D&D 5E [5E] A Rogue "unnerf" - Extra Attack

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[TwoSix]

Well, I love the comment, but you know that this "hot take" is approximately 44 years old.

I mean, it's probably room-temperature at this point.

It's an OK take. And by OK, I mean 0 K.

 

[Ashrym]

Are there other options I'm forgetting?

There are plenty of spells to trigger opportunity attacks, tbh. That's what makes spells like command or dissonant whispers good.

I'm going to say you missed paying a high level spell caster into turning the rogue into a hydra with true polymorph. Each head gets a reaction. Then wish the INT score back up. Then intentionally cut off heads to regrow two in it's place for a while.

11 heads, 11 reactions, 1 dissonant whispers, let the sneak attack havoc ensue.

Or it would be less cheesy just to cast the spell on the rogue once and give him 6 SA's every round or so that combat via abilities causing opponents to move.

 

[CapnZapp]

Haste won't give another SA. It grants another attack on your turn, so you have another chance of landing the SA if your first attack misses, but you won't actually get two SA's.

I think CapnZapp was more thinking of feats that allow use of reactions to make opportunity attacks and SA on other people's turns.

This is the perfect example of my point - even a presumable knowledgeable player getting it wrong (no offense dnd4v).

You use the Hasted action just like it says on the label: to attack.

It is your regular action you instead use differently - you ready an action with it, saying "I shoot/stab the monster as soon as something, anything at all, happens".

This means your readied action triggers as soon as the next creature takes its turn (friend or foe), and you can do a second sneak attack since it is now a new turn!

This is what I call going through "hoops". It is un-intuitive and cheesy-feeling. But it is also completely legit as every minmaxer knows.

My suggestion is intended to take the Cheeze Hoops out of the equation, and solve the OP's issue in a way that is very close to what the RAW actually permits.

 

[CapnZapp]

Hot take: The thief hurt D&D by siloing combat and non-combat specialization into different classes. A unified "warrior" class merging combat and practical skills would have been better.

My own take is that classes is the life blood of D&D, and that any move towards genericized classes will destroy the game.

In other words, I definitely want fighters and rogues to remain separate. I just need the devs to understand that "skill monkey" is far less valuable in a regular game of D&D than they seem to think.

Give Rogues skills AND awesome DPS, and people will still play fighters simply because they last longer on the battlefield and can actually protect their friends.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[TwoSix]

My own take is that classes is the life blood of D&D, and that any move towards genericized classes will destroy the game.

In other words, I definitely want fighters and rogues to remain separate. I just need the devs to understand that "skill monkey" is far less valuable in a regular game of D&D than they seem to think.

Give Rogues skills AND awesome DPS, and people will still play fighters simply because they last longer on the battlefield and can actually protect their friends.

Current D&D is in a weird spot for me where I think it should have gone more generic or more specialized, but it ended up in a compromise position. I'd love to see a book of 50 specialized classes, all of which take up only 2 pages each. Or my own homebrew project, which is a lot of mini-classes that become accessible only as campaign rewards.

 

[Kinematics]

Now then. I am of the firm belief Rogues should be DPS machines. Skill use is vastly overrated by a dev team that perpetuates the fantasy that the three pillars are in any way equal. Just look at any published module to instantly see that the game is maybe 80% combat and 15% exploration. The times you make a social check that actually matters can be counted on one hand, for all books together! So putting even 5% on social is generous.

I find the exact opposite. Combat is maybe 20%, and the rest is social and exploration (exact division depends on what parts qualify as "exploration"). And in fact I am often envious of the skill selection and expertise available to rogues and bards. I do not think they are overrated at all, as they are vastly useful for large portions of our games.

This is from four different GMs over the last 4-5 years, and several long-duration games. Two of the games were based on modules (one of which is still going), and the rest were homebrew. (5E convinced us to retry D&D; prior to that, I think we'd played maybe 2 D&D games over the previous 20 years.)

 

[DND_Reborn]

This is the perfect example of my point - even a presumable knowledgeable player getting it wrong (no offense dnd4v).

WHAT!? WELL, YEAH, YOU CAN, WELL, YOU KNOW...

Boy, wouldn't it be horrible if that was actually my response! LOL!

No offense taken. We've only been playing 5E for maybe nine months. No one has Haste yet (I have Slow, though). Actually, we've never even encountered a bad-guy with it either!

I think in all the thousands of rounds of combat, we've only had people ready an action maybe twice???

And finally, I abhor min/maxers and as the most "experienced" player (I've been playing other editions for close to 40 years...) I am trying to discourage it in all the others since they are all new to D&D as of this campaign.

Anyway... as to the OP:

Allowing multiple SA's was definitely not my idea. Allowing the Extra Attack would give the chance for getting the SA each round, and maybe a bit extra damage if the rogue hits with both attacks. The Second Strike idea allows that as well, but at the cost of your reaction, forcing the player to choose between offense and defense.

So, that is what I am going to suggest to the group this weekend. Otherwise, I am just sort of following the thread to see what others come up with.

 

[Immoralkickass]

You abhor min/maxing, yet you want Rogues to have Extra Attack? And the title is 'Unnerf' Rogues, which could also mean, 'Buff Roags plz?'