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rrwoods
2017-10-14, 04:31 PM
(I hate the name but I can't think of anything else.) (YES I CAN, it's now named Plague Assassin.)

This is a class based on a character from a game, and anyone that's played it probably knows which character it is. However I'm primarily looking for feedback from people who *haven't* played said game; I don't want to be so blinded by attempts to emulate the character that I get buried in a bad idea (or lose sight of a good one).
It's Twitch, from League of Legends.

That said, the capstone is deliberately not overly strong. The game in question has 18 levels, and I saw this as an opportunity to provide a class with a great number of good breakpoints, but still satisfying to play to 20. As such the capstone is more "this feels cool" rather than "super-powerful level 20 ability".

Without futher ado:




Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort
Ref
Will
Special


1st
+1
+2
+2
+0
Ability point, infectious shot


2nd
+2
+3
+3
+0
Ability point


3rd
+3
+3
+3
+1
Ability point


4th
+4
+4
+4
+1
Ability point


5th
+5
+4
+4
+1
Ability point


6th
+6/+1
+5
+5
+2
Spray and pray +2


7th
+7/+2
+5
+5
+2
Ability point


8th
+8/+3
+6
+6
+2
Ability point


9th
+9/+4
+6
+6
+3
Ability point


10th
+10/+5
+7
+7
+3
Ability point


11th
+11/+6/+1
+7
+7
+3
Spray and pray +3


12th
+12/+7/+2
+8
+8
+4
Ability point


13th
+13/+8/+3
+8
+8
+4
Ability point


14th
+14/+9/+4
+9
+9
+4
Ability point


15th
+15/+10/+5
+9
+9
+5
Ability point


16th
+16/+11/+6/+1
+10
+10
+5
Spray and pray +4


17th
+17/+12/+7/+2
+10
+10
+5
Ability point


18th
+18/+13/+8/+3
+11
+11
+6
Ability point


19th
+19/+14/+9/+4
+11
+11
+6


20th
+20/+15/+10/+5
+12
+12
+6
True ambush



Class skills (6 + Int modifier per level, x4 at 1st level): Climb, Concentration, Craft, Handle Animal, Heal, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Profession, Ride, Search, Spot, Survival, Swim, Use Rope.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You are proficient with all simple weapons, martial ranged weapons, and light armor.
Infectious shot (Ex): Whenever you deal damage to an enemy with a ranged weapon, that enemy becomes Afflicted for 6 rounds. Afflicted creatures have a -2 penalty to Dexterity.
Ability Point: The ambush, venom cask, and contaminate abilities require points to use them, and their effectiveness is increased with more points. At each level indicated on the table, choose one of those abilities to gain 1 point. An ability can have a maximum of 5 points, but not more than half your plague rat level rounded up. (For example, at 5th level, an ability can have a maximum of 3 points. At 9th level or higher, the maximum is 5.)
Ambush (Su): Activate this ability as a standard action, and only once per encounter. With 3 or more Ambush points, you may activate it as a move action instead. Whenever an Afflicted creature dies, you regain the use of this ability.
At the beginning of your next turn, you are affected as if by an invisibility spell for 1 round per Ambush point, except that you can still be seen by creatures within 10 feet. While under this effect, you gain a 10 foot bonus to your speed, and a +1 bonus on attack rolls for each Ambush point. The bonus on attack rolls lasts for an additional 5 rounds after the invisibility effect ends.
Venom cask (Ex): Activate this ability as a swift action. You may activate it once per encounter per Venom Cask point.
You throw a small cask of venom. Resolve the throw as a Throw Splash Weapon action that targets a grid intersection with a range increment of 5 ft (see the SRD). For 3 rounds, the affected area afflicts any enemy creature that begins their turn there or passes through it, and reduces their speed by 5 feet per Venom Cask point.
Contaminate (Su): Activate this ability as a standard action, and only once per encounter.
Deal acid damage to all Afflicted creatures within 60 feet. The amount of damage is 1d8 per Contaminate point, plus 1d8, plus your Intelligence bonus. A successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + your Intelligence modifier + ½ your plague rat level) halves the damage.
Spray and Pray (Ex): Activate this ability as a swift action, and only twice per day.
For 5 rounds, your ranged attacks affect a line whose length is twice your weapon’s range increment. Make a separate attack roll against each enemy in the line, ignoring soft cover from your enemies, but taking a cumulative 2 penalty on the attack roll for each successive enemy past the first. (Missing an enemy does not prevent you from rolling attacks against enemies behind him.)
During these 5 rounds, you also get a +2 bonus on ranged damage rolls. This bonus is increased to +3 at plague rat level 11, and +4 at level 16.
True Ambush (Su): At 20th level, the invisibility effect of your ambush ability has a duration of 15 rounds. In addition, you may activate that ability as a swift action, and you may choose for the invisibility effect to start immediately instead of on your next turn.


