Specialist Rogue

[Ahnehnois]

I guess I'm just pretty old school, with my formative years as a player/DM being in the early 80's, I just expect the world to be as filled with traps as Gygaxian D&D.

One of my more influential books however, was the 3e Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. When you actually consider the resources it would take to protect something using traps, it's just impractical. They're extremely expensive, and usually very beatable. Obviously, this is not what Gygax was thinking.

- Good but a shade below Guarded Mind. Add Linguistics?

I added Search for Astute. Search is pretty useful. (And I use a different approach to languages culled from Kingdoms of Kalamar).

- Meh. Have it add to the roll to confirm a critical hit or something of that sort.

I don't know about that. I'm trying to avoid power creep by not having direct offensive combat effects. Moreover, given that my approach to Sneak Attack is much more crit-based, that would look more powerful in my game than it does to you.

Drop the 'after not moving' clause. Though, you seem to find Stealth a lot more generally useful than I've fond it. Care to explain why?

First, the odd quirk here is that I'm using the same list for three different classes: rogue, barbarian, and ninja. No Trace was written as the stereotypical ninja option. I wrote it with the restriction, because to my way of thinking giving a straight-up bonus to Hide would have made it an automatic choice.

Why? Hide/MS and Spot/Listen are probably part of the "Tier 1" of skills in my opinion. Both by frequency of rolling, and impactfulness of the outcome, they always come out near the top. For one thing, as you've noted with Initiative, going first in battle is really important for a rogue. But even more so, hiding allows you to potentially avoid one. Initiative doesn't (probably not, anyway). I find that rogues/rangers/monks and their ilk use stealth skills almost as much as one would hit the stealth button while playing Baldur's Gate.

- Very weak. I'm not sure what to add here. I'd say add 'Swim' as it seems in theme, but it would still probably be fairly weak except in a few wilderness heavy games. One possibility I've thought about is it adds a 'Jack of All Trades' bonus - you get to add the bonus to any skill check in any skill you aren't trained in. But I'm not sure how the math works out there. 'Craft' is also a possibility.

It does seem a bit weak to me as well. However, this is for the barbarian, as well as certain wilderness rogue variants. I felt there needed to be something to cover the survivalist niche. I could see maybe combining it with Vigorous (saves vs poison and disease). At that point, it might be too much complexity, which is probably why I had them separate to start.

- Good. Roughly as strong as Astute. Not sure what to do to bump it up, as its already complex.

I took the restriction off of Escape Artist. Now less complex and slightly more powerful.

- Good, but not good enough. Possibly add spellcraft to recognize a spell? If not merge with Trap sense and call it 'Danger Sense'.

This is one of the few taken straight from a 3e ACF. But you may be right. I just threw in Knowledge (Arcana), which to me is another one of those Tier 1 skills.

- Really weak by itself compared to broadly useful abilities like Sixth Sense, Guarded Mind, or Dauntless. Not sure what to do about it, but maybe merge with the above as per the suggestion in 'Spell Sense' or have it also add to Search to detect a trap. In general though, this is the sort of power creep that makes me leary of the otherwise interesting idea and makes me want to throw out Gaurded Mind and Dauntless as too potent and rebalance to nothing better than the original Daring.

Always a challenge that power creep, yes. If I change trap sense, I've moved away from the original baseline. That being said, trap sense was kind of a dumb ability and I've rarely seen it used. Might as well throw in the Search bonus for traps and secret doors.

 

[Celebrim]

Why? Hide/MS and Spot/Listen are probably part of the "Tier 1" of skills in my opinion. Both by frequency of rolling, and impactfulness of the outcome, they always come out near the top. For one thing, as you've noted with Initiative, going first in battle is really important for a rogue. But even more so, hiding allows you to potentially avoid one. Initiative doesn't (probably not, anyway). I find that rogues/rangers/monks and their ilk use stealth skills almost as much as one would hit the stealth button while playing Baldur's Gate.

