OP wasn't even really impressed with Fighters; they were comparing to Sneak Attack. I think a lot of people overestimate the actual damage that 10d6 does. A barbarian's Rage Bonus and GWM on two hits alone is roughly equivalent to 8d6 extra damage, but since it's not a big handful of dice in your face it's not immediately as impressive when you're just glancing through class features.
I think this has kinda gone off topic. Understandable, because the OP started with "is that all the barbarian gets, that sucks"... That's always going to start an argument no matter which class.
As much as all the calculations can be helpful (and fun), I think what it all comes down to is that the barbarian doesn't suck, although it's abilities are different to other classes so they will shine in different situations.
They are somewhat off topic. But at the same time they do help the topic to an extent. Because now we have comparisons. We have some basic numbers to look at and when we combine that with stuff said about Brutal Critical at the beginning people are able to make some correlations based upon that and go up from the math and calculations in our comparison and even how often they are going to get those things. Even if our Calculations and comparisons don't explicitely put them all together at this point.
I think this has kinda gone off topic. Understandable, because the OP started with "is that all the barbarian gets, that sucks"... That's always going to start an argument no matter which class.
As much as all the calculations can be helpful (and fun), I think what it all comes down to is that the barbarian doesn't suck, although it's abilities are different to other classes so they will shine in different situations.
They are somewhat off topic. But at the same time they do help the topic to an extent. Because now we have comparisons. We have some basic numbers to look at and when we combine that with stuff said about Brutal Critical at the beginning people are able to make some correlations based upon that and go up from the math and calculations in our comparison and even how often they are going to get those things. Even if our Calculations and comparisons don't explicitely put them all together at this point.
I'd agree. However, I'd argue that focusing in detail on barbarian vs fighter and the specific features available to them which "beat" each other isn't massively helpful when the OP was talking about how they think Barbarians "suck" compared to Paladins and Rogues (brutal critical Vs smite/sneak attack).
I think this has kinda gone off topic. Understandable, because the OP started with "is that all the barbarian gets, that sucks"... That's always going to start an argument no matter which class.
As much as all the calculations can be helpful (and fun), I think what it all comes down to is that the barbarian doesn't suck, although it's abilities are different to other classes so they will shine in different situations.
They are somewhat off topic. But at the same time they do help the topic to an extent. Because now we have comparisons. We have some basic numbers to look at and when we combine that with stuff said about Brutal Critical at the beginning people are able to make some correlations based upon that and go up from the math and calculations in our comparison and even how often they are going to get those things. Even if our Calculations and comparisons don't explicitely put them all together at this point.
I'd agree. However, I'd argue that focusing in detail on barbarian vs fighter and the specific features available to them which "beat" each other isn't massively helpful when the OP was talking about how they think Barbarians "suck" compared to Paladins and Rogues (brutal critical Vs smite/sneak attack).
The OP Doesn't say compared to Paladin's and Rogues. The OP states against other classes and then uses the Rogues sneak attack as an example. That makes the Fighter still a good example that they do not suck in comparison and that even when factoring in a lot of their base abilities against a class like the Fighter that things are not quite what they might appear at times.
Nor did we for the most part say anything about abilities beat each other. We were speaking in how they compare and how they compare over a large number of attacks and not just a very small handful that are only using the most optimal abilities. So your criticisms in these regards are not entirely founded. Because Fighter is another class. It's a Comparison between the Barbarian and the Fighter which is another class and it shows how they are actually quite comparable or even slightly better in certain regards compared to other classes that do larger but fewer attacks or unsustainable bursts to their attacks that register larger numbers for a short amount of time.
If you really want to look at it further. You saw us both talk about a range of about 200 rounds. Now let's take something like a Paladin if you'd rather focus there. Without getting into the damage we have a sitation where they can only do so much throughout the day so exactly how much they get is going to depend on just how many combat rounds take place. So let's lean back on the 2 combats between rests and 2 short rests a day comparison. We can look at both 5 and 10 round combats just as a comparison there as well. The Paladin has a maximum of 11 spells they can use a day at level 20 but their difference is they do more damage on singular hits. They also have the option of using these faster or slower but if they ar using them consistently to the point of something like say 1 attack per turn while they can. In 5 Rounds of Combat they are going to be making roughly 10 attacks and they are going to get 30 attacks in a day. This means they are going to be out of smites at all levels after the first round of the third combat of the day because they do not replenish on short rest. On the other hand if they are 10 round combats for a total of 60 rounds they are going to be Out after the first round of the second combat each day. All of the rest of the time for the rest of the rounds and combat for the day their damage is going to fall off and be much lower. This means that the fighter and the Barbarian who are capable of doing more attacks at the same damage per attack as the Paladin or More Damage per attack are going to wear down that Average Damage lead that the Paladin started with. Particularly since both the Barbarian and the Fighter are going to have more opportunity for Crits throughout that day than the Paladin is going to have. Either because of having at will advantage or because they have more attacks to roll to make it more likely. Overall damage if we were to calculate it out Would be variable depending on the number of rounds of combat per day and it's going to vary and dip depending on how often the Paladin actually needs to use those spells for a purpose other than smiting to do damage. But you'd find that in general the damage would end up in a similar place to the Barbarian and the Fighter. The Big Difference between the three classes (and you can basically lump the rogue in with the Paladin) is that the Paladin has much lower Sustained Damage but strong Burst Damage to give nice spikes but those spikes can be unreliable and may not be there when you really need them. The Barbarian is one of the two classes with some of the most consistent damage in the game So it doesn't burst and put the big numbers up quite as much but it is highly sustainable and thus very reliable. The Fighter is in the middle with A decent amount of Sustainable damage that improves over time with a lower level of spike damage to put to use regularly at it's disposal.
Just because it was brought up, here's the average rogue damage, sneak attack only and able to get advantage on every hit so they can sneak attack. And while the original rules wouldn't have allowed for such a reliable way to get advantage, the optional rule Steady Aim makes sure they can get this. It obviously wouldn't be appropriate in every battle, but they CAN and this isn't a survival guide but just doing numbers.
Rogue, shortsword (cause it's easier to count with just d6's.. I'd use a greataxe to compare with the other if it was possible to sneak attack with it but since it's not, this will have to do). +11 to hit, 1d6+5 damage + 10d6 sneak attack. 200 rounds = 200 attacks, hit on 9+. Now, if they didn't have advantage their hits would be 110 + 10 criticals but advantage changes this into 148.5 hits and 19.5 critical hits.
A hit would deal 11d6+5 (average damage 43.5) and a crit would deal 22d6+5 (average 82 damage). This gives us a total of 6459,75 + 1599 = 8058,75 average damage.
However, while impressive remember that this means the rogue is using their bonus action + can't move while doing this. A solo rogue would have much more problems than a fighter or barbarian by doing this and the other way to get around it would be in a team but this would also get the fighter advantage and they would actually deal more damage again. Still, those are the raw numbers without rests.
Just because it was brought up, here's the average rogue damage, sneak attack only and able to get advantage on every hit so they can sneak attack. And while the original rules wouldn't have allowed for such a reliable way to get advantage, the optional rule Steady Aim makes sure they can get this. It obviously wouldn't be appropriate in every battle, but they CAN and this isn't a survival guide but just doing numbers.
Rogue, shortsword (cause it's easier to count with just d6's.. I'd use a greataxe to compare with the other if it was possible to sneak attack with it but since it's not, this will have to do). +11 to hit, 1d6+5 damage + 10d6 sneak attack. 200 rounds = 200 attacks, hit on 9+. Now, if they didn't have advantage their hits would be 110 + 10 criticals but advantage changes this into 148.5 hits and 19.5 critical hits.
A hit would deal 11d6+5 (average damage 43.5) and a crit would deal 22d6+5 (average 82 damage). This gives us a total of 6459,75 + 1599 = 8058,75 average damage.
However, while impressive remember that this means the rogue is using their bonus action + can't move while doing this. A solo rogue would have much more problems than a fighter or barbarian by doing this and the other way to get around it would be in a team but this would also get the fighter advantage and they would actually deal more damage again. Still, those are the raw numbers without rests.
