Making my game more "rogue friendly"

[Remathilis]

Recently, a couple of my friends and fellow gamers all commented that D&D isn't always "rogue friendly". By that, I mean typically the four-party setup (fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue) all have their strengths. Fighter's fight, wizards blast, clerics heal, rogues sneak. However, Every character adds to a fight, wizard magic is useful in a variety of team situations (teleporting allies, etc) and clerics have all sorts of useful spells that aid the party. The primary function of the rogue (sneaking, scouting, smooth-talking, trapfinding, and acrobatics) are essentially solo activities. Clunky plate-draped fighters make poor sneaks, and the dour wizard is a poor help for smooth talking. And assuming the DM doesn't want to tie up a goodly chunk of time on essentially solo-missions (sneaking into the queen's chamber, scouting the next few halls of Mt. Doom for traps) what can be done to give rogue's more chances to shine in their primary functions while not relegating the less dexterous or charismatic members of the party to mostly watching?

I'm interested in what you do to keep your rogue-playing friends happy without boring the other players?

 

[Ringan]

Maybe you could design fights so that rogues could use sneak attack? So, big rooms so that flanking would be easy to set up, and not having too many undead, constructs, etc...

 

[Bagpuss]

Give things it can sneak attack so getting into flanking positions is worthwhile, undead suck the life out of playing a rogue.

 

[derelictjay]

The skill-monkey rogue is great to have in a nonstandard battleground. Make the battleground hazardous without the proper skill checks, maybe loaded with loose gravel or an icy surface requiring balance (or Dex) checks, those that fail loose their Dex bonus or fall down, therefore incuring the dreaded sneak attack. Set up specialized cover that a tumble check will get the rogue past and start attacking the wizards that are behind them.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

greater invisibility?

 

[wildstarsreach]

Give things it can sneak attack so getting into flanking positions is worthwhile, undead suck the life out of playing a rogue.

It seems that most of the party challanging monsters make or neutralize the rogues usefulness. I like the class but as an unabashed power gamer it lacks for long term usefulness. Especially when your damage is low enough that DR neutralizes the rogues damage as well.

 

[Harlath]

Require skill checks during combat. E.g. a variety of open lock checks (or other) to open up (or provide) an escape route for the whole party, whilst the rest of the party covers the rogue's back.

 

[Mordacius]

Three out my eight players have at least one level of Rogue, and they shine both in and out of combat. Some stuff that helps:

- Teamwork.
Two of my Rogues just pair off and just Tumble around stuff to guarantee each other flanking opportunities. They usually shred normal monsters faster than the front line fighters, (who are usually more about holding a defensive line).

That'd work just as well in an iconic party: the Rogue could delay, Fighter could close, Rogue could Tumble around their enemy and get Sneak Attacks off most of the time. (Most of my rogues delay actions sooner or later in fights.)

The party sniper took Deadeye Shot, and just keys readied Sneak Attacks off of whoever seems to need it. That's also a good strategy in an iconic group: the Rogue and Fighter can pair off without being anywhere near each other. (Our sniper is a Halfling with Crossbow Sniper, and we have a lot of outdoor combat, so she's hardly ever in harm's way.)

- Gotta second the suggestion for odd battlefields. If there are areas that Balance and Tumble would help with, the Rogues will have a chance to play Errol Flynn while everybody else holds the line. Enemies with long reach are also good places for Rogues to get ahead.

- Magic.
There are a lot of options for Rogues with a little multiclassing or high UMD to get Sneak Attacks off on unusual creature types. One Rogue in my party can throw Grave Strike or Vine Strike with a little advance notice, and will probably have the construct harming spell soon enough.

- Don't be afraid to take some time and let the party do social stuff.
Just because the Rogue is the best one at it doesn't mean the others can't have fun in those situations. There are lots of times when the Rogue does most of the talking, but someone else asks an important question, or remembers an important clue. A Rogue just usually smooths that out with whoever they're talking to.

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I think the combat stuff has been covered, so here's a note about sneaking.

I constantly see parties disable their rogue's sneaking abilities by insisting on staying together. No group of people is going to be that stealthy, even if all of them have high sneak skills. Someone is bound to give them away.

What the rogue should be doing is leaving the party to scout ahead for a few minutes, then coming back and reporting. In a dungeon, this gives the party the heads-up needed to prepare their buff spells and specialize their attacks against creatures with things such as energy resistance, DR, etc. At higher levels of D&D, prior knowledge far outweighs character stats IMO.

If the party is in an urban environment, or infiltrating a fort or something, then the rogue should be going ahead to blaze the trail for his less stealthy comrades. He observes guard positions and the like, and then takes the loud, armored people through those areas where there's no one around to notice them.

The trick with this scouting is that, yes, it does require giving the rogue some solo time. But they should never go more than a few minutes' away because a) if they get in trouble, they want the group to be able to help them, and b) it's just logistically difficult to run the game.

Short stages for sneaking are they key, having the party hold back for a minute or two, just as they would stay back for a bit when the rogue is picking a lock or disarming a trap.

 

[Illirion]

Byron said it right. Rogues monks and sometimes even rangers are of a scouting nature and so it should be good to have them walk a few corridors ahead every once in a while when they think it's getting dangerous. So make sure you give them an indication every once in a while "you can hear vague footsteps up ahead" "there's a light glowing at the end of the corridor" are examples of situations in which the party's first response should be: "let the rogue check it out first".

Also breaking and entering is a great situation for a rogue to shine. With a front door that only opens from the inside, the fighter can give the rogue a hand to help him climb to the nearest window. The rogue can stumble through the house a bit to check if it's safe and then go downstairs to open up the front door to let the rest in.

Lock your treasure chests and devise some alternative paths to get where you want the party to go that require the special skill set of the rogue. Use Magic Device, Decipher Script and such are also great ways to pull some attention to the rogue type.

Make it clear to the party that they have a choice when they aproach the encounter: Use brute force and get through it the hard way or get creative and use your rogue to decide the battle before it begins. You might even decide to hand out more XP if they do it the second way.

Cheers,
Illirion.