D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: "New Rogue"

"Even tricksier than it was before".

New Rogue video --


The last version of the rogue we saw as in the UA Playtest 6, last September. There's not many changes being announced here, the biggest being that the Soulknife gets to use Psychic Blades on opportunity attacks (so you don't need to have a knife as a backup weapon, and get into drawing/sheathing shenanigans), and that they now have the Vex property, and that Trip has apparently been withdrawn from the Cunning strike options.

OVERVIEW

• "our main job with the rogue was not to mess it up" -- add new twists to already wonderful design.
• Weapon mastery, such as short sword and dagger for TWF. Enough masteries to make a difference (i.e. 2).
• Cunning Strike (at 5): gives trade SA [sneak attack] dice for other effects. (Has anyone ever felt they had too many SA dice?). Poison, Trip, Withdraw [NOTE: no mention of Disarm!], with more later. Knockout at level 14.
• Steady Aim at 3, Reliable talent at 7 (as in PT6)
• Thieves Cant gives additional language too.
• Slippery Mind at 15 gives proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma (harder to banish)

SUBCLASSES

Assassin (earlier discussion here)

• benefits from Steady Aim.
• 2014 depended too much on surprise.
• Assassinate: adv on initiative, extra damage if opponent hasn't acted yet.
• NEW: You get disguise and poisoners kit with proficiency.
• NEW: Roving aim at 9: speed not reduced to zero if we use Steady Aim. (so you can move after making an attack with steady aim, but (apparently) not before
• Envenom Weapons, Death Strike (as in PT6).

Arcane Trickster

• NEW: spellcasting has no school restrictions, can now use arcane focus. more options and variety of builds.
• NEW versatile trickster at 13 lets you Trip two people (again, no mention of disarm.)
• discussion emphasizes the silliness and hijinks.

Soulknife

• "supernatural equivalent of the assassin"
• NEW: soulknife can be used on opportunity attacks ("Thank you!")
• NEW: soulknife has a mastery property (Vex -- next attack will have advantage)

Thief

• Fast Hands can activate magic item as a bonus action (as in PT6)
• Dex instead of Str for Jump and gives Climb speed. (JC claims "it technically gave you a climb speed before" -- I don't think this has ever been explicit).
• Supreme Sneak and Use Magic Device as in PT6.

I'm a little surprised at the (apparent) loss of Disarm from the options for Cunning Strike. Is this just to keep Wizards a bit safer? It was such a great option, for recreating those cinematic moments that I want a rogue to be able to do.

EDIT: SOME MORE NEW THINGS, from this video.

Some General rules revealed:

• New PHB has a sidebar for backwards compatibility and using abilities that haven’t been replaced/overwritten.
• NEW: Classes have a (class-specific) starting amount of gold – so for rogues it’s 100gp, + 50gp from background.
• In his build he takes Alert as background feat (not framed in terms of needing it to tie to Background). Possibly there is explicit permission to take any origin feat you want, and the one listed with backgrounds is exempli gratia.
• NEW: Piercer feat in the PHB (from Tasha’s, and so likely also Crusher and Slasher)
• Dazed condition from the playtest is gone.

Spoiler

More info for Rogues.

• NEW: Expertise for Rogues no longer allowed to be applied to Thieves’ tools.
• The Knock Out option at level 14 is awesome thematically, and he compares the idea of a rogue knocking someone out with a blackjack. Yes, that’s cool, and (for me) is the reason there should be finesse weapons that don’t do the stabby stabby

Info on his own build:

• If you know his builds, Colby is permissive with his exploits, allowing a lot of things that aren’t strictly RAW. In that light, it seems to me significant that he sees, even when using Variant Human in backwards compatibility, that he would only allow himself an Origin Feat (i.e. no half-feat) at level 1. That is only one person’s interpretation, but since he is generally VERY permissive in terms of his interpretations of rules, that (to me) speaks volumes.
• First Feat choice is Sentinel, lets him take an opportunity attack (to get SA again).
• Strategy: Most rounds attack with Vex, then Nick (so Bonus Action is free). In round 1, Nick first, bonus for Vex, which then would apply for any opportunity attack.
• He starts wielding Short sword and Scimitar, but later takes the Piercer feat, with which he’d want to swap the scimitar for a dagger (don’t think this was mentioned)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yup. And it's pretty lame to embed a 2014 rules clarification in a video promoting the 2024 PHB. That's my point.

Didn't they clarify second story work in a Sage advice years ago? Why do you think this was a rules clarification we didn't have before?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well in the interview, they talked about players who apparently feel intimidated by rolling too many dice.

