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

[Vaalingrade]

Exactly.

The Rogue isn't a Martial.
Look at the rogue subclasses. Thieves, Assassins, and Tricksters might kill. But they don't fight.
People are coming to trying to play light warriors as Rogues and being disappointed.

When D&D gets to 6e, they really should pull Assassin out of Rogue and make it the Martial Melee Burst Striker many want.

Oh this discussion is taking a hard turn toward how we got to the Fighter who isn't allowed to be good or interesting at non-combat things only going the opposite direction.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Again to me it comes down to skill

The average D&D character knows 4-5 of the games 19 skills. And their prime score with match 1-3 of them.
So
~20% of the time they will be an option for a skill.
~10% of the time they will be the best option for a skill.

A Rogue knows 6-7 of the games 19 skills. And their prime score with match 2-3 of them and Expertise with apply to 2/4 of them..
So ~30% of the time they will be an option for a skill.
~20% of the time they will be the best option for a skill.

So a Rogue has double the chance of being to one who takes the out of combat spotlight.

If and only if you want to do the non combat things strictly through skills. And you aren't e.g. scouting by sending in either a druid-spider as plausibly deniable or a familiar as actually expendible. Or using Pass Without Trace. And stealth is supposed to be a Rogue Thing.

 

[Minigiant]

Oh this discussion is taking a hard turn toward how we got to the Fighter who isn't allowed to be good or interesting at non-combat things only going the opposite direction.

Not really.

The thing is people want to be able to be a high dex, lightly armored, high damage melee Warrior without magic.

This isn't supported because finesse weapons is low damage and dual-wielding is lower damage than archery, great weapons, and polearms.

Hopefully the 2024 editions feats and weapon masters buff Melee Dex Fighters.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not really.

'The rogue isn't a martial'

'rogues avoid fights'

That's on the last page. We're going quickly toward 'the rogue can't meaningfully contribute to a major part of the game due to insistent play style'.

 

[Minigiant]

'The rogue isn't a martial'

'rogues avoid fights'

That's on the last page. We're going quickly toward 'the rogue can't meaningfully contribute to a major part of the game due to insistent play style'.

Rogue can meaningfully contribute.

Rogue damage is not bad.
It's not excellent. It's not great. Buts it's not bad. It's good.

The problem is people are coming to D&D trying to play the D&D rogue as the Video Game DPS rogue.

Video game Rogues have high damage because there's typically no out of combat play. So they're damage is increased compensate for that.

RPGs on table top have out of combat play so Table Top Rogues, deckers, hackers, thieves, etc in RPGs do not have their damage artificially inflated.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The DPS video game rogue is because of the TTRPG DPS rogue. You know, the one that backstabbed for massive damage and who now sneak attack every turn as long as the player can make up an excuse.

We're eclipsing reality to enforce playstyle.

And also dragging out the video game vs TTRPG canard for no good reason, but that's par for the course.

 

[Minigiant]

The DPS video game rogue is because of the TTRPG DPS rogue. You know, the one that backstabbed for massive damage and who now sneak attack every turn as long as the player can make up an excuse.

We're eclipsing reality to enforce playstyle.

And also dragging out the video game vs TTRPG canard for no good reason, but that's par for the course.

The only d&d TTRPG rogue was only high damage in 4E

Before 4e, in D&D and many other fantasy RPG before 2010, warriors outdamaged rogues. Even in 3e. Damage was the only reason to bring a fighter over a CODzilla.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It's more that

People want to play the 4e Rogue without making 5e run like 4e.
LME

4e more or less split the D&D fighter into 4 parts

1. Fighter (Defender)
2. Rogue (Striker- Finesse)
3. Ranger (Striker- Archery/TWF/Thrown)
4. Warlord (Leader/Support)

Ranger and Rogue were both strikers but used different weapons. They had Combat style Exclusivity. Because of this The Rogue didn't need to be a skill monkey.

When 5e recombined the Fighter, The Ranger, Rogue, and now Barbarian and Monk lost exclusivity. The Fighter now overalaps with every warrior in combat style.

And the Fighter was made into the highest damage class.
The Ranger fixed itself by regaining its spells of pre4e.
The Barbarian (despite the designers original words) is the Toughest class.
The Monk got Mobility
The Paladin got burst damage.

This left Rogues with no Combat style Exclusivity and no Top Attribute for combat.
Instead the designers made it a skills class.

You're blaming the wrong edition here. In 2e the Rogue had skill exclusivity. They had their Move Silently, Climb Walls, and Hide In Shadows when other classes did not.

Fast forward to 3.0 and all these skills became generic skills. And rather than having 8 rogue skills and some NWPs the Rogue got 8+Int mod skill points per level while the fighter and the wizard got 2+Int modifier skill points. The rogue was the best at skills (as they are in both 4e and 5e) but we're not really a skill monkey; due to the absurd number of 3.x skills the rogue is in practice a better skill monkey than in 3.x

In 3.x the rogue had more skills but other than trap finding didn't have better skills than anyone else before level 10 (and that only if they took an optional level 10 ability). Their main thing was combat style exclusivity of Sneak Attack. But the thing is that the 3.x rogue did not, in reality, work reliably. Finesse weapons needed a feat to use with Dex. Sneak Attack wasn't reliable - and couldn't be used on undead or constructs at all.

4e simply took the 3.x rogue and made it actually work reliably without a high amount of system mastery and jumping through hoops; a skirmishy skill heavy warrior using finesse weapons and dexterity. And 5e took most of those lessons and put them on a less fiddly and tricky chassis that looked like the 3.x one but wasn't so likely to fail. This wasn't splitting it off from the fighter - it was doing what 90% of people were already doing with the rogue.

Meanwhile basically no one wants back the TSR era thief whose big thing was skill access exclusivity.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not really.

The thing is people want to be able to be a high dex, lightly armored, high damage melee Warrior without magic.

This isn't supported because finesse weapons is low damage and dual-wielding is lower damage than archery, great weapons, and polearms.

Hopefully the 2024 editions feats and weapon masters buff Melee Dex Fighters.

Flag on the play. You have switched in "warrior" for fighter. Rogues, like The Grey Mouser, have always been warriors.

And we know that two weapon fighters have been buffed thanks to the Nick property meaning that you can attack with your offhand action and Cunning Action, Hunter's Mark, or Second Wind. And Vex helps Rogues a lot.

 

[Minigiant]

You're blaming the wrong edition here. In 2e the Rogue had skill exclusivity. They had their Move Silently, Climb Walls, and Hide In Shadows when other classes did not

I'm blaming 5e for taking the 3e model

Fans (today) want the 4e rogue but 5e converted the 3e rogue because 2014 play testers wanted the 3e rogue.

The 5e rogue is a successor of the 3.5e rogue.

Flag on the play. You have switched in "warrior" for fighter. Rogues, like The Grey Mouser, have always been warriors.

And we know that two weapon fighters have been buffed thanks to the Nick property meaning that you can attack with your offhand action and Cunning Action, Hunter's Mark, or Second Wind. And Vex helps Rogues a lot.

My point is the 5e rogue is not a warrior. It's an expert.

However the improvements of 5.2024e means you can play a fighter with 16 Dex and Stealth Expertise and not suck. The Fighter/Rogue will be stronger.