D&D (2024) Maybe this is a bit late, but let's talk about Rogue's Niche, and What Rogue Should Be.

[Minigiant]

Again, the solution isn't to give the rogue more combat support. The solution is to give the DM more support on "all things non-combat" and make it crystal clear that combat should be happening MUCH LESS than exploration. (Combat is dynamic. Combat is where a lot of classes are built to shine. Combat also makes 1 minute of "game time" take an hour or more of real time; exploration usually makes hours or days of game time happen in seconds of real time at most tables; if your game is 90% combat it means you're literally spending 99% of the time at the table handling less than 1% of the actual time elapsed in game).

In other words, the rules need to make sure to give the rogue an environment where they can shine as they were designed to do!

Yes, D&D comes from wargaming roots so I expect combat to be the most detailed part. But we've put so much work into simulating war, we're losing the rest of it.

I think the core issue is people only think there are 2 options

1) The Old School/5e method. State only a few noncombat skill checks and tell DMs & Adventure Writers to make up 95% of checks from thin air.

or

2) The 3e/PF method Create a very very long list of official checks and pressure DMs & Adventure Writers to adhere to the list

And everyone ignore the other option

3) The Third option. Create a short list of common checks in the game and give DMs & Adventure Writers a list of numbers for DCs per level or tier of Easy, Moderate and Hard Checks.

Treat non-combat as something every PC does and just have the rogue and the other skills classses have the option of going either wider or taller than others. The 2024 version is heading in that direction with martial all getting skill bonus. We can only hope for a DC by Tier table and Actual Sample DCs on a Table.

 

[TiQuinn]

The solution, as is usual for D&D, is to insist people do a thing they don't want to do because the designers are of a particular mind of how things ought to be done and not how they're actually done.

It’s that way because they’ve created a system that makes traps and locks trivial for anyone to circumvent.

 

[zakael19]

In 4e with no expertise, Rogues were good in combat - but also deployed a nice variety of skills for skill challenge approach variability. With expertise in 5e, as noted above that totally breaks math - either you have goofy DCs that only apply to expertise classes and are impossible for everybody else (and who cares about a high DC lock when you have a caster with knock unless you're building elaborate scenarios specifically to highlight a rogue); or you assume a rogue can just do tons of stuff by default I guess?

I'm totally fine with a Rogue being a different approach to a combination of skirmishing combat + social skills, and exploration stuff as a narrative strategy.

 

[tetrasodium]

Like I said many times, the rogue suffered by the designers unwillingness to provide actual DCs and effects for some skill checks and being fully free wheeling in order to not codify any fantastical action that would turn off Grognards.

So a DC20 Acrobatics check can be walking on freshly mopped floor at one table, walking on a slippery floating chunk of glacial ice in the sea at another table, and hoping on raindrops at a third table.

With such variable and uncertain DCs, only opposed contests and optional checks matter to a Rogue. And then it becomes the onus on the DM to provide them.

That bold bit might be a 4e reference that I'm missing, but I think it might have been closer to "people who misreads table 2-5 & criticize their misunderstanding" than grognards even if there is overlap between those two groups

Spoiler: this misreading

I think the core issue is people only think there are 2 options


2) The 3e/PF method Create a very very long list of official checks and pressure DMs & Adventure Writers to adhere to the list

3) The Third option. Create a short list of common checks in the game and give DMs & Adventure Writers a list of numbers for DCs per level or tier of Easy, Moderate and Hard Checks.

Treat non-combat as something every PC does and just have the rogue and the other skills classses have the option of going either wider or taller than others. The 2024 version is heading in that direction with martial all getting skill bonus. We can only hope for a DC by Tier table and Actual Sample DCs on a Table.

That's option 4 because there will be a wide range of PC capability over the course of a system that spans levels 1-20 & those characters would almost certainly be tackling more difficult problems with more skilled opponents as they progress. Option 3 is to read

Spoiler: that table's heading

And accept that the answer to what DC to set for walking on a slippery floor vrs walking on a slippery floating chunk of glacial ice in the sea is a matter of the GM deciding who could do them. Although there are two extreme examples that mention a 20th level ranger & several that mention a first level $class, nearly all of them are things like a low/mid/high level X. You can see further tools useful for the GM to extend or dial in the question of "who could do it" in stuff like DM's best friend & the various ways of running or breaking up skill checks just before & after that table in the DMG.

