Are Rogues Useless?

[Geo]

My gaming group

Hi, read most of what everyone said, but what I really think that no one is looking at is the hellacious amount of skill points that Rogues can get. This alone makes them worthwhile. But besides that, here is a little story. First I run a game whose average level is now 11th. There is the Half-dragon Sorcerer, the Barbarian Elf, the Human Ranger/Fighter(Archer), the Human Cleric, and the Tiefling Rogue. Now the rogue, through good use of his money, and skills has boosted his Dex to an impressive 31. his other high stat is int. He spent other money on skill enhancing items, that allow him to move silently, hide, and to spot. He took skill mastery so that move silently and hide, and a bunch of other combet type skills are at a base ten. He is never seen, so far only other rogues can see him. Even if you do use Scry, you can't see him if he is hiding, he wears a cloak over all of his stuff, just incase of detect magic. He then has been using his Use Magic Device skill to great effect. That blur thing, it's interesting, but he has already overcome that. He knows what it looks like, and uses his dispel magic wand to get rid of it. We went up against a bunch of spell resistant creatures, the fighter and the rogue were the only ones really doing anything to these creatures. Then, last night, I just ran them through a break in at the local rogues guild. The surprise that happened almost cost two of the characters lives. Being sneak attacked from range sucks. Also, scrying only works when you know what you want to look at. So you do a divination, really, you have to guess, thats not easy. Scry on the villain? My villains, the big ones cast non-detection on themselves, they don't want to be seen, screw the scrying and other things. Anyway, another thing my rogue player has is teh song and silence feat quicker than the eye. He can bluff as a move-equivalent action and then sneak attack right away. Sure this doesn't work against undead, but then all he does is become support for the cleric and fighter. He usually comes out of most encounters unscathed due to his good use of tumble, hide, and his quick movement. Plus the big spells, rarely affect him. Needless to say, he is the most overpowered person in my group, caught unawares, the rest of the group could be killed by him. He is smart, he knows how to play that rogue effectively. If your characters aren't playing the rogue well, then that's their problem. At lower levels, you need one, at higher levels, they tend to be the ones who dodge the disintegrates. So... it really is a call to be made. My magic users would rather use their spells for combat, healing, and buffing the group. Not being the rogue.

 

[Chairman_Kaga]

Wizards! Bah!

I dare any mage to try that fly/invisibility nonsense in my game...they would regret it in about two seconds. I cannot stand campaigns where every single little problem can be solved by magic.

"who needs climb? I'll just bounce over to the local magic item factory and buy some nifty gizmo that will do it for me!"

And what happens when that item is gone/destroyed/stolen?

My players rely on their own abilities, not equipment...equipment can be taken...besides a character should be more than just the sum of his toys.

My players adventured without a rogue for two sessions and got their @$$e$ handed to them...I don't change my game world to take into account that they don't have a specific class. If the villain/bad guy has a history of dropping fiendish traps into his castle then those traps don't suddenly go away because there's no one to detect or disarm them.

I'm a big fan of low-magic/high plausibility campaigns in that regard.

 

[Rook]

While not all wizards will have the best spells in their spellbooks, note that wizards in D&D can *choose* two spells each time they level. Given the usefullness and power of Invisibility and Fly, I would be surprised if many wizards did not take them very soon.

My feelings are in agreement with Teflon Billy and others. In a dungeon crawl environment where you have several combat encounter per day, the spellcasting classes (particulary arcane, but also divine to a somewhat lesser extent) are reasonably balanced because they must carefully conserve spellcasting power. Outside of those conditions, magic is simply too powerful and versatile not to dominate play.

