D&D 5E Reliable Talent. What the what?

I think that is the underlying problem here.
People expect realism in a setting that is high fantasy and intended to portray awsome stories - not so much the daily grind and this paradigm gets even more relevant the higher the level goes.
It is not the fault of the rogue or his talents to be good. It may be your fault that you intend to challenge such a guy with the most mundane task.
It is like the LotR movies. If you expect to challenge Legolas with an acrobatics check to see if he can balance on some narrow thing you may be out of scope of what that character is capable off. That dude is surfing on shields down some stairs while he shoots and kills some big baddies.
Reliable does not make him better at the actual interesting stuff, it just makes him better at the stuff you may not even roll for anymore at this point of his career.

Aside of realism, the other problem is "balance". People expect DnD5e to be some sort of MMO where every class is just as good as the other on the same level. This is fundamentally - and by design - not true. Some classes start slow and get insane later (traditionally full casters) and some may peak at certain levels for they get stuff that really defines them. For the rouge that is reliable. Skill checks are by far the most mundane yet also the WEAKEST way to interact with the DnD world outside of just narrative interaction. You can not "force" a roll like you could most times with just initiating combat and you not "break" reality as you could with a spell and literally achieve ANYTHING as long as you convince the DM. Skill checks are grounded in the mundane and can only do so much while they also rely on the DM more heavily than "premade" stuff like monsters unless you play in a heavily home brewed environment. A character that pretty much relies on these for that is the concept of the class gets - reliable - at them. That is not removing drama, that is just reducing tedious mishaps at that point. Do we actually need to derail the campaign that the super humanly gifted guy rolled a 1 one just so happens to not get the DC after spending 10 levels in that profession and god knows how many "guard notices you, gets sliced, skip and continue" moments?
How does the story benefit from that? If he wants to be a notorious thieve that steals from the less privileged for a low but steady income - so be it.
If he wants to target bigger fish and automatically sneaks past some regular guard - so be it.

I may have missed it, but there are not many master thieves in literature that fail a low risk heist because of their own incompetence at the first obstacle they encounter. Mostly because that misses the point of the master thieve and an interesting story in the first place. For that you had 10 levels before he got reliable.

5ekyu said:

Color me and likely others as not surprised you have a thing against rogue class itself.


But from my experience, it has not been the rogue that created most of the issues of concern in most any game i ran.

Lack of spells, moderately squishy, etc... Great multipurpose and sometime a good damage dealer or better, but not the headache guy.

But each GM runs different games so... Its all your butter pecan.

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I'll color you wrong. Most of the mechanics I feel are disruptive are in the rogue class, yes, but I actually like the class overall. My players don't engage in abuses of those mechanics, so it's more of a design issue for me, which I engage with by discussion on these boards, not in my games.

My houserule list is very short. It has the disadvantage rule with relation to reliable talent i posted above, but, again, with the way I run disadvantage is usually applied because of player chosen approach, so that's a lever the players pull, not me. It has an option for SS to take +1 DEX instead of the +5/-10. That's it.

Now, my campaign has some setting specific rules that are meant to evoke a certain feel, but they aren't general hosuerules. It's exploration focused, so it has some changes to resting (which are minor and mostly revolve around no full healing on long rests, only use of hitdice) and a new magic item ruleset that fits the narrative of the game (magic items are personal and invested, not treasure).

So, no, you're completely wrong that I dislike the rogue class. The few design issues I have with 5e seem to congregate around the class, but it's nowhere near bad enough for me to even houserule them.

Stalker0 said:

Ultimately your right that stealing from a village is trivial for a 12th level rogue.

The counterpoint is that it’s supposed to be. The challenges these characters face is simply greater than lower level counterparts.

This rogue steals from the king, or a grand merchant in the city of brass.

To your question of...where’s the drama? The answer is...the things he is doing are not meant to be dramatic at that point.

If your thief really wants to steal from every village and be an evil douche...ok. Give him his 100 gold or whatever makes sense and then get back to the real adventure. And at some point he’ll be notorious and a high level bounty hunter will be sent to get him...and then there will be actual 12th level drama.

