D&D 5E Is there a good Faceman option for rogues?

[jgsugden]

Whatever path you take to get to this idea, the most essential step will be to talk with your DM. I've played with a lot of DMs. Many of them would not allow a player to influence NPCs in a meaningful manner with words alone.

For example, the PCs are sent to negotiate with an enemy army's leader. The party rogue, with a 20 charisma, +5 proficiency bonus and expertise in persuasion sits down at the table and cracks an opening joke to relax the mood and get the enemy leader to cooperate with a reasonable end to violence. He rolls a 20 on his persuasion roll. That is a 35 persuasion. That is 5 beyond the DC for something that is nearly impossible. However, the bad guy had been planning to launch a surprise attack and murder the PCs as soon as they lower their guard.

What a DM does at that point is a very subject to interpretation. One DM might decide that the bad guy leader delays the attack a bit to hear more. Another might decide the bad guy leader changes his mind and negotiates in good faith. Another might decide that he feels guilty when he gives the order to attack, but nothing more. If you want the silver tongue to be impactful, make sure you know how a DM would handle certain things. Give him a few hypotheticals and ask how he would handle them.

 

[prabe]

Whatever path you take to get to this idea, the most essential step will be to talk with your DM. I've played with a lot of DMs. Many of them would not allow a player to influence NPCs in a meaningful manner with words alone.

For example, the PCs are sent to negotiate with an enemy army's leader. The party rogue, with a 20 charisma, +5 proficiency bonus and expertise in persuasion sits down at the table and cracks an opening joke to relax the mood and get the enemy leader to cooperate with a reasonable end to violence. He rolls a 20 on his persuasion roll. That is a 35 persuasion. That is 5 beyond the DC for something that is nearly impossible. However, the bad guy had been planning to launch a surprise attack and murder the PCs as soon as they lower their guard.

What a DM does at that point is a very subject to interpretation. One DM might decide that the bad guy leader delays the attack a bit to hear more. Another might decide the bad guy leader changes his mind and negotiates in good faith. Another might decide that he feels guilty when he gives the order to attack, but nothing more. If you want the silver tongue to be impactful, make sure you know how a DM would handle certain things. Give him a few hypotheticals and ask how he would handle them.

It might depend on the NPC, too. Some might be more persuadable than others--the same DM could have an NPC do any of those things, based on the NPC. Still a good thing to ask your DM about, though, and it might be good to put some work into researching NPCs before attempting to persuade them.

 

[Undrave]

The Mastermind gets ability that lets them basically focus all their stat points away from combat. Just stand back and use the Help Action at range with both your Action and your Bonus Action and then pump your CHA to be better at it. Use your Rogue abilities to get out of trouble if someone gets to close, maybe try a sneak attack if you have advantage (compensating for your lower DEX). I bet a Mastermind could get away with 14 DEX and 18 CHA easily.

Add Actor for better social, and maybe even Inspiring Leader on top so you're also a good support to your party.

To follow up on this...

If you use a Variant Human with CHA and DEX as bonus, and pick Actor as your lv 1 feat you can end up as:

STR 8, DEX 14, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 14, CHA 17 at level 1

Then at lv 4 you can boost your CHA some more and at l8 pick up Inspiring Leader... Maybe the Charlatan background on top of that?

Though a race with a +2 CHA start at CHA 17 and then pick Actor at lv 4, bumping CHA to 18 with its +1 to CHA. Changeling would obviously be good here, but the Aasimar, Yuan-ti Pureblood and Tiefling also get +2 CHA.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Swashbuckler is good but doesn't get a unique social ability until level 9.

The distance between rogue archetype features really bothers me...

They do get a combat bonus for being charismatic, however. And they’re a rogue. Any rogue can be outstanding at social encounters from level 1.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

OH! The UA Class Variant also introduced a Battlemaster Maneuver that could be fun:

Silver Tongue
When you make a Charisma (Deception) check or a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you can expend one superiority die, and add the superiority die to the ability check

and you got Studious Eye that does the same for Insight and Investigation. I kinda wish there was a Rogue that got maneuvers now.

A rogue subclass that gets manuvers would have a little more space for other features, because they don’t get extra attack and thus can’t get as much out of the feature as the fighter does.

So, perhaps a bonus skill instead of a tool? Maybe a couple/few languages?

 

[Fenris-77]

There's a feat that gives you a d6 BM maneuver dice and some maneuvers. It's not great though.

If you want a chassis that has maneuver type stuff I'd use ENW's Savant rather than the BM. Somewhere in there there's a great Face.

Just using an existing subclass would be way easier. The build gets a ton of options out of MCing too. lots of goodies. At will disguise self from Warlock would be my first choice there, plus it synergizes with the CHA build.

 

[Undrave]

A rogue subclass that gets manuvers would have a little more space for other features, because they don’t get extra attack and thus can’t get as much out of the feature as the fighter does.

So, perhaps a bonus skill instead of a tool? Maybe a couple/few languages?

The rogue in question would have their maneuvers focus more on skills, out of combat stuff and maneuverability than pure combat. They'd get those new skill based ones and then Evasive Footwork, Feinting Attack, Riposte, maybe Rally and Trip Attack. MAYBE Lunging Attack.

Feels like an obvious design space that's left unused.

 

[jayoungr]

Maybe you could mash together a new subclass by taking some of the class abilities from the glamour bard (Xanathar's) and putting them onto a rogue chassis? The bard abilities aren't spells, although they do apply the charmed condition, so I'd think they'd work in a low-magic setting.

Or you could just play the Leverage RPG, which I run frequently. It's pretty amazing. ;-)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Just stand back and use the Help Action at range with both your Action and your Bonus Action and then pump your CHA to be better at it.

How would pumping CHA make you better at this? I'm looking at the Mastermind Rogue and CHA doesn't factor into this. Are you using house rules or a Feat or am I missing something?

I don't see any way a Mastermind could get away with 18 CHA 14 DEX. Looking through their abilities, literally nothing keys off CHA.

By not making Sneak attacks, and instead merely granting Advantage of a single attack 2/round for others, you're going to losing a fantastic amount of damage, too, like a really staggering amount, because even if you "take credit" for the improved DPR from grant Advantage (which other PCs will often have anyway, without your help), you're going from like 25 DPR to 5 DPR.

I feel like I'm missing something big here, like Masterminds being able to grant Sneak Attack to others, but it sure isn't in the rules for them that I'm looking at.

 

[Undrave]

How would pumping CHA make you better at this? I'm looking at the Mastermind Rogue and CHA doesn't factor into this. Are you using house rules or a Feat or am I missing something?

I don't see any way a Mastermind could get away with 18 CHA 14 DEX. Looking through their abilities, literally nothing keys off CHA.

By not making Sneak attacks, and instead merely granting Advantage of a single attack 2/round for others, you're going to losing a fantastic amount of damage, too, like a really staggering amount, because even if you "take credit" for the improved DPR from grant Advantage (which other PCs will often have anyway, without your help), you're going from like 25 DPR to 5 DPR.

I feel like I'm missing something big here, like Masterminds being able to grant Sneak Attack to others, but it sure isn't in the rules for them that I'm looking at.

Sorry, mistyping. I meant pump your CHA to be a better face.

I was just saying that if you want to build a support Rogue character with a focus on social interaction, you could do worse than the Mastermind Rogue. Of course your DPR would suffer but that's what you're there for, you're the face. And at 14 dex, if you you wait until YOU have advantage to attack you probably wouldn't miss THAT often and your DPR would come all from sneak attack anyway.