 

[Minigiant]

That's option 4 because there will be a wide range of PC capability over the course of a system that spans levels 1-20 & those characters would almost certainly be tackling more difficult problems with more skilled opponents as they progress. Option 3 is to read

Spoiler: that table's heading

And accept that the answer to what DC to set for walking on a slippery floor vrs walking on a slippery floating chunk of glacial ice in the sea is a matter of the GM deciding who could do them. Although there are two extreme examples that mention a 20th level ranger & several that mention a first level $class, nearly all of them are things like a low/mid/high level X. You can see further tools useful for the GM to extend or dial in the question of "who could do it" in stuff like DM's best friend & the various ways of running or breaking up skill checks just before & after that table in the DMG.

The game changes as you level.

When you sit in 9th level where PCs can have -1 to +13, you really have to who could do what.

And 5e didn't make a stand on it. 5e wusses out and shifted responsibilities to the DM with little guidance or example.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

It’s that way because they’ve created a system that makes traps and locks trivial for anyone to circumvent.

Personal opinion here but I disagree that it has anything to do with the game rules and is entirely because traps and locks are just not fun mechanics. Investigating for traps every 5 seconds is tedious and annoying, and then lockpicking is fine but just bland and boring. Absolutely nothing of value is lost by removing these mechanics entirely and replacing them with interesting puzzles that are solved creatively by whatever skill checks the players come up with to solve the puzzle.

Again, just my opinion, but I doubt I'm the only one seeing as how that is the general direction that 5e adventure design has taken.

 

[TiQuinn]

Again, just my opinion, but I doubt I'm the only one seeing as how that is the general direction that 5e adventure design has taken.

It was a choice not to give them any creative focus, just as it was a choice to say D&D has an exploration pillar but then have virtually nothing in the game to do with exploration.

 

[Chaosmancer]

That might be correct in 5e. But what the 5e2024 Rogue has been facing that too many classes are having similar features, good mobility, good skills, better damage, which make Rogue lacks a core feature that really make them "special" enough.

It's more like "Why would I play Rogue instead of other Martials that could do similar things, maybe even better" for many players. Though I know there's still gonna be hell lot of players, including myself, are going to continue to play and love this class without grumbling. But that doesn't mean Rogue should just stay as what it is when we see there's a obvious weakpoint of "not being better at anything".

When a class can't contriube anything special and unique enough, many players are gonna find it frustrating and even boring to play, due to the designing of the class. Though, let me put this first: Of coure it still could be fun as hell if you're having a great table and story, but we're gonna discuss it the class designing itself, without considering the pure Role-Playing part, since players can't always have the suitable game.

Back to the topic, Fighter always feel unique and strong enough for players even though they share the same Fighting Styles, Extra Attacks, and now Weapon Masteries with other classes, just because the famous and powerful feature Action Surge stands there tall and tell the players "Hey! Nobody can fight like me".

But Rogue...Well, Rogue, after UA7 and UA8, Rogue's combat toolkit, like Cunning Action and Uncanny Dodge have been almost fully replicated by Monk, while they even have a better version of Uncanny Dogde--Deflect Attacks.

Evasion, also shared by Monk, and the Hunter Ranger.

Sneak Attack, it's cool, and it should be Rogue's one and only feature that shines so bright, but sadly it's been so much worse than the normal Extra Attacks. It's harder to land, benefit less from Magic Weapons, feels so frustrated when you miss. Even when you didn't miss, it's still dealing sorry damage than characters with Extra Attacks. Cunning Strike is helping, but it costs even more damage above that, while half of the effects could be simply replicated by Weapon Masteries that only Rogue can't perform, while other Martials could do it twice.

So finally, we're back to Skills. Skills were the only reason for Rogue to "contribute so less in a combat* during 5e. But now it should definitely not be the reason. They are only a bit better than other Martials at skills before 7, while they might be even worse with critical checks. Especially when Expertise was shared by Ranger and Bard orginally, and now many Full Casters are also having a taste of that.

