Anyone else tired of the miserly begrudging Rogue design of 5E?

[CapnZapp]

I don't think that was a strawman. Damage equal to 1d6 per level plus weapon damage with no conditional requirements is what I gathered from your post.

I think that is pretty clearly going to add up to outshining all other classes in single target damage.

And I know it is not.

Nobody thinks sneak is impressive in our campaign. Everybody would love it if the Rogue could contribute better, and nobody would feel sidelined by the fact he's the trap finder.

Not sure what you mean by "conditional requirements". The Rogue would still need to make sneak attacks.

And you seem to assume I'm doubling the damage of the class. I'm not.

The only difference is that I remove the need to master your reaction to gain your 1d6 per level damage that you can get today.

Instead of doing half dice twice, you do full dice once.

Simpler, cleaner, less difficult... but not inherently better.

(Okay so a little better it is... you do free up your reaction, and you stand two shots at one helping of full dice instead of three shots at two helpings of half dice. The number of rounds where you deal only half or no sneak damage at all should be lowered, which should mostly be just fun!)

 

[Helldritch]

Before I start answering your question I need to mention that just like you I did move Find trap to the investigate skill. On the other hand, Perception can still find a trap but I make the DC 3 higher to "just" see the trap instead of finding it.

Second house rule, we do have a "surprise" round where an ambush is possible and that the ambushers can get a free round of combat before the other side can make the initiative. It works both ways. Monsters and foes can and will make ambushes against the party as much as they are ambushing their enemies. That being said...

The rogue is quite fine as is. Remember that the rogue's role isn't to be a full fledge warrior. That is far from his role.

At low level the rogue will be the scout of the party in dungeons and probably in the wilderness too.
Normaly a rogue will prioritize Stealth, Investigation or Perception and Pick locks (tools). The last one is usually something like sleight of hand or either investigation or perception (in my games for the house rule given above).

The rogue will usually be 60 to 120 feet ahead of the group to scout ahead. He needs those skills. When he has finished scouting and listening to doors and mapping what can be mapped, the rogue will make an accurate report to the group. That knowledge can be invaluable to a successful group.

Disabling traps (and finding them) can (and will) save a lot of damage and thus, save a lot of spells to the party's healer(s).

At mid level, the rogue will have the same role. Now the scouting/mapping part can be made by magic if needed. But in some adventures, using magic to investigate the complex/area might not be a good idea as some foes will be able to put some sentries/spells/features that could foil magical investigation. Not all magic spells but some of them can be foiled quite easily.

Again the rogue will be able to scout ahead of the party, find traps even more effectively and probably be able to hold his own in combat. The sneak attack feature is often an extremely good finishing move.

During the exploration phase, if the rogue is an assassin, he can become quite deadly for sentries. A lone sentry or an assassin in the sleeping quarters of the guards can litteraly wreak havoc on them. I have seen an assassin slay 20 guards in this fashion. Stealthy Killing can be horrifying to witness.

At high level the rogue are becoming even more dangerous. A single rogue can get in an out of a stronghold witouth anyone noticing. The stealth skill could be as high as +17! With reliable talent your rogue will steadily get 27 or higher on his stealth rolls. None will see him/her if that is his/her wish. No traps will be safe from such a rogue as he will see them, disarm them and rearm them as needed. No sir, the safe room is still locked, but it is empty. How it was done is beyond my understanding, even the magical traps have not triggered nor did the magical alarm. Yep, the anti-teleportation and anti-etheral counter measure are still active sir.

Again, combat will not be something to sneeze at. Such a rogue could single handedly kill the garnison of a whole castle/dungeon with dual sneak attacks or simply with the assassin's auto crit feature (and that class will use poison). He would not do it on the leader and important foes, but the support cast won't be safe from him.

If this is your idea of a weak class, I do not share it.

 

[CapnZapp]

No. They chose to sacrifice survivability for out of combat capability. How many hitpoints would the Rogue have if they had prioritised combat survivability as much as the other melee characters that they are competing against?

What are you talking about?

Sure you can stat up a Rogue who dumps Int and the skill monkey role... but why on earth would you want to do that?

All you end up with is a subpar dex fighter.

(The answer is probably +10 hp since they're level 9, but I would have to check to know for sure. The main difference is one between the hit die sizes: 10 hp compared to a Fighter or Paladin, and 20 compared to a Barbarian)

But you're missing my point: my complaint is that the Rogue must sacrifice survivability just to gain out of combat capability. (If its in combat capability was any good, this might have made sense. But it's not, so it doesn't.)

