I said before you have a decent capstone but it doesn't save the sub-class.
5. How is a +12 bad? Also a rogue can easily have good charisma as generally they aren't bound to a certain mental stat.
6. It is a bad idea to prioritize strength as a Rogue because of light armor and no shields. Which reinforces the fact you are forcing bad options with your lackluster abilities. Honestly if I was the DM and using an encounter with multiple creatures you would stick out like a sore thumb with this because you only have d8 hit die with little armor standing in the middle of the field wailing on a guy while being slowed because of him. You see the problem?

[Nowhere Girl]

1. You don't give that many in the first place. In fact your number is numerically the same as the Assassin but arguably worse in each one except the capstone.

Arguably, yes, because I'd argue it. I'd call the assassin inferior, myself.


2. You forgot that there are other weapons of different damage types in which yours doesn't and yours has no room to grow.

So what about different damage types? How often do you seriously switch damage types, especially once you get a magic weapon? And if you absolutely have to, you can switch to a club for bludgeoning, and you only lose 1 point of damage per strike from the base weapon, while most of your damage was sneak attack anyway. Even going down to unarmed from a club only drops you by another 1.5 damage per attack. Again, most of your damage is sneak attack!

But most of the time, you're going to use a short sword because a shiv is just better. Sorry, I don't get your complaint here. It makes no sense.


Also a rogue doesn't get an extra attack so you forsaking an attack to grab means that your Dueling dip needs to spend about 2-3 rounds making up the lost damage with the bonus.

After Stab and Grab, you don't lose any damage. You grab with your action, then stab with a bonus action all in the same round, losing nothing. Then you can dip a whole one level in fighter for dueling if you want, tack on a +2 to damage, and continue on while losing nothing but the fairly mediocre rogue capstone.

But yes, before Stab and Grab, you do lose a round on grabbing. That's about the only meaningful thing being given up here.


3. Are you really saying casters can't cause Fear?

That spell can't do what intimidating can. You can't really use it to interrogate, for example, and a lot of enemies are immune as well or just make their saves. The skill is a lot more reliable than the spell for literally everything you'd use it for and expends no daily resources to use.


A caster can't create an identity nor can they necessarily mimic a person's habits.

How often is anyone ever seriously going to need to do this in a campaign? Apart from some corner-case niche campaign where it actually matters or some player wanting to do something weird and the rest of the group deciding to tolerate the diversion?

Apart from those, never. Never ever. If you're going to tout situational abilities like that, the ability to disarm and still perform at close to optimal capacity (even unarmed, you only really lose 2.5 damage per strike, and most of your damage was always sneak attack, plus you can grab anything handy and make a weapon of it any time you need) is far superior because it's far more likely to actually come up and therefore be useful.


Your 13th level abilities are also something Goliaths or Barbarians have been doing in low levels.

So?


5. How is a +12 bad? Also a rogue can easily have good charisma as generally they aren't bound to a certain mental stat.

Unless you're playing that new swashbuckler archetype, there is literally zero reason to increase charisma as a rogue other than "for role-playing reasons." So your argument is, "You can sort of come close (sorry, still no advantage) with a traditional rogue if you deliberately gimp yourself to do it."


6. It is a bad idea to prioritize strength as a Rogue because of light armor and no shields. Which reinforces the fact you are forcing bad options with your lackluster abilities. Honestly if I was the DM and using an encounter with multiple creatures you would stick out like a sore thumb with this because you only have d8 hit die with little armor standing in the middle of the field wailing on a guy while being slowed because of him. You see the problem?

A one-level dip in fighter fixes everything there, but I suppose I could build something into it in terms of armor proficiencies in a manner similar to valor bards.

I'm just amazed that you think making eventually three attacks per round, all with advantage, plus two of them sneak attacks, while effortlessly rag-dolling enemies and controlling the field, is "lackluster." And then being able to serve as a "bad cop" face as well, along with your usual other rogue abilities.

Lackluster? Really?

[Nowhere Girl]

I'm not unreceptive to criticisms with merit, though -- I actually just added medium armor proficiency since it's fair to say that an archetype should not basically require a dip into another class to fully work.

[Amnoriath]

Arguably, yes, because I'd argue it. I'd call the assassin inferior, myself.



So what about different damage types? How often do you seriously switch damage types, especially once you get a magic weapon? And if you absolutely have to, you can switch to a club for bludgeoning, and you only lose 1 point of damage per strike from the base weapon, while most of your damage was sneak attack anyway. Even going down to unarmed from a club only drops you by another 1.5 damage per attack. Again, most of your damage is sneak attack!

But most of the time, you're going to use a short sword because a shiv is just better. Sorry, I don't get your complaint here. It makes no sense.



After Stab and Grab, you don't lose any damage. You grab with your action, then stab with a bonus action all in the same round, losing nothing. Then you can dip a whole one level in fighter for dueling if you want, tack on a +2 to damage, and continue on while losing nothing but the fairly mediocre rogue capstone.

But yes, before Stab and Grab, you do lose a round on grabbing. That's about the only meaningful thing being given up here.



That spell can't do what intimidating can. You can't really use it to interrogate, for example, and a lot of enemies are immune as well or just make their saves. The skill is a lot more reliable than the spell for literally everything you'd use it for and expends no daily resources to use.



How often is anyone ever seriously going to need to do this in a campaign? Apart from some corner-case niche campaign where it actually matters or some player wanting to do something weird and the rest of the group deciding to tolerate the diversion?

Apart from those, never. Never ever. If you're going to tout situational abilities like that, the ability to disarm and still perform at close to optimal capacity (even unarmed, you only really lose 2.5 damage per strike, and most of your damage was always sneak attack, plus you can grab anything handy and make a weapon of it any time you need) is far superior because it's far more likely to actually come up and therefore be useful.



So?



Unless you're playing that new swashbuckler archetype, there is literally zero reason to increase charisma as a rogue other than "for role-playing reasons." So your argument is, "You can sort of come close (sorry, still no advantage) with a traditional rogue if you deliberately gimp yourself to do it."



A one-level dip in fighter fixes everything there, but I suppose I could build something into it in terms of armor proficiencies in a manner similar to valor bards.

