D&D 5E Rogue Advice

[Coroc]

Many good answers here, but let me give you one advice: Check out how your DM wants to handle stealth, it can be a world of difference on how strict or not he does check on that.

If he insist you cannot attempt to hide at all if there is the slightest chance some mob spots you, then rather go for Arcane trickster or swashbuckler. Arcane trickster could take invisibility spell, swashbuckler is basically a finesse fighter dressed up as rogue

If he goes the medium way, take the basics (burglar)

If he is superrelaxed on stealth and bluffing and other such shticks and if you are eager for much RP then try the assassin (who is less about assassin but more like mask expert and impersonator)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Intelligent opponents deal with whatever is causing the biggest issue. If it's the sneak attacks then it's the easier target of the rogue or the owl. A readied action is a possibility but not the only way of dealing with a 1hp sneak attack enabler. Just using a readied action to switch to a ranged weapon for the attack when the owl comes out deals with the owl regardless of target, however; one free weapon swap isn't lost and can be part of the readied action.

I would argue that targeting a different enemy to make a readied action waste the action would be dependent on knowing that's what the opponent was planning in the first place. That falls under a combat use of insight as the most common method of knowing unless the opponent isn't hiding the fact he's planning on an owl-kabob, which might be true but not the smart play; however, doing so just saved that particular opponent the sneak attack with a soft-control incentive to redirect the owl and the real plan all along. It's a layer of deception and insight determining strategy in combat that people sometimes forget exists. Remember, insight includes "predicting someone's next move". ;-)

Flyby is a nice ability for an owl familiar, no doubt about it. In the end, however, it's still a 1hp flicker to most reasonable threats that do choose to deal with it.

Animal handling gets a poor rating in most guides, but mounts have more hit points than familiars, and the rogue riding a mount tends to always have an adjacent ally without needing to bother with find familiar. Trained pets for combat uses them to trigger sneak attacks that often only requires the gold and not the ritual.

The rogue could reasonably be an expert animal handler who raises and trains owls for battle. Familiars aren't any more intelligent than their animal counterparts so a familiar capable of understanding the the commands to take cover is just a capable of being trained to take cover. Trained pets also bypasses the "familiars cannot attack" rule.

Familiars have many advantages over trained pets. Their combat potential isn't really that great, ime.

As a DM, I like to actually challenge my PCs, so I’d never waste an enemy’s entire action trying to deal with a familiar. The rogue can still sneak attack the same enemy most of the time, and if not, there are other enemies to sneak attack.

There is always a higher value target than the spell effect that gives advantage 1/round.

 

[Ashrym]

Right. It does make said lack of durability less of an issue for the familiar than for the beast companion, though.

It's moot if the beast master's companion isn't dying at all. They have the same hit points as 10 CON wizards, which isn't great but it's hitting the low end of actual PC hit points.

Given the quote below, it also wouldn't matter at all because beast master companions cannot be higher priority targets and worse than familiars at the same time. ;-)

As a DM, I like to actually challenge my PCs, so I’d never waste an enemy’s entire action trying to deal with a familiar. The rogue can still sneak attack the same enemy most of the time, and if not, there are other enemies to sneak attack.

There is always a higher value target than the spell effect that gives advantage 1/round.

I would think taking away the familiar enabling sneak attack would challenge the rogue more than keeping it; at times anyway.

What I find is the rogue can still sneak attack most of the time regardless of the familiar, making it a conditional benefit. That's part of being in a party.

The idea of ignoring the owl familiar would also apply to other sneak attack enablers. If the target isn't focused on whatever is creating the sneak attack conditions it matters less if that enabler actually leaves at all. The rogue could buy a mastiff trained for combat to enable sneak attack and if the enemy is choosing other targets anyway as "higher value targets" then the mastiff does not need to leave and risk AoO, and the rogue does not require find familiar. All the mastiff needs to do is be within 5' of the opponent as an additional attacker. This would be true regardless of what cheap creature is being used.

For the record (so as not to mislead the OP), I would expect the mastiff to quickly die too for the same reason I would expect a familiar not to last. Poor hit points. My point was applying your playstyle equally to both the mastiff example and the owl example. What I would look for is a sturdier choice than either for similar purpose.

 

[Esker]

I don't see the familiar as a sneak attack enabler, so much. It's pretty easy to qualify for sneak attack. The familiar is mostly just increasing your to-hit chance when you don't have advantage from something else, and when you make one big attack instead of two small ones, the value of increasing your to-hit chance on the first attack roll on your turn is higher.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's moot if the beast master's companion isn't dying at all. They have the same hit points as 10 CON wizards, which isn't great but it's hitting the low end of actual PC hit points.

Given the quote below, it also wouldn't matter at all because beast master companions cannot be higher priority targets and worse than familiars at the same time. ;-)



I would think taking away the familiar enabling sneak attack would challenge the rogue more than keeping it; at times anyway.

What I find is the rogue can still sneak attack most of the time regardless of the familiar, making it a conditional benefit. That's part of being in a party.

The idea of ignoring the owl familiar would also apply to other sneak attack enablers. If the target isn't focused on whatever is creating the sneak attack conditions it matters less if that enabler actually leaves at all. The rogue could buy a mastiff trained for combat to enable sneak attack and if the enemy is choosing other targets anyway as "higher value targets" then the mastiff does not need to leave and risk AoO, and the rogue does not require find familiar. All the mastiff needs to do is be within 5' of the opponent as an additional attacker. This would be true regardless of what cheap creature is being used.

