Extreme self-preservation

[Ovinomancer]

If the target is fighting 1 to 6 other guys, well they get to sneak attack! They don't auto-get advantage, and neither do the 1 to 6 other guys.

Listen, as a *rogue* it's your job to engineer situations to get advantage.

Like hiding?

 

[Oofta]

Like hiding?

By doing something more than rolling a D20? In my campaign, yes. It's perfectly okay to have the bar set that low in your campaign, just don't expect everyone else to agree with you.

 

[iserith]

For what it's worth, this is how I handle the hiding issue:

If the character cannot be clearly seen or heard, he or she can take the Hide action. This may or may not call for a Dexterity (Stealth) check. It's usually the case in combat that a check will be needed since opponents are assumed to be keeping watch for danger.

If the Stealth check result is greater than the opponent's passive Perception, the character is hidden. As long as the character does not make noise and does not move clearly into view (or an opponent moves within clear view of the character), the character remains hidden.

The character gains the advantages of hidden until after he or she hits or misses with an attack. (If the character has the Skulker feat, it's only after he or she hits.)

If the character tries to hide again in the same spot, the opponent gets advantage on passive Perception (+5). But otherwise, it plays out as above.

 

[Ancalagon]

By doing something more than rolling a D20? In my campaign, yes. It's perfectly okay to have the bar set that low in your campaign, just don't expect everyone else to agree with you.

Exactly. Of all the classes, I think the rogue has the most resting on their shoulders in some ways. 5e has massively improved the class vs the 2nd ed thief (and that is a good thing) but perhaps at the same time this made people lose sight of the fact that the rogue is supposed to be the rat bastard who comes up with creative and innovative ways to twist a situation to their - and the party's - advantage.

This is difficult. It requires a player who's cunning, and GM who lets the player get away with a reasonable amount of stuff. Has the rogue just found an easy way to defeat the bad guys, thus "ruining" the big fight the GM had carefully prepared? Well... if it's a good plan, you have to let it go and let the rogue have this one.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Exactly. Of all the classes, I think the rogue has the most resting on their shoulders in some ways. 5e has massively improved the class vs the 2nd ed thief (and that is a good thing) but perhaps at the same time this made people lose sight of the fact that the rogue is supposed to be the rat bastard who comes up with creative and innovative ways to twist a situation to their - and the party's - advantage.

This is difficult. It requires a player who's cunning, and GM who lets the player get away with a reasonable amount of stuff. Has the rogue just found an easy way to defeat the bad guys, thus "ruining" the big fight the GM had carefully prepared? Well... if it's a good plan, you have to let it go and let the rogue have this one.

To a lot of people the rogue is the massive damage dealer these days. Requiring player cunning to achieve that is not part of the modern design goal.

 

[Ovinomancer]

By doing something more than rolling a D20? In my campaign, yes. It's perfectly okay to have the bar set that low in your campaign, just don't expect everyone else to agree with you.

Firstly, I though you had bid me good gaming on this issue. I am confused -- is the topic of how you run stealth up for discussion or not?

Secondly, I'm rather disappointed that your re-entry to the discussion is so blatantly misrepresentative. No, simply rolling a d20 is not my method, and if you honestly think that you have not been paying attention. The play procedure is:

1. The DM describes the scene.
2. The players announce actions.
3. The DM determines if those outcomes succeed, fail, or are uncertain. If uncertain, mechanics are used to resolve the uncertainty.
4. The DM narrates the results.
5. Repeat.

Nowhere in that procedure does "simply rolling a d20" occur.

In the topic at hand, we differ on step 3 in regards to stealth. You prefer to narrate failure in more cases than I do. That's it. But, instead of duscussing that, you're responding with mischaracterizing my play after you've indicated you no longer wish to discuss the matter with me. One of us is behaving poorly.

 

[iserith]

To a lot of people the rogue is the massive damage dealer these days. Requiring player cunning to achieve that is not part of the modern design goal.

I think fighters and barbarians probably fit that bill in D&D 5e more than rogues do. Rogues have great mobility though and a lot of skill proficiencies that allow them to reliably perform a wider variety of tasks. Rogues do pretty good damage, but I think it's their other features that are more valuable in a lot of ways.

As for whether the rogue is "supposed to be" the Guy or Gal with the Plan doesn't ring true with me either. Anyone can do that.

 

[Ancalagon]

To a lot of people the rogue is the massive damage dealer these days. Requiring player cunning to achieve that is not part of the modern design goal.

1d6 per second level is "massive"?

 

[Ovinomancer]

To a lot of people the rogue is the massive damage dealer these days. Requiring player cunning to achieve that is not part of the modern design goal.

Thise people aren't paying attention to the game, then. Rogues come up well short of the top in damage even in non-MC, non-feat games. Most casting classes outperform them with cantrip and class abilities, much less bigger hits. Fighters and ither melee focused classes do it better with multiple attacks. +10d6 conditional at 20th isnt better than the fighters four attacks with stat and weapon. The rogue tops at d8+5+10d6, the fighter at 8d6+20. Dicewise the rogue rolls 3 more dice to the fighter's +15, not counting fighter subclass adds or fighting style increases. And the rogue requires either advantage or the fighter being adjacent to his target to get that lesser-but-close damage.

If people are really looking at the rogue as a top damage performer, they're not really paying attention to what actually happens.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

1d6 per second level is "massive"?

I should say a massive damage dealer, due to it being trivial to get sneak attacks. I know in my 5e game the rogue with sneak attack crits was often the deciding factor. Maybe he was just overly lucky with his rolls. Between him and the Paladin with smite crits the rest of the party was often just there for the ride.