Digging a little deeper from last week’s essay, I want to start going through each of the core D&D classes and give guidance on how to translate a character from D&D into Fabula Ultima. I’m starting off with the Rogue because on the surface it’s the easiest class to transfer over – Rogue is literally a class in FU, a distinction that isn’t shared with anything else. Open and shut, right? Want a Rogue, play a Rogue.
There’s a bit more to it than that.
First off, Rogues in Fabula Ultima are a pretty tight distillation of the archetype, but they aren’t the total package in part because the game requires you to multiclass and specialize – taking Rogue means you can put up to 10 maximum skill points into the 5 Rogue skills, but a cursory examination reveals that there are actually 17 skill points available to Rogues. So not only do you have to mix in other classes, at most you can only have 60% of the FU Rogue’s skills for your character.
So – what is a Rogue in D&D? I’m working from the starting point that the core Rogue identity is to be a Dexterity-based light skirmisher, defined mostly by being able to act quickly, perform skills (especially subterfuge) reliably, and deal heavy damage by using Sneak Attack on vulnerable enemies.
The Fabula Ultima Rogue handles most of this right out of the box:
Cheap Shot is the most obvious, letting you deal a significant chunk of extra damage on every attack against enemies who are suffering from one or more status effects (FU has a short list of 6 standard status effects that cover 90% of the debuffs in the game – Dazed, Weak, Shaken, Slow, Poisoned, and Enraged) – a clear analogue to Sneak Attack.
High Speed lets you fight dirty and get an advantage right at the start of combat, while See You Later makes you a peerless scout, as someone who can reliably escape from a bad situation and reunite with the party. Dodge adds to your defenses as a light armored skirmisher, and lastly Soul Steal gives you the unique ability to steal bonus resources from enemies in combat. You can mix and match these skills and the relative investment in them based on what you want to emphasize, but I think most Rogues who enjoy big Sneak Attack numbers will want to invest 5 points into maxing out Cheap Shot, which will add 5-11 damage onto every hit on a debuffed enemy.
With the baseline established, there are two other routes I want to explore: Core Class Supplements and Subclasses. Because FU is a game that requires every starting character to have 2-3 classes even at the lowest level, you can start thinking about classes that synergize with the aspects of the Rogue fantasy that interest you, or taking classes that would echo the subclass options 5e Rogues get at level 3. (There’s also the third option of multiclassing/hybrid concepts, but that’s a bit beyond the scope of this essay. Needless to say, if you want to mix and match an eclectic blend of abilities, FU eagerly supports this.)
Accentuating the Rogue: Weaponmaster, Sharpshooter, Dancer
Rogues like doing damage and specializing in weapon-based combat, and 5.5 has doubled down on this idea by making weapon mastery an aspect of the Rogue class. In FU, a good way to lean into this is by taking levels in either the Weaponmaster, who specializes in melee combat, or the Sharpshooter, who specializes in ranged weapons. Both have options to boost your accuracy and hit more targets with your attacks, and also offer some additional skirmisher-relevant defensive powers.
The best part of either Class for the Sneak Attack lovers is Bone Crusher/Warning Shot, however. Both of these skills let you forego damage on a successful attack to apply a status effect, which means you can use it with your first attack while dual wielding (or with High Speed at the very beginning of combat!) to activate Cheap Shot and start rolling out the damage.
The other less-obvious option is the Dancer class from the High Fantasy Atlas. While you can play it (conceptually) straight and play a roguish acrobat or performer, Fabula Ultima encourages players to reflavor their skills to be something that fits their character, and in the Dancer’s case, their special Dances could easily be reflavored as combat stances or dirty fighting techniques. The key detail is that you can Dance during your turn without using up your Action, a rarity in FU, and you’re encouraged to cycle through your Dances with a discounted MP cost. While there are several powerful effects, the obvious choice for the Rogue are the series of Dances that inflict a chain of status effects on an enemy (like Satyr Dance, which automatically applies Dazed to an enemy that is already suffering from Weak – a sap attack to an enemy tangled up in ropes, perhaps?), which has obvious benefits for Cheap Shot.
Beyond that, War Dancer gives you more flat damage for Roguishly appropriate light weapons like daggers and thrown weapons, and Frenetic Footwork makes your acrobatic skill checks more reliable. The sleeper hit in my view, however, is Quick-Change. This lets you swap out your weapons and accessory whenever you Dance, which would normally take your Action. As you amass more gear, this can let you pull out specific answers to your enemy without having to waste a turn, such as grabbing a defensive accessory to counter a specific foe, or swap in weapons that deal damage of a type your enemy is weak to for a huge boost.
Subclass Options
One thing that becomes apparent about FU is that there are several ways to skin any given conceptual cat once you get comfortable with reflavoring abilities. I’m going to start with the simpler conversions and then move on to the ones that can go in more unique directions.
Thief & Scout
These archetypes are already largely covered by the core FU Rogue. Dancer is even more appropriate here, with Quick-Change giving you more free actions akin to Fast Hands and making you better at using equipment, along with the Frenetic Footwork to enhance your acrobatics and speed.
Wayfarer is a good choice as well, especially for a more wilderness-themed Scout, with options like Well-Traveled and Resourceful to be an asset for traveling through the wild, but even a city-bound Thief can lean into options like Tavern Talk and Treasure Hunter to gather information and resources closer to home.
