D&D 5E What should Rogues do?

DEFCON 1 · Oct 6, 2012

Li Shenron said:
Combat is as central as we want it to be

I am going to overreact a bit now, so don't take this too seriously -> If someone wants combat to be so central to D&D that we must twist each class identity to make them all equally effective in combat to a "fighter", then why not rather removing the Rogue from D&D, and the Bard too?

I think the whole point all along was not that many people wanted the Rogue to be equal in effectiveness to the Fighter... but rather they didn't want the Rogue to be INeffective next to the Fighter.

Nobody wants the Rogue to stand toe-to-toe next to the Fighter, the two of them being equal on the battlefield. But at the same time... the Rogue can't be so ineffective at doing SOMETHING during combat that they might as well just go hide and do nothing because anything else is a waste of time and resources.

Remathilis · Oct 6, 2012

GreyICE said:
Roles have been in D&D since the very first edition. They're not about to leave any time soon.

I mean look at the original big 4. You had the Fighter (Striker) the Wizard (controller) the Cleric (leader) and the Rogue (Striker).

3E had a few classes that blurred the line. Clerics were Striker/Leader/Controllers, Druids were Striker/Leader/Controller/Defenders. While Paladins and Monks were kind of Half-strikers. This... this didn't turn out to be very good design. Most of the classes that didn't cause problems had clear roles and could fill them successfully.

Early D&D had roles, but they weren't what 4e called them by a longshot.
Fighters were built for melee combat
Clerics were healers
Magic-users were artillery and problem solvers
Thieves were Sneaks and Trapfinders.

Those roles do NOT map to 4e's defender/controller/striker/leader system except in the most general sense. A fighter didn't defend because he had marking, he defended because he was usually first through the door, had plate mail, and rolled d10's for hp. Furthermore, 4e's roles are COMBAT roles, whereas the old roles covered more general areas (healing being required out of combat, or wizard spells like knock).

The other classes of AD&D often either mixed these pseudo-roles (paladin: melee + heal, Assassin scout+melee). Monks and bards were hard to play because they filled 3 or all 4 roles, but poorly.

You can talk about roles in earlier D&D, but don't try to apply 4e's roles on it. It maps poorly and leads to weird assumptions, like Mr. "2-5d6+str once per combat" being labeled a "striker".

Steely_Dan said:
I hope classes are not pigeonholed into "Roles" in 5th Ed.

See above. There is some organic roles that appear (a paladin, fighter, ranger, or barbarian can all handle the melee role well due to high hp, good attacks, and decent armor) just by virtue of giving classes different weapons, armor, HD, spell selection, skills, etc. Where I DO agree is that classes don't need to fit neatly into 4e's roles: A fighter can be a melee monster with high strength and devastating attacks and still "defend" his allies. A rogue need not be about the damage if he has interesting options, and not all leaders need similar "healing" bursts just to be a leader.

Manbearcat · Oct 6, 2012

Oh how I hate the vague and limiting design space of "The Fighter should be the baseline melee combatant. And by baseline I mean dominate while others (Rangers, Barbarians, Paladins, Rogues, Fighter/Mages) merely contribute to melee combat. In order to justify this gross disparity, he shall be rendered (relatively) inept out of combat. So then: Primary protagonist in combat but Sloth (but, hey, he loves Chunk!), out of combat." That is not limiting at all.

Because of that stupid paradigm, we're locked into B.A. Baracus (minus the mechanics acumen) or Fezzic as the only possible Fighter archetype. And thus Rogues cannot be good at melee combat. Horrible. And limiting.

If you build the Fighter (and all the classes) in such a way that makes him (them) do things (combat, social, exploration) in interesting, diverse ways (roles) then you can build a wide swath of archetypes (that recognizably express themselves within the fiction) and have niche protection. You have design focus that allows for coherency in implementation. The moment you start narrowing the scope of classes while using vague designations of - ultimate protagonist in combat and then peripheral or inept out of combat - or - peripheral or inept in combat and ultimate protagonist out of combat - you wind up with (i) moderately effective niche protection but (ii) exceedingly limited archetype representation. Further, If that is your design space for the classes then you better make certain that (iii) some classes don't destroy both of those concepts by way of their resource schemes and become niche invaders/stealers, whatever they want to be, and ultimate protagonists in and out of combat.

