Are Rogues Useless?

[omedon]

I just had another thought on the topic after reading Chairman_Kaga's post.

Take the case where your characters find themselves in the unfortunate predicament of being captured and locked up in a drow prison with all of their items removed and hidden away. How will they escape? Without his spell book or components, which are safely locked away in a magically trapped treasure chest ten floors up, how will the Wizard escape? He won't be able to cast Knock on the cell door, or use Charm Person, to get the guard to divulge information or obey him, or use Telekenisis to take his keys. You are essentially up the river without a paddle. (Please note that in this case the wizard is waking up after a couple of days of being inprisoned and therefore has no memorized spells or way to memorize new ones).

Now what you need is a good old fashioned low-tech rogue. One that can use his Escape Artist skill to wriggle out of his bindings, use Pick Pocket to get the keys from the guard, or Hide to set up an amush, or Bluff to fake sickness and trick the guard or do a good search of his cell to find some suitable means of escape, perhaps something that he could use as a lock pick.

The next task is to find their stolen items hidden on the tenth floor, once again the Rogue will be the one leading the way hiding in darkness, moving silently, making listen and spot checks, and avoiding traps. There probably isn't a whole lot for the spell-less Wizard to do until the party can find their missing items.

Now for a Vietnam metaphor: I think you can compare Wizards to the Hi-Tech American Forces and Rogues to the Low-Tech Viet Cong. Jet Fighters & Napalm vs. Stealthy soldiers setting trip wires and pungi-stick traps.

In retrospect this isn't a good comparision, because the high-techs aren't trying to beat the low-techs at their own game. But I will leave it in because pungi-sticks are cool.

 

[rounser]

I agree with the "Rogues are only as useless as your DM is" camp.

If rogues seem useless, you're not encountering nearly enough traps, locked doors and chests, inaccessible areas, combat terrain featuring shadows or cover, or situations which call for urban subterfuge, spying, trickery, assassination or burglary.

IMO, each campaign should have at least one trap-infested dungeon where a rogue is near essential, an equivalent of the Tomb of Horrors or Durlag's Tower in frequency of traps and tricks. I also think that campaigns should feature at least one occasion where an item or person must be stolen rather than taken by force, and beating the door down and attacking is suicide.

It's only fair for rogues to get their fodder; fighters get theirs all the time. For the villain defending his lair, there's much less maintenance on a locked and trapped door than there is on feeding and housing bunch of monsters or guards, after all.

 

[bret]

Seems to me that some people are making very different assumptions than our groups tend to.

Scrying is a real problem, since it is likely to warn the enemy that you are coming. If you do it more than one day in a row, you would almost certainly be located (Detect Scrying), giving away a large amount of information about the scrying party. At very least, they know someone is planning something against them. In the worst case, they know who is doing so.

A rogue can hide, move silently and spot all day. Take up position, watch a stronghold and note the troup movements and such. With a good Read Lips skill, he might be able to get even better information than the Wizard does. Better yet, the enemy probably has no idea they are being observed until the first attack. This is one case where slowing down the timeline can actually work in a rogues favor.

Invisibility has too short a duration for long term observation. Silence has a problem with alerting people when you get too close, when they become silent. Suddenly not being able to hear any background noise is a good clue that something is wrong.

As for invisibility, I guess that See Invisible isn't as popular in other groups. My wizard was just waiting for the day when he could finally cast Permanency on his See Invisible, in order to free up a spell slot. At levels 7 and higher, people should be EXPECTING invisible opponents and have plans to deal with it. I also agree with others that the Fly spell doesn't automatically make you Move Silently.



I think that a Rogue *can* be useless in a campaign. It depends a lot on the campaign assumptions. There are campaigns where a Rogue would totally dominate (try to go to sea without rogues once), there are other campaigns where they aren't needed.

 

[Red Baron]

In retrospect this isn't a good comparision, because the high-techs aren't trying to beat the low-techs at their own game. But I will leave it in because pungi-sticks are cool.

You made me laugh...

 

[Hejdun]

On an ironic note, isn't a rogue a better wizard than a wizard?

I mean, with his skill, he can cast any spell that a wizard can. He can also cast Cleric spells, spells from wands, etc.

