D&D 5E Xanathar's Guide to Everything: Rogue Scout

[WayOfTheFourElements]

The game runs perfectly fine without a house rule though, you just don't like it. That is a completely seprerate issue.

Let's call a spade a spade. You don't like the scout being a rogue, this you are nitpicking it. That is fine, we all have things about this edition that we don't like but you are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Call it nit picking if you like. It's still an example of poor future planning that has little place in a published product.

 

[Marandahir]

I see no reason 1) why the fire and water elemental's languages are necessary so far removed, and 2) why the comparison of two supposed Primordial languages is necessarily connected to the Thieves' Cant feature.

I see no reason why Thieves Cant and a wilderness scout are so innately connected as to be a feature of the class. The best you (or anyone else) are (is) proposing a poor/inconstant workaround to what is, I feel, a legitimate criticism.

Because Primordial is, as written in the rule books, a series of mutually intelligible but distinct languages – much like the range of how Portuguese speakers can understand Gallego speakers but may trip up with Spanish, but Gallego speakers can understand both, but not Catalán (which Spanish speakers will be able to "get"), while Catalán speakers understand both Spanish and Occitan (Provençal), but Spanish speakers don't really understand Occitan, and so forth. Primordial is separated into Ignan, Terran, Auran, and Aquan, and while they all can understand each other, they aren't the same language.

Thieves' Cant differs from guild to guild. The signs and symbols are ultimately mutually intelligible, but there will be some unique elements between different organizations. This is important to prevent against rival guilds. It makes a lot of sense that Scouts use a very similar but different language of signs, signals, and code words, just as assassins and bounty hunters and pirates and police watch investigators would all learn similar types of languages, with large overlaps. The more basic symbols would ring true across each, but all clandestine organizations would want their own symbols and signs, even within a sub-group of Rogue like assassin, bounty hunter, scout, thief, etc.

The Rogue PC should NOT be surprised when he or she encounters a rival guild's symbols and the DM tells him or her that it's a symbol the Rogue is unfamiliar with, despite knowing Thieves' Cant. What the Rogue PC SHOULD be surprised at is if every time Thieves' Cant should be relevant, the DM is saying it's mutually unintelligible. That's a bad DM.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Because Primordial is, as written in the rule books, a series of mutually intelligible but distinct languages – much like the range of how Portuguese speakers can understand Gallego speakers but may trip up with Spanish, but Gallego speakers can understand both, but not Catalán (which Spanish speakers will be able to "get"), while Catalán speakers understand both Spanish and Occitan (Provençal), but Spanish speakers don't really understand Occitan, and so forth. Primordial is separated into Ignan, Terran, Auran, and Aquan, and while they all can understand each other, they aren't the same language.

Thieves' Cant differs from guild to guild. The signs and symbols are ultimately mutually intelligible, but there will be some unique elements between different organizations. This is important to prevent against rival guilds. It makes a lot of sense that Scouts use a very similar but different language of signs, signals, and code words, just as assassins and bounty hunters and pirates and police watch investigators would all learn similar types of languages, with large overlaps. The more basic symbols would ring true across each, but all clandestine organizations would want their own symbols and signs, even within a sub-group of Rogue like assassin, bounty hunter, scout, thief, etc.

The Rogue PC should NOT be surprised when he or she encounters a rival guild's symbols and the DM tells him or her that it's a symbol the Rogue is unfamiliar with, despite knowing Thieves' Cant. What the Rogue PC SHOULD be surprised at is if every time Thieves' Cant should be relevant, the DM is saying it's mutually unintelligible. That's a bad DM.

PHB/DMG source?

 

[Marandahir]

PHB pg. 123 on Primordial being a language family with mutually intelligible languages.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

PHB pg. 123 on Primordial being a language family with mutually intelligible languages.

I was more refering to the part of Thieves' Cant sign differing from guild to guild. In that case what rules apply to determining how likely a rogue is to understand the signs used by another guild or, in this case, a solitary woodsman in a tiny rural town and no connection to the outside world.