If they fail at both (i) and (ii) and then all for (iii) this edition will be a disaster. Beyond that, if there isn't a broad swath of archetype representation (for Rogues) specifically, I'm all but certain that my group won't be playing this edition (even in passing) as one of my 3 main PCs litmus tests for an edition is how well Rogue's build resources allow him to encapsulate his favored archetypes. I'm not sure how many "guys like him" are out there but I suspect its more than a few.

Neonchameleon · Oct 6, 2012

Li Shenron said:
Combat is as central as we want it to be

I am going to overreact a bit now, so don't take this too seriously -> If someone wants combat to be so central to D&D that we must twist each class identity to make them all equally effective in combat to a "fighter", then why not rather removing the Rogue from D&D, and the Bard too?

I want to know what you mean by "equally effective". Because a properly built 3.5 bard was damn effective. And it's easy enough to build a 4e Warlord who never rolls an attack roll.

Remathilis said:
Early D&D had roles, but they weren't what 4e called them by a longshot.
Fighters were built for melee combat
Clerics were healers
Magic-users were artillery and problem solvers
Thieves were Sneaks and Trapfinders.

Those roles do NOT map to 4e's defender/controller/striker/leader system except in the most general sense. A fighter didn't defend because he had marking, he defended because he was usually first through the door, had plate mail, and rolled d10's for hp. Furthermore, 4e's roles are COMBAT roles, whereas the old roles covered more general areas (healing being required out of combat, or wizard spells like knock).

A fighter in 1e defended for two reasons. He was first through the door and no one could get past him. They couldn't get past him for two reasons.

1: The fighter was in the doorway or a narrow corridor. Put PCs outside a dungeon and it becomes a whole lot harder for the fighter to defend.
2: Attacks of opportunity in AD&D were vicious. +4 to hit I think and you could only leave combat with the withdraw option or by trying to flee.

This meant that once the fighter engaged someone they stayed there under the rules (and vise-versa) unless they were (a) not in a dungeon and (b) incredibly reckless.

2e took D&D out of the dungeon a lot of the time. Which meant you could run round the fighter. Fighters no longer consistently had the first tool to be a defender.

WotC seriously toned down opportunity attacks when they produced 3e - no +4 to hit and everyone had more hit points. Plus the five foot step. The fighter's second tool to be a defender was crippled.

4e weakened opportunity attacks again by increasing hit points - and giving people more movement abilities to create much more fluid combats. And to make up for it they gave fighters opportunity attacks from hell and allowed them to mechanically intimidate their opponents.

In 1e because combat is largely static and dungeon walls are a near certainty, first through the door is enough. Make combat fluid and take away the walls and this stops working. So you need to add it back if you want defending to work at all.

The other classes of AD&D often either mixed these pseudo-roles (paladin: melee + heal, Assassin scout+melee). Monks and bards were hard to play because they filled 3 or all 4 roles, but poorly.

Oh please.

1e Monks were hard to play because they were a type of specialist thief who couldn't wear armour, didn't get a dex bonus to AC, and had hit dice rolled on d4s. As a thief who was worse than the standard thief at mainline thievery but could fall off walls, run away, play dead, and talk to animals they weren't bad. They were also superb dart/dagger throwers. On the other hand this isn't what the fluff presented. The fluff spent a lot of time on Awesome Martial Arts and about a paragraph on the fact that they got thief skills. Had they opened with the thief's role and said the monk was like a specialist thief they'd have had much better results.

1e Bards - the less said the better. The whole class was a mess.

2e Bards weren't hard to play. They hit second level spells at the same time wizards did and third level spells at the same time a wizard/thief did. They never got as powerful, but they were much more survivable at low levels and had a string of tricks of their own.

(The other problem the 1e monk had was that the thief was never very good at sneaking - look at those hide in shadows percentages).

You can talk about roles in earlier D&D, but don't try to apply 4e's roles on it. It maps poorly and leads to weird assumptions, like Mr. "2-5d6+str once per combat" being labeled a "striker".

The 3.X rogue absolutely was a striker in combat. The 1e fighter was a striker - and a 4e barbarian can defend just as well in a natural bottleneck (note that the bottleneck is not on the character sheet). It's' simply that the 1e thief was a non-combat specialist.