Sure, it will take oodles of magic items, but then the wizard you are proposing will take oodles of spell slots.

What's the point? Both classes have great flexibility, but both have their strengths. Let them do what they are best at, and you'll be fine. Rogues have their strengths, so do wizards.

 

[telepox]

Re: Re: Are Rogues Useless?

You've never fought a 6th-level rogue, have you?

.

As far as rogues vs. spells, every class in the game is weaker than a given spell, but once a spell is cast its gone. At 5th-level my one fireball may deliver 20 points of damage to 8 orcs, more damage than a fighter can deal in one non-critical hit. Does that make a wizard better than a fighter? Of course not. After using his spell, the wizard is spent. The fighter keeps hacking. Same thing for a rogue.

and the funny thing is a rogue with a high reflex save can dodge all those nasty fireballs!!!! But he wouldn't have to because he won initiative and double or triple sneak attacked that wizard.

 

[Mr. Morden]

In the group that I play with, I've developed a reputation for playing rogues (and clerics, but less so). As the group's elected President of Sneakiness, I'd like to point out why I like playing rogues. The main reason has to be the skills. No other class gets the sheer quantity of skill points that a rogue does, and the rogue's skill list is unparalleled except possibly by the bard's. Rogues excell at stealth, social interactions, and mundane detection, via listen, search and spot. They also have some unique skills that no one else does: Disable device, pick pocket(which is more often used for spiking drinks than anything else with my characters), open lock, read lips, and use magic device to name a few. If you want to be subtle, and not just teleport in and blast everything into oblivion with magic, you want a rogue. In my experience they tend to be incredibly useful in most non-combat situations. And that makes them fun. When you get your invisibility purged by a priest of Cyric, then tell him that you're with Cyric's secret police and place him under arrest (and he has a chance of BELIEVING it), that makes it all worth it.

In combat, a rogue really isn't that great unless he can sneak attack. However, if he can, he can do a LOT of damage. Anything that gives him extra attacks (Haste, two weapon fighting, Expert tactician, rapid shot, etc.) just stacks on the damage. Almost nothing is as lethal to a single target as an improved invisible, hasted rogue.

One final thought: My group has been playing the current campaign since about January, and my character (Ranger 3/Rogue 4) is the sole surviving original character. If you play your cards right, a rogue has great survivability also.

 

[reapersaurus]

MasterofHeaven - i guess you missed the threads earlier this year that lamented the power-wizard stealing the spotlight and effectiveness of almost all the classes...

And it's a much harder case to make that the mages make a rogue useless at higher levels than the case that a cleric makes a paladin and fighter useless.

Face it: high level magic in 3E is broken.

 

[reapersaurus]

a post from a previous thread by ashockney:

One other very important by-product of this discussion, is the meta-game issue of challenging parties above 10th level. The core books are not nearly as well writen for 10th - 20th level as they are from 1st - 10th. You can tell the playtesting and controls around the core rules make for an effective and controlled game environment in the early levels. Once you're above 10th however, the DM's job becomes MUCH, MUCH tougher. Where you could simply pull out the old MM, and yank two or three creatures of the appropriate CR, and run them straight from the book, it is impossible to challenge a "tough" party this way above 10th. You must first take time to advance most, if not all creatures. You must detail out standard preparations for your villians (ie, all the fiends/half-fiends, spell-like abilities, clerics, and sorcerers will have a whole bevy of defensive spells up with long durations, if they don't the party will walk through them). Finally, you must tactically challenge the party in much different ways, since they have such powerful resources. It is far easier for most parties to avoid confrontation completely, using the vast resources, skills, and spells available to them to accomplish the tasks that a DM sets before them. To see some good examples of well developed high level adventures, review the high level modules published in Dungeon magazine over the last three to six months. They're getting it, and starting to really "spruce up" the villians, both in raw power, as well as spelling out preparations the villians will take.

 

[Frostmarrow]

To spot an invisible object is DC20. That's not very much. High level rogues will spot invisible objects in their sleep! Then you simply pour flour on it and chop it up, chop it up again, scoop it up in plastic bags and put some in the boot, some in the back seat and the rest in the passenger seat.