Another Phantom Rogue Homebrew Rework

[sayaijin]

Why rework the phantom? Quite frankly, it's a very cool concept that was not well executed. In the official subclass, you don't have nearly enough options for your trinkets, and you didn't get much at level 3. A little splash damage and a floating proficiency is all that stands between the official phantom and a rogue with no subclass for the first 8 levels.


Phantom Rogue
Many rogues walk a fine line between life and death, risking their own lives and taking the lives of others. While adventuring on that line, some rogues discover a mystical connection to death itself. These rogues take knowledge from the dead and become immersed in negative energy, eventually becoming like ghosts.

Tokens of the Departed
3rd-level Phantom feature

When a life ends in your presence, you are able to snatch a token from the departing soul - a sliver of its life essence. If a creature dies within 30ft of you, a soul trinket appears in your hand. The DM chooses the trinket’s form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player’s Handbook to determine it. While a soul trinket is on your person, you have advantage on death saving throws, as your vitality is enhanced by the life essence within the object. You can have a maximum number of soul trinkets equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can’t create one while at your maximum.


Trinkets - nearly copy-pasted from the official subclass. This is the defining feature of the Phantom and it should be at level 3 just like the Swashbuckler's Rakish Audacity or the Arcane Trickster's Spellcasting.

This actually adds a bit of bookkeeping for the player to remember what trinkets they have and for the DM to decide what a creature's trinket will look like. At later levels when the trinkets do more, the DM will have to remember what the creature knew, and where it lived.

Since it's a level 3 feature instead of level 9, they only give adv on death saves, not Con. So I give the Phantom two ways to use this resource.


You gain two uses for these trinkets:

Borrowed Visage: So long as the trinket is from a small or medium creature, you can destroy it to transform yourself – including your clothing, armor, weapons, and other belongings on your person – into a duplicate of the creature while concentrating for up to 1 hour. This transformation does not grant any additional game statistics or abilities except for potentially changing your size. Starting at 7th level, you can also transform using trinkets from tiny creatures.


Borrowed Visage is kinda like a cross between wild shape and disguise self. It doesn't give any benefits other than changing your appearance and your size so you can fit in smaller spaces.

Kinda gives a faceless man from ASoIaF vibe - stealing the faces of those who die.


Specter's Fury: If you make a weapon attack and do not deal your sneak attack damage, you can destroy a trinket. If you do, a phantom duplicate of the creature the trinket was harvested from appears and deals necrotic damage to the target equal to your sneak attack and then vanishes. This uses your sneak attack for the turn.


It's worth noting that Specter's Fury still works even if you miss the attack. This is only one of two uses for the tickets that aren't dependent on the type of creature that died.


Taxing Death
9th-level Phantom feature

You gain new uses for your soul trinkets:

Eyes of the Dead: Name a place the creature has seen in life and if it's the same plane of existence, you can destroy its trinket to receive visual and auditory information as if you were in that place using its senses while concentrating up to ten minutes.


Eyes of the Dead is basically a weaker Scrying. It is dependent on the creature that died whether or not it's useful.


Steal Life: You can spend a minute draining the life force from the trinket to gain temporary hit points equal to your rogue level. This destroys the trinket.


Steal Life is the other ability that isn't directly tied to the creature. The class is melee focused, and this just gives the d8 rogue some more tankiness.


Macabre Marionette: You can destroy a trinket to cast a Major Image of the creature without expending a spell slot or material components.


Now instead of transforming yourself into a guard or an important enemy - you can just make an illusion of them.


Query Soul: You can destroy a trinket to ask a question of the soul that it must answer truthfully to the best of the knowledge it had while living. You do not need to share a language for the creature's soul to communicate, but the answer may be short and cryptic.


This is where the DM has to keep some notes about what enemies know.


Ghost Walk
13th-level Phantom feature

You can now phase partially into the realm of the dead, becoming like a ghost. As a bonus action, you can destroy a trinket to assume a spectral form for 10 minutes. While in this form, you gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed, you can hover, and attack rolls have disadvantage against you. You can move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or object.


