Rogues: essential class or sacred cow?

[Greg K]

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 .

That's why I like the UA martial (fighter feat) and wilderness rogue options.

 

[Warren Okuma]

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.

Actually the cleric is vital if the DM concentrates his attacks on one character. Heal that charater or that person will die. I do that, and you need a cleric or you will be losing one character almost every time the PC's face the boss monster. The cleric's role is to keep the party alive during combat. If your DM isn't using tactics, the cleric is not needed.

And for trapfinding? Bag of tricks or wand of mount, very cheap replacement for a rogue. Summon spells work as well. Unseen servant can open chests, knock spell... Information? The wizard has lots of divination spells, and the druid can ask the land itself.

The Rogue is just way too nerfed in my opinion. I give them a gestalt with an NPC class. Infact all non primary spell casters I give that option instead of nerfing the wizard, druid, sorc, and cleric. I'm a giver not a taker.

 

[kaomera]

Here's a reference for Thieves' Cant at least: linky (I hope that works)

This actually fits very well with my argument. The rogue archetype is more about how the character is played than things that translate into class abilities. But D&D is ill-suited to defining such a class, so, instead of a cunning, sneaky trickster with, say, a high Intelligence, the rogue is a high-Dex character with poor AC and hit points and sneak attack. If you can instill the cunning and stealth into any of your characters, why do you need the rogue class?

I certainly don't advocate removing traps and puzzles and negotiation as parts of the game, but I do think these aspects could be redistributed to other classes.

You can say much the same thing about the Fighter. Honestly, the problem with the class system is that unless you want to play the Fighter (or Rogue, or Wizard, or Cleric, etc.) class specifically, you aren't going to get exactly the character you want. I can't play any warrior-type I'd actually really want to play from the Fighter class alone, they simply don't have the skill-set. Likewise, the spell-slinger I really want to play pretty much just doesn't exist in D&D. The Rogue class, as written, comes closest to being something I actually want to play, even if that means ignoring some of it's features.

[And I rarely see Rogues with low ACs in 3.x... In AD&D, yeah, but a +4 or better from Dex goes a LONG way and few Fighters seem to want to wear Platemail (or use shields) any more.]

 

[Moggthegob]

The quetion being asked here remind me of threads involving elves. There areelves, but that doesn ot people are happy with them. would we get rido f them ,no. WOuld wel ike them to be "our" elves yes. The problem is everyons elf is different. I like the rogue s it exists as a balanced class to fill that role. he beguiler,scout,ninja and spellthief capture different aspects of the archetype,but the rogue is the flexible one that allows you do it all moreso than any other class.

 

[Tonguez]

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.

So, my point is not that Fighters are dispensible because their role is (it isn't), it's that Fighters 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 Fighter.

In other words I'm not seeing your logic

As the Gary quote indicates the Rogue ws derived from the Spy/Ranger archetype and so in a system that also has rangers there is overlap in the archetype, but that is an artifact of a class mechanic and not a argument against rogues

So
Lets take the archetypes of Fighter, Rogue and Spellcaster and then multiclass them

Bard - Fighter/Rogue + Spellcaster
Ranger - Fighter/Rogue + Spellcaster
Cleric - Fighter/Spellcaster
Paladin - Fighter/Spellcaster
Barbarian - Fighter/Fighter
Scorcerer - Spellcaster /Spellcaster
etc etc

First the Ranger and Bard simply reflect how ubiquitous magic is in DnD and the calls for spellless versions indicates that spells are not a requirementof the archetype. If we remove that then we basically have two classes which are Fighter/Rogue combos and two which are fighter/spellcaster combos which could be easily manged by converting class abilities to feats/talents.

So yeah you could drop rogue but to be fair you can't then go and replace it with a ranger since rangers could equally replace fighters.

 

[hong]

Play the Iron Heroes thief, executioner and harrier swordsage, people. You know you want to.

FIFM

 

[S'mon]

The trapfinder rogue is a sacred cow and far from essential; indeed Thieves in previous editions were pretty well useless even in their primary role! The game as designed needs Clerics Wizards and Fighters; you need the two different spellcasters because of their different spell lists and possibly Clerics' Turn Undead power; if you add Cleric spells to the Wizard list you can do without them too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or you could FRP with M&M or HERO and never deal with classes again.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The Rogue is just way too nerfed in my opinion. I give them a gestalt with an NPC class. Infact all non primary spell casters I give that option instead of nerfing the wizard, druid, sorc, and cleric. I'm a giver not a taker.

Interesting idea. Though the sorcerer is significantly less powerful than the other three. Does the bard count as a primary caster?

 

[Pickaxe]

So, my point is not that Fighters are dispensible because their role is (it isn't), it's that Fighters 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 Fighter.

Except that I don't belive this is true for fighters. Their role can be performed by other classes, but you can't get all the archetypes of the "warrior hero" from the barbarian, paladin, or ranger. The fighter does not have the same issues as the rogue.

As the Gary quote indicates the Rogue ws derived from the Spy/Ranger archetype and so in a system that also has rangers there is overlap in the archetype, but that is an artifact of a class mechanic and not a argument against rogues

The *role* of the thief was derived from the "ranger/spy" of wargames, but not the class itself. There are no "thieves" in wargames, so, regardless of its party role, there had to be another inspiration for the class concept.

So yeah you could drop rogue but to be fair you can't then go and replace it with a ranger since rangers could equally replace fighters.

Except they can't. There are more things that you can do with the fighter, archetype-wise, than are covered by the narrow portfolio of the ranger, or, for that matter, the barbarian or paladin. As far as rogue archetypes go, either you can get them from other classes, or they weren't particularly well expressed by the rogue class in the first place.

--Axe