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Right, but it's not trivial for an 11th level rogue -- it's actually pretty much guaranteed to fail given the statistics involved. My "problem" is that the switch is sudden and not readily apparent from an early reading.

FieserMoep said:

The solution killing that militia is using a bow. I know, many fighters frown on that, but just "spamming" arrows will thin the herd substantially.
If knights run around with your militia one might have to use his fighter features actually.
If you just "start" combat with standing in the middle of 15 guys alone - you are doing it wrong on so many levels.

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Right, because no militia force carries crossbows.

As for the Wizard, Mass Suggestion is the key. And you don't even have to use it on everyone. Just the people that actually have a say in their family is enough more often than not.

And from there they just get better.

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Right, 24 people maximum effected, of which around 3-4 will save. That village is just putty in your magical hands.

Usually, you see people complaining about how good magic is. Strangely, you seem to be overestimating it's effectiveness.

Militia with Crossbows? Even more loot!
I am fine with that. Let me spray 3 arrows per turn while I have cover, am prepared and they came on the street.
God forbid they ever come into Javelin range.

As for 24 people in charge, which is quite the decent number for a village, you just pick one of your other spells to take them out. Just blow Suggestion in their face and they are happy to hand you all their wealth. If you actually need it written down how this works with a turn counter, I can do that too. But I think this is getting a bit silly now? And not argue "but then you are using more than just the 6th spell slot", true, but so is a Rogue with his expertise.

Charlaquin said:

And so is taking 10, right next to where it say the DM can ask for a passive Skill check instead of a roll.

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We read how passive checks are to be used differently. And that's fine.

No, 3rd tier of the character’s adventuring career. 1st tier is 1st-4th level, 2nd-tier is 5th-10th level, 3rd tier is 11th-15th, and 4th tier is 16th-20th. These are notably the points when classes pick up major game-changing features like extra attacks, and the points where, if you analyze the experience table and the encounter building guidelines, you find significant slowdowns in level progression.

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Ah, that was unclear from your formulation. However, to go along with that, the rogue cannot perform that way at 11th, which is tier 3. Then, suddenly, at 12th, they can.

I assume that rolls with a base 50% chance of success will probably be succeeded at, yes. Because players have lots of ways to improve on that base 50%. Bless, Bardic Inspiration, etc. plus 50% chance success rate is the sweet spot for getting the most value out of Advantage. And, again, passive checks are a thing.

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Again, you have a high failure rate in your game, statistically. Assuming a 50/50 shot is reliably passed is madness. You've set up your baseline for 'easy' as requiring additional resources to accomplish. Nothing wrong with having your games set at a higher difficulty setting, but you shouldn't fool yourself into believing that it's not.

You say that like Reliable Talent is a problem for most DMs.

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Quote me saying this, please.

Yet, as you pointed out in the opening post, it made it through playtesting to be printed in the book. It never even occurred to me that it might be a problem because during up your chance of success on rolls with 50% or better odds without improving the maximum DC you can succeed at is pretty tame in my opinion, and a good chunk of the tasks that would potentially benefit from it wouldn’t even be rolled for at my table anyway.

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Um, no, because, by definition, half of those checks fail. What you're confusing for the difficulty of the class is how your players have adopted to your strange idea of probably by throwing more resources to increase their odds at success because you've set the bar for normal too high.

And, with that said, do you not notice that difference between 'I need to use guidance and some bardic inspiration to make this 50/50 shot likely to succeed" and "i have reliable skill now so I don't need to use guidance and bardic inspiration on that check"?

It seems like this is mostly a You problem, and like you’ve got a you solution, so at this point I’m not sure what we’re even still discussing.

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Because it's a bad design feature -- it's sudden and radically redefines what challenges the rogue. This would be acceptable if all classes had such a break near the same level, but none of the other classes do. None of the other classes entirely remove a common obstacle via a class ability in this manner -- if I could challenge a fighter at 11th with a creature, then at 12th that creature is still a challenge, even if less of one. Reliable Talent pretty much removes a huge swath of previously effective challenges. And, even if you persist in your assumption that 50/50 is probably successful due to other resource expenditure (or retries), then it should still be apparent to you that the ability removes the need for the additional resources or retries, which alters how those challenges work in your game.

