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this is what i got so far for this:
Cunning Trigger (Ex):
A rogue with this talent can use an immediate action to set off any trap within 30 feet that she constructed or successfully used Disable Device to study and bypass.
Frugal Trapsmith (Ex):
Once per day, the rogue may set a trap with a CR no greater than her cunning bonus plus her Intelligence modifier without having to pay for it. The components for the trap may weigh up to 1 pound per CR, and a rogue who intends to set her trap must make space in her payload to account for this. The components are considered expended when the trap is set, but are worthless to resell. She may only create extraordinary traps, unless she has access to appropriate magic (DM discretion). She may use this ability an additional time per day per five rogue levels.
Quick Trapsmith (Ex):
As a full-round action, a rogue with this talent can set a simple trap (up to CR cunning + Intelligence bonus), in an area she could cover with a single move action. To do this, she must purchase the components (but see Frugal Trapsmith), spend the required time constructing the trap in advance, and have it on hand. She ends her turn anywhere within the designated area.
is there an oversight or do you have an additional suggestion?
edit: Ah I see. I have not accounted for the fact that one must learn each friggin' trap. As I'd like to keep this to three talents (no other talents use 'traps' in their title or conceptually), I am looking for a neat way to do this, as well as offer INT as the base score. ideas?
Maybe I got it all wrong, but the original version of quick trapsmith still required you to build the trap in advance (using the crafting rules, which takes forever, even with frugal trapsmith) or buy it.
From my reading of frugal trapsmith (in your version), I would assume that you don't have to construct the trap in advance, but that still leaves the question how long it takes to set up the trap (since you won't be carrying a 50-ft.-deep pit in your backpack).
However, quick trapsmith (in your version) implies that you still have to construct the trap in advance (which still takes forever). I find it somewhat confusing, to be honest.
But I didn't want to criticize your mod, it just occured to me that the ranger traps (while lacking potency, versatility and customizability) offer a simple system that can be used without consulting the complex trap rules from the CRB (and without having to explain how you carried that pit with you all the time).
Traps could require a talent, or, depending on your vision of the rogue, they could even be a regular class feature of their own.
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I'd honestly lumped it all in with poisons and alchemicks. Traps are of another order of magnitude in terms of construction indeed, and my revision, cursory, entirely bypassed that.
I would enjoy help using those three talents' titles to make a viable trapper rogue.
erstwhile it is now a project on the backburner...
I've given it a thought and I find this design space to be both interesting and challenging. However, the way I envision the trapper rogue, it would be more an additional class feature than a combination of talents.
I imagined something like this:
- a resource pool for materials (traps with complex triggers, multiple targets/area affects or alchemical/magical effects cost more points). To represent crafting time in-game, the rogue spends 1 hour each morning tinkering with his tools. The only additional components required would be poison, alchemical components and scrolls for magical traps.
- a menu of different traps that can be used once all conditions are met (required ranks in Craft (traps), Knowledge(arcana) for magical traps (maybe even the magic trick talent), ranks in Survival for outdoor traps, etc.). Traps that require an attack roll and deal HP damage have a low base damage, but add the rogue's sneak attack if the target is unaware. Magical traps reproduce certain spells and require some sort of spell trigger/completion item. Some traps would only work in certain environments (a cave-in, for example). Each trap has a specific time required to set the trap (which would allow even pit traps).
If I can come up with a coherent system, I'll post in on the boards.
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in all truth, most rogue archetypes = 2 rogue talents, more or less.
the only 'real' archetype to me in ninja because the changes are actually extensive.
that said, your revision could either be a revision of 3 talents (Cunning Trigger, Frugal Trapsmith, Quick Trapsmith), or an extensive archetype as you propose. I am mostly interested in the former, because then i tell my players "i have remade every rogue talent into something cool," and to an extent they can use existing materials with the least conversion troubles. if you do create an archetype though, which would be awesome!, i will probably deconstruct it into talents as well for my purposes.
and if you do, it might be worthwhile to reverse-reverse engineer poisoner and alchemist archetypes from your trapper archetype too! but that is getting too far ahead...
I was just thinking about starting a thread to spitball ideas for trap making talents!