 

[Broken Fang]

Some of these points may have been made but what the hey...I'll throw in my two cents since I like both the Rogue and Wizard classes. A Wizard can act as a Rogue...I've done it, at the same time in 3rd ed a Rogue can act like a Wizard...its called Use MAgic Device.
Everyone has said how these spells are all low level...guess what a Rogue can use a wand and cast from scrolls pretty darn easy! He can also do something a Wizard cannot do...cast HEALING spells from scrolls and wands! A Rogue can't make his own items but can cast 9th level Wizard or Cleric spells with a good chance at about 9th level.
SPOT as a class skill...not many items add a bonus to your spot skill. I think they best I found was +5 eyes of the eagle (1k)...compare that to ring of the chameleon (12k) +15 to hide or cloak of elvenkind (3k) +10. That makes it really darn hard for any other class to see things out there..or hear them for the case of the invisible flying mage. The Wizard will have a darn hard time spotting the rogue who is hiding...not standing out in the middle of the room invisible. The Rogue, who has a scroll or wand of See Invisible (so he can fight those pesky invisible things), will have no problem spotting the Wizard.
Same goes with SEARCH and Open Locks...does your Wizard cast Knock on every door that doesn't just open? How does he know if it is trapped...sure isn't by using his skill. A Rogue lets you know if you need to bypass it with the use of magic.
Do they both have uses...yes. Can one emulate the other...yes. Is one better than the other...probably not, I alternate between them usually and have fun playing both. I think it, like most anything when it comes to D&D, is do your players have fun.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I have the exact opposite problem. I have difficulty getting my players play something else than Rogues.

 

[Mort]

I’ll agree with all those saying wizards do not make rogues useless.

It always amazes me that when people say “wizards make rogues useless” they then proceed to come up with situations favorable only to the wizard.

What about NPC’s and monsters that can see invisible – not all that uncommon. A rogue can still hide from them; a mage is out of luck.

What about forests, low ceiling caves and other environments not suitable to flying quietly (I would put many dungeons in this category – ok so your flying – doesn’t help you avoid that table and alerting the orc to your presence or worse yet smacking your head on the ceiling). This comes up incredibly frequently – the rogue is fine the mage is sunk.

Next, silence is not always a good thing. The wizard in my campaign cast silence 15’ to avoid making noise. He then hung back from the party so as not to hamper them. Problem is a salamander snuck up behind him and proceeded to pound him into a bloody pulp. It was 3 rounds before the rest of the party realized what was going on, and the mage was in negative HP’s by the time they dealt with the Salamander.

And of course the anti-magic zones. This actually came up in my game when the cleric wanting to negate a vampire’s spell casting abilities cast anti-magic sphere. Unfortunately the cleric and mage had not communicated properly and the anti-magic sphere revealed the mage attempting to invisibly sneak up on the vampire to deliver a touch spell– bad luck for the mage (a magic free vampire is still a vampire a magic free mage may as well be a commoner).

There are many more situations like the above, not to mention all the others people have posted. Mage’s can sub for a rogue in a pinch – but when all’s said and done I’ll take the rogue for what he’s best at.

 

[Victim]

I didn't know that rogues couldn't use magic items. Maybe that's why I thought they were useful. The player of the fighter - rogue in our group will be most upset when I inform him of this rule change.

After all, Celestial Chainmail goes along way toward striking flying opponents. Boots of Speed give him decent defense with no preparation and the ability to go from 0 at a distance to 40 points up and in your face in 5.8 seconds. With the usual complement of almost all day buffs from my character, I'd put his damage against a single target in a round at about equal to our spellcasters. They have area attacks, and he can keep going until dropped. Of course, Great Cleave combined with a Fireball - that he can evade - is like another fireball that comes from the fighter. His Spot and Listen scores help against surprise.

He doesn't even have key skills like UMD, Disable Device or any social skills.

While spellcasters have Invis, they also have see invis. There is no spell that lets you automatically see hiding creatures. What magic gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.

If a spell caster has time to prepare and use every appropriate spell, of course they'll kick ass. However, in many fights, by the time you cast shield, blur, haste, improved invis, etc, the battle's pretty much over. Even if you use them beforehand, it's still simple to blow through 1/2 them with a dispel.

So the party can cast scry, buff themselves up, and then teleport in, unleasing mass destruction with near total invulnerability? What a clever tactic. It's amazing that they're the only people to ever think of and use such a trick. Hmm, maybe other NPCs have come up with this too. If they survive the first attack while they're eating breakfast or sleeping (if they're not sleeping in a rope trick), then using up several spell slots for detect scrying and nondetection should take a bite out their other spels.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Re: Wizards! Bah!

