D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor - Subclasses (Part XII: Rogues)

[CleverNickName]

I'm on Team Swashbuckler because one of my players has chosen it as their subclass. (shrug) The whole premise for the class is "you don't get to make Opportunity Attacks against me" and "I always get to spam Sneak Attack every round, no matter what." And you get both of those abilities as soon as you pick up the subclass and they don't scale with level--so it's a popular choice for multiclassing. Especially Fighter/Rogue builds.

My other "darling" in this round is the Thief subclass, because it does everything that a classic D&D Thief build should do. Choose Halfling as your starting race, pick up the Dungeon Delver feat at 4th level, and you're a storybook legend in the making. No multiclassing needed.

 

[CleverNickName]

The first 5E Rogue that I rolled up was an Arcane Trickster. I liked the idea of being able to open locks, pick pockets, and disarm traps at range.

It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice? I can count on one hand the number of times I actually used it, and even when it worked perfectly, it wasn't particularly exciting. I could do something from across the room that anyone else could do from 5 feet away, sure. But that range almost never mattered. A floating invisible hand is pretty cool in comic books. but I thought it was pretty dull at the table.

The character ended up getting snuffed by a clutch of wyverns at 8th level, and I decided to leave him in the afterlife. I rolled up a...sorcerer? I think? after that, and never went back to rogue. In hindsight, I would have chosen to play a Thief with the Magic Initiate feat instead.

 

[Undrave]

Like I said, if you're doing the Assassin by jumping people in an alley (or even just having a "fair fight"), I don't think that's the way it's meant to be played. The Assassin is about a complete surprise attack from a rooftop across the market square, the target not even aware they have been targeted, the contract sealed in back alleys with no word leaking to anyone. That's the Assassin's key moment. She initiates combat (by attacking first), gets surprise (so her target cannot even react), hits before they go (so it's a critical), adds Sneak Attack (because she had advantage since her target was unaware of the attack), and hopefully thought to poison the crossbow bolt (so double crossbow dice, double Sneak Attack dice, and double poison dice).

Which is cool but not super conductive to team based play styles.

 

[RealAlHazred]

Which is cool but not super conductive to team based play styles.

Fair point. Great for solo play, though!

 

[Lycurgon]

Like I said, if you're doing the Assassin by jumping people in an alley (or even just having a "fair fight"), I don't think that's the way it's meant to be played. The Assassin is about a complete surprise attack from a rooftop across the market square, the target not even aware they have been targeted, the contract sealed in back alleys with no word leaking to anyone. That's the Assassin's key moment. She initiates combat (by attacking first), gets surprise (so her target cannot even react), hits before they go (so it's a critical), adds Sneak Attack (because she had advantage since her target was unaware of the attack), and hopefully thought to poison the crossbow bolt (so double crossbow dice, double Sneak Attack dice, and double poison dice).

If you want to do the Assassin's Creed thing, and hide in the brush, jumping out to stab your target and then jumping back into hiding, that's more a Scout thing. If you want to jump out, stab your target, and then fight the guards, that's a Swashbuckler for you.

As Undrave has already pointed out, this doesn't normally work well with a party of Adventurers you are running around with. Solo play is pretty rare and not the way the game was designed to be played. And that strategy also relies on winning initiative, which you might better at then your target, being a Dex primary character, but it always comes down to luck. If you don't win initiative you don't get Advantage and have a much greater chance to miss. After that first attack, if the target isn't dead (because the have more HP than you dealt, or you didn't hit) you are back to being a straight Rogue without any subclass benefits to help you in combat unless you are 17th level or more. And if you are fighting more than one opponent (a really common occurrence in most games) your Subclass only helps with the first one you attack.

The Assassin works (if luck isn't against you) as a solo operative against one target that you have taken a contract to kill. Which isn't common in D&D games. It doesn't work well in your everyday standard style of game.

 

[DND_Reborn]

It doesn't work well in your everyday standard style of game.

Respectfully, I have to disagree and please understand I am simply offering my own view point from my experiences.

An assassin makes an fantastic scout, able to take out a sentry without triggering a general alarm. They work especially well when multiclassed. Combined with the use of poison as well, I've seen two assassins played as part of a "standard" party and they were effective, contributing via expertise outside of combat, too.

To be clear, I do think they could be a bit better designed, but overall they work well IMO. You do have to play to their strengths to get the most out of them, but that is true of many subclasses.

In our new game, one of the players is playing an Assassin and I think he'll find it enjoyable for what it can do.

 

[humble minion]

While I think the Rogue is generally a well designed class that does what it is designed to do well, the one think I don't like is the big gap between getting the level 3 subclass features and the 9 level features. That is often a lot of game play without getting more subclass flavour adding to the class.

Plus, a lot of subclasses suffer from weak or rarely-applicable level 9 abilities, so once you finally get there, it's pretty underwhelming. The assassin and the mastermind in particular. And on the other hand there's the Phantom who has to wait all the way to 9th level to even get access to their signature ability.

 

[CleverNickName]

Sell me on the Inquisitive subclass. Has anyone played it? What's it good at? What role does it fill?

 

[DeviousQuail]

Sell me on the Inquisitive subclass. Has anyone played it? What's it good at? What role does it fill?

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If you want to play a Sherlock Holmes type character without magic I guess this is the subclass for it. I've never seen one in play but the level 3 features seem fine. Toss expertise on Insight, put a 12+ in Wisdom, and at level 3 your insight rolls are a minimum of 12 or higher. Now you can use your insightful fighting ability with a high chance of success. Steady Eye at level 9 is certainly a feature. Unerring Eye at level 13, imo, seems like it would be better as a passive feature that illusions, shapechangers, and magical deceptions roll against instead of being a guessing game for the player. Eye for Weakness at level 17 is just a straight numbers boost but that's fine considering what the Inquisitive has so far received. It comes across as a very niche subclass and reminds me of the PHB ranger. It has areas that it can really excel at but doesn't feel particularly special on a day to day basis.

 

[Argyle King]

The first 5E Rogue that I rolled up was an Arcane Trickster. I liked the idea of being able to open locks, pick pockets, and disarm traps at range.

It's a nice idea in theory, but in practice? I can count on one hand the number of times I actually used it, and even when it worked perfectly, it wasn't particularly exciting. I could do something from across the room that anyone else could do from 5 feet away, sure. But that range almost never mattered. A floating invisible hand is pretty cool in comic books. but I thought it was pretty dull at the table.

The character ended up getting snuffed by a clutch of wyverns at 8th level, and I decided to leave him in the afterlife. I rolled up a...sorcerer? I think? after that, and never went back to rogue. In hindsight, I would have chosen to play a Thief with the Magic Initiate feat instead.

One of my early characters was an arcane trickster.

A few times, I used the pickpocket ability to plant items on someone else -explosives in particular.