The Turncoat

An unscrupulous Fighter subclass for Mercenaries, Informants, and Cutthroats    

The Turncoat is a highly customizable subclass for dishonorable fighters, with three ribbons called chicaneries (modeled after the barbarian Path of the Totem Warrior) for Mercenaries, Informants, and Cutthroats. Each chicanery has a different theme, but players are free to mix and match at different levels to create their own bag of dirty tricks.

Depending on their chicanery, Turncoats gain limited per-day casting (listed here as gambits, or mundane spells) that increases as they level up, giving them the ability to fit into unconventional party roles as a fighter—and notably, giving Cutthroats the ability to create a flexible supply of poisons each day.  

Turncoats also gain the Stranglehold feature, a powerful grapple effect that debilitates the enemy but restricts the fighter from making further attacks. Their 7th level abilities add additional functionality to Stranglehold to create interesting human shield effects. A few other ribbon features do this as well, giving the Turncoat additional tactical flexibility in battle by trading their attacks to activate effects.

Some of these features are powerful, but are balanced by using Charisma as a secondary stat. Charisma-based features are interspersed throughout the 3rd, 7th, 10th, and 15th level ribbons though, so if a player doesn’t want to prioritize their Charisma, they can always select other options. This subclass is designed to strike a balance between combat and utility features (and to “combo” with other classes), letting fighters pick abilities that complement their party’s strengths!

GMBinder Link: Turncoat