I think T. Foster and Pickaxe have helped convince me that just doing away with the rogue class instead of fixing it is a fine way to go. All of the archetypes mentioned for thieves could essentially be replicated with a 3.5e fighter if that class was given a few more skills and the ability to select trapfinding and sneak attack as feats. As folks have mentioned, much of the character of the archetypal rogue/thief comes from their flair or attitude and not so much their abilities. Thus, a fighter or ranger roleplayed with the same flair could just as easily fit those archetypes I think.
Rogues: essential class or sacred cow?
- Thread starter Pickaxe
- Start date
Again, it's the cleric that should be chopped up and spread to the four winds. There aren't any remotely decent cleric antecedents in the literature – fantasy priests are all NPC quest-senders and villains – and 3e jacked the class to the heavens so that somebody would want to even play the damn class. If you spread the divine intervention around a bit you aren't stuck with a weird little role that's only justified by a quirk of the game mechanics.
In order to remove the rogue, you have to do 2 things:
1) Give trapfinding to one or all classes, which is easily done.
2) Give one or all classes a lot more skill points and class skills, to reflect the skill master archetype.
Its the second one that makes the rogue essential to me. Giving one class a lot more skill points would likely either imbalance the class or still wouldn't fulfill all the desired archetypes.
Sure I could give the bard 8 skill points, but he's still a bard. There's plenty of thiefy archetypes that don't deal with singing. I could give it to the ranger, but he already has the woodsman archetype.
What makes the rogue useful for players is his relative "lack" of specific archetype, which is the same as the fighter. A barbarian's archetype is somewhat hammered into the class, I mean illeratacy is a class "feature". Clerics are religious, druids are natural, bards sing and do magic. But other than rogues can do more damage from ambush, they can be any kind of skill master you want, which means they fullfill a lot of player desires for character concepts. Its also why you use them a lot in multiclassing.
So I do think the rogue is an essential class, and any weakness in the class is there is any should be fixed; the class should not be dropped as a whole.
1) Give trapfinding to one or all classes, which is easily done.
2) Give one or all classes a lot more skill points and class skills, to reflect the skill master archetype.
Its the second one that makes the rogue essential to me. Giving one class a lot more skill points would likely either imbalance the class or still wouldn't fulfill all the desired archetypes.
Sure I could give the bard 8 skill points, but he's still a bard. There's plenty of thiefy archetypes that don't deal with singing. I could give it to the ranger, but he already has the woodsman archetype.
What makes the rogue useful for players is his relative "lack" of specific archetype, which is the same as the fighter. A barbarian's archetype is somewhat hammered into the class, I mean illeratacy is a class "feature". Clerics are religious, druids are natural, bards sing and do magic. But other than rogues can do more damage from ambush, they can be any kind of skill master you want, which means they fullfill a lot of player desires for character concepts. Its also why you use them a lot in multiclassing.
So I do think the rogue is an essential class, and any weakness in the class is there is any should be fixed; the class should not be dropped as a whole.
Doug McCrae
Legend
Strange as it may seem, according to Gary Gygax, the D&D class roles aren't derived from history, myth or fiction but from war(gaming). I asked him about this in one of his Q&A threads.Pickaxe said:
Doug McCrae said:
Doug McCrae
Legend
I agree with you, the cleric is the weird one. Healers do appear in fiction but they're seldom the hero. The trickster type otoh is a staple of myth and folklore. The hero who's clever and/or skillful, not strong. It's only with modern TV medical dramas like MASH and ER that healers have become protagonists.Imp said:
Not only that but the cleric is a very specific kind of healer - he's a knight hospitaller - which is far too historically specific to be an archetype.
At one time the rogue's trapfinding was the last sacred cow. (Paladins can turn undead, clerics have damage dealing spells, bards can heal and pick pockets etc.)
Then came the ninja, the scout and the beguiler, all of whom have trapfinding.
Apparently the kobold domain (wherever that's from) gives (kobold) clerics trapfinding.
Finally, we have Dungeonscape, which includes class options which give rangers trapfinding and barbarians a trapfinding variant based on survival.
The only reason for the party to have a rogue is because someone wants to play one. Personally, I don't
.
Then came the ninja, the scout and the beguiler, all of whom have trapfinding.
Apparently the kobold domain (wherever that's from) gives (kobold) clerics trapfinding.
Finally, we have Dungeonscape, which includes class options which give rangers trapfinding and barbarians a trapfinding variant based on survival.