I'm just amazed that you think making eventually three attacks per round, all with advantage, plus two of them sneak attacks, while effortlessly rag-dolling enemies and controlling the field, is "lackluster." And then being able to serve as a "bad cop" face as well, along with your usual other rogue abilities.

Lackluster? Really?

1. 2 proficiencies that actually do something and a nasty first assalult vs. back ups. and an at best okay chance to get advantage. Actual valid false identities vs. Glorified two-weapon fighting. Copying a person in every way vs. late Barbarian feature which you needed about 10 levels ago to solidly use your 3rd level ability with decent stats for a Rogue. The bulk of it speaks for itself.
2. Except of course a person can already get advantage at 5 ft if prone or they can use sneak attack if another ally ally is adjacent to the creature as well. Your attacks do not have an exclusive claim on when sneak attack activates.
3. Any person can attempt to disarm the problem is your guy needs another to dip to do it a couple of times per day as reliable as you claim with good rogue stats until the high levels. Either way you are going to either need a 13 strength or 13 intelligence to get what you want out of this aside from other stats.
4. A rogue with 8 charisma can consistently intimidate better than a standard "expert"(someone who is proficient and tries to max the stat keyed to it only) because of Reliable Talent. A rogue at that level can always say they roll a 19. This is one of the reasons why I made a 5e Barbarian fix. He can be good without even being all that apt in it. The same goes for any skill they choose to have expertise in. Also since they get 6 ASI's and they aren't that reliant on feats for damage so they can spread things out more. It isn't that yours isn't better it just isn't when it really needs to be in the low levels.
5. Intimidation is not the same thing as interrogation. Intimidation doesn't mean you are going to discern the information given. Any caster can invoke fear and ask a question.
6. Again the capstone is decent but you haven't thought about 1-10 play with the expectations and strategy you are asking for in a Rogue.
7. While medium armor helps it still lags behind in AC and general stats. It still puts you at a 4 point deficit to a Dexterity rogue. In reality you need heavy armor or a different base array to work with and an unarmored defense.

[Nowhere Girl]

There is no deficit. It's trivial to start with 14 Dexterity while still maxing Strength and Constitution, giving you as much AC as a Dexterity rogue could get, only actually much sooner (5 from armor plus 2 from Dex at level 3 vs. 2 from armor and 5 from Dex ... eventually). How can you not know this?

From here I think it's best to agree to disagree. Apart from the survivability criticism (addressed and fixed), you have offered, in my opinion, no really valid or meaningful critiques. Your objections amount to "it's bad because I don't like it." Duly noted, thanks. If you come up with any new legitimate criticisms or suggestions, do let me know.

Thanks!

[Amnoriath]

There is no deficit. It's trivial to start with 14 Dexterity while still maxing Strength and Constitution, giving you as much AC as a Dexterity rogue could get, only actually much sooner (5 from armor plus 2 from Dex at level 3 vs. 2 from armor and 5 from Dex ... eventually). How can you not know this?

From here I think it's best to agree to disagree. Apart from the survivability criticism (addressed and fixed), you have offered, in my opinion, no really valid or meaningful critiques. Your objections amount to "it's bad because I don't like it." Duly noted, thanks. If you come up with any new legitimate criticisms or suggestions, do let me know.

Thanks!

1. And can you not realize if you have maxed Strength and Constitution with a 14 Dex that you could have just maxed Dexterity and Constitution?:smallannoyed:
2. I have pointed out in several instances you do not have exclusive claims to your abilities and at best are copying others much later. However you are expecting this play at level 3 when either it will be okay with bad stats of a rogue or it be bad at what you want with good stats of a rogue.

[Nowhere Girl]

1. And can you not realize if you have maxed Strength and Constitution with a 14 Dex that you could have just maxed Dexterity and Constitution?:smallannoyed:

What else do you need? With point buy, it's easy to get 14 Dex and 16 Str/Con at the start. Okay, so you can also start with Dex/Con at 16, but so what? You have literally no other attributes to care about, so you're not at an advantage.


2. I have pointed out in several instances you do not have exclusive claims to your abilities and at best are copying others much later.

Incorrect. Grab and Stab does things two-weapon fighting cannot do at all and is largely superior to two-weapon fighting, so your claim is objectively incorrect.


However you are expecting this play at level 3 when either it will be okay with bad stats of a rogue or it be bad at what you want with good stats of a rogue.

Incorrect. At 3, it can have an AC of 17. A Dex rogue can have an AC of up to 15. And while it will be slightly inferior at this level at Dex skills (by 1 point), it will also be superior at Str skills (by more than 1 point), such as Athletics.

The biggest criticism I could see here (that is actually valid) is that Grab and Stab doesn't come online until level 9.

[Amnoriath]

What else do you need? With point buy, it's easy to get 14 Dex and 16 Str/Con at the start. Okay, so you can also start with Dex/Con at 16, but so what? You have literally no other attributes to care about, so you're not at an advantage.



Incorrect. Grab and Stab does things two-weapon fighting cannot do at all and is largely superior to two-weapon fighting, so your claim is objectively incorrect.



Incorrect. At 3, it can have an AC of 17. A Dex rogue can have an AC of up to 15. And while it will be slightly inferior at this level at Dex skills (by 1 point), it will also be superior at Str skills (by more than 1 point), such as Athletics.

The biggest criticism I could see here (that is actually valid) is that Grab and Stab doesn't come online until level 9.

1. Wisdom is an optimal stat to have as a positive and you want to claim this as the prime interrogator so you can't dump Charisma. At this point you are trying to be a Barbarian without the beef and you are trying to claim other utility in which your stats can't cover yet which may come at the cost of your survivability.
2. On its own it doesn't. You had to rely on a dip to even claim a slight damage nudge after 3 rounds and my points on how you don't have an exclusive claim on sneak attack still stands.
3. The Dexterity Rogue still has studded leather and a good race will get it to 16 which is far less expensive than your half plate at 750 gp. The level after will get it to 17 if they want to. Yes but that is the only advantage it has since it has sacrificing Initiative, 3 skills, and a few tools for it.
4. You still haven't addressed the stretch of ability scores in what you expect this thing to do in the lower levels in comparison to do. Lets put this in perspective what do you believe this can do well that a Barbarian/Rogue multiclass couldn't?

