D&D 5E The Warrior, a martial option for rogues

[TwoSix]

Well here you go, do not reinvent the wheel:

-Make any sort of Dex Fighter.
-Give him the criminal Background. *
-Give him stealth if you want to. Give him appropriate feats.

(Read this one up it is one of the best Backgrounds and certainly the most versatile, it allows a Party to go without a rogue and still do all the rogue things.)

That's a fighter who does thief stuff, not a rogue who does fighter stuff. Building a character around sneak attack and skill expertise is pretty different than building one around multiple attacks and action surge.

For a lot of concepts, you want the good parts of the rogue mechanics without the unnecessary thief flavor.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Sorry to be a spoil-sport but you can do this with a 1 level dip in Fighter and the Medium Armor Master feat. And since Rogues are one of the two classes that get extra ASIs, the feat tax really isn't so bad. Take the Soldier background for the role-playing angle.

I'd rather build more thematic sub-classes around function. You have the Scout already, for those guys. If there's another function within a army that really says "Rogue" rather than "Fighter", make the sub-class around that function. Maybe a saboteur of some kind.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Also, having "Warrior" be a sub-class of Rogue rather than Fighter is just confusing branding.

 

[77IM]

Other good story hooks for a combat-oriented rogue:

- Marine: you engage in ship-to-ship combat or landing actions.
- Light Infantry: you're doing flips and crap on horseback.
- Military Police: you backstab anyone who steps out of line.
- Sapper: you find ways past fortifications or barriers.
- Engineer: you build and operate siege equipment.

All of these give the rogue a reason to be on a battlefield, which is something the Warrior write-up lacks. Each would require a new ability or two to reinforce the concept, but they'd probably be mostly "ribbon" abilities with minimal game-balance implications. Martial Finesse is a great example of such an ability: it makes total sense and is cool, but it's really not any more powerful than wielding a rapier.