D&D 5E Rogues are Awesome. Is it the Tasha's Effect?

[iserith]

I am going to play my first ever cleric (a Rogue multiclass) in a game I am in now. The character is a 1st level half-elf Rogue now. I will probably level this week and pick up twilight cleric. I am going to end up going assasin/twilight cleric eventually.

I have never liked clerics much. I think it is a holdover from 1E/2E when it was always a fight in my group to see who had to take the cleric and round out the party. The great thing about 5E is there is no real need for a specific balance of classes so in 5e most of my groups have never played a cleric.

What really happened with my present build is I rolled a half-elf Rogue like normal, got a 14 wisdom, I was going to go Ranger but the rest of the party is a Paladin, a bow Ranger, a fighter and some mysterious PC I have not figured out yet - a Genassi warlock maybe. So another ranged build with a Rogue/Ranger would work but it is not that great for the party and since we have no cleric or wizard I figure I would take a cleric dip.

Yeah, unless I'm going Life cleric, I take healing word and that's it for healing. Many people still see clerics as healbots and they're so much cooler than that.

 

[iserith]

Fast Hands is very cool, particularly with the Healer feat. Second Story work is also great. My rogue happened to pick up a unique magic item which is a bit like Spiderman's web shooters. Not very crucial for combat, but helps a lot with climbing. I took proficiency in Athletics even though I dumped strength to help with some of that too.

Good for staying out of trouble with a ranged weapon. The jumping part of SSW has also saved my bacon a lot of times with getting me across open pits when I dumped Strength.

 

[auburn2]

Fast Hands is very cool, particularly with the Healer feat. Second Story work is also great. My rogue happened to pick up a unique magic item which is a bit like Spiderman's web shooters. Not very crucial for combat, but helps a lot with climbing. I took proficiency in Athletics even though I dumped strength to help with some of that too.

On my Rogues I always have athletics with expertise. I think that is better than taking acrobatics because you can use it for both offense and defense with shove or grapple.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Rogue (especially the Arcane Trickster) is one of my favorite classes in 5e, but it has quite a few other classes in front of it (Artificer, Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard).

They're really good, especially if you can get GFB/BB, and especially if your DM still allows you to use a Shadow Blade with those cantrips.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I think the principle effect of the Tasha's Steady Aim rule is to eliminate the need for lots of arguments between Rogue and DM about whether the Rogue is hidden or can hide in a particular situation. It also evens the field a bit between Rogues playing at tables using a flanking advantage rule and Rogues not doing so.

So as for the question of "has the 5e Rogue always played like this", I would say that at a lot of tables they basically have and that is how they were designed to play. But some DMs have had the idea that Sneak Attack and/or advantage should be a rarer thing and the Tasha's Steady Aim rule has reinforced the expectation that, no, Rogues should have a shot at sneak attack most rounds of combat.

 

[dave2008]

I am playing a traditional rogue for the first time in 5e. He's a halfling arcane trickster, dex based. We're up to 6th level now.

Out of combat he of course excels. We're playing Mad Mage, and he's excellent with traps, secret doors, and anything requiring investigation or scouting., That Mage Hand which can use thieves tools at range is great, and so is a familiar for scouting. He's pretty decent at negotiations as well, provided he uses deception and sometimes uses a Disguise Self spell.

In combat he usually gets Advantage. He has three options to get Advantage: the new optional rule from Tasha's called Steady Aim (which applies to both ranged and melee attacks), attacking from being hidden as a halfling (can hide behind ally), or the Help action from my familiar.

He can use a crossbow, or a rapier, both of which use my Dex.

Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade is cast as a cantrip. It's the former if two targets are next to each other, or the later if it's a solo target.

And then of course there is sneak attack.

Last night I did 46 points damage in a single attack, though that was some lucky rolling. Damage is Rapier 1d8+4, Sneak Attack 3d6, Green Flame 1d8 + 1d8+2 to 2nd target. So average damage is 30 I think. But...this is every round with just normal at-will resources, and a high chance to hit with advantage.

