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

[ccs]

Why is the rogue described as someone who "would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hurt the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks" when the barrage deals much more damage (at least after level 4)?

Flavor text. ALL classes have it. Always have. Not unique or limited to D&D. Doesn't always line up with actual mechanics.... You need to learn to identify & ignore it.

Why play a rogue in a combat-heavy game, when you're very squishy against the most common danger - physical damage. Sure you can dance out of combat, but then you're risking a miss on your attack, and any round where you don't deliver Sneak damage is a wasted round, given that sneak attack isn't all that impressive.

Why play a rogue in any game with only two or three non-trivial fights a day, when your Action Surges, Rages or Sorcery Points are enough to overshadow the Rogue every time?

Given the type of combat heavy game you've indicated you run, and the fact that you've said that you won't allow the rogue to do anything solo?
Perhaps this question is best directed to you're rogue player.

I mean, presumably they know what type of game & DM they'll be dealing with. So what in the world would draw them to play a character who won't be allowed to make use of certain aspects of their class & is viewed as not being competitive enough in the only metric the group (and worse yet, the DM) deems important: DPR?
What are they gaining out of this?

 

[Ancalagon]

To me, the Rogue class RAW is deficient.

• It is strangely designed to force players to master byzantine and metagamey rules.
• It is subpar when played as part of a team.
• It has weak class-specific "boost paths" - it gets much less out of feats, items and build choices than almost every other class
• It has no burst capability. In return, it seems to be balanced for an adventuring day much much longer than anyone actually experiences

I'm pretty sure you are correct that the rogue is deficient *in your game*. But I'm also pretty sure that it's a *your game* problem, not a problem with the class as a whole. If pretty much everyone says "oh no it's fine"... are you certain that maybe, just maybe, it's not a universal problem?

So to fix your game, I would either increase the sneak attack dice to 1d8, or even 1d10 (2d6 seems like too much IMO), OR give them a burst ability with those extra sneak attack dice. But do whatever you want - it's a *your game* problem after all.

I'll conclude to include that your group has a strange definition of teamwork where the assassin never gets to assassinate because stealth as a group is verboten. I also note that - unless I missed it - you never addressed my comment re combat as war vs combat as ssport.

 

[Guest 6801328]

To answer the question in the title:

Uh....no. Because I don't feel it is "miserly" or "begrudging".

If that Fighter buys all those Feats then he hasn't bought ASIs. By level 8 he might have two feats, but I've got Dex 20 and he's only at 16 or 17 Strength.

Also, feats like Sentinel or Mage-Slayer, in addition to regular AoOs, do increase Rogue damage (way more than for everybody else) because I get to add Sneak Attack.

Third, I don't play Rogue to "win" the DPR meter. (Only true if we're talking about D&D not WoW.)

 

[Tony Vargas]

Flavor text. Doesn't always line up with actual mechanics....
You need to learn to identify & ignore it.

People seemed to have a lot if trouble with that, even when the flavor text was explicitly called out as such and printed in italics.

5e has gone the other way with that. 5e classes are designed from concept up, meaning the flavor text of a class isn't just window-dressing, it's a mission statement. 5e rules are written in natural language, so there's no clear line between those rules and flavor or description mixed in with them.

So what in the world would draw them to play a character who won't be allowed to make use of certain aspects of their class & is viewed as not being competitive enough in the only metric the group (and worse yet, the DM) deems important: DPR?
What are they gaining out of this?

Why play a rogue in any game with only two or three non-trivial fights a day, when your Action Surges, Rages or Sorcery Points are enough to overshadow the Rogue every time?

Character concept. If you want to play a not-that-unusual-in-genre quick/lucky/clever/'cool' (anti-)hero who doesn't depend on supernatural powers and isn't a muscle-bound killing machine, rogue is the obvious choice - Robin-Hood-type Fighter might be a better one, but rogue is obvious.

So what do you think about my suggestions (back in my second post)? Too little, just perfect, or too much?

5e has Empowered you to re-balance the rogue to fit your style, so you're on the right track. IMHO, 1/rnd SA is a good call. The damage seems high, but you know how things are at your table. The Essentials-Thief-style rest-recharge Backstab ability is probably a good idea, maybe put more of the damage boost in that.

 

[Mistwell]

I thought it was really simple, but since you obviously don't want to listen, you managed to not get it anyway. So let me spell it out for you:

The party is a combat monster.

But the rogue isn't.

Our collective hivemind is struggling to come up with strategies for playing a rogue in the context of our game. As somebody stated, the problem with the class is that it depends on the others sitting on their hands and leaving the spotlight on the rogue's solo stealthing.

I won't have it.

