Ranger Archetype: Roofwalker (PEACH)

[polymphus]

I've been tossing around some ideas for a Ranger/Rogue hybrid archetype for urban campaigns. Input is very much appreciated.

Roofwalker

Not all rangers make their lives in the wilderness; some have learnt the ways of stone and glass. Whether leaping between buildings, tracking prey through a crowded market, or leading their party through a mess of tangled alleyways, the Roofwalker is at home with the hustle and bustle of urban life.



City Magic
Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Roofwalker spells table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, and it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.

3rd: Charm Person
5th: Rope Trick
9th: Nondetection
13th: Fabricate
17th: Passwall

The Walls Have Eyes
Starting at 3rd level, you may cast Find Familiar as a ritual. The familiar must take one of the following forms: rat, owl, hawk, raven, spider or cat. The range for seeing through your familiar’s eyes is increased to 500 feet.

Street-wise
Starting at 3rd level, you gain an additional terrain type for your Natural Explorer feature: cities. In addition, you gain proficiency in thieves’ tools and acrobatics, and a climbing speed equal to your movement speed.

Shadows and Glass
At 7th level, you’ve learnt to blend into a crowd, and strike without warning. You gain proficiency in Stealth, and advantage on Dexterity (stealth) checks to blend in with a crowd. If you are already proficient in stealth, you add double your proficiency bonus. In addition, while hidden and within 30 feet of the target, your attacks deal an extra 1d8 damage. This increases to 2d8 at level 13, and 3d8 at level 17.

Slick
At 11th level, you’ve learnt to move swiftly and carefully in the midst of a swirling melee. Your movement is increased by 10 feet. In addition, if a creature moves within 30 feet of you and there are no enemies within 5 feet of you, you may make an opportunity attack against it with a ranged weapon.

In combat, if you hit with a melee weapon attack, you may use your reaction to move up to 10 feet in any direction without provoking attacks of opportunity from the target. Immediately after moving in this manner, you may make a single ranged attack as a bonus action.

Death from Above
At 15th level, you are a terror that strikes from the rooftops. While standing at a higher level than your target and within 30 feet of them, your attacks have advantage.

EDITS: removed auto-crit, removed hidden damage bonus, removed disengage (overlap with rogue).
EDITS round 2: hidden damage added back in, with 30 foot limitation. Shadows and Glass changed to stealth proficiency instead of a flat bonus; double stealth proficiency possible. Slick clarified that there can't be enemies within five feet of you (read: being in melee stops the ability firing). Added monk-ish disengage thing to Slick.

[JBPuffin]

I'll just come out and say it – this archetype is awesome. It feels like a rogue, but without any mechanical overlap. Quite the accomplishment, and it doesn't feel particularly overpowered. Props!

[clash]

Death from above is completely broken. It's not that difficult to pull off automatic critical hits every turn that's a problem

[Amnoriath]

I've been tossing around some ideas for a Ranger/Rogue hybrid archetype for urban campaigns. Input is very much appreciated.

Roofwalker

Not all rangers make their lives in the wilderness; some have learnt the ways of stone and glass. Whether leaping between buildings, tracking prey through a crowded market, or leading their party through a mess of tangled alleyways, the Roofwalker is at home with the hustle and bustle of urban life.



City Magic
Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Roofwalker spells table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, and it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know.

3rd: Charm Person
5th: Rope Trick
9th: Nondetection
13th: Fabricate
17th: Passwall

The Walls Have Eyes
Starting at 3rd level, you may cast Find Familiar as a ritual. The familiar must take one of the following forms: rat, owl, hawk, raven, spider or cat. The range for seeing through your familiar’s eyes is increased to 500 feet.

Street-wise
Starting at 3rd level, you gain an additional terrain type for your Natural Explorer feature: cities. In addition, you gain proficiency in thieves’ tools and a climbing speed equal to your movement speed.

Shadows and Glass
At 7th level, you’ve learnt to blend into a crowd, and strike without warning. You gain a +5 bonus to all Dexterity (stealth) checks, and an additional +5 to Dexterity (stealth) checks to blend in with a crowd. In addition, while hidden, your attacks deal an extra d8 damage. This increases to 2d8 at level 13, and 3d8 at level 17.