This is also almost a carbon copy of the official content. The difference is you don't get a free usage - it always costs a trinket. In exchange you get a flying speed equal to your walking speed.


What Doesn't Kill You...
17-level Phantom feature

Starting at 17th level, dropping to 0 hit points does not cause you to lose consciousness, and you can still move and take actions on your turn. Moreover, if you start your turn making a death saving throw, then you gain an additional 5d6 to your sneak attack for each death saving throw you've made since last becoming unstable.


This is another big change. The entire concept of the character is that they are slowly becoming more like a ghost, and this ability rewards them for toeing the line between life and death. Mechanically you get an extra couple rounds in combat than before, and you get a damage boost.

Assuming you make three successful death saves and you're back up, then you get +5d6, +10d6, +15d6 on those three turns. If you want to gamble your life, then you could get a couple more turns from two failed saves which adds a +20d6 round and a +25d6 round. Doing so would likely kill off your character permanently, so this is the "I'm going to go all out, just this once" kinda moment.

I add the verbiage about "last became unstable" to keep them from staying at 0 hit points indefinitely and having an impossibly high, unblockable sneak attack.



So a few things that can easily be changed to tone down the subclass if it's too strong:
1) Make Specter's Fury only work if the attack hits.
2) Limit Borrowed Visage to only small and medium creatures.
3) Nerf Steal Life or remove it. It could be Prof bonus instead of Rogue level.
4) Nerf Query Soul such that you have to share a language or it can lie.
5) You can nerf ghost walk by reverting to the creepy slow fly speed.
6) Nerf What Doesn't Kill You... by lowering the bonus sneak attack dice to 3d6 per saving throw so it goes +3, +6, +9.

[P. G. Macer]

The biggest thing that stands out to me is how enemy-dependent so many of the earlier features are. If you’re in a campaign without much monster/NPC diversity, you are going to get much of the same. The published version of the Phantom at least only has one feature dependent on the nature of what died. Additionally, from a lore perspective, it’s weird that these features work on constructs and (to a lesser extent) undead.

[sayaijin]

The biggest thing that stands out to me is how enemy-dependent so many of the earlier features are. If you’re in a campaign without much monster/NPC diversity, you are going to get much of the same. The published version of the Phantom at least only has one feature dependent on the nature of what died. Additionally, from a lore perspective, it’s weird that these features work on constructs and (to a lesser extent) undead.

Excellent points. I guess the official subclass also lets you get trinkets from constructs/undead. Something to consider.

As for being enemy-dependent, I think that is a very valid criticism. That being said, I think that as a rogue, being able to take the shape of another person without using a spell or maybe even taking the shape of an animal is more useful and interesting than getting a floating proficiency. If I'm playing a mostly intrigue type game, then taking someone's face (like the faceless men) would be very useful for espionage.

[Yakk]

This is too tied to the trickets in my opinion.

Souls of the Departed
At 3rd level, when a life ends in your presence, you're able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket's form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook to generate it.

You can have a maximum number of soul trinkets equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can't create one while at your maximum.

You can use soul trinkets in the following ways:

* You can sacrifice a soul tricket to reroll a Death Saving Throw or Constitution Saving throw, but must keep the result.

* When you deal sneak attack damage on your turn, you can sacrifice a soul trinket on your person to make a ghostly image of the creature briefly appear and attack a different creature within 30 feet. That creature takes necrotic damage equal to your sneak attack damage dice.

* As an action, you can destroy one soul trinket of a small or medium creature on your person to cast Disguise Self taking up the appearance of the creature. At 7th level you can instead cast Alter Self, at 11th Major Image, and 15th level Project Image, except the image or form generated (including its size) matches that of the soul trinket (not your own or a slightly modified one). At level 7 the creature can be tiny, level 11 it can be large and level 15 it can be huge. In addition, the spell effects you create are necromatic in nature.

