Argh!! Useless Rogues

[Ulrik]

(WARNING: Rant ahead)
My Rogue died last session. That was partly my own fault (ok, entirely my own fault, I entered a room with gargantuan scorpion to steal a staff).

But, before that, my character hadn't done anything of note in the three sessions I played him. The last session, he managed to keep our 6th-level party from being ambushed by a group of 6 1st level warriors, and killed a guard (the other got away and sounded the alarm). That's it. So when he bought the farm (or, was gobbled up by a scorpion), I wasn't too bothered. It get's kinda boring watching everyone else do stuff, and not do much yourself.

I had tried to build him as a skill-user, with two-weapon fighting/sneak attack for combat. Unfortunatly my skills almost never came up! (I did get to sneak around a lot last session, but I didn't do much good apart from avoiding that one ambush.) Needless to say, he wasn't very effective in combat either, encounters that lasted beyond the first turn usually involved Undead. We never encountered any traps or locked doors either.

So, what use ARE Rogues? Are they totally dependent on the GM to give them challenges that matches their skill selection? Are they really only good for opening doors and scouting?

 

[Teemu]

"Aarghh! Useless Fighters!!!

"My Fighter died last session. My awesome BAB and attack bonus never came up! We didn't fight one combat - it was just all hiding and moving silently and listening and sense motiving and diplomacing! Then my fighter got thrown into jail because he totally failed his checks! And then they executed him - he failed his skill checks again!"

So yes, like every other class, they're dependent on the GM.

 

[Oates]

At least your rogue wasn't defeated by piss poor rolls of will and fort saves while trying to disarm a trap [stupid phantasmal killer traps]

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Key point.. which should be in big bold letters on the DMG front page..

All character class choices must be catered to by the DM in order for that class to enjoy its full abilities.

Some of the hardest parts of being a GM are:
Being willing to limit those classes you are not prepared to cater to.
Being able to split the limelight fairly evenly accross the players so each player has a chance to enjoy full capability often enough to not fall into the above rant.

[Insert Class Name Here] are powerful and entertaining characters when the session applies to them. As such, Rogues should face some traps and gather info checks, fighters should face heroic combat, rangers should face keeping the party alive in nasty weather, monks should face leaping + balance + climb scenarios, etc...

And.. this thread belongs more in the General Topics than in Rules...

 

[Pasus Nauran]

All character class choices must be catered to by the DM in order for that class to enjoy its full abilities.

Agreed! I played a Ranger 2 campaigns ago, and not once did I ever fight any of my three Favoured Enemies (I can't remember what they were, but they were fairly common such as Orcs).

 

[rowport]

Agreed! I played a Ranger 2 campaigns ago, and not once did I ever fight any of my three Favoured Enemies (I can't remember what they were, but they were fairly common such as Orcs).

This kind of baffles me: why the heck would your character favor enemies that he never encountered in the campaign world?? I could understand this happening for the first favored enemy, of course, but presumably he would have then had some sense of who he was fighting regularly...

 

[Ulrik]

All character class choices must be catered to by the DM in order for that class to enjoy its full abilities.

This may be recent experiences coloring my opinion , but I think Rogues are especially susceptible to this, because they're primary skill users. Comparing just the four "base classes":

Clerics & Wizards have tremendous flexibility with their spellcasting, allowing them to tailor their abilities to whatever challenges they face. Sure, a Cleric might never get to turn Undead, but he still gets a lot to do with his spells.

Fighters fight. If you're running a campaign which doesn't focus much on combat at all, I think you're far enough away from 'standard' D&D to give your players fair warning before they choose to play fighters.

And Rogues use skills. Which there are a lot of. And not really many opportunities to use them if the DM isn't giving you the right kind of challenges. If you're exploring dungeons and killing mindless monsters, how much is Bluff or Diplomacy going to help you? If you never encounter any traps or secret doors, what use is Disable Device and Open Lock? And so on. You can never even half of all the skills available (if you want to use them, that is, and not only have one rank of each for cosmetic purposes), and you pretty much have to guess which skill checks the DM is going to request. Plus, your skill selection is mostly set at first level, as the systems encourages you to max out your skills if you want to use them effectivly. If you play from 1st to 6th, and then realize that you never see any traps at all, you won't get back those 18 skill points you spent on Disable Device and Search. Heck, even if you're sure your not going to need them by third level you've still spent 12 skill points on them.

That's why I think playing Rogues is kind of a crapshoot, and that they're more dependent on the DM than other classes.

 

[Seph]

my friend plays a rogue.....he does it pretty good just that hes a rogue3/swashbockler3/assassin3/deverish something........and it tends to be a good rogue.......just that he still exceeds from playing the rogue to the extent point of that rogue

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I learned a long time ago to look over the character sheets of my players & encourage them to quiz me before making big decisions. The corollary is to include & inform the dm.

Lone wolf players & characters do not thrive in a cooperative game like d&d.

 

[BadMojo]

Needless to say, he wasn't very effective in combat either, encounters that lasted beyond the first turn usually involved Undead. We never encountered any traps or locked doors either.

Seems like two big problems here. One, if encounters almost never last longer than 1 round without undead, those are poorly designed encounters.

Also, the GM should really throw in stuff for everybody to excel at. Skills *are* a huge part of the rogue class.

Anyway, IMO the rogue in combat is all about tumbling in, getting flanking and stickin' 'em with the old sneak attack (teamwork and a decent tumble skill being the keys).