Compare this to the barbarian 7384 average damage, take into account that the rogue would have to either be in a team or stand still and use their bonus action to either steady aim or successfully hide each turn. In addition the barbarian would take half damage from most hits during this situation, while the rogue could use its reaction against just one attack/turn. In addition the barbarian has a LOT more hp. And one more thing, both the barbarian AND the fighter would benefit a LOT more by gaining extra attacks or extra damage, like the example with a flame tounge for instance, while the rogue would gain a decent amount by a flame tounge but would gain very little by extra attacks from for instance haste. (It would of course bring a more reliable chance of getting a sneak attack but you're still limited of 1/turn).
Now, being in a team might not be such a big thing to consider for sure, but even so, this would also mean the fighter would be able to have advantage on all attacks as well and it would now get about 176 more hits than before and while the barbarian wouldn't change their damage output (already having used advantage) they would remove the advantage they gave to their enemies by using reckless attack and would be even tankier. But since the original idea was just numbers it means no team, the rogue can still do more damage but realistically it would die much faster too and probably never get close to those 200 rounds if they wanted that reliable sneak damage on each hit ;D
Now, subclasses change a lot so this doesn't mean rogues are bad either, just that they aren't as good as they might seem. And just as a comparison, the GWM feat that lets you add +10 damage is the same as average 3d6 sneak attack extra damage (well.. 3d6 is actually 10.5 damage so technically a bit better). Rolling a lot of dice feels good and seems much but it's not as powerful as one might think.
Just compare a level 5 rogue with a level 5 barbarian and a level 5 fighter... The rogue using a rapier just to improve the damage, the fighter a great sword for old times sake and give all 20 main stat would give the rogue 1d8+5 + 3d6 damage (average 20 damage) vs barbarian 2 attacks with rage 1d12+7 (average 27) and the fighter 2 attacks at 2d6+5 (average damage 24) you can see that ... The rogue is actually behind, even if it sneaks every turn.
Now it would mean the others would have to hit both attacks each turn but even so, they have a more reliable damage still with just one hit not being that far away from the rogue and... Well, I love the rogue, I love sneak attack, but it's not the damage beast you think it is. It's so much fun though.
Just because it was brought up, here's the average rogue damage, sneak attack only and able to get advantage on every hit so they can sneak attack. And while the original rules wouldn't have allowed for such a reliable way to get advantage, the optional rule Steady Aim makes sure they can get this. It obviously wouldn't be appropriate in every battle, but they CAN and this isn't a survival guide but just doing numbers.
Rogue, shortsword (cause it's easier to count with just d6's.. I'd use a greataxe to compare with the other if it was possible to sneak attack with it but since it's not, this will have to do). +11 to hit, 1d6+5 damage + 10d6 sneak attack. 200 rounds = 200 attacks, hit on 9+. Now, if they didn't have advantage their hits would be 110 + 10 criticals but advantage changes this into 148.5 hits and 19.5 critical hits.
A hit would deal 11d6+5 (average damage 43.5) and a crit would deal 22d6+5 (average 82 damage). This gives us a total of 6459,75 + 1599 = 8058,75 average damage.
However, while impressive remember that this means the rogue is using their bonus action + can't move while doing this. A solo rogue would have much more problems than a fighter or barbarian by doing this and the other way to get around it would be in a team but this would also get the fighter advantage and they would actually deal more damage again. Still, those are the raw numbers without rests.
Compare this to the barbarian 7384 average damage, take into account that the rogue would have to either be in a team or stand still and use their bonus action to either steady aim or successfully hide each turn. In addition the barbarian would take half damage from most hits during this situation, while the rogue could use its reaction against just one attack/turn. In addition the barbarian has a LOT more hp. And one more thing, both the barbarian AND the fighter would benefit a LOT more by gaining extra attacks or extra damage, like the example with a flame tounge for instance, while the rogue would gain a decent amount by a flame tounge but would gain very little by extra attacks from for instance haste. (It would of course bring a more reliable chance of getting a sneak attack but you're still limited of 1/turn).
Now, being in a team might not be such a big thing to consider for sure, but even so, this would also mean the fighter would be able to have advantage on all attacks as well and it would now get about 176 more hits than before and while the barbarian wouldn't change their damage output (already having used advantage) they would remove the advantage they gave to their enemies by using reckless attack and would be even tankier. But since the original idea was just numbers it means no team, the rogue can still do more damage but realistically it would die much faster too and probably never get close to those 200 rounds if they wanted that reliable sneak damage on each hit ;D
Now, subclasses change a lot so this doesn't mean rogues are bad either, just that they aren't as good as they might seem. And just as a comparison, the GWM feat that lets you add +10 damage is the same as average 3d6 sneak attack extra damage (well.. 3d6 is actually 10.5 damage so technically a bit better). Rolling a lot of dice feels good and seems much but it's not as powerful as one might think.
Just compare a level 5 rogue with a level 5 barbarian and a level 5 fighter... The rogue using a rapier just to improve the damage, the fighter a great sword for old times sake and give all 20 main stat would give the rogue 1d8+5 + 3d6 damage (average 20 damage) vs barbarian 2 attacks with rage 1d12+7 (average 27) and the fighter 2 attacks at 2d6+5 (average damage 24) you can see that ... The rogue is actually behind, even if it sneaks every turn.
Now it would mean the others would have to hit both attacks each turn but even so, they have a more reliable damage still with just one hit not being that far away from the rogue and... Well, I love the rogue, I love sneak attack, but it's not the damage beast you think it is. It's so much fun though.
Except... The Rogue does not need advantage to sneak attack. And can sneak attack without flanking. So it's possible for the Rogue to sneak attack on basically every turn For their Sneak Attack Damage without giving the Fighter Advantage as well because it has it's own built in mechanic for simply having an ally threatening the target. So we can compare them without Steady Aim and without giving the Fighter Advantage. Which also opens up the Rogue to much more of their kit, primarily their mobility options such as disengage and dash. Yes their Damage would drop somewhere between 500 and 1000 points but this gives them a base that is roughly in line with the Barbarian and the Fighter.
The other thing to note about the Rogue is the level 5 example so kindly provided. Yes the rogue is a little bit behind at the level 5 example but the Fighter and the Barbarian just got a big boost in their damage with gaining extra attack and the Rogue didn't. The Rogues Damage is going to keep growing throughout Tier 2 regardless of gear changes however because it's sneak attack is going to keep going up. By level 9 you add on an extra 7 average damage. For a total of 27 average damage that it is doing which means it's now in line with A level 9 Fighter. Sneak Attack is a slowly turning dial that keeps building where others tend to be far more static and make bigger jumps at certain thresholds so this causes some of the other classes to jump ahead of it and then fall behind it but it keeps marching on at a fairly steady pace.
The Rogue also Differs from those two in that the Damage it does is highly variable because there is almost no static damage keeping it above a certain number. But it's high variability is available on pretty much every turn to make it's style of doing things unique in comparison to the Paladin, Barbarian, and Rogue so that they Vary Highly from Turn to turn rather than from Spiking Early and variably in how often but they aren't nearly as reliably static as the Barbarian which is relatively high static damage and relatively low variable damage. So depending on luck it can feel like it's doing a lot of damage all the time, even if it isn't, or it can feel like it's falling behind because your not seeing the high spikes that often.
The other low variable damage and high static damage class when you consider just it's basic attacks (specially with advantage) is the Monk. It does get up to d10's eventually but for most of it's career it's die sizes are smaller but it's able to apply 10-20 static damage into the mix purely on it's own without any feats or bonuses from elsewhere because of the number of attacks that it does but it's individual hits give the impression of it doing less because it is spread out more. They can spike it a bit by choosing to flurry of blows adding in one more hit. And it seems like this is fairly limited because of Ki points and at the first tier of play it is. But by the time you get into the second tier of play that stops being as much of an issue and by the high level tiers of play it's no longer a problem in your average combats at all unless you really spend a lot of ki points in just a few turns (which is still possible). It lags behind a little in pure damage in some spots but that is because this is not a purely damage dealing class and it has other options so it sacrifices a bit of damage to have other effects. But for a martial Character it is still going to do some very respectable damage of it's own considering at Max Level It's going to do basic damage something Akin to the Fighter without Action Surge or GWM. it wouldn't ultimately take any more advantage of something like Flame tongue than the Barbarian would for the most part but it's still a bit more than the Rogue would be able to. But like the rogue it's not really meant to sit in one place too much. Though with Patient Defense and a fairly high AC it can do so a little more than the Rogue can. Yet it's not going to stand in one place or tank like the Barbarian or the Fighter since those two are actually designed for that kind of combat.
