Expected read time: about 8 minutes

Welcome to the first article of Options Unraveled! In this series we’re going to discuss stuff we’ve published and talk a bit about our design process.

First up is the Ruffian Roguish Archetype! If you don’t already own this subclass, you can pick up a free copy by signing up for our newsletter!

This subclass goes way back to before Unraveled Archives officially existed, the days of just Caleb Willden and myself. It’s one of the very first things we collaborated on. I remember Caleb (who was much more involved in the D&D community than I was at that point), shared somebody’s homebrew subclass with me. I don’t remember even what class it was for (though I suspect Barbarian), but I do remember treating it a bit harshly. I said something along the lines of “If I were to make a subclass about grappling, I’d do it this way…”

And the Ruffian was born.

Gently the Mountain Dwarf

The first Ruffian ever made was, as you might guess from the heading; a mountain dwarf named Gently. You know, “Gently put him down!” versus “Gently, put him down!” We thought it was funny. Anyway, His +2 bonuses to Strength and Constitution were well-appreciated, as the Ruffian is a Rogue that likes to dirty it up in melee and perform many grapples and shoves; a true, supported, Strength-based Rogue.

We liked Gently so much that we included a short little narrative for him at the beginning of the subclass, describing the aftermath of a bar fight—Gently’s handiwork. We tend to include narratives like this one with each of our individual subclasses. Maybe people don’t care about them one way or the other, but we enjoy writing them, and we figure that if it helps to bring home the idea of the subclass a little better to even just one person, then why not?

An interesting thing to mention about this particular narrative is that it references another character: a female halfling named Penny, who happens to be the main character in the narrative of the Slaad Symbiote. We had this idea that we could maybe have an overarching storyline in these narratives and connect all the characters together. I think we gave up on that idea, but it’s fun to see that there are some relationships between some of the characters of our subclasses.

So we had a few goals with this Rogue subclass. As alluded to earlier, we wanted to provide some support for Strength-based Rogues, Dexterity being the usual main ability score. But in fiction there are a ton of roguish characters who rely more on their muscles than their agility. We’ll get into some of those as we go.

Rough and Tumble

The first feature you get from this subclass is actually a handful of subfeatures rolled up into one. Let’s go through them.

Unarmored Defense
Brawler
Rowdy
Sly Scrapper

Unarmored Defense

Rogues generally rely on light armor and their own natural quickness to get by in combat. But if a Rogue invests its points into Strength rather than Dexterity, their Armor Class is going to be terribly low. This is one of the main challenges in building a Strength-based Rogue. So we knew going in that this was something we’d have to address.

At first we debated granting the Ruffian proficiency with medium armor, or proficiency with a shield, or both. At the time, I really liked the idea of having a shield and using it as an improvised weapon (more on this later) to bash enemies. But Caleb pointed out (rightfully) that while that’s a fun character concept, it shouldn’t be something integral to all Ruffians. And with medium armor, we didn’t think that it actually would benefit Strength-users over Dexterity-users enough.

So pretty late into the design process I came up with the idea of adding your Strength and Dexterity together to determine your AC, similar to how the Monk combines Dexterity and Wisdom. Just as the Monk’s Unarmored Defense reinforces the idea that Monks are wise and somewhat mystical, the Ruffian’s immediately helps to get the idea across that Strength is important to this subclass. The Ruffian won’t dodge a punch to the face like a Monk might; he or she just doesn’t care about being punched in the face, because they’re tough and rugged and rough on the edges.

It amounts to about 14-16 AC at 3rd level, maxes out at a respectable 20, and encourages even those Ruffians who for some reason pursue Dexterity to at least not dump their Strength.

Brawler

This feature has pretty much been unchanged since it was first drafted, other than a few attempts at renaming it. It lets you use a bonus action to perform a shove or a grapple, the same way that Thieves get additional ways to use their Cunning Action to do “Thiefy” things.

It’s a pretty potent feature, especially on a Rogue, and is meant to be the bread and butter of this subclass. You use your bonus action to shove an enemy prone, which then gives you advantage when you use the Attack action right after, which will trigger your Sneak Attack damage. And don’t forget that, depending on initiative order, your allies could very well have advantage on their attacks against that enemy as well. It’s a very strong (and fun!) way to play.

Some people might reasonably judge it to be too strong, and I wouldn’t fault them for thinking that way. But if you dig into the usual playstyle of Rogues and what they normally do with their actions, you find that it actually comes out to be pretty even.

For example, a Rogue playing at range with a shortbow or similar weapon can fairly easily set themselves up to attack without risk of getting smacked in melee, be hidden (and presumably unattackable) on the enemies’ turns, and also attack with advantage every turn and land their Sneak Attack. Now that can be frustrating to deal with as a DM controlling the bad guys!

The Ruffian can bring the hurt, but it does so right up in the enemy’s face, exposed to attacks from just about anyone on the battlefield. So there are pros and cons to the different playstyles.