Whispers of the Dead
Starting at 9th level, when you create a soul tricket you can choose to instead cause the effect of Soul Cage (without components). The soul is trapped in the created soul tricket. This works even if the creature is not a humanoid. You can do this once before completing a long rest.

Ghost Walk
At 13th level, you can phase partially into the realm of the dead, becoming like a ghost. As a bonus action, you assume a spectral form. You must concentrate on staying in this form, as if you are concentrating on a spell. While in this form, you have a flying speed of 10 feet, you can hover, you have resistance to all damage except force and psychic, and attack rolls have disadvantage against you. You can also move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or an object.

You stay in this form for 10 minutes or until you end it as a bonus action. To use this feature again, you must finish a long rest or destroy one of your soul trinkets as part of the bonus action you use to activate Ghost Walk.

Death Knell...
17-level Phantom feature

Starting at 17th level, when you are reduced to 0 HP or killed outright, you do not die or lose consciousness. Instead, your body turns into a spirit. Until the start of your next turn, you are immune to all damage and cannot be killed.

At the start of your next turn, you partially solidify, and enter your Ghost Walk state for 10 minutes or until you regain at least 1 HP. Whenever you take damage in this state, you ignore the damage and instead make a death saving throw; if you roll a natural 20, you can choose to leave this state and regain 1 HP. When you deal sneak attack damage, if you have made a death saving throw since the last time you dealt sneak attack damage, you deal an extra 10d6 necrotic damage.

After you have used Death Knell, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.

[sayaijin]

This is too tied to the trickets in my opinion.

Souls of the Departed
At 3rd level, when a life ends in your presence, you're able to snatch a token from the departing soul, a sliver of its life essence that takes physical form: as a reaction when a creature you can see dies within 30 feet of you, you can open your free hand and cause a Tiny trinket to appear there, a soul trinket. The DM determines the trinket's form or has you roll on the Trinkets table in the Player's Handbook to generate it.

You can have a maximum number of soul trinkets equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can't create one while at your maximum.


Looks like you've kept the trinkets the same except you've brought back the reaction to get a trinket.



You can use soul trinkets in the following ways:

* You can sacrifice a soul tricket to reroll a Death Saving Throw or Constitution Saving throw, but must keep the result.


This is a nerfed ability as it's not a passive adv on death saves all the time. Did you feel like having auto adv was too strong?



* When you deal sneak attack damage on your turn, you can sacrifice a soul trinket on your person to make a ghostly image of the creature briefly appear and attack a different creature within 30 feet. That creature takes necrotic damage equal to your sneak attack damage dice.


Looks like you are doubling the rogue's sneak attack dice per round. That seems far too strong at level 3. I take it you didn't like my method of using trinkets to guarantee sneak attack each round.




* As an action, you can destroy one soul trinket of a small or medium creature on your person to cast Disguise Self taking up the appearance of the creature. At 7th level you can instead cast Alter Self, at 11th Major Image, and 15th level Project Image, except the image or form generated (including its size) matches that of the soul trinket (not your own or a slightly modified one). At level 7 the creature can be tiny, level 11 it can be large and level 15 it can be huge. In addition, the spell effects you create are necromatic in nature.


So the entire purpose of this ability was to increase the rogue's sneaking. I wanted to avoid using spells to avoid any magic detection and illusions don't withstand physical inspection. Also, since this is about sneaking, I would never want to give the rogue access to large or huge forms.



Whispers of the Dead
Starting at 9th level, when you create a soul tricket you can choose to instead cause the effect of Soul Cage (without components). The soul is trapped in the created soul tricket. This works even if the creature is not a humanoid. You can do this once before completing a long rest.


It's an interesting idea, but I like the idea of getting answers out of every creature that dies, not just one per day.



