D&D 5E The Limping Rogue

[Kobold Stew]

The latest playtest has hobbled the rogue in a number of significant ways. Sure, I get that they want to test maneuvers, but after a noodle and a sample combat tonight, a few things emerged that make this incarnation of the rogue significantly inferior to that in previous testpacks.

1. Abilities lost. Thieves Cant and Knack are gone, with no replacement. Ugh.

2. Class features lost. In the last incarnation, the scheme that you chose gave you a number of class features – unique feat-like abilities that were distinct abilities for the rogue. Maneuvers are not a balance for this. In exchange for skill mastery and sneak attack, you get expertise dice that allow you to replicate skill mastery. And maneuvers, so close to the fighter’s choices, do not allow the distinctiveness of the rouge to shine through, or to match the fighter or to have that moment of shining that backstabbing gave back in the early editions. Ugh. (This problem has been noted in other threads.)

3. Scheme choice weakened. The latest pack offers more schemes, but for me they do not have the same richness as the first two. Part of it was the simple choice of favouring dex (thief) vs favouring strength (thug). I understood that choice. Now there are schemes that favour dex (acrobat, thief) or dex and charisma (enforcer, rake, trickster). Gone is the strength-rogue, and absent is the straight Charisma rogue, or the possibility of an intelligence or even a constitution rogue. There are three extra schemes but less diversity based on stats -- the difference is only in the specific skills in which one is trained (which with custom schemes are variavle anyways). You may now make up your own (with DM’s permission, sure), but as written there is more choice, but less diversity. Ugh.

4. Thieves’ tools meaningless. Rogues are proficient with a piece of equipment that is necessary to use the skill disable device, but only one of the five schemes gives disable device. Am I missing something here? This means that if you want to use this benefit for 4 of the 5 rogue options, you need to take the guild thief background (or invent your own, assuming your DM lets you). The richness and skill choice offered by the backgrounds is therefore LIMITED for the character that is supposed to be most adaptable and skill savvy. And, what's more, if you take the guild thief background and are not a rogue, you are unable to use one of the skills in which you are trained in most of the circumstances in which you would want to use it. Triple Ugh.

All these found were before we even got to combat. We made fifth-level characters, and once the fights started, the rogue survived (as did the other PC, a cleric) but it offered less variation over the few rounds than we felt we possessed in previous playtests. Combat actually revealed less about the system than we saw building characters. Sure, I imagine a higher hit die makes more sense, but that too has already been noted on these boards.

The previous playtest offered great imaginative possibilities to the rogue -- many different ways it could be built that would lead to exciting, dynamic characters, even if they weren't all geared for exciting combat possibilities. That choice now feels like it is gone. Even though there are more schemes available, there is less of a sense of variation, and there is the sense that you are deliberately spiting yourself if you don’t make your rogue a thief in background or scheme. Sure custom builds remain possible, but I expect they can be easily broken.

More choice actually leads to less variation: all rogues are now primarily dex-builds. The whole thing seems like such a wasted opportunity.

(EDIT: One more thing. Making the skill list bigger decreases the overall power of the Rogue's main schtick.)

 

[Roger]

4. Thieves’ tools meaningless. Rogues are proficient with a piece of equipment that is necessary to use the skill disable device, but only one of the five schemes gives disable device. Am I missing something here? This means that if you want to use this benefit for 4 of the 5 rogue options, you need to take the guild thief background (or invent your own, assuming your DM lets you).

This is a little obscure, but consider this section from Backgrounds and Skills:

If your character already has training in a skill and gains training in that skill again (for example, a skill granted by both the character’s class and background), you instead choose a different skill in which your character becomes trained.