GreyICE · Oct 6, 2012

Li Shenron said:
Combat is as central as we want it to be

I am going to overreact a bit now, so don't take this too seriously -> If someone wants combat to be so central to D&D that we must twist each class identity to make them all equally effective in combat to a "fighter", then why not rather removing the Rogue from D&D, and the Bard too?

It's hard to argue that combat is NOT central to D&D. This game started out as more-or-less a glorified dungeon exploration simulator, and was probably 85% combat, 14% puzzle solving, 1% roleplay. Of course some people would argue that combat IS a form of roleplay, and many groups have done combat that way, but there's no question that early D&D was built around the 99% they assumed people were doing.

Later editions branched a little, but pull up any class description and you'll see 90% of it is devoted to combat.

Combat is ABSOLUTELY central to D&D. It's how things start, and how things finish. Players expect a climactic battle, not a climactic diplomatic negotiation.

Therefore, yes, D&D classes should all be able to contribute to combat in a unique manner. And roles are 100% involved.

The Rogue could be a hybrid controller/striker, much like the 4E warlock (anyone who thinks that classes were "pidgeonholed" into roles in 4E never played 4E, the roles were often very general guidelines) but he needs to be doing something unique. Personally that one could be fun - he's the guy who cripples the opponents and leaves knives in them.

I'm A Banana · Oct 6, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
Much as I'd absolutely love to agree with you, combat is too central to D&D (and from the playtests takes too long) for this to work.

Remathilis said:
I want to agree, but combat's too vital to D&D to have a class sit there twiddling its thumbs.

Don't get me wrong. The rogue shouldn't be twiddling its thumbs. It can run in and stab and contribute just fine (yaay, bounded accuracy! yaaay, fast combat!).

But while the Fighter has a million and one ways to put a pointy object through the orc, the Rogue does not, really. They've got a few. A handful. Backstabs. Sneak attacks. A quick tumble. Whatever.

But where the rogue shines -- where it has all the options -- is when the combat is over, and there's a dark tunnel up ahead, and the party needs to know what lays down it, without going down it themselves.

Combat being "too central" may have been true in 4e, but it need not be true in 5e. In fact, if 5e comes out and it's all like "We HAD to design the rogue to be an awesome combatant because combat is TOO IMPORTANT for anyone to just be AVERAGE!", I know it won't work for me. Combat isn't that important for me. Combat shouldn't take up that much time, or be that much of a focus, or distort the game by that much, that you can't have a character who isn't some sort of awesome gut-stabbing ninja contribute a little bit and then get on with some other part of the game where they are awesome. Combat should not be that central. It wasn't for me before 4e, and it doesn't need to be in 5e, and if it IS, that's a PROBLEM.

If we return with open eyes to a more 3-pillar-style system, then we can also return to those early days of 1e dungeon crawls, where you sent the thief up ahead to scout, because the thief was the best scout. Because you don't WANT to get into the fight up ahead necessarily. Because there might be something up ahead you actually need to fear, that actually might be able to kill you, that might actually obliterate your entire party. A legit threat in the darkness ahead means you don't just want to tromp down the dungeon corridors behind the guy with the biggest shield. With a thief in your party, you can avoid combats, disarm traps, find the MacGuffin, and get out of the dungeon before anyone knows you're there.

Y'know the options that the Fighter has in combat in 5e? Parries, dodges, shield bashes, whatever. That's the quantity of options a Rogue should have when exploring. Stealth. Bluff. Disarm. Unlock. Climb. Even if you're not using the "skills module," the Rogue has these abilities.

If you want to play an awesome agile fighter, 5e should let you play that as a Fighter. If your character is defined by combat, 5e should point out in big bright lights that you should play the class that is the best at combat. You shouldn't need to make the rogue into a ginsu ninja. They should be awesome at AVOIDING fights, not necessarily awesome at kicking butt when they get in one.

Again, rogues should be able to contribute in combat. They don't need to be dead weights. They also don't need to be awesome Jackie Chan Bullet Time Kidney Slicers, though. They need to be awesome when exploring first and foremost.

Remathilis · Oct 7, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
Don't get me wrong. The rogue shouldn't be twiddling its thumbs. It can run in and stab and contribute just fine (yaay, bounded accuracy! yaaay, fast combat!).

But while the Fighter has a million and one ways to put a pointy object through the orc, the Rogue does not, really. They've got a few. A handful. Backstabs. Sneak attacks. A quick tumble. Whatever.

