D&D 5E Why Good Rogues Should Not Use a Bow

[The Crimson Binome]

Depends if you are being observed or not.

Which you definitely are, after the first round of combat. Unless the DM says otherwise. See other thread.

 

[AkaKageWarrior]

Didn't read through all these pages...
But I agree to the initial post.
5e rogues work best in melee.

- sneak attack for free with a partner anywhere around same foe
- in this case "pseudo-advantage" when dual wielding
- disengage/dash as bonus action for in/out of melee
- uncanny dodge if can't get away

I had a rogue in my first 5e campaign I DM'd, and she was great.
Only the ranger and druid were too stupid to get into melee and help her, so the
dragon sorcerer (!) often jumped into melee to help the rogue. Crazy group...

 

[Yunru]

Didn't read through all these pages...
But I agree to the initial post.
5e rogues work best in melee.

- sneak attack for free with a partner anywhere around same foe
- in this case "pseudo-advantage" when dual wielding
- disengage/dash as bonus action for in/out of melee
- uncanny dodge if can't get away

- Also applies at range.
- A fair point, but it competes with bonus action hide for actual advantage.
- Not with dual wielding it's not. Also normally unnecessary on a ranged build.
- Not adjacent to need to get away when ranged. Also available to ranged builds.

Soo, you were saying?

 

[corwyn77]

I don't know why people keep insisting that easy access to sneak attack is an advantage of melee over ranged. Unless your gm uses optional flanking, which IME is very rare.

 

[Sunseeker]

^This is exactly how the main DM for my group does combat.

In the first round of combat, the monsters go for whoever is closest to them.
In the second round however, the DM has figured out which ones of us have the lowest armor class and has the monsters focus their attacks on those PCs while having the hostiles shout scary things like "kill the warlock and rogue!"

The end result is that the monsters break through the front ranks, and everything descends into a desperate battle where most everyone else in the party other than myself is forced to fight in melee (the other players won't let my character fight in melee, as my sorcerer is basically a glass cannon, plus I have misty step as one of my spells).

At the end of most combat encounters, the warlock is making death saves and the rogue isn't too far behind.

Right and part of the problem is that "tanks" in 5E have no crowd control and no ways to hold "threat". With only one OA per turn a hoard of goblins can run right past the sword & board guy up front and surround the squishes in the back and what, one of them gets hit with the OA?

I don't mind sending my rogue into melee in small spaces or against a single powerful solo-type monster, but there's really no benefit to it.

I don't mind tactical combat, but any DM who wants to be tactical themselves darn well better expect me to play tactically too.

 

[Awesome Adam]

I don't know why people keep insisting that easy access to sneak attack is an advantage of melee over ranged. Unless your gm uses optional flanking, which IME is very rare.

Evidently, not as rare as you think ?

All rules in D&D are optional. Flanking is in the a core rulebook. I get that some people don't use it, but I don't understand people's surprise when others do.

 

[Yunru]

Evidently, not as rare as you think ?

All rules in D&D are optional. Flanking is in the a core rulebook. I get that some people don't use it, but I don't understand people's surprise when others do.

No it's not. It's in the DMG.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

All rules in D&D are optional. Flanking is in the a core rulebook. I get that some people don't use it, but I don't understand people's surprise when others do.

It's in a core rulebook, but not the core rulebook.

And the reason that people are surprised to see that rule in use is that it's a poorly-designed rule, which completely wrecks the otherwise-delicate balance of making advantage hard to get.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

It's in a core rulebook, but not the core rulebook.

And the reason that people are surprised to see that rule in use is that it's a poorly-designed rule, which completely wrecks the otherwise-delicate balance of making advantage hard to get.

Well, not exactly hard to get - but certainly harder to get than "I take two steps to my left".

 

[Istbor]

If it wasn't for Zard's threads, I would probably never build/play a character correctly.