Having a solution to this issue in my game doesn't remove the issue from the game, nor does it obviate the usefulness of clearly identifying the issue and discussing it so that others can evaluate it for themselves and adopt (or not) a solution for themselves. Again, the idea that a problem might be locally removed for you doesn't mean it's not worth discussing, if only to get a better grasp on how others play the game. You're limiting your ability to learn if you try to shut down discussion.

FieserMoep said:

Militia with Crossbows? Even more loot!
I am fine with that. Let me spray 3 arrows per turn while I have cover, am prepared and they came on the street.

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Ah, so you get to determine it's an ambush, you have a prepared position, and they're stupid.

Well, when the next group shows up, you weren't expecting them, they have prepared positions, and you're stuck in the open with your pants around your ankles for your morning constitutional. Isn't it fun to set up the conditions that best suit your argument?

God forbid they ever come into Javelin range.

As for 24 people in charge, which is quite the decent number for a village, you just pick one of your other spells to take them out. Just blow Suggestion in their face and they are happy to hand you all their wealth. If you actually need it written down how this works with a turn counter, I can do that too. But I think this is getting a bit silly now? And not argue "but then you are using more than just the 6th spell slot", true, but so is a Rogue with his expertise.

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Haven't made that argument at all -- in fact, the argument I made used all the spell slots on charm, which has a better net effect on the village. When the guy in charge says 'hey, give that guy all of your money' and you aren't charmed/suggested, what are you going to do? You, again, assume that because you can suggest 20 or so villagers give you money that everyone else will let them.

Then we get to the part where you start blowing up the resisters. Now we're were we are with the fighter, I assume, where all the villagers line up in the market square for maximum effectiveness of fireball? Or that the wizard is actually in a much worse position vs the militia that doesn't line up in fireball formation. The crossbows at that point are devastating.

No, the rogue who manages with no one noticing until he's gone definitely does this better. But, then, the rogue archetype is built on thievery. Fighters and wizards do other things better.

Uhm, how can a fighter in a village that he had slaughtered and is expecting people to check in not prepare an ambush?
Okay, ignorance is an answer to that but otherwise you must force people to play their PC like an imbecile.

As for getting that village, just suggest the adult males that have a say. With the suggestion in mind they will do what they have to and act like they normally do when they want to do something and someone else is stopping them. I would guess not all of them would consult their wifes and children for a democratic vote on financial matters.
I imagine not many wifes stopping their men after they go away like drones doing the very same activity after the guy in robes with a stick in his hand told them to do so.

But if you your world consists of fully democratic, emancipated harvesting communities - I guess it is high fantasy after all - then just cast greater invisibility, slit their throats without any danger of detection and take your time when you loot them.
Lets forget the nice approach of letting them live and use the mean toys of a wizard. Do we want that now? Because that is the question the people not suggested have to ask themselves if a wizard is waltzing into their village.

Just saying, some warlock on level 15 will have unlimited uses of invisibility. And then greater invisibility is always a tasty option.
What do we even need Rogues for? Cast Darkness for 10 minutes and go ham in that village!

cthulhu42 said:

Resource expenditure is resource expenditure. I'm not asking them to equal out. It just seems like any given ability ought to either have a cost that limits its use, or a chance (even a very small one) to fail.

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Just because the character isn't expending a resource limited in per day uses doesn't mean no resource has been expended. The number of skills you can choose to have expertise apply to is a resource. Using ASIs to boost your skill-influencing stats is a resource.

The rogue in question appears to be using several resources:
*Assuming a 20 Dex, an ASI was probably used to get the stat that high.
*When the skill is one that has expertise, one of the expertise slots has been used up by the skill in question.
*And, as others have mentioned, Reliable Talent itself consumes the resource of the class feature that would be gained at that level.

The reason this seems to be overpowered for some is, that skills are extremely straight forward. You pretty much always do the very same thing with that.
Spells may not be that straight forward yet with minimal creativity they can achieve so much more than any skill could hope for.
If you never had a creative caster as PC you might overestimate how good reliable is, yet how outclassed it can be compared to other thing it is.

A rouge still cant go undetected in plain sight in the middle of the day. A caster can.

And as Mecha has put it clearly, resource was spend to get to that point. It is just a passive.