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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Roguish Archetype, The Gambler - double the nat 1s, triple the nat 20s



eunwoler
2020-06-11, 06:37 PM
The Gambler

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/emerald-isles/images/8/8a/Gambler.png/revision/latest?cb=20200120191747


You've learned to spot and twist probabilities. While some shy away from danger, you see it as an opportunity to do away with greater riches and glory. The rogues that comprise this archetype possess an extraordinary knack for playing the biggest and boldest hands. Gamblers thrive in the game of risk - and more often than not, they'll arise the biggest winner.


Plucky Gamester
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with all gaming sets. Choose one gaming set. You add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.

Additionally, when you make an Charisma (Deception) check contested by another creature's Wisdom (Insight) check, treat a roll of 7 or lower on the d20 as an 8.

Raise the Stakes
At 3rd level, your sense for pivotal moments can turn any situation into a dangerous gamble. Whenever you make an attack roll or ability check, you can choose to reroll any roll between 6 and 13. You continue to reroll the die until you obtain a roll above or below this range. You must declare your intention to use this feature before rolling.

During any turn that you use this feature, Reliable Talent does not apply for rolls above 5. However, you can treat a roll of 5 and lower as a 6.

Player’s Edge
Starting at 9th level, you can rig the odds in your favor. Whenever you use your Raise the Stakes feature, you can choose to roll a 1d4. You add this to the outcome of the dice obtained by rerolling. You have three uses of this ability, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.

Perilous Ploy
At 13th level, your gambling instincts emerge even in grave danger. You can now use your Raise the Stakes feature for saving throws. Additionally, you gain one more use of Player's Edge (for a total of four).

Jackpot
Starting at 17th level, whenever you make a roll that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 19 as a 20.



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Breakdown

Fictional examples of Gamblers include Joker from DC, Faraday from the Magnificent Seven, Domino and Chance from Marvel, Matrim Cauthon from The Wheel of Time, Howard Ratner from Uncut Gems, and Le Chiffre from Casino Royale. King from One Punch Man and Mr Satan from Dragonball could also be considered Gamblers.

The design intention is a high risk and high reward Rogue. The main feature, Raise the Stakes, has a slight positive edge. However, the real advantage of the feature is that not only is it an unlimited resource, but that you can choose to use or not use it at your discretion. In moments where taking a big gamble is unnecessary you can instead stick to the safer dice option. In moments where your success is predicated on getting an extremely high d20 roll it could instead be a life-saver.

Player's Edge is to give you an extra kick when you really need it. 1d4 is not a huge die but its a pretty powerful and chancey tool given the feature shoves you left or rightways of the middling rolls.

At 13th level you get the option to start gambling your survivability up and down also. Since Raise the Stakes is not a limited resource this won't cut your effectiveness elsewhere. Another use of Player's Edge to make sure the feature is actually giving you benefit (and furthermore, that your effectiveness is actually progressing as intended). And with more areas to use it now, you'll likely need it.

The capstone is a capstone. Double your nat 20s. It's especially powerful because of the 3rd level feature - given you have 12 potential dice outcomes, your chance of a nat 20 using the feature is pumped up to 1 in 6. Might have to nerf this one.

The flavor is intentionally unclear enough that it can be flavored both magical and non-magical - your origin could perhaps be a blessing from a god or goddess, a powerful oracle foretelling great fortunes, a mundane and skillful mastery of probability, a sneaky exploitation of the most minute advantages - you could even be just plain lucky.

This subclass is highly open to revision. Are there any features that you particularly like or dislike? Are there balance issues, messily written features? Do you like the flavor and mechanics of it? Please do tell, I'd love to improve this where possible.

The Shoeless
2020-06-12, 06:36 PM
I like the picture of an adventurer who survives by relying just on chance. Nice flavour. But most of the abilities are either weak or quite messy. Also just tempering with the dice does not give me any options in play. I just would be a bit more likely to succeed at tasks I already can do. Other subclasses add NEW things I wouldn't normally be able to do.

Sorry if I come across too negative. I really like the idea and am eager to see what the final subclass will look like.



Plucky Gamester
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with all gaming sets. Choose one gaming set. You add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.

Additionally, when you make an Charisma (Deception) check contested by another creature's Wisdom (Insight) check, treat a roll of 7 or lower on the d20 as an 8.


I love it. This is the stuff. Sadly, the only ability that works as presented.



Raise the Stakes
At 3rd level, your sense for pivotal moments can turn any situation into a dangerous gamble. Whenever you make an attack roll or ability check, you can choose to reroll any roll between 6 and 13. You continue to reroll the die until you obtain a roll above or below this range. You must declare your intention to use this feature before rolling.

During any turn that you use this feature, Reliable Talent does not apply for rolls above 5. However, you can treat a roll of 5 and lower as a 6.


So I make the swingy dice more swingy. And if everyone at the table would be so lucky, I roll 2 or 3 or 4 times to get one result every time it is my turn. Especially in a fight, this can get taxing. As you spelled out how this interacts with Reliable Talent, it would be interesting how this interacts with the Plucky Gamester feature.
Also: Why exclude saving throws? Those could be the ultimate gamble :smallsmile:

So you would like to erase the middle of the d20 and make things go really good or very bad for this Rogue. That is nice and flavourful. But this ability will eat table time, will give no tangible benefit, just flavour, and is a nerf for the Rogues Reliable Talent feature. As the defining feature, this is not enough. All the other Rogues get something fun to play with. Until level 9 we will just be a quasi-subclassless Rogue with a loaded d20. There needs to be a fun ability.



