D&D 5E Rogue's Cunning Action to Hide: In Combat??

[Oofta]

DMs who are stingy with things like hiding in combat tend to be the same dm's who rule you need to actually flank the target to get sneak attack, or just rename it backstab and take the name literally and wonder why the rogue's player is confused by the the totally clear interpretation of the rules as written in the 1e PHB while the rest of the game uses 5e rules...

I'm only a little bitter.

I've never seen anyone require flanking or anything similar. Sounds like you've had some bad DMs.

In my games, if rogues try to get advantage (many don't care) they get it on a regular basis. Just not every round every combat.

 

[jmartkdr2]

I've never seen anyone require flanking or anything similar. Sounds like you've had some bad DMs.

In my games, if rogues try to get advantage (many don't care) they get it on a regular basis. Just not every round every combat.

A few. Most dm's are good dm's, even if they lack specific skills. Anyone trying to show everyone a good time will usually succeed, especially if they can keep the toxic players away from the table. But many dm's aren't very good; most because of inexperience, second most common reason is they didn't really want to update to a new ruleset but can't find anyone who wants to play an old rulesets. Once in a while I'll encounter a truly bad dm who doesn't listen to the players, but that's rare and easy to see when you look for it.

In practice, most of the time if the rogue's player puts in a modicum of effort they can get in their sneak attacks as often as they need to to be effective, but it's an area that some dm's screw up pretty badly pretty quickly. Rogues and wizards if the dm is stingy with adding spells to spellbooks.

 

[Charlaquin]

With bounded accuracy, it's usually not a big deal. That, and the big damage others do also relies on hitting or targets failing saves.

The calculations account for accuracy. The fact of the matter is, since rogues rely on one big hit per turn to keep their average damage per round up to par, missing has a much bigger impact on them than it does on other classes. With two attacks or one attack with advantage, they about keep up with the fighter. With one attack without advantage, they fall behind. Since this is a matter of averages, it probably won’t be noticeable on a turn by turn basis. The disparity in average damage manifests over the course of many combats.

That and rogues get a lot of utility outside of combat to compensate. They aren't meant to be the best damage dealers in the game by design.

And they aren’t the best damage dealers in the game. If they get two attack rolls per round (be they two separate attacks or one attack with advantage) with the potential to do sneak attack damage, they do about the same at-will damage as a fighter, but still have lower average damage per round due to lacking the damage boost the fighter gets from Action Surge. And that’s just the Champion fighter! A rogue’s average DPR falls even further behind subclasses that have additional damage boosting resources like the battle master.

Let me repeat that: the rogue does less average damage per round than the fighter, even with two attacks or one advantage attack per round. If they don’t get that, they fall behind even further.

 

[billd91]

Except in every game I've been in, rogues do get sneak attacks practically every round. You don't need advantage.

Which is what I find confusing - you seem to be conflating the two.

IF they don't have disadvantage, it's pretty easy to get sneak attack as long as you've got a buddy up close and personal with the opponent. But I've found that disadvantage comes up more often than I'd like with my rogue - enough that I've lost plenty of sneak attacks as a result - unless I have the option of gaining advantage to counteract it.

 

[jayoungr]

it's pretty easy to get sneak attack as long as you've got a buddy up close and personal with the opponent.

Depending on the group, that can be harder than it sounds. The group where I've been playing a rogue the longest consists of me, a bard, a sorcerer/cleric multiclass, a wizard, and barbarian who hates getting hit.* When we started out, we also had a paladin, but that player dropped out. So the only other PC who is likely to be in melee with an enemy is the barbarian, who will avoid it whenever possible. And to make it tougher, I am usually ahead of the barbarian in initative, which means I can either attack immediately without sneak attack (unless I can get advantage somehow) or ready an action to attack when someone else engages the monster in melee, which isn't guaranteed.

This is frustrating for me because I'd like to be in melee more often, but the character just doesn't have the HP to soak up a lot of attacks.

*I know, I know, but the player is very young.

 

[cbwjm]

It is because one attack roll with the potential to deal sneak attack damage has a significantly less average damage than two attack rolls with the potential to deal sneak attack damage. Rogues need two-weapon fighting or advantage on a single attack roll to keep up with other at-will classes in terms of average damage per round.

Of course, not everyone cares about maintaining parity between classes in terms of average damage per round. But a lot of people do.

From memory, the designers have said that the rogue is balanced around sneak attack each turn, not advantage. Rogues work fine without advantage each turn.

 

[Oofta]

The calculations account for accuracy. The fact of the matter is, since rogues rely on one big hit per turn to keep their average damage per round up to par, missing has a much bigger impact on them than it does on other classes. With two attacks or one attack with advantage, they about keep up with the fighter. With one attack without advantage, they fall behind. Since this is a matter of averages, it probably won’t be noticeable on a turn by turn basis. The disparity in average damage manifests over the course of many combats.

And they aren’t the best damage dealers in the game. If they get two attack rolls per round (be they two separate attacks or one attack with advantage) with the potential to do sneak attack damage, they do about the same at-will damage as a fighter, but still have lower average damage per round due to lacking the damage boost the fighter gets from Action Surge. And that’s just the Champion fighter! A rogue’s average DPR falls even further behind subclasses that have additional damage boosting resources like the battle master.

Let me repeat that: the rogue does less average damage per round than the fighter, even with two attacks or one advantage attack per round. If they don’t get that, they fall behind even further.

I can believe that according to white room spreadsheet analysis they average less. I've just never experienced it with my players, players with other DMs or when I personally ran a rogue. Maybe I just haven't been playing with optimizers. Obviously my personal experience doesn't mean much and YMMV.

 

[Oofta]

From memory, the designers have said that the rogue is balanced around sneak attack each turn, not advantage. Rogues work fine without advantage each turn.

The theory was that they'll average less than fighters but compensate by having better out-of-combat capabilities.

 

[Charlaquin]

I can believe that according to white room spreadsheet analysis they average less. I've just never experienced it with my players, players with other DMs or when I personally ran a rogue. Maybe I just haven't been playing with optimizers. Obviously my personal experience doesn't mean much and YMMV.

Have you been tracking the damage numbers of every character in your campaigns so you can find and compare their average damage output over time? Because if not then course you haven’t experienced it because that’s the level on which the effect manifests. It probably feels like rogues are doing fine in your games, but human brains are really bad at intuiting those things. Unless you’re actually crunching the numbers, you’re not going to notice the difference. But it’s there, and it’s significant.

 

[Charlaquin]

The theory was that they'll average less than fighters but compensate by having better out-of-combat capabilities.

Right, but they do that with two attack rolls per turn. If they get only one attack roll per turn, they will average even less. And hey, maybe that’s fine with you and your group! Average damage per round isn’t everything, not even close. If the way you run things is working well for you and your group, enjoy! Clearly it isn’t working well for some other groups, and this is part of why.