Scouts Supplement

Creating game materials? Monsters, spells, classes, adventures? This is the place!
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SmootRK
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Location: Nashville, TN

Re: Scouts Supplement

Post by SmootRK »

cbarchuk wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 8:00 am I definitely don't like the idea of an optional class implying a core class should be penalized in someway. I think that can cause a lot of problems in my opinion. Whenever you start creating subclasses of subclasses the niche that class is trying to fill becomes more and more narrow.

The Complete Thief's Handbook from 2e is a good source to get inspiration from.
  • It lists the main skills of a Scout as Hiding, Move Silently, Hear Noise, and possibly Climbing.
  • When in the wilderness the Scout gains a +10% bonus to Hiding & Move Silently.
  • Scouts surprise opponents on a 3 in 6 chance while in the wilderness.
  • Due to their wilderness expertise they suffer a -5% penalty on all thief skills while in an urban area.
It then lists of course various background skills that would most likely compliment a Scout along with some racial bonuses. Very simple. I really like the whole Kits approach.

So take the Thief class and give it a few bonuses while in the wilderness and some penalties while in the city and...voila...you got yourself a Scout. Keep it simple.

Mechanical differences to the Thief are minor with the major changes coming from how you roleplay the character which in my view is how it should be.
I like the idea of wilderness "thief", and I think I would work to achieve that archetype with this methodology primarily. I did a similar process when I worked on Thief Bonuses for Races that have a outdoorsy preference. Certain skills got a penalty in urban/dungeon environs while performing as expected (or bonuses) in outdoorsy areas. When I worked on my own classes (or quasi classes) I applied small bonus to ability check type rolls when in certain areas.

Really, there is little reason to over-think the abilities or try to come up with too much overt extra abilities for a wilderness thief. The "bones" of the thief class are good.
Is it really the end, not some crazy dream?
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cbarchuk
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Location: Raleigh, NC

Re: Scouts Supplement

Post by cbarchuk »

Excellent reply Smoot. Your Quasi-Classes remind me of the whole 2e "kits" approach which I really dig. Again many of the nuances with class roles, prior to 3e, were roleplayed more often than not. Once 3e landed, most of these things morphed into a skill system and became more mechanical in nature.
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PerformanceChecks
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Joined: Thu Jun 10, 2021 7:16 pm

Re: Scouts Supplement

Post by PerformanceChecks »

I absolutely loved the rangers apprentice and I love this class.
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Blorpy
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Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2021 3:17 am
Location: Tsawwassen

Re: Scouts Supplement

Post by Blorpy »

Hey guys,

I just wanted to bring a potential balance issue to the fore, as one of the players in my group is currently running this class (and loving it!).

I ran a bench test to compare the Scout's combat capabilities to the Fighter's, and it seems to me that damage-wise the Scout completely outclasses the Fighter in the rules-as-written.

In my experiment, I gave both a Scout and a Fighter 180,000 XP each (exactly when the Scout becomes level 9 and gets 2 bow attacks). I gave both classes ability modifiers of +0, and an ordinary longbow with which they would attempt to hit AC 20.

In this scenario, the Fighter averages exactly 1.57 damage per round. By contrast, the Scout averages 3.60 damage per round -- more than double the Fighter. And that’s to say nothing of the default Thief who (with a short bow) would clock in at only 1.05 damage per round.

The Combat Options supplement does mitigate this for the Fighter (though the Thief is still left in the dust). If you assume that same Fighter had been taking bow specialisation the whole time, then he would have had 3.7 damage per round, just slightly edging out the Scout.

I'm not proposing anything needs to be done about this as it's up to the creator, and there are more factors at play than merely damage per round. I'm more just curious if what I described is working as intended, since it struck me as somewhat odd.

In my own game the player using it is only level 3 or 4, but now that I’ve noticed this I’m going to have to break it to him that when he hits 9 I’m likely nerfing that double attack to kingdom come. :lol:
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