Are rogues marginalized by magic?

[Runestar]

Why even bother with a rogue when you now have the beguiler from PHB2?

This. Sure, a wizard *could* do all those things, but then I'm not summoning the powers of the Abyss while meteor-swarming the battlefield from my flying-point vantage. It didn't take effort on my part to avoid being the rogue---I had better things to do than be the rogue.

Aye. For example, I have my wizard focus on battlefield control rather than direct damage, simply because I see no point in competing with the fighter, who is already capable of providing an endless stream of damage.

I mean, sure - I suppose a kobold cloistered cleric with the kobold domain (gives trapfinding) and persistent find traps (via DMM) could replicate a rogue's core competencies, but it seems like such an inefficiant way of building a cleric....

 

[DM-Rocco]

I suggest you re-read the first post. It actually does ask specifically whether 3.5 rogues are marginalized by spells and not rogues in general across multiple editions of D&D.



Rogues did not even show up as a term until 2e.

Oops, my bad, I overlooked that.

Still, as others pointed out in more detail already, there are plenty of ways for a wizard to detect and disarm traps with magic, even 3.5 magic.

 

[Mort]

Except with the proper scrolls and wands, the rogue can fill in for the wizard as well.

-wally

As I said in my post only temporarily and at great expense (and also completely at the whim of the DM and or the other players). The wizard spends less on items and can easily have the exact items he needs as opposed to trying to find/and or buy them (assuming they are even available).

The footing is not remotely equal.

 

[joethelawyer]

i am glad someone started this thread. i have been hearing snippets of this argument in other threads, and never agreed that thieves (i never refer to them as rogues) are gimped.

in our 3.0/3.5 games, to make it even harder for rogues to shine, i don't allow the flanking = backstab in the middle of combat. i only let thieves backstab at the outset of an encounter, and then only if they get surprise on the enemy. after that, they generally play sniper from the background, out of melee range. also, i do not allow any of the prestige classes, kits, or specialty classes. i only allow the basic classes from the 3.0 phb.

that being said, i never see the magic users outshine the rogue in situations. i as a dm give challenges to all classes in the adventure. if a magic user blows his wad on invisibility and spider climb to the exclusion of web and fireball, the group as a whole is going to be screwed. i design adventures to drain all classes and characters equally of hp, spell slots, healing, and magic item charges.

maybe i run my adventures different from most here. i dont have that 15 minute adventure day problem. i don't allow rests for the night to recharge after 15 minutes of play, and my players know it. they only rest/sleep/memorize spells if they have dont a full 8-12 hour day in. i guess that just comes from my own working class background. if they try to rest sooner, they WILL get jumped by wandering monsters. i dont let them rest until they fight their way out to a place of rest.


one thing i have noticed from official wotc modules these days is that all encounters are meant to challenge a party in combat. the challenge level is close to the characters level. i take a more realistic aproach to stuff. i don't have the monsters progressively get harder to kill as the players get higher in level. sometmes my 10th level players just walk into a room with a single 5 hp orc sitting on a chair eating his dinner. for a challenge like that the magic user can shine with a charm spell to get a rough map of the surrounding area out of the orc. if the magic user memorized and used too many thief type spells, he wont be able to do that.


i think the heart of many people's rogue problems is in 2 parts: first is that the game these days is more focused on combat and they made the rogue more combat oriented, thus having them take on a role they are not suited for,

i think the real bigger problem though is that the thief class is now called rogue. a thief has a guild. a thief has connections in the underworld for sources of information. a thief knows the black market. a thief is a player and can make things happen.

with the focus on social interactions dependent on rolling dice for diplomacy checks rather than taking on the role of a thief with street smarts, and a good dm willing and able to do the same with the npc's, the role of a thief is wasted.

with the focus on combat encounters a thief may as well be given backstab at will during combat, no matter how stupid that is if you actually think about it, just to give him something to do.

 

[joethelawyer]

one thing i forgot to add. magic users were far more powerful in 1st ed ad&d than they are now in 3.0 and 3.5 (don't get me started on the 4e complete gimping of wizards). and in 1 ed thieves didnt even have the BS endless backstab. yet i never heard anyone say that thieves were useless back then. why is that? could it be that this whole theory of class balance is BS? class "roles" like defender and striker is BS? has roll playing replaced role playing? where people in hthe past just liked to play a character like someone they read about in a book like fritz leiber's the grey mouser, and nowadays it is not about that anymore?

i suspect that the people who have a more roleplaying centered game never hear the words "WAAAHHHHHHH! my rogue sucks compred to your Wizard. WAAAHHHHH!

