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

[TheCosmicKid]

As far as dual wielding, well that was pretty de riguer for rogues in 3e when they got to sneak attack with all of their attacks. Dual wielding rogues in 3e got 2 SAs per round while 1 weapon rogues got 1 SA per round. If it was acceptable then, then what's the issue now?

Dual wielding in 3E required a feat investment and carried a -2 penalty to attacks. It was still emphatically worth the cost for rogues, but it wasn't "free" like it is in 5E. Furthermore, I don't think it's acceptable for the mechanics to so strongly lock an entire class into a particular fighting style -- especially a fighting style that's so seldom seen among the roguish characters of fantasy fiction. (I think it's mostly just the Grey Mouser. And even then, his off-hand weapon is a parrying dagger. Seriously, two-weapon fighting in D&D is weird.) So the once-per-turn limitation on Sneak Attack in 5E is a tremendous improvement in that it levels the playing field for two-blade rogues, one-blade rogues, and archer rogues. If we think the methods of getting attacks on other characters' turns to maximize damage feel too gamey, we can change the limitation to once per round. And if we think the damage output is too low, we can increase it. But any rule that makes it so that Robin Hood and Jack Sparrow and Han Solo are idiots for only fighting with one weapon should probably be avoided.

 

[Krachek]

The alpha strike rogue is related to WoW or 4ed rogue.
DnD 5ed rules design are based on three pillars. Combat is one of them.

But rogue is often outshine in many domain.
In damage dealing for sure.
In scouting by Warlock Improved familiar, or simply familiar. Or Druid shape Change and pass without trace.
In social skill rogue will also be outshine by bard.
Rogue don’t have the exclusivity of thieve tools.
And even expertise is not a rogue exclusivity.
Rogue is ok for casual play.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I'm not a min maxer or an optimizer, but I do pay attention to different CharOp type of boards because I find that kind of thing interesting to lurk on. Rogue has never come up as a weak class in 5e as far as I have ever seen, in fact there's a lot of builds that require it. Most of the complaints are pointed squarely at the Ranger for being both underpowered and not really being a good multi-class fit (at the moment).

 

[Wiseblood]

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.

I disagree but lets roll with this anyway.

You want what exactly?

A class that is dex based, outshines all other classes in the single target damage category and is called Rogue. This single taget damage must be "on call" and deployable at any time during contact and/or combat. They can trasition from noncombat into combat while spiking high damage.


Later it seems you want to elimintae surprize (or stealth) altogether beacause it is clunky and has some characters doing nothing while other characters are engaged.

Is that right or did I miss the mark?

 

[Lidgar]

Most rogues excel at exploration. Sure others can fill that niche, but with expertise placed correctly, they are tough to beat.

I tend to build Fighter 5 or Ranger 5, Rogue X, just to get extra attack and a combat style (archery or two weapon fighting). I don't play enough level 10+ to worry about what I miss at levels >15.

 

[happyhermit]

If a player doesn't value the 5e Rogue's "non combat abilities" ie; skills (which are anything but useless in combat IME), then why are they playing a Rogue? With the way backgrounds were implemented along with class/subclass design they could be playing a fighter, monk, ranger, etc. and still be a still be a small r rogue. It kinda sounds like someone saying "I want to buy a Porsche, but with all the utility of a Land Rover, and it shoudn't cost anything or involve any tradeoffs because all that utility isn't going to help me on the racetrack".

 

[5ekyu]

No worries. I was just addressing the OP's concern that there are all these clunky ways to squeeze out a second SA in a round, so why not just embed that into the rules in the first place?

By your response, it is apparent that, in your play, rogues are not squeezing out second or multiple SAs. But there are threads where rogues are getting something like up to 5 SAs per round using RAW, so why not just eliminate all of that hokum and cap it at 2?

As far as dual wielding, well that was pretty de riguer for rogues in 3e when they got to sneak attack with all of their attacks. Dual wielding rogues in 3e got 2 SAs per round while 1 weapon rogues got 1 SA per round. If it was acceptable then, then what's the issue now?

to be fair the 5 Sa per round rogues are iirc correctly using 17th+ level subclasses and on the opening round - where they get an extra turn as a class feature - and then only when they get a reaction attack before their first attack.

In my current game, not yet at those levels and only at tier 2, rogue gets one sneak almost every round, almost every round, and sometimes can get two - but that requires as it always will before extreme levels - enemy cooperation.

Its not producing any sort of damage output problems for the rogue. Far from it.

i can say that replacing that with what would be an almost automatic two-per and drive to TWF would shift the rogue out of whack.

One of the key elements in the results and analysis i feel is that truthfully the rogue and the fighter should have close to the same hit chance.

Yet, we have seen discussions factor in damage output feats for fighters (which give a -5 to hit) and *also* reflect on the odds of hitting for the rogue dropping his damage output down a lot forcing TWf no shield etc... which really seems to me to be inconsistent as far as adversaries go.

 

[5ekyu]

The alpha strike rogue is related to WoW or 4ed rogue.
DnD 5ed rules design are based on three pillars. Combat is one of them.

But rogue is often outshine in many domain.
In damage dealing for sure.
In scouting by Warlock Improved familiar, or simply familiar. Or Druid shape Change and pass without trace.
In social skill rogue will also be outshine by bard.
Rogue don’t have the exclusivity of thieve tools.
And even expertise is not a rogue exclusivity.
Rogue is ok for casual play.

i think you can find almost any class can be outshone is one aspect of their abilities by another class with the right assumptions.
the fact that you listed that many different classes to have to show all the rogues functions being outshone is the key.

No other class outshines the rogue... but some other classes can outshine the rogue in one way while the rogue outshines them in others.

pretty much, each class has a couple different options for strengths worked in together with sub-classes spreading or focusing on them... the key to class balance is that no *one* class overshadows all of another class so the class choice becomes "which group of things do i want to have on my character to be good at?"

 

[cmad1977]

Nope. Non issue.

 

[Hussar]

Rogues are very squishy. The fact they have evasion and bonus dodge does not mean their hp and AC issues go away.

So yes, very unfortunate indeed, agreed.

Wait, what? A rogue will be 1 hp/level behind the fighter. That's not exactly squishy. And with the high dex, he'll be what, 2 points behind in AC? Whoopee.

I'm really, really glad I don't play with people who absolutely need to maximize their optimize. We've had rogues in every campaign we've played and they've all been excellent. No problems at all.

The fact that you think all fighters deal 35+ points of damage/round is probably the big disconnect here. Up to 10th level, probably closer to 20 points/round IME for an average fighter.