D&D 5E What should Rogues do?

[Quickleaf]

I really like the ideas presented by [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] (rogue's automatic awesomeness at thief-type skills), [MENTION=50304]mlund[/MENTION] (importance of an "instigation" / "debuffing" style of play for rogue players), and [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] (adapting the 4e Essentials thief for its movement-based at-wills). Combine those three ideas and you'd have the rogue I'd want to play!

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I wonder if they're doing a big rewrite of rogues this time?

Mearls has said the same vague "maybe rogues shouldn't just have sneak attack" spiel a few different times, but we haven't seen any big discussion of concrete plans. Which is weird, since there's no dearth of rogue special abilities to choose from in earlier editions.

 

[GameDoc]

I wonder if they're doing a big rewrite of rogues this time?

Mearls has said the same vague "maybe rogues shouldn't just have sneak attack" spiel a few different times, but we haven't seen any big discussion of concrete plans. Which is weird, since there's no dearth of rogue special abilities to choose from in earlier editions.

I'll be surprised if we don't at some point see rogues with expertise dice, and sneak attack being just one use of them. Maybe not in the final product, but I'd be surprised if they don't put it in at least one play test to see how it flies.

It's not a far leap to use them for not only sneak attack damage, but for the rogue scheme benefits and perhaps as an alternate to skill mastery by letting a rogue add it to their skill checks. That was one way action points functioned in 3e - you could spend it to add 1d6 to a skill check.

 

[Steely_Dan]

The Rogue definitely needs the most attention/love of the classes so far in the 2nd packet, IMO.

I like that Sneak Attack might not be intrinsic to all Rogues, but an option.