Friday, March 18, 2016

Roguish Archetype: The Huckster [ROUGH DRAFT]



Rogues are pretty cool. They can be a lot of things, from dashing rakes to bookish spell-thieves to bell-jangling jesters.

The Huckster is a different approach, and is to clerics as the Arcane Trickster is to wizards. A huckster is a holy charlatan, knowing just enough in the way of rite and ritual to convince others of any religious affiliation, all the while having several crafty tricks in reserve to help with their roguish ways.

Let's look at some specifics.

FEATURES:

  • Wisdom-based spellcasting off a small spell list. More total spells allotted than Arcane Trickster, less player choice in the spell list.
  • Series of two class features that build upon each other to encourage roleplaying before and during combat, to confer advantages in combat.
  • Higher level class features emulate the further gaining of holy power, despite spell list being limited to 4th level spells. 
CONCERNS:
  • The limited spell list may potentially be less fun than choosing. However, the cleric spell list has a great deal of pitfalls that would either be thematically unfitting or overpowered for this subclass, and is eclectic enough that breaking the list apart by spell school doesn't really work.
  • Faith Healing may be better or worse than intended, a small but nice additional bonus that'd stack well with legitimate healing. It'd be nice to have someone look at it with a critical eye and tell me if the verbage means what I think it means.
  • Faithless Fervor is situationally strong, and is intended to loosely mirror the Arcane Trickster level 17. However, considering the huckster's spell list and the necessary trigger for the feature, it's most likely fairly balanced. 
WHAT I LEARNED:
  • 1/3 caster subclasses have a surprising amount of latitude to them. Constrained, obviously, but there's plenty of room to make them unique and fun.
  • Breaks aren't bad. Just, maybe not two-and-a-half months off next time. 

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