Anyone else tired of the miserly begrudging Rogue design of 5E?

[Ilbranteloth]

The design of the 5E Rogue class is not generous.

In games without feats, and where every adventure day is 8 encounters long, then maybe, just maybe, can the Rogue hold his own in the combat department.

But in games with feats the fighter get upwards of 35 or more damage a round, along with a host of other tricks. That's 10d6! There is no feat to meaningfully increase sneak attack damage.

And in games where the Sorcerer can cast a Fireball together with two Firebolts each combat (for something like 8d6+3d10+3d10+10 damage) the Rogue's so-called "alpha strike" looks just sad.

But the design is not only too stingy with damage. It is poor and counter-intuitive. There is no burst/nova capability. Correct play requires absolute system mastery, to gain two sneak attacks in as many rounds as humanly possible. The Assassinate ability is just mean to the Rogue player, enclosed in so many requirements it basically never happens in games where the party consensus is that solo raids are boring for the rest of the players; much more fun if everybody joins in to the combat simultaneously!

Sure the Rogue has its uses outside of combat, but let's be honest - D&D is a combat-heavy game, and there needs to be a straightforward way to build a Rogue that is competitive in combat.

In my 35+ years of D&D it has been anything but a combat heavy game. I’d say it has generally been 80% exploration (including social interaction which varies a lot depending on circumstances and scenario), 20% combat.

I realize that for folks that started in 3e or especially 4e that combat plays a much bigger role. But that has never really been the case for us.

Rogues are (and have always) been among our most common character classes, along with fighters, rangers and bards. It’s quite common for us to have at least two bards and two rogues. In fact, at this point right now, all of the players have three characters each and we have no wizards, clerics, barbarians, druids, monks, or warlocks at all.

 

[Hussar]

In my 35+ years of D&D it has been anything but a combat heavy game. I’d say it has generally been 80% exploration (including social interaction which varies a lot depending on circumstances and scenario), 20% combat.

I realize that for folks that started in 3e or especially 4e that combat plays a much bigger role. But that has never really been the case for us.

Rogues are (and have always) been among our most common character classes, along with fighters, rangers and bards. It’s quite common for us to have at least two bards and two rogues. In fact, at this point right now, all of the players have three characters each and we have no wizards, clerics, barbarians, druids, monks, or warlocks at all.

This really, REALLY has nothing to do with when you started playing. Honest. Look at all those 1e modules. Towers of orcs for killing. Combat has ALWAYS been a huge part of the game. Maybe not for you, but, please, try not to project your experience onto others.

 

[jgsugden]

In my 35+ years of D&D it has been anything but a combat heavy game...

Whippersnapper, I've been playing for nearly 39 years, and I will confirm the opposite: Combat has always been an essential and substantial part of the game. Balance between the classes was historically far less of an issue, and characters had more ways to shine in their roles, but it always was felt when a character was incapable of competing with their allies on the battlefield.

That is not to say that every player cared that much about what they felt, but they did feel it. And *most* players cared about it, in my experience.

5E would have been better if the rogue had a little bump in power to make them competitive. There are a lot of ways to get there, and is is far from strictly necessary, but it would be an improvement.

 

[CapnZapp]

5E would have been better if the rogue had a little bump in power to make them competitive. There are a lot of ways to get there, and is is far from strictly necessary, but it would be an improvement.

Thank you.

All of you arguing the Rogue is fine because there's little combat in your games...

Since combat is not paramount in your games, your games would not break by giving the Rogue some extra DPR oomph.

And since that would unbreak my Rogue, the conclusion is clear: a more generous Rogue design would benefit everybody

(Again, since I'm talking games with "all options on", the one argument I will concede is that any such bump probably should rely on feats or multiclassing, so it remains unavailable for "options off" games)

 

[CapnZapp]

Again, since I'm talking games with "all options on", the one argument I will concede is that any such bump probably should rely on feats or multiclassing, so it remains unavailable for "options off" games

While I believe a feat that doubles the sneak dice of a Rogue would not be imbalanced, it is of course much too much of a feat tax.

That is why my suggestion change the base class, even though I already in my first posts said the "options off" rogue probably doesn't need any help.

It is also why I changed "once a turn" into "once a round". For the "options off" game the total output remains unchanged.

It also allows the "you may sneak attack once a turn" feat, which feels much less like a feat tax (than a "double sneak dice" feat) even though it's key to actually increasing Rogue DPR.

 

[Hussar]

Why are you concerned about other tables? No one else, apparently, is having this issue. Or at least, very, very few people are.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...And since that would unbreak my Rogue, the conclusion is clear: a more generous Rogue design would benefit everybody

No. What you mean when you say "a more generous rogue design" would absolutely not benefit everybody - there are those for whom your proposition would cause an issue if we were to implement it.

Which is why you should stop trying to "benefit everybody" and focus on benefiting your own table; You are experiencing a problem, you fix it - and stop telling other people they need your fix too like the fix somehow won't work for you if other people don't need to use it too.

 

[CapnZapp]

So you have survivability closer to a Fighter or Barbarian.

The player chose to prioritise Int over Con because they wanted to play someone who was intelligent, but not as tough. Presumably for the same reason that they chose to actually play a Rogue rather than a Fighter with a criminal background. As soon as the DM mentioned that their style was going to disadvantage the Rogue compared to purely combat-focused, resource-based classes, that would be a definite option for someone wanting to shine more in combat compared to out of combat.
As it is, the player went ahead and made the choice to play a less-combat-focused class, and assign abilities in a less combat-focused distribution.