And with Cunning Action, I don't get stuck on the front line. I can move in, do this massive attack, and safely move back out (if I didn't use Steady Aim). Heck, if I drop my target and won't draw an opportunity attack, I can even move behind an ally and hide as a bonus action (as a halfling), provided I didn't use Steady Aim that round.

And when necessary he can even let lose with an area effect spell, like Sleep. That will eventually be traded out for something else, but it's still great on a pack of goblins.

I know this is not "the most" damage a class can do at this level. I am sure a Paladin for example can do more using some limited resources, and for sure a Wizard can with some limited resources. But, it's just that it's so easy for a traditional rogue to do a ton of damage, without using limited resources. I don't have to be "very optimized" to do this. Dex is obvious. A rapier or ranged weapon is obvious. Steady aim is obvious. A familiar is pretty common I think for an arcane trickster, and I suspect now with Tasha's that green flame blade or booming blade (or both) is also pretty obvious. All of this combination is pretty "normal" for a Tasha's-built rogue. It doesn't require a lot of deep game knowledge or tinkering to find this "good" combination.

And with my combat options being pretty easy to figure out, I find I have a lot more time to focus on role playing this little guy. Which has been a blast!

What are other people's impressions of playing a rogue? Do you also find it plays out roughly as I've said, or is what I'm experiencing more geared towards Tasha's Cauldron's impact on the rogue with Steady Aim and the two combat cantrips being reprinted there?

I always play rogues, unfortunately the last time I did was way back in the 80s with 1e. In reality I always play the DM. That being said I loved playing rogues/thieves, but I've never worried about home much damage I did in combat.

 

[Charlaquin]

Rogues have been top-tier damage dealers since the playtest. They’ve only continued to get even more tools since then.

 

[iserith]

I'm playing a scout rogue in Rime of the Frost Maiden named Icewind Dale right now. He's a figure skater modeled after Chaz Michael Michaels in Blades of Glory. Doing ice skating maneuvers with bonus action disengage or the scout rogue getaway reaction is fun.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I think rogue is the best overall class design in all of 5e. They have potent abilities with real limitations. They require meaningful decisions during character creation and during actual play. They gain abilities at every tier of play that are relevant and potent at that tier, a feat that very few classes manage to accomplish, even some spellcasters. I wish more classes were as evenly and appropriately designed as rogue.

I don't think Tasha's really affects rogue much at all. I like Steady Aim in as much as it codifies that the stupid halfling tricks with Naturally Stealthy and hiding in the same spot over and over and over is pretty explicitly not mechanically broken. It means I, as a DM, have no problem telling my players that hiding in the same spot over and over and jumping out to shoot every single round in exactly the same way doesn't necessarily give the same mechanical benefit over and over and over. They should instead use this other mechanical option that confers basically the same benefit because I'm tired of picking up the shattered remains of my suspension of disbelief at the end of their combat turns. I'm happy to report that NPCs do, indeed, understand the concept of object permanence, have memories moderately longer than that of a goldfish, and will in fact learn to watch for the halfling who has to reveal themselves to fire a shot.

I still believe that green flame blade and booming blade are overrated. They look quite potent on paper, but in actual play they're often relatively mediocre. They are better on rogues than most other classes, but I still would never take both cantrips on the same character.

 

[Blue]

Quick question: I'm very strongly considering a rogue as a replacement character in an existing campaign (currently 11th), but the DM usually does 1-3 encounters per day and often "for tension" does not allow short rests between them. That context has been really favoring casters. Do you think a rogue can keep up with a Paladin and a bunch of casters in a case like that?

(Just for more info, it's an Ancient-Greek themed game with most of the group aligned with Athena except for one with Persephone. I was thinking about a Phantom Rogue aligned with Hades, which would be a great RP fit and fill gaps in the party. We're generally a low coin, moderately low item group, but I would probably start with a rare and an uncommon item.)