The Stapled Parrot and Other Revered Genre Tropes for Thug Rogues

[Stormonu]

1. Works until your rep for losing peasants in battles become known. Then one morning you never wake up and the peasants go on a spending spree from the coinage they've looted from your cold corpse. If your lucky, maybe the DM will let you play one of the peasants.

2. Parrot has to fly, which requires a minimum forward speed, so it can't remain adjacent. Parrot on the shoulder can't reach the enemy, so it doesn't count as adjacent.

3. No, stapling the parrot will always make it hostile. And now its permanetly attached to you, so it doesn't need to make an attack roll to hit you. You thought the cat vs. commoner was bad? Your about to discovery the agony of pirate parrot vs. thug.

This is the kind of stuff that sometimes makes me want to kill my players and become a hermit just reading fantasy books and not playing an RPG

 

[triqui]

I know I'm late to the game on this one, but man, gotta love that new Thug Rogue Sneak Attack option.



Mechanically, you can see how they got here. They want to allow for a rogue that relies on positioning and teamwork rather than hiding to get in his high-damage attacks. But 3e-style flanking with one ally lets you Sneak Attack almost every round (until the tank dies, at which point you've got other problems on your mind anyway). The fast progression of 5e Sneak Attack damage means this would be way too powerful. So instead, make it only work when you can maneuver an enemy in between the fighter and cleric, or whatever.

I think this part of the post is serious. If so, I'd like to point that this is not the reason. The real reason, is that they want to make the game playable without a grid. "flanking" requires a grid, and a certain position on it. While the thug tactics require only relative positioning ("attacking that one", instead of "attacking that one, from that square")

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think this part of the post is serious. If so, I'd like to point that this is not the reason. The real reason, is that they want to make the game playable without a grid. "flanking" requires a grid, and a certain position on it. While the thug tactics require only relative positioning ("attacking that one", instead of "attacking that one, from that square")

Sorry to be unclear. In my mind, the easiest way to translate the general effect of 3e-style flanking to a gridless system would be just to allow you to sneak attack whenever your opponent was in melee range of one other opponent (regardless of whether or not you and your ally are on opposite sides of him). Yes, this would let you form a line with your allies instead of "backstabbing," but so does the current thug ability.

The problem is, of course, that this kind of "flanking" would be even easier to attain than in 3e.

 

[triqui]

Sorry to be unclear. In my mind, the easiest way to translate the general effect of 3e-style flanking to a gridless system would be just to allow you to sneak attack whenever your opponent was in melee range of one other opponent (regardless of whether or not you and your ally are on opposite sides of him). Yes, this would let you form a line with your allies instead of "backstabbing," but so does the current thug ability.

The problem is, of course, that this kind of "flanking" would be even easier to attain than in 3e.

That's why they went the "+2 allies" instead of "1 ally" route. You need one extra parrot , but you can save a lot of time while people shift and do 5' steps and count squares to get to a flanking position without OA, while being slightly harder to achieve than 2vs1

 

[vagabundo]

On the inverse note, as long as you think you'll have disadvantage (or think you won't be rolling many attack rolls, like the magic missile wizard), you might as well go into it drunk. DR for the win!

I know every orc rager and minotaur in my game is going to get hammered at every opportunity.

The disadvantage goes against all checks (I assume saving throws too?). So not cool.