"it has it's own built in mechanic for simply having an ally threatening the target"
The only thing I can see which you might mean by this is having an enemy of the enemy within 5ft of it. However, remember that this will only be possible with the right party composition and the right circumstances. Saying you can get this every turn is not much different from saying you can get advantage every turn, because you can get an ally to flank the enemy with you. It requires specific actions by other members of your party, and for the situation to allow you and those party members to do so.
IMHO if your DM is allowing this on "basically every turn" and not throwing up situations where it won't work, you have either a party composition with several melee characters so you can always "tag along" with one of them, or a very generous DM who is specifically building encounters which play to the rogue's strength (and not playing enemies in a way which would counter it).
"it has it's own built in mechanic for simply having an ally threatening the target"
The only thing I can see which you might mean by this is having an enemy of the enemy within 5ft of it. However, remember that this will only be possible with the right party composition and the right circumstances. Saying you can get this every turn is not much different from saying you can get advantage every turn, because you can get an ally to flank the enemy with you. It requires specific actions by other members of your party, and for the situation to allow you and those party members to do so.
IMHO if your DM is allowing this on "basically every turn" and not throwing up situations where it won't work, you have either a party composition with several melee characters so you can always "tag along" with one of them, or a very generous DM who is specifically building encounters which play to the rogue's strength (and not playing enemies in a way which would counter it).
After having played a lot of rogues. i can tell you that the composition where you can't get the simple ally bonus is rare. it does not take the right party to make it work. It takes particular party builds to actively try to make it not work. And then because of the nature of those parties it may end up working for you anyway because the enemies may force the issue into melee regardless.
It's very hard to make situations where you can't get at least two people next to an enemy. This is not an abnormal occasion. The DM is going to have to go to quite an extent to make this possible such as overly narrow passages everywhere which basically makes much of the melee in your party useless. This is not the same as Flanking. Flanking is much easier to block from happening so it's actually much easier to block Advantage from such to always be getting advantage since it requires very specific positioning. However to get sneak attack all the Rogue needs is an ally...Or as you said an enemy of my enemy in any of the 8 spaces around them and to stop that you have to remove the ability for them to be in any of those 8 spaces which is unrealistic in most situations or it's giong to be a situation where you take on an enemy alone. Taking on an enemy alone is almost always player controlled and often not the best choice for the rogue to make (no matter how often people white room single rogues without parties or force situations where they toe to toe enemies without aid). Situations where you can't simply occupy one of the other adjacent spaces however is very niche.
The only thing that can remove sneak attack when merely having adjacency would remove it in many situations where you would otherwise have Advantage as well. And that is by having disadvantage. But if your DM is blanket handing out disadvantage just so the Rogue cannot sneak attack You should probably find another DM because that's not only another unrealistic situation much of the time but it's also targeted hindrance either at you as a player or at Rogue as a Class. Both of which are signs of problems.
After having played a lot of rogues. i can tell you that the composition where you can't get the simple ally bonus is rare. it does not take the right party to make it work. It takes particular party builds to actively try to make it not work. And then because of the nature of those parties it may end up working for you anyway because the enemies may force the issue into melee regardless.
It's very hard to make situations where you can't get at least two people next to an enemy. This is not an abnormal occasion. The DM is going to have to go to quite an extent to make this possible such as overly narrow passages everywhere which basically makes much of the melee in your party useless. This is not the same as Flanking. Flanking is much easier to block from happening so it's actually much easier to block Advantage from such to always be getting advantage since it requires very specific positioning. However to get sneak attack all the Rogue needs is an ally...Or as you said an enemy of my enemy in any of the 8 spaces around them and to stop that you have to remove the ability for them to be in any of those 8 spaces which is unrealistic in most situations or it's giong to be a situation where you take on an enemy alone. Taking on an enemy alone is almost always player controlled and often not the best choice for the rogue to make (no matter how often people white room single rogues without parties or force situations where they toe to toe enemies without aid). Situations where you can't simply occupy one of the other adjacent spaces however is very niche.
The only thing that can remove sneak attack when merely having adjacency would remove it in many situations where you would otherwise have Advantage as well. And that is by having disadvantage. But if your DM is blanket handing out disadvantage just so the Rogue cannot sneak attack You should probably find another DM because that's not only another unrealistic situation much of the time but it's also targeted hindrance either at you as a player or at Rogue as a Class. Both of which are signs of problems.
From what I can see, any party with only a single Melee character (besides the rogue) would make it fairly easy to block this happening, and I have seen many parties where you have a Fighter/Barb/Paladin, a Rogue, and a few squishy casters who do their best to stay out of melee. In this case, as soon as they are facing more than one enemy, it becomes fairly trivial to pin down the Fighter and Rogue in ways which don't allow them to both be adjacent to the same enemy.
Even without this, there are things the enemies can do to disrupt the Rogue. For instance, in many cases a shove will move the Rogue's ally far enough away to stop this from working. This is relatively simple, and all but the most stupid of enemies would have a good chance of coming up with it. This is not the DM trying to make things more difficult for the Rogue, it is the DM playing the enemies how they would likely act, noticing a threat and trying to neutralise it.
Sneak attack should not, IMHO, be easy to get all the time. It is a powerful ability, able to do similar amounts of average damage and more peak damage than many melee specialists can manage. If it is usable all the time, then melee fighters (who often feel completely overlooked anyway) are going to feel like they are only there to activate the Rogue's sneak attack. IMHO it should be a situational ability which works brilliantly when active, but requires some work to activate.
After having played a lot of rogues. i can tell you that the composition where you can't get the simple ally bonus is rare. it does not take the right party to make it work. It takes particular party builds to actively try to make it not work. And then because of the nature of those parties it may end up working for you anyway because the enemies may force the issue into melee regardless.
It's very hard to make situations where you can't get at least two people next to an enemy. This is not an abnormal occasion. The DM is going to have to go to quite an extent to make this possible such as overly narrow passages everywhere which basically makes much of the melee in your party useless. This is not the same as Flanking. Flanking is much easier to block from happening so it's actually much easier to block Advantage from such to always be getting advantage since it requires very specific positioning. However to get sneak attack all the Rogue needs is an ally...Or as you said an enemy of my enemy in any of the 8 spaces around them and to stop that you have to remove the ability for them to be in any of those 8 spaces which is unrealistic in most situations or it's giong to be a situation where you take on an enemy alone. Taking on an enemy alone is almost always player controlled and often not the best choice for the rogue to make (no matter how often people white room single rogues without parties or force situations where they toe to toe enemies without aid). Situations where you can't simply occupy one of the other adjacent spaces however is very niche.
The only thing that can remove sneak attack when merely having adjacency would remove it in many situations where you would otherwise have Advantage as well. And that is by having disadvantage. But if your DM is blanket handing out disadvantage just so the Rogue cannot sneak attack You should probably find another DM because that's not only another unrealistic situation much of the time but it's also targeted hindrance either at you as a player or at Rogue as a Class. Both of which are signs of problems.
From what I can see, any party with only a single Melee character (besides the rogue) would make it fairly easy to block this happening, and I have seen many parties where you have a Fighter/Barb/Paladin, a Rogue, and a few squishy casters who do their best to stay out of melee. In this case, as soon as they are facing more than one enemy, it becomes fairly trivial to pin down the Fighter and Rogue in ways which don't allow them to both be adjacent to the same enemy.
Even without this, there are things the enemies can do to disrupt the Rogue. For instance, in many cases a shove will move the Rogue's ally far enough away to stop this from working. This is relatively simple, and all but the most stupid of enemies would have a good chance of coming up with it. This is not the DM trying to make things more difficult for the Rogue, it is the DM playing the enemies how they would likely act, noticing a threat and trying to neutralise it.
