D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Tony Vargas]

Rogues don't usually have high Strength, and they would get more mileage out of taking Expertise in skills that are keyed off their high stats - usually Dex, Int, Wis/Cha in that order.

An against-type Rogue putting his expertise in something unexpected and showing up the presumed masters of that skill is kinda amusing. My favorite is the 3.x idea of the 'theoretical thaumaturge' - in 5e it'd be a Rogue with good INT and Expertise in Arcana, who corrects the Wizard's exposition all the time. ;P

Just an aside. Not that "it's not worth the next class's time to show up the fighter at the few trivial things the fighter can do out of combat" is terribly encouraging.

 

[Celtavian]

Well Str usually is a dump stat so the expertise doesn't help as much as it does with skill proficiencies that already have a mid to high ability bonus in them (making good even better).

It does shore up a weakness. Since Dex is usually good, your acrobatics to resist grapples is usually high enough to compete with strength. Athletics applies to more situations the rogue might find himself in. You want to be able to climb, swim, or jump with a decent chance of success. By using expertise on Acrobatics, you have an equal level of effectiveness in each.

The only skills you want to be clearly superior are Perception and Stealth since the advantages apply in very common and important circumstances. Athletics and Acrobatics are uncommon, Acrobatics more so than Athletics. So it's worth it to spend an Expertise slot on Athletics than Acrobatics. Unless you use the optional rule to bypass enemies in the DMG. Then you might prefer Acrobatics.

 

[Celtavian]

Rogues don't usually have high Strength, and they would get more mileage out of taking Expertise in skills that are keyed off their high stats - usually Dex, Int, Wis/Cha in that order. After all, the Fighter (or Barbarian) can probably handle any Athletics check that might come up.

I note that you're missing thieves' tools from your list. It's probably something that would vary from table to table, but traps and locks are always a big part of my games, so thieves' tools rank right up there with Stealth and Perception in competing for Expertise slots.

If traps and locks were a bigger deal, I would probably take Thieves' Tools instead of Athletics.

 

[Erechel]

Flaming post, if I've ever seen one

 

[Imaro]

It does shore up a weakness. Since Dex is usually good, your acrobatics to resist grapples is usually high enough to compete with strength. Athletics applies to more situations the rogue might find himself in. You want to be able to climb, swim, or jump with a decent chance of success. By using expertise on Acrobatics, you have an equal level of effectiveness in each.

The only skills you want to be clearly superior are Perception and Stealth since the advantages apply in very common and important circumstances. Athletics and Acrobatics are uncommon, Acrobatics more so than Athletics. So it's worth it to spend an Expertise slot on Athletics than Acrobatics. Unless you use the optional rule to bypass enemies in the DMG. Then you might prefer Acrobatics.

I'm just stating what I've seen in my experiences... what you say makes sense for a certain type of player... but many would rather be the penultimate rogue (weaknesses and all) than spend resources shoring up said weaknesses... especially when there are other characters in the party who can deal with those situations better for less of an expenditure.

 

[Ashkelon]

Actually it's a bonus to any check (not just those with a proficiency which does make it kinda remarkable)... The funny thing is it's an equal to and eventually larger bonus (on average) than guidance and no other class can do it... yet guidance is lauded as good and remarkable athlete isn't...

EDIT: Sometimes I get the impression that people aren't taking bounded accuracy into consideration and thus are looking for these huge bonuses... when 5e just doesn't work like that.

You do realize remarkable athlete only applies to checks you AREN'T proficient with. Thus it is a minor boost to ability checks you weren't very good at to begin with. Guidance on the other hand not only applies to checks you are proficient in, but can be used to boost other party members as well.

As for your edit, that is exactly the point. The fighter only interacts with social and interaction encounters through their ability checks. Because of bounded accuracy, there isn't a significant difference between a +8 modifier to a roll and a +6 modifier to a roll. This means that other characters are basically just as capable of the fighter in accomplishing exploration tasks related to STR, before taking into account their other abilities such as spells, expertise, invocations, wildshape, rituals, etc.

The fighter doesn't meaningfully contribute to non combat exploration encounters. Simply having a high Strength does very little to make him desirable. Aside from this, there is still the fact that Strength related challenges make up a fairly small portion of the exploration pillar. A party worried about exploration challenges would be better off with an Athletics Expertise rogue or Bard, a Melee cleric with guidance, a moon druid, a warlock, or basically any full spellcaster. Even a paladin or barbarian are more capable at getting through exploration challenges and they have very similar combat capabilities to the fighter.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You do realize remarkable athlete only applies to checks you AREN'T proficient with. Thus it is a minor boost to ability checks you weren't very good at to begin with. Guidance on the other hand not only applies to checks you are proficient in, but can be used to boost other party members as well.

And RA only applies to specific ability checks, while guidance can apply to any.

