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Well-Rounded Rogues: Jacks and Jills of All Trades $2.29
Publisher: Paizo
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by Charlie H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 03/29/2022 00:19:02

Of the six rackets presented in this text, I personally think that all of them provide great inspiration and benefit to players and GMs looking to diversify their rogues’ toolkit. However, the fault of this comes from beyond the mechanical text, as some of the features and feats are uninspired and difficult to parse, save for a few. In addition to being laid out in such a way that is both very familiar and yet quite divergent from Paizo’s typical style, the choices in some of the design here make it hard to gather what the author is conveying and why it wasn’t written as it was.

I like the concepts here. Who wouldn’t want to try playing a preacher who whacks fools upside the head with a holy text that deals precision damage? Why, a rogue whose incredible memory and dubious familiarity with the law are weapons in their arsenal? Sign me up! These rackets have great potential for roleplay and interesting game mechanics.

However, I feel that this is true for only four of the six rackets. The two magically inclined rackets, the Accomplice and Hexenmesser, are what I feel to be very, very slightly more specialized versions of the Eldritch Trickster. It feels uninspired that the Hexenmesser’s base feature gives the equivalent of the Witch Dedication feat, only swapping the two common cantrips you’d normally get with the hex cantrip your patron would provide you with. It interacts strangely with getting the Witch Dedication feat, depending on whether or not you chose the same patron. The strangest thing to me is that the Hexenmesser specifically chooses to be a Wisdom spellcaster, and not an Intelligence based one as the standard witch is. This is even acknowledged in the text, begging me to ask why it’s an intentional choice.

Worse yet, I feel, is that the other magical racket, the Accomplice, straight up gives you the Summoner Dedication feat. The only real difference from this racket and the Eldritch Trickster is that you get tandem actions (a great addition, but oversold) and a different feat selection as all rackets have two feats specific to their abilities. A rogue with an eidolon is incredibly cool, but it’s not too much different than what you can get with the Eldritch Trickster. This feels like a patch, less than it’s own idea.

The last major complaint I have is with the Diabolical Witness, the racket dedicated to legal malpractice and distracting wordplay. The problem is, the action you get, Hellish Accusation, is difficult to imagine in the game world. For one action, you verbally assault (without the auditory trait, minor nitpick) one creature in an attempt to trip up its thoughts, making it confused and stupified. It’s just… I don’t understand how one would play this out in a real game scenario. The meat is lacking any seasoning here, it just tells you what you can do and what happens when you do it, but not how or why. It’s very gamey, and is available for the rogue to use every single round. This racket was drummed up to me to feel like a bad faith prosecutor, piling up documents and evidence to really tire out their foes. And it can be that, but the game mechanics hardly support it.

The remaining three rackets are just solid. Renegade Preacher is just fun and funny, not to mention the Raise a Bible feat (which, again, unfortunately leaves this product with very small pieces of good, original content). The Arms Smuggler feels the most cohesive, setting up a great game plan of “infiltrate and sabotage.” The Market Rat on the other hand feels like a beautiful mix of a sword saint and an incognito assassin, implying the rat should be killing in basically plain sight. Some of the debilitations feel a little strangled by how many already exist, and the feats in general leave something to be desired. I think the Market Rat and Accomplice and their respective feats are well designed in their intent, probably the best here, but could use some fine tuning and versatility.

All in all, this is a good resource to get yourself thinking about how different rogues can really be in this system. While I don’t recommend using most of the document as written, I think it can be useful to the tinkering GM or player who will mold it and refine it into something that can really shine at the table.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
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Well-Rounded Rogues: Jacks and Jills of All Trades
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