Yes. Exactly. The Rogue does sacrifice pure combat capability for pure out of combat capability.
Just like the Fighter sacrifices out of combat capability for combat capability.
Choosing to be best at something involves choosing other things that you won't be best in.

I'd suggest you have a chat with your player. It sounds like they are unhappy about their low performance in combat and don't view their choice to be good at out of combat things to be worth the trade-off. Thus would rather play a more combat-focused character. It shouldn't be too hard to remake the character as a Dex-fighter with superior combat capability.

Your words, not mine.
Specifically, it was important to know how the player prioritised their choices: you don't want to invalidate their character creation decisions by undoing the trade-offs that they wanted to make.

Now, your suggestions (This is the bit you're probably inrerested in [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]) would increase sneak attack damage by 14 points at the current level. Plus the backstab dice which I'm going to arbitrarily guess at averaging an extra 5 pts/round. (4 or 5 d6 at 9th level, split into only 1 or 2 combats per short rest, but often used on crits.)
With nothing stated to the contrary, we'll use basic 5e assumptions: The Fighter and Barbarian are probably using weapons that average a few points higher than the Rogue's and have two attacks. GWM is worth up to +5 damage on each of those attacks. Everyone has +5 ability bonus.

Rogue damage per round would be around 46 (d8 +5 +9d6 +5). 50 if they dual-wield as would be optional. Getting additional attacks in from reactions would be highly useful with these changes, but we'll assume that they benefit the other classes as much.
Fighter DPR is going to be (2d6 + 5 +5 +5) x 2 or around 44. Chances to hit should be about the same.

So: it kinda depends upon whether you regard the Rogue dominating the combat as well as out-of-combat situations is what you're aiming for. I'm guessing that it'll make the Rogue player happy. How the players who actually build their characters for the purpose of combat will feel about it, only you can tell.

Good call adding a mention.

Thank you for coming up with these 46 vs 44 numbers. They tell me my suggestions aren't far off the mark.

The point is, the Rogue's particulars scream for it to be a glass cannon. It should be able to make alpha strikes like no other class in order to justify it being squishy and have no magical tricks up its sleeve.

Ideally the Rogue class design is remade entirely, and a clear demarcation is done between ranged and melee builds. At range, the ability to sneak and hide is a clear advantage, and I wouldn't want to add an alpha strike to that class.

But in melee, where the bonus action is needed to dual-wield, and where you can't escape the monsters and can't easily hide, it's another story.

So thanks. Overall the simplification of the sneak dice (one full helping instead of two half helings) seems to do the trick.

By your feedback, I'd say the "backstab" ability needs a bit of a boost, but making it melee or thrown weapons only.


Regards
Zapp

PS. Why are you okay with the Rogue out of all classes lacking a combat-focused build?

All the other classes (to my knowledge) can be built for combat. Party-focused combat even (that is, disregarding the "the Rogue does perform well in combat, assuming it gets to sneak around on its own" argument).

Most complaints (that I've seen around here) are directed towards beastmaster ranger, four elements monk and sorcerer. But it turns out ranger multiclasses excellently with fighter, the beastmaster is the sole class WotC have conceded needs an upgrade, you can choose another monk subclass, and as long as you choose red draconic the sorcerer does splendidly (and in fact rises to the DPR top on any short adventure day, converting most low-level slots to sorcery points to twin or quicken spells or even both in the same round).

But the Rogue is expected to work its ass off, and for what? Byzantinely scrounging a second sneak out of it? That's not good enough - that level of play expertise plays off much better with any other class.

Even if I buy your numbers right off the bat, the thing is, no class as squishy as a Rogue will "dominate" combat with a mere 2 points advantage over the sturdy Fighter. What it does imo is just barely justify why any party would invite a rogue - sure it's squishy, but at least it now pulls its own weight (dealing competitive damage), and it's useful to bring along for hidden traps and treasure.

It is, after all, "just" a martial. Imo all martials need to do well in combat, since they don't have nearly the same amount of doodad magics as the full casters.

 

[CapnZapp]

OK. This is the bit that you're interested in [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION].If you want to make the Rogue simpler and allow a rogue whose player optimises at a similar level to where your other players are to do a similar amount of damage, then I have a suggestion:
Remove the round/turn limitation of Sneak attack completely. No fiddling with extra dice or short-rest replenishing pools. The Rogue simply gets to deal sneak attack on every hit that qualifies.
At base that allows a dual-wielding rogue to deal sneak attack twice. Plus it allows a feat taken and/or DM fiat to get an additional sneak attack as a reaction. And finally it provides a good incentive for the sorceror to buff their own damage by providing the Rogue with haste or similar spells rather than just the heavy melee types.

But doesn't this make the base Rogue too good?

Now its damage is doubled (or tripled or even more: Rogue with Action Surge FTW!) even in games where the fighters have no feats.

My suggestions aren't that simple, granted, but for a reason: to gate the improvements behind a feat (so that only those Rogues that compete with feat-fighters* can unlock them).

*as opposed to foo-fighters

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Do you feel the ''sneak-y attacker'' feel with only one attack that may/may not deal a bunch of damage should be kept at all price? Because I have the feeling that the ''rogue'' may be built on the ranger chassis as a stealthy martial option who deal damage through multi-attacks, but instead of spells and a nature feel, you get cunning actions and an urban/dungeon feel. I'd go back to the old Backstab multiplier on first round of combat to add a big damage spike then rely on multi-attacks for the damage. Add a melee heavy option that works like the hunter ranger, a marksman archetype (I usually refluff the gun artificer), an assassin with extra backstap multiplier and illusion spells on Cunning Action x/long rest and an arcane trickster that can actually steal spells and backstap with attack spells.