The only reason for the party to have a rogue is because someone wants to play one. Personally, I don't
.So far, most of the replies here are focused on the mechanics of the rogue class (e.g. sneak attack, trapfinding, high skill points, etc.). Personally, I think that on the whole they are distinct enough from the cleric, fighter, and wizard to justify another class. But, even if you changed the exact mechanics (or replaced them with a like-role, such as ninja, scout, or even some ranger builds), the role is an important one IMO, because it also reflects a particular player mindset. Just as the fighter/paladin role reflects the straight-ahead 'pound the bad-guy', and the wizard/sorcerer role reflects strategic thinking and planning, the rogue role reflects either a 'sneaky guy' or a 'facemen' or some degree of both. Stripping that role away entirely would not just weaken the options for a party, but also for lots of players that enjoy playing it.
Just ask all the katana-weilding, trenchcoat-wearing ninjas out there, they will tell you. If you can find them, of course.
Before they kill you in your sleep. 
Just ask all the katana-weilding, trenchcoat-wearing ninjas out there, they will tell you. If you can find them, of course.
Before they kill you in your sleep. 
Drowbane
First Post
Is the Rogue essential? No. Of the PHB classes all you really need is Cleric (or Druid) and Wizard. 
An all cleric party can be quite potent and deal with just about any problem put before it.
Snipped and altered for my amusement.
All this talk about how the rogue isn't required and yet nobody (that I've noticed, haven't scanned every post) has mentioned how superfluous the barbarian, bard, paladin, ranger and sorcerer are.
Barbarian: Rage (feat chain), fast movement (meh), weak DR (meh)
Bard: 3rd edition's bard has lost touch with what the Bard used to be... the original Prestige Class. Social skills (open skills up to all classes), Bardic Knowledge (PrC ability), Bardic Song (PrC or Rogue special ability), incompetence (any poorly made character, you don't need a "special" base class for this!).
Paladin: Smite (cleric domain or three), Unique Spells (easy to ignore or absorb into the already potent Cleric spell-list), Poke'mount (g'bye!), "Martial Arm of the Church" (Cleric does it better anyways).
Ranger: Favored Enemy (feat), Camouflage (new rogue special ability), Hide in Plain Sight (new rogue special ability).
Sorc: Wizard-for-dummies (no offense intended). Several non-core classes have since done the "Wizard-lite" role better. Such as battle-sorc, psion, warlock, warmage, wilder... and I'm sure you folks could think of a few more.
An all cleric party can be quite potent and deal with just about any problem put before it.
Snipped and altered for my amusement.
delericho said:
All this talk about how the rogue isn't required and yet nobody (that I've noticed, haven't scanned every post) has mentioned how superfluous the barbarian, bard, paladin, ranger and sorcerer are.
Barbarian: Rage (feat chain), fast movement (meh), weak DR (meh)
Bard: 3rd edition's bard has lost touch with what the Bard used to be... the original Prestige Class. Social skills (open skills up to all classes), Bardic Knowledge (PrC ability), Bardic Song (PrC or Rogue special ability), incompetence (any poorly made character, you don't need a "special" base class for this!).
Paladin: Smite (cleric domain or three), Unique Spells (easy to ignore or absorb into the already potent Cleric spell-list), Poke'mount (g'bye!), "Martial Arm of the Church" (Cleric does it better anyways).
Ranger: Favored Enemy (feat), Camouflage (new rogue special ability), Hide in Plain Sight (new rogue special ability).
Sorc: Wizard-for-dummies (no offense intended). Several non-core classes have since done the "Wizard-lite" role better. Such as battle-sorc, psion, warlock, warmage, wilder... and I'm sure you folks could think of a few more.
Stalker0 said:
Well, I think sneak attack and crippling strike (and slippery mind, to a lesser degree) pretty much force the rogue into the "back-stabbing no good thief" archetype... One of the reasons why I think that the scout class is probably one of the best things that has happened in D&D
So, yeah, I think that the rogue is a bit of a sacred cow in D&D and that the "skilled character" could carry less "sneaky flavour" than the rogue does. OTOH, I'm not saying that the rogue should go, just that since it's basically considered one of the "main four" you need in your party, it does give you a lot less options in the direction of your character than fighter, cleric and wizard/sorcerer do...
First let me reiterate that I'm not arguing that the rogue's *role* is not essential, nor that the rogue's role should simply be removed from the game. The fighter has an essential role that belongs in the game, but his role can be filled by other classes, such as barbarian or paladin. The question is why, when we have these other equivalent classes, we continue to retain fighters in D&D. My argument is that classes remain in D&D not because they can fill roles, but because they are either iconic elements of the game, or they represent archetypes of the genre that draw us to the game in the first place. The skilled swordsman or mercenary or soldier is an archetype that none of us would suffer to be excluded from D&D.
But what of the rogue? If we remove the rogue, what archetypes go with it? Many archetypes have been mentioned as linked to the rogue class, but it's not clear that any are unique to the rogue, i.e., they can be expressed by other existing classes, like the ranger or fighter.
