What is a rogue to you?

[Mattachine]

If the party is focused on creating circumstances for the thief, then those circumstances happened more often--especially with invisibility potions/rings/spells.

Most fights in my games made the thief a tertiary combatant (behind the cleric or druid), or dead last (if the magic-user was involved in the fight with spells or summoned monsters). For combat-light adventures, no big deal.

In any case, most of the players in my games played thieves as "rogues" (unconventional types, good with their hands, good at getting by in tough scrapes), not as actual thieves (criminals that steal things).

Of course, some folks don't like the term "wizard" for a class name, since that is the "name level title" for an accomplished magic-user.

 

[SteveC]

I was a huge fan of rogues back in the day, and my inspirations were Mouser and Jack from Jack of Shadows.

For me, that meant the rogue was a quick-thinker, he would go in and out and get the problems solved quickly and silently. Agility, derring do? Yes, those were his calling cards. I've always played rogues as charismatic ladys-men (and there's a roleplaying stretch, I tell you!) and more than a little of the con man.

The thing is, I largely stopped playing them because D&D, by the rules, doesn't do a very good job at representing them until 3E. And it wasn't until 4E that I played a rogue on a long-term basis again. I'd say 4E got it near perfect, actually, especially with the swashbuckler add-on article.

The powers system really worked for me when it came to rogues, since I could pick the abilities that let me do what I envisioned the character doing, rather than relying on the GM to let me do things.

So I'm hoping there's mechanical support for swashbuckling heroics build into D&D Next.

 

[Endur]

What is a rogue to you?

XP (and loot!)