For the record (so as not to mislead the OP), I would expect the mastiff to quickly die too for the same reason I would expect a familiar not to last. Poor hit points. My point was applying your playstyle equally to both the mastiff example and the owl example. What I would look for is a sturdier choice than either for similar purpose.

The trouble here is, the owl can gain total cover, making it very hard to hit with anything but an AoE, while the mastiff will have a harder time doing that without getting an OA.

If the owl were to just hover right there in the enemy’s face, it would get hit. Because there is always a creature for whom a single attack isn’t that much to give up. But it doesn’t take long for most enemies to have either spells, or multi attack, or limited use powerful abilities like breath weapons.

But using an entire action to make the rogue work slightly harder to get Sneak Attack (if the attack hits) is a waste of time.

And the rogue gets challenged by having an enemy actively focusing on them as a high value target. Works very well.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't see the familiar as a sneak attack enabler, so much. It's pretty easy to qualify for sneak attack. The familiar is mostly just increasing your to-hit chance when you don't have advantage from something else, and when you make one big attack instead of two small ones, the value of increasing your to-hit chance on the first attack roll on your turn is higher.

That's my view too. But I understand that advantage on a single attack making character is like having about a 40% increase in damage. That means taking the familiar away is like removing about 30% of the familiar rogue's effectiveness. For a single attack an enemy can do near the beginning of combat - that's a huge difference.

As always it varies by opponent and situation.

For example if the party is fighting a single giant making 2 attacks on his turn then - no i'm probably not having said giant ever target familiar. But take an enemy group that gets 4-8 attacks, then I'm taking 1 attack to try to weaken the rogues effectiveness by 30% for the rest of the combat. That's a strong tactic!

Maybe think about it this way. To make an attack at advantage not be at advantage it requires disadvantage. If you are telling me I could apply disadvantage to an enemy for the rest of the combat in exchange for a single attack from the group - then I'm taking that trade every time!

 

[Ashrym]

I don't see the familiar as a sneak attack enabler, so much. It's pretty easy to qualify for sneak attack. The familiar is mostly just increasing your to-hit chance when you don't have advantage from something else, and when you make one big attack instead of two small ones, the value of increasing your to-hit chance on the first attack roll on your turn is higher.

Which is similar to just using TWF. Once that first hit succeeds the second becomes unnecessary as only a small bonus compared to using cunning action. TWF cuts down on cunning action compared to the familiar but it's much cheaper and leaves an open option to replace however find familiar was required.

There are also other sources of advantage. When any of those become available the help action is superfluous.

The trouble here is, the owl can gain total cover, making it very hard to hit with anything but an AoE, while the mastiff will have a harder time doing that without getting an OA.

If the owl were to just hover right there in the enemy’s face, it would get hit. Because there is always a creature for whom a single attack isn’t that much to give up. But it doesn’t take long for most enemies to have either spells, or multi attack, or limited use powerful abilities like breath weapons.

The mastiff avoids the AoE by being on the opposite side of the target. Unless the target has an AoE around himself that doesn't include himself, AoE's himself, or someone else is AoE'ing everying including the target; AND assuming there's appropriate cover available; AND assuming there is s source of AoE happing often enough for this to become important it's a bit of a minor detail where the mastiff is likely to avoid AoE's.

AoE's have to be prevalent enough with total cover readily available at the same time within attack ranges to make this more than a minor detail and worth the cost.

Moral of the story -- I don't find that find familiar is worth the cost of picking up find familiar for a combat advantage. ;-)

 

[FrogReaver]

The trouble here is, the owl can gain total cover, making it very hard to hit with anything but an AoE, while the mastiff will have a harder time doing that without getting an OA.

If the owl were to just hover right there in the enemy’s face, it would get hit. Because there is always a creature for whom a single attack isn’t that much to give up. But it doesn’t take long for most enemies to have either spells, or multi attack, or limited use powerful abilities like breath weapons.

But using an entire action to make the rogue work slightly harder to get Sneak Attack (if the attack hits) is a waste of time.

And the rogue gets challenged by having an enemy actively focusing on them as a high value target. Works very well.

I don't think you have the right concept of readied actions. When you ready the attack action to attack, you don't have to specify what enemies you will be attacking, just the trigger.

By the way - this argument that it's worth killing the familiar or mastiff if it can be targeted is much different than the position previously taken by you and others- which was that it was never worth targeting the familiar. I'm going to consider this a major victory! Because, if you are accepting that then we are really just talking about how easy it is to target a familiar with flyby.

 

[FrogReaver]

Let's talk about probably the simplest way to stop the metagaming of a player having his owl do different things when someone doesn't perform an action on their turn.

Start using readied actions more often for non owl related triggers. Now suddenly the player never knows when his owl will be targeted or when it won't...

 

[Salthorae]

Oh nice! I'll show him this guide. Thanks a lot!



Well, so far there is a Wizard (me), a Rogue (my brother) and a Fighter. 5 players in the group.



It would be nice to be an easy and fun class for him, cause he played like 3 campaigns with me, all of them incomplete. I would say he played somethin like 30 sessions or so. So he is like me beginner/intermediate.

Would you say Arcane Trickster is way harder to play/manage than Swashbuckler?

I would personally say that Swashbuckler is easier to play than Arcane Trickster, but not HUGELY so. At 3rd level you only have very limited spellcasting, so it's not a huge issue of tracking and managing your spell resources.

I love magic and every character I play can cast something in some way either through Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate or class levels or both though, so I might be biased on how easy AT is or isn't for a new player.