I also think the path to decent rogue DPR is completely out of whack for a welcoming and simple game like 5E. Having to set up reactions to gain a second Sneak Attack feels very metagamey and way too complicated for this edition.

Other than that, if you want to leave your feedback on my actual suggestions, I'm all ears. Otherwise I won't comment you further.

I get it. You won't have it. Nothing wrong with that.

So house rule it in your game! If all you are after is making the best house rule to fit your needs for your games, then just say that and we can work with you to figure out your best fix.

But you didn't seem to phrase it that way to start this thread so it's gotten kinda confusing (and you are having to tell people they're not listening, repeatedly now, so it must be frustrating on some level for you as well). You seemed to phrase it as some sort of "Let's get WOTC to fix the rogue" or "pile on with me in feeling sympathy for this problem I am experiencing". Neither of which fosters the goal of "help me come up with a good set of house rules to fix this thing at my table" if that is your actual goal, as well as just stating outright that finding a good houserule is your dominant goal.

So, is that your goal, perfecting a houserule for your table for this issue? 125 posts into this thread, and a meaningful number of us are still not sure what your goal is for this issue. So help us help you.

 

[cmad1977]

For general consumption think you’re ideas here are unnecessary and not well thought out.
Specifically for your game I think they’re fine.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

@CapnZapp, I'm gonna go with..."Nope".

IMHO, Rogues are still too combat oriented. OK. Let me rephrase... "The Rogue 'Class', overall, is still to focused on combat". Now, Assassins...should rawk when they have the advantage (alone, from surprise, attacking an unarmored opponent). Trickster...should not be 'fighting' if at all possible; their shtick should be diversion, conning someone, or confusion of targets. Thief...should suck at fighting, and be really good at avoiding combat in the first place via hiding, sneaking, and such, but should be absolutely awesome at finding traps, removing them, climbing walls, detecting noise, etc.

If I had my way, I'd remodel the 5e Rogue (Thief) to be more like 2e's version and give them only d6 HD like a wizard.

Just goes to show...different people like different things and have different ideas of what a "Thief" should be in D&D I guess.

That said...if I wanted the Rogue to be more of a "Nimble-Stabby-Stab Fighter", I'd just rework some of the Fighter stuff into the Rogue class. Switch out stuff and such. Give the Rogue a higher HD, let him keep Sneak Attack but let him do it anytime he makes a successful Stealth DC check (DC based on, say, opponents Level or HD x some number; and where failure indicates no more Sneak Attack until his next turn and/or any movement), that sort of thing. Switch out the stuff that is "dividing the group" or focusing too much on the Rogue with Fighter stuff of the same 'level'. Then I'd call it an Archtype of the Rogue; maybe "Brigand" or "Bandit" or something.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[5ekyu]

I wonder... If he had a fighter in his game sprnding feats on skill proficiencies or initiate and ritual casting and divvy ability scores around for the "many +2" alongside those built for optimized combat paladin and barbie, would we be responding to his thread about how gimped the fighter class was at what it is supposed to do - put out damage?

Note - nothing wrong with "my extra ASI for skilled" approaches but gotta say, if i knew my gm would cover my choosing to not optimize by house ruling more output into my class... its not bad at all to not optimize.

 

[CapnZapp]

For general consumption think you’re ideas here are unnecessary and not well thought out.
Specifically for your game I think they’re fine.

That they're "unnecessary" to some is very clear, but what do you mean by "not well thought out"?

Do you mean the Rogue becomes too good, expertly played?

Specifically, are you worried two sneaks a round becomes too good? Even though I make you take a feat to gain that?

Do you not value the simplicity in not having to muck about with your reaction to gain the second sneak - instead you getting twice as many sneak dice already from the start?

Or do you have concerns about the "backstab dice"?

I fully admit my suggestions are unpolished - at this stage, they're more discussion material than finished product.

 

[CapnZapp]

Character concept. If you want to play a not-that-unusual-in-genre quick/lucky/clever/'cool' (anti-)hero who doesn't depend on supernatural powers and isn't a muscle-bound killing machine, rogue is the obvious choice - Robin-Hood-type Fighter might be a better one, but rogue is obvious.

Of course the Rogue is obvious.

But I consider it a problem when it doesn't deliver. You're better off calling yourself a "precise striker" or someone that "finds weak spots" and still be a (Dex) fighter.

You lose sneak attack, but you're more than compensated for that with synergies around feats, multiclassing and magic items.

Also, I'm imagining an Assassin mostly just does one mark per day, and certainly only one mark in any given hour. Which makes Action Surge and Second Wind much more useful in murderizing your foe than any incidental "meld into shadows" stuff.