Slick
At 11th level, you’ve learnt to move swiftly and carefully in the midst of a swirling melee. Your movement is increased by 10 feet and you may disengage as a bonus action. In addition, if a creature moves within 30 feet of you and there are no enemies within 5 feet, you may make an opportunity attack against it with a ranged weapon.

Death from Above
At 15th level, you are a terror that strikes from the rooftops. While at a higher elevation than your target, all your attacks have advantage. In addition, any ranged weapon hits from a higher elevation than the target automatically deal critical hit damage.

I have to disagree with JBPuffin here, this is overpowered. While your first level falls quite squarely between the original and others every other level after is way stronger. You have scaling dice damage that applies to all attacks while hidden. You get a reliable reaction attack with a ranged weapon. Then you get the Assassinate feature every time you jump.

[JBPuffin]

All of which a DM can easily deal with? It makes the character easy to both limit and promote, depending on which they need - give em more high stuff to boost em, less to restrict him.

[The Cats]

"The DM can deal with it" is not a good excuse for poor design. Death from Above and Shadows and Glass are too powerful and would require the DM to design every encounter around them to prevent the ranger from overshadowing any other damage dealing class.

An easier way for the DM to "deal with it:" Don't allow players to choose an overpowered subclass.

If OP wants this to be a legitimate choice that DMs will consider allowing their players, some changes need to be made.

[Surrealistik]

Shadows and Glass isn't too problematic (or not at all). I would change the +5 to advantage though.

Death From Above is problematic, especially as compared to other Ranger archetypes and in _conjunction_ with Shadows and Glass.

[Nifft]

Shadows and Glass: change to melee attacks, and the bonus damage is good. You get a brutal strike-from-shadow feature but it requires you to put yourself at risk, and doesn't allow all-day sniping.

For the skill checks, why do you give a +5 bonus instead of Advantage?


Death from Above: remove the auto-crit and it's okay, but it's still prone to abuse.

I'd suggest something like: grant Advantage on Initiative rolls to yourself and allies when you start combat from higher ground. (That's INSTEAD of both current benefits.)

[The Cats]

Shadows and Glass isn't too problematic (or not at all).

Death From Above is problematic, especially as compared to other Ranger archetypes.

Oh, I was thinking of Slick, not Shadows and Glass. If the reaction was a limited resource it would probably be fine though. The wording on Slick is also a little ambiguous: If there are no enemies within 5 feet of what?

The only problem I see with Shadows and Glass is by taking a 1 level dip in rogue for expertise, your stealth becomes almost impossible to detect. Maybe literally impossible? But then, balancing anything for multiclass is always difficult.

[Llama513]

Having advantage on all attacks is not okay, and then you add on top of that auto crits, definitely no, I would say that you have advantage on attacks made from a higher level than your target

[polymphus]

Awesome! Thanks for the great crit guys. I've made some changes in the OP based on your feedback but I'll listen them here anyway:

Shadows and Glass
Damage bonus removed entirely. I'm considering adding something back in like a bonus to hit? Would it be OP if it didn't scale?

Slick
I cut the disengage because of Cunning Action overlap. I know this wasn't an issue, but I'm hoping with the nerfs to the other two abilities, the short-ranged OAs aren't so scary.

Death From Above
Crits are gone, target must be within 30 feet, clarified that it means standing (as opposed to jumping or climbing, to prevent abuse).

I want to keep some sort of ranged ability here -- I designed him as a close-range-but-ranged brawler who darts in and out, rather than somebody who can sit back a mile away sniping. I'm hoping the 30 foot thing (also worded to cover melee attacks).encourages some riskier and more aggressive bow play. Other stuff I was tossing up:

* No disadvantage for bow attacks on targets within 5 feet
* Extra damage for bow attacks made within 15 feet
* Some sorta parkour-y movement stuff like horizontal jump bonuses or shooting while climbing

[Surrealistik]

I don't think the damage bonus with Shadows and Glass is really an issue. I'd change the +5 to advantage instead, and double Stealth proficiency instead of adding +5 when blending into a crowd.

