Are 4E rogues marginalised by magic?

[CapnZapp]

This question was asked quite recently, but for Third Edition.

In my personal opinion, the answer is a given for that edition. Much more interesting would be to ask the same question for 4th edition, hence this poll!

In other words, do you feel 4E rogues are marginalised by magic, arcane or divine? Do spells infringe on the rogue's role in the party?

 

[CapnZapp]

And just out of interest, for those who votes no, do you feel this is because the sneaking & dungeoneering has been taken out of the rogue's role; or because the sneaking & dungeoneering has been taken out of the wizard's spells? (Or both)

My personal interest in posting the poll is that I'm vacillating whether to create a rogue character or not. My 3E experiences tell me not to, but if this thread says 4E has fixed this, then I might just be persuaded (not that you need to do any persuading in this thread, except voting your honest opinion...

 

[Noir le Lotus]

I haven't played much in 4th edition but, as I really like playing rogues, I have done some investigations on this subject.

Now, rogues are not marginalised by magic-using classes : Invi and Fly are still there but they don't let the wizard have a complete round by example.

My only fear is about rituals !!!

The good news is that rituals don't bypass skills : they use them. The problem I see is that casting a ritual only focus on 2 or 3 skills (and a PC could easily only take rituals focused on only 1 skill and take Skill Focus on this skill to improve his chances of success) and grant a bonus (see Knock or Detect Secret Doors) that mundane use of a skill can't have, making those rituals more reliable than the rogue.

 

[The_Fan]

In my limited experience, no. By the time the wizard can get Greater Invisibility, the rogue can do it too, and better. Yes, that's right: The rogue can actually go invisible, not just hide. Some exploits prevent you from moving, while the higher ones allow you to move and attack as well. Meanwhile, Wizard spells that use invisibility all require sustain standard, and most Warlock spells target a single creature (IOW, you become invisible to that one target).

When it comes to trapbusting, rogues are the best. Again, warlocks can step on some toes, but they can't find traps as well as rogues (perception not class skill). Rituals can help, but they can get expensive. Also, they are useless in combat, where a rogue can disable an active trap while a wizard would need to sit down for an hour before he could.*

*Note: This is assuming no cross class skills on the wizard's part or ritual casting on the rogue's part. Then the lines get a lot blurrier.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I voted strongly disagree that the rogue is marginalised by 4e. I have DM'ed KoTS for a party including the rogue up to 3rd level now and in combat the rogues thing is unique to him, though his damage output is not as reliably high as a rangers, at least in my experience.
In a scouting role, he is about equal to the ranger.
Out of combat he is easier to compete with but the rogue is the only one that covers all the activities from the beginning and another class can only compete in one area.
Thus a warlock could pick up theivery and compete in the trap disbling and finding but not in the sneaking about bit.
A ranger could come closest at first level to competing with the rogue but he would not be better and in some area worse. Most other classes would have to level to pick up the extra skills to compete with the out of combat roles and they could not compete with the combat role, either because there own is more fundamenal, there is not much use in a figher or paladin trying for sneak attack if they are not defending the squishies, or they are too fragile, e.g. the wizard.
I don't see rituals as a problem, by the time you would have done he ritual the fighter would have battered down the door.

 

[drothgery]

And just out of interest, for those who votes no, do you feel this is because the sneaking & dungeoneering has been taken out of the rogue's role; or because the sneaking & dungeoneering has been taken out of the wizard's spells? (Or both)

Well, given that 4e rogues are automatically trained in Stealth and Thievery and pretty much required to have high Dex, it's pretty hard to argue sneaking and dungeoneering aren't in the Rogue's role anymore (though it's not part of the 'striker' role; if you don't have a Rogue, someone will have to expend skill slots if you want to be sneaky). It's pretty easy for any high-dex lightly-armored type to be sneaky; just spend a feat or skill slot on Stealth.

But 4e spells (or prayers) and rituals don't replace skills anywhere to the degree that 3.5 spells do, at least on paper.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

Hasn't come up in my game at all. The rogue is just as effective as any other party member. Our warlock and cleric have their things to do, and neither infringes on what the rogue does. Magic hasn't really been an issue for anyone.

 

[Vayden]

4e is by far the most rogue friendly edition in the history of D&D. Some reasons:

-Many rogue skills have been combined, allowing a rogue to actually use that high number of trained skills to have a little diversity, while still covering their "rogue" base skills that other party members expect them to have.
-Sneak attack actually works on everyone, and works devastatingly - while some will argue that the ranger edges them out, it is unquestioned that the rogue is in the top 2 of pure focused single target chunks of massive damage.
-It's really really fun to play - to get that sneak attack bonus, you have to be constantly moving and working with your mates, so there's constant engagement with what's going on.
-The rituals and spells that allow people to mimic rogue abilities all have fairly significant drawbacks (casting time, standard maintain, etc), making a good rogue always one of your first choices for sneaking, scouting, infiltrating, trap-busting, etc.

 

[Jack99]

Rogues are much less marginalized. They are once again kings of their niches.

 

[Jhaelen]

Similar to the 3E thread the more complete question would translate to 'Is the skill system marginalized by the power system?' That's a definite no.

Even Utility powers are mostly concerned about combat applications, so there's very little overlap.

There's a similar question that may be relevant in 4E: 'Is the skill system marginalized by the ritual system?' That's also a no. While there are rituals that can replace certain skill applications, they're generally substituting another skill. I.e. they're actually an extension of the skill system.

Now to get back to the original question: Since all 4E classes are mainly defined by their combat roles and the power source is basically just flavour, 'martial' characters and 'arcane' or 'divine' characters are absolutely equal.

What I like about the 4E rogues in particular is that they get the most at-will utility powers of all classes. That goes a long way to preserve their original feel.