D&D 5E Powerfull ROGUE ???

[maritimo80]

Yesterday had a moment in our game session that would love to discuss with you, a match between a thief character 11 against an enemy Barbarian9 / Warlock11, a abadonada city, where the thief was already hidden.


Round 1) The thief was already hidden, gained the initiative and attacked with his bow cost (sneak attack) the enemy Barbarian9 / Warlock11, moved and used his bonus action to hide (Stealth 21) behind a crate (1 / 2 cover).
The Barbarian9 / Warlock11 used his action to realize passively (16) The Thief, without success, and therefore can not attack, and only moved.


Round 2) The thief who was still hidden, attacked with his bow cost (sneak attack) the enemy Barbarian9 / Warlock11, moved and used his bonus action to hide (Stealth 19) behind another crate (1/2 cover).
The Barbarian9 / Warlock11 used his action to realize passively (16) The Thief, without success, and therefore can not attack, and only moved.


Round 3) The thief who was still hidden, attacked with cost arc (sneak attack) the enemy Barbarian9 / Warlock11, moved and used his bonus action to hide (Stealth 23) behind a barrel (1/2 cover).
The Barbarian9 / Warlock11 used his action to realize passively (16) The Thief, without success, and therefore can not attack, and only moved.


Round 4) The thief who was still hidden, attacked with cost arc (sneak attack) the enemy Barbarian9 / Warlock11, moved and used his bonus action to hide (Stealth 15) behind a barrel (1/2 cover).
The Barbarian9 / Warlock11 used his action to realize passively (16), found the Thief moved and "stuck" in it, but so can not attack, because I used his action.


Round 5) The thief now in hand-to-hand, used the disangage action and moved 6 square and used his bonus action to hide (Stealth 20) behind another barrel (1/2 cover).
The Barbarian9 / Warlock11 used his action to realize passively (16) The Thief, without success, and therefore can not attack, and only moved.


..............


That is, the thief level 11 enfrentanto one level 20 character, used his cunning actionm to hide every turn and therefore gain much advantage over enemy and if after many rounds killed him.


But as a teacher I am particularly thinking much appeal this fight and I got some questions that can balance it:


1) The thief can hide being in the enemy's line of sight? Even moving to behind a 1/2 coverage? Or need to be full coverage?


2) This hiding of the thief in this fight, if possible, it is normal or disadvantage?


3) Barbarian9 / Warlock11 need to spend an action to realize every turn (active perception) the thief, or free action is that perception?


4) Active Perception is free action. Active perception (roll the d20) is always an action?


5) As the Barbarian9 / Warlock11 has "idea" of where the thief this, the perception (whether active or passive) is normal or advantage?

 

[trentonjoe]

A lot of this is interpertation and how you want to play. How I would rule this is:

1. I would let the thief hide behind the crate.
2. Normal
3. I would give the Barb/War a check to start (passive-free/active for an action) and then if he moved into line of sight with the thief a I would give him a second chance as a free action.
4. Passive is free, rolling takes an action ( I think).
5. If he moved into line of sight of the hiding thief, I would give him a roll as a free action (or just give advantage to find him).

I think what you described is a cool encounter, not letting the thief TRY TO HIDE makes it less cool.

 

[Pickles JG]

1) He needs to be out of sight of the Barbarian - hiding PHB p177. He could probably hide behind crates if he went prone or at the least crouched down, which is not a game state but obviously is possible.

2) I would probably give disadvantage if the cover is not very good & if he keeps doing it as the Barbarian will get wise, it's a judgement call though. It may not do much good though as Rogues can "take 10" on trained skills - PHB p96 Reliable Talent.

3) The rogue essentially needs to beat their passive perception when he tries to hide or he has given himself away. (more of hiding PHB p177). So it not even an action to use passive perception. If the Barbarian is actively looking he should get to roll an active check. This is the search action PHB p193.

4) Huh? I think active perception is usually some sort of action & passive perception is a not an action at all, usually.

5) That seems reasonable if the hiding place is small like one crate but probably not in a warehouse full of crates. Probably only give him advantage or the rogue disadvantage not both based on the quality of the hiding place.
The Barbarian saw where the rogue went, he just lost sight of him, so he can simply move. If he moves behind the cover such that it it is no longer blocking his view he will be able to see the rogue automatically, no check needed. (subject to the rogue not having found a better spot like under a table or something.

Hope this helps!

 

[Mercule]

Rogues can be extremely deadly, if they get to skulk about. Personally, this isn't an issue with me. The level 11 being a threat to the level 20 character is a feature, not a bug, IMO.