I'm not sure what metric your using to determine the efficacy of each talent, but I think the simplest way to approach it would be to divorce rogue traps from the standard trap system as it is both too complex and not really viable due to crafting costs and manufacturing time.
Have you considered a more meta approach, using the character ability modifier like intelligence to determine the number of traps that may be manufactured in the morning? You could then choose from three basic traps like poison or explosive. Dc's could be set at 10+1/2 level plus int.
in all truth, most rogue archetypes = 2 rogue talents, more or less.
the only 'real' archetype to me in ninja because the changes are actually extensive.
that said, your revision could either be a revision of 3 talents (Cunning Trigger, Frugal Trapsmith, Quick Trapsmith), or an extensive archetype as you propose. I am mostly interested in the former, because then i tell my players "i have remade every rogue talent into something cool," and to an extent they can use existing materials with the least conversion troubles. if you do create an archetype though, which would be awesome!, i will probably deconstruct it into talents as well for my purposes.
I don't think of it as an archetype that replaces existing features. Instead, I want to give the vanilla rogue an additional class feature (which *gasp* makes her more powerful).
I believe that the current trap system is not really meant to be a player option, which is why the talents don't work well in practice. Unless one were to rewrite the general trap rules, this feature will have to be more complex than a rogue talent.
I was just thinking about starting a thread to spitball ideas for trap making talents!
I'm not sure what metric your using to determine the efficacy of each talent, but I think the simplest way to approach it would be to divorce rogue traps from the standard trap system as it is both too complex and not really viable due to crafting costs and manufacturing time.
Have you considered a more meta approach, using the character ability modifier like intelligence to determine the number of traps that may be manufactured in the morning? You could then choose from three basic traps like poison or explosive. Dc's could be set at 10+1/2 level plus int.
That would be the general idea!
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i agree about divorce.
Black Market Connections (Ex):
Once per day as a standard action, the rogue retrieves an item she “happens to have” from her pockets or backpack whose weight in pounds doesn’t exceed her cunning bonus plus her Intelligence modifier and whose gp value doesn’t exceed 100 times that sum. The only magical item she can retrieve this way is a potion or scroll. Unless the item is expendable and the rogue uses it right away (within 1 minute of retrieval), she must pay full price up front. The rogue gains an additional daily use of this ability every five rogue levels.
Deadly Cocktail (Ex):
Once per day as a standard action, the rogue may coat a weapon with an injury poison, toss a vial of inhaled poison, administer an ingested poison into a consummable product, or apply a contact poison to a glove, without having to pay for it or purchase it ahead of time. The DC cannot exceed 10 + cunning + Intelligence, and if unused the dose is rendered inert the next time she takes a full rest. If the rogue does not possess the poison use talent or class ability, she risks poisoning herself as normal. She gains an additional daily use per five rogue levels.
Smoke Bomb (Ex):
For no cost, the rogue can throw a smoke bomb as a standard action that creates a cloud of smoke with a 15-foot radius. This acts like the smoke from a smokestick. The rogue can center this smoke on herself (no roll necessary), or throw the bomb (proficiently) as a ranged touch attack with a range of 20 feet. She may use this ability a number of times per day equal to her Intelligence modifier, plus once for every five rogue levels she possesses.
...
because that is how I'm currently running expendables (including potions a scrolls), poisons, and smokesticks (which, could also use some thought).
but yeah, pool it. in fact, i think it is a place where 1/day +1/5lv actually has a place within the current rules. i wonder when this stops being a rogue thing and starts to be an overhaul of Craft (trapmaking) though...
For talents like Canny Observer, you should change modifer to bonus. The effect is that if the Int mod is negative, such as through poison damage or whatnot, then she isn't taking a penalty. An ability score bonus never goes under zero.
For you numerous reference to a numeric value increasing per sneak attack die, it might be easier to instead add 1/2 the rogue's level. This is a matter of personal preference of course, and also assumes that the rogue gets SA at each odd-numbered level.
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Ciaran,
good catch viz 'bonus' over 'mod' - i will fix.
the reason I use #dice (instead of 1/2 level) is twofold: because I allow my homebrew rogue to combine strike talents by lowering the the number of dice by 2 per added talent, lowering the damage and the effect accordingly, and, for those classes that get sneak attack at reduced progression, the talents are balanced around that as well.
