D&D 5E Sneak Attack: optional or mandatory?

[Warbringer]

The game is about big damn heroes going around killing things and taking their stuff, if you want to roleplay something else use a different system than D&D they do that better, don't try and turn D&D into something it is not.

Aw shucks, I've been playing the game wrong for 30 years

 

[Starfox]

So when a player asks to play the acrobatic performer, a charming upperclassman, a man of science. a wizard school dropout, or many of the other guys in the world. It is up to the game to decide on if it has ways to support these people and how or if it is up to the players themselves to design them.

This is pretty much what 4E tired to do - a class for each potential character idea. It's just impossible to do. Only way to get something even resembling that is an assemble-your-character kit. Archetypes from Pathdinder, subclasses in Next and points-bye systems are som ways to approach thisgoal.

The rules should not be balanced around people making Mary Sue characters because you can't balance that.

This could actually work as combat-usable interaction:

Mary-Sue: "Hi, my name is Mary-Sue!" * Bats eyes
Villain: "Oh, I cannot make myself fight you!"

 

[Minigiant]

But Indiana Jones is mostly a fighter, and Sherlock Holmes would not be a D&D adventurer.

When the party gathers at the Inn of [Adjective Noun] and meets for the first time by taking up the quest of the week, and they introduce each other, the guy who says "I suck at combat and can't contribute at all to one of the key areas of the adventure." gets left behind. His player then spends the next 30 minutes making a character that doesn't suck.

The game is about big damn heroes going around killing things and taking their stuff, if you want to roleplay something else use a different system than D&D they do that better, don't try and turn D&D into something it is not.

The rules should not be balanced around people making Mary Sue characters because you can't balance that.

But is every adventurer a warrior who spent years learning to fight, years on the streets stabbing folks, or decades learning to shoot fire. You have to force the world to only fitting heavy armored professional warriors, backstabbing underworld gangsters. mace wielding clergymen, and wizards who spend years learning the science to warp reality to be the only people worth bringing on an adventure.

Because if you are planning on delving into an ancient underground ruin littered with magic traps, you might want to bring a guy who can read the the signs in front of the deathtraps. And that guy might be a man of regular education who might be not versed in backstabbing but good at making medicines, poison, gadgets, bombs or something not useless in a fight.

Proper weapons technique, sneak attacking, and magic are not the only options for victory when swords are drawn.

This is pretty much what 4E tired to do - a class for each potential character idea. It's just impossible to do. Only way to get something even resembling that is an assemble-your-character kit. Archetypes from Pathdinder, subclasses in Next and points-bye systems are som ways to approach thisgoal.

Yes, getting them all would be impossible. Getting some would be great. Forcing sneak attack on every non-warrior, nonspellcasting adventurer make this harder.

 

[Starfox]

It is possible to build such a class, but it is not what the rogue is in NEXT right now. Some bard archetypes from Pathfinder get pretty close.

But when doing that, it is easy to fall into the trap of making a class that is interesting, setting-fitting, but helpless. Where a 20th level in this class can't really compete with someone of level 12 in a regular class. Effectivey, yu have then made a character for another type of game.

Let me give an example. In much anime, the catalogue of heroes include many archetypes; the heir to the power of the universe, the monster, the mad scientist, the ultimate warrior, the cat-girl sneak-thief and so on. But there is also the ordinary girl - whose main ability is cooking. And this all works in a story, because half of it happens in a home environment, where cooking really is the most important skill of all. But a DM doen't have that kind of control over the story, the DM is not a director. The players themselves decide what scenes to put lots of time into. And most devote considerably more time to action than to cooking.

If you play a game that devotes a lot of time to such civil pursuits, by all means make characters suited to them. I have played such stories. But it is not mainstream DnD.

 

[Minigiant]

It is possible to build such a class, but it is not what the rogue is in NEXT right now. Some bard archetypes from Pathfinder get pretty close.

But when doing that, it is easy to fall into the trap of making a class that is interesting, setting-fitting, but helpless. Where a 20th level in this class can't really compete with someone of level 12 in a regular class. Effectivey, yu have then made a character for another type of game.

Let me give an example. In much anime, the catalogue of heroes include many archetypes; the heir to the power of the universe, the monster, the mad scientist, the ultimate warrior, the cat-girl sneak-thief and so on. But there is also the ordinary girl - whose main ability is cooking. And this all works in a story, because half of it happens in a home environment, where cooking really is the most important skill of all. But a DM doen't have that kind of control over the story, the DM is not a director. The players themselves decide what scenes to put lots of time into. And most devote considerably more time to action than to cooking.

