D&D 5E Abilities, Spells, Items That Expand the Crit Threat Range

[Huntsman57]

Recently the first player who wanted to roll a rogue in my 5E game joined us wherein there was already a Battlemaster and a Fire Sorc among others. Everyone is rather high level, and I equipped the rogue with a reasonable number of magical items for his level.

While the rogue could hardly fail a skill check, which is overall useful, I came to quickly find that while the class has quite a few abilities that help him avoid damage, he can't truly tank (as one would expect of a rogue) but what surprised me was that his rogue wasn't much of a blaster either, with his damage output, even with sneak attack, falling short of what these other classes in my game were achieving by a fair margin each round.

This player didn't choose an assassin of course, and that would of course helped him, but even then the circumstances when one can use the "assassinate" ability don't always present themselves. Perhaps no other class in 5E benefits as much from rolling a crit as the rogue, so my first thought was to consider how a rogue could multiclass to extend his crit range. Naturally, the champion came to mind, but the rogue's sneak attack progression is quite symmetrical, so it felt as though improving my crit threat range to 19-20 but losing 2d6 sneak attack damage from having fewer levels in rogue when I did crit wasn't providing the character with much of a mathematical edge.

Any suggestions on other RAW means to extend the Rogue's crit threat range without compromising his sneak attack damage?

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'm not aware of any way other than Champion Fighter to extend the crit range. I may be missing something, though.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I'm guessing your rogue damage was poorish because your other martials were using the -5/+10 mechanic from GWM and SS. I recommend changing that mechanic to +1 stat instead. You will then tend to find all classes do good damage, including rogues, monks, blasters, but fighters/paladins/barbs will still do the most (just not by such a big margin).

Otherwise I think one of the best ways to rebalance parties is to give the under performers better magic items. So maybe give the rogue a weapon that has a 19-20 crit range magic property.... but you will get huge spike damage with it, doubling all those SA dice.

 

[bid]

I feel that fighter 5 is worth it. It synergizes well with SS for the ranged rogue.
For melee, just twf style gives +5 damage (but losing 1 level = 1/2 1d6 SA), extra attack adds 1d6+5 (losing 4 levels = 2d6 SA), and that'd before the extra chance of landing your SA.

If you want crit to happen more often, cheat a little and allow his sneak attack to crit if any of the attacks critted. With champion's crit range, that might solve your problem.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Is he an Arcane Trickster? He can generate his own guaranteed crits by paralyzing enemies with Hold Person or even potentially (via multiclassing) Hold Monster.

Historically (AD&D), rogues were really specialists in the exploration pillar, not in combat. 5E makes them considerably stronger in combat, and Uncanny Dodge makes them pretty tanky against small numbers of enemies, but their per-round damage output is only ever going to be decent and consistent and never top-shelf. (Their Stealth, on the other hand, is one of the top three in the whole game. And their in-combat Stealth is unquestionably the best.) Trying to crit-fish is a doomed strategy. Taking three levels in champion will lose you 1d6 or 2d6 in sneak attack damage and buys you Action Surge and an extra 5-10% on sneak attacks (depending what enemy AC is), but the Action Surge will probably have more impact because the expanded crit range by itself barely breaks even even at level 20 (3 Champion/17 Rogue). You'd get more out of either Crossbow Expert (for twice as many chances per turn to hit and deal crit damage) or Arcane Trickster w/ Greenflame Blade or Booming Blade for sneak attack damage on top of cantrip damage. Either of those will have more impact than crit-fishing.

As an aside, if you want an awesome stealthy rogue, try a Wood Elf (or anyone with the Skulker feat) and then fight in foliage/heavy rain/snow/etc. Through some unexplained elven magic (Mask of the Wild), you can hide from enemies even in plain sight as long as you're lightly obscured by the above-mentioned phenomena; and because you're a rogue, you can attack every round and then hide again with your bonus action (at a ridiculously high Stealth thanks to Expertise) and move away, which effectively prevents enemies from attacking you, at all, ever, while you kill them. (All they can really do is Ready an action to attack you as soon as you show up, and you can exploit that with illusions, or by leaving them on edge for minutes at a time before resuming your attack.) If you've ever seen Predator with Arnold Schwarzenegger, well, that is basically what it will look like from your enemies' perspective. Every once in a while the invisible wood elf shows up and shivs somebody for 30 points, and then fades away again, often before anyone can hit him back. For extra fun, combine with Sharpshooter, and kill all the monsters before the rest of the party even gets there.

So anyway, you're right, crit-fishing isn't helping you any. Try cantrips, dual crossbows (Crossbow Expert), or patient stealth.

 

[Quickleaf]

Yep, [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] has the right of it.
[MENTION=6803721]Huntsman57[/MENTION] I was surprised that you think rogues should be able to tank. I'm not too familiar with 3e rogues, but rogues in D&D, AD&D 1e and 2e, and 4e never were the go-to class for tanking. They're first and foremost an exploration and "outside-of-the-box" problem solving class.

If you really want to up the rogue's damage, I would suggest looking into giving him proficiency with the poisoner's kit and making ample use of the poisons listed in the DMG. That would be more reliable than crit-fishing and it would feel rather roguish.

 

[thalmin]

Are you also looking at ways to help the others succeed in skill checks and avoid damage?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

If you really want to up the rogue's damage, I would suggest looking into giving him proficiency with the poisoner's kit and making ample use of the poisons listed in the DMG. That would be more reliable than crit-fishing and it would feel rather roguish.

Good idea. I would let a Thief's Cunning Action/Fast Hands be used to apply poison to a weapon. Seems well within the spirit and letter of the law.

 

[abirdcall]

Rogues are tricky, and not a class I recommend for a beginning player.

They need to be constantly thinking of ways to get the upperhand.

Assassin reads much better than it actually is. I think it is the weakest of all of the rogue subclasses. It just doesn't work well in D&D's typical format. Not only do you need to surprise the enemy which is tough to do in a party, but then you also need to win initiative to get any benefit out of it. More often than not the player will just be disappointed by their poor roll.

The closest straight up combat subclass is the Swashbuckler from SCAG.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Variant Human Swashbuckler with Magic Initiate for Greenflame Blade, Boom Blade, and Hex. Just save the single casting of Hex for when you face foes that you need the extra damage + disadvantage on ability checks. Very useful with Panache.