The problem that I've found with stealth skills is that they are an all or nothing proposition. If everyone in the party is equally stealthy, they can provide a significant advantage - though the more you have in the party the more likely it is someone botches a roll. But in general, the advantage becomes relatively small if anyone in the party is not stealthy. You might gain the same sort of advantage you could get from winning the initiative, provided you actually have some concealment to work with, but you lose the ability to actually catch the enemy unprepared or evade the encounter.

Underground, everyone that is stealthy also needs darkvision, or else, what's the point?

In practice, both when I was a player (I was always the thief it seemed back in my 1e days) it means that stealth is mostly of value when you split the party. In the 100 or so sessions of the campaign, I can't think of a time when fast stealth would have made a difference. Indeed, its been relatively rare that the party profited from anyone being stealthy.

Perception based skills are on the other hand, pretty much always useful. The party can always profit from someone having a good set of eyes.

On the other hand, if you are having stealth work like Baldur's Gate - where it works from low level basically like invisibility - then I can see why you'd find stealth enhancement to be powerful. Otherwise, I agree that rogues use their stealth skills all the time, but they only occasionally profit from doing so.

 

[Ahnehnois]

The problem that I've found with stealth skills is that they are an all or nothing proposition. If everyone in the party is equally stealthy, they can provide a significant advantage - though the more you have in the party the more likely it is someone botches a roll. But in general, the advantage becomes relatively small if anyone in the party is not stealthy. You might gain the same sort of advantage you could get from winning the initiative, provided you actually have some concealment to work with, but you lose the ability to actually catch the enemy unprepared or evade the encounter.

I find that solo scouts have a lot to say in terms of determining what course of action the party will choose and what the terms of engagement will be, if any. It's hard to quantify that benefit, but it seems large to me.

Underground, everyone that is stealthy also needs darkvision, or else, what's the point?

Well, 3e gives us the 1000 gp Ring of Darkvision (or Darksight or something). And I don't find that light is usually a limitation.

Perception based skills are on the other hand, pretty much always useful. The party can always profit from someone having a good set of eyes.

That's very true

On the other hand, if you are having stealth work like Baldur's Gate - where it works from low level basically like invisibility - then I can see why you'd find stealth enhancement to be powerful.

In general, while moving in non-urban environments, I find some kind of stealth character to be standard, a scout who is constantly using Hide/MS throughout the day. If he doesn't have fast stealth, the entire party has to move at half of his speed to maintain his usefulness as a scout. That's annoying.

***

I may simply remove guarded mind. For context, I originally had written this ability as a choice between trap sense and guarded mind, and had keyed the higher-level abilities to it (you had to take trap sense to get improved evasion, and you had to take guarded mind to qualify for slippery mind), splitting the rogue into a mental/physical dichotomy. This was a bad idea and has since been revised out, but guarded mind stayed. It seems too broad and not flavorful enough to me.

Also, here's a nice add-on for deft: Use Magic Device. That ought to make it competitive.

 

[Tuft]

The problem that I've found with stealth skills is that they are an all or nothing proposition. If everyone in the party is equally stealthy, they can provide a significant advantage - though the more you have in the party the more likely it is someone botches a roll. But in general, the advantage becomes relatively small if anyone in the party is not stealthy. You might gain the same sort of advantage you could get from winning the initiative, provided you actually have some concealment to work with, but you lose the ability to actually catch the enemy unprepared or evade the encounter.

Underground, everyone that is stealthy also needs darkvision, or else, what's the point?

In practice, both when I was a player (I was always the thief it seemed back in my 1e days) it means that stealth is mostly of value when you split the party. In the 100 or so sessions of the campaign, I can't think of a time when fast stealth would have made a difference. Indeed, its been relatively rare that the party profited from anyone being stealthy.

Perception based skills are on the other hand, pretty much always useful. The party can always profit from someone having a good set of eyes.

On the other hand, if you are having stealth work like Baldur's Gate - where it works from low level basically like invisibility - then I can see why you'd find stealth enhancement to be powerful. Otherwise, I agree that rogues use their stealth skills all the time, but they only occasionally profit from doing so.

