I do think it’s a very interesting take on the rogue. The cunning strikes and devious strikes really give it an almost battle master feel. The one major thing I’m wondering is if they fixed the poison mechanic. Ik there is the cunning strike poison thing, but the poisoner feat in TCE made poison viable for some games.
I like what they do to the rogue, but I strongly dislike what happened to the assassin which is suddely not assassinating anything, and worse at it than the thief.
I also note that they have still not allowed sneak attack with unarmed strikes which I hope they finally will.
Eh, bacause it makes sense as much as sneak attack makes sense with weapons? If people are not prepared or you have a good opening you can choke people, punch them in the throat or otherwise deal massive damage with unatmed attacks.
in addition, it should be valid so monk/rogue multiclass works as people expect.
Not sure what people you are referring to; however, no class should be built purely on the basis of serving to be a channel for others to multiclass into or out of. At that point, why bother have a class remain at all if it's only intent is to use it as a crux for multiclassing? This is why we are seeing a decoupling of such availability of features and them becoming locked to their classes (Eldritch Blast scaling tied to Warlock levels now, Hex and Hunter's Mark restricted to their classes, pushing subclass acquisition to level 3 across the board, etc). If Monks were meant to be able to do Sneak Attack damage with their unarmed strikes, then they would have the feature or one similar to it in function. As a feature, Sneak Attack is fine as is, and its triggering weapons fit to its precision-themed nature (scimitar a maybe, whip a wild outlier somewhat).
I think you totally miss the point of sneak attack which is basically piercing somebody with a metal you gonna stick in (finesse/projectile). Its litteraly in the mechanics design.
Except eyes like in games of thrones, woops spoiler, u dont pierce anything with bare hands.
I think you totally miss the point of sneak attack which is basically piercing somebody with a metal you gonna stick in (finesse/projectile). Its litteraly in the mechanics design.
Except eyes like in games of thrones, woops spoiler, u dont pierce anything with bare hands.
"Sneak Attack
Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe's distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon."
Easy to solve by adding "the attack must use a finesse or ranged weapon, or an unarmed attack.
Alternatively it could be added to the monks Unarmed ability, or even a separate feat. The point is that for those trained, it should work just fine to "strike subtly and exploit a foe's distraction" with unarmed strikes. After all, one could always argue that "well, a dagger should only deal its damage and a solid hit would be a critical strike" and that is. Speaking realistically is doesn't make that much sense for a orgue to deal more damage with a dagger than a fighter who scores a crit. I do work within the fictional realm when I make the statement that unarmed strikes could also "sneak attack".
I don't like it. Rogues do one thing and they do it well. "versatility" is not something that they really require, and they aren't the class of buffing or debuffing.
I like the better consistency in getting advantage and therefore sneak attack but the cunning strikes strikes are situational and expensive. I see them being used for the novelty at first then quickly forgotten.
I also dislike them for the fact that they fill slots for other, better skills that we could have gotten. AC boost or movement increases would be top of my list, because our class is still very squishy. Let me avoid taking damage better by either not getting hit or not being in range.
Poison should just be a thing for an assassin, not a thing I spend dice to get dice for. Same goes for some of the other stuff.
The panache for swashbucker is still trash. I don't know why the hell they want me to choose to goad enemies to try and hit me when I'm still a low AC rogue who, now, has to be in the foe's face and probably can't outrun the things I'm goading. Charm is useless because the moment one of my party hits it, it's back to being angry. Just replace it with something that deals with the weaknesses of the class itself. You don't need to make me completely without weaknesses, but i'd rather have something useful...
It's likely that most of the time the Rogue will still be using the full sneak attack damage, but Cunning Strike offers another way to use them, sometimes.
I was shocked that Monk and Rogue were in the same playtest. Rogue was very well done, and Monk was... whatever the opposite of that is.
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The new cunning strikes are a refreshing change to the Rogue gameplay loop I'm generally impressed.
Thoughts?