Rogue's Skills are definitely not enough to be that one and only feature that makes players feel "hey I can't play the game like in a Rogue way if I choose another class". In fact, Rogue might be the simplest Class to be replicated with the same flavor and similar features now. More importantly, the Skill System itself just can't afford that uniqueness.

Actually, Rangers have been facing similar problems either. They both lack of a defining feature that makes players feel powerful and unique enough. But Rangers still have a good toolkit, power-wise, like Expertise, Spells, Rituals, Martial Weapons, Shield Prof, Fighting Styles etc. But Rogues don't have any of those powerful options. Rogue needs some kind of boost to create a defining feature for the class.

One thing I think is worth considering here is where you are making these dividing lines.

Monks are potentially more mobile than rogues, with more attacks (each hit weaker) and potentially better defenses.... but they lack a Rogue's skills and have a MUCH harder time using the ranged attacks compared to the rogue. Also, hiding during combat may be better than some defensive abilities. You can't hurt what you can't find after all. Plus the rogue has cunning strikes.

"But the barbarian has better skills than they used to and their own strike mechanic". Well, true, but they lack the rogue's mobility and there defenses are potentially fairly similar and the rogue even has an edge. After all, Uncanny Dodge and Evasion work against damage types Rage typically does not.

"What about the fighter?" Still lacking the mobility and defensive options of the rogue, even if they may do better with skills now than they used to, and like you said, eventually the rogue skills clearly outshine the fighter.

So, yes, if you compare the rogue to the Fighter and Barbarian and Monk and Ranger and Bard... it doesn't seem like it has anything unique, because you are comparing it to four different classes and trying to show it better at skills, defense, mobility AND damage compared to all four at the same time.

Rogues are a combo package.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think you're on the right track here, but I think you've misdiagnosed the problem.

The problem boils down to "the rogue was built to shine in the 'exploration' pillar of the game" but because over time many tables (and to be fair, adventure modules) have focused exclusively on combat, rogue has a design problem and needs to be "fixed."

I think the root of the problem is that some classes (mostly martials but also a lot of spellcasters) are built for shining in the "combat" pillar of the game, and "when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." The extra care that has been spent on combat options for these characters, as well as the extreme streamlining and simplification of the skills system, means the game has pushing people in the direction of the combat pillar at the expense of everything else.

Page 47 of the BECMI DMG suggested that when stocking a dungeon, 2 of 6 rooms should be empty, 2 of 6 should have monsters, 1 of 6 should have traps, and 1 of 6 should have a special feature. I would argue that "empty rooms" are part of exploration (they certainly can't be "combat") and I would also posit that "traps" and "special feature" are also meant to fall in the "exploration" pillar, that means it was explicitly stated that exploration is supposed to happen twice as often as combat in BECMI.

Similarly if you look at the 1E DMG random dungeon stocking tables (on p.171) you find 60% of rooms should be empty, 10% a monster with no treasure, 15% monster and treasure, 5% special feature, 5% trip/track, 5% treasure. By my count that's 25% combat (monsters) and 75% exploration... or in other words, exploration is supposed to happen three times as often as combat in 1E.

Compare to page 296 of the 5E DMG where a full 50% of dungeon chambers should have "Monsters" - 13% hazards, 5% obstacles, 12% traps, 4% tricks, 15% empty rooms. Now, as you accurately point out, the explicit expectation in 5E is that at least 50% of the game should be "combat."

So I would suggest the problem is NOT that the rogue needs to be re-designed for combat in 5.5E/6E/whatever. The problem is instead that the rules need to come with a drastic de-emphasis of combat (and that means a lot of care needs to be put into examples of how to do that; the 5E DMG is 320 pages but has just 4 pages on "Traps" and 2 pages on "Exploration" including a half-page illustration... compared to 5 pages on "Combat", 3 pages of "Combat Options" and 10 pages on "Creating a Monster" - that's 18 pages on combat alone versus 6 to traps/exploration).