Sneak attack should not, IMHO, be easy to get all the time. It is a powerful ability, able to do similar amounts of average damage and more peak damage than many melee specialists can manage. If it is usable all the time, then melee fighters (who often feel completely overlooked anyway) are going to feel like they are only there to activate the Rogue's sneak attack. IMHO it should be a situational ability which works brilliantly when active, but requires some work to activate.
Any party that does not have Other martial melee's besides the Rogue does not have a defense for their ranged. This means that most ranged are going to be forced into melee most of the time at the very least because there is nothing to get in the way between melee enemies and your ranged party. So your still going to often get the sneak attack ability and even be relying on it to try and take down enemies that get onto your likely squishy ranged party before the squishy members of your party die. This doesn't create a situation at all where it's rarely possible to end up with the situation where somebody else is not close to an enemy in those capacities because melee enemies are by far the most common in the game.
a shove is also not guaranteed to work. It has a chance of working but it is not guaranteed. there are also a large number of enemies that actually can't shove because Monsters using stat blocks do not work by the same rules as characters or things that are made in the same way of characters so unless your DM has a habit of adding on extra abilities to stat blocks or making PC like NPC's for you to deal with this is not always going to be a problem. Even for smart melee enemies. Just because an enemy is not dumb does not necessarily it can do everything that players can Or would even consider it. Partly because many of them don't even actually take the attack action to be able to turn into a shove. They actually take actions like Rend and Bash or multi-attack in their place that while they make attacks they are explicitely not the attack action.
Any party that does not have Other martial melee's besides the Rogue does not have a defense for their ranged. This means that most ranged are going to be forced into melee most of the time at the very least because there is nothing to get in the way between melee enemies and your ranged party. So your still going to often get the sneak attack ability and even be relying on it to try and take down enemies that get onto your likely squishy ranged party before the squishy members of your party die. This doesn't create a situation at all where it's rarely possible to end up with the situation where somebody else is not close to an enemy in those capacities because melee enemies are by far the most common in the game.
I am not saying it creates a situation where it becomes rare, I am saying that it makes it much easier for the enemies to disrupt the ability of the Rogue to Sneak Attack. Please try not to attempt to twist my words.
Again. many of these are based on the situations involved. If the party (with 1 melee, 1 rogue and some ranged/casters) comes across a single, powerful opponent, it is likely that the rogue will get sneak attack. If they are attacked by 2 opponents, then one can keep the melee combatant busy while another goes after the squishies, but the rogue will still probably get sneak attack. If they come upon a small group of opponents, however, there is a good chance that they would be able to separate the rogue from the other members of the team and make it difficult for them to maintain sneak attack at all times.
a shove is also not guaranteed to work. It has a chance of working but it is not guaranteed.
True, it is not, but nor is it guaranteed that someone will hit with an attack. The fact is that the option is there, and doing so in many situations would stop Sneak Attack from working.
there are also a large number of enemies that actually can't shove because Monsters using stat blocks do not work by the same rules as characters or things that are made in the same way of characters so unless your DM has a habit of adding on extra abilities to stat blocks or making PC like NPC's for you to deal with this is not always going to be a problem. Even for smart melee enemies. Just because an enemy is not dumb does not necessarily it can do everything that players can Or would even consider it. Partly because many of them don't even actually take the attack action to be able to turn into a shove. They actually take actions like Rend and Bash or multi-attack in their place that while they make attacks they are explicitely not the attack action.
From the Monster Manual:
When a monster takes its action, it can choose from the options in the Actions section of its stat block or use one of the actions available to all creatures, such as the Dash or Hide action, as described in the Player’s Handbook.
There is nothing limiting them only to the actions specified on their stat block. So, any monster may take the Attack action, which would include the ability to perform the Shove special melee attack.
None of these are perfect, but the point is that if you are getting Sneak Attack all the time, it's because the DM is doing nothing to counter it. There are ways to at least attempt to counter it in many situations, and reasonable opponents would do so (unless they gained more from doing something else which stopped them from countering Sneak Attack).
Any party that does not have Other martial melee's besides the Rogue does not have a defense for their ranged. This means that most ranged are going to be forced into melee most of the time at the very least because there is nothing to get in the way between melee enemies and your ranged party. So your still going to often get the sneak attack ability and even be relying on it to try and take down enemies that get onto your likely squishy ranged party before the squishy members of your party die. This doesn't create a situation at all where it's rarely possible to end up with the situation where somebody else is not close to an enemy in those capacities because melee enemies are by far the most common in the game.
I am not saying it creates a situation where it becomes rare, I am saying that it makes it much easier for the enemies to disrupt the ability of the Rogue to Sneak Attack. Please try not to attempt to twist my words.
Again. many of these are based on the situations involved. If the party (with 1 melee, 1 rogue and some ranged/casters) comes across a single, powerful opponent, it is likely that the rogue will get sneak attack. If they are attacked by 2 opponents, then one can keep the melee combatant busy while another goes after the squishies, but the rogue will still probably get sneak attack. If they come upon a small group of opponents, however, there is a good chance that they would be able to separate the rogue from the other members of the team and make it difficult for them to maintain sneak attack at all times.
a shove is also not guaranteed to work. It has a chance of working but it is not guaranteed.
True, it is not, but nor is it guaranteed that someone will hit with an attack. The fact is that the option is there, and doing so in many situations would stop Sneak Attack from working.
there are also a large number of enemies that actually can't shove because Monsters using stat blocks do not work by the same rules as characters or things that are made in the same way of characters so unless your DM has a habit of adding on extra abilities to stat blocks or making PC like NPC's for you to deal with this is not always going to be a problem. Even for smart melee enemies. Just because an enemy is not dumb does not necessarily it can do everything that players can Or would even consider it. Partly because many of them don't even actually take the attack action to be able to turn into a shove. They actually take actions like Rend and Bash or multi-attack in their place that while they make attacks they are explicitely not the attack action.
From the Monster Manual:
When a monster takes its action, it can choose from the options in the Actions section of its stat block or use one of the actions available to all creatures, such as the Dash or Hide action, as described in the Player’s Handbook.
There is nothing limiting them only to the actions specified on their stat block. So, any monster may take the Attack action, which would include the ability to perform the Shove special melee attack.
None of these are perfect, but the point is that if you are getting Sneak Attack all the time, it's because the DM is doing nothing to counter it. There are ways to at least attempt to counter it in many situations, and reasonable opponents would do so (unless they gained more from doing something else which stopped them from countering Sneak Attack).
If that small group of opponents separates the rogue with it's kit at it's disposal such as bonus action disengage and bonus action dash. it's on the Rogue that it is separated. Even a small group cannot reliably keep a rogue from getting back to it's group and the rogue probably shouldn't have put itself in that position to begin with. And it's not going to be easy to just make happen and maintain for the enemy.
As for Shove. There is something limiting monsters from taking the Shove Action. That is the fact that Shove is not itself an Action. It's a special modification of the Attack action which most things in the Monster Manual do not have and do not take. This is actually pointed out specifically by shove itself by saying:
"Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."
This is very different from things such as the Help Action or the Dodge Actions which are fully actions in their own right and thus fall under the rules of the Monster Manual. This is because monsters in the monster manual have no capacity to take the Attack action normally. They only have the option to take actions that are Attacks. Taking the attack action does nothing for them as they do not have normal proficiency or the like to attach to the attack action. That is all built into their stat block attacking abilities.
Just want to note that I did mention a team being a thing, but the fighter and the barbarian can do their things SOLO which the rogue can't. Like I said it's likely you're playing in a team but it should be mentioned because it does matter, it's a limiting factor that you might not be able to sneak attack every turn just because your friend is also there, it's not a guarantee. I regularly play with just one other player (ie 2 players 1 dm) and both players being melee is not a thing all the time. Also as a rogue even in bigger parties I could regularily be sneaking a head, scouting if you wish, which would put me in a situation where I'd be alone if something happened.