Here's a reworked progression, removing the ability point concept and trying to generally streamline the effects and keep things concise.

(no clue why this table is wrapping with so much room to spare on the right...)

PLAGUE ASSASSIN -- hit die: d6


Level
Base Attack Bonus
Fort
Ref
Will
Special


1st
+1
+2
+2
+0
Contaminate 1d10


2nd
+2
+3
+3
+0
Ambush +3


3rd
+3
+3
+3
+1
Contaminate 2d10, rat’s plague


4th
+4
+4
+4
+1



5th
+5
+4
+4
+1
Contaminate 3d10


6th
+6/+1
+5
+5
+2
Spray and pray 2


7th
+7/+2
+5
+5
+2
Contaminate 4d10


8th
+8/+3
+6
+6
+2
Ambush +4


9th
+9/+4
+6
+6
+3
Contaminate 5d10


10th
+10/+5
+7
+7
+3
Swift ambush


11th
+11/+6/+1
+7
+7
+3
Spray and pray 3


12th
+12/+7/+2
+8
+8
+4
Contaminate 6d10


13th
+13/+8/+3
+8
+8
+4
Ambush +5


14th
+14/+9/+4
+9
+9
+4
Rapid ambush


15th
+15/+10/+5
+9
+9
+5
Contaminate (no save)


16th
+16/+11/+6/+1
+10
+10
+5
Spray and pray 4


17th
+17/+12/+7/+2
+10
+10
+5
Contaminate 7d10


18th
+18/+13/+8/+3
+11
+11
+6



19th
+19/+14/+9/+4
+11
+11
+6
Deadly precision


20th
+20/+15/+10/+5
+12
+12
+6
Greater ambush



Class skills (6 + Int modifier per level, ×4 at 1st level): Climb, Concentration, Craft, Handle Animal, Heal, Hide, Jump, Knowledge (dungeoneering), Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (nature), Listen, Move Silently, Profession, Ride, Search, Spot, Survival, Swim, Use Rope.

Starting Gold: 6d4×10 (150 gp).
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: You are proficient with all simple weapons and martial ranged weapons. You are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.
Contaminate (Su): Use this ability as a standard action, and only once per encounter.
Deal acid damage to each creature within 60 feet that you’ve hit with a ranged weapon during this encounter. This damage is 1d10 at 1st level, and it increases as indicated on the table.
A successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + your Intelligence modifier + ½ your class level) halves the damage. However, at 15th level, this ability no longer allows a save and each affected creature always takes the full damage.
Ambush (Su): At 2nd level, a plague assassin gains the ability to conceal himself from his foes very effectively. Use this ability as a move action, and only once per encounter.
At the beginning of your next turn, you are affected as if by an invisibility spell, with a caster level equal to your class level (duration 1 minute per level or until you attack). The effect is the same as a normal invisibility spell, except as follows: You can still be visually detected by creatures within 10 feet. You gain a 10-foot bonus to your land speed. The attack roll bonus as a result of being invisible is +3 instead of +2, and lasts for 5 rounds after the invisibility ends. This bonus increases to +4 at 8th level, and to +5 at 13th.
Whenever a creature dies that you’ve hit with a ranged weapon during this encounter, you regain your per-encounter use of this ability.
At 10th level, you may use this ability as a swift action or move action.
At 14th level, you may have the invisibility take effect immediately instead of waiting until your next turn.
At 20th level, you may have the effect be greater invisibility. (The duration is 20 rounds and it doesn’t end when you attack.)
Rat’s plague (Su): At 3rd level, you can turn the air into a putrid gas, slowing enemies within it. Use this ability as a standard action, and only once per encounter.
You create an area of putrid gas in a 5-foot radius, up to 60 feet away. The gas lingers for 3 rounds, dissipating at the start of your turn on the third round. You can choose to exclude a single 5-foot square from the area. Any creature who begins its turn in the gas or passes through it suffers a one-half reduction to their speed for all forms of movement, which lasts 3 rounds. In addition, whenever you affect a creature this way, it counts as striking that creature with a ranged attack. This allows you to damage the creature with contaminate and to regain your per-encounter use of ambush.
Spray and pray (Ex): At 6th level, a plague assassin gains the ability to strike multiple enemies with his attacks. You can use this ability any time you make a ranged weapon attack. Using this ability does not require an action. You can affect one attack per class level per day. (Each attack in a full attack action counts separately.)
Instead of targeting one enemy with your attack, you can target two. At 11th level, you can target up to three enemies, and at 16th you can target up to four. The enemies must be within 30 feet of one another. Make attack rolls and damage rolls against each target separately.
In addition, you get a bonus on the damage roll against each enemy equal to the total number of enemies targeted.
Deadly precision (Ex): At 19th level, the critical multiplier of any ranged weapon you wield increases by 1. In addition, you gain the Improved Critical and Power Critical feats for all ranged weapons.

aimlessPolymath
2017-10-14, 09:07 PM
Alright.

