Rogue Archetype - The Venom-kin

[Huey Nomure]

All mortals feel a morbid pull that attracts them toward deadly peril; there is an undeniable awe in the presence of calamities and creatures that could kill you with barely a thought. It is no wonder, then, that some mortals seek ways to become the peril, or bestowing its awe-inspiring gifts on others... willing or not. A venom-kin is someone who is designed to transcend their nature by transforming into the humanoid avatar of a certain venomous creature; some willingly seek this destiny to become the ultimate instrument of death, while others are cursed with this fate by divine justice or fiendish machinations. Regardless of their will, these rogues acquire powers that turn them into a terrifying nemesis for anyone unwise enough to cross their path.

The saving throw DC for the features and spells granted by this archetype is equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Dexterity modifier, and you are proficient with any natural weapon granted to you by this archetype.

Lv3 - Noxious form
Your body develops mutations that imitate the form of a venomous animal. Choose one of the options below. You can change your choice, absorbing your mutations to manifest another set, as a transformation that takes a full minute to complete, during which you are incapacitated. You can end the transformation early in any moment, keeping your previous features. Once you fully transform his way, you lose the features of your previous form and gain those of your new choice, and you can't transform again until you finish a long rest.

Beetle:
-You grow a thick but flexible insect-like abdomen filled with toxic fluids from the small of your back, taking the place of any tail you might have had. You gain a spray (1d6 acid damage, ranged (12/36m)) natural weapon. You don't have disadvantage to your spray attack if you have hostile creature 5ft of you.

Ant:
-You grow an ant-like abdomen ending in a stinger from the small of your back, taking the place of any tail you might have had. You gain a sting (1d8 piercing damage, melee, finesse) natural weapon.
-You have advantage on attack rolls against a creature if it's within the reach of an ally and the ally isn't incapacitated.

Cobra:
-Your neck elongates and two of your teeth grow visibly. You gain a bite (1d8 piercing damage, melee, finesse) natural weapon.
-The piercing gaze of your slit-pupil eyes and your graceful movements are alluring and almost hypnotizing. You can cast the charm monster spell without the need for spell components. Once you do, you must finish a short rest before casting it again using this feature.

Scorpion:
-You grow a chitinous tail ending in a stinger, taking the place of any tail you might have had. You gain a sting (1d6 piercing damage, melee, finesse) natural weapon.
-You can use your Dexterity modifier instead of Strength when you make an Athletics roll related to a grapple. As long as a creature is grappled by you, you can use your bonus action to attack it with your sting.

Spider:
-You grow two spider-like lateral fangs in your mouth. You gain a bite (1d8 piercing damage, melee, finesse) natural weapon.
-Your neck thickens as you grow a repository for magical spiderweb, and it becomes covered in short thick hair. You can cast the web spell without the need for spell components. Once you do, you must finish a short rest before casting it again using this feature. You are immune to the effects of webbing made this way, and as long as you are in contact with a web you automatically know the position and size of any other creature in contact with it.

Wasp:
-The small of your back grows a bulky black and yellow stinger, taking the place of any tail you might have had. You gain a sting (1d6 piercing damage, melee, finesse) natural weapon.
-A small pair of insect wings spread from your shoulders. You have a flying speed equal to half your walking speed during your turn as long as you aren't wearing medium or heavy armor.

Lv3 - Venom reserve
You develop glans able to produce powerful venom. When you hit with a natural weapon granted by this archetype and you would deal sneak attack damage, you can decide to deliver your venom. If you do, the sneak attack damage type is determined by your choice of noxious form and you force the target to make a Constitution saving throw or suffer the venom's ailment. Ailment marked with an asterisk allow the victim to repeat the saving throw at the end of their turn.

Animal	Damage type	Ailment
Beetle	Fire	Takes half sneak attack damage at the beginning of your next turn
Ant	Psychic	Stunned for 1 minute*
Cobra	Necrotic	Poisoned for 1 minute*
Scorpion	Poison	Paralyzed for 1 minute*
Spider	Poison	Restrained for 1 minute*
Wasp	Poison	Sneak attack damage dice become d8