Now this isn't that relevant to the situation anyways because the point was just once again numbers, this doesn't deal with subclasses and such...
The point is the rogue has the ability to deal a lot of damage and with Steady aim they CAN do it each turn, so now we know the damage they deal. But in reality it COULD come at a big cost, the movement, and in this situation it COULD be a bigger problem than for a fighter or barbarian for instance duo to them being tankier. This doesn't mean the rogue suck, so not sure why you feel the need to argue and defend them, once again seeming to think I am out to claim something sucks ;)
Yes, the rogue DOES increase in damage, but as you can see by the numbers, they are not that much higher than that of a fighter or barbarian. This isn't a bad thing, this shows us there is balance. This is good. The point of my comment was that people think the rogue does 10 times the damage of other classes because they do 10 times the dice, but they don't. They seem like they will do so much more damage than the other classes because of this, but as I showed even if they get sneak attack every round they would still only do about 10% more damage than a fighter. Now this is of course not a non-significant increase in damage! It's great! But it's not incredibly overpowered and in fact considering they are squishier and more reliant on allies (in a real situation to get that sneak every turn without a big risk) it's pretty balanced!
If they had a bigger risk in battle, had much more trouble manouvering AND did less damage, they wouldn't be that great (in combat). Especially considering how quickly a fighter will outdamage all the martial classes very fast as soon as they get access to something adding a bit of extra damage simply because of their overwhelming number of attacks.
As for Shove. There is something limiting monsters from taking the Shove Action. That is the fact that Shove is not itself an Action. It's a special modification of the Attack action which most things in the Monster Manual do not have and do not take. This is actually pointed out specifically by shove itself by saying:
"Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."
This is very different from things such as the Help Action or the Dodge Actions which are fully actions in their own right and thus fall under the rules of the Monster Manual. This is because monsters in the monster manual have no capacity to take the Attack action normally. They only have the option to take actions that are Attacks. Taking the attack action does nothing for them as they do not have normal proficiency or the like to attach to the attack action. That is all built into their stat block attacking abilities.
A monster may take any action available to all creatures which is listed in the PHB. One of those actions is Attack.
If that monster takes the Attack action, I can see nothing to stop it from using that Attack action to Shove. There are no rules anywhere that I am aware of that say a monster cannot do so (although I'm happy for you to point out where it says they are unable to). As far as I can see, monsters may Attack, and using Attack you may Shove.
Now of course, they cannot use their Multi-Attack action to do one "normal" attack and one Shove, as that is not the Attack action. Also, the size rules would still apply.
As for the rest, you are right that a rogue's skills would make it easier for them to avoid being pinned down, but it is not only fear of an OA which stops characters from moving away. They would have to consider whether it was worth giving the enemy combatant freedom to move around and becoming free to target the squishies. They would need to weigh up which was the most effective use of their abilities, especially if they knew that their opponents would use various tactics to try to disrupt Sneak Attacks anyway.
I still maintain that it is possible for DMs to disrupt the Sneak Attack, and that they should be doing so with many enemies capable of even the most basic tactical thought. They will not always be successful, but a sensible enemy would try to do so in many situations, therefore a DM should be having them attempt to.
As for Shove. There is something limiting monsters from taking the Shove Action. That is the fact that Shove is not itself an Action. It's a special modification of the Attack action which most things in the Monster Manual do not have and do not take. This is actually pointed out specifically by shove itself by saying:
"Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."
This is very different from things such as the Help Action or the Dodge Actions which are fully actions in their own right and thus fall under the rules of the Monster Manual. This is because monsters in the monster manual have no capacity to take the Attack action normally. They only have the option to take actions that are Attacks. Taking the attack action does nothing for them as they do not have normal proficiency or the like to attach to the attack action. That is all built into their stat block attacking abilities.
A monster may take any action available to all creatures which is listed in the PHB. One of those actions is Attack.
If that monster takes the Attack action, I can see nothing to stop it from using that Attack action to Shove. There are no rules anywhere that I am aware of that say a monster cannot do so (although I'm happy for you to point out where it says they are unable to). As far as I can see, monsters may Attack, and using Attack you may Shove.
Now of course, they cannot use their Multi-Attack action to do one "normal" attack and one Shove, as that is not the Attack action. Also, the size rules would still apply.
As for the rest, you are right that a rogue's skills would make it easier for them to avoid being pinned down, but it is not only fear of an OA which stops characters from moving away. They would have to consider whether it was worth giving the enemy combatant freedom to move around and becoming free to target the squishies. They would need to weigh up which was the most effective use of their abilities, especially if they knew that their opponents would use various tactics to try to disrupt Sneak Attacks anyway.
I still maintain that it is possible for DMs to disrupt the Sneak Attack, and that they should be doing so with many enemies capable of even the most basic tactical thought. They will not always be successful, but a sensible enemy would try to do so in many situations, therefore a DM should be having them attempt to.
One Rogue is not going to lock down a bunch of targets. They are basically free to move around. The rogue only has one reaction to go around for all of them. And if it's in that situation it has no ability to backstab from it. This basically makes moving from the Rogue Practically Free. It is just not high threat to move away from in the conditions you describe. So your better off moving away from that small group and threatening their positioning in some other way that actually benefits your party. It's not going to be like the Barbarian or the Fighter or the Paladin that could potentially endanger or cripple whatever tries to move away from them with their massive blows.
Many enemies just are not able to do much to sneak attack. They can spread out but that doesn't necessarily stop sneak attack because that just allows your party to pick them off individually by focusing while stopping AoE's from the Casters. They can bunch up to be more threatening. But they just put more targets in one place and a good Rogue can move around them. They can be ranged but the Rogue can close the distance or start doing some cover sniping for Advantage. It is just not something your going to shut off even half the time. Nor should it be. The truth of the matter is that the Weapon attack is not what does most of the Rogue's competitive damage. it's their Sneak Attack that keeps them competitive with the other martial classes. There is no reason to stop it because it's highly variable damage and it's damage that's already accounted for. Going to large extents to stop it is like spending large amounts of effort to make sure The Fighter, or the Barbarian or the Paladin can't actually wield their weapon. Sneak attack is not some kind of super threat. It doesn't need to be curbed. It doesn't give the Rogue some kind of super advantage over everybody else. And it's up to the player to make it more or less useful for them as well as figure out how to deal with it's own natural checks and balances. DM is going to be naturally disrupted at times without taking specific steps against it or finding niche situations to make it not work and using them a bunch.
The Best thing a Sensible enemy can do? NOt worry about the rogue moving around or getting away. Simply just punish it if it moves into situations it shouldn't or doesn't back away when it really should, Like the aforementioned being surrounded by a small group of enemies and cut off from it's party. It doesn't have a lot of AC and it doesn't have great hit points. If it sticks around in that situation it's punishment doesn't have to be that you purposely do everything you can for it not to sneak attack. It's punishment for a DM playing smart enemies is to Incapacitate/Kill the Rogue and change the Party Balance. You don't need to tie up 3, or 4, or 5 guys to keep it busy if it's going to just rush in and take things on head on or not know when to retreat.
Just want to note that I did mention a team being a thing, but the fighter and the barbarian can do their things SOLO which the rogue can't. Like I said it's likely you're playing in a team but it should be mentioned because it does matter, it's a limiting factor that you might not be able to sneak attack every turn just because your friend is also there, it's not a guarantee. I regularly play with just one other player (ie 2 players 1 dm) and both players being melee is not a thing all the time. Also as a rogue even in bigger parties I could regularily be sneaking a head, scouting if you wish, which would put me in a situation where I'd be alone if something happened.
Now this isn't that relevant to the situation anyways because the point was just once again numbers, this doesn't deal with subclasses and such...