[Nowhere Girl]

Lets put this in perspective what do you believe this can do well that a Barbarian/Rogue multiclass couldn't?

Everything. I would gladly pit it against such.

[Amnoriath]

Everything. I would gladly pit it against such.

Okay, make a 17th level rogue since this is the entirety of your sub-class. I will use the same stat array as you do and even the same background. I will show you the synergy of the two to make a better Street Fighter. Heck I will even use the Assassin to demonstrate that it isn't weak.

[Nowhere Girl]

Okay, make a 17th level rogue since this is the entirety of your sub-class. I will use the same stat array as you do and even the same background. I will show you the synergy of the two to make a better Street Fighter. Heck I will even use the Assassin to demonstrate that it isn't weak.

Apologies, I've been a bit busy, but sure, we can do this. Make it 20th level though, not 17; we should show the full potential of each design. And that will let you make the very best barbarian/rogue you can hope to make as well.

And no magic items. Any gear you like, but zero magic items, or else you're really just demonstrating with magical gear can do.

[Amnoriath]

Apologies, I've been a bit busy, but sure, we can do this. Make it 20th level though, not 17; we should show the full potential of each design. And that will let you make the very best barbarian/rogue you can hope to make as well.

And no magic items. Any gear you like, but zero magic items, or else you're really just demonstrating with magical gear can do.

No, it is 17th or nothing. I am restricting myself by giving you the stats and background. If your Street Fighter is truly that good it should stand on its own and not rely on any more rogue features.
I never use magic items other than a +1 weapon in these instances.

[Nowhere Girl]

No, it is 17th or nothing. I am restricting myself by giving you the stats and background. If your Street Fighter is truly that good it should stand on its own and not rely on any more rogue features.
I never use magic items other than a +1 weapon in these instances.

So you're essentially admitting that your barbarian/rogue cannot reliably remain competitive beyond a narrow pre-selected level. An archetype is a part of its class; it's not distinct from it. It is not strange to expect access to be the base class chassis on which your archetype is built.

No, sorry. Traditionally, challenges just don't work that way. The person being challenged has the right to determine the details of the challenge, though circumstances must apply equally to both. You're basically forfeiting and admitting you can't do it.

I'm willing to do an alternate challenge, however, wherein we do multiple levels ... perhaps something like 3rd, 9th, 13th, 17th and 20th all consecutively. That covers each archetype feature one after the other, then finishes with a test of maximum final potential. That would be more representative anyway and more accurately identify "weak" or "strong" levels. As it is, it will already be a very artificial test (real play is not an arena contest), so making it more representative would be better.

Unless you'd rather just back out now and admit you'll only do a challenge wherein you get to cherry pick the terms.

[Amnoriath]

So you're essentially admitting that your barbarian/rogue cannot reliably remain competitive beyond a narrow pre-selected level. An archetype is a part of its class; it's not distinct from it. It is not strange to expect access to be the base class chassis on which your archetype is built.

No, sorry. Traditionally, challenges just don't work that way. The person being challenged has the right to determine the details of the challenge, though circumstances must apply equally to both. You're basically forfeiting and admitting you can't do it.

I'm willing to do an alternate challenge, however, wherein we do multiple levels ... perhaps something like 3rd, 9th, 13th, 17th and 20th all consecutively. That covers each archetype feature one after the other, then finishes with a test of maximum final potential. That would be more representative anyway and more accurately identify "weak" or "strong" levels. As it is, it will already be a very artificial test (real play is not an arena contest), so making it more representative would be better.

Unless you'd rather just back out now and admit you'll only do a challenge wherein you get to cherry pick the terms.
1. You call 17 levels narrowly selected? Besides if you would use your logic on yourself you are implying you can't win unless you have Elusive and Stroke of Luck, none of which are your features. Again if you truly trusted your sub-class than 17 levels should be fine. While it is only a part of the whole based on that logic than the Assassin should be great in your eyes because of the aforementioned features. The argument is whether your sub-class is good overall or not, not if the Rogue as an entirety is good or not.
2. No, traditionally the person being challenged determines the place and order. The one who issues calls on what they use.
3. Sure, but I can say what will happen. I probably would win the first 4 and you probably would win on the 5th.

[Nowhere Girl]

1. You call 17 levels narrowly selected? Besides if you would use your logic on yourself you are implying you can't win unless you have Elusive and Stroke of Luck, none of which are your features.

Is that sort of like you implying that you need Rage (it won't matter that you only have a couple of uses maybe because it's an artificial contest where your limited resources don't matter) and Expertise combined, while ensuring that I don't get access to something that tilts things back again?

How is what I did in suggesting 20 any different from what you did in suggesting 17? You're deliberately trying to put together a build designed specifically to counter my archetype, and yet you even admit yourself that after a certain point, you don't believe it could win anymore.

But how is PvP a measure of anything? I could use an abjuration wizard to "prove" that all sorts of caster archetypes are bad, but what is that really proving? Is it proving the archetype is bad, or is it proving that abjuration wizards are specifically designed to create problems for other casters?

So what if, instead of PvP, I suggested we test the characters in other ways? Say ... compare them in combat with some NPC monsters, for one (will having Rage and Expertise combined in exchange for giving up some barbarian advancement still be so useful to you there?) ... or compare them in their ability to contribute to an NPC group for another ... you know, things like that? Things that would come up in actual play? If we take this outside of the realm of "gotcha" cherry-picking PvP, can your rogue/barbarian still measure up?

[Amnoriath]

Is that sort of like you implying that you need Rage (it won't matter that you only have a couple of uses maybe because it's an artificial contest where your limited resources don't matter) and Expertise combined, while ensuring that I don't get access to something that tilts things back again?

How is what I did in suggesting 20 any different from what you did in suggesting 17? You're deliberately trying to put together a build designed specifically to counter my archetype, and yet you even admit yourself that after a certain point, you don't believe it could win anymore.

But how is PvP a measure of anything? I could use an abjuration wizard to "prove" that all sorts of caster archetypes are bad, but what is that really proving? Is it proving the archetype is bad, or is it proving that abjuration wizards are specifically designed to create problems for other casters?