If you play a game that devotes a lot of time to such civil pursuits, by all means make characters suited to them. I have played such stories. But it is not mainstream DnD.

Mainstream D&D is still a setting where players play "dungeoneers".

The Questions are "Are all nonmagical, nonwarrior dungeoneers backstabbers in mainstream D&D?" and "If no, how does the game support them?"

 

[N'raac]

I'd have to say that prior editions seem to support that all nonmagical nonwarrior dungeoneers are backstabbers in mainstream D&D. Maybe the better question is whether we want this to continue or change and, if the latter, how.

 

[ad_hoc]

Not wanting sneak attack as mandatory is not the same as not wanting a combat ability mandatory.

Sneak attack is not even very good for dungeoneering combat. Undead, oozes, constructs, plants, etc. typically don't care.

I would like to see sneak attack out of the base rogue class but instead in the 'basic' rogue subclass at 3rd level.

That will open the door to a bunch of subclasses (including the bard) that have their own combat related ability which is themed specifically to them.

An example would be a Dwarven tinkerer. Rogue is the ideal class and the subclass could all them to build all sorts of bombs, grenades and traps to aid in combat as well as being a locksmith and dungeon expert.

I would like the option to be able to play a character like that without having backstab as a required attribute.

 

[Kobold Stew]

welcome to the boards, ad_hoc. I have 100% agreement with your posts so far.

 

[Starfox]

Welcome to the list Ad hoc!

Sneak attack is not even very good for dungeoneering combat. Undead, oozes, constructs, plants, etc. typically don't care.

Yeah, this used to be a problem. I don't really think it needs to be tough... The 3E restrictions on sneak attack were unnecessarily hard. With the motivation for sneak attack I posted earlier in this thread, I don't feel it has anything to do with anatomy at all.

 

[N'raac]

Not wanting sneak attack as mandatory is not the same as not wanting a combat ability mandatory.

Sneak attack is not even very good for dungeoneering combat. Undead, oozes, constructs, plants, etc. typically don't care.

I would like to see sneak attack out of the base rogue class but instead in the 'basic' rogue subclass at 3rd level.

That will open the door to a bunch of subclasses (including the bard) that have their own combat related ability which is themed specifically to them.

An example would be a Dwarven tinkerer. Rogue is the ideal class and the subclass could all them to build all sorts of bombs, grenades and traps to aid in combat as well as being a locksmith and dungeon expert.

I would like the option to be able to play a character like that without having backstab as a required attribute.

This model would be my preference as well. However, I think we have drifted a long way. As I understand it, the rules as written have only one combat option for rogues - Sneak Attack. If the Rogue is able to, and does, choose not to take Sneak Attack, that is a permanent choice, as I understand the current rules contain no retraining rules either.

They aren't going to change that radically. If combat options to sneak attack, or retraining, are coming, they are coming in modules at best, more likely splatbooks. That means other rules mechanics are likely to hinge on Sneak Attack (not other modular or splatbook options as there will be no certainty they are in play, and in many cases they will not even be known when the mechanics assuming the rogue has Sneak Attack are developed).

So there are two questions, to me. We've addressed "what is the ideal structure for rogue abilities", and I believe a consensus that the Rogue should have lots of choices in combat abilities has developed, with more division on the extent to which rogues should be allowed to trade away their combat abilities for greater non-combat power. I think there is also support for retraining, though the speed and extent of same hasn't been discussed in any detail - and this goes well beyond Sneak Attack, or even Rogues.

The other question, which we have seem to have abandoned, is "under the Next rules as they stand, should all rogues have Sneak Attack?" As they stand, with no retraining and no other combat options, I have to say that I think all Base Default Next Rogues should have Sneak Attack, as I prefer that to "trap options" leaving the Rogue far behind other characters in combat ability with no way to ever close that gap.

Still no answer to the poll - that's my "given the limited options" answer, not my "prefer" answer. What this thread seems to show pretty clearly is that D&D Next is not going to meet my preference of having robust choices for all character classes. Rather, the basic rules appear likely to be very basic, with a short list of choices, or no choices at all, for most class features, and the obvious plan of a huge array of later books that "add optional choices" (read: are required to have an array of choices and play, for example, the many Rogue concepts noted on this thread alone).

Is it just me, or have we reached the point where adopting a new edition should be deferred a few years to let a reasonable basis of character options build up, and be able to assess whether you like the actual game rules, rather than the sampler pack marketed as the "basic default rules"?