D&D 5E Rogues and Sneak Attack

[mlund]

I'm fine with the rogue being less good than a fighter in combat most rounds (that was present previously), but he needs a time to shine.

That time would be basically every Interaction or Exploration event. Seriously, nobody's coming on here crying about how the Fighter class gives you that absolute worst class platform for either of the other pillars. He has no skill enhancements, no knacks, no spells, and no maneuvers dedicated to any of it.

The Rogue will certainly still get a time to shine, in setting ambushes, traps, and any time combat hazards force saving throws or skill checks - even without being able to outright eclipse the Fighter in damage in any given round. Doing otherwise is really shades of the Rogue trying to have his cake and eat it too. Though who would blame him? It says "Rogue" right on the class.

- Marty Lund

 

[pemerton]

I agree with the previous three posts. In a game balanced around the three pillars, with one martial class called "fighter", it stands to reason that the other martial class is not going to be as strong in straight-up fighting.

Under this setup, the rogue's time to shine in combat should not be via straight-up damage. It should be via using manoeuvrability to get behind the enemy front line and taking out the commander, the mage, etc (like the example in Gygax's PHB with the illusionist and 20 orcs).

 

[mlund]

It should be via using manoeuvrability to get behind the enemy front line and taking out the commander, the mage, etc (like the example in Gygax's PHB with the illusionist and 20 orcs.

Come now, we all know you hit the Healer, then the Controllers and Artillery. Otherwise they yo-yo and it's nothing but work, work, work.

Rogues - ganking the other team's cleric since 1974.

- Marty Lund

 

[Jester David]

Sneak Attack, at the very most, should be able to let a Rogue match the damage of a Fighter... for one round, with planning. Because the Rogue is not a Fighter. The Fighter is best at killing things, and the Rogue is best at skills. As it should be.

Very true, except right now rogues don't as they have less options for high damage weapons. So to match expertise would be higher.

Personally, I think sneak attack should do a straight 1d4 but the damage increases if the rogue has advantage.
D&D needs a dice step-up mechanic, as seen in other games. For situations when the DM rules it's better suited to modify damage than grant advantage. Charging for example, as you're not likely to attack more accurately when running really fast.

 

[Larrin]

Under this setup, the rogue's time to shine in combat should not be via straight-up damage. It should be via using manoeuvrability to get behind the enemy front line and taking out the commander, the mage, etc (like the example in Gygax's PHB with the illusionist and 20 orcs).

And he takes out said commander/mage/etc by sneak attacking them. If sneak attack doesn't have the goods, his whole 'shining' moment has a maximal potential of being 'ok'. Acceptable, but not optimal.

The rogue should sneak in, jump the cannon fodder, dodge the traps and arrows, and disappear in the puff of a smoke bomb. Yes, let him shine in skills in the midst of combat. My argument is that he should then appear behind the commander/mage/etc with its kidney on his knife. Currently, he can only hope for kicking the guy's shin almost as hard as a warrior could. I think we can do better AND still have fun fighter being kings of combat. I don't think we'd even need to change fighters at all.

A rogue's life in combat won't be easy, it will be risky, but it should be worth it to play a rogue in combat.

Because any rogue made, WILL be in combat at some time. A lot of some times.

In the end: If a rogue can shine damage-wise in situations where a rogue 'should' shine damage-wise, and the best reason not to is a concept of "Rogues should make skill-checks not war" I'm inclined to encourage shining-rogue-damage in my feedback and various ravings in between.

 

[GameDoc]

Has anyone else noticed that we've gone from skills being optional so that you could get an old school OD&D feel without them, to now breaking the game if you leave them out?

What is the rogue, as currently presented, without skills? I'm not saying that the rogue should not have a design that promotes a class built around skillfulness, just that it seems like the class should have some other option for working in a game where the skill module is excluded.

Now dwarves and elves have skill training as racial traits too.

You can still drop backgrounds, but looks like skills are embedded in race and class design now. That seems to violate one of the initial design goals for DDN.

 

[Hautamaki]

Why do people keep acting like the Rogue should be as good at fighting as the Fighter? You can already get the same damage bonus as the Fighter by planning ahead, using Sneak Attack. Rogues aren't meant to be damage-dealers, they're the skill-masters. They shine most outside of combat, and then they can do a clever bit here and there when fights happen... but they never get to match the Fighter in combat, much less exceed him. That's why you play a Fighter, to be the best at fighting.

Even if you look at the "classic" media, the nimble little Rogue guys never outdamaged the warriors. They could spend the entire fight setting up for one heroic backstab that allowed them to take an enemy or two out in one hit... while the warrior hero continues to take out enemy after enemy with ease.

Sneak Attack, at the very most, should be able to let a Rogue match the damage of a Fighter... for one round, with planning. Because the Rogue is not a Fighter. The Fighter is best at killing things, and the Rogue is best at skills. As it should be.