One strike against guidance, though, is that you have to cast it, which isn't a big deal, except that hearing the cleric's player say "I cast Guidance on _____" every time anyone is about to do anything out of combat, gets really old....

 

[Imaro]

You do realize remarkable athlete only applies to checks you AREN'T proficient with. Thus it is a minor boost to ability checks you weren't very good at to begin with. Guidance on the other hand not only applies to checks you are proficient in, but can be used to boost other party members as well.

Yes I do realize that... I was stating that it doesn't have to be a proficiency check... thus why it works with initiative... it works for checks that wouldn't normally get proficiency bonuses at all... as well as those that normally would... if you're not proficient in them.

As for your edit, that is exactly the point. The fighter only interacts with social and interaction encounters through their ability checks. Because of bounded accuracy, there isn't a significant difference between a +8 modifier to a roll and a +6 modifier to a roll. This means that other characters are basically just as capable of the fighter in accomplishing exploration tasks related to STR, before taking into account their other abilities such as spells, expertise, invocations, wildshape, rituals, etc.

How does a +6 vs. a +8 mean that the character's are just as capable... DC's go from 5 to 30... both are just as capable of hitting a DC that is under their bonus but beyond that a +8 is more capable than a +6 of succeeding on higher DC's... Now looking at a discrepancy in classes between one who prioritizes an attribute vs. one who doesn't... 8 vs. 20... there is a difference of +5 in ability, that's a whole difference of difficulty class one can hit with a roll and one can't... it also means one can fail at difficulties another can't... how is that basically just as capable? See this is where I see a problem with the spell argument... there are going to be exploration difficulties where the fighter can auto succeed but the wizard can still fail... the wizard has to decide whether to burn a spell or risk failure... while the fighter uses an unlimited resource that auto-succeeds or gives him a much greater chance of succeeding. Maybe I'm not understanding what "basically just as capable means" but if you want feel free to expound.

The fighter doesn't meaningfully contribute to non combat exploration encounters. Simply having a high Strength does very little to make him desirable. Aside from this, there is still the fact that Strength related challenges make up a fairly small portion of the exploration pillar. A party worried about exploration challenges would be better off with an Athletics Expertise rogue or Bard, a Melee cleric with guidance, a moon druid, a warlock, or basically any full spellcaster. Even a paladin or barbarian are more capable at getting through exploration challenges and they have very similar combat capabilities to the fighter.

The fighter doesn't just have a high strength... this whole thread has listed out multiple strengths/abilities of a fighter in the non-combat pillar and your rebuttal seems to be... but all he has is strength. The fighter probably has higher physical attributes on average than any other class... he has bonus feats that can be used in the non-combat space, he has abilities like action surge, remarkable athlete, Indomitable and Second Wind, he has a subclass with access to spells...

 

[Imaro]

And RA only applies to specific ability checks, while guidance can apply to any.

One strike against guidance, though, is that you have to cast it, which isn't a big deal, except that hearing the cleric's player say "I cast Guidance on _____" every time anyone is about to do anything out of combat, gets really old....

And it's concentration... and it takes an action to cast and you have to touch the recipient to cast it... so in most surprise instances (sudden fall, trap sprung, etc.) it is either useless... or taking up the concentration slot of the caster maintaining it...

 

[Ashkelon]

So again, I will ask, what can the fighter bring to a non combat encounter that another PC could not bring near equally well if not better?

Let's say you are making a party and one player is undecided but wants to contribute meaningfully outside of combat.

He could choose a war cleric who while it has 4 less strength than a fighter, it actually succeeds at strength related tasks more often than the fighter due to guidance (hell even with 4 less STR and no guidance that only amounts to succeeding 50% vs 60%, not really a huge deal). The cleric also has spells.

He could choose a moon Druid who not only has spells, but can also turn into animals with greater strength than a fighter, turn into animals with flight, or turn into stealthy animals.

He could choose a valor bard with expertise in Strength who succeeds at STR related tasks more often than a fighter and he also has spells.

He could choose a rogue and take expertise in Athletics giving him a greater chance of success than a fighter at Athletics related tasks.

He could choose a warlock and take the at-will jump invocation giving him the ability to bypass many physical challenges.

He could choose a wizard who while not being the most capable at physical exploration tasks, he does have access to many low level spells that can simply bypass such challenges. He also has access to spells for other types of exploration related challenges. He also has powerful rituals like find familiar, unseen servant, and the like that can help accomplish exploration tasks.

Or he could choose a fighter. What does the fighter bring to exploration that is truly useful? He might have a Strength bonus 2 or 3 points higher than anyone else in the party...maybe. That means he succeeds at those tasks about 10 to 15% more than the next best party member at pure Strength checks. But, that ignores the actual non combat utility capabilities of those other classes. Those classes all have spells, or expertise, or wild shape, or rituals, that are far more important than a small boost to STR related tasks.