[The Cats]

Awesome! Thanks for the great crit guys. I've made some changes in the OP based on your feedback but I'll listen them here anyway:

Shadows and Glass
Damage bonus removed entirely. I'm considering adding something back in like a bonus to hit? Would it be OP if it didn't scale?

Slick
I cut the disengage because of Cunning Action overlap. I know this wasn't an issue, but I'm hoping with the nerfs to the other two abilities, the short-ranged OAs aren't so scary.

Death From Above
Crits are gone, target must be within 30 feet, clarified that it means standing (as opposed to jumping or climbing, to prevent abuse).

I want to keep some sort of ranged ability here -- I designed him as a close-range-but-ranged brawler who darts in and out, rather than somebody who can sit back a mile away sniping. I'm hoping the 30 foot thing (also worded to cover melee attacks).encourages some riskier and more aggressive bow play. Other stuff I was tossing up:

* No disadvantage for bow attacks on targets within 5 feet
* Extra damage for bow attacks made within 15 feet
* Some sorta parkour-y movement stuff like horizontal jump bonuses or shooting while climbing

Cool cool cool. I would still prefer you clarify the bit in Slick about 5 feet though. Is it within five feet of your target? Five feet of you?

You could make a disengage-like action that allows them to move XXfeet away without AoO then take a shot. (Like, a reverse swashbuckler I guess?)

Adding the 30ft. caveat to death from above made this subclass look a lot better in my opinion. It has interesting, useful abilities that encourage a different style of play from the other subclasses.

I'll second that the damage bonus from hidden doesn't seem like a big deal, but it does encourage the plink-away-at-range play style you're trying to discourage. Maybe add a distance caveat to that one too?

[polymphus]

Cool cool cool. I would still prefer you clarify the bit in Slick about 5 feet though. Is it within five feet of your target? Five feet of you?

Done. It's there so it doesn't work while you're engaged in melee but I'm not sure it's necessary? Maybe it just overcomplicates things.

You could make a disengage-like action that allows them to move XXfeet away without AoO then take a shot. (Like, a reverse swashbuckler I guess?)

"Finally, when you make a ranged weapon attack against a target within 5 feet of you, that target can't take reactions until the end of your next turn."

Thoughts? Pretty much ripped from the Monk's Open Hand technique right now. Worded in such a way that a Ranger with multiple attacks can fire, back up, then fire again. Keep in mind that first attack will be with disadvantage.

I'll second that the damage bonus from hidden doesn't seem like a big deal, but it does encourage the plink-away-at-range play style you're trying to discourage. Maybe add a distance caveat to that one too?

Yeah I like that. Added.

[The Cats]

See the problem with slick now is you basically need the sharpshooter feat for the free disengage to be worthwhile. I was thinking something like "As an action you can move up to half your speed away from a hostile creature within five feet of you without provoking an attack of opportunity from that creature. At the end of this movement you may make a single ranged weapon attack against that creature." This limits to one attack that round, but it combines a disengage (only from one target) with an attack and half a dash.

...

When I put it like that it sounds pretty pretty strong. Super flavourful (IMO) though. Maybe you can word it so that the movement isn't in addition to your regular movement? I dunno. Just spitballing.

[polymphus]

Hmm.

"As an action, you may make a single melee weapon attack, then move up to half your speed in any direction without provoking attacks of opportunity. Immediately after moving, you may make a single ranged attack as a bonus action."

I'm trying to capture the feel of a swift, cloaked figure weaving in and out of combat -- striking, dancing back, firing, leaping back in. I think the main thrust behind this archetype and this feature in particular is to encourage clever, tight, aggressive movement while still reinforcing this is primarily a ranged character.

My favourite class in 5e is Monk, because of all the fun movement junk you do -- it makes every combat an engaging tactical challenge. I'm trying to capture that as well: rather than a facebeaty powerhouse, I want this class to rely on clever movement and use of terrain to lay on the hurt.

EDIT: "In combat, if you hit with a melee weapon attack, you may use your reaction to move up to 10 feet in any direction without provoking attacks of opportunity from the target. Immediately after moving in this manner, you may make a single ranged attack as a bonus action." ?

I'm torn between half movement and 10 feet. Half movement seems a little abusable, especially for the inevitable Shadow Monk multiclass.