Ghost Walk
At 13th level, you can phase partially into the realm of the dead, becoming like a ghost. As a bonus action, you assume a spectral form. You must concentrate on staying in this form, as if you are concentrating on a spell. While in this form, you have a flying speed of 10 feet, you can hover, you have resistance to all damage except force and psychic, and attack rolls have disadvantage against you. You can also move through creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain, but you take 1d10 force damage if you end your turn inside a creature or an object.

You stay in this form for 10 minutes or until you end it as a bonus action. To use this feature again, you must finish a long rest or destroy one of your soul trinkets as part of the bonus action you use to activate Ghost Walk.


Why add concentration and resistance?



Death Knell...
17-level Phantom feature

Starting at 17th level, when you are reduced to 0 HP or killed outright, you do not die or lose consciousness. Instead, your body turns into a spirit. Until the start of your next turn, you are immune to all damage and cannot be killed.

At the start of your next turn, you partially solidify, and enter your Ghost Walk state for 10 minutes or until you regain at least 1 HP. Whenever you take damage in this state, you ignore the damage and instead make a death saving throw; if you roll a natural 20, you can choose to leave this state and regain 1 HP. When you deal sneak attack damage, if you have made a death saving throw since the last time you dealt sneak attack damage, you deal an extra 10d6 necrotic damage.

After you have used Death Knell, you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.

And you massively overhauled this ability, and I'm not sure why. Your version is much harder to kill because you're not taking automatic failures when damaged in that state.

Overall, I feel like you changed a lot of what I have without providing much feedback as to why. The only criticism you gave was that it was too tied to the trinkets, and then you made the character use more trinkets for death saves - which means they are more reliant on trinkets.

You made it less tied to trinkets by giving 1/day soul cage, but then you only get answers from one creature in a day.

I appreciate the ideas, but I would prefer to have the criticism and thought behind the ideas instead of just changing everything.

As a side note, I'm familiar with the mythcreants revived rogue rework. Not sure if you got your ideas from there, but a couple of yours were very similar.

https://m.mythcreants.com/blog/unearthed-arcana-review-revived-rogue/

[Yakk]

Looks like you've kept the trinkets the same except you've brought back the reaction to get a trinket.
Yes. Making a tricket consumes your reaction.

As a side effect, this caps the damage output you can sustain using trinkets in a high optimization build. In order to get a trinket, you have to burn a reaction; but a high-optimization rogue wants to use their reaction to deal sneak attack damage a 2nd time each round.

This is a nerfed ability as it's not a passive adv on death saves all the time. Did you feel like having auto adv was too strong?
Instead of a passive ability, it is an active one. It applies more often (to both con and death saves), but has a cost.

As noted, advantage on all con saves is really strong, and it being at level 3 it needs to be weaker. At the same time, a feature that only kicks in when you are experiencing death saves is overly niche; you not only have to be down, you have to be left alone while down. (This isn't true at level 17, but at level 3 it is).

By making it apply to con and death saves, we make this feature more likely to occur. The cost helps balance it a bit. It is a reroll, not advantage; so burning the trinket is a bit of a no-brainer if the effect is bad enough.

Looks like you are doubling the rogue's sneak attack dice per round. That seems far too strong at level 3. I take it you didn't like my method of using trinkets to guarantee sneak attack each round.
In the RAW version your sneak attack damage was increased by 50% on a secondary target, but it was at-will.

This grants 100% of sneak attack damage on a secondary target, but requires burning trinkets. Higher impact, higher cost.

And for each use of it, you will have had to burn a reaction to get the trinket in the past.


So the entire purpose of this ability was to increase the rogue's sneaking. I wanted to avoid using spells to avoid any magic detection and illusions don't withstand physical inspection. Also, since this is about sneaking, I would never want to give the rogue access to large or huge forms.
My purpose was to give the Rogue some thematic utility that is tier-appropriate. You create a ghostly echo of the creature, either around yourself or as a projection.

Large and Huge forms only show up in T3/T4. And being able to make an illusion of a dragon you have killed (or disguise yourself as one) in T3 or T4 is not a serious concern.

