I believe the intent is "rogues are better out of combat because they're Experts, they should suck in combat because combat is where Warriors get to shine!"
No, that's not the intent at all. No need to warp arguments.
The intent is that since rogues bring a lot of additional utility out of combat (and not just related to hour long solo heists), their damage should probably be strong, but slightly less than a class like fighter. Heck, I think almost every class should be a little under fighter in terms of consistent single target damage.
No one is saying rogues shouldn't still be very effective in combat.
Mostly I'm remembering one of my absolute favorite D&D moments, where we wrapped session for the night but I still had energy and was feeling froggy. SO I asked the DM and our party's other resident sneak if they had time to run a quick post-credits scene where Other Sneak and I infiltrated the home of a suspicious NPC and searched for Sus Shit. What followed was about forty-five minutes of heccin' Deadly Shadows-esque super sneaky stealthy heist gameplay in which we secured critical information we relayed to the party next session, changing the course of the campaign (slightly).
That was absolutely amazing, and also something I could never in a billion years have gotten away with in-session with an entire party at the table. People simply do not allow their sneaky critters to do Sneaky Critter Things, not without getting memey, impatient, and demanding the run get wrapped up so somebody else can take a turn already. And I can't (entirely) fault them for doing so. Why should they have to sit around and watch a Sneaky Critter do Sneaky Critter shit for forty minutes instead of play D&D themselves?
Which, sadly, means there's honestly very little reason to make or play a Sneaky Critter. Which, given the rogue's entire class identity......
I feel this is an issue that falls more on how the DM runs the game and the players being good sports. While the Sneaky Critter(s) are doing something sneaky, there is no reason the rest the group can't be doing their own thing. Of course you don't want every session to be split between separate groups, but as long as everyone is getting a turn at being special, then it shouldn't be an issue. Now if you have that one person that is constantly trying to "Hog the Spotlight", that is a whole other issue.
At my games the Rogues (and other sneaky types, but mostly the rogues) were seldom on the battlefield. Too busy doing Sneaky Rogue Stuff in the next room, with the treasure chest, dragons hoard, etc... so being "effective" in combat was not high on their list of things to do. Typically they would show up in time to "contribute" to the combat (IE: shoot the Big Bad from max range once or twice) do a victory lap and hope the cleric/ranger/paladin doesnt notice the suspiciously new looking hilt/fancy new ring/amulet they are wearing. And pray that the party never figures