I have 3 games of experience with League, got stomped in each of them, and don't know who Twitch is, but I do have a reasonable amount of experience with class design.
Thoughts:
The League inspiration is painfully clear with the ability point allocation. While it works in League, choosing talents is something that will have a lasting effect on your character beyond the next 40 minutes. Also, the system translates awkwardly to D&D, where the idea of classes is that your character gradually becomes more skilled in the same skillset, rather than picking up a skill, mastering it, repeating, etc. I would scrap it and just give a standardized rate of advancement.

Thoughts on abilities:
Infectious Shot is a good way to handle poison effects easily, but has pretty little effect. I would increase the Dex penalty to -4, increasing at levels 10 and 20 by -2 (which mirrors Barbarian progression nicely). There's no reason outside of
Duration tracking at 6 rounds is a bit of a pain for a debuff which affects multiple enemies, so I would increase it to 10, the length of a medium-long encounter.

Ambush: Seems like a translation of LoL mechanics? The 10 foot radius for is a neat idea which I rather like. On the other hand, the Rapid Shot thing is a bit awkward. There's no reason to have it trigger on breaking the invisibility, and there aren't strong incentives to stay invisible for more than one round other than in an actual ambush (for which 1 round per point is close to unusable)?

Venom Cask: Seems like an item, not an ability? Per-encounter limit is wonky. Utility is inverse to the amount of free space around.

Contaminate: Damage starts high but scales poorly. Acid blasts don't seem to fit this class very well.

Not continuing with the other abilities.

This seems like a direct translation of Twitch's mechanics into D&D formatted abilities, without concern for how the character will work. There's some good stuff here, but

rrwoods
2017-10-14, 09:27 PM
Ugh, I also forgot (again) to italicize "afflicted"... I'll do that after this response.


Alright.

I have 3 games of experience with League, got stomped in each of them, and don't know who Twitch is, but I do have a reasonable amount of experience with class design.
Thoughts:
The League inspiration is painfully clear with the ability point allocation. While it works in League, choosing talents is something that will have a lasting effect on your character beyond the next 40 minutes. Also, the system translates awkwardly to D&D, where the idea of classes is that your character gradually becomes more skilled in the same skillset, rather than picking up a skill, mastering it, repeating, etc. I would scrap it and just give a standardized rate of advancement.

It does translate a little awkwardly. I thought that being able to pick and choose which of your class abilities to level would be neat, but you're right that a level-with-your-class level approach might be simpler.


Thoughts on abilities:
Infectious Shot is a good way to handle poison effects easily, but has pretty little effect. I would increase the Dex penalty to -4, increasing at levels 10 and 20 by -2 (which mirrors Barbarian progression nicely). There's no reason outside of
Duration tracking at 6 rounds is a bit of a pain for a debuff which affects multiple enemies, so I would increase it to 10, the length of a medium-long encounter.
Interesting thought on the duration increase. I'll definitely consider that.

The primary purpose of infectious shot (much like its counterpart in League) isn't really the Dex penalty, but rather its interactions with ambush and contaminate. The Dex penalty is just something for it to do if you're not in a position to take advantage of that other stuff. (In League it's a really piddly damage-over-time effect, which is just a huge feel-bad in D&D since you have to track it yourself and it doesn't do much.)


Ambush: Seems like a translation of LoL mechanics? The 10 foot radius for is a neat idea which I rather like. On the other hand, the Rapid Shot thing is a bit awkward. There's no reason to have it trigger on breaking the invisibility, and there aren't strong incentives to stay invisible for more than one round other than in an actual ambush (for which 1 round per point is close to unusable)?
I'm curious what you mean when you say the Rapid Shot thing is awkward. I haven't written any fluff text for this yet, but I don't feel like it would be hard to come up with some explanation for why you attack faster when coming out of ambush.

I also feel like a couple rounds of invisibility could be super useful in an exploration scenario that requires stealth?