Player’s Edge
Starting at 9th level, you can rig the odds in your favor. Whenever you use your Raise the Stakes feature, you can choose to roll a 1d4. You add this to the outcome of the dice obtained by rerolling. You have three uses of this ability, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a short or long rest.


How does this interact with the feature? If I roll a 10 on the d20 and a 4 on the d4, did I break the upper limit of 13? Or do I roll again? If I roll again, do I roll only the d20 or the d4 also?
Normally at this level, Rogue subclasses get something situationally useful for exploration instead of a crunchy ability. Maybe just move this one to the third level instead, and give the Gambler something here that can be used to explore? Throwing bones to see if the next room is trapped, or something.



Perilous Ploy
At 13th level, your gambling instincts emerge even in grave danger. You can now use your Raise the Stakes feature for saving throws. Additionally, you gain one more use of Player's Edge (for a total of four).


Nah. Just make the Player's Edge ability usable as often as the proficiency bonus. And now adding the saving throws when Evasion is already online is quite dull. Add something cool here. All other Rogue subclasses get something new and cool here.



Jackpot
Starting at 17th level, whenever you make a roll that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 19 as a 20.


This is really disappointing for a capstone. Ability checks and saving throws you add your proficiency bonus to and roll a 19 with the d20 will generally not benefit from raising the result by 1 but succeed anyway, and for attack rolls the proficiency-exclusivity is not thematical (Is this about luck or about skill? If it is about luck, why do you need proficiency?). Remember you only automatically succeed on attack rolls on a nat 20, not on ability checks or saving throws.

I get what you are trying to do. Think about this: a Thief gets an extra turn per combat at this level, an Assassin gets an insta-death attack. The Gambler gets +1 to rolls when they rolled high AND receive bonuses already. That is not good for a capstone. You can dare to do something amazing here.

Just some ideas:

Rolling a 1 or 2 counts as a 20 when the roll is made with proficiency?
Rolls with advantage can be treated as natural 20s X times per Short Rest?

Those would be capstones :smallsmile:

Stattick
2020-07-21, 04:23 AM
I have to agree with The Shoeless. I'd expect something more like the following:

Plucky Gamester
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with all gaming sets. Choose one gaming set. You add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.

Additionally, when you make an Charisma (Deception) check contested by another creature's Wisdom (Insight) check, treat a roll of 7 or lower on the d20 as an 8.

It Takes a Cheat
Starting at 3rd level, you have advantage when you roll to cheat when playing a game you are proficient in. You also have advantage if rolling to notice someone else cheating in a game you are proficient in.

Never Tell Me the Odds
Starting at 3rd level, whenever you roll for a random effect, roll twice, and the GM gives you the most advantageous result. For instance, when activating a Wand of Wonder in combat at an enemy, you'd roll d100 twice. If rolled a 59 (grass grows around target) and 42 (Lightning Bolt), the GM would decide which would benefit you the most, which in most cases would be the Lightning Bolt.

Push Your Luck
Starting at 9th level, after making an attack roll or ability check, you can choose to add a 1d6 to the result. You can do this a number of times per day equal to your Chr Mod. You regain all expended uses of this feature after completing a Long Rest.

Just Crazy Enough to Work
Starting at 13th level, you never roll with Disadvantage just because you're trying something stupid or crazy.

Living on the Edge
Starting at 17th level, your weapon attacks score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

Durazno
2020-07-21, 05:30 AM
One way to handle Raise the Stakes without requiring rerolls could be to push all results of 7, 8, 9 down to 6, and all results of 10, 11, 12 up to 13.

I don't know how this would feel at the table, or if the range would be good for working this way. (It might also make sense to break up the range differently - like saying that 7-8 go down, but 9-12 go up. Make it a little more of an advantage, you know?)

I almost suggested widening the range yet further, but we don't want to risk turning all rolls into coin flips, do we?

...do we?

Yakk
2020-07-21, 08:52 AM
Get a -5 penalty to all rolls 9 or under, and +5 to all rolls 10 or higher?

Add +1d10 and subtract -1d8 to your roll?

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I do agree that this is a bit too meta. It is all about modifying the player's experience with chance, not the in-game fiction.

Edea
2020-07-21, 01:46 PM
I think my problem with it's that it presents the archetype as someone who's gambling legitimately. No rogue IMO would gamble legitimately; they'd cheat, and a full-on gambler wouldn't just cheat a person, they'd cheat the world.

That's why I like the first part of the archetype the most, because it's the only part playing into that cheating aspect, with the bonus against a foe's Insight checks.

Just spitballing ideas:
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-adding automatic proficiency in the Deception skill to Gambler's Pluck/Plucky Gamester. Possibly also proficiency in Charisma saves.

-changing the gambler's die pool a certain number of times per (S/L) rest; advantage becomes 3d20 pick the best one, and disadvantage is just a standard 1d20 roll when this is active.

-the gambler 'pre-loading' a d20 roll/some d20 rolls at the end of every short rest (number probably increases with character level). They can sub these in for normal d20 rolls. Ally rolls are subbed without issue; enemy rolls would require successful Deception checks or the substitute fails.

-the gambler subbing in Deception check results directly (or via a formula) to get around their own bad rolls (particularly attack rolls, but could also be ability checks, damage rolls, and/or saving throws).

-defensive roll analogue; gambler cheats death and makes a die-related pun at the same time (...and a death-related pun).

-a minor precognition ability of some sort, the gambler's 'Kenny Rogers' sense.

-the gambler permanently acquiring proficiency with any roll where they're at a disadvantage (capstone?).