I am taking over dming for a group of five 7th level adventurers. We already have a fighter who will fight with two hands, a monk, a paladin/sorcerer, and a fighter/bard. The fifth person is going to make a rogue.
Pure melee! Bwahahah! I will have so much FUN with this lot!
This friend likes to ask for rule tweaking/exceptions. I love to play with him, but it is always a challenge for me to figure out and respect the balance.
He wants to make a drow rogue that fights with two weapons. However, he doesn't like that the rogue's to-hit is lower then a fighters. In addition to the "drow," he requested his rogue gets a full BaB like a fighter. In exchange, he is willing to cut his skills from 8 a level to 4 and keep his D8 hit points.
I had hesitation for the obvious reason of seeing all of these attacks with a high likely chance of hitting with sneak attack damage. Sounds like he will outshine the fighter on damage because the party make-up almost guarantees he will usually flank.
He reasoned that Rangers get a full BaB, spells, animal companion, and ranger abilities. He doesn't see a balance problem and this fits his character concept.
As I have been thinking about it, I think a better option would be for me to keep the skill penalty, but create "weapon precision." Weapon Precision would work like Weapon Mastery from the fighter class. However, it would start at 1 and repeat at 5, 9, 13, and 17. It would only give a bonus to attack, NOT damage. But in every other respect it would be like the fighter ability. He could pick one weapon category at level 1 and get the to-hit bonus. At level 5 he would get a +2 on that weapon type and a +1 on a new weapon type.
That way he doesn't get the extra attacks earlier, but he would have one weapon category that would essentially be on par with a BaB of a D10 character, and other weapons would have good to-hit bonuses.
Think my compromise is fair? What would you add or take away? I see my job as a dm to say "yes" like in improv. I want to support his concept, but not let him outshine everyone.
Thoughts....?
Should be in Homebrew, and flagged as such.
That is a bad idea. I can make my character concept be "super duper powerful", but just because that's the case doesn't mean such huge concessions should be allowed.
Sneak attack is meant to be balanced because it's hard to pull off. The lower to-hit is no small part of that reasoning. He wants the best of both worlds.
If he wants to have full BAB and have some spike damage (which is what he wants.), point him to the Guide ranger archetype.
Yea. Guide ranger seems much more appropriate for this character.
This isnt a concept. This is a min/maxing idea.
edit: here's a really good way to test to see if your player wants a 'concept' or is out for a power boost.
Offer to let them play as a drow, but advise that the stats will stay the same as a regular elf. Or even a tiefling, to mimic the darkness ability that's so iconic. If your player isn't happy with that, then they didnt want to play a drow, they wanted the enhanced stats :)