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Lv9 - Toxic might
Your physique becomes more malleable, bestowing you more advantages from the essence of the venomous beasts:
-Your natural weapons count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage;
-You can change your noxious form choice at the end of every rest.
-You can transform as an action. You gain a level of exhaustion if your already transformed this way since your last long rest.
-You gain resistance to poison damage.
Your noxious forms also gain an additional feature:
Beetle: You can take a bonus action to take aim with your natural weapon. If you do, you don't have disadvantage for targeting a target beyond normal range with it.
Ant: Your hands and feet grow small hooks that catch on any surface and your sense of smell sharpens. As long as you have a free hand, you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check, and you gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. Furthermore, you also know the exact location of allies within 24m of you.
Cobra: Your already long neck can extend further in a lightning fast strike. Your bite weapon has reach during your turn.
Scorpion: Your body is covered in thick chitinous plates. Your AC increases by 2 as long as you aren't wearing medium or heavy armor.
Spider: Two pairs of spider-like limbs grow out of your sides. As long as you aren't wearing medium or heavy armor, you can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check and leaving your hands free. You also gain a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.
Wasp: Your wings become bigger and stronger. You gain a flying speed equal to your walking speed as long as you aren't wearing medium or heavy armor.

Lv13 - Virulent Spawn
You can spawn entire swarms of toxic vermin from any orifice of your choice or even through your skin. You can generate a swarm of venomous creatures as an action by expending uses of your venom reserve feature: if you choose the animal of your current noxious form, generating the swarm only expends one use, otherwise this feature expends two. The swarm is destroyed and swiftly decays into a small pool of foul liquid when it drops to 0 hit points or you use this feature to generate another swarm.

The swarm is an ally to you and your companions. In combat, the swarm shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It obeys your telepathic commands (no action required by you). If you don’t issue any, it takes the Dodge action and uses its move to avoid danger.

Furthermore, you recover half of the expended uses of your venom reserve feature whenever you finish a short rest.

Spoiler: Swarm statblock (WIP)

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[Based on Summon X spells with most archetype features and half the rogue's sneak attack]
[size type]
Armor class: 17
Hit points: 70
Speed: 25 ft.

Ability	STR	DEX	CON	INT	WIS	CHA
Score		20
Modifier		+5

Damage Resistances/Immunities:
Condition Immunities:
Senses: Darkvision 60 ft.
Languages: -
Challenge: -
Proficiency Bonus: +5
Aggressive: As a bonus action, the swarm can move up to their speed toward an enemy of your choice that it can see, hear, or sense in some other way. It must end this move closer to the enemy than it started.
Sneak attack: The swarm has half the sneak attack dice you have.
True kith and kin: the swarm has the noxious form, venom reserve and toxic might features from the Venom-kin archetype. Its noxious form choice is the one you choose when you generate it, and it can't be changed.

Lv17 - Noxious Supremacy
Your body fulfills its potential at last, attuning itself to venom beyond the possibility of the mundane exemplars of your venom-kin. You gain the following benefits:
-Your virulent spawn features generates two swarms of the chosen type, and you sense anything your swarms sense.
-You become immune to poison damage and to the poisoned condition;
-You regain one expended use of your venom reserve feature whenever you roll initiative, bring a hostile creature's hp to 0 or score a critical hit, and you regain all expended uses whenever you finish a short rest.

Spoiler: Developer notes

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-Players are invited to add more flavorful monstrous traits to explain common rogue Features, like having multiple sets of eyes granting Uncanny Dodge and the like.
-The Scorpion might be a bit wonky as a full Rogue, with its grapple-and-kill motif, but I think it makes up for it with multiclassing?
-The Beetle and Wasp have less feature variety because range and flying are hella strong.
-Transforming features are low-level to allow most campaigns to feature a healthy dose of body horror/weirdness.
-The lv9 feature is looking crowded right now?

[BerzerkerUnit]

I like what I'm seeing. Barbarians usually get the more transformative "totem" like subclasses, I like to see it get spread around with a different thrust.

I would go even farther afield with the transformations, granting a tail for scorpion and an abdominal stinger for hornets, but that's really aesthetics.

Noxious Form:
Allow it to be changed after a long rest. Add a feature later that lets you hot swap as a bonus action 1/day. This encourages you to focus without hamstringing you later.

By RAW I don't think this works with your sneak attack. Adding the verbiage to explicitly let natural weapons granted by this archetype trigger sneak attack damage or adding that the natural weapons are treated as simple light finesse weapons should work.

Venom reserve:
With that in mind I'm wondering if you wouldn't get more mileage out of the following format (note, this does expand the general concept slightly to vermin of various kinds):

"when your attacks with a natural weapon provided by this archetype would trigger a sneak attack, you can choose to have your sneak attack dice deal a type of damage based on the nature of the Verminous kin you channel:

Spider- Poison damage, if a creature fails a con save it is restrained until the end of your next turn (partial paralysis but can also be inferred to have something to do with webs).

