4th ed, the Good & the Bad?

[Henry]

No other class is relagated to being useless in this way. It's not a case of being a bit less effective (such as fighting something with DR) or having to use different spells (high SR).

It's a case of being incapable of doing anything.

I'm not sure why not? SR means you've wasted an entire round's worth of actions, if not more depending on if you don't have many conjuration spells prepped or known. Fighters are by themselves VERY useless against an invisible, flying mage. And with the addition of supplements (for magic items, spells, etc.) a rogue is just as useful as any other class against undead. A rogue could use magic device on a spell-device, he could use the gravestrike or golemstrike spells from Spell Compendium, etc. Just like a Fighter could pick up a detect invisibility potion or a scout's headband from the Magic Item Compendium. A wizard without Spell Compendium access is a VERY different character from a wizard with only core rulebook access, especially when it comes to spell resistant creatures.

In earlier editions of the game, this was more pronounced. A thief couldn't sneak attack things with no vitals -- but a fighter without a magic weapon was useless against creatures with "+1 or better weapon to hit," magic-users were somewhere between very and completely helpless against a creature with magic resistance, and Clerics were restricted to both limited damage spells, and limited damage weapons.

It really comes down to the philosophy of the adventuring party in D&D -- do you want a game that FORCES cooperation between characters, because each one has very different strengths and vulnerabilities, or do you want one that ALLOWS cooperation, where each character works better with a group, but can still function pretty well on its own? As editions of D&D have rolled on, it's moved progressively from the former, to the latter.

 

[Reynard]

A very common, archetypal setup in the fantasy genre is entirely untenable because of the rules.

What archetypical situation are you talking about? The rogues ability to do an extra Xd6 damage isn't archetypical. It didn't even exist prior to 3E. Getting "back stab" damage multipliers took work in 1E and 2E. There is no "sneak attack" archetypical ability, at least insofar as it was represented in 3E.

 

[Phlebas]

Seriously, another option (other than make immunity to sneak attacks rare or non-existent) would be to re-make the rogue so that such a PC can have other useful things to do in most combats other than sneak attack (without carefully designing one's PC to be able to do so).

sensible idea.......

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Seriously, another option (other than make immunity to sneak attacks rare or non-existent) would be to re-make the rogue so that such a PC can have other useful things to do in most combats other than sneak attack (without carefully designing one's PC to be able to do so).

That's an alternative, but you risk making the Rogue becoming just like any other "martial" combatant. You really need to come up with alternative abilities that have other limitations then sneak attack.

Maybe throw away sneak attack and replace it with abilities like these:
- Ambush Strike: Full Attack in the surprise round (only meaningful in 3E)
- Backstab: Gain extra attack against flanked opponents.
- Feint: Feint an opponent to have him make a mistake - examples: negate dex, add sneak attack damage by striking vital organs, gain extra trip or disarm attack, avoid next attack against you

 

[Phlebas]

It really comes down to the philosophy of the adventuring party in D&D -- do you want a game that FORCES cooperation between characters, because each one has very different strengths and vulnerabilities, or do you want one that ALLOWS cooperation, where each character works better with a group, but can still function pretty well on its own? As editions of D&D have rolled on, it's moved progressively from the former, to the latter.

Interesting observation - obviously the game has to cope with varying group size, and varying gaming philosophies, and making characters less dependant on the party mix is a solution to this.
On one hand you don't want individual characters completely helpless in common situations (realtively common in 1E), on the other extreme this philosophy can remove specialists and turn everyone into fairly bland copies of each other. I don't envy the designers trying to square this particular circle since they're not going to be able to keep everyone happy....

 

[Brother MacLaren]

What archetypical situation are you talking about? The rogues ability to do an extra Xd6 damage isn't archetypical. It didn't even exist prior to 3E. Getting "back stab" damage multipliers took work in 1E and 2E. There is no "sneak attack" archetypical ability, at least insofar as it was represented in 3E.

True. Backstab was nice when it happened, but it wasn't all the time. I played a lot of B/X, so there was none of that ridiculous exceptional strength, and no Power Attack. As a result, the fighter's damage output wasn't much higher than everybody else's. He was consistent, reliable, and had staying power, so he was clearly the best, but the thief's normal attack wasn't so far behind as to feel useless. And when the wizard was conserving spells, his thrown daggers were a decent fall-back option. Now, with the fighter's damage output being so high and monster HP being so high, the things that have not increased look pathetic.

