The Gaming Den

Because Lago Requested it, and I couldn't muster up the drunken enthusiasm to do any meaningful or languishing project:


Axethieves are sneaky tomb raiders who wield axes. They'll want a high Int for skills but Dex, Str and Con will be helpful for the melee combat they are likely to find themselves in. Axethieves may be of any alignment, and most are.

pic spoilered, it's not as good as OB's

BAB: good
HD: D8
Saves: Good Ref
Skill Points: 8+Int/Level
Class Skills: As Rogue, I guess.

Weapon and armor proficiencies: Axethieves are proficient with all simple weapons, throwing axes, hand axes, battleaxes, great axes, dwarven waraxes, orcish double axes, and the punch dagger. Axetheives are proficient with light armor, but not with shields

Level Special
1: Axe Me Anything, Haxe and Slash. Axetrobatics, Trapfinding, Grip
2: Concerted Axetion, Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
3: AXEidents Happen, Grip
4: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
5: Axe-tual Criticals, Grip
6: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6,
7: AXEs of Evil (Or Good Or Law or Chaos), Grip, Dual Grips
8: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
9: Grip, Swift Shift
10: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
11: Greater Grip,
12: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
13: Greater Grip, Triple Grips
14: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
15: Greater Grip
16: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
17: Greater Grip
18: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6
19: Greater Grip, Quad Grips
20: Sneak Axe-tack +1d6, Felling the worldtree.

Axe me AnythingFor purposes of the class abilities described below, an Axe-Thief may count any weapon she is proficient in as an axe. Note that this does not change the weapon's size, reach, base damage, critical, damage type or other properties.

hAXE and Slash Any axe an axe-thief wields is treated as though enhanced by greater magic weapon[/b] cast at the axe-thief's character level. This effect only applies to axes and only so long as the axe-thief wields them. This effect takes no time to activate.

AXE-trobatics While wielding or carrying an axe, the axethief recieves an enhancement bonus to Climb, Jump, Swim, and Tumble checks equal to +1 per four character levels (or fraction thereof)

Trapfinding As the rogue ability of the same name

Grips:
At every odd level from 1st through 9th, the axe-thief may select one of the following Grips to use. Only one grip may be active at a time (until 7th level) and it requires a swift action to activate any grip. If an axethief is not wielding an axe for one full round, they lose their grip and may not activate any grips until they are again wielding an axe.

• Vertical AXEis The axethief may jump 10' in any direction as an immediate action. This does not count against their normal movement limit nor prevent them from taking any 5' step that they would otherwise be entitled to. Movement during such a jump provokes AoOs as usual.
• AXEturial Methods While this grip is active, the axethief gains a Resistance bonus to all saves equal to the enhancement bonus of her axe.
• reAXEtion:Once per round, upon taking damage the axethief may make a melee attack as an immediate action.
• Self AXEtualization: While this grip is active, the axethief gains 5 Temporary HP per round. Temporary HP do not stack.
• Who AXEd you? While this grip is active, the axethief always acts in the surprise round.
• Forty WhAXE While this grip is active, the axetheif rolls 2 d20 for each melee attack they make and uses the higher roll for each of them.
• AXE cop-out While this grip is active, the axethief and all allies within close (25' +5'/2 character levels) resist the influence of narrative causality so as to be immune to [death] effects
• AXEtion hero Once per round, as an immediate action when taking damage, the axethief may make a Reflex Save with DC equal to the amount of damage they would take. On a success, they take half the damage they otherwise would.
• relAXEation While this grip is active, the axethief may make melee attacks with any melee weapon they can wield even while grappled, pinned, bound held, panicked, paralyzed, stunned or asleep. They may also activate and use other known grips, but unless they have the dual grips ability, doing so leaves them subject to the usual restrictions of such statuses.
• Take bAXEies While this grip is active, the axethief may telekinetically draw any unattended axe within close (25'+5/2 levels) range into her hand. The axe-thief must have at least one hand free to use this ability, but she may use it as a free action as many times as she likes. (note this is intended to make thrown weapons auto-returning, albeit at limited range)

Joint AXE-tion At 3rd level, the axethief now adds the enhancement bonus of any axe they wield to any Aid Another checks they make and to the bonus they grant with a successful Aid Another check.

Sneak AXE-Tack: as the rogue's Sneak Attack, but the axe-thief only receives the extra damage dice if such attacks are made with an Axe in addition to all the other sneak attack criteria.

AXEidents happen At 3rd level The axethief now adds the enhancement bonus of any axe they wield to any Disable Device checks they make.

Lemme Axe you a Question: At 3rd level, the axethief now adds the enhancement bonus of any axe they wield to any Gather Information checks they make

Axe-tual Criticals From 5th level onwards, when the axe-thief confirms a critical hit, all damage is multiplied by the weapon's critical multiplier; bonus dice of damage are no longer excluded. This ability does not allow critical hits against targets normally immune to such, but it totally results in those Sneak Attack dice getting those sweet axe crit multipliers.