The point is the rogue has the ability to deal a lot of damage and with Steady aim they CAN do it each turn, so now we know the damage they deal. But in reality it COULD come at a big cost, the movement, and in this situation it COULD be a bigger problem than for a fighter or barbarian for instance duo to them being tankier. This doesn't mean the rogue suck, so not sure why you feel the need to argue and defend them, once again seeming to think I am out to claim something sucks ;)
Yes, the rogue DOES increase in damage, but as you can see by the numbers, they are not that much higher than that of a fighter or barbarian. This isn't a bad thing, this shows us there is balance. This is good. The point of my comment was that people think the rogue does 10 times the damage of other classes because they do 10 times the dice, but they don't. They seem like they will do so much more damage than the other classes because of this, but as I showed even if they get sneak attack every round they would still only do about 10% more damage than a fighter. Now this is of course not a non-significant increase in damage! It's great! But it's not incredibly overpowered and in fact considering they are squishier and more reliant on allies (in a real situation to get that sneak every turn without a big risk) it's pretty balanced!
If they had a bigger risk in battle, had much more trouble manouvering AND did less damage, they wouldn't be that great (in combat). Especially considering how quickly a fighter will outdamage all the martial classes very fast as soon as they get access to something adding a bit of extra damage simply because of their overwhelming number of attacks.
My comment to you was not one to defend the rogue or say it sucked in some way. Merely to point out that while you did things one way in your post. There is a second very valid way to do things and that there were a bit more pieces to the entire puzzle that could be considered. And the damage reduction potential I mentioned for it in no way made the rogue weak. it actually showed that it's actually fairly in line with the other classes over all wether doing it with something like Steady aim or not so that people didn't think that steady aim was the only way to get competitive numbers and call it weak.
I support the fact that none of them are actually better or worse despite the fact that some put up bigger singular numbers and others have a larger number of smaller numbers to get to the same place. I think this is a good thing and gives differences and flavor to each of the classes that keeps them from being cookie cutter.
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OP wasn't even really impressed with Fighters; they were comparing to Sneak Attack. I think a lot of people overestimate the actual damage that 10d6 does. A barbarian's Rage Bonus and GWM on two hits alone is roughly equivalent to 8d6 extra damage, but since it's not a big handful of dice in your face it's not immediately as impressive when you're just glancing through class features.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
They are somewhat off topic. But at the same time they do help the topic to an extent. Because now we have comparisons. We have some basic numbers to look at and when we combine that with stuff said about Brutal Critical at the beginning people are able to make some correlations based upon that and go up from the math and calculations in our comparison and even how often they are going to get those things. Even if our Calculations and comparisons don't explicitely put them all together at this point.
I'd agree. However, I'd argue that focusing in detail on barbarian vs fighter and the specific features available to them which "beat" each other isn't massively helpful when the OP was talking about how they think Barbarians "suck" compared to Paladins and Rogues (brutal critical Vs smite/sneak attack).
The OP Doesn't say compared to Paladin's and Rogues. The OP states against other classes and then uses the Rogues sneak attack as an example. That makes the Fighter still a good example that they do not suck in comparison and that even when factoring in a lot of their base abilities against a class like the Fighter that things are not quite what they might appear at times.
Nor did we for the most part say anything about abilities beat each other. We were speaking in how they compare and how they compare over a large number of attacks and not just a very small handful that are only using the most optimal abilities. So your criticisms in these regards are not entirely founded. Because Fighter is another class. It's a Comparison between the Barbarian and the Fighter which is another class and it shows how they are actually quite comparable or even slightly better in certain regards compared to other classes that do larger but fewer attacks or unsustainable bursts to their attacks that register larger numbers for a short amount of time.
If you really want to look at it further. You saw us both talk about a range of about 200 rounds. Now let's take something like a Paladin if you'd rather focus there. Without getting into the damage we have a sitation where they can only do so much throughout the day so exactly how much they get is going to depend on just how many combat rounds take place. So let's lean back on the 2 combats between rests and 2 short rests a day comparison. We can look at both 5 and 10 round combats just as a comparison there as well. The Paladin has a maximum of 11 spells they can use a day at level 20 but their difference is they do more damage on singular hits. They also have the option of using these faster or slower but if they ar using them consistently to the point of something like say 1 attack per turn while they can. In 5 Rounds of Combat they are going to be making roughly 10 attacks and they are going to get 30 attacks in a day. This means they are going to be out of smites at all levels after the first round of the third combat of the day because they do not replenish on short rest. On the other hand if they are 10 round combats for a total of 60 rounds they are going to be Out after the first round of the second combat each day. All of the rest of the time for the rest of the rounds and combat for the day their damage is going to fall off and be much lower. This means that the fighter and the Barbarian who are capable of doing more attacks at the same damage per attack as the Paladin or More Damage per attack are going to wear down that Average Damage lead that the Paladin started with. Particularly since both the Barbarian and the Fighter are going to have more opportunity for Crits throughout that day than the Paladin is going to have. Either because of having at will advantage or because they have more attacks to roll to make it more likely. Overall damage if we were to calculate it out Would be variable depending on the number of rounds of combat per day and it's going to vary and dip depending on how often the Paladin actually needs to use those spells for a purpose other than smiting to do damage. But you'd find that in general the damage would end up in a similar place to the Barbarian and the Fighter. The Big Difference between the three classes (and you can basically lump the rogue in with the Paladin) is that the Paladin has much lower Sustained Damage but strong Burst Damage to give nice spikes but those spikes can be unreliable and may not be there when you really need them. The Barbarian is one of the two classes with some of the most consistent damage in the game So it doesn't burst and put the big numbers up quite as much but it is highly sustainable and thus very reliable. The Fighter is in the middle with A decent amount of Sustainable damage that improves over time with a lower level of spike damage to put to use regularly at it's disposal.
Just because it was brought up, here's the average rogue damage, sneak attack only and able to get advantage on every hit so they can sneak attack. And while the original rules wouldn't have allowed for such a reliable way to get advantage, the optional rule Steady Aim makes sure they can get this. It obviously wouldn't be appropriate in every battle, but they CAN and this isn't a survival guide but just doing numbers.
Rogue, shortsword (cause it's easier to count with just d6's.. I'd use a greataxe to compare with the other if it was possible to sneak attack with it but since it's not, this will have to do). +11 to hit, 1d6+5 damage + 10d6 sneak attack. 200 rounds = 200 attacks, hit on 9+. Now, if they didn't have advantage their hits would be 110 + 10 criticals but advantage changes this into 148.5 hits and 19.5 critical hits.
A hit would deal 11d6+5 (average damage 43.5) and a crit would deal 22d6+5 (average 82 damage). This gives us a total of 6459,75 + 1599 = 8058,75 average damage.
However, while impressive remember that this means the rogue is using their bonus action + can't move while doing this. A solo rogue would have much more problems than a fighter or barbarian by doing this and the other way to get around it would be in a team but this would also get the fighter advantage and they would actually deal more damage again. Still, those are the raw numbers without rests.
Compare this to the barbarian 7384 average damage, take into account that the rogue would have to either be in a team or stand still and use their bonus action to either steady aim or successfully hide each turn. In addition the barbarian would take half damage from most hits during this situation, while the rogue could use its reaction against just one attack/turn. In addition the barbarian has a LOT more hp. And one more thing, both the barbarian AND the fighter would benefit a LOT more by gaining extra attacks or extra damage, like the example with a flame tounge for instance, while the rogue would gain a decent amount by a flame tounge but would gain very little by extra attacks from for instance haste. (It would of course bring a more reliable chance of getting a sneak attack but you're still limited of 1/turn).
Now, being in a team might not be such a big thing to consider for sure, but even so, this would also mean the fighter would be able to have advantage on all attacks as well and it would now get about 176 more hits than before and while the barbarian wouldn't change their damage output (already having used advantage) they would remove the advantage they gave to their enemies by using reckless attack and would be even tankier. But since the original idea was just numbers it means no team, the rogue can still do more damage but realistically it would die much faster too and probably never get close to those 200 rounds if they wanted that reliable sneak damage on each hit ;D
Now, subclasses change a lot so this doesn't mean rogues are bad either, just that they aren't as good as they might seem. And just as a comparison, the GWM feat that lets you add +10 damage is the same as average 3d6 sneak attack extra damage (well.. 3d6 is actually 10.5 damage so technically a bit better). Rolling a lot of dice feels good and seems much but it's not as powerful as one might think.
