Great Scott! I'm finally back in my own timeline!
Confused? No need to be: the truth is simply that I have not brewed these archetypes: Rather, they are evidence from an alternate timeline too terrible to fully describe, where the barbarian, monk, and rogue classes simply don't exist! So many things were different, it's too horrible to even remember fully!
From that realm of nightmares I narrowly escaped with my life and sanity, with only these martial archetypes, torn from the pages of the alternate timeline's Player's Handbook 2 to prove my story. Behold and tremble at the awful knowledge of a dark timeline where your favorite classes don't exist!
…Okay, I'm dropping character now. Hahaha, I don't know why I still find that joke funny, though I suspect other folks aren't as amused as they used to be (if they ever were).
This was my first ever "joke" homebrew. I say that, and yet it isn't exactly a joke. It's kind of a long story.
First, I'll describe the obvious: the acolyte, reaver, and scoundrel are basically ripping off the monk, barbarian, and rogue respectively. The mechanics of each archetype are completely playable and more or less sound. But of course, you might well ask why I even made something like this. What's the point when the monk, barbarian, and rogue already exist?
I made these three roguish archetypes a long time ago. At the time, I was much more directly active in the Fifth Edition homebrew community and would often comment on subreddits, join Discord servers, stuff like that. And there was a conversation that would come up a lot.
One person would present an idea for a homebrew class—not a subclass, but a whole class. The idea gets bandied around a little, but then another person asks what seems like a piercing question:
Do you think this should be a subclass for X class instead?
It happened surprisingly often, to varying effect. Sometimes people appreciate that advice—a subclass is easier to make than a class, after all. Sometimes people rejected that advice—it seemed to subtly hint that the project isn't worth making a class. Sometimes people disagreed with the advice—they argued that their idea was better represented as a class and that a subclass would be too narrow.
The third scenario is usually where the discussion got interesting—sometimes in a good way; sometimes in a not so good way.
Really, the question arising is the following: why are some character ideas classes and some ideas subclasses? What is "worth" a class, and what is "worth" a subclass?
There's a few different factors that can go into it. And I'm not here to offer any definitive answers. I've never actually made a homebrew class before, I've never even attempted, and I have no inclination as yet to try! Classes are large projects, and the best homebrew classes I've seen have been efforts of months and sometimes years.
So, what makes something a class?
Sometimes people say it's a matter of breadth. A subclass is a narrow thing: there aren't a lot of ways to be an Arcane Archer or an abjuration wizard. So these concepts are subclasses to larger classes. Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine different ways to be a fighter, wizard, sorcerer, etc. Thus, a broad idea warrants a class.
This factor alone isn't foolproof, though. There are many ways to be a Totem Warrior or a Battlemeaster, and yet those are subclasses.
Sometimes people say it's a matter of how iconic a concept is. Fighter, barbarian, wizard, warlock, and paladin are highly iconic as archetypes (using the word in its literary sense rather than in its Fifth Edition sense). These ideas have life and weight to them lent by years of storytelling, books, movies, and more. With so much weight behind the ideas, they are better represented as full classes in order to encompass all they can be.
But again, this isn't foolproof. For example, the ranger's iconic status is sometimes debatable—the multitude of highly divergent ranger class homebrews speaks to how hotly contested the very meaning of "ranger" is. And just how truly iconic is the artificer? Without Eberron, would the world even have this concept of an arcane item crafter who manifests their magic through items?
There are many other factors that people bring up when talking about classes. I won't get into all of them, but I think what I've talked about so far helps demonstrate what kind of discussions can arise when talking about homebrew classes.
I was overhearing some of these conversations, and as I listened, I got a silly idea. Someone mentioned offhand that a barbarian could be a martial archetype, but that didn't mean it wasn't better as a class. And I thought to myself: why not make that idea a reality? And why stop with just the barbarian?
And so, my joke was born. The Acolyte, Reaver, and Scoundrel (attempt to) capture the monk, barbarian, and rogue as subclasses of the fighter, rather than as classes unto themselves. Mostly, I did it as a joke. But to some extent, I think it offers a window into the difference between classes and subclasses. Seeing as archetypes what we're used to seeing as classes reveals the stark difference between the two.
…But yes, it is mostly a joke, haha!
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