I'm running a game that uses a lot of humanoid opponents. As it's a converted 3rd Edition adventure, so I've been building a lot of enemies as PCs and then running them through the CR calculator. It's fun. So I find myself needing to stat up a group of rogues. They were previously built as 4th level Human Rogues, but they were strong, tough, thugs, not super dodgy, agile rogues. So I wanted to come and see what people thought of a Thug archetype. Here's my quick, off the back of the envelope, ideas.

Level 3: Bonus Proficiencies
When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor and martial weapons.

Level 3: Thuggish Grit
Starting at 3rd level, you learn how to better utilize large weapons. You are now able to use your Sneak Attack feature with any weapon.

Level 9: ? This level tends to be a ribbon ability, or at least a largely out of combat ability for most of the archetypes. For thieves, assassins, and masterminds, it's a ribbon. It's combative for the arcane trickster, and half combative/half ribbon for the swashbuckler. As the 3rd level ability is squarely combative, a ribbon here seems fine. I'm thinking of something utilizing intimidation, possibly a partially combative ability that lets them frighten opponents, but more of a social ability where people tend to be wary of them?

Level 13: ? These are also mostly fluff, yet again the Arcane Trickster's is more combative (I guess their spells are significantly less combative). The third level abilities haven't been scaling, so perhaps some sort of bonus action attack (akin to Arcane Trickster), or a rider on their sneak attack? Thugs hit hard and it slows or knocks prone or something.

Level 17: ? Death Strike, two turns, rerolling misses, these are all pretty big. I'm tempted to lowball it and throw in Extra Attack at this point, but that would feel better earlier.

... Well now, my ideas are running dry at the moment.

I'm not concerned with the bonus proficiencies being too big of a deal. Medium armor limits them to a 14 Dex for AC purposes. A typical Rogue is going to have a 16 at 3rd level and an 18 at 4th level, with studded leather armor, so 15 and 16 AC. Chainshirt and Breastplate, with a 14 Dex, are going to offer the same 15 and 16 AC; they could push for 16 and 17 if they want disadvantage on stealth.

Martial Weapons might look strong, but this really is only going to be +1 damage on ranged weapons or a less useful bonus on melee attacks. Going from two shortswords two a greatsword, looking at extremes, would offer a better single attack but be much worse when the two shortsword user uses their bonus action for a second sneak attack attempt after their first attack misses. A 65% hit chance turns into like an 88% sneak attack chance when you have two attacks.

So what are your ideas for Thug abilities? Is "Thug" too low-level of a concept to stretch out over all 20 levels? What is an Epic Thug?

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7prrWqKmlnF6kv6h706GpnpmUqHy1tNSgZKunl6qyb4GPbHBtal8%3D