Making my game more "rogue friendly"

[Felon]

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?

First off, figure out how long it takes for the other players to get bored whenever the spotlight's not shining on them. If the amount of time is little or none, I'd be tempted to suggest that tabletop role-playing isn't for them. You cannot have the spotlight all the time. If the amount of time is reasonable, then try to fit the rogue activities within that time frame.

Smooth-talking can be plenty entertaining for the party, and when it's not entertaining it can be reduced to a quick skill check. Note that most classes have some Cha-based skills on their class list, so social interaction is hardly the sole province of rogues.

Trapfinding in previous editions involved a lot of detail as to detection methodology, but these days it's just a Search and Disable Device check. For better or worse, it's not time-consuming. The real trick is to avoid the temptation to put traps where only the most paranoid person would search, because then you will make them paranoid and they will search every square inch of every wall, door, ceiling, object, etc. But remember, rogues have trap sense, uncanny dodge, and evasion, so there is a benefit to them being the ones to set off traps even they didn't detect them ahead of time.

Scouting is the most potentially time-consuming, but if a player has any common sense, he can be taught the follies of trying to scout too far ahead of the party. It often only takes one near-death experience with him unlocking a door and having some monster pounce out at him. Now, on the flipside of that, you also have to discourage the rest of the party from shoving the rogue aside and just barging through every door. If every fight is lopsided in the party's favor, then they can all be won through brute force and the value of scouting is nil. Likewise, if every encounter is set up so that players can't finagle any tactical edge out of surprise, then scouting is also worthless. Put a sleeping ogre in a room. Have some gnolls playing craps with their battleaxes set aside on a table, offer up a soft target of opportunity like a wizard whose bodyguards are not in an optimal position.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Since undead negate a lot of the rogue's utility, I'd watch how often you use them.

One thing I've found useful is making encounters that require multitasking from the group.

I've used situations in the past where a rogue had to deal with a trapped lock and/or riddle while the other PCs had to hold off the oncoming baddies. Throw in a time limit and both the rogues and non-rogues will be too busy worrying about the situation to get bored.

If sneaking is more their thing, perhaps the other PCs have to create a distraction or engage the enemy so that the rogue can sneak past them.

Or alternately, if there are more spellcasters than tanks, a tomb filled with ancient traps, mystic tomes to be deciphered, and enchantments to be worked can work nicely.

 

[Dross]

One thing to note. Have a look at the skills that the Rogue has, and then find a way for it to become useful/vital for the goup's success.

A high UMD allows a rogue to use the evil aligned scepter to close the portal for example.

 

[Remathilis]

Thanks everyone. Now to turn the question around.

What advice do you have for a rogue PC who is in an Undead-friendly, not very dungeon-oriented style Campaign?

 

[Kol]

What advice do you have for a rogue PC who is in an Undead-friendly, not very dungeon-oriented style Campaign?

Take a level of Cleric and cast Grave Strike (from Complete Adventurer) every chance you get...

 

[Voadam]

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

Include traps, locks, and small scouting options, but keep it quick.

In my game the paladin has a prc power to foresight bodyguard another nearby person so he uses that to warn the rogue when he checks out traps. "Step back now!" was the last thing the paladin said to the rogue in my game which let the rogue step off a pit area right before the paladin and druid fell in and got teleported to a sealed prison with a trapped starving monster.

 

[interwyrm]

Make sure to use some monsters that can see invisible creatures. That will stop the pesky wizards from infringing on a rogue's territory. Having intelligent monsters set up patrols that alert others to the presence of the pc's will make stealthy scouting invaluable. For example, if there is an orc lair that is patrolled, and when an orc first sees the PCs it goes to warn the others - who then go grab weapons... The rogue could sneak past and light the armory on fire.

By far the most important thing is just to play to the rogue's skills. Make challenges that are easiest to overcome by using the skills the rogue has maxed out.

 

[Desdichado]

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...

That would be my call. I enjoy playing rogues, but nothing is as frustrating as several sessions in a row against undead (Age of Worms--looking at you. Now I'm playing a shifter Barbarian to finish off that campaign.)

 

[Stalker0]

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.

At the same time, as a DM its good to take care of this info quickly. Rogue moves ahead, roll move silently/hide, and gets some info. Then he heads back. When you do it that, its quick and clean, the rogue gets to do his thing, and the party feel cool having all this preknowledge and getting to plan strategy.

Unfortunately, what often happens is the rogue just keeps going. The spotlight is on him, and it feels great. He tries to map out the entire dungeon by himself, while everyone else just twittles their thumbs. This is the main reason people don't like scouting, its boring for everyone but the rogue. As a DM, remind your rogues how dangerous scouting can be, and its good for game pace for them to do their business quickly.