Essentials Rogue is up!

[UngeheuerLich]

maybe it won´t change for the normal rogue...

actually i don´t think the thief is that impressing at first level... no daily and daze practically denying skill tricks seems not that strong... so maybe he needs SA 1/turn to do its job...

also his tricks only work for atacks on the same round... maybe it has merits for a rogue to action point move move attack... hmmh...

 

[YRUSirius]

[...] you do understand it is in their corporate interest to both obsolete them and tell you that they're not obsoleting them, right? [...]

I like you.

-YRUSirius

 

[Remathilis]

YES!!!!

As a life-long Thief/Rogue lover, I'm in heaven about this build!

* I can SA/use my "powers" with a shortbow. Elven Thieves are no longer useless!
* Weapon Finesse (I wager) give me the ability to MBA with dex without Feat-Taxing to take Melee Training (tbh, I had the same complaint about 3.5/weapon finesse).

On the other side: Thief! Mage! Welcome back to 2nd edition class names!

Remathilis "D&De: 2e reloaded" Ooi.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Very good point from RPG.net

Originally Posted by LogicNinja
If 4E up until now has had a focus of functional mechanics, Essentials adds a focus on *presentation*.

This is a great observation. A fair amount of the thinking behind essentials, and its ease of use, came from watching people (both veteran RPGers and newbies) struggle with the concept of powers.

People seemed to have a fairly easy time grokking a power for the casting classes - wizards, clerics. They have in their mind a concept of what a spell is, and that maps fairly easily to the concept of a power.

On the other hand, there were the people who just wanted to smack an orc over the head with an axe. Time and again, you'd see someone playing a 4e weapon user for the first time struggle to remember to use a power. The power was getting in the way of axe + orc's head = win.

(It would be ridiculous to characterize these players as dense or dumb, by the way. It really comes down to how you perceive the game fiction and how it interacts with the rule set. Some people start with mechanics. Others start with the world.)

The idea behind the essentials mechanics is to find the same relationship between power and spell for the martial classes. That's why you see stances for the fighter, tricks for the thief, and powers that kick in after an attack like power strike. For someone who has experienced fantasy in books, those frameworks are easier to understand. There's a clearer relationship between what the mechanic does and what happens in the game world.

That also points to why the design isn't interested in replacing the earlier classes. Many people obviously did pick them up and understand them. Why mess with those folks' fun?

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I quite like this in some ways. You get your "power" from moving around, rather than the attack itself. Mechanical encouragement and justification for being a nimble, tricksy guy in combat. Good flavor, tasty idea. But it's not actually simpler in the strict sense of that word. That seems to be the majority opinion, but moving complexity around does not equal removing complexity.

In short, I'm really not sure how having move powers (and more of them) instead of attack powers makes the thief "simpler" than the rogue. In fact, in some ways, this is a bit more opaque. For one thing, you are again making additional decisions, this time both after and before the attack roll, about whether to apply additional mojo to the hit. But more importantly, I'm not sure how intuitive to the naive player it is to relocate more of the capacity for CA generation and bonus damage onto move actions. I think it's a great idea that encourages a mobile character. That really fits my idea of how rogues should fight, but I'm not sure how that will be clearer to a novice than the way it currently works with powers.

EDIT:
I hate that I feel the need to make this clarification, but with all the vitriol about this, I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to pick a fight or razz Essentials. I'm honestly confused about how this is simpler, in the net. Sure, attacks are simpler, ignoring the additional decision points on Backstab and Power Strike (so I guess it's simple the way physics is simple in a frictionless, gravity-less vacuum), but all the complexity seems to have been simply off-loaded to other parts of your turn. Which, again, I like. Your movement is more holistically part of your combat action. This is very cool to me. But I don't see it as simple.

 

[jasonbostwick]

OK, now Ambush Trick makes it close to guaranteed AND you can do it multiple times per round?

I don't really know how unbalancing the change to Sneak Attack is, but Ambush Trick doesn't really play into the equation.
Ambush Trick gives you CA until the end of your turn - if you need to use the trick to get the Sneak Attack damage during your turn, you likely won't have it later on in the round.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Maybe not simpler, but it is simple to understand that you have to move around to be effective... something which may be true for all rogues, but which is not that obvious for new players... maybe this...

 

[Stalker0]

In short, I'm really not sure how having move powers (and more of them) instead of attack powers makes the thief "simpler" than the rogue. In fact, in some ways, this is a bit more opaque.

The key is not the number of choices, its how often a player is mandated to make a choice.

For example, I'm a 1st level rogue. I have the choice between 1 encounter, 1 daily and 2 at wills. Now the key part is that I have to learn each one of these to be pretty effective.

If I use my encounter or daily, by definition I don't get to use it again next round. I have to make another choice to use something else. I also have to keep track of the fact I have used that power...which is easier for some and harder for others.

If I just learn my at wills, then I'm missing out on a lot of effectiveness.


With the thief, I could learn ambush strike and just starts ambush striking every round. Its a power that's good enough to be spammable, and as an at will is spammable. I could learn this power and just ambush away round after round if I wanted to.

And after a while if I got bored with that, I could start figuring out my other powers and try mixing them in but I do so at my pace.


This is the reason the ranger is the easiest class to play before essentials. Twin Strike is such a good at will a ranger that does nothing but twin strike will be just fine. Its the same idea.

 

[mach1.9pants]

As a technical point, unless it gets specifically written you don't have to move at all to get the advantage, upto your speed means 0 move as well.

 

[Klaus]

The thief (to use an old phrase) killed the 3.5 scout and took its stuff!

The tricks presented so far encourage the thief to:
- Move to attack a lone foe.
- Move to attack foes, doing extra damage even without SA.
- Move into foes' midst and damage two targets.