Making sneak attack useful against everything cheapens the rogue's image, in my opinion. He is skilled at knifing people in the kidneys in dark alleys. That's what the class ability represents. If a rogue wants different class abilities, 3E's muticlassing system is great for rogues. Undead a problem? Take a level of Fighter or barbarian and get a greatsword, a level of ranger for Favored Enemy, a level of cleric for Grave Strike and divine feats, or a level of sorcerer. It's not like you're corrupting some archetype of a "pure rogue." Fighter/rogue is a fantastic combination to represent an adventurer, a swashbuckler, a guild enforcer, a highwayman, a special forces operative, or hundreds of characters from fiction.

 

[Greg K]

It's not like you're corrupting some archetype of a "pure rogue." Fighter/rogue is a fantastic combination to represent an adventurer, a swashbuckler, a guild enforcer, a highwayman, a special forces operative, or hundreds of characters from fiction.

Myself, I prefer the martial rogue variant from UA- give up sneak attack for bonus fighter feats. Then again, I hate having to use multiclassing.

 

[pemerton]

My opinion is that their will be circumstances when you shine, and circumstances when you're the support act and since a tomb-robbing rogue is going to be the busiest PC scouting, trap-finding / disarming (all class specialities) the fact that in combat he's going to be doing what everbody else is doesn't really seem to much of an anti-climax....

At least as I understand it, the issue is not so much in-game effectiveness, or XP-earning effectiveness, but rather at-the-table relevance. The way that D&D plays means that the real time consumed by combat is almost always far greater than that consumed by scouting, trap finding and trap disarming.

It is possible that 4e's new "skill challenge" mechanics will change this, but this would itself create pressure to make all characters able to meaningfully participate in such challenges so that their players do not get stuck at the table with nothing useful to do.

Given that D&D is a GAME, I don't see what is munchkin about every player always wanting to be able to participate in a meaningful way. If necessary, flavour text can be rewritten to accomodate metagame priorities (eg instead of being an attack on vitals, sneak attack can be understood as a well-aimed blow that gets past defences - which is how I always interpreted backstab back in the day, which did work against golems and undead).

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Making sneak attack useful against everything cheapens the rogue's image, in my opinion. He is skilled at knifing people in the kidneys in dark alleys. That's what the class ability represents.

Well, I think that's what "backstab" represented back in Ye Olden Dayes. 3e moved a bit towards making rogues "equally useful in combat" by making sneak attack more extensive. They're intentionally taking it even further in 4e, so rogues should be on par with fighters and wizards in terms of tactical usefulness. They're doing this by extending the list of creatures that can be "sneak attacked" and also by extending the circumstances in which rogues can "sneak attack." There will be special abilities (I imagine kinda like Improved Feint) that make "combat advantage" (the new "opponent is flat-footed") easier to achieve.

All this does indeed make sneak attack a lot less "special." It seems like in 4e, if you're a rogue who can't set up a sneak attack almost every round, you're not doing your job in combat. I think of this as modeling the idea that a rogue needs to "fight smart" to get his job done. He needs to look for the opportune moment, the hole in the enemy's armor, because he's fighting someone with arms as thick as his thighs and without that advantage he's toast. Fortunately, the 4e rogue is a wily enough combatant to create his own opportunities.

If you want a "kidney-stabber" rogue, I'll bet that's still an option, through an assassin "paragon path" if nowhere else. But with all the worrying about 4e being "too dark," surely moving the rogue away from the "evil assassin with a grisly knowledge of how to effectively murder humanoids" towards the "adventurer who uses his quick reflexes and quicker wits to turn the tables against his foes" can only be a good thing. ;-)

 

[rounser]

DM: "Sorry, Regdar, I just don't see how it would be at all possible for you to jump more than 4 or 5 feet in full plate; I don't care what the rules say! You therefore fall into the crevasse and plummet 600 feet to your death... And Lidda, there's just no way you could use that improved evasion ability out in the open like that with nothing to hide behind, so the red dragon fries you to a crisp with his breath weapon."

Wizard: "I've gotta agree with the DM on this one, guys; it just wouldn't be realistic. While they're dying, I gesticulate wildly and mutter a string of non-sensical words. This temporarily grants me the ability to fly like Mary Poppins. I use this ability to glide effortlessly across the crevasse, waving at the fluffy pink cloud myconids as I float on by..."

I know you're trying to mock here, but I'm failing to see you landing a point.

Magic cheats reality. That's it's thing. If you don't have it, you'll need some other excuse for stretching credibility.

I understand that the designers are in a pickle, here - that the playing field isn't level, because the cheater is competing with the fair players who at least nod in the direction of physics. But solving problems like this (without lazy justification which strains suspension of disbelief and verisimilitude) is why the game needs clever design. It doesn't just involve solving pure crunch problems.

Sometimes, handwaving or genre convention is enough to explain away even glaring examples of unmagical "compromised reality" - other times not.