I do think it’s a very interesting take on the rogue. The cunning strikes and devious strikes really give it an almost battle master feel. The one major thing I’m wondering is if they fixed the poison mechanic. Ik there is the cunning strike poison thing, but the poisoner feat in TCE made poison viable for some games.
I like what they do to the rogue, but I strongly dislike what happened to the assassin which is suddely not assassinating anything, and worse at it than the thief.
I also note that they have still not allowed sneak attack with unarmed strikes which I hope they finally will.
Love it. Cunning strikes adds so much more. One of my favorite characters was swashbuckler battle master, is this is fantastic
I do agree you should get sneak attack on unarmed strikes. Makes no sense why you shouldn’t.
I guess the question is, why would they allow SA with unarmed attacks?
Eh, bacause it makes sense as much as sneak attack makes sense with weapons? If people are not prepared or you have a good opening you can choke people, punch them in the throat or otherwise deal massive damage with unatmed attacks.
in addition, it should be valid so monk/rogue multiclass works as people expect.
Not sure what people you are referring to; however, no class should be built purely on the basis of serving to be a channel for others to multiclass into or out of. At that point, why bother have a class remain at all if it's only intent is to use it as a crux for multiclassing? This is why we are seeing a decoupling of such availability of features and them becoming locked to their classes (Eldritch Blast scaling tied to Warlock levels now, Hex and Hunter's Mark restricted to their classes, pushing subclass acquisition to level 3 across the board, etc). If Monks were meant to be able to do Sneak Attack damage with their unarmed strikes, then they would have the feature or one similar to it in function. As a feature, Sneak Attack is fine as is, and its triggering weapons fit to its precision-themed nature (scimitar a maybe, whip a wild outlier somewhat).
Point is simply that the sneak attack featyre should say “with a weapon or unarmed attack”
I think you totally miss the point of sneak attack which is basically piercing somebody with a metal you gonna stick in (finesse/projectile).
Its litteraly in the mechanics design.
Except eyes like in games of thrones, woops spoiler, u dont pierce anything with bare hands.
"Sneak Attack
Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe's distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon."
Easy to solve by adding "the attack must use a finesse or ranged weapon, or an unarmed attack.
Alternatively it could be added to the monks Unarmed ability, or even a separate feat. The point is that for those trained, it should work just fine to "strike subtly and exploit a foe's distraction" with unarmed strikes. After all, one could always argue that "well, a dagger should only deal its damage and a solid hit would be a critical strike" and that is. Speaking realistically is doesn't make that much sense for a orgue to deal more damage with a dagger than a fighter who scores a crit. I do work within the fictional realm when I make the statement that unarmed strikes could also "sneak attack".
Just say monks unarmed attacks count as finesse when using dex.
I don't like it. Rogues do one thing and they do it well. "versatility" is not something that they really require, and they aren't the class of buffing or debuffing.
I like the better consistency in getting advantage and therefore sneak attack but the cunning strikes strikes are situational and expensive. I see them being used for the novelty at first then quickly forgotten.
I also dislike them for the fact that they fill slots for other, better skills that we could have gotten. AC boost or movement increases would be top of my list, because our class is still very squishy. Let me avoid taking damage better by either not getting hit or not being in range.
Poison should just be a thing for an assassin, not a thing I spend dice to get dice for. Same goes for some of the other stuff.
The panache for swashbucker is still trash. I don't know why the hell they want me to choose to goad enemies to try and hit me when I'm still a low AC rogue who, now, has to be in the foe's face and probably can't outrun the things I'm goading. Charm is useless because the moment one of my party hits it, it's back to being angry. Just replace it with something that deals with the weaknesses of the class itself. You don't need to make me completely without weaknesses, but i'd rather have something useful...
It's likely that most of the time the Rogue will still be using the full sneak attack damage, but Cunning Strike offers another way to use them, sometimes.
I was shocked that Monk and Rogue were in the same playtest. Rogue was very well done, and Monk was... whatever the opposite of that is.