Assassin
As a master of poisons and devastating alpha strikes, two classes stand out – Tinkerer and Loremaster.
While these might seem counterintuitive, they fit together with Rogue into a combo that achieves the signature Assassin trick:
Quick Assessment lets you scan for a damage type that your enemy is vulnerable to at the start of a combat, and then you can make an instant High Speed attack against them with bonus accuracy. If you hit, you can use your Infusion gadgets to change your damage to a vulnerable type, leading to a devastating hit before anyone takes a single turn. If you get a weapon that inflicts a status on hit (or use the Venom infusion), you also get your Cheap Shot bonus damage on top.
Beyond this, Loremaster makes you better at examining your targets, and getting access to Projects as a Tinkerer opens up the possibility for creating disguises and specialty poisons.
Swashbuckler
An agile, charismatic duelist, the Swashbuckler is another natural fit for the Dancer, with Peacock Dance being a solid analogue to Panache.
I considered mentioning Orator in the core Rogue section as well, since it is a strong option for anyone who wants to be the party’s face, but that applies particularly well to the charismatic Swashbuckler. Unexpected Ally especially can go great with any plan to infiltrate a social situation where you aren’t known, and pairs well with Persuasive to get the ear of someone important and convince them of something, while Condemn gives you an option to use your words to hamper an enemy and open them up to Sneak Attacks Cheap Shots.
Arcane Trickster
I dearly love gishes, so the fact that FU is so supportive of playing martial-caster hybrids is a big plus in my book. Any of the spellcasting Classes are an appropriate fit here, depending on what you want to focus on. Elementalist has you covered for evocation-y blasting spells, Entropist for teleportation magic and draining spells, and while Spiritist is ‘the healer’, Spiritism is also effectively considered the school for enchantments – mental and emotional control, with spells like Hallucination and Enrage on their list.
Elementalist deserves a special callout, since Spellblade lets you use the attributes from your equipped weapon to cast your spells, and gives you bonus accuracy if the weapon uses Dexterity – both things most Rogues should appreciate.
Mastermind & Inquisitive
These two Rogues both focus on using insight and understanding to gain an edge in combat, which makes the Loremaster a natural fit for a secondary class. In addition to giving you a flat bonus to checks to study creatures, items, and locations, you can also quickly scan enemies for exploitable weaknesses at the start of combat, or make use of your (ideally high) Insight attribute with Knowledge is Power to make it one of your attacking stats.
If you want to lean more into the supportive helper or tactician, Commander gives you several options to control the battlefield and let your allies jump in and attack with bonuses on your turn, while Orator gives you options for both debuffing enemies and supporting allies, some of which were covered above with the Swashbuckler.
Phantom
Three options stick out here that you can mix and match with your Rogue for this ghastly subclass: Darkblade, Mutant, and Necromancer.
Thematically Necromancer has a lot going for it, but half of the class is dedicated to enhancing spells, so the main benefits will be defensive and utility – being able to talk to undead and force a true answer out of them with Children of the Grave is dead-on for the Phantom.
Mutant is a good option for transformations of all sorts, and using Theriomorphosis to become a flying, defensive ghost lets you enjoy the benefits and flavor of Ghost Walk right away instead of having to wait until 13th level. Wails from the Grave doesn’t necessarily have a good analogue here, but you can consider talking to the GM about creating a custom Therioform, following the template for the damage altering options – perhaps one that changes the damage of your unarmed strikes to Dark damage and inflicts Shaken.
You could also let Darkblade cover Wails, however. Shadow Strike gives you a heavy Dark hit that deals bonus damage and also fuels itself with your HP (you probably shouldn’t dump Might as a Phantom), and Dark Blood gives you Phantom-appropriate Resistances as long as you’re in Crisis (Bloodied, in D&D parlance).
Soulknife
If you want to be a psychic Rogue, there’s a clear choice here: the Esper. They specialize in using psychic Gifts which can tack on bonus damage to your attacks or give reactive support to yourself and allies, and Psychokinesis lets you use your Willpower for attacking, including using swords to strike at range the way you might with your teleporting Psychic Blades.
A less obvious option is Mutant; if you want to emphasize the Psychic Blades, Akromorphosis lets your unarmed strikes take the form of any weapon which can easily be reflavored as manifesting psychic weapons, and Genoclepsis lets you learn information about enemies by damaging them, and then gain the power to reflexively manifest some of their abilities – which could be imagined as taking a psychic imprint of a creature and then turning that against it.
Mix and Match!
As a final note for today, you may have noticed that several Classes came up multiple times across the Subclasses section – one of the nice things about bundling up specific archetypes and requiring you to combine them means that you have a lot of extra flexibility with a given concept. Want your Phantom to be more magical? Lean into Necromancer and Entropist from the Arcane Trickster. You can mix Mastermind, Inquisitive, and Swashbuckler together for a socializing investigator that still is great at sneaking into or escaping out of bad situations. With 5 Classes minimum on a max level character – not to mention Heroic Skills – the options to widen out your concept over time or refine your presentation of it gives you a ton of options for expressive character building.
Who’s Next?
I’d love to get feedback about whether this breakdown was helpful, things I may have missed, or classes you’d like me to focus on next. Let me know!
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