The Legend of Final Dungeon Warcraft Setting Classes

[lordzack]

I've been working on a rather unusual setting. A description of it can be found at my blog over at the Wizards community site here. I am working on a series of house rules to go along with this setting. Starting with classes.

I am working on the thief presently. Here's what I've got so far:

Thief:

Thief
The thief is skilled at obtaining that which does not belong to him through various feats of stealth and subterfuge, making him a valuable member of an adventuring party.

Alignment: Any, except lawful good. Thieves tend towards both disrespect for laws, and a lack of concern for the welfare of other people. There are exceptions, but they still must either have a tendency towards either chaos or evil.

Hit Die: d6

Base Attack Bonus: Poor

Base Save Bonuses: The thief has a good Reflex save, but poor Fortitude and Will saves.

Class Skills (6 + Int Modifier) Acrobatics (Dex), Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Disable Device (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Knowledge (local) (Int), Perception (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis),
Sleight of Hand (Dex), Stealth (Dex).

Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Thieves are proficient with basic weapons and two of the following weapon groups: bows, claw weapons, crossbows, flails and chains, light blades, maces and clubs, slings and thrown weapons, and spears and lances. They are proficient with light armor, but not with shields.

Sneak Attack: If a thief can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.
The thief's attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the thief flanks her target. This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and increases by 1d6 every five thief levels thereafter. Should the thief score a critical hit with a sneak attack, this extra damage is not multiplied. Ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks only if the target is within 30 feet.
With a weapon that deals nonlethal damage (like a sap, whip, or an unarmed strike), a thief can make a sneak attack that deals nonlethal damage instead of lethal damage. She cannot use a weapon that deals lethal damage to deal nonlethal damage in a sneak attack, not even with the usual –4 penalty.
The thief must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A thief cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment.

Evasion (Ex): At 2nd level or higher, if a thief makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, he instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if a thief is wearing light armor or no armor. A helpless thief does not gain the benefit of evasion.

Lucky: A thief is as often lucky as he is good at something. At 2nd level, the thief can reroll any failed ability check, skill check, attack roll or saving throw. The second result must be used, regardless of whether it is better or worse than the first. The thief may use this ability once per day.

Trap Sense (Ex): At 3rd level, a thief gains an intuitive sense that alerts her to danger from traps, giving her a +1 bonus on Reflex saves made to avoid traps and a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps.
Trap sense bonuses gained from multiple classes stack.

The thief is meant to be a very focused class. Even more focused than other classes, and my ideal of classes is that they should be more focused than in most games I have seen. Thieves steal stuff. They're sneaky. They're not the best fighters in the game. An unusual fact about the thief is that they only have five levels (only three of which I've done so far). It's an unusual approach to class design, but I think it could work. There will be Prestige Classes that will allow the thief to continue training in thief-type abilities. In many cases though a character will dip into thief for a few levels to get they're class skills and a few useful abilities. I'm thinking of giving them a number of choices from a menu of special abilities, perhaps even as much as one every level. But I'm not sure whether I should just use the Pathfinder Rogue's Rogue Talents or come up with my own. I'll probably use some, but not all of the existing Rogue Talents. Another concern is balance. I'm aiming to make my classes as balanced as the Pathfinder Barbarian. Also I'm using Weapon Groups from Unearthed Arcana, so that's why the Weapon Proficiencies are the way they are.

Feedback is appreciated. If it's the least bit productive I want to hear it, even if you think my idea sucks.

[kyrt-ryder]

If your looking for a 'virtue' of class balance, I'd look at the Pathfinder Rogue, not the PF Barbarian, which has a slew of minor problems that combined put it one or two notches below the rogue in terms of class design. (Although I do like what was done with all the PF base classes, just pointing out the rogue is a better ideal)

[lordzack]

Well, as you might be able to see this class is similar to the Rogue, but weaker. My intention was to use this as a starting point and then improve on it to make it better, but not necessarily in the same directions as the Pathfinder Rogue. First thing I might end up doing is bringing it's BAB back to Average again. So what do you think?