Just compare a level 5 rogue with a level 5 barbarian and a level 5 fighter... The rogue using a rapier just to improve the damage, the fighter a great sword for old times sake and give all 20 main stat would give the rogue 1d8+5 + 3d6 damage (average 20 damage) vs barbarian 2 attacks with rage 1d12+7 (average 27) and the fighter 2 attacks at 2d6+5 (average damage 24) you can see that ... The rogue is actually behind, even if it sneaks every turn.
Now it would mean the others would have to hit both attacks each turn but even so, they have a more reliable damage still with just one hit not being that far away from the rogue and... Well, I love the rogue, I love sneak attack, but it's not the damage beast you think it is. It's so much fun though.
Except... The Rogue does not need advantage to sneak attack. And can sneak attack without flanking. So it's possible for the Rogue to sneak attack on basically every turn For their Sneak Attack Damage without giving the Fighter Advantage as well because it has it's own built in mechanic for simply having an ally threatening the target. So we can compare them without Steady Aim and without giving the Fighter Advantage. Which also opens up the Rogue to much more of their kit, primarily their mobility options such as disengage and dash. Yes their Damage would drop somewhere between 500 and 1000 points but this gives them a base that is roughly in line with the Barbarian and the Fighter.
The other thing to note about the Rogue is the level 5 example so kindly provided. Yes the rogue is a little bit behind at the level 5 example but the Fighter and the Barbarian just got a big boost in their damage with gaining extra attack and the Rogue didn't. The Rogues Damage is going to keep growing throughout Tier 2 regardless of gear changes however because it's sneak attack is going to keep going up. By level 9 you add on an extra 7 average damage. For a total of 27 average damage that it is doing which means it's now in line with A level 9 Fighter. Sneak Attack is a slowly turning dial that keeps building where others tend to be far more static and make bigger jumps at certain thresholds so this causes some of the other classes to jump ahead of it and then fall behind it but it keeps marching on at a fairly steady pace.
The Rogue also Differs from those two in that the Damage it does is highly variable because there is almost no static damage keeping it above a certain number. But it's high variability is available on pretty much every turn to make it's style of doing things unique in comparison to the Paladin, Barbarian, and Rogue so that they Vary Highly from Turn to turn rather than from Spiking Early and variably in how often but they aren't nearly as reliably static as the Barbarian which is relatively high static damage and relatively low variable damage. So depending on luck it can feel like it's doing a lot of damage all the time, even if it isn't, or it can feel like it's falling behind because your not seeing the high spikes that often.
The other low variable damage and high static damage class when you consider just it's basic attacks (specially with advantage) is the Monk. It does get up to d10's eventually but for most of it's career it's die sizes are smaller but it's able to apply 10-20 static damage into the mix purely on it's own without any feats or bonuses from elsewhere because of the number of attacks that it does but it's individual hits give the impression of it doing less because it is spread out more. They can spike it a bit by choosing to flurry of blows adding in one more hit. And it seems like this is fairly limited because of Ki points and at the first tier of play it is. But by the time you get into the second tier of play that stops being as much of an issue and by the high level tiers of play it's no longer a problem in your average combats at all unless you really spend a lot of ki points in just a few turns (which is still possible). It lags behind a little in pure damage in some spots but that is because this is not a purely damage dealing class and it has other options so it sacrifices a bit of damage to have other effects. But for a martial Character it is still going to do some very respectable damage of it's own considering at Max Level It's going to do basic damage something Akin to the Fighter without Action Surge or GWM. it wouldn't ultimately take any more advantage of something like Flame tongue than the Barbarian would for the most part but it's still a bit more than the Rogue would be able to. But like the rogue it's not really meant to sit in one place too much. Though with Patient Defense and a fairly high AC it can do so a little more than the Rogue can. Yet it's not going to stand in one place or tank like the Barbarian or the Fighter since those two are actually designed for that kind of combat.
"it has it's own built in mechanic for simply having an ally threatening the target"
The only thing I can see which you might mean by this is having an enemy of the enemy within 5ft of it. However, remember that this will only be possible with the right party composition and the right circumstances. Saying you can get this every turn is not much different from saying you can get advantage every turn, because you can get an ally to flank the enemy with you. It requires specific actions by other members of your party, and for the situation to allow you and those party members to do so.
IMHO if your DM is allowing this on "basically every turn" and not throwing up situations where it won't work, you have either a party composition with several melee characters so you can always "tag along" with one of them, or a very generous DM who is specifically building encounters which play to the rogue's strength (and not playing enemies in a way which would counter it).
After having played a lot of rogues. i can tell you that the composition where you can't get the simple ally bonus is rare. it does not take the right party to make it work. It takes particular party builds to actively try to make it not work. And then because of the nature of those parties it may end up working for you anyway because the enemies may force the issue into melee regardless.
It's very hard to make situations where you can't get at least two people next to an enemy. This is not an abnormal occasion. The DM is going to have to go to quite an extent to make this possible such as overly narrow passages everywhere which basically makes much of the melee in your party useless. This is not the same as Flanking. Flanking is much easier to block from happening so it's actually much easier to block Advantage from such to always be getting advantage since it requires very specific positioning. However to get sneak attack all the Rogue needs is an ally...Or as you said an enemy of my enemy in any of the 8 spaces around them and to stop that you have to remove the ability for them to be in any of those 8 spaces which is unrealistic in most situations or it's giong to be a situation where you take on an enemy alone. Taking on an enemy alone is almost always player controlled and often not the best choice for the rogue to make (no matter how often people white room single rogues without parties or force situations where they toe to toe enemies without aid). Situations where you can't simply occupy one of the other adjacent spaces however is very niche.
The only thing that can remove sneak attack when merely having adjacency would remove it in many situations where you would otherwise have Advantage as well. And that is by having disadvantage. But if your DM is blanket handing out disadvantage just so the Rogue cannot sneak attack You should probably find another DM because that's not only another unrealistic situation much of the time but it's also targeted hindrance either at you as a player or at Rogue as a Class. Both of which are signs of problems.
From what I can see, any party with only a single Melee character (besides the rogue) would make it fairly easy to block this happening, and I have seen many parties where you have a Fighter/Barb/Paladin, a Rogue, and a few squishy casters who do their best to stay out of melee. In this case, as soon as they are facing more than one enemy, it becomes fairly trivial to pin down the Fighter and Rogue in ways which don't allow them to both be adjacent to the same enemy.
Even without this, there are things the enemies can do to disrupt the Rogue. For instance, in many cases a shove will move the Rogue's ally far enough away to stop this from working. This is relatively simple, and all but the most stupid of enemies would have a good chance of coming up with it. This is not the DM trying to make things more difficult for the Rogue, it is the DM playing the enemies how they would likely act, noticing a threat and trying to neutralise it.
Sneak attack should not, IMHO, be easy to get all the time. It is a powerful ability, able to do similar amounts of average damage and more peak damage than many melee specialists can manage. If it is usable all the time, then melee fighters (who often feel completely overlooked anyway) are going to feel like they are only there to activate the Rogue's sneak attack. IMHO it should be a situational ability which works brilliantly when active, but requires some work to activate.
Any party that does not have Other martial melee's besides the Rogue does not have a defense for their ranged. This means that most ranged are going to be forced into melee most of the time at the very least because there is nothing to get in the way between melee enemies and your ranged party. So your still going to often get the sneak attack ability and even be relying on it to try and take down enemies that get onto your likely squishy ranged party before the squishy members of your party die. This doesn't create a situation at all where it's rarely possible to end up with the situation where somebody else is not close to an enemy in those capacities because melee enemies are by far the most common in the game.
a shove is also not guaranteed to work. It has a chance of working but it is not guaranteed. there are also a large number of enemies that actually can't shove because Monsters using stat blocks do not work by the same rules as characters or things that are made in the same way of characters so unless your DM has a habit of adding on extra abilities to stat blocks or making PC like NPC's for you to deal with this is not always going to be a problem. Even for smart melee enemies. Just because an enemy is not dumb does not necessarily it can do everything that players can Or would even consider it. Partly because many of them don't even actually take the attack action to be able to turn into a shove. They actually take actions like Rend and Bash or multi-attack in their place that while they make attacks they are explicitely not the attack action.