One thing that I will point out, though, is that the rogue only gets his mega-bonuses if he's hiding or has an ally threatening his foe. I generally use a rule of thumb that says a rogue (or other hiding character) can only take one step out of cover to attack, unless there are extenuating circumstances (fog, surprise, etc.). Maybe you're already doing this, but it wasn't totally clear from your post. This actually puts a pretty big curb on the rogue's power, but not unreasonably so.

 

[Gimul]

Attack -> move -> hide = fine

Passive perception using up an action is not ok, I could see an active check doing this.

Hiding behind cover is ok, but being hidden doesn't mean someone who was recently aware of you position loses the knowledge they just had. In your example the barbarian would know he is somewhere in the general area of the crate (because he saw him until then). It's reasonable that the barbarian would approach the crate, which could eliminate the rogues cover (giving away the rogues position without an active check).

Also, the barbarian is also free to make use of cover. If his movement alone fails to uncover the rogue; he can move again, hide, or ready an action. There is no reason to allow the Rogue to kite him to death (unless his Int is relatively low say below 6, although many animals are intelligent enough to avoid an infinite kite).

 

[TwoSix]

Also, the barbarian is also free to make use of cover. If his movement alone fails to uncover the rogue; he can move again, hide, or ready an action. There is no reason to allow the Rogue to kite him to death (unless his Int is relatively low say below 6, although many animals are intelligent enough to avoid an infinite kite).

Isn't a lot of this example predicated on the barbarian being kind of an idiot? If someone is shooting at you, and you can't see them, your move action should be to get the hell out of there, not stand around and keep looking.

 

[Mephista]

Why didn't the barb-lock just hold his action until the rogue fired, then use his reaction to Charge? Or use a Hellish Rebuke? Why not cast a fireball or invisibility? Can you hold your action until the rogue shoots (revealing him/herself) and use your reaction to cast Blindness/Deafness? Why didn't the barbarian also use cover? Try and do something?


Truthfully, I think the main reason the level 20 character failed is more because of a lack of understanding how to play the level 20 character than anything.

 

[Dausuul]

Round 1) The thief was already hidden, gained the initiative and attacked with his bow cost (sneak attack) the enemy Barbarian9 / Warlock11, moved and used his bonus action to hide (Stealth 21) behind a crate (1 / 2 cover).
The Barbarian9 / Warlock11 used his action to realize passively (16) The Thief, without success, and therefore can not attack, and only moved.

Hang on a second here.

At the moment he attacked, the thief revealed himself. From that point until the moment he hid again, the barblock was able to see him, and could observe him ducking behind a crate. The barblock is presumably not a total idiot; he can just walk around the crate.

At that point, the thief is no longer unseen, and as such cannot be hidden, per the Stealth rules. No Perception check is required. The barblock may proceed to hack him to bits.

Cunning Action lets you pull some neat tricks, but it's not invisibility. For this trick to work, the thief needs to duck behind the crate and then move, staying behind full concealment the whole time, to another location. He'll have to keep doing this each round, while the barblock tries to figure out his movements and guess where he's going to go. If the barblock ever moves to a location where he's got an unobstructed line of sight to the thief, the thief ceases to be hidden and the barblock can attack immediately.

1) The thief can hide being in the enemy's line of sight? Even moving to behind a 1/2 coverage? Or need to be full coverage?

You need full concealment to hide, unless you have the Skulker feat or something else that lets you hide while lightly obscured. I was assuming the crate was big enough to provide full concealment. If it's not, the thief can't hide at all.

 

[Prism]

As soon as the rogue attacks on the first round the barbarian can see him (after the attack typically in this surprise case). The rogue then moves and at this point is not hidden so the barbarian watches him go. He then hides behind the crate but only if it provides full cover. Regardless, the barbarian moves over to where the rogue clearly is and now its probably melee time unless the rogue was far enough away to have another chance. The barbarian didn't need to roll a perception to do this.

Now, if the rogue is going to have any chance at pulling this off they need to move after they have hidden and also keep their cover up the whole time. So lets say there is a large pile of crate and barrels providing full cover. The rogue could have moved to one side, hidden and then carried on moving to another spot. Then the barbarian would have either had to succeed on their perception check to notice where the rogue went or guess and move to the right general place anyway.

Hiding in combat is hard without very specific cover, invisibility or darkness

Now don't ask about halflings and their buddies and elves in the woods please

 

[trentonjoe]

I was assuming the crate was more the one square. If the thief can hide behind one thing and then move around, the barbarian won't know where he is.