[kyrt-ryder]

Average BAB would probably be a good idea, considering rogues in the standard Pathfinder game are finding themselves having a hard time landing sneak attacks vs opponents their fighter flank-mates are hitting easily.

Something else you could do instead, if you want to symbolize they have a low 'combat prowess' but want to make sure they hit with the attacks they do make, is change their sneak attack in the way I did for my rogues in a houserule.

Cunning Strike: Whenever a rogue's attack qualifies for sneak attack damage (regardless whether or not the target is susceptible to it) add his cunning strike bonus to the attack roll, where his cunning strike bonus is the lesser of his number of sneak attack dice, or his chosen stat modifier.
At first level, the rogue chooses Intelligence or Charisma as his cunning strike stat.

Of course, in your case if you stole that (and credited me preferably :) Be cool to have my name somewhere in your stuff) you'd be swapping the word rogue with the word thief.

Also... I HIGHLY suggest presenting a way, perhaps a class only feat, perhaps a simple houserule, whatever you choose, to make the thief capable of acquiring a feint effect on all his melee attacks. It makes the charisma option more tempting.

[lordzack]

Some pretty interesting ideas. But what exactly do you mean by this?

kyrt-ryder wrote:

Also... I HIGHLY suggest presenting a way, perhaps a class only feat, perhaps a simple houserule, whatever you choose, to make the thief capable of acquiring a feint effect on all his melee attacks. It makes the charisma option more tempting.

[kyrt-ryder]

Your familiar with feinting in combat correct? The combat trick used to deny an opponent their dexterity modifier to AC.

The charisma based cunning strike becomes much more tempting than it otherwise would compared to the intelligence based one, when feinting in combat (which uses the bluff skill, which, in turn, is powered by charisma) can be made to apply to each attack.

In that way, the thief is making a choice. Intelligence based comes with more skills, charisma based tends to make a better meleeist and face.

[lordzack]

Interesting. But consider how that may interact with other classes that might have better sneak attack progressions, like the assassin class I'm planning. Do you think that might be too much?

[kyrt-ryder]

Not at all, it's still bound by their intelligence or charisma bonus, a typically non-combat score. I seriously doubt your rogue's will be starting with more than a 16 cunning strike stat, add a +6 enhancement bonus, and a +4 inherant and that's up to 26 (+8 bonus) in order to get the full +10 possible I pointed out for a rogue in PF, the character would either need to start with 19 in cha and devote 5 inherent bonus points to it, or dedicate some of their limited level up points to it.

That's the reason for tying it to an attribute. (The sneak attack attachment was just to keep them from being a dip and go on to fighter or paladin or whatever.)

[lordzack]

I wasn't talking about that, I was talking about being able to feint for each attack. Also it seems to reduce the tactical choices the thief needs to make. I want to give characters more options in combat, not less.

[kyrt-ryder]

Oh, that lol. Thing is, the type of recomendation I was making was for it to be universal. A fighter, a Ranger, anybody could make use of that rule. (My suggestion was a feat, but a simple houserule could be used as well.)

It's entirely up to you, just a suggestion. (Also remember that feint's don't always succeed. You could attach an AC penalty for a round, or maybe an attack penalty, or whatever you like, for failing on a feint, make the thief really think about whether or not they need to use it.)

[lordzack]

Sure wish somebody else would post. You're suggestions have been valuable, but I'm sure others have thoughts that I would like to hear as well.

One thing I'm wondering about is how to do the fighting classes. I don't want to just have one fighting class to represent all kinds of fighters. But I'm not sure what kind of classes to make, besides maybe a knight/samurai class. Then of course there's the paladin and ranger. Should I have a barbarian class though? The controversies over the barbarian are well known, including the isn't barbarian just a social thing? There are other ideas I have as well.I also want a class for non-knight fighting men, possibly including bushi for my oriental lands. Basically I want a class that represents the archetypal fighter but not all the multitudes of others which I will save for other classes. But it's hard to define the archetypal fighter when it's so generic. What class could Robilar and Yrag be other than fighter?