I am not saying it creates a situation where it becomes rare, I am saying that it makes it much easier for the enemies to disrupt the ability of the Rogue to Sneak Attack. Please try not to attempt to twist my words.
Again. many of these are based on the situations involved. If the party (with 1 melee, 1 rogue and some ranged/casters) comes across a single, powerful opponent, it is likely that the rogue will get sneak attack. If they are attacked by 2 opponents, then one can keep the melee combatant busy while another goes after the squishies, but the rogue will still probably get sneak attack. If they come upon a small group of opponents, however, there is a good chance that they would be able to separate the rogue from the other members of the team and make it difficult for them to maintain sneak attack at all times.
True, it is not, but nor is it guaranteed that someone will hit with an attack. The fact is that the option is there, and doing so in many situations would stop Sneak Attack from working.
From the Monster Manual:
There is nothing limiting them only to the actions specified on their stat block. So, any monster may take the Attack action, which would include the ability to perform the Shove special melee attack.
None of these are perfect, but the point is that if you are getting Sneak Attack all the time, it's because the DM is doing nothing to counter it. There are ways to at least attempt to counter it in many situations, and reasonable opponents would do so (unless they gained more from doing something else which stopped them from countering Sneak Attack).
If that small group of opponents separates the rogue with it's kit at it's disposal such as bonus action disengage and bonus action dash. it's on the Rogue that it is separated. Even a small group cannot reliably keep a rogue from getting back to it's group and the rogue probably shouldn't have put itself in that position to begin with. And it's not going to be easy to just make happen and maintain for the enemy.
As for Shove. There is something limiting monsters from taking the Shove Action. That is the fact that Shove is not itself an Action. It's a special modification of the Attack action which most things in the Monster Manual do not have and do not take. This is actually pointed out specifically by shove itself by saying:
"Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them."
This is very different from things such as the Help Action or the Dodge Actions which are fully actions in their own right and thus fall under the rules of the Monster Manual. This is because monsters in the monster manual have no capacity to take the Attack action normally. They only have the option to take actions that are Attacks. Taking the attack action does nothing for them as they do not have normal proficiency or the like to attach to the attack action. That is all built into their stat block attacking abilities.
Just want to note that I did mention a team being a thing, but the fighter and the barbarian can do their things SOLO which the rogue can't. Like I said it's likely you're playing in a team but it should be mentioned because it does matter, it's a limiting factor that you might not be able to sneak attack every turn just because your friend is also there, it's not a guarantee. I regularly play with just one other player (ie 2 players 1 dm) and both players being melee is not a thing all the time. Also as a rogue even in bigger parties I could regularily be sneaking a head, scouting if you wish, which would put me in a situation where I'd be alone if something happened.
Now this isn't that relevant to the situation anyways because the point was just once again numbers, this doesn't deal with subclasses and such...
The point is the rogue has the ability to deal a lot of damage and with Steady aim they CAN do it each turn, so now we know the damage they deal. But in reality it COULD come at a big cost, the movement, and in this situation it COULD be a bigger problem than for a fighter or barbarian for instance duo to them being tankier. This doesn't mean the rogue suck, so not sure why you feel the need to argue and defend them, once again seeming to think I am out to claim something sucks ;)
Yes, the rogue DOES increase in damage, but as you can see by the numbers, they are not that much higher than that of a fighter or barbarian. This isn't a bad thing, this shows us there is balance. This is good. The point of my comment was that people think the rogue does 10 times the damage of other classes because they do 10 times the dice, but they don't. They seem like they will do so much more damage than the other classes because of this, but as I showed even if they get sneak attack every round they would still only do about 10% more damage than a fighter. Now this is of course not a non-significant increase in damage! It's great! But it's not incredibly overpowered and in fact considering they are squishier and more reliant on allies (in a real situation to get that sneak every turn without a big risk) it's pretty balanced!
If they had a bigger risk in battle, had much more trouble manouvering AND did less damage, they wouldn't be that great (in combat). Especially considering how quickly a fighter will outdamage all the martial classes very fast as soon as they get access to something adding a bit of extra damage simply because of their overwhelming number of attacks.
A monster may take any action available to all creatures which is listed in the PHB. One of those actions is Attack.
If that monster takes the Attack action, I can see nothing to stop it from using that Attack action to Shove. There are no rules anywhere that I am aware of that say a monster cannot do so (although I'm happy for you to point out where it says they are unable to). As far as I can see, monsters may Attack, and using Attack you may Shove.
Now of course, they cannot use their Multi-Attack action to do one "normal" attack and one Shove, as that is not the Attack action. Also, the size rules would still apply.
As for the rest, you are right that a rogue's skills would make it easier for them to avoid being pinned down, but it is not only fear of an OA which stops characters from moving away. They would have to consider whether it was worth giving the enemy combatant freedom to move around and becoming free to target the squishies. They would need to weigh up which was the most effective use of their abilities, especially if they knew that their opponents would use various tactics to try to disrupt Sneak Attacks anyway.
I still maintain that it is possible for DMs to disrupt the Sneak Attack, and that they should be doing so with many enemies capable of even the most basic tactical thought. They will not always be successful, but a sensible enemy would try to do so in many situations, therefore a DM should be having them attempt to.
One Rogue is not going to lock down a bunch of targets. They are basically free to move around. The rogue only has one reaction to go around for all of them. And if it's in that situation it has no ability to backstab from it. This basically makes moving from the Rogue Practically Free. It is just not high threat to move away from in the conditions you describe. So your better off moving away from that small group and threatening their positioning in some other way that actually benefits your party. It's not going to be like the Barbarian or the Fighter or the Paladin that could potentially endanger or cripple whatever tries to move away from them with their massive blows.
Many enemies just are not able to do much to sneak attack. They can spread out but that doesn't necessarily stop sneak attack because that just allows your party to pick them off individually by focusing while stopping AoE's from the Casters. They can bunch up to be more threatening. But they just put more targets in one place and a good Rogue can move around them. They can be ranged but the Rogue can close the distance or start doing some cover sniping for Advantage. It is just not something your going to shut off even half the time. Nor should it be. The truth of the matter is that the Weapon attack is not what does most of the Rogue's competitive damage. it's their Sneak Attack that keeps them competitive with the other martial classes. There is no reason to stop it because it's highly variable damage and it's damage that's already accounted for. Going to large extents to stop it is like spending large amounts of effort to make sure The Fighter, or the Barbarian or the Paladin can't actually wield their weapon. Sneak attack is not some kind of super threat. It doesn't need to be curbed. It doesn't give the Rogue some kind of super advantage over everybody else. And it's up to the player to make it more or less useful for them as well as figure out how to deal with it's own natural checks and balances. DM is going to be naturally disrupted at times without taking specific steps against it or finding niche situations to make it not work and using them a bunch.
The Best thing a Sensible enemy can do? NOt worry about the rogue moving around or getting away. Simply just punish it if it moves into situations it shouldn't or doesn't back away when it really should, Like the aforementioned being surrounded by a small group of enemies and cut off from it's party. It doesn't have a lot of AC and it doesn't have great hit points. If it sticks around in that situation it's punishment doesn't have to be that you purposely do everything you can for it not to sneak attack. It's punishment for a DM playing smart enemies is to Incapacitate/Kill the Rogue and change the Party Balance. You don't need to tie up 3, or 4, or 5 guys to keep it busy if it's going to just rush in and take things on head on or not know when to retreat.
My comment to you was not one to defend the rogue or say it sucked in some way. Merely to point out that while you did things one way in your post. There is a second very valid way to do things and that there were a bit more pieces to the entire puzzle that could be considered. And the damage reduction potential I mentioned for it in no way made the rogue weak. it actually showed that it's actually fairly in line with the other classes over all wether doing it with something like Steady aim or not so that people didn't think that steady aim was the only way to get competitive numbers and call it weak.
I support the fact that none of them are actually better or worse despite the fact that some put up bigger singular numbers and others have a larger number of smaller numbers to get to the same place. I think this is a good thing and gives differences and flavor to each of the classes that keeps them from being cookie cutter.