Instead of talking in sweeping terms about how horrible it would be for a Rogue to do it all, how about you specifying your exact misgivings against my specific suggestions.

What would be so brokenly bad about giving the Rogue a couple of extra sneak dice?

What would be so mind-numbingly unfair about absolving the Rogue from having to master the metagame of action currency, and just give him the sneak dice you are already allowed today?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe you could, instead of giving him 2 chances at SA per round with the risk of essentially doubling is DPR, give him an alternative to the Attack Action that would let him split his d6s between Attack rolls and Damage rolls, giving him steady damage instead of burst damage.
Brutal Accuracy
As an Action on you turn, you can make a single attack against an enemy (Insert same restriction as SA). After the initial attack roll but before the Dm announce a hit or a miss, you can spend a number of d6 up to the maximum shown of the rogue's table for your level. If the attack hits, you roll the balance of the d6, if any, you didnt roll and add them to your Damage roll.

Opportunist
When you would hit a creature as part of an AoO, you can add half the d6 from SA on your Damage roll. On a hit, you can use Sneak Attack or Brutal Accuracy without restriction against the same creature.

I think this would allow for different way to apply sneak attack at different opportunity costs, while making it easier on the player to generate SA turn after turn.

 

[dave2008]

The design of the 5E Rogue class is not generous.

In games without feats, and where every adventure day is 8 encounters long, then maybe, just maybe, can the Rogue hold his own in the combat department.

But in games with feats the fighter get upwards of 35 or more damage a round, along with a host of other tricks. That's 10d6! There is no feat to meaningfully increase sneak attack damage.

And in games where the Sorcerer can cast a Fireball together with two Firebolts each combat (for something like 8d6+3d10+3d10+10 damage) the Rogue's so-called "alpha strike" looks just sad.

But the design is not only too stingy with damage. It is poor and counter-intuitive. There is no burst/nova capability. Correct play requires absolute system mastery, to gain two sneak attacks in as many rounds as humanly possible. The Assassinate ability is just mean to the Rogue player, enclosed in so many requirements it basically never happens in games where the party consensus is that solo raids are boring for the rest of the players; much more fun if everybody joins in to the combat simultaneously!

Sure the Rogue has its uses outside of combat, but let's be honest - D&D is a combat-heavy game, and there needs to be a straightforward way to build a Rogue that is competitive in combat.

I very rarely play a PC (99.99% DM), but when I do I always play a rogue / thief. I've enjoyed it in every edition, including 5e.

 

[FrogReaver]

[MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]. I think the problem is that you are trying to raise everything to the level of SS CE Battlemaster Fighters when most the classes in the game can't achieve anywhere near that kind of damage output.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

What are you talking about?

Sure you can stat up a Rogue who dumps Int and the skill monkey role... but why on earth would you want to do that?

So you have survivability closer to a Fighter or Barbarian.

The player chose to prioritise Int over Con because they wanted to play someone who was intelligent, but not as tough. Presumably for the same reason that they chose to actually play a Rogue rather than a Fighter with a criminal background. As soon as the DM mentioned that their style was going to disadvantage the Rogue compared to purely combat-focused, resource-based classes, that would be a definite option for someone wanting to shine more in combat compared to out of combat.
As it is, the player went ahead and made the choice to play a less-combat-focused class, and assign abilities in a less combat-focused distribution.

(The answer is probably +10 hp since they're level 9, but I would have to check to know for sure. The main difference is one between the hit die sizes: 10 hp compared to a Fighter or Paladin, and 20 compared to a Barbarian)

But you're missing my point: my complaint is that the Rogue must sacrifice survivability just to gain out of combat capability. (If its in combat capability was any good, this might have made sense. But it's not, so it doesn't.)

Yes. Exactly. The Rogue does sacrifice pure combat capability for pure out of combat capability.
Just like the Fighter sacrifices out of combat capability for combat capability.
Choosing to be best at something involves choosing other things that you won't be best in.

I'd suggest you have a chat with your player. It sounds like they are unhappy about their low performance in combat and don't view their choice to be good at out of combat things to be worth the trade-off. Thus would rather play a more combat-focused character. It shouldn't be too hard to remake the character as a Dex-fighter with superior combat capability.

Instead of talking in sweeping terms about how horrible it would be for a Rogue to do it all, how about you specifying your exact misgivings against my specific suggestions.

What would be so brokenly bad about giving the Rogue a couple of extra sneak dice?

What would be so mind-numbingly unfair about absolving the Rogue from having to master the metagame of action currency, and just give him the sneak dice you are already allowed today?