As usual, gamestyles and table conventions vary.

One important thing you need when you are sneaking and scouting is Communcation. Now, in a world without radio, cellphones and headsets, you do have to get it from magic, so you have to lean on your friendly local magic-user for it, but a Message or a Telepathic Bond makes a world of difference, especially if you are already used to high-tech stealthy intrusions from games such as Shadowrun.

With communication, you can give meaningful advance warning to a party that's hanging back just behind the next tunnel bend. The other party members are also able to contribute with comments, advice, knowledge rolls, etc. There is a lovely scene in the movie Sneakers where Robert Redford gets caught redhanded, and his team members scurries for advice and information... Have had many such great fantasy-equivalent experiences with sneaking and magic communication.

Yes, the magic communication may have to come from another person (or an item), but it is a game about teamwork, after all.

As for darkvision, well that depends on how common the trope of caves glowing with fluorescent fungi is at your table...

 

[Starfox]

Looking at the rogue archetypes, I know of them and am not very impressed with them. I want something less intrusive than they are, more similar to the basic rogue. My first thought on Trapfinding was actually to just switch the conditional and static bo9nuses around - make trapfinding a 1/2 levels on all Perception checks and to Disable Device checks only against traps. A significant Perception bonus would be a huge step towards making the rogue work well. I developed this first thought into several branches like you see today, with my original idea is somewhat modified form going into the Point Man.

 

[Celebrim]

Looking at the rogue archetypes, I know of them and am not very impressed with them. I want something less intrusive than they are, more similar to the basic rogue.

One of my problems with your rules is that they feel less like the basic rogue and more intrusive. At the very least, IMO every rogue variant should have search, use magical device, linguistics, perception, climb, sleight of hand, stealth, and disable device as class skills as a nod to the 'thief' roots of the class. You don't have to invest your skill points there if you don't like, but I'd like to see them on the list.

On the good side, I love the flavor of your concepts - fence, smuggler, scoundrel, etc. Those all sound like things I'd want to be as a rogue. But I don't feel that the mechanics are often a good match for the flavor. In fact, they are often just random and weird. For example, why wouldn't a Fence lose Uncanny Dodge rather than Trap Finding, particularly since your own mechanics are related to 'noticing traps in the goods you handle'? I'm also not always happy with the balance between the variants and the basic rogue.

I can't comment on the balance of Pathfinder, but I've never felt the rogue was UP except at high level (which your archetypes don't address) in 3.X and it would appear that it's been given more toys in Pathfinder already. Superficially, it looks to me like it 'works' and still has its niche compared to the other core classes. In what way do you think it doesn't work?

 

[Starfox]

In what way do you think it doesn't work?

In the way that nobody elects to play them. Only the cleric is a less popular class to play among the core classes. And this in games that are pretty skill focused and ought to be good rogue playgrounds.

As to what is weird and what works at the table, that is very very different in different places.

 

[Tuft]

In the way that nobody elects to play them. Only the cleric is a less popular class to play among the core classes. And this in games that are pretty skill focused and ought to be good rogue playgrounds.

I blame the hard divide between martial and magical; a rogue with a few magical trick up her sleeves would be lovely.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I blame the hard divide between martial and magical; a rogue with a few magical trick up her sleeves would be lovely.

Doesn't the PF version have that?

 

[Celebrim]

In the way that nobody elects to play them.

That is not my experience. When DMing stock 3.5, I had lots of rogues. While DMing 3.0 with my house rules, I still get lots of rogues. Looking at Pathfinder, I see no reason not to play a rogue.

Only the cleric is a less popular class to play among the core classes.

That is not my experience either.

Arguably, the strongest possible party in 3.X is "Everyone plays a different cleric."

I could understand if these two classes weren't particularly popular in 2e, the 1e/2e rogue (or thief) was pretty miserable, but they went almost overboard correcting for that in 3.X.