Rogue - Divine Agent (Purifier 2.0)
Added 2020-05-28 05:37:27 +0000 UTCOne of my earlier subclasses was a Rogue that ended up being called the Purifier. I think ultimately it was in a pretty good spot, but after quite a lot of playtesting and feedback, some refresh was needed to some of it's features, and it's been tweaked a bit here with some updates.
I've also never loved the name (I think Inquisitor is the natural name but conflicts with Inquisitive too much), but have settled with Divine Agent this time around. There's an NPC that uses this archetype in my game, so I refer to the archetype fairly often, and always found that while Purifier was a thematic fit, it never quite worked as a subclass name to me.
Changes:
- Can now use Holy Water as a weapon (rather than improvised weapon).
- Level 13 ability tweaked and moved to 9; the level 9 feature was too weak to be useful in most cases.
- Level 9 feature moved up to 13, but refactored for more utility.
- Level 17 feature replaced with something both simpler and more mechanically linked to the rest of the subclass.
As always, let me know any thoughts or feedback :)
Comments
Martial Weapon Proficiency gives access to three notable items: Longbow, Heavy Crossbow and Whip. It's worth nothing that Heavy Crossbow is the only one of those that impacts balance in a meaningful way as Light Crossbow is already equal to a Longbow for a Rogue. That said, that adds +1 damage (remember, no extra attack, and anyway they'd get extra attack would give them martial weapon proficiency anyway). Which is nice, but not particularly strong. Keep in mind that 90% of time, Radiant will not be better than normal damage, particularly once you get a magic weapon. So what they get is: * Radiant Damage (nice, rarely does anything that matters). * Holy Water as a weapon (is mostly a ribbon; it's cool, but holy water expensive and doesn't even hurt most things) * Expertise in Religion.... I mean, I'm not too worried about that bit. It's Expertise, which is great, but in Religion, which is a bad stat for them (Int) and a mostly lore based skill. * Martial Weapons (+1 damage). So while it looks like a handful of stuff, the net benefit quite a bit less than a simpler but much more potent feature like other subclasses get. Their spell casting overall is quite a bit weaker than Arcane Trickster, because they are not actually a 1/3 caster; they get much less uses of their spells, and much less selection; that's what leaves some ground open from the rest of the features to give spells + other things. Flame Strike is technically a 5th level spell, but has the same effect as a 3rd level spell, and fire shield is a 4th level spell, but notable both of those are coming out of their Sanctification uses of spells not giving them more uses of their spells. It's possible they are overtuned, but I don't really see anything that could logically be removed that would impact balance positively: -I could axe medium armor, but that doesn't actually do much besides flavor. -I could axe expertise in religion, but I don't think it helps. -Removing martial weapons would remove their only consistently useful low level feature. -If I remove Flame Strike, I'd have to replace it something; I could slot fireball in there just to match the level of a 1/3 caster, but I find that fits less well for the theme to me, and doesn't really change the balance.
KibblesTasty
2020-05-28 07:05:41 +0000 UTCI can't seem to edit comments so I'll just add a second one. Going back, I see Arcane Tricksters can get fireball and vitriolic sphere. So maybe my instincts are off. Still, noteworthy but perhaps I'm overly cautious.
Aerrol
2020-05-28 06:52:36 +0000 UTCTwo points for feedback: 1. Why martial weapon proficiency? No other rogue subclass AFAIK gives that and access to the longbow is a noteworthy buff. 2. Flamestrike seems like a very strong buff for a rogue subclass, pure damage aside. No other rogue subclass has that kind of AOE power as far as I know. IMO, given the above two points push a fairly balanced subclass into the overtuned zone.
Aerrol
2020-05-28 06:48:05 +0000 UTC
