D&D 5E TCoE - Rogue's Steady Aim

[Don Durito]

There are a lot of ways for a rogue to get sneak attack in 5e.

Hide is contentious. If you allow duck-behind-cover, hide, shoot around corner, you basically get the steady aim back when you get cunning action (with a check).

But the Hide rules are intentionally vague, so a rogue who wants to snipe at all like that has to rely on DM fiat for it to work.

This looks like an attempt to permit a rogue to reliably get sneak attack, even without an ally in melee range. It has a cost (bonus action and movement) which isn't trivial; but for a rogue in a sniper nest, it ain't bad.

For a melee PC, it is usually worse than an offhand attack (2 rolls for 1 attack < 1 roll for each of 2 attacks).

I could see a Paladin who was already going Assassin 3 (for alpha strike pain) making use of this. They can be sword+board and get an improved chance to land a crit so long as they stay put, without burning their offhand for another swing and losing that AC.

Yes. But this is why I think the reasoning needs to be explained. Because I can see a lot DMs looking at is on paper and thinking "that's OP". When really it's not.

Whereas, you might think, "I don't really want to further encourage ranged combat", so you might choose not to allow it for that reason (which I think would be fair).

 

[Charlaquin]

And although it doesn't say it explicitly... I would imagine that many DMs will require these new abilities to be a feature swap, rather than a straight addition. That way the classes don't become overtly more powerful than what they are from the straight PHB.

I disagree. I think most DMs will be fine with just allowing it, and those who are concerned with it giving the rogue a straight up buff won’t allow it.

I'd venture a guess that they probably received negative feedback on how they did the one-for-one swaps of class features in the UA, as I'm sure some people probably said they'd want both abilities (the swap out and the swap in) and want to get rid of a different ability instead. But as that would have required a whole bunch of explanation on what kind of swaps were and were not balanced (because of the whole "ribbon ability" thing)... they just said "You can have this if the DM says it's okay", figuring that each DM would make their own decision on what would be allowed and balanced for their game.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was the single highest rated Unearthed Arcana to date.

 

[SkidAce]

Here's the rule I want to see in supplements: "You may not use this feature unless your DM agrees AND you (and the other players) buy him/her/them the book."

and pizza.

 

[Argyle King]

There are a lot of ways for a rogue to get sneak attack in 5e.

Hide is contentious. If you allow duck-behind-cover, hide, shoot around corner, you basically get the steady aim back when you get cunning action (with a check).

But the Hide rules are intentionally vague, so a rogue who wants to snipe at all like that has to rely on DM fiat for it to work.

This looks like an attempt to permit a rogue to reliably get sneak attack, even without an ally in melee range. It has a cost (bonus action and movement) which isn't trivial; but for a rogue in a sniper nest, it ain't bad.

For a melee PC, it is usually worse than an offhand attack (2 rolls for 1 attack < 1 roll for each of 2 attacks).

I could see a Paladin who was already going Assassin 3 (for alpha strike pain) making use of this. They can be sword+board and get an improved chance to land a crit so long as they stay put, without burning their offhand for another swing and losing that AC.

A paladin using Find Steed could use the mount's movement.

 

[Nikosandros]

I disagree. I think most DMs will be fine with just allowing it, and those who are concerned with it giving the rogue a straight up buff won’t allow it.


Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was the single highest rated Unearthed Arcana to date.

I agree. Besides, it was an additional feature (which did not require a swap) already in the UA playtest.

 

[Shiroiken]

and pizza.

Was totally going to say this, but you beat me to it!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I disagree. I think most DMs will be fine with just allowing it, and those who are concerned with it giving the rogue a straight up buff won’t allow it.


Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was the single highest rated Unearthed Arcana to date.

That's why I said 'many'. Because there's no way of knowing numbers and 'many' is vague enough to be probably true.

And while the idea of new swappable features was overwhelming positive... that does not mean ipso facto that the part of swapping one specific feature for another one specific feature was also. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But the fact that they removed most of the one-for-one swaps tells us that there was some reason they did so.

 

[Flamestrike]

Do they actually bother to explain the reason for the ‘steady aim’ feature. (One would assume it’s because sneak attack is supposed to be used just about every round and ambiguities around hide create problems for Ranged rogues).

Because if you’re going to ask DMs to make this decision they should at the very least be given the information to make an informed decision.

My guess is [behind the scenes] it speeds up combat, avoiding the need for a Stealth check [which then need to be looked up and compared to the Passive perception of the monsters present], and the resultant Stealth arguments and debates every round.

At 3rd level your average Rogue is rocking around +7 to Stealth, meaning Hiding is largely an auto-success most rounds anyway, and the gap only grows from there.

Now you can elect to just stay put (dont move), forgo the roll, use a bonus action and stab or shoot with advantage.

Much quicker resolution, with the caveat that you cant move (no more yo-yoing rogues) but is more applicable to creatures with Blindsight etc.

 

[Flamestrike]

A paladin using Find Steed could use the mount's movement.

Technically. Although I wouldn't allow 'Steady Aim' on the back of a galloping horse.

 

[Spohedus]

Combined with Elven accuracy feat, isn’t this a significant damage boost for higher level rogues?