 

[Marandahir]

I was more refering to the part of Thieves' Cant sign differing from guild to guild. In that case what rules apply to determining how likely a rogue is to understand the signs used by another guild or, in this case, a solitary woodsman in a tiny rural town and no connection to the outside world.

As I don't have Xanathar's Guide to Everything, I can't give you a specific RAW on solitary woodsman in a tiny rural town and no connection to the outside world. That said, this is a ribbon feature based around organizations. A Rogue is a character that, despite being on their lonesome (definition of rogue), exists within a community of other rogues. Your example is an unclassed NPC character with a background like Outlander or Hermit, not a Scout, who is a part of an organization of Scouts who learned these languages.

As for what I was speaking to, D&D 5e is about RAI, not RAW. It's a game of DM rulings, rather than PC-governed rules (unlike D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder, or D&D 4e). My statement above is a pretty standard extrapolation of the Thieves' Cant section of the Rogue class in the PHB. It's not a "this is awkward and needs a house-rule fix" issue; it's a "this is how the rule works at my table, given that Scout is a Roguish Archetype." I didn't change anything about the class feature. The DM is ALWAYS entitled to say that despite knowing Elven, you don't understand this dialect of Elven or the words in Elvish script make no sense to your Elf character. That's a classic D&D puzzle.

I also am willing to bet that there will be a sidebar in Xanathar's Guide about how Thieves' Cant works for Scouts, detailing much of what I said above. I think there's at least a 50% chance of there being one, since people like you are confused. But it doesn't take too much thinking, from a PC perspective or a DM perspective.

 

[Li Shenron]

But still idiotic that my wilderness scout who has never set foot in a city has ties with the criminal underground. Also as ridiculous that fighters are either strong or coordinated, but never both. Things like this should have been hammered out during play testing.

Sure. I just meant that even if Thieves Cant stinks with this subclass, it's not enough a reason for designing the Scout into another class, now that they have decided it's best as a Rogue subclass (which you may disagree with, but that's another matter ).

 

[Yaarel]

It's a ribbon feature. Eith pretend you don't have it, or ask the DM to reinterpret it as some special scout speak or whatever.

Officially, the Scout Rogue should swap out Thieves Cant for Druidic, Elven, Fey Sylvan, or Elemental Primordial.

 

[Demetrios1453]

As I don't have Xanathar's Guide to Everything, I can't give you a specific RAW on solitary woodsman in a tiny rural town and no connection to the outside world. That said, this is a ribbon feature based around organizations. A Rogue is a character that, despite being on their lonesome (definition of rogue), exists within a community of other rogues. Your example is an unclassed NPC character with a background like Outlander or Hermit, not a Scout, who is a part of an organization of Scouts who learned these languages.

As for what I was speaking to, D&D 5e is about RAI, not RAW. It's a game of DM rulings, rather than PC-governed rules (unlike D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder, or D&D 4e). My statement above is a pretty standard extrapolation of the Thieves' Cant section of the Rogue class in the PHB. It's not a "this is awkward and needs a house-rule fix" issue; it's a "this is how the rule works at my table, given that Scout is a Roguish Archetype." I didn't change anything about the class feature. The DM is ALWAYS entitled to say that despite knowing Elven, you don't understand this dialect of Elven or the words in Elvish script make no sense to your Elf character. That's a classic D&D puzzle.

I also am willing to bet that there will be a sidebar in Xanathar's Guide about how Thieves' Cant works for Scouts, detailing much of what I said above. I think there's at least a 50% chance of there being one, since people like you are confused. But it doesn't take too much thinking, from a PC perspective or a DM perspective.

It would be funny, given all the fuss he's making about how the subclass doesn't work RAW, if Xanathar's actually does present rules answering those issues...


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[Yaarel]

Call it nit picking if you like. It's still an example of poor future planning that has little place in a published product.

Planning for the future is a gamble at best.

Still, things like this need errata when they become pertinent.

Moving Thieves Cant from the Rogue base to the Thief archetype is a straightforward update.