Bombadier Beetle- fire and acid damage and the creature the creature makes a con save, on a fail it is scalded, suffering disadvantage on ability checks until it regains hit points or receives treatment with a healer's kit or equivalent.

Bullet Ant- Psychic damage, if the creature fails a con save it is stunned until the end of your next turn.

Scorpion- Poison Damage. Your sneak attack damage dice are d8s when using the scorpion sting.

And any others you choose to add.

The saves described do nothing to reduce damage, just avoid the rider effects where relevant.

Toxic Might:
I think this is okay. If you take my advice above, you'll have a few more options to write up or you can fuse them (like grant the climb speed to the various bugs).

Evolved Venom:
If you take my advice above, a lot of this is rolled into level 3. this might be a good place for the hot swap for kin-type as well as a general feature that makes creatures immune to poison only count as resistant. Also, there's a spelling error regarding where the venom is stored that makes my inner tween snicker.

Noxious Supremacy is alright... maybe even too much? like Poison resistance @ 9th and immunity at 17th and Exhaustion when you poison a target all feels pretty good without a 50% damage hike on 2nd attack. Like arguably, having your allies Lesser Resto the target so you can poison them again to stack exhaustion is a strategy (even if it is a very gamefied one akin to Casting Reflect on your party and then Firaga Alling your own allies to get a damage boost and bypass enemy Reflect in FF games).

[Huey Nomure]

I would go even farther afield with the transformations, granting a tail for scorpion and an abdominal stinger for hornets, but that's really aesthetics.

I'd agree with you, the idea was having transformations that went weirder and weirder as the levels increased, but... in 5e animals have an even smaller number of special abilities, so there's little to get inspiration from. But screw that, you're right, scorpion tails at 3rd level it is.

I added a way to swap forms, hot swapping... I'll think about it when I'm more confident about the way to go with mutation sets.

By RAW I don't think this works with your sneak attack. Adding the verbiage to explicitly let natural weapons granted by this archetype trigger sneak attack damage or adding that the natural weapons are treated as simple light finesse weapons should work.

Fair point, I'll look into the exact Sneak attack wording and pick the more organic-sounding version.

EDIT: The Sneak Attack wording only requires the finesse or ranged weapon properties, and each natural weapon I listed has one of those. Is there an errata against natural weapons? I'll specify you have proficiency with them to cover that base, btw.

Venom reserve [...]

I like the creatures having different elemental venoms from the start with rider effects (3.5 had different poison effects, another venomous vermin variance that got lost in 5e) my problem with it is that having a whole set of body augmentation for each insect that is both characteristic and consistent is pretty hard? Like, adding a climbing speed for half the options ain't terribly appealing to me, but the annoyance would be limited if the options were to become much more I guess, not unlike the tiefling's racial spells overlap not mattering as much because there's just so many of them lol, but I'd prefer having a smaller set with more animal traits added over the levels. Another option could be having more venom options than transformation options, and the venom is free if it's from your transformation option. This way the major, more characteristic animals would have a full set of abilities, while minor animals would still be added for variety. Or a single "Vermin" transformation for all the venom buggies, letting the player choose the specific animal when they pick the transformation.

Maybe researching more exotic beasts would be the right way to go? Like, at higher level the spider form evolves into frost spider or smth like that? Itd help adding variation to the transformations and damage types as well.

(An additional feature should there be an empty slot could be using venom reserve to summon your current "major" animal, maybe expelling them from your body not unlike the Aburame bugs in Naruto)

One of the issues is, I'm too much into realism, so for example I itch at the idea of adding a constriction ability to a Snake venom-kin because constrictor snakes don't carry venoms. This means that before adding rider effects to poisons I feel compelled to research the animals' IRL venoms to see the acual effects so I can translate them into game terms. Which is... exhausting, after a fashion lol

Also, there's a spelling error regarding where the venom is stored that makes my inner tween snicker.

Whoops

Like arguably, having your allies Lesser Resto the target so you can poison them again to stack exhaustion is a strategy (even if it is a very gamefied one akin to Casting Reflect on your party and then Firaga Alling your own allies to get a damage boost and bypass enemy Reflect in FF games).

I mean, shouldn't the exhaustion stack anyway? Nothing forbids you from using your venom against the same creature multiple times, and it's not like the exhaustion is linked to the venom by RAW, it's just about the failed saves (which in and of themselves aren't restricted except by your reserve uses); tbh it was an additional (maybe superfluous) way to incentivize multiple venom use on the same target, balanced by the limited number of attacks per round the Rogue has.

(The exhaustion might become one of the rider effects for one of the venoms, tho)

Thank you for reading and commenting!