I sort of agree with this; but then I question if there's really a lot of desire to play this character? It's sort of like the cleric--every party needs someone to search rooms, open locked doors and chests, disarm traps, etc; just as every party needs their portable healing potion vending machine. But not so many people, IME, want to BE those guys--they want to be the awesome fighter dropping bad guys left and right, or the awesome wizard blasting things to kingdom come.

Which is why Clerics and Rogues gradually came to have more and more combat ability (particularly as the game became more and more combat focused).

Which leads to some very difficult conundrums. If you make the rogue as good at fighting as the fighter, what good is a fighter? Likewise with clerics/wizards. 4e tackled this problem with roles--fighters were tanks, rogues were strikers, wizards were controllers, clerics were leaders, etc. All classes were equally useful in a fight, just in completely different ways. An elegant solution imo. The downside was that all classes wound up using basically the same mechanics, the AEDU system, which had certain drawbacks that bothered certain people.

Another solution, would be to give classes completely different mechanics but give ways for players to fulfill any role they want with any class they want, just that the different mechanics lend these choices a completely different flavor and wind up with subtle but important differences in how events play out during the game. In this solution, a fighter can be like a striker, leader, controller, or tank, depending upon his choices of equipment, skills, and feats. A cleric likewise could fill any role depending again upon his choice of equipment, skills, deity, and prayers. And a mage also could fill any of the roles depending again upon equipment, skills, and choice of spells. (in this theoretical system prayers and spells would have completely different mechanics yet hopefully still be overall balanced).

And rogues? Well I haven't figured out where rogues fit in to be honest. To me, I think that 3 different mechanics (feats, prayers, spells) are enough. What makes a rogue different from a fighter? Simply that the feats the rogue chooses gives him bonuses to his adventuring skills instead of fighting. I don't think any more distinction than that is necessary.

And what of other classes? To me the other classes are actually combinations of the base 4 (or even 3): a paladin is a fighter/cleric of a lawful good deity. A ranger is a fighter/cleric of a nature deity. An assassin could be a fighter with levels of mage and/or cleric that takes spells/prayers to do with sneaking around and killing blows and so on. A barbarian is a fighter that takes rage and toughness type feats. And so on.

These iconic classes could even be named and fully fleshed out--as prestige classes available early in the game, perhaps even third level (eg fighter 1 cleric 1 can now become a paladin, and so on).

But maybe this is too far outside the box for what people want from D&D. It's just 1 possible answer to a series of dilemmas that all comes back to 'What's the real difference between a fighter and rogue and what roles should these classes play that are both balanced and appealing to a large number of players?'

 

[pemerton]

Come now, we all know you hit the Healer, then the Controllers and Artillery. Otherwise they yo-yo and it's nothing but work, work, work.

Point taken.

And he takes out said commander/mage/etc by sneak attacking them. If sneak attack doesn't have the goods, his whole 'shining' moment has a maximal potential of being 'ok'.

<snip>

My argument is that he should then appear behind the commander/mage/etc with its kidney on his knife. Currently, he can only hope for kicking the guy's shin almost as hard as a warrior could.

D&D has never really had auto-kill rules, though (except for the assassin, which has always been a little wonky).

I mean, the fighter can't kill the bodyguard in one blow unless s/he happens to run its hp down to zero. Why should the rogue be different when it comes to taking down the leader? What makes the rogue distinctive in this scenario is that s/he can get to the leader at all.

I question if there's really a lot of desire to play this character?

That's a fair question.

Part of the problem is that, to date, the action resolution rules for next don't really engage anything but combat, and a few elements of exploration that are preparatory to or otherwise take place on the periphery of combat.

 

[Stalker0]

Instead of focusing the manuevers on the sneak attack portion, what if we focused on enhancing SA?

3e rogues had feats to cut hamstrings, do bleeding damage, etc. what is there were maneuvers like this that required advantage and were rogue maneuvers.

 

[Li Shenron]

a) the fighter should generally be able to put out more damage and absorb more damage

b) the rogue should at times be able to score a more spectacular hits. These hits should have to be earned. They should require planning, timing, risk and likely sacrificing attacks...Not just have an ally adjacent.

I totally and utterly agree with this premise. THIS is a good concept and starting point, because it makes for TWO very different gaming experiences, to play a Fighter VS to play a Rogue.

In 3e the damage output of the Fighter was definitely lower, so 1d6 Sneak Attack felt like a good bonus at 1st level. Getting the SA required to either (a) think how to deny an enemy his Dex bonus to AC or taking some AoO risk and maneuver around him to a flanking position. But even a player who didn't do either those things still had a chance to use SA at the beginning of a fight when winning initiative.

In 5e current package you get SA almost all the time without thinking, as long as you can target someone who is already in melee with your allies. You don't even have to think much about how to get advantage (although honestly IMHO this was already too easy and too frequent in the previous packages). No thinking. No risk. But also you don't get it at the beginning of a fight, because with the current rules a surprised enemy misses the first round but you don't have advantage over him (IIRC... please someone correct me if I'm wrong!).

Then the benefit is so small compared to 5e average damage output, that IMHO it would be so much better to completely remove SA from the game at this point. It just sucks and makes no sense.