The Return of the Sneaking Man

[Dannyalcatraz]

No one will expect that.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Wait, what's wrong with that...?

Nothing wrong about sneaky priests. Dress them in red, give them fear powers, and call them a Spanish Inquisitor.

No one will expect that.

The guy playing the rogue wanted to be the scout/thief of the party. He was relegated to the "big damage" role and eventually quit.

Also:
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[AbdulAlhazred]

The guy playing the rogue wanted to be the scout/thief of the party. He was relegated to the "big damage" role and eventually quit.

You can always use Thievery, Dungeoneering, and/or Streetwise for spotting things in specific niche situations. In fact all 4e traps have a set of DCs for different skills already, so that was kind of taken care of WRT traps from the start.

As for scouting and incremental success, really, a Complexity 1 SC takes maybe 5 minutes, tops, to run. That gives you 4 levels of success to play with, and allows the rogue to exercise several skills or use other types of tactics. Much more interesting that a single check and quite suitable when there's a bit more than nothing at stake.

As other people have said, the 4e rogue has a pretty good variety of 'dirty tricks' ranging from level 1's Blinding Barrage and Dazing Strike up to the level 9 Knockout Blow which instantly KO's an enemy. Just using an AP and a couple encounter powers with surprise will give you 3 unanswered attacks in a row, generally more than enough to gank a standard if your character is built with any degree of damage dealing focus.

The Assassin class in HoS also DOES have an insta-gank a minor enemy effect. I think the lowest level of the feature lets you kill an opponent outright if your attack reduces them to 10 or fewer HP, and it scales at higher levels. Coupled again with surprise and maybe an AP and/or use of a poison there's rarely going to be a garden variety enemy that will survive your surprise attack.

Honestly I thought 4e handled rogues really well. The Ossassin was a pretty toothless class and the HoS (Essentialized) Assassin isn't really top notch either, but they aren't bad and can certainly operate in the gank from surprise mode (heck, shrouds are practically custom made for that, they're not good for much else).

No doubt 5e can put some polish on the whole thing, but the 4e rogue is a pretty good model to start with. Maybe there's some 3e stuff that could be brought in (not sure what was in there really).

 

[Jack7]

I don't have time to reply in detail to everything everyone has asked that I was saying about this by starting this thread, a lot more people replied than I thought would, but let me say this for my part:

I am definitely with those who want to see the return of the Thief. I think the Thief is far more versatile at what he does than the Rogue.

However, this does not mean that I personally or necessarily want to see the AD&D Thief recreated. Or just slightly modified for 5E. I'd like to see him greatly improved, for the full potneital of the class to become apparent in 5E. I'd like to see the return of a true Sneaking Man. As well as a better Sneaking Man.

I'd like to see Thief Plus for lack of a better term, and for those old enough to know what I'm saying.

Now I have my own ideas about how to do this, and I've outlined some of them, but I'm sure many others have their own ideas as well. Some have already suggested some right good ideas in my opinion. So I'll let you ladies and gentlemen hash that out as you wish. I've enjoyed reading of this what I could. Been a busy week for me though, maybe I can catch up some this weekend.

Good night folks, and please carry on.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The guy playing the rogue wanted to be the scout/thief of the party. He was relegated to the "big damage" role and eventually quit.

Did he not build his character to best take advantage of being the scout/thief of the party? As a cleric, you won't automatically be the best at Perception and Stealth unless you specifically BUILD your character that way. If the cleric gimped his other stuff to take a background and/or feats to allow him to Perceive/Stealth... then he deserves to be good at it. If the rogue wanted to use all his abilities to get other cool stuff but still also be the best at Perception and Stealth... well, then that's his own fault.

Any character can sometimes get surpassed in his normal "schtick" by another character who specifically builds towards that schtick. That's the whole point of the system... so you don't REQUIRE any one specific class.

 

[Jack7]

Any character can sometimes get surpassed in his normal "schtick" by another character who specifically builds towards that schtick. That's the whole point of the system... so you don't REQUIRE any one specific class.

Concur. I think that is one of the better design features of later versions of the game. I still think that Classes can be much better designed than later versions of the game to be far more individualized, and to be far more potent at what they do (as in earlier game-Class versions), versus all classes being smeared out so that everyone is everyone, or just a different version of the same thing, as in 4E.

But allowing a Ranger (and it makes perfect sense for a Frontier's Ranger to be a good thief, for instance) to become good at Thieving skills is a good design feature of the later versions of the game. It might even make sense for a Wizard, depending on where he lives or how he operates, to be a good thief (at least in some respects), or even for a Cleric to be good at church or court espionage (this borders on what the Rogue is good at), or at other Thief skills.

I personally think the real best game design answer lies in the middle between turning everyone into slightly different versions of each other, and making everything about a class entirely proprietary,

I'm hoping with 5E being modular in design, many of these problems can be rectified in the milieu design the DM constructs from the basic game design parameters.

Yeah, the game design will have to provide basic parameters and still be solid enough that the core concepts and fundamentals (even down to things like class) are transferable from one game to another, but also fluid enough to allow enough parameter (in this case Class) manipulation to prevent the Classes from becoming calcified, rigid, and entirely proprietary.

I'd like to see a Thief who is uniquely a Thief and easily distinguishable from any other class, and who is in fact - the most excellent Thief. There will be no doubt what he is and what he is superb at. That will be unmistakeable by how he operates.

On the other hand I'd also like to be able to see a Ranger (for instance) who can be good at thieving skills.

With a good In-Game Training System a good Thief could teach a smart Ranger many things about disguise and in-city manhunting just as a smart Ranger could teach a good Thief many things about tracking outdoors and camouflage. It would take sacrifice and time and effort and expense but with proper training and devotion such cross-fertilization could be helpful to both men. Just as in real life when Cops teach Soldiers good policing and investigative techniques, and Soldiers teach Cops good Special Weapon and field-deployment techniques. It wouldn't make the Ranger a different version of the Thief, nor would it make a Thief a Ranger, it would make for a better and more versatile Ranger and a better and more capable Thief.

I think that with a good In-Game Cross-Fertilizing Training System and a Modular Game Design Recombination System you'd be able to do both things well: have entirely unique Classes, and yet those classes would be able to Train and Advance each other at complimentary and other skills and capabilities.

 

[avin]

Just want to weight and say Rogue/Thief's solo work isn't working on me and my friends married/kids short gaming time.

 

[Hassassin]

The problem comes of course when no amount of sneak attack damage is enough to down a common town guard, nor are there any rules to knock a guard out.

In 3e we've never had this problem. A 1st level rogue will usually take down a single guard in one shot/stab. A level 1 Warrior has about 5 hp, while a 1st level rogue deals at least 1d6+1d6 damage. Use a sap or unarmed strike and the guard will be unconscious instead of dying.

Even taking down two guards without raising an alarm isn't out of the question for low level rogues: surprise round + high initiative means the rogue can often get three attacks (2nd round rapid shot or two-weapon fighting) before the guards react and while they're flat-footed.