 

[jdrakeh]

one thing i forgot to add. magic users were far more powerful in 1st ed ad&d than they are now in 3.0 and 3.5 . . .

Only at very high levels. At first level, a Magic User could literally be killed by a domestic house cat. Easily. Additionally, armor and weapon restrictions (no longer present in D&D 3x) put Magic Users at a serious disadvantage in combat, even at higher levels. Indeed, the perceived weakness of Magic Users seemed to be (and still is, on some forums) a very commonplace complaint about the system.

As an aside, all of these were attempts at game balance (as were things like demi-human level caps). The argument that game balance is a figment of people's imagination is a pretty weak one, given the mountain of evidence for its existence in BD&D/AD&D. Indeed, the topic of game balance itself is even specifically addressed in AD&D with regard to playing monsters as PCs (the short version is "don't", for those without access to the book).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Somewhat disagree. Casters have the highest potential to usurp other class roles if they purposefully choose to do so, but rogues can usurp them too with wands and scrolls. What's good for one class is good for the other. And of course, magic items can replace ANY role, and...why, what's this, rogues get Use Magic Device?

I think a lot of the "ROGUES ARE USELESS!" comes from those tumor-ridden "intellectual puzzles" that the CharOps board liked to do, where the wizard is apparently the biggest jerk in the world and goes way out of his way to purposefully try and replace other party members. The emphasis on my first sentence is "IF THEY PURPOSEFULLY CHOOSE TO DO SO." No wizard levels up and goes "AWESOME, I CAN CAST KNOCK!"

 

[Hussar]

Based on personal experinced, our rogue's abilities were marginalized by magic (wizard) about as often as our wizard was marginalized by the rogues ability to use magical devices.

The opportunity to be marginalized is there but it takes deliberate effort from both the wizard and the rogue for it to happen enough to be considered a problem.

On the other hand, magic items can marginalize every class. But that shouldn't become a problem if the GM is managing the game properly.

It takes "deliberate effort" to take invisibility? Arcane Eye? Knock?

I would argue that it takes "deliberate effort" to ignore elements that are clearly superior.

But the rules set enables the play style. There is something wrong if 1 class even can marginalize another, whether the player chooses to is really besides the point. And it's a 1 way street; the wizard can take on and or fill in for the rogue if necessary and with proper scrolls/ wands etc. still have plenty of firepower/spellpower to fullfil other functions. The rogue cannot fill the role of the wizard except on a temporary very expensive basis (and even then only if he chose to max UMD).

This.

Except with the proper scrolls and wands, the rogue can fill in for the wizard as well.

-wally

Oh, come on. Let's be serious. It would cost the rogue far and away more to overshadow the wizard than the other way around. Remember, the wizard can MAKE his own stuff, so he's getting everything half price. And, later on, when those low level attack spells lose out to the high level ones, he can switch out his slots for those spells which overshadow the rogue.

one thing i forgot to add. magic users were far more powerful in 1st ed ad&d than they are now in 3.0 and 3.5 (don't get me started on the 4e complete gimping of wizards). and in 1 ed thieves didnt even have the BS endless backstab. yet i never heard anyone say that thieves were useless back then. why is that? could it be that this whole theory of class balance is BS? class "roles" like defender and striker is BS? has roll playing replaced role playing? where people in hthe past just liked to play a character like someone they read about in a book like fritz leiber's the grey mouser, and nowadays it is not about that anymore?

i suspect that the people who have a more roleplaying centered game never hear the words "WAAAHHHHHHH! my rogue sucks compred to your Wizard. WAAAHHHHH!

You never heard this in 1e? I suggest you go back and read Dragon. Particularly some of the early issues. Loads are Agony Aunt style letters in the Forum, across editions and across years.

-------

Funny. According to this poll, by a margin of 3:1, people see a problem. Not that the problem can't be overcome, not that a group can't work around it, just acknowledging that there is a problem. Which is all that's being asked really.

 

[Remathilis]

Somewhat disagree. Casters have the highest potential to usurp other class roles if they purposefully choose to do so, but rogues can usurp them too with wands and scrolls. What's good for one class is good for the other. And of course, magic items can replace ANY role, and...why, what's this, rogues get Use Magic Device?

I think a lot of the "ROGUES ARE USELESS!" comes from those tumor-ridden "intellectual puzzles" that the CharOps board liked to do, where the wizard is apparently the biggest jerk in the world and goes way out of his way to purposefully try and replace other party members. The emphasis on my first sentence is "IF THEY PURPOSEFULLY CHOOSE TO DO SO." No wizard levels up and goes "AWESOME, I CAN CAST KNOCK!"