AXEs of Evil (or Good, or Chaos, or Law): At 7th level, any axe an axethief wields gains the Anarchic, and/or Axiomatic. and/or Holy and/or Unholy special abilitiy(ies), as appropriate to the axe-thief's own alignment(s) for as long as the axe-thief wields it. Axe-thieves of multiple conflicting alignments can ignore the negative level(s) which such abilities would otherwise confer.

Dual Grips: At 7th level, an axethief may have 2 different grips active at the same time. Each grip still requires a swift action to activate.

AXEt Swiftly: At 9th level, the axethief receives an additional swift action per round.

Greater Grips: At 11th level the Axe-Thief begins to learn truly world-slicing abilities and gains access to a more powerful set of grips. Greater Grips work just like lesser grips, but the axethief may have a single greater grip active without counting against her limit of lesser grips active. If the player so desires, an axethief may forgo learning a greater grip and instead select two lesser grips to learn.

• MAXEimaize While this grip is active, the axethief does not roll for weapon damage, and instead inflicts damage equal to the maximum value possible to roll on the dice. (Yes, this applies to sneak attack, and with the crits also applying it gets very high)
• Snicker-SnAXE While this grip is active, any axe the axethief wields gains the vorpal special quality for as long as the axe-thief wields it.
• Axe of Love and Kindness While this grip is active, the axethief may use any of the following as an at-will spell like ability:
  Cure Critical Wounds, Neutralize Poison, Remove Disease,
  Remove Blindness / Deafness, Restoration, Break Enchantment, Freedom of Movement
• AXEademics While this grip is active, the axethief gains a competence bonus to all skill checks equal to the enhancement bonus of her axe.
• Large Scale AXE-Tion[/i]While this grip is active, all weapons wielded by all of the axethief's allies within long (400'+40' level) range may gain the axe-theif's enhancement bonus and any special qualities possessed by the axetheif's axe.
• All AXEcess While this grip is active, the axethief may use any of the following as an at-will spell like ability: Dimension Door, Knock. Freedom of Movement, Find the Path, Passwall, Overland Flight, Ethereal Jaunt, Freedom, Phase Door

Triple Grips at 13th level the axe-thief may have up to three lesser grips active at once.

Quad Grips at 19th level the axe-thief may have up to four lesser grips active at once.

Felling the Worldtree:at 20th level the axethief chops down Yggdrasil, steals its best fruit and wins D&D.

They don't seem to steal axes?

There should be some support for people who want to throw and dual wield axes. Why not build TWF/Brutal Throw support into a Grip effect?

If we're being serious here, you need to specify what constitutes an axe: pike? Bardiche? Glaive? Only weapons with "axe" in the name?

Foxwarrior wrote:They don't seem to steal axes?

They are just as well equipped for stealing axes as the swordmage is for swording mages.

Silent Wayfarer wrote:There should be some support for people who want to throw and dual wield axes. Why not build TWF/Brutal Throw support into a Grip effect?

The thought had crossed my mind, but I kinda thought that 2wf or axe-throwing support was better handled by generic feats. I could give out some relevant bonus feats for doing so, or maybe an auto-returning effect on throwing axes. But I probably wouldn't want to do it as a Grip, the single grip active at once would be perhaps too limited for the sort of flux that going from melee to throwing and back likely to happen with such abilities

Koumei wrote:If we're being serious here, you need to specify what constitutes an axe: pike? Bardiche? Glaive? Only weapons with "axe" in the name?

I pretty definitely was not being serious, and while you have a point, balance-wise there's not much reason to care which melee weapons count as an "axe" and which don't. But for flavor and pun reasons, it should probably be any weapon with "Axe" in the name plus guitars.

You say in grip they get the second axe grip at seventh, but don't actually give it to them until ninth.

Josh... why?

No, you know what? It doesn't matter. TGD, you so crazy.

Nice. I hope you don't mind me stealing some of your puns, Josh_Kablack.

Josh_Kablack wrote: I pretty definitely was not being serious, and while you have a point, balance-wise there's not much reason to care which melee weapons count as an "axe" and which don't. But for flavor and pun reasons, it should probably be any weapon with "Axe" in the name plus guitars.

I would have just gone with "Axe Me Anything: All weapons count as an axe."

That probably makes the most sense, yes.

Lemme Axe you a Question: The axethief now adds the enhancement bonus of any axe they wield to any Gather Information checks they make.

And My Axe: The axethief now adds the enhancement bonus of any axe they wield to any Aid Another checks they make

Do you have art in mind for the Axe thief

Okay, have updated taking some feedback into consideration and added abilities up to 20th level.

Still needs a bit of editing, polish and any sort of balance evaluation at all, but could see a less-punny re-themed version being close to working as an alternate melee type.