Venom Cask: Seems like an item, not an ability? Per-encounter limit is wonky. Utility is inverse to the amount of free space around.
This is the ability I'm least happy with. What I want to do with it eventually is turn it into a special thing this class gets to craft, or something like that. Just haven't gotten there yet.


Contaminate: Damage starts high but scales poorly. Acid blasts don't seem to fit this class very well.
Is there a poison damage type? I guess I could just make one.

The class's primary damage comes from ranged attacks; this ability is basically just a guaranteed re-hit against previously struck enemies. To my (undeveloped!) intuition, it feels like it scales fine when considered against the context of the rest of the class and the situations it wants to be in.


without concern for how the character will work
This part is most certainly not true BUT I have no previous class design experience. I've thought a bit about different scenarios where certain abilities might be useful, how they might interact with roleplaying, and I've definitely thought about balance. But with no previous experience it's likely that I've done some stuff wrong. And I don't have any playtesting done, for sure.

rferries
2017-10-14, 09:44 PM
I agree about removing the ability points, just have everything progress automatically. Otherwise I think it's fine, certainly not tier 1. If verisimilitude is a problem just make the cask into a supernatural ability i.e. you conjure one up out of nothing.

I haven't played LOL - could ambush be converted to Sneak Attack and/or Hide in Plain Sight, or would that change the flavour too much?

Maybe give them a bonus on Craft (alchemy) too, and the ability to brew things of different damage types (not just acid)?

aimlessPolymath
2017-10-14, 09:51 PM
Whoops- Missed that Contaminate only hits already afflicted creatures. It makes much more sense now. Poison damage is, strangely enough, technically semi-supported by the rules if you look sideways, since you can get immunity to poinson?
Ambush is a bit awkward in two ways:
-Rapid Shot is a feat that a ranged specialist like this will pick anyway. The ability to apply extra Afflicted effects to creatures is too useful, and it's good anyway, without the standard-action cost of going invisible. Extra attacks are good!
-A few rounds of Invisibility aren't enough for scouting beyond a quick peek. It allows you to autopass Hide checks, but there's no control over which Hide checks it affects, since
-Recharge on afflicted creature dying creates a mix between a bag-of-rats scenario to allow extended scouting, and an ability that will rarely be used in combat, because it has no good way to really benefit off the invisibility (like Sneak Attack or something).

My main problem with the class is probably that it feels constrained by the game mechanics. There are only a few abilities, which are stretched thin across the class, so it doesn't really change qualitatively from low to high level- it does the same thing, but more of it, as opposed to learning new abilities which branch off its existing ones. I could see this as a very solid PrC, but there isn't really enough content for a class IMO.

rrwoods
2017-10-15, 07:49 AM
Hm, a prestige class might be an interesting route to take this. I really wanted this to be playable from level 1, so I think I'll grind on making that work for at least a little while before I cave to that.

There's two things I think I might be able to solve simultaneously: Ability points being wonky and strange when translated to a D&D class, and the class not really feeling like it's doing anything new at later levels. It's true that after level 6 you get no new abilities from your class.

My fiancé mentioned an interesting idea: Level all of the existing ("basic") abilities automatically, and introduce a few more constrained choices at select spots in the progression, designed to synergize with the three "basic" abilities. I like this idea but I don't know what those choices should be yet. Still thinking.

@PMaimlessPolymath I see what you're saying regarding Rapid Shot now; a player who wants that ability all the time is going to take it, severely reducing the utility of ambush. Part of me says "well, this isn't your class then!" But the more rational part of me says "hey, part of your goal is to Make Archery Great Again, figure this out". The League thing I'm translating here is an attack speed increase, but a whole extra attack is pretty drastic. I think an attack *bonus* increase might make more sense -- hitting more is a lot like attacking more anyhow -- and it has the side benefit of being scale-able in a much more granular fashion. Actually that side benefit is pretty nice, since in League this ability's attack speed increase scales with your point investment. Even though I'm probably going to throw out the whole point investment thing, I haven't figured out what I'm replacing it with yet, so... I'll make the ability give +points to attack rolls instead of Rapid Shot. (Then, it also synergizes *with* Rapid Shot by helping offset the penalty!) (Edit: man that really cleaned it up too, now I just grant the bonus on attack rolls during the invisibility as well, so there's no question as to whether the first attack is made with the bonus (or previously, penalty) or not.)

