NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 6040023" data-attributes="member: 50304">Well, that is what he did in OD&D and AD&D. He didn't have Sneak Attack. He had "Backstab." There wasn't any flanking. Facing was vague at best. Hiding in combat was not in the rules set. You had one shot at a back stab in a combat and that was it, unless your DM felt like bending a heap of rules to make the game more fun. Heaven help you if you missed."Sneak Attack" was a fabrication of 3rd Edition, along with Flanking to make it easier and then a slew of monsters that had anatomical immunity to Sneak Attack or Uncanny Dodge to balance it out. It was also so bland that they later flooded 3.5 with a slew of feats to trade out those random d6s for negative status effects against enemies.As I already pointed out in the post  [MENTION=55966]ferratus[/MENTION] was quoting when you quoted him - the Rogue's most unique niche on offense in combat is putting negative effects on enemies. He's also got a fine option to push extra damage if that is what is required in a particular instance. I think it would be interesting if having real Advantage when attacking let you roll the Expertise Dice for Opportunist Damage without spending them (but not double-stack them on the same attack). Either way, though, the Rogue needs the functionality those 3.5 feats and some 4E powers gave him - hamstring, blind, bleeding wound, poison attack, etc.As noted, Sneak Attack didn't exist until after Y2K. Back-stab was definitely not the signature Rogue function for the 22 years from 1977 to 1999. It was one of the most marginal abilities in the game.- Marty Lund</blockquote>

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