Rowdy

This is another feature that has changed over time. We knew we wanted proficiency with improvised weapons, but it wasn’t until a friend pointed out that Rapiers will nearly always be the optimal weapon—and so nobody would even bother wielding improvised weapons—that we decided to add in the larger damage dice. That d8 makes it even with a Rapier for Rogues dependent on Strength, and the option to two-hand the improvised weapon for a d10 damage die is even juicier. No usual Rogue gets a d10 damage die, except for those using heavy crossbows, and the die is only viable with a Strength build.

Sly Scrapper

Sly Scrapper. I still don’t know that I’m happy with the name, but I love the feature. It used to be that you could Sneak Attack with improvised weapons, but we decided to open that up and say that you can use it with any weapon (including improvised weapons) that lacks the heavy property, to open up the subclass to a wider array of character concepts.

You haven’t lived until you’ve Sneak Attacked somebody with an improvised weapon. It is so much fun to carry out and describe!

So these subfeatures come together to make a package of abilities that turn the rogue from a mobile skirmisher to more of a… well, an american football player! Or rugby, I suppose. In any case, this rogue should have a slightly easier time surviving toe-to-toe with baddies, and will probably end up slamming them to the ground and then bashing them over the head with whatever’s at hand.

Still, a slightly higher armor class can only take you so far when you’ve only got a d8 hit die. What about at higher levels when you’re up against tougher foes?

So everything up to this point has just been from 3rd level. Whew! Ready for the rest? Let's hit it.

Meat Shield

9th level is where the Meat Shield feature comes in. It plays off of the Rogue’s Uncanny Dodge feature where they can use their reaction to halve the damage of a hit against them. Since the Ruffian tends to have an enemy in hand (or will from this point on), it can essentially make that grappled enemy take the other half of that damage, the half you don’t take. So when you use Uncanny Dodge, you’re actually putting that grappled enemy in the way of the attack to absorb some of it.

Forceful Charge

The next feature comes along at 13th level, and makes the Ruffian feel even more like a tackling athlete. I originally got the idea from the Thief’s ability that gives you advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks if you move less than half of your speed. It makes sense; you go slow and careful, you get a Stealth bonus.

Forceful Charge follows similar logic, but in an entirely different direction.

The first part of the feature reads, “If you move at least 10 feet in a straight line immediately before making a Strength check, you have advantage on the roll.” So basically, with a running start you get a bonus to the ability checks you would make to shove or grapple an enemy, or force open a door. It’s hard for me not to imagine such a moment as the Ruffian making a flying football tackle. I love it.

The second part of the feature adds that if you make that Strength check to shove or grapple a creature, you can shove one up to two sizes larger than you! Normally you’d be restricted to pulling such a stunt on something only one size larger than you, so this is a welcome bonus against anything Huge or bigger. And if you can get an ally to cast Enlarge on you, you could shove over a tarrasque—assuming you got that running start, that is!

Blindside

Now for 17th level! Rogues tend to get pretty powerful capstone features, so we wanted to make it a good one. To do so, I wanted to invoke a particular trope seen in movies and books…

Remember the last space battle scene in A New Hope when Darth Vader’s about to shoot down Luke Skywalker? Vader focuses on Luke’s X-wing, lining up that perfect shot, when the Millennium Falcon appears out of nowhere with lasers blasting and completely screws up Vader’s shot.

That’s the scene I wanted to enable with this subclass!

So the Blindside feature lets you do that. When an enemy would target somebody other than you with an attack or harmful spell, you can use your reaction to pull a Han Solo. You get to move up to your speed towards that enemy, and if you end the movement right next to it, it needs to make a Strength saving throw or fall prone and lose their attack or spell.

Originally we wanted to make it an attack so you could get in your Sneak Attack damage, or make it a shove so that you could get that Strength bonus from Forceful Charge, but we ended up simplifying and went with just forcing a saving throw. So there’s no actual damage inflicted, but that enemy is sure going to be in a bad position, having lost its thing this turn and being knocked prone. We decided that because it didn’t inflict any damage, the Ruffian character can use this feature once per short rest.

Wrapping it Up

And that’s the Ruffian! We had so much fun making it, playtesting it, and tweaking everything just how we wanted it. It’s for sure one of my favorite subclasses I’ve worked on, which is one of the reasons I started this blog series with it.

It’s actually one of the options for free subclass you can get for signing up for our newsletter! So if you’d like to give it a try, don’t forget to subscribe to the archives! You can also purchase it here.

It’s also one of the few Unraveled Archives options that’s been translated and released in Spanish, so if you’re one of those awesome hispanohablantes, you can find that right here.

That’s it for this article. So good luck, happy gaming, and (if you live in the Northern Hemisphere) stay warm! See you next time.

Options Unraveled: The Ruffian Rogue