Playing a 5e Class Backwards

I wasn’t planning on including this idea (or anything even close to this), but this morning I had an idea. What if you played a 5th Edition Character Class with the features in reverse order? At level 1, you’d get the normal level 20 feature: for fighters that would mean extra attack, clerics would get divine intervention, rogues would get stroke of luck, and so on.

In most cases, the high level features aren’t substantially stronger in of themselves than the low level core features. The main difference between the two is that for many moderately experienced players, the high level features are unattainable in the course of a normal game.

I spent a few hours converting the core classes - fighter, rogue, and wizard, and though I ran into a few stumbling blocks, the process produced things that could be really interesting to play.

Anyway, I laid some ground rules for myself. First, scaling abilities would not get their full scaling at 1st level, but they’d begin scaling. Thus the 20th level extra attack of fighters that gives them 4 attacks only gives our first level fighter 2 attacks per action. Second, class features that rely on previously attained class features still get the previously attained feature. Thus, wizards still get spellcasting, and the 20th level capstone for wizards has to be at 5th level or above. So far, that’s the only that’s needed real shifting around.

I ended up really liking the reversed rogue. Namely, it reminds me a lot more of the sort of old school idea of the rogue isn’t very experienced at level 1, but has to get lucky and slowly develop their skills. There is a simple elegance to getting Expertise well after Reliable Talent, and both after Stroke of Luck. It’s also thoroughly playable. There are enough defensive abilities mixed in to keep your low level rogue alive, the lack of expertise is balanced by the strength of the Stroke of Luck feature giving a reliable 20 on an ability check once in while, and the rogue archetype capstones actually give a lot of flavor to those mid-tier levels.

You don’t get cunning action, but you might be stealing spells or taking multiple turns in the first round of combat with Thief’s Reflexes or Spell Thief. In the latter case, it entirely changes the ‘gimmick’ of the subclass, which is something I’ve seen a lot of. Seeing how this one works out, I’m almost inclined to present the Backwards Rogue as an option for regular play among the ‘normal’ classes.

Other takeaways are that fighters ended up being kind of boring. The Battlemaster, in particular, seemed like it ended up almost exactly the same. Only Champion is significantly different, since you’ll have off-brand regeneration at 3rd level and a fighting style 10 levels before anyone else.

I did like the reverse order on the Wizard archetypes, though basically only for the 14th level features being available at 7th. I didn’t like how literally every other feature in the wizard archetypes are delayed, though truthfully it’s probably necessary considering the strength of Signature Spells and Spell Mastery. In a few cases, the order did make more sense. I think it’s ‘cooler’ to get things you can’t already do with spells, like enhance undead or adding temporary HP to your conjured creatures.

In any case, the download is available in the Vault for free.

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