So what if, instead of PvP, I suggested we test the characters in other ways? Say ... compare them in combat with some NPC monsters, for one (will having Rage and Expertise combined in exchange for giving up some barbarian advancement still be so useful to you there?) ... or compare them in their ability to contribute to an NPC group for another ... you know, things like that? Things that would come up in actual play? If we take this outside of the realm of "gotcha" cherry-picking PvP, can your rogue/barbarian still measure up?

1. Actually you really only need Rage at that level. Expertise is a nice bonus though. I am merely stating that if someone would want the same flavor and similar style mechanically they are better served going with a multi-class. They even can diversify their character's flavor because of what both classes can offer.
2. Convenient that you only quote that when I have said in your challenge the multi-class would beat you until level 18. I have also said numerous times before is that you have issues with designing a low to mid level character because of lack of boosts at what you are expecting them to do and the different stats needed. This isn't about me getting everything I need. I have a Street Fighter at level 2, yours doesn't come up effectively until level 13 without stripping defensive viability. It really isn't cherry picking if I have it before your first Street Fighter ability.
3. But an Abjuration Wizard while good numbers wise and can deny spells easier its abilities doesn't mechanically do the same things as others do. In fact they are very different things. The point is that a multi-class can do what you expect the Street Fighter to do better and more easily.
3. Sure I can agree to that. However it was never about cherry picking and "winning" against you. I have said before you have decent late level abilities but the point of a having a decent sub-class is that they can do what you expect them to do proportionally well when you first take them without major loss in character resources. Your current sub-class either expects a non-optimal stat array or a good stat array but not being that good at it until level 13 while drawing major attention on a rather squishy character.

[Nowhere Girl]

1. Actually you really only need Rage at that level. Expertise is a nice bonus though. I am merely stating that if someone would want the same flavor and similar style mechanically they are better served going with a multi-class. They even can diversify their character's flavor because of what both classes can offer.

But you're incorrect. Your rogue/barbarian can't do the same things; it's just optimized specifically to attempt to counter them (at the cost of being worse at what it otherwise does).

... and otherwise a lot of stuff that's avoiding the point, which is that a challenge that isn't just PvP vs. a build specifically optimized to counter my archetype (while simultaneously being subpar otherwise) is not going to perform well in practice outside of countering my archetype. However, you still agreed to it at least.

But right now, I actually need to focus on finals. Give it a week, and we will see.

[Amnoriath]

But you're incorrect. Your rogue/barbarian can't do the same things; it's just optimized specifically to attempt to counter them (at the cost of being worse at what it otherwise does).

... and otherwise a lot of stuff that's avoiding the point, which is that a challenge that isn't just PvP vs. a build specifically optimized to counter my archetype (while simultaneously being subpar otherwise) is not going to perform well in practice outside of countering my archetype. However, you still agreed to it at least.

But right now, I actually need to focus on finals. Give it a week, and we will see.

1. You really are cherry picking all over the place in what I am saying. I have made it abundantly clear I am critiquing your sub-class and what you are expecting it to do given the set of abilities you made for it. You are constantly ignoring my critiques by saying "Oh but I am a full Rogue," even though I have said numerous times the base Rogue isn't fully designed to what you implying it to do with your sub-class abilities. Yes, Rogues are good but you put them in a place where they are going to killed very easily with your sub-class unless they largely ignore your abilities.
2. Expertise affects 2 skills at each of its levels so I can cover both Athletics and Intimidation but of course a level 2 build is going to be specialized the multi-class in general can have a well spring of options. I said to illustrate that character for that level is viable in what you are specifically incentivising your Rogue to do when taking your sub-class.
3. Oh please, you are projecting now, after all you wanted a 20th level fight. I wasn't making a build to kill your own. If I did I would have used the Swashbuckler and never said anything but I said specifically I would use something else. I said before the build would be to show you how a multi-class could do what you made this subclass for better and more. Do you not remember totem barbarians have rituals as well as choice utility abilities of its own? Do you not remember your half-plate has disadvantage on stealth checks? I can't help but sense you are relying off the base Rogue for you points that in truth you don't have nearly as much faith in your sub-class and the stats for it as the base class and its optimized stats itself.

[Satyrnine]

Just stopped by to borrow some choice phrasing from the OP for my own homebrew and man...
Haterade.

This build can grapple, shove, and attack with advantage while blind. Not that the advantage on grapple or shove matters after reliable talent.

[Amnoriath]

Just stopped by to borrow some choice phrasing from the OP for my own homebrew and man...
Haterade.

This build can grapple, shove, and attack with advantage while blind. Not that the advantage on grapple or shove matters after reliable talent.

1. Please read my various reasons. Decreeing hate as the first thing being said hasn't done any one any good.
2. Something in which the Barbarian was doing 12 levels ago on both ends of the checks and more.
3. Exactly, as to why it isn't constructed well for low-mid level play.

[Nowhere Girl]

Just stopped by to borrow some choice phrasing from the OP for my own homebrew

Borrow away. :) I am glad a few people at least found something they liked in this design.

[Nowhere Girl]

Oh, and by the way, Amnoriath? When we do the PvP challenge, we'll do each level over five rounds in order to model the standard five encounters per day expected in an average adventuring day. Apart from the characters being restored to full health, anything that takes a long rest to recover (e.g., rages per day, recovering a level of exhaustion from frenzying, etc.) will not be recovered between rounds and will instead only be recovered when the challenge moves to the next level.

If you object to that, you're pretty much admitting that you need to stack 1/day abilities and go nova with them in order to win, which does not model class/archetype performance in actual play, wherein limited resources must be conserved and used sparingly.

[PoeticDwarf]

There isn't enough power in this archetype.

Street Fighter is very situational; little better than a ribbon.

Grab and Stab doesn't let you do anything you couldn't do already by dual-wielding (I rule unarmed strikes as light, I think that's pretty common).

Street Tough also doesn't let you do anything you couldn't already. Strength (Intimidate) is explicitly called out as a valid check in the PHB.

And Brutal Killer is also pretty situational. At least it does something though.

Not really, most DMs won't rule unarmed strikes as light because it is more a last option.
Still, the class IS weak

[Amnoriath]

Oh, and by the way, Amnoriath? When we do the PvP challenge, we'll do each level over five rounds in order to model the standard five encounters per day expected in an average adventuring day. Apart from the characters being restored to full health, anything that takes a long rest to recover (e.g., rages per day, recovering a level of exhaustion from frenzying, etc.) will not be recovered between rounds and will instead only be recovered when the challenge moves to the next level.