So in terms of how the various rogue schemes can use this to their advantage:

Acrobat: Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Tumble
> Guide (Climb), Jester (Balance, Escape Artist, Tumble)

Enforcer: Gather Rumors, Intimidate, Sleight of Hand, Sneak
> Artisan (Gather Rumors), Bounty Hunter (Gather Rumors), Charlatan (Sleight of Hand), Commoner (Gather Rumors), Minstrel (Gather Rumors), Noble (Intimidate), Soldier (Intimidate), Spy (Sneak), Thug (Gather Rumors, Intimidate)

Rake: Balance, Bluff, Persuade, Tumble
> Artisan (Persuade), Charlatan (Bluff, Persuade), Commoner (Persuade), Jester (Balance, Tumble), Knight (Persuade), Minstrel (Persuade), Noble (Persuade), Priest (Persuade)

Trickster: Bluff, Gather Rumors, Persuade, Sleight of Hand
> Artisan (Gather Rumors, Persuade), Bounty Hunter (Gather Rumors), Charlatan (Bluff, Persuade, Sleight of Hand), Commoner (Gather Rumors, Persuade), Knight (Persuade), Minstrel (Gather Rumors, Persuade), Noble (Persuade), Priest (Persuade), Thug (Gather Rumors)


So there's a few more options here than might be immediately apparent.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[GreyICE]

The latest playtest has arfed up a number of things in interesting ways.

Just bunker down and wait for the next one.

 

[DEFCON 1]

In reference to your point #3... I don't think any rogue will ever be just CHA-based... because all weapon combat ability uses STR or DEX. You won't ever see any class that uses CHA for their weapon attacks. Now sure... you might have a scheme that is much more CHA primary with far back DEX secondary... but the DEX will still have to be there for the weapons.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

#1, 2, and 3 in the OP are especially salient. The current interation of the rogue is in danger of ending up like the 3e fighter: he's "the best at" a universal feature (feats for the 3e fighter, skills for the 5e rogue) but that basically strips him of anything special.

I don't think the rogue should just have more skills (or be better at them) than other classes; he should be able to use them in ways other classes can't. The thief bonuses from the previous playtest were like that.

I also am not a huge fan of the way that schemes have been stripped of anything mechanically unique or even flavorful. At this point I think they should rethink schemes and fighter styles, because if there's nothing more to them then a prefab list of maneuvers/skills, they're not really worth the space in the book.

 

[mlund]

At this point I think they should rethink schemes and fighter styles, because if there's nothing more to them then a prefab list of maneuvers/skills, they're not really worth the space in the book.

You're overlooking the Design Goal of having a pick-up and play level of complexity available for some players. The whole idea of Class - Background - Theme was that you could just make 3 choices and play the game without gimping yourself. Adding in combat styles is another layer of complexity, but whether it is maneuvers or spells these will be there for everyone. So the right thing to do is present good, competitive tracks to steam-line the process for the type of player that wants take-and-play action.

That means pre-packaged maneuvers or spells. They should have default spell selection criteria for each Tradition and Domain as well. Players looking for a deeper customization experience with characters are, of course, free to ignore them. I'll be ignoring them for my own characters and taking advantage of them when I need to bring in a newer player.

The problem with throwing extra effects onto those pre-packaged styles / schemes / traditions / domains is that it disadvantages the Do It Yourself model. If you get some random static ability or bonus unique to Scheme A, and Schemes B, C, and D get there own, then what does the character with a custom scheme get?

- Marty Lund

 

[tlantl]

You know what I think is wrong with the rogue?

I think people really want a fighter that can do the stuff a thief can. The problem is that the classic thief really sucked in combat. They were designed to steal stuff, work as teams of guerrillas, and were necessary to safely delve into dark places full of locks and traps.

When combat came up they found a place to hide and used their sneak attack to augment the fighter and the cleric.

The real issue is that WotC has changed the fundamental purpose of the game by focusing on the combat aspects to the near exclusion of everything else. This has caused the rogue to be less of a thief/trailblazer and turned them into second class fighters. Their sneak attack went from being an attack of stealth and timing to an always on way for the thief to do as much damage as the rest of the party, specifically the fighter

As long as people think the rogue is just another fighter with some skill bonuses then they will never be happy with the class.

How about we return that particular niche to the ranger, give him back his thief abilities and make the rogue the thief, trailblazer he is and not try to turn him into yet another fighting man.