I dare any mage to try that fly/invisibility nonsense in my game...they would regret it in about two seconds. I cannot stand campaigns where every single little problem can be solved by magic.

Hear hear! I've seen many occasions where the spellcasters needed their egos deflated a bit.

Sure, a wizard can cast blur to make themselves immune to sneak attack, but for that to happen they must be aware that they are going to be attacked. A fighter can effectively cripple the mage's spellcasting ability by grappling with him, and even the most powerful wizard will find himself asking a fighter for help when surrounded by golems or beholders.

Of course, I'm not against spellcasters. They are a great class to have around, but they definately are not the answer to every problem that arises in a game.

 

[omedon]

I agree with the person who said that a flying, silenced wizard scout is good but a flying, silenced rogue scout is better.

The wizard has fewer skill points and will have spent most of them on Spellcraft and Concentration. While a Rogue would have a ton of skill points to spend on Search, Spot, and Listen.

I can think of one example where a wizard might pass over an area and fail a spot check to see a hidden ambush. When he returns to tell the party the area is clear, they are in for a really nasty surprise. A Rogue with a much higher Spot, Search, and Listen score would be much more likely to see the hidden ambush, and save the party a lot of grief.

 

[mearls]

Re: Re: Re: Are Rogues Useless?

I'll repeat what I said above: it all owrks fine in a dungeon crawl in any other situation that involves less than near-constant combat, the Spellcasters outshine every other class after about level 7.

NB: I was discussing how to make rogues useful in general and what I've seen them do in adventures. My comments weren't directed at you or a general rogues v. spellcasters discussion.

But I'd agree that spellcasters have always been the most powerful classes at high levels. There's too many binary spells (ie, fail a save and you're out of a fight) in the game such as charm monster, polymorph other, and so on. A wizard who establishes line of sight to an unprepared enemy flat out wins the vast majority of the time. Once a wizard hits 8th or 9th level, he can afford the big wands he needs to make running out of spells an unlikely occurence. Given dispel magic's low range, it's rather easy for a caster to use fly to stay beyond range and drop spells on a static target.

Of course, the other classes also get access to magic items. More importantly, they don't have to pay the steep gp price wizards have to pay in order to expand their spellbooks. Without that, a wizard is markedly worse than a sorcerer. So sure, a wizard can fly around invisible for an hour a day. If he's 6th-level he can pull that off for a total of 3 hours if he uses his slots on those two spells. He can resort to scrolls, though that saps his ability to buy other items. A 6th-level character should have 13,000 gp in items. At 375 gp per scroll, that's not a trivial sum. He could craft a wand of fireball or fly, by that would suck down almost his entire gp alotment, or half that should he drop the cast level down to 3.

Meanwhile, the rouge drops 4000 gp into cloak and boots of elvenkind and can essentially turn invisible at will. Remember, Spot and Listen are not class skills for most classes.

Don't underestimate the DMG's guidelines for character gp. Thus far they've been the biggest limiting power for my wizard character.

SR is the big hurdle at high levels, especially when dealing with outsiders. Again, the binary nature of spells rears its head. A charm monster either fizzles against SR, is beaten by a save, or takes a monster completely out of commision. IMNSHO, that's the primary reason why the entire a natural 1 on a save always fails ruling is a bad idea for game balance. Since SR is rather hard to come by for PCs, the effectiveness of spellcasting classes against other classes is a bit magnified.

Remember, the classes are balanced against each other in relation to the monsters they face at a given level. A 10th level wizard might waste a 10th level fighter under most circumstance, but that same fighter can wipe the floor with an outsider that could tear the wizard in half.

IME, wizards are tremendously effective in short bursts. That effectiveness plummets as soon as a wizard shows up on the other side. If given time to prepare, arcane casters have a huge advantage. If attacking from surprise, rouges have a huge advantage. Clerics have staying power, while fighters tend to have the same effectiveness in a wide range of situations. I would say that arcane casters have the best rate of survivability should they survive an initial onslaught. Between dimension door, polymorph self, fly, and invisibility, it's hard to pin down a wizard who really wants to flee and has a chance to get off a few spells.