If you object to that, you're pretty much admitting that you need to stack 1/day abilities and go nova with them in order to win, which does not model class/archetype performance in actual play, wherein limited resources must be conserved and used sparingly.

Can't you make up your mind? I thought you wanted to simulate different NPC or monster encounters of a party seeing how they would contribute? Either way if you want to make this about seeing who dies I warned you about what I would do if I really wanted to kill your character. So the choice is yours if you want to see who performs better overall or if you just want see blood. {Scrubbed}

[Nowhere Girl]

Can't you make up your mind? I thought you wanted to simulate different NPC or monster encounters of a party seeing how they would contribute? Either way if you want to make this about seeing who dies I warned you about what I would do if I really wanted to kill your character. So the choice is yours if you want to see who performs better overall or if you just want see blood. {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I thought it was clear it was both.

[Amnoriath]

I thought it was clear it was both.

"So what if, instead of PvP, I suggested we test the characters in other ways? Say ... compare them in combat with some NPC monsters, for one (will having Rage and Expertise combined in exchange for giving up some barbarian advancement still be so useful to you there?) ... or compare them in their ability to contribute to an NPC group for another ... you know, things like that? Things that would come up in actual play? If we take this outside of the realm of "gotcha" cherry-picking PvP, can your rogue/barbarian still measure up?"

"Oh, and by the way, Amnoriath? When we do the PvP challenge, we'll do each level over five rounds in order to model the standard five encounters per day expected in an average adventuring day. Apart from the characters being restored to full health, anything that takes a long rest to recover (e.g., rages per day, recovering a level of exhaustion from frenzying, etc.) will not be recovered between rounds and will instead only be recovered when the challenge moves to the next level.

If you object to that, you're pretty much admitting that you need to stack 1/day abilities and go nova with them in order to win, which does not model class/archetype performance in actual play, wherein limited resources must be conserved and used sparingly."

How are these one and the same? After all you did say instead.

[Nowhere Girl]

Oh, well, I suppose I forgot the exact words I used. No big deal.

I really need to focus on more important things just now, though. This can wait until next week.

[Amnoriath]

Oh, well, I suppose I forgot the exact words I used. No big deal.

I really need to focus on more important things just now, though. This can wait until next week.

It kind of is a big deal. Both you and I are going to make different decisions on the character whether it is a competitive PC(PvP match) or a team PC(example encounters). Besides I can't help but get the feel you are changing the rules every time I bring up points. Lets make this real simple because all I wanted to do was show you that the intention of your sub-class idea could be made better with a multi-class. As of now if you wanted a PvP I would show the failure of your strategy by capitalizing on the Swashbuckler's fancy footwork, auto-sneak attack, and higher initiative by denying you the opportunity to catch me this would become even more apparent at Barbarian level 5 when fast movement and Extra Attack kick in. Instead we make stat-blocks/arrays of our characters you doing how you wanted and me translating to other core abilities between the multi-class. We then would keep the same base as we would make more stat-blocks/arrays for each of your sub-class abilities and level 20. Then we put them to a vote on how they would fair for general play. I don't have much clout and neither do you.

[Nowhere Girl]

As of now if you wanted a PvP I would show the failure of your strategy by capitalizing on the Swashbuckler's fancy footwork, auto-sneak attack, and higher initiative by denying you the opportunity to catch me this would become even more apparent at Barbarian level 5 when fast movement and Extra Attack kick in.

That would not work, not even with Fast Movement. To "kite" like that, you need to either be using ranged attacks (and have a wide-open field with no obstacles in your path to prevent your retreat), or you need to have a much higher movement rate (eg, be a high-level monk or caste haste). You're looking at only a movement rate higher by 10, and that only if I didn't take Mobile ... which I could do more easily than you due to getting more total feats. Even if I didn't, or if you took the feat, too, you'd still only be up by 10 feet, which is not nearly enough of a difference to effectively play hit-and-run melee, because part of your movement gets spent on approaching unless you start more or less adjacent to your opponent, and said opponent follows you without paying any attention to what you're trying to do. Ranged, maybe ... but not melee.

Oh, and you also need to attack or take damage to maintain Rage from round to round. Your tactic would make it easy for me to force your Rage to end, removing the bonus damage and also your advantage on Strength checks, making it much easier to ensure you didn't escape subsequent grapples. Eventually, you're looking at advantage + Expertise vs. your Expertise only, at best. Extra Attack is nice, but unfortunately, escaping a grapple is specifically called out as a separate action, therefore not part of the Attack action and not qualifying to be used with Extra Attack. So you can still only try to escape once per turn, and it still uses your whole action to try it.

I'm afraid I just don't see any synergy there. In order to maintain your Rage and therefore advantage on grapple checks, you need to be attacking or at least getting hit. In order to melee kite, you're going to have to put yourself in positions where I can easily force you to do neither for a round. And while Extra Attack will help you get in more attacks (or even grapple back if for some reason you want to), it won't help you with escaping because that's specifically identified a separate action ("action" and "Attack Action" mean different things in 5e).

[Amnoriath]

That would not work, not even with Fast Movement. To "kite" like that, you need to either be using ranged attacks (and have a wide-open field with no obstacles in your path to prevent your retreat), or you need to have a much higher movement rate (eg, be a high-level monk or caste haste). You're looking at only a movement rate higher by 10, and that only if I didn't take Mobile ... which I could do more easily than you due to getting more total feats. Even if I didn't, or if you took the feat, too, you'd still only be up by 10 feet, which is not nearly enough of a difference to effectively play hit-and-run melee, because part of your movement gets spent on approaching unless you start more or less adjacent to your opponent, and said opponent follows you without paying any attention to what you're trying to do. Ranged, maybe ... but not melee.

Oh, and you also need to attack or take damage to maintain Rage from round to round. Your tactic would make it easy for me to force your Rage to end, removing the bonus damage and also your advantage on Strength checks, making it much easier to ensure you didn't escape subsequent grapples. Eventually, you're looking at advantage + Expertise vs. your Expertise only, at best. Extra Attack is nice, but unfortunately, escaping a grapple is specifically called out as a separate action, therefore not part of the Attack action and not qualifying to be used with Extra Attack. So you can still only try to escape once per turn, and it still uses your whole action to try it.

