Lost Galmagia: Rogues and Initiative

I designed Rogue’s combat abilities to be distinct from fighters. While fighters (and by extension elves and dwarves) use the natural die roll to determine if their special abilities activate, Rogues have options that open up based on surprise or whether their side of the combat has initiative. So far it's working, but we'll see how well this works. 

Surprise Rounds

•            When it’s time to roll for surprise, the rogue rolls individually, applying their Sharp Senses bonus both to the group roll and their individual roll. The rogue uses the better roll, which means they may avoid surprise, or surprise opponents, even if the rest of the party does not.

•            When the rogue has Surprise, they can ‘backstab’ a target, gaining +4 to hit and doing extra damage.

Without Initiative

•            The rogue can try to ‘seize the initiative’ with a risky attack. They act before the side that won initiative but must attack the most dangerous foe/obvious leader. If they hit, they do normal damage and their side regains the initiative. If they miss, they are at –4 AC for the round and a prime target.

•            If the rogue doesn’t have initiative, they can skip their attack on the back half of the round this round and reposition themselves to set up a backstab attack on their next round (regardless of which side wins initiative).

•            If the rogue’s side doesn’t have initiative, they can announce they are skipping their attack in the back half of this round to gain +4 AC for the front half of the round.

With Initiative

•            The rogue may apply their dexterity modifier to their attacks rather than their strength modifier.

•            If the rogue’s total attack bonus (Class + dexterity modifier) is +2 or greater, they can make two attacks, each at half the bonus (round down), for one die code lower damage (so d4 rather than d6 for a regular short sword). This also applies during a surprise round and can be combined with backstabbing if the rogue has initiative or surprise.

•            The rogue can press an opponent, where a successful attack does not do damage, but reduces the targets AC by 3 for the round, and any attacks allies land on that target do +2 damage.