I don't expect a "Wurst of Grimtooth's Traps"-sized entry on traps and dungeon dressing in the DMG to compete with the Monster Manual (let's be honest, monsters are more fun for players to look than traps), but combat has clearly gotten far more treatment in 5E and is explicitly supposed to happen more often than it did in previous editions, but that means the class that isn't combat-focused isn't getting the proper amount of support.

Again, the solution isn't to give the rogue more combat support. The solution is to give the DM more support on "all things non-combat" and make it crystal clear that combat should be happening MUCH LESS than exploration. (Combat is dynamic. Combat is where a lot of classes are built to shine. Combat also makes 1 minute of "game time" take an hour or more of real time; exploration usually makes hours or days of game time happen in seconds of real time at most tables; if your game is 90% combat it means you're literally spending 99% of the time at the table handling less than 1% of the actual time elapsed in game).

In other words, the rules need to make sure to give the rogue an environment where they can shine as they were designed to do!

Yes, D&D comes from wargaming roots so I expect combat to be the most detailed part. But we've put so much work into simulating war, we're losing the rest of it.

I don't fully disagree with you, but there are problems.

First of all, empty rooms are boring. If nothing is in a room, the players will just move on and that means it was a waste of time. I would posit that no rooms should ever be empty, but this also gets to what do we mean by "empty". in a recent dungeon I made there were multiple rooms with no traps or monsters, but they had clues to the larger events of the quest, items that could be used to help bypass or deal with the obstacles, puzzles that could be tackled for extra clues or rewards. I know that was what was likely meant by "empty" but I feel it needs pointed out.

Secondly, two of the most problematic, troublesome, and difficult things in the entire game are social interactions and traps/puzzles.... the two key cornerstones of the non-combat portions of the game. The problems with traps/puzzles have been enumerated countless times, but to focus on them as a character design problem... if you need specific abilities to counter traps, then no one else can deal with those traps. Which locks people in to requiring that character to exist, and have the correct ability, to get past the trap. Just like you never want to have a key mcguffin behind a magical seal that requires a cleric to cast a specific spell (as a general rule) you don't want to have abilities that are only useful if you are dealing with specific traps. And you can't make traps and puzzles the sole domain of a single character, because then no one else can participate in the exploration, and that is boring. Classically, this can lead to the Decker problem of Shadowrun, where the existence of a single class can vastly alter the entire pace of an adventure, because they get all of these abilities and sub-systems that then require challenges they are uniquely suited to challenging. I'm not saying it is an impossible design challenge, but it is a formidable one.

And social scenes are almost the same, but with a caveat. I can get behind a social system that is more robust... but it would require setting up the system to force Players to take actions, even against their desires and interests. THe current system works by being almost completely defensive. The PC acts against a DC or opposed roll, but the PC cannot be acted upon. This preserves player autonomy and prevents DMs from using the system and Charisma-based NPC builds to force player behavior by making them vulnerable to the same social "attacks" that the PCs can engage in. You would, by default I think, need to set up such a system to be opt-in. And even then.... once more you cannot make it the sole domain of a single class or two.

Because, at the end of the day, everyone fights, and everyone needs to fight. Very, Very few players would be happy having a character who is dead weight in a fight, and forced to sit and watch the combat classes go to town, and have their lives rest on those classes. But, by the same token, it is ALREADY an issue for combat classes (who are forced to share their pillar) that this is exactly what happens to them during social and exploration scenes. They are forced to sit around and wait for others to solve the problem, so they can get in combat and share the spotlight.

So, I am actually really happy to see the social and exploration spotlight (represented by the skill system) spreading out and becoming more open to all classes. This is a good thing. And I don't think making the rogue worse at combat to be better at non-combat actually fixes anything. Now, could the skill system be improved? 100% guarantee it could. But every adventurer needs to be able to handle every pillar of play, so that no one is stuck scrolling on their phone while their friends get to play the game.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It was a choice not to give them any creative focus, just as it was a choice to say D&D has an exploration pillar but then have virtually nothing in the game to do with exploration.

That's because the exploration pillar in and of itself -- as D&D tradition depicts it -- is super boring. Lots of bean counting and 'don't get punished' checks and little reward aside from the aforementioned not getting punished.