I'm afraid I just don't see any synergy there. In order to maintain your Rage and therefore advantage on grapple checks, you need to be attacking or at least getting hit. In order to melee kite, you're going to have to put yourself in positions where I can easily force you to do neither for a round. And while Extra Attack will help you get in more attacks (or even grapple back if for some reason you want to), it won't help you with escaping because that's specifically identified a separate action ("action" and "Attack Action" mean different things in 5e).

1. Obstacles affect you to.
2. Actually you don't necessarily. Rogues get their extra ASI at level 10.
3. Yes, but the 10 becomes 20 since I also have Cunning Action. Also by RAW the Swashbuckler changes what kind of weapon I could use Sneak Attack with.
4. Well rage doesn't specify which kind of attack to maintain it.
5. Me having an issue with escaping a grapple? Your level 9 doesn't have advantage on any strength check yet. Also lets say in theory that I am grappled I have two more chances to get out and one more to auto-sneak attack. You forget two-weapon fighting isn't a horrible option since I have damage elsewhere to fuel it.
6. By RAW you can't use your reaction that way. Besides lets say you could when I hit you can't make opportunity attacks against me.

[Nowhere Girl]

1. Obstacles affect you to.

You're missing the point, which is that they affect you more. If you're trying to play keep-away, any time you have to go around something, it eats up far more movement than it does for me to beeline straight toward you. Also, I don't have to be able to get around the obstacle faster than you can; I just have to be able to get to you before you get around the obstacle.

That's how it works in the real world, too; in boxing, they call it "cutting off the ring."


2. Actually you don't necessarily. Rogues get their extra ASI at level 10.

Well, you'd have to go barbarian 8/rogue 12 to do it, but that one particular combination would yield six, yes.


3. Yes, but the 10 becomes 20 since I also have Cunning Action.

That is not nearly enough of a speed advantage to do hit-and-run melee.


Also by RAW the Swashbuckler changes what kind of weapon I could use Sneak Attack with.

I know why you're arguing that, but it could be argued the other way as well by pointing out that the wording of Toujours l’Audace does not specifically say anything about altering weapons requirements. Moreover, you and I both know full well that it is the intent that it does not, and you have as much chance of convincing any sane DM otherwise as you do of convincing a sane DM to allow to you create a commoner railgun in 3.x.


4. Well rage doesn't specify which kind of attack to maintain it.

So now your cunning plan is to pretend you're an archer, wasting your Rage rounds while making attacks with an attribute you didn't prioritize (unless you did, in which case you have no synergy with your Rage) and that benefit from neither Rage nor your automatic Sneak Attacks?

This is a bad plan even if the fight is set in featureless terrain (because you won't be able to even attempt to get Sneak Attack by hiding), and it's even worse if there are obstacles around (because I can abuse cover, including possibly forcing an immediate end to your Rage by retreating into total cover).

All the while, your precious Rage rounds are just ticking away. There is almost nothing good about this plan unless you're trying to throw the fight.

By the way, just how many attributes are you trying to prioritize here? You don't get an initiative advantage from Swashbuckler unless you boost Charisma ... but you also need to boost Dexterity if you want a lot of initiative like you say you do. You also need Strength if you want synergy with Rage, and while you're boosting all of those other stats, what are you going to do about your poor old Constitution? It would be really awkward if after all those discussions of fragility, I actually wound up with more hit points than you.


5. Me having an issue with escaping a grapple? Your level 9 doesn't have advantage on any strength check yet.

It actually does now. I didn't add any new abilities, but I did decide that the archetype may be too back-loaded, so I moved some abilities forward a bit to try to fix that.


Also lets say in theory that I am grappled I have two more chances to get out and one more to auto-sneak attack.

You have one chance to get out.

Escaping a grapple is specifically called out as a separate action; it's not part of an Attack Action and does not benefit from Extra Attack. Furthermore, you can't use two-weapon fighting with it because you didn't meet the requirements of two-weapon fighting by making an attack.


6. By RAW you can't use your reaction that way. Besides lets say you could when I hit you can't make opportunity attacks against me.

I have no idea what you're talking about since I never mentioned using a reaction.

[Amnoriath]

1. No, it affects you more because you have to be adjacent to your target to connect with your combos. I have options to be at ranged while you don't. It also means where I go you go. This argument is rather dumb because unless you believe you can change the terrain just like the way you are doing the rules it isn't a mutually exclusive point.
2. It is if it is against an enemy that requires adjacent combat.
3. Yes, but we don't know RAI we could use it to say that most reaction attacks are opportunity attacks but currently there is 1 kind maybe 2 therefore abilities that force disadvantage to apply to more but since we aren't them it could be considered arbitrary. Because your points still says the best way to go for a Swashbuckler is to be an Archer. I am not saying I would use either but would your issues be solved if I were using daggers/darts to throw at you?
4. Throwing weapons can use your Strength modifier, and your plan is to hide in armor that gives you disadvantage? Again, stop with the obstacle argument as I can wait with rage and it is something we can both use except I can stay away.
5. That doesn't make you better at grappling it is conditioned off you being successful and you now have less options to gain your weaker extra attack. In a way you made this worse because the other way it encompassed more possibilities in what you can do to creatures. Now, you compounded your problem in having to be adjacent and grappling as well as waiting an entire round to get your Sneak Attack using 2 strength checks against me at level 3. You are really expecting some kind of magical luck here.
6. No it is, "When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."(5E PHB, 195) This also applies with other strength checks against creatures or objects. So, no I have two or effectively four.
7. Then why did you say this? "In order to melee kite, you're going to have to put yourself in positions where I can easily force you to do neither for a round." It is my turn the only way to act on my turn is a reaction.
8. Look to be honest between you changing the rules, assuming you can control the environment, and how long it will take to resolve I can't trust you to be consistent or even entirely truthful. You could also say you can't be sure of me as well. So, I am forcing an ultimatum either we do this, "Instead we make stat-blocks/arrays of our characters you doing how you wanted and me translating to other core abilities between the multi-class. We then would keep the same base as we would make more stat-blocks/arrays for each of your sub-class abilities and level 20. Then we put them to a vote on how they would fair for general play. I don't have much clout and neither do you." because all I wanted to do was this "all I wanted to do was show you that the intention of your sub-class idea could be made better with a multi-class." or we don't do anything.

