D&D 5E Any reason to go Melee vs. Stay ranged as a Rogue?

I've always been fond of rogues for being sneaky and stabby, not just another kind of ranger. I'm currently in two games, one as GM and the other as a player. Both rogues are pretty much ranged based. I went to the PHB and aside from finding a magic melee weapon I can't find any incentive for them to stay ranged. Ranged weapons use dex and a longbow is 1d8 just like a rapier.

Using RAW is there any incentive for a rogue to make attacks on the front lines?

With using your bonus action to disengage, lets you get in and out of melee combat and using hit and run tactics.

The mobility feat lets you move around without provoking AoO easy enough too, and that will let you use your bonus action make an off hand attack and thus getting a second chance to hit, that way it doubles your chances to land a blow to deliver your sneak attack damage.

It depends on the party. I consider rogues mid-line combatants, especially once they gain Uncanny Dodge. They can mix it up with front-line classes, like fighters, but can be equally effective at range with the back-line.

If you have a solid front-line, then the rogue may be better off staying ranged.

On the other hand, if you're short on melee party members, the rogue may be needed to take some of the heat off of squishy PCs, such as casters. That's been the case for much of my current campaign.

You dont have penalty to hit due to cover of your ally in melee with your target.

Plus, fun. Its more fun to mix it up in melee. You will draw some attacks and help keep your allies alive, rather than just ping away from behind. Uncanny dodge is one of the best "keep you alive" abilities in the game. Use it! And when/if you do get into trouble, no worries, cunning action gives you a free disengage to waltz out of melee at any time. As a rogue you choose which fights are to the death, and if someone ties to escape from you in melee -yay! - you get an extra chance to apply your SA damage (which is once per creature turn, not once per combat round).

Best of luck

Do both. You can switch up whenever you feel like it or the circumstances require it.

[MENTION=13009]Paraxis[/MENTION] got the main thing, and the option of making a second attack can really help the consistency of your sneak attack.

Another factor, which I hesitate to mention, is that it increases the chance you'll get. Any attack that goes against you is one less attack that goes to the tank, and you'll get all of your HP back after a long rest anyway. It might increase the survivability of the group if you "take one for the team".

Sneak attack triggers "once per turn". RAW that means it can also be applied on others' turns when using your reaction, so twice in a single round. Melee allows AoO, netting you tasty additional damage - at least occasionally, more reliably with a Dissonant Whisperer or Commander's Strike ally.

This isn't the case for ranged rogues.

That is a very good point Eejit, but just want to say that one of those things Commander's Strike can give an ally a ranged attack as a reaction.

There was another thread about this same subject in the last few weeks and I remember then mentioning one more thing, people seem to enjoy melee more. You can be more descriptive with all the feints, flourishes, tumbles, dashes, and stuff than people normally are with ranged attacks. I find ranged attacks suffer the most when it comes to "I roll to hit, got a 17, good the damage is X" syndrome. Where people embellish more with stabs and thrusts for some reason.

Eejit said:

Sneak attack triggers "once per turn". RAW that means it can also be applied on others' turns when using your reaction, so twice in a single round. Melee allows AoO, netting you tasty additional damage - at least occasionally, more reliably with a Dissonant Whisperer or Commander's Strike ally.

This isn't the case for ranged rogues.

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A rogue arcane trickster with haste could pull off readying an attack on someone else's turn as an option for doing it ranged. Melee has more options and you don't get 3rd level spells until higher level.

A lot of it just comes down to playstyle, plus the secondary and tertiary ability scores a particular player puts their points in based on the type of rogue they want to play.

Obviously DEX will always be the primary stat and start close to as max as it can get. But after that... if a player decides to prioritize WIS for the Perception boost, and/or CHA for the interaction boosts, and/or INT because they intend to cast as a Trickster... their CON might be dropped to the point where wading into battle as melee might be too dangerous-- their AC won't be high enough to offset their lower hit point total. So they'll stay at range in order to avoid attacks.

Whereas a rogue that prioritizes CON to be the highest stat after DEX (if not even higher when playing a Dwarf rogue) might feel more comfortable getting into the thick of things.

As I've made characters (for pre-gens and the like) the one thing I do feel is missing from the Rogue is the Thug sub-class... the one that prioritizes STR over DEX while still gaining the use of Sneak Attack. What is unfortunate is that if a sub-class like that was made... the "STR for DEX" switch wouldn't happen until 3rd level with the first sub-class ability, meaning that a particular rogue would have to go through the first two levels either not being able to use Sneak Attack (since they're focused on STR), or using DEX anyway in order to get Sneak Attack, even if its a crappier ability for them. Not sure what could really be done, other than the assumption that even a Thug character would have at least some DEX in order to still Stealth, Sleight of Hand and Acrobatize.