The quote from Gygax about the origins of the party and its four fundamental roles is very interesting. It makes sense when you consider that the creators of D&D were most familiar with the mechanics of wargames that emphasized the value of combined arms. But note that Gygax is still talking about the origin of the *roles*, not the origin of the classes that fill them. Why aren't the four classes simply Infantry, Medic, Ranger/Spy, and Engineer? The fact that Fighters, Wizards (Magic-Users), Clerics, and Thieves were ultimately what the creators chose indicates that they were looking to archetypes outside of wargames to define the heroes in their campaigns.
So, my point is not that rogues are dispensible because their role is (it isn't), it's that rogues may be dispensible because a) their role can be performed by other classes, and b) there are no compelling archetypes that you can only get in D&D by playing a rogue.
Let me comment a bit on the cleric. Some have commented that clerics are the oddballs here that need to be eliminated because they have no archetypal foundation. I agree that the relationship of the cleric to the game is not as clear-cut as it is for the wizard and fighter, but I don't think they are actually worse off than the rogue. For one thing, their party role is undeniably essential, whereas you can at least consider ditching trapfinding altogether. Second, one shouldn't confuse a cleric's party role (healer) with what they are at least supposed to represent in the game (someone with a connection to the power of the divine).
Thus, when looking for the archetype of the cleric, one shouldn't look simply for healers, because the role of the priest is not equated with healing outside of RPGs and their derivatives. Nor should one look at contemporary fiction, because modern storytellers are not writing for polytheistic audiences, nor for audiences who want stories ultimately determined by the actions of gods, rather than heroes. If you look at the cleric, the cleric spell list, and the cleric-related magic items, one can find archetypal inspiration not from fiction but from history and myth. Many cleric spells and magic items come right out of the Bible (e.g., waterwalking, staff of the serpent). We may not always have a robed person with a holy symbol upon which we can pin the archetype, but there are plenty of examples in myth and religion of individuals performing magical acts as agents of the divine.
I'm not saying that I couldn't be convinced to do with the cleric what I suggest we do with the rogue, but I think the perceived problems with the cleric have more to do with playing issues (i.e., clerics are boring healers, so let's give them more power) rather than an identity crisis.
--Axe
But what of the rogue? If we remove the rogue, what archetypes go with it? Many archetypes have been mentioned as linked to the rogue class, but it's not clear that any are unique to the rogue, i.e., they can be expressed by other existing classes, like the ranger or fighter.
The quote from Gygax about the origins of the party and its four fundamental roles is very interesting. It makes sense when you consider that the creators of D&D were most familiar with the mechanics of wargames that emphasized the value of combined arms. But note that Gygax is still talking about the origin of the *roles*, not the origin of the classes that fill them. Why aren't the four classes simply Infantry, Medic, Ranger/Spy, and Engineer? The fact that Fighters, Wizards (Magic-Users), Clerics, and Thieves were ultimately what the creators chose indicates that they were looking to archetypes outside of wargames to define the heroes in their campaigns.
So, my point is not that rogues are dispensible because their role is (it isn't), it's that rogues may be dispensible because a) their role can be performed by other classes, and b) there are no compelling archetypes that you can only get in D&D by playing a rogue.
Let me comment a bit on the cleric. Some have commented that clerics are the oddballs here that need to be eliminated because they have no archetypal foundation. I agree that the relationship of the cleric to the game is not as clear-cut as it is for the wizard and fighter, but I don't think they are actually worse off than the rogue. For one thing, their party role is undeniably essential, whereas you can at least consider ditching trapfinding altogether. Second, one shouldn't confuse a cleric's party role (healer) with what they are at least supposed to represent in the game (someone with a connection to the power of the divine).
Thus, when looking for the archetype of the cleric, one shouldn't look simply for healers, because the role of the priest is not equated with healing outside of RPGs and their derivatives. Nor should one look at contemporary fiction, because modern storytellers are not writing for polytheistic audiences, nor for audiences who want stories ultimately determined by the actions of gods, rather than heroes. If you look at the cleric, the cleric spell list, and the cleric-related magic items, one can find archetypal inspiration not from fiction but from history and myth. Many cleric spells and magic items come right out of the Bible (e.g., waterwalking, staff of the serpent). We may not always have a robed person with a holy symbol upon which we can pin the archetype, but there are plenty of examples in myth and religion of individuals performing magical acts as agents of the divine.
I'm not saying that I couldn't be convinced to do with the cleric what I suggest we do with the rogue, but I think the perceived problems with the cleric have more to do with playing issues (i.e., clerics are boring healers, so let's give them more power) rather than an identity crisis.
--Axe
Similar Threads