[Nowhere Girl]

1. No, it affects you more because you have to be adjacent to your target to connect with your combos. I have options to be at ranged while you don't.

How so? I can throw or shoot things, too. I just have the advantage of not having to worry about losing my Rage if you duck behind total cover and force me to waste a round not attacking.

Besides which, unless it's a flat and featureless plain, you're going to have to deal with obstacles, and despite what you keep incorrectly asserting, a pursuer always has an advantage when obstacles come into play because the shortest distance from any point to any other point is a straight line. That's just simple geometry.


4. Throwing weapons can use your Strength modifier, and your plan is to hide in armor that gives you disadvantage?

Who said anything about hiding? Ducking behind total cover prevents you from attacking for a round if you're unable to reposition on your turn to a place that allows you to attack. Boom, Rage ended. Just like that.

And you're planning to use throwing weapons? Really? You do realize that with throwing weapons, range becomes an issue if you're trying to kite from so far away that I can't use Cunning Action to Dash close enough to grapple you after your turn ends, right? Also, they tend to weigh a lot in large numbers. How many do you plan to carry?


Again, stop with the obstacle argument as I can wait with rage and it is something we can both use except I can stay away

Except you can't. You're going to find yourself too close sooner or later, or I'm just going to abuse cover until you run out of ammunition to throw. You need a flat, featureless plain to avoid this.


6. No it is, "When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you’re able to make multiple attacks with
the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."

Here's the inconvenient part you omitted:

"Escaping a Grapple. A grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check."

Action. Not Attack Action -- that's only used to initiate grapples. Escaping takes your action, and that means your whole action. As noted on page 192, "action" refers to many possible things, including such things as Dodge, Dash and Disengage, and of which Attack is only one. Escaping is specifically called out in the text as using your action. It's noted separately from the main grappling text, probably for precisely that reason.

You get one chance, and it uses your entire action for the round.


7. Then why did you say this? "In order to melee kite, you're going to have to put yourself in positions where I can easily force you to do neither for a round." It is my turn the only way to act on my turn is a reaction.

Because after your turn ends, you're not going to be able to be fully out of reach while trying to play hit-and-run melee because you don't have the speed advantage to do it. You can try the ridiculous ranged kiting thing, but that's (a) pretty much admitting the archetype works as intended because you only have a chance if you run like hell and kite (which a dedicated archer would do better than your barbarian/rogue anyway) and (b) reliant on a flat, featureless plain to work reliably.


8. Look to be honest

... you've realized you can't do it. I know. No, I'm not changing anything about it. You issued this challenge, and my stipulations are fair and are based on the way the game actually works, especially the "five rounds per level" bit to model the impact of encounters per day on limited resources.

I mean, at this point, you're not even trying to show that your plan is a viable alternative to the archetype anyway, and you're certainly not demonstrating that you can use a barbarian/rogue to duplicate the job the archetype actually does. You're just trying to show that given the right circumstances, you can kite it. Thing is, you could also kite most other melee-focused builds, so are melee builds just all universally bad except for maybe monks?

So no. You can either accept as-is or give up and admit you were wrong.

[Amnoriath]

How so? I can throw or shoot things, too. I just have the advantage of not having to worry about losing my Rage if you duck behind total cover and force me to waste a round not attacking.

Besides which, unless it's a flat and featureless plain, you're going to have to deal with obstacles, and despite what you keep incorrectly asserting, a pursuer always has an advantage when obstacles come into play because the shortest distance from any point to any other point is a straight line. That's just simple geometry.



Who said anything about hiding? Ducking behind total cover prevents you from attacking for a round if you're unable to reposition on your turn to a place that allows you to attack. Boom, Rage ended. Just like that.

And you're planning to use throwing weapons? Really? You do realize that with throwing weapons, range becomes an issue if you're trying to kite from so far away that I can't use Cunning Action to Dash close enough to grapple you after your turn ends, right? Also, they tend to weigh a lot in large numbers. How many do you plan to carry?



Except you can't. You're going to find yourself too close sooner or later, or I'm just going to abuse cover until you run out of ammunition to throw. You need a flat, featureless plain to avoid this.



Here's the inconvenient part you omitted:

"Escaping a Grapple. A grappled creature can use its action to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check contested by your Strength (Athletics) check."

Action. Not Attack Action -- that's only used to initiate grapples. Escaping takes your action, and that means your whole action. As noted on page 192, "action" refers to many possible things, including such things as Dodge, Dash and Disengage, and of which Attack is only one. Escaping is specifically called out in the text as using your action. It's noted separately from the main grappling text, probably for precisely that reason.

You get one chance, and it uses your entire action for the round.



Because after your turn ends, you're not going to be able to be fully out of reach while trying to play hit-and-run melee because you don't have the speed advantage to do it. You can try the ridiculous ranged kiting thing, but that's (a) pretty much admitting the archetype works as intended because you only have a chance if you run like hell and kite (which a dedicated archer would do better than your barbarian/rogue anyway) and (b) reliant on a flat, featureless plain to work reliably.



... you've realized you can't do it. I know. No, I'm not changing anything about it. You issued this challenge, and my stipulations are fair and are based on the way the game actually works, especially the "five rounds per level" bit to model the impact of encounters per day on limited resources.

I mean, at this point, you're not even trying to show that your plan is a viable alternative to the archetype anyway, and you're certainly not demonstrating that you can use a barbarian/rogue to duplicate the job the archetype actually does. You're just trying to show that given the right circumstances, you can kite it. Thing is, you could also kite most other melee-focused builds, so are melee builds just all universally bad except for maybe monks?

So no. You can either accept as-is or give up and admit you were wrong.