Deepbluediver
2017-10-16, 08:29 PM
Hm, a prestige class might be an interesting route to take this. I really wanted this to be playable from level 1, so I think I'll grind on making that work for at least a little while before I cave to that.
Honestly, a PrC was exactly what I was thinking about before I even saw this post. For something that's mainly thematic, it fits much better than trying to stretch a single simple concept across 20 levels. There are to many nigh-pointless base classes like that already. Make it a 5-level PrC with Poison Use (like the Assassin (https://dndtools.net/classes/assassin/)) at first level, and then use the other 4 abilities as upgrades for each other level. Think about what sort of classes it would appeal to build into this- Rogues, obviously but maybe also Rangers and Barbarians. Revise the abilities around complimenting things those classes bring to the table. Maybe rename it "Toxic Revenger" or something like that.


P.S. I don't play League. I play DotA. Git gud scrub! :smalltongue:

McMurderface
2017-10-17, 09:25 AM
Hm, a prestige class might be an interesting route to take this. I really wanted this to be playable from level 1, so I think I'll grind on making that work for at least a little while before I cave to that.

There's two things I think I might be able to solve simultaneously: Ability points being wonky and strange when translated to a D&D class, and the class not really feeling like it's doing anything new at later levels. It's true that after level 6 you get no new abilities from your class.


As someone who mains this "Plague Rat" on a smurf in League, I was immediately drawn to this design. I like the ability system as someone who is familiar with how it works in League and DotA, and if you figure out a way to make it work, I'd love to see your ideas with other champions.

aimlessPolymath
2017-10-17, 06:27 PM
Well. If you want an experience like you get in LoL or DotA, there's really only one option (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?391571-The-Party-play-as-a-small-synergistic-team-Currently-running-Dota)..

(Actually, there are two (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427056-You-have-no-chance-against-me-cos-I-m-actually-four-blokes!-(3-5-class-PEACH))!)

An ability point scheme makes most sense in D&D when you can't get all the abilities, IMO. Existing talent systems focus on an expanding set of options that you choose from as you level, with older ones becoming obsolete over time. On the other hand, the League system promotes the reverse- your options are actually reduced as you level, and eventually, you run out. This works because... well, it's optimum to max out one ability, and there's character building in the form of items, and character design isn't the important part of the game anyway, but it's still striking that it has a skill funnel instead of a skill tree.

p.s.
HoTS 4ever
give me talents or give me death

rrwoods
2017-10-23, 09:25 PM
I did an overhaul. I gutted the ability point system; it's too clunky. (Sorry @McMurderface, I tried, and I might again, but not right now.) I streamlined a bunch of stuff, removing the afflicted condition entirely, choosing to just reference previously-hit enemies. It makes the wording on the venom cask ability (now "rat's plague", and you just do it rather than throwing something) a little bit awkward, but I think it's worth it rather than having this new condition I have to make do something just so I can use it for something else.

The main mechanical idea I wanted to preserve was the two setups / two payoffs idea, where the setups are attacks and venom cask/rat's plague, and the payoffs are contaminate and the ambush refresh.
Ambush itself feels like the centerpiece of the class, so rather than piling a bunch of stuff into the capstone like before I spread it out a little.

Deepbluediver
2017-10-23, 10:26 PM
Why does contaminate scale up so quickly but then end halfway through the class?
Why not make it an extra d10 every 3rd level, so it's like:
Level 1: 1d10
Level 4: 2d10
Level 7: 3d10
Level 10: 4d10
Level 13: 5d10
Level 16: 6d10
Level 19: 7d10

rrwoods
2017-10-25, 08:07 AM
Why does contaminate scale up so quickly but then end halfway through the class?
Why not make it an extra d10 every 3rd level, so it's like:
Level 1: 1d10
Level 4: 2d10
Level 7: 3d10
Level 10: 4d10
Level 13: 5d10
Level 16: 6d10
Level 19: 7d10
The original reason is, like many of my decisions, "that's how it worked in League" -- contaminate was the ability you maxed first. But in D&D I agree it feels pretty weird to have this ability just stop progressing.

I do think I still want it to be 5d10 at 9th, but 7d10 seems like a good maximum. I bumped it at 12th and 17th. I also moved "no save" to 15th, to give a little more feel of progressing in the contaminate desert between those two levels. Similarly, ambush's bonus not going anywhere after 13th seemed a little weird, so I bumped it to +6 as part of the greater ambush capstone.

All this stuff increases the power level, but not by much. It *feels* short of tier 3 -- I'd like it to be squarely in tier 3 -- but I could be underestimating at-will invisibility.

Oh yeah, lots of these abilities are per-encounter. I think this would come with a sidebar with suggestions about how to adjudicate per-encounter abilities outside of combat. Something something social encounters are also encounters; something something five minutes. Haven't figured out the text yet but I will, at some point.