Rogues: Not Skill-y enough?

[Remathilis]

Ok, so our halfling rogue has effectively six trained "skills" which he gets a bonus to:

Open Locks
Find/Remove Traps
Stealth
Animal Handling
Commerce
Folklore

The latter three come from his "commoner" background and aren't related to his rogue talents.

Compared to even our BD&D/AD&D thieves, that doesn't seem very "skilled". Where's Pick Pocket? Climb Walls or Read Languages? Moving on to 3e, I see no Bluff, Tumble, Escape Artist, etc.

Now, I realize a number of things rogues used to get as skills (climb, jump, listen, search, gather info etc) are rolled into generic Str/Dex/Wis/Cha checks, but I think I'd like to see the rogue (esp with the thief scheme) have more trained skills in the traditional eight Thief skills (PP, OL, F/RT, MS, HS, DN, CW, RL) or some of 3e's additions (Bluff, Tumble, etc). Esp since Skill Mastery only works with trained skills.

On a related note: Why is trap REMOVAL now tied to wisdom (or implied to be)? Surely Dexterity for removal...

 

[Kzach]

Where does it say trap removal is wisdom based?

Also, I agree that they seem a bit light on the skills. In addition, the background feat he has is by far the weakest of the lot.

 

[jadrax]

Where does it say trap removal is wisdom based?

Dunno, because the ones in the adventure are all Dex based to disarm.

 

[Traken]

Where does it say trap removal is wisdom based?

Also, I agree that they seem a bit light on the skills. In addition, the background feat he has is by far the weakest of the lot.

Dunno, because the ones in the adventure are all Dex based to disarm.

The DM guidelines mention using Wisdom to find traps, but makes no mention of anything else being used to disarm traps. Therefore, wisdom is used to disarm traps.

For most traps I can think of, it would probably be Dex or Int to disarm. A couple of my players would probably use Con if they could. They know the right way to get hit by the trap to minimize damage.

 

[mach1.9pants]

The thief is actually pretty awesome at his trained skills. I guess if he chose a thiefy type background (cutpurse: pick pocket, bluff and disguise - acrobat: acrobatics, escape artist, jump) it would work better. For some reason I was expecting a few more trained skills for the thief too, tho.

 

[Ranganathan]

The halfling thief pre-gen is a skill monster. He can't roll lower than 10 on any check related to a skill he's trained in, has twice the skills as anyone else in the packet, and has a really high Dex (covering 90% of what rogues do). The only quibble with the rogue's skills should be his training in finding traps is a bit offset by his absurdly low Wis. Methinks Int and Wis were swapped.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Ok, so our halfling rogue has effectively six trained "skills" which he gets a bonus to:

Open Locks
Find/Remove Traps
Stealth
Animal Handling
Commerce
Folklore

The latter three come from his "commoner" background and aren't related to his rogue talents.

Compared to even our BD&D/AD&D thieves, that doesn't seem very "skilled". Where's Pick Pocket? Climb Walls or Read Languages? Moving on to 3e, I see no Bluff, Tumble, Escape Artist, etc.

Now, I realize a number of things rogues used to get as skills (climb, jump, listen, search, gather info etc) are rolled into generic Str/Dex/Wis/Cha checks, but I think I'd like to see the rogue (esp with the thief scheme) have more trained skills in the traditional eight Thief skills (PP, OL, F/RT, MS, HS, DN, CW, RL) or some of 3e's additions (Bluff, Tumble, etc). Esp since Skill Mastery only works with trained skills.

On a related note: Why is trap REMOVAL now tied to wisdom (or implied to be)? Surely Dexterity for removal...

Moving on to 4e, Rogues get stealth & thievery, plus 4 more skill. Most things a rogue will do fall under the first two.

Going back to OD&D, Open Locks, Remove Traps, Pick Pockets, Move Silent, Hide in shadows, Hear Noise. Six skills that all fall under Stealth & Thievery.

I like the idea to keep the number of skills down, reducing skill bloat.

 

[LostSoul]

Compared to even our BD&D/AD&D thieves, that doesn't seem very "skilled". Where's Pick Pocket? Climb Walls or Read Languages? Moving on to 3e, I see no Bluff, Tumble, Escape Artist, etc.

I imagine that these come from other backgrounds - guild thief (pick pocket, climb walls, escape bonds), acrobat (tumble, jump, climb), con artist (bluff, disguise, gather information), etc.

On a related note: Why is trap REMOVAL now tied to wisdom (or implied to be)? Surely Dexterity for removal...

The way I read it, the stat that's used isn't set in stone; the player describes the PC's action, and the DM determines which stat is checked based on the action. Check out the first paragraph on page 6 of the DM Guidelines.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'm happy with the skill selection he has, and happy that he seems to be good at being a rogue (rather than automatically being 'the skill guy' as opposed to fighters being 'the feats guy' and monks being 'the class features guy' as introduced in 3e.

I'm rather hoping that in 5e the rogue will be 'the rogue guy' and anyone could be 'a skill guy' with the appropriate background and feat.

Cheers

 

[Kzach]

After having playtested the rogue, I now think it would be overpowered to have more trained skills. The "Skill Mastery" ability is SO powerful, it's awesome I swear it made about five of my rolls during the session from failures to successes.