The rogue's identity is that of a conniving trickster or blatant robber or second story man or dungeon delver, but he is not a fighter and has no need to be able to deal damage as if he were one.

Until this truth is made clear the rogue in D&D will fail to fulfill it's role in the game.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

You're overlooking the Design Goal of having a pick-up and play level of complexity available for some players. The whole idea of Class - Background - Theme was that you could just make 3 choices and play the game without gimping yourself. Adding in combat styles is another layer of complexity, but whether it is maneuvers or spells these will be there for everyone. So the right thing to do is present good, competitive tracks to steam-line the process for the type of player that wants take-and-play action.

That means pre-packaged maneuvers or spells. They should have default spell selection criteria for each Tradition and Domain as well. Players looking for a deeper customization experience with characters are, of course, free to ignore them. I'll be ignoring them for my own characters and taking advantage of them when I need to bring in a newer player.

This makes a lot of sense to me in some cases, like backgrounds and specialties. But you'll note that, for example, all the feats in each speciality are (basically) unique. This isn't the case with styles and schemes; they're just different ways of organizing the same list of maneuvers, and honestly, they do a fairly bad job of it. Why does a duelist get Glancing Blow and Opportunist but not Parry? What does being a veteran have to do with Whirlwind Attack? Why does every single rogue scheme get Sneak Attack, but at different times? Is there any real flavor reason why a thief rogue gets Lightning Reflexes and a Trickster gets Defensive Roll?

The prefab builds can be great if they're done well and carefully. But at this point, they might as well just make one or two Recommended Builds for new players.

The problem with throwing extra effects onto those pre-packaged styles / schemes / traditions / domains is that it disadvantages the Do It Yourself model. If you get some random static ability or bonus unique to Scheme A, and Schemes B, C, and D get there own, then what does the character with a custom scheme get?

- Marty Lund

Well, there's some precedent for this - per the rules, when you create a custom background, you pick your own skills AND one of the traits from a pre-existing background. That's certainly how I'd make a "custom" battle wizard: pick your own at-wills and signature spell but keep the "ignore one target" feat-thing. And it could work just as well for rogues. Make flavorful schemes with some unique mechanics, and let players customize them by changing up the skills/maneuvers but keeping the special abilities.

Now, if schemes were as involved as the sorcerer origins and warlock pacts from the last playtest, this wouldn't work so easily. But I'm not suggesting that, necessarily. Just one or two useful special abilities per scheme, and maybe some useful class abilities like Thieves' Cant for the class, to keep rogues unique.

And while we're at it, yeah, I wouldn't mind if the fighter styles got a little mechanical bonus too. Maybe duelists could be more effective with light armor, and slayers could do scary things on a crit, and veterans could tough it out a bit longer in combat. Then if you're making a custom style, you pick your favorite.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I don't get why they have premade packages for the Fighter and Rogue telling you which skills and maneuvers you get at which level. Why do they do this, yet let Wizards and Clerics off the hook? I don't see a premade package telling you which spells you learn.

Let it be free choice or a set progression that has real meaning, rather than pretending the packages are useful.

 

[mlund]

I don't get why they have premade packages for the Fighter and Rogue telling you which skills and maneuvers you get at which level. Why do they do this, yet let Wizards and Clerics off the hook? I don't see a premade package telling you which spells you learn.

They should totally add that in the next pass.

Let it be free choice or a set progression that has real meaning, rather than pretending the packages are useful.

Actually, I think I'd like to see an arbitrary fixed progression for each Fighter style, Rogue scheme, Cleric domain, and Wizard tradition. Then you can deviate using whatever level of customization the table (via the DM) agrees to.

So you could have one game where everything is Heroic Array, Pre-Feb Progression everywhere. You could also have a game where you use 4d6 keep heighest w/ player assignment for stats and completely ala cart Feat and Spell/Maneuver selection.

Another game design option would be to give maneuvers synergy, so taking maneuver Y is much more effective after taking maneuver X.

- Marty Lund