Nope. Mine came from experience. My handle here is my longest-played character: an elven thief (2e) gone rogue (3.5) who played in a group that for a long time consisted of 3 wizards, a fighter, and me.

First and foremost, a few clarifications.

The marginalization doesn't begin until 10th level. Before 10th, rogue still shine as a viable character choice. Its 10th+ that rogues begin to loose luster. It start right around the time second-levels spells become trivial: casters aren't relying on those spells slots for Acid Arrow or Hideous Laughter, since the damage or save DC is too low to reasonably affect most CR equal opponents. Its also when most PrC bound Wizards are doing their thing, and their int scores begin to push up toward the point they have a reasonably large selection of skill points (depending on ability score-method, we used 4d6, so most mages had 16+ at start).

Once 2nd level spell slots (and first, barring magic missile) are freed, you have lots of options to start expanding into utility magic. When scorching ray is your primary damage spell, blowing a spell slot on knock is worthless. When it doesn't do enough damage to worry about, knock is a very good substitute spell-slot. This, coupled with the "no brainer" spells of higher level (dim door, greater invis, fly) still leave most wizards a good selection of spell slots still open to blow on fireball, cone of cold, blast of flame, etc.

(aside: if wizards are wasting spell slots they could be using on Acid Arrow on spells like knock, doesn't that reduce wizards to just combat magic?)

Once this happens, its a slow burn toward inevitability. Your damage potential of sneak-attack is mitigated by your overall squishiness (second only to the mage, without the benefit of stoneskin) and spells and magic items slowly replace skill checks for all but the most mundane uses.

The rogue gets caught in between: unable to offer much in combat (unless built monster-style for max SA/round) and increasingly losing much of his use outside combat.

There is one flaw in the argument though: rogues shine always in trapfinding. However, unless your DM is trap-heavy and makes many traps impossible to circumvent, their area of expertise is dubious. If your not a dungeon-heavy DM, its worse since most wizards get better chances to rest outside dungeon scenarios and the team is less dependent on sneak/recon/trapfind than they are on buff/scry/teleport.

Use Magic Device? Its the classic "If you can't beat 'em" argument. My rogue lacked UMD, it wasn't in his character (and he had three mages hogging the scroll/staff/wand list). However, I think its telling that the argument to rogue's inherent imbalance against magic is "well, then they should use magic".

If you never play past 12th level, or you have tight reins on your wizard, YMMV. However, I'm glad to see I'm not alone in arguing that magic as it was written in 1e-3.5 did a good job of replacing the skill system and trampling the rogue. Each edition did better than the last, and I'm not sure 4e got it right (time will tell).

Is it magic? Is it high-level (melee warriors seem to get edged out too, in favor of fight-ending superspells)? Who knows. But the phenomenon is real, and it doesn't require a dedicated wizard blowing his spell selections on knock and spider climb, it requires a high-level wizard who needs to fill those low-level slots with something useful when 1st and 2nd level attack magic doesn't cut it...

 

[Henry]

I'm in the "somewhat agree" column - I've seen rogues get marginalized in all but ONE area - Stealth, and only if they max those Hide and Move silently scores with lots of feats, synergies, and magic items. I've seen a 15th level rogue with about a +40 to his stealth skills, and he'd vanish from the battlefield.

But Pick lock? Let the wizard do it, he's got about a half dozen knock spells on scroll, and the fighter has an adamantine greataxe if he can't do it. Find traps? Cleric's got either a wand or scroll of that which he made, and it's still got a few dozen charges left, because what DM puts a trap every 10 feet of corridor any more? Climb? Rogue's got his own fly potions, or slippers of spider climbing, for that. In fact, thanks to superior invisibility, the rogue wouldn't normally bother with hide and move silent, except that they defeat magical means of detection (see invisibility and true seeing). Only thing that can defeat a good hide score -- is another rogue with a maxxed out spot score.

There are blanket anti-magic measures like anti-magic shells and dispel magic. There is no "anti-skill shell" or "dispel skill". And while there were once rogue-screwers like lock-lurkers and ear-seekers, in retrospect these were bad ideas. But creatures that dampen, feed off of, or are immune to magic are still legion.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with anti-magic is that if over-used, it ticks off EVERYONE, not just the wizards and clerics. Even the Rogue is upset because he's losing a lot of his bonuses, too. And if used sparingly as intended, it means those skills are only useful sparingly. Honestly, even if one depends on the limited number of times per day a wizard or cleric could cast their spells, how many times per day do you need that utility? There's likely not going to be a dozen locks to pick in any given game day, or more than a half dozen traps to find, etc. If there are, we're going well outside the usual "four encounters per day."

I'm certainly not saying you don't see problems, but I definitely have with high level rogues (say, over 10th level).