Combat being "too central" may have been true in 4e, but it need not be true in 5e. In fact, if 5e comes out and it's all like "We HAD to design the rogue to be an awesome combatant because combat is TOO IMPORTANT for anyone to just be AVERAGE!", I know it won't work for me. Combat isn't that important for me. Combat shouldn't take up that much time, or be that much of a focus, or distort the game by that much, that you can't have a character who isn't some sort of awesome gut-stabbing ninja contribute a little bit and then get on with some other part of the game where they are awesome. Combat should not be that central. It wasn't for me before 4e, and it doesn't need to be in 5e, and if it IS, that's a PROBLEM.

I honestly agree. The rogue doesn't need 99 ways to kill something. I'd be happy to have a rogue/thief with a decent to hit at high levels. I still maintain giving the rogue less damage and more "status" ailments (like slow to pursuing guards or blind to canny spellcasters) would fit well and give the rogue less of a "dps/damage spike" kick and more of a "tricky and inventive" model. A rogue could be a shadowy lurker, but he can also be a tricky coward using misdirection to avoid blows, or a ninja with blinding powders and stuff.

As an aside, I always thought clerics and rogues should switch combat prowess. Rogues should be slightly better HD (d8), better to hit, etc than a cleric. Clerics already get spells, they didn't need 2nd best HD and combat ability. I'd like to see rogues as the 2nd best combatants in Next, not nearly as good as a fighter, but able to survive traps and scouting solo without the 2nd worst HD and combat.

Ridley's Cohort · Oct 7, 2012

Remathilis said:
As an aside, I always thought clerics and rogues should switch combat prowess. Rogues should be slightly better HD (d8), better to hit, etc than a cleric. Clerics already get spells, they didn't need 2nd best HD and combat ability. I'd like to see rogues as the 2nd best combatants in Next, not nearly as good as a fighter, but able to survive traps and scouting solo without the 2nd worst HD and combat.

What you are describing here sounds very close to a Swashbuckler with access to scouting/trap skills.

Ridley's Cohort · Oct 7, 2012

Manbearcat said:
Oh how I hate the vague and limiting design space of "The Fighter should be the baseline melee combatant. And by baseline I mean dominate while others (Rangers, Barbarians, Paladins, Rogues, Fighter/Mages) merely contribute to melee combat. In order to justify this gross disparity, he shall be rendered (relatively) inept out of combat. So then: Primary protagonist in combat but Sloth (but, hey, he loves Chunk!), out of combat." That is not limiting at all.

Because of that stupid paradigm, we're locked into B.A. Baracus (minus the mechanics acumen) or Fezzic as the only possible Fighter archetype. And thus Rogues cannot be good at melee combat. Horrible. And limiting.

Oh, I agree in spades.

As a practical matter the Rangers, Barbarian, Paladins also earn their bread with fighting competence. It is just not fun to play a brave non-Fighter who is destined to get smacked around.

So even if the designers hold true to this vision of the "dumb fighter" as the archetype, it just does not work. The Fighter may get an "A" in combat and an "F" outside of combat, but the temptation is to give all the Fighter's niche competitors a "A-" in Combat and a "C+" or better outside of combat. It is just never going to be a square deal for the Fighter to start in such a straitjacket.

Bluenose · Oct 7, 2012

Kamikaze Midget said:
Don't get me wrong. The rogue shouldn't be twiddling its thumbs. It can run in and stab and contribute just fine (yaay, bounded accuracy! yaaay, fast combat!).

But while the Fighter has a million and one ways to put a pointy object through the orc, the Rogue does not, really. They've got a few. A handful. Backstabs. Sneak attacks. A quick tumble. Whatever.

But where the rogue shines -- where it has all the options -- is when the combat is over, and there's a dark tunnel up ahead, and the party needs to know what lays down it, without going down it themselves.

So, the combat. Takes perhaps 15-20 minutes, or so people seem to want. Everybody making dice rolls, an accumulation of results that lead to victory or defeat with a chance to turn that around.

Now, the exploration. Takes - how long? Involves - how many people and how many rolls? Opportunities to change the course of the event after the dice are rolled - how many?

If the second situation is resolved in one or two dice rolls, with involvement by only one person, then I think you have a problem.