D&D 5E Xanathar's Guide to Everything: Rogue Scout

[Chaosmancer]

I was more refering to the part of Thieves' Cant sign differing from guild to guild. In that case what rules apply to determining how likely a rogue is to understand the signs used by another guild or, in this case, a solitary woodsman in a tiny rural town and no connection to the outside world.

What the heck, I like a good debate.

Why does a woodsman with no interaction with the outside word know Thieves Cant... well to begin with, the same reason that said woodsman is delving a goblin cave with an Elvish Poet and the heir to a Human Noble house. Because he does have connections to the outside world, and therefore we can look to the outside world for some potential answers.


First thing that pops into my head? Smugglers. Oh sure, we think of smugglers as working in cities, but the goods have to get from city to city. Traveling along the roads may work for those who can forge official documents, but knowing the backways of the countryside is equally effective at getting from point A to point B without being noticed.

So perhaps your wilderness scout who spends their time in the deep parts of the countryside has encountered smugglers and bandits enough to recognize their signs. Those types of people mark their trails in ways consistent with Thieves Cant, so learning to read those signs might be enough proficiency to count as knowing the language in game terminology. (Because, the game is not grainy enough to recognize that knowing enough to be fluent in a language does not mean you know every word in the language)


In fact, the wilds of the typical DnD world are dangerous enough that perhaps there is a de facto alliance of scouts and thieves guilds and other such people who wouldn't want to hire a small army of caravan goods. Those people on the edges of society. People who live on the fringes tend to collect together for mutual protection, they learn the signs, they learn what to look for, Your typical Scout isn't the guy who goes to the local tavern every evening to hang with his buddies, he's a loner with a keen sense for when things don't match up. He's more likely to notice the gang signs that everyone else looks right past simply because a) he's less comfortable in the cradle of civilization and b) he's more likely to be paying attention so as to avoid trouble.



But, frankly, there could be a lot more explanations. This was just the first two that came to my mind.

 

[Yaarel]

Personally, I would rather have the game designed well and clean, than need to homebrew fixes or to do intellectual somersaults to rationalize away annoying problematics.

 

[TwoSix]

Personally, I would rather have the game designed well and clean, than need to homebrew fixes or to do intellectual somersaults to rationalize away annoying problematics.

Sure, but one person's "clean and elegant" design is another person's sterile design that lacks flavor. Figuring out when and where to include primarily flavor elements isn't a trivial design issue.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Because that is a well thought out rebuttal of reasonable criticism. *high five.*

Just because something can be remedied with relative ease does not cause the original problem to disappear. House rules that directly conflict with the RAW should not be necessary for the game to run constantly.

Except it's not even a remotely reasonable criticism. An included proficiency conflicts with your character concept?

Ok, I want to play a dexterity based archer with an Outlander background. TOTALLY reasonable concept for the Fighter class.

And yet I'm saddled with Heavy Armor proficiency. Not to mention polearms and great weapons. OMG MY CHARACTER CONCEPT DOESN'T WORK! I'll have to houserule this to not include those proficiencies. Damn WotC...this is just bad design.

....

Seriously?

Or maybe you are simply disappointed that you didn't get your way so you are trying to find some rationale to prove that it's not just not-what-you-wanted but actually "bad".

 

[Guest 6801328]

Personally, I would rather have the game designed well and clean, than need to homebrew fixes or to do intellectual somersaults to rationalize away annoying problematics.

If "my scout doesn't know Thieves' Cant" is an intellectual somersault for you then...well...um....geez....anything I say at this point will probably break forum rules so I should probably just stop.

 

[Yaarel]

Sure, but one person's "clean and elegant" design is another person's sterile design that lacks flavor. Figuring out when and where to include primarily flavor elements isn't a trivial design issue.

On the one hand, flavor needs to have mechanical reality − the skeleton under the skin.

On the other hand, the flavor-mechanics set needs to make player customizability possible.

Heh, the base class is the least helpful location for an excruciatingly specific detail. Even for the archetypes, it probably helps for the designers to have at least two different flavor takes on it while designing it.

In 5e, flavor is rules as written, and is part of how a DM adjudicates situations narratively. So when describing flavor, caution is necessary. All flavor gets baked in. It is more difficult for a player to customize. It is even more difficult for a designer to utilize, such as the example here where the designers are trying to use the Rogue to create a dexterous archery-wielding wilderness hunter Scout, but it now must necessarily know the secret language of urban criminal organizations.

 

[Yaarel]

If "my scout doesn't know Thieves' Cant" is an intellectual somersault for you then...well...um....geez....anything I say at this point will probably break forum rules so I should probably just stop.

Dropping Thieves Cant isnt an example of an intellectual somersault, rather it is an example of a homebrew.

 

[Yaarel]

Out of curiosity, is it optimal enough to build a high-Strength Scout Rogue?

If the Scout works well using both swords and bows, it might be a good incarnation of the nonmagical Ranger tradition.

 

[Greg K]

Call it nit picking if you like. It's still an example of poor future planning that has little place in a published product.

I agree. As someone else mentioned, during the open playtest, many of us were sending in comments addressing this (and similar issues), Despite our best efforts we were ignored by the designers. Anyway, my non-official was as to look at class variants (e.g., the 5e spell-less ranger and 3e Unearthed Arcana) and follow their lead. My solution was the following:

Rogue Variant: Wilderness Rogue
Skills: Replace Investigation, Performance, and Persuasion with Animal Handling, Nature, and Survival
Tools: Replace Thieves' Tools with Cartographer's Tools or Herbalist kit

Level 1: Signals and Trail Signs: You are trained in alternate means of communication used by hunters, mountain men, scouts, trappers, and rangers and which can only be understood by others with similar training. This means of communication includes hand/arm gestures, animal sounds and smoke signals. In addition, you are trained in various methods of trail signs including blazes, rock stacking, and grass and twigs signs which can be left behind to communicate information about the area. This ability replaces Thieves' Cant.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I agree. As someone else mentioned, during the open playtest, many of us were sending in comments addressing this (and similar issues), Despite our best efforts we were ignored by the designers. Anyway, my non-official was as to look at class variants (e.g., the 5e spell-less ranger and 3e Unearthed Arcana) and follow their lead. My solution was the following:

Or maybe...just maybe...the designers did listen to you, and they thought you had great input, and they talked about it, tried various options of Scout for Ranger, Rogue, and Fighter, but in the end they just reached a different conclusion than you did.