I've been playing since the 80's. No player has ever said "man, I wish I had less dice to roll" in my presence. I'm not saying dice-hating players don't exist (Amber Diceless Roleplaying exists, after all), but it's hard to believe there's a lot of them out there.

True, but I will also say I have seen people where the number of dice is a practical problem. Dice goblins like myself have enough dice that an entire table can roll 10d6 and it be fine, but I also ran for groups where each person had a single die set, so there might have been only 6 to 8d6 at the entire table (discounting myself), which would make rolling 1d6 weapon, 2d6 magical effect, plus 10d6 sneak attack a logistical pain in the rear.

 

[Undrave]

True, but I will also say I have seen people where the number of dice is a practical problem. Dice goblins like myself have enough dice that an entire table can roll 10d6 and it be fine, but I also ran for groups where each person had a single die set, so there might have been only 6 to 8d6 at the entire table (discounting myself), which would make rolling 1d6 weapon, 2d6 magical effect, plus 10d6 sneak attack a logistical pain in the rear.

Skill issue

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Mage Hand is a short duration gimmick that is not subtle to cast (making its duration a very limiting factor for when it can be up), and in combat it either limits your mobility or eats your bonus action or both because even if you're moving it you're not Dashing then. It is in no way integral to how the subclass plays - any of the other cantrips find more use.

WotC has so far kept a lot of their spell changes -- if they exist -- to themselves. I have to imagine that mage hand is on the list, partly because to get any real use out of it, it needs class or species features to make it invisible. If they're making it more central to the arcane trickster, I certainly hope they're improving it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Saw a couple of Bards, not sure what the main is yet.

Was watching a guy reacting to the original stream, and I caught it. Not sure the best way to grab a screen cap of it, as it pans up the image. But it is the tiefling.

Timestamp is 2:43

 

[Parmandur]

Was watching a guy reacting to the original stream, and I caught it. Not sure the best way to grab a screen cap of it, as it pans up the image. But it is the tiefling.

Timestamp is 2:43

There it is! Wonder what the other Species who gets two splash pages ends up being.

 

[Parmandur]

I’m not sure I’m convinced the Soul Knife is either, unless it was stated by WotC somewhere and I missed it?

Confirmed by the artist that the Soul Knife is an Aasamir:

x.com

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[GarrettKP]

Confirmed by the artist that the Soul Knife is an Aasamir:

View attachment 370337View attachment 370338

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I stand corrected! This certainly makes me more convinced the iconic Wizard is as well.

Now just got to figure out what the Psi Warrior art is currently I think MAYBE a Hill Giant Goliath? Idk they remind me of the old fairy tale giants.

 

[Parmandur]

I stand corrected! This certainly makes me more convinced the iconic Wizard is as well.

Now just got to figure out what the Psi Warrior art is currently I think MAYBE a Hill Giant Goliath? Idk they remind me of the old fairy tale giants.

Hmmmmm, there are those tatoo markings and bulging muscles, and "half-giants" were a Psionic thing in some Settings...

And it would make a huge amount of sense that the plan for Brawler would have been a Goliath.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Theory-crafting reasons for a dedicated Rogue24!

Thief
Yes, bonus action magic item use, that is so huge! As long as you clear ahead of time with the GM that there will be wands and you can buy wands, this has the most amount of potential. The niceness of this is that if you don't have a full caster in the party, you can take up that spot in some capacity, and if you do have one, then you stack with them, and they might even be able to help you by crafting wands / casting spells into a spell-storing item. It's a great feature!

vs Arcane Trickster
You could be an AT, but your 1/3 caster slots aren't getting you the same potential variety of spells, the potential power of the level of spells available to you, with the bonus action casting times. AT is for gambling with a melee cantrip (which does not give you the chance of an offhand attack in case it misses), having the Shield spell as backup and for out of combat utility (which, admittedly, may be fine with the change to Ritual spells). But we can likely assume that there is going to be a better caster in your party, in which case, what is your out of combat casting really doing.

lv7 Reliable Talent
This is more of a party-defining element. You can by yourself automatically hit DC15 with any Dex skills, but, as DCs often step up by 5, the next goal of DC20 is suddenly a lot harder to reach (Expertise is +3 or +4 in regular levels, so you need more). You need some kind of an assist to reach that anyway, so...

You should have ways (allies) to buff you to auto-solve things as they come, turning the game into a diceless experience where you are the interaction layer through which everything goes. I think this is the real support the Rogue provides now, and you should probably ask your party if that's what they want in session 0. It'll be a real weird shift if the party's Fighter has gotten accustomed for 6 levels to being the go-to skill guy, and then it's just you, all the time. So you should probably agree on skill picks that don't overlap at lv1.