D&D 5E Is it just me or have rogues lost the ability to climb?

Remathilis said:

Here was my problem with most of the "skills" packages the rogue kept getting.

You couldn't replicate the (A)D&D thief anymore.

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I don't know how it was exactly in AD&D, but OSRIC has this to say:


That skill begins at 80%.

B/X gives an 87% chance to climb sheer surfaces at level one, though it turns into "steep" surfaces in the text.

In 3E terms, these skills would require a DC 25 check; in order to make these checks, the thief would have to be pretty high level.


I don't think replicating the AD&D thief is the baseline. If you give a 1st-level 5E rogue AD&D-level climbing skills, you can't replicate 3E's bumbling rogue.

For the hey of it, I looked at the str to weight ratio in 3.5e for a halfling and a human used just the average joe.

Halfling (male)
Ave height = 2'8" + 5" = 3'1"
Ave weight = 30 + 5 = 35 lbs
Str = 8
Lift/Carry Mod of .75 due to Size
Max Load = 80 *.75 = 60lbs


Human (male)
Ave height = 4'10" + 11" = 5'9"
Ave weight = 120+ 5*11 = 175 lbs
Str = 10
Lift/Carry Mod = no mod
Max Load = 100lbs


So a male halfling can basically lift two halfling women over their heads while a male human could only lift small person (a petite woman). Seems to me halflings should have quite the climb bonus for that much core strength.

I watch my two little hobbits (ages 3 and 4) climb over all sorts of stuff that I would struggle with proportionately even if I was in shape.

Fighter's can be good at intimating, a Knight for example gets a Charisma expertise die and if the Knight is also a Half-Orc gets advantage on intimidation checks.

Remathilis said:

Classically, the thief had 8 skills: Pick Pockets, Find/Remove Traps, Hide in Shadows, Move Silently, Open Lock, Climb Walls, Hear Noise, and Read Languages. In every edition of D&D up to 4e, you could do all of these competently as a rogue. In Next, you can't read foreign scripts (int), search/spot/listen (wis) and climb (str) any better than than anyone else; in fact, you're worse at at these skills than a mage/cleric/fighter.

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Well, in 3.x it was rather difficult to do all of them competently; you needed slight of hand for Pick Pockets, search and disable device for Find/Remove Traps, hide for Hide in Shadows, move silently for Move Silently, open locks for Open Lock, climb for Climb Walls, listen for Hear Noise, and decipher script for Read Languages. And Appraise, Balance, Tumble, and Forgery covered pretty classic 'burglar' thief stuff, while Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, and Gather Information covered classic 'con man' stuff. So even for a relatively high-int human rogue, having enough skill points was tough.

I don't think the standard is can you exactly recreate the AD&D thief (or fighter or magic-user or cleric). However within the core rules a thief should be something similar...a utility character that is useful in dungeon settings: sneak, climb, open locks, find and disarm traps, spot/hear, etc. Not saying that all rogue characters should have these traits...but certainly the core should be that (or it should at least be possible).

drothgery said:

Well, in 3.x it was rather difficult to do all of them competently; you needed slight of hand for Pick Pockets, search and disable device for Find/Remove Traps, hide for Hide in Shadows, move silently for Move Silently, open locks for Open Lock, climb for Climb Walls, listen for Hear Noise, and decipher script for Read Languages. And Appraise, Balance, Tumble, and Forgery covered pretty classic 'burglar' thief stuff, while Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, and Gather Information covered classic 'con man' stuff. So even for a relatively high-int human rogue, having enough skill points was tough.

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Sadly, 3e's skill system starved rogues a bit (my 2e thief into 3e rogue lost more skills than he gained). Still, it was doable if you didn't max out ranks in all skills.

Honestly, Pathfinder fixed the problem nicely by rolling Hide/Move Silently into stealth, Listen/Search into Perception, and Open Lock into Disable Device. Rogues can cover the 8 original skills (sleight of hand, disable device, stealth, climb, perception, linguistics) and still have skill points to burn. Even 4e only had thievery, stealth, perception, and athletics to cover those areas (there is no "read anything" skill in 4e, iirc).

drothgery said:

Well, in 3.x it was rather difficult to do all of them competently; you needed slight of hand for Pick Pockets, search and disable device for Find/Remove Traps, hide for Hide in Shadows, move silently for Move Silently, open locks for Open Lock, climb for Climb Walls, listen for Hear Noise, and decipher script for Read Languages. And Appraise, Balance, Tumble, and Forgery covered pretty classic 'burglar' thief stuff, while Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, and Gather Information covered classic 'con man' stuff. So even for a relatively high-int human rogue, having enough skill points was tough.

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I've always seen that as a feature of 3.0 for all classes. The party of PC couldn't cover all skills to max rank by design, so each PC had to either (a) leave some of them "uncovered" and then leave it to the party creativity (or alternative resources, such as spells) to beat some challenges, or (b) spread the skill points to cover all you need but not maxed out to excellence.

It was a valid gamestyle, and I liked it like that, but eventually it proved unpopular. Players wanted to cover all their class traditional skills, all of them should be maxed out, and then have some extra too to vary the characters. Thus 3.5 and later PF and 4e proceeded to merge skills, generally increase the number of skills (or points), and eventually remove the point system and default to max.

That is also a valid playstyle of course. But each playstyle carries some drawbacks however... the party of PCs being too good at skills can mean characters overlap in skills (and then compete, sometimes with the best PC doing all the checks and the other just watch), and can mean to always have the right skill for the job... which is good or bad depending on how you see it.