The Lucky Scoundrel
Hello everyone, and welcome to another fantastic installment of Best in Class, where we bring you the best in new class-related things each week. As gamers, we all know that luck is important—the way the dice turn up can make all the difference for us as players, and while in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game one can often side-step luck completely by achieving very high modifiers, an unlucky roll here or there can still let us down horribly. Over time luck has been expressed in a number of different ways in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: rerolled dice, automatic confirmation of critical hits, and, most commonly, as a small bonus to saving throws or attack rolls. Today, as you might have guessed, we’re going to look at an archetype which is centered on how luck interacts with the character. Today we will be focusing on the perceived poster child of luck: the rogue.
New Rogue Archetype
Lucky Scoundrel
Most rogues fall into one of two camps: those that worship luck as though everything they did depended on their fortune, and those who spend all of their time taking luck out of the equation in order to better define their own destinies. Lucky scoundrels are sometimes rogues that are so devoted to the idea of luck that they achieve some supernatural power from it, but more often a lucky scoundrel is an individual who naturally attracts good luck, and knows how to leverage it to achieve extraordinary results from decidedly ordinary abilities. Some lucky scoundrels are born favored by fortune, while others work and train at, indulging in superstitions or benefiting from poorly understood and exotic shamanistic practices. Whatever the cause, lucky scoundrels have learned that they can count on good fortune to get them through their problems.
Skill Points: A lucky scoundrel receives 4 + Int modifier skill points each level, instead of the normal amount.
Roguish Luck (Ex): Beginning at 1st level, a lucky scoundrel has good fortune when performing skill-based tasks. Whenever she would make a skill check for a skill that she has one or more ranks in, and which is a rogue class skill, she may roll twice and take the higher result.
Trapsmith’s Fortune (Ex): Beginning at 1st level, a lucky scoundrel is personally protected from traps. Whenever the lucky scoundrel would trigger a trap, the GM makes a secret Disable Device skill check for the lucky scoundrel with a DC equal to the normal DC to disable the trap plus 5. If this check is successful, the trap simply fails to function—mechanical traps break down, and magical traps have their spells temporarily repressed. This effectively causes the trap to be bypassed for 1d3 rounds, after which time the trap continues to function normally. This ability functions even on traps which could not normally be bypassed. The lucky scoundrel is not made aware of the presence of the trap unless he would detect it normally. At 3rd level, and every 3 levels thereafter, the lucky scoundrel gains an additional +1 bonus on Disable Device checks made this way.
This ability replaces the trapfinding and trap sense class features.
Slippery Fortune (Ex): Beginning at 2nd level, a lucky scoundrel’s fortune twists and warps, protecting him from dangers of all sorts. Whenever he would make a saving throw, he may choose to roll twice and take the higher result. For each saving throw, he may use this ability once per day for each point of base saving throw bonus he possesses (for example, a 4th-level lucky scoundrel could use this ability once each per day for Fortitude and Will saves, and 3 times per day for his Reflex saves).
This ability replaces the evasion class feature. When the lucky scoundrel would later gain the improved evasion class feature, he instead gains evasion.
Skirmisher’s Fortune (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, the lucky scoundrel can often get the jump on his foes. Whenever the lucky scoundrel would roll for initiative, he may instead roll twice and takes the higher result.
This ability replaces the uncanny dodge class feature.
Assassin’s Fortune (Ex): Beginning at 8th level, the lucky scoundrel can tap into fate to make more potent and deadly attacks. Once per day, the lucky scoundrel can choose to reroll a damage roll that he just made. All dice involved in the damage are rerolled, including any weapon damage, extra damage from a weapon special ability such as flaming, and any sneak attack damage for the attack. He must take the new result, even if it is lower than the original damage. Beginning at 10th level, whenever he would gain a new rogue talent, the lucky scoundrel can choose to gain an additional use of this ability, instead. At 20th level, the lucky scoundrel can use this ability to reroll an attack roll instead of a damage roll.
This ability replaces the improved uncanny dodge class feature.