To me, this is about shenanigans. The plots and stories that fall off of this ability, to me, would be quite fun.

And you can use a Large or Huge form to sneak. It depends where you are sneaking, really. Kill a giant, alter self to being in the form of a giant, then fool the giant's friends to sneak yourself into the giant fort.

It's an interesting idea, but I like the idea of getting answers out of every creature that dies, not just one per day.
The goal is again a higher impact ability used less often.

Soul Cage is a nifty ability with lots of utility. Extending it to any creature type is a nice reduction in restriction, and its various abilities are each and every one of them thematic for the Phantom.


Why add concentration and resistance?
You are incorporeal; taking less damage is reasonable.

You are a rogue, so you aren't using your Concentration. So the Concentration cost only hits multiclass rogues. The Concentration mechanics, on the other hand, apply: concentration makes it possible to break it; that turns "resist nearly all" from a tanking ability (you want to get hit) to a defensive one. The resistance makes it harder to lose concentration, plus at level 3 you gained the ability to reroll constitution saves (concentration baby) by burning trinkets.

Basically, concentration and resistance adds to the mini game.


And you massively overhauled this ability, and I'm not sure why. Your version is much harder to kill because you're not taking automatic failures when damaged in that state.
Yes.

The one you made was a death trap. You are attacked, reduced to 0 HP, and ... stay there. They continue to attack you and you rapidly accumulate death save failures with every hit, no matter how small. Then you die.

My goal was to make a feature akin to a 4e "once per day when you die". So you are reduced to 0 HP. At which point, having you stand there and continue to get death save failures whenever you take a point of damage ... well, you ain't lasting long.

So you are invulnerable until the start of your next turn.

At which point, you are at 0 HP. I don't want this to be the Orc "once per day when you die you don't" type ability, it is a T4 level ability, not a T1 ability. So what should happen?

Well, we have Ghost Walk right there. What if you started to Ghost Walk, and went incorporeal? But you are at 0 HP, so you'll still splat nearly instantly.

So how about you don't make death saves at the start of your turn, and don't auto-fail on damage; instead, you make a save when you take damage. That will generate accumulated risk.

Soul trinkets, luckstones, beacon of hope, and bless could all significantly reduce that risk. That is a lot of buffing effects, but with many or all of them up you'd be nearly unkillable.

I liked your "make a death save to get a benefit", but I am concerned about the damage diverging (arrange somehow to reliably always pass death saves). So I made it one boost if you had at least 1 death save, and made it a substantial one. Dealing an extra 10d6 damage/round for 1 fight/day in exchange for moderate risk is an acceptable level of power for a T4 subclass ability. Tuning it down to 5d6 would probably also work.


Overall, I feel like you changed a lot of what I have without providing much feedback as to why. The only criticism you gave was that it was too tied to the trinkets, and then you made the character use more trinkets for death saves - which means they are more reliant on trinkets.
Death saves are something that happens relatively rarely. I really rolled the "consume" into both con and death saves because extending it to con makes it more likely to apply, and symmetry between the two makes the wording simpler.

You made it less tied to trinkets by giving 1/day soul cage, but then you only get answers from one creature in a day.
Yes, but you get a bunch more rules text and possible uses of the ability "for free". Soul Cage matches what the Phantom is doing, just an upgraded version of it.

It, in effect, replaces a bunch of bespoke abilities on soul trinkets with one higher impact version with pre-written rules text for it.

As a side note, I'm familiar with the mythcreants revived rogue rework. Not sure if you got your ideas from there, but a couple of yours were very similar.

https://m.mythcreants.com/blog/unearthed-arcana-review-revived-rogue/
Nope, I based mine of a mixture of your version and the baseline one.

[sayaijin]

Well I will respectfully say that your homebrew rework is interesting. If you end up playing your version, be sure to let me know how it goes.

I had originally posted looking for feedback on my ideas rather than looking to comment on other ideas, so I'll leave our conversation at that.