Amanuensis,
I have read up a little more on traps. We must make an important distinction here between Rangers Traps and Traps. The former are very simple (Alarm, Burning, Exploding, Fire, Freezing, Marking, Poison, Sleep, Snare, Swarm), requiring only simple materials (0 cost), while the latter, such as your suggested pit trap, cannot be set as a full-round action per the rules, and follow the rules of Crafting normally.
I will adjust my talents accordingly, being more specific which type of trap is available for quick-setting, and detailing how many traps the rogue 'knows,' maybe incorporating the Launch Trap trapper ranger feature into my talents set.
either way good luck with your archetype as well!
I was looking at Strong Stroke. I don't know if you're interested, but in some of my homebrew I started removing references that refer to losing at ability due medium and heavy armor or encumbrance (for example), and replacing it with "when his speed is not reduced in any way, such as from armor or encumbrance". It may be a silly difference, but the ability retained by creatures like dwarves, who are not slowed by heavy armor. There would be other effects too, of course. Anyhoo, not a big deal.
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I would say no to a "fix" that involves giving the Rogue an X/day pool of resources. The Rogue is supposed to be one of the classes that can keep doing what it does. A some of the worst Rogue Talents are the X/day (usually 1/day) Talents (other people on these boards and some guides have said this -- I didn't make this up).
Proposed Rogue fixes:
Any Rogue Talent that is X/day and is not obviously required to be a resource pool (such as Ki Pool or non Cantrip spellcasting) becomes either unlimited or X/combat (preferably the former); if this would make it brokenly powerful, redesign it to balance it.
Rogue Talents that modify Sneak Attack are currently not usable in combination with each other -- add an ability to the Rogue that starts in the lower-mid levels that allows the Rogue to start using more of these at a time.
Remove the Talents that are still bad and replace them with better ones (preferably having thematic but not necessarily mechanical relation to the ones that they replaced).
Add Rogue Talents that help with setting up Sneak Attacks.
Add Rogue Talents that let you do things with Skills that you would not normally be able to do, but that are still thematically related. In some cases this would replace an archetype. The Frightening ability of the Thug archetype would be an example of this. (In general, I am all for replacing archetypes with a-la-carte abilities whenever practical, and not just for the Rogue.)
Instead of the very coarse-grained division between Talents and Major Talents, have a more fine-grained ranking of Talents, like Revelations in Oracle Mysteries.
from a locked thread. couldn't agree more. (http://goo.gl/aUWiQc)
to the second point: layering a strike talent reduces SA dice by two per is a good fix
to the last point: if all the rogue talents are good, the opportunity cost of each one should be sufficient to iron out any granule differences between basic and advanced.
I didn't go through them all (again), but I did take a closer look at some I picked at random.
Combat Trick
I dislike the wording on this. You should working on clarifying it.
Deadly Range
The distance at which the rogue's ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks increases to 60 feet.
Deflect Arrows
The rogue gains the Deflect Arrows feat. She can select this talent a second time. If she does so, she gains the Snatch Arrows feat.
Finesse Rogue
A rogue with this talent chooses a single one-handed weapon. She gains proficiency with that weapon and may hereafter fight with it as though it were a finesse weapon. The rogue may select this talent multiple times, each time choosing an additional one-handed weapon.
(Does this talent allow the rogue to select exotic weapons?)
(Also, finesse weapon is not a defined term, so that might need further explanation)
Hold Breath
A rogue with this talent can hold his breath for a number of rounds equal to four times his Constitution score, instead of twice his Constitution score.
(Sorry, the hyperventilating thing doesn't sit right with me)
:)
Strong Stroke
A rogue with this talent may always take 10 on Swim checks and is never off-balance while swimming. She can swim her full speed as a full-round action, or at half of her speed as a move action.
Survivalist
The rogue gains Endurance as a bonus feat and adds her Intelligence bonus to Heal and Survival skill checks.
Weapon Training, Fighter
A rogue who selects this talent gains proficiency in all martial weapons.
Weapon Training, Monk
A rogue with this talent gains proficiency in all weapons with the Monk special weapon feature.