Your words, not mine.
Specifically, it was important to know how the player prioritised their choices: you don't want to invalidate their character creation decisions by undoing the trade-offs that they wanted to make.

Now, your suggestions (This is the bit you're probably inrerested in [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]) would increase sneak attack damage by 14 points at the current level. Plus the backstab dice which I'm going to arbitrarily guess at averaging an extra 5 pts/round. (4 or 5 d6 at 9th level, split into only 1 or 2 combats per short rest, but often used on crits.)
With nothing stated to the contrary, we'll use basic 5e assumptions: The Fighter and Barbarian are probably using weapons that average a few points higher than the Rogue's and have two attacks. GWM is worth up to +5 damage on each of those attacks. Everyone has +5 ability bonus.

Rogue damage per round would be around 46 (d8 +5 +9d6 +5). 50 if they dual-wield as would be optional. Getting additional attacks in from reactions would be highly useful with these changes, but we'll assume that they benefit the other classes as much.
Fighter DPR is going to be (2d6 + 5 +5 +5) x 2 or around 44. Chances to hit should be about the same.

So: it kinda depends upon whether you regard the Rogue dominating the combat as well as out-of-combat situations is what you're aiming for. I'm guessing that it'll make the Rogue player happy. How the players who actually build their characters for the purpose of combat will feel about it, only you can tell.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Yes. Exactly. The Rogue does sacrifice pure combat capability for pure out of combat capability.
Just like the Fighter sacrifices out of combat capability for combat capability.
Choosing to be best at something involves choosing other things that you won't be best in.

Yup. The 'problem' seems to be, 'When I choose A, it is not B. And I want B because it is a better choice than A. But I still want to have my choice of A. So I want A to be B. But not actually be B.'

 

[Wiseblood]

And I know it is not.

Nobody thinks sneak is impressive in our campaign. Everybody would love it if the Rogue could contribute better, and nobody would feel sidelined by the fact he's the trap finder.

Not sure what you mean by "conditional requirements". The Rogue would still need to make sneak attacks.

And you seem to assume I'm doubling the damage of the class. I'm not.

The only difference is that I remove the need to master your reaction to gain your 1d6 per level damage that you can get today.

Instead of doing half dice twice, you do full dice once.

Simpler, cleaner, less difficult... but not inherently better.

(Okay so a little better it is... you do free up your reaction, and you stand two shots at one helping of full dice instead of three shots at two helpings of half dice. The number of rounds where you deal only half or no sneak damage at all should be lowered, which should mostly be just fun!)

Oh, I think I see now.

You cleared up the conditional misconceptions that I had.

Well, if you want the non-system-mastery rogue to keep up better damage-wise with the hardcore brawlers that is simple and elegant enough to do the trick.


Or/and you could try something akin to the Battlemasters Superiority dice. Or possibly alternate uses of cunning action. Though that might be more than you would be willing to trade for.

Treachery dice sounds good to me. Save dc = 8+dex mod + proficiency bonus

Gang attack: spend one treachery dice to make a sneak attack against an opponent that can see at least one member of your party. Add 5d6 (above and beyond sneak attck) to the damage dealt. Can be used after the attack roll but before damage.

Bleeding strike: strike an opponent so that they bleed profusely. When you successfully sneak attack an opponent spend one treachery dice to cause a bleed effect that does 1d6 plus dex mod at the end of each of their turns until a constitution save is made vs your treachery DC. A successful heal check vs the dc or any amount of magical healing ends the effect.

Snake hands: when you hit an opponent spend one treachery dice. They must make a wisdom save against your treachery DC. Failure means they blame a creature within reach of your choice for their misfortune and lash out with their reaction to attack that creature.

I understand these are not as simple or elegant as a plain damage boost but I felt they fit a murderous scoundrel theme well...if your rogue is that kind of person.


Also it could be tacked on after you try out the enhanced Sneak Attack if you feel that they are still lagging behind.


If such advice or mechanics previously existed I stole it from someone here on ENWorld.

 

[CapnZapp]

Oh, I think I see now.

You cleared up the conditional misconceptions that I had.

Well, if you want the non-system-mastery rogue to keep up better damage-wise with the hardcore brawlers that is simple and elegant enough to do the trick.

My real question is, why is thread apparently filled with people who absolutely insist the Rogue of all classes be shackled to a very harsh system mastery requirement...?

What is inherent to the Rogue's theme that just screams "straight-forward players shouldn't bother! Go play Champion or something!"

And of course I'm sarcastic. They just hate change and the notion their edition is not flawless, that's all.

Why otherwise utterly deny there is any kind of issue here, and adamantly avoid actually discussing the suggestions I've made?