1. You flatly ignored the fact you need to be adjacent to get any of your combos since this is really the only thing your archetype does in battle. Again who needs to be pursuing here? The person who can attach there abilities to different kinds of weapons or the person who must be adjacent to get their combos off?
2. Just as I can, again I can control when I initiate my rage. Stop trying to weigh this as my only option while you are waiting for your opportunity for the one you have.
3. Cover often by definition often doesn't fully cover you otherwise you are trapped, besides again why would I need to come to you? Again you are the pursuer, I am at best hovering around.
4. Okay, my bad on accepting an unlikely scenario for the sake of argument or the fact I can just shove you away because grappling ends when you are not adjacent to me. "The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell."(5e PHB, 290)
Again you are expecting so many outside factors and luck to be in your favor but the advantage here goes to anyone who keep make and keep the distance.
5. Who says I am grappling? I am trying to kill you with this build. If I am going to melee hit and run you I am rendering you prone. Again, that is merely just an option and stop assuming you have mutual exclusivity. It is terrain anybody can use it and you are adjacent combat, deal with it.
6. Oh please you sitting here and ignoring the constraints of your combo while assuming you have the Rolodex of terrains and luck isn't me seeing the futility of my build. It is me seeing the futility of trying to have a fair competition who thinks they can just call and change all the shots at a moment's notice when they have the futile build. Again, if you actually quote the whole thing which you never do because you are a habitual cherry-picker this isn't the build meant to copy you. It is meant to kill you while covering some similar aspects. If you would accept my challenge you would see how I can copy and others can judge the merits of both rather than use trying to game one another for blood. Take it or leave it, because I can't trust you. Notice this is the last point I am making if I am matching reasons for reasons regardless of whether you believe they have merit it doesn't mean I am being chicken. Really, I honestly don't care how you view this but if you keep replying like this you are only making yourself look worse and losing credibility.

[Satyrnine]

For the record, this build starts putting out an average of 80.5 damage per round at level 17 (brutal killer) using a broken beer bottle. This while rolling advantage on everything. This is just about identical to an Xbow rogues who have haste cast on them, but with more control, no haste, no feat req (compared to sharpshooter and xbow xpert), and no -5 penalty to attack. Xbow dmg does go absolutely ape**** if you have a BM giving you reaction attacks.

Myself playing a Street Fighter, I might pick up Tough and Sentinel. Stuff is bound to get dicey on the front lines and Sentinel will make breaking away from you that much more difficult. You do not want to get hit by a rogues AoO. I wish there was an established rule for using intimidate in combat to convey the frightened condition.

[Amnoriath]

For the record, this build starts putting out an average of 80.5 damage per round at level 17 (brutal killer) using a broken beer bottle. This while rolling advantage on everything. This is just about identical to an Xbow rogues who have haste cast on them, but with more control, no haste, no feat req (compared to sharpshooter and xbow xpert), and no -5 penalty to attack. Xbow dmg does go absolutely ape**** if you have a BM giving you reaction attacks.

Myself playing a Street Fighter, I might pick up Tough and Sentinel. Stuff is bound to get dicey on the front lines and Sentinel will make breaking away from you that much more difficult. You do not want to get hit by a rogues AoO. I wish there was an established rule for using intimidate in combat to convey the frightened condition.

The problem is that is the only thing of note at its high level it also must be grappling or clinging on to use its capstone. So anything Sentinel gives doesn't synchronize with its last ability. All it takes is a shove to break its combo on a frame a Rogue isn't built for. It s 13th level feature is something a Barbarian has both ways at level 1. The only thing it is built for is a high level one shot.

[Satyrnine]

The problem is that is the only thing of note at its high level it also must be grappling or clinging on to use its capstone. So anything Sentinel gives doesn't synchronize with its last ability. All it takes is a shove to break its combo on a frame a Rogue isn't built for. It s 13th level feature is something a Barbarian has both ways at level 1. The only thing it is built for is a high level one shot.

The level 13 rogue archetype abilities aren't really power abilities. My intuition is to drag Brutal Killer to level 13 but it also seems dishonest when comparing to say, Assassins level 13.

Shoving this build is no mean feat. I know you are building this one on one showdown with your personal anti-street fighter but a SF (Street Fighter) is going to be rolling serious dice (+15 with advantage at level 13) to avoid being shoved. Thumb through the MM and make a list of mobs that are going to do this consistently.

That being said, it's fine if grapple gets broken every once in a while. A SF can grapple and swing in the same turn and a rogue really just needs one attack to land per round (Xbow is kinda different.)

I can't think of a rogue archetype that provides a more consistent way to provide an AoO (which proc SA). If you fail to break grapple you are in for about a 44 avg damage attack. That's like a 8th level Hellish Rebuke, which may not be even possible, or a lvl 20 monk's full attack round with flurry. I challenge you to find me a more damaging AoO.

I agree that Brutal Killer comes online late but it is also likely way to strong for a 9th or 13th level ability. You can literally rummage threw a garbage can, pull out whatever and do top tier damage.

[Amnoriath]

Shoving this build is no mean feat. I know you are building this one on one showdown with your personal anti-street fighter but a SF (Street Fighter) is going to be rolling serious dice (+15 with advantage at level 13) to avoid being shoved. Thumb through the MM and make a list of mobs that are going to do this consistently.

That being said, it's fine if grapple gets broken every once in a while. A SF can grapple and swing in the same turn and a rogue really just needs one attack to land per round (Xbow is kinda different.)


Actually for what I have been saying all this time it isn't at all that hard. It has advantage on strength checks one way. "you have advantage on all Strength (Athletics) checks made to grapple, shove or cling to an enemy," It has advantage initiating them but not resisting them. Enter the Barbarian which can match resisting him as well as initiating them.

[Amnoriath]

I can't think of a rogue archetype that provides a more consistent way to provide an AoO (which proc SA). If you fail to break grapple you are in for about a 44 avg damage attack. That's like a 8th level Hellish Rebuke, which may not be even possible, or a lvl 20 monk's full attack round with flurry. I challenge you to find me a more damaging AoO.

I agree that Brutal Killer comes online late but it is also likely way to strong for a 9th or 13th level ability. You can literally rummage threw a garbage can, pull out whatever and do top tier damage.

1. Well again if they are dealing with certain opponents. It is like what Mr. Moron said either its guaranteed to happen or not at all. In which then comes the issue of a big target on your back with not that much to soak being immobile. Not a single AoO but a Ready action could but either way it is very powerful and can't really be moved.
2. Personally I thought it needed straight up more health to start and maybe instead of these rather tailored combo abilities it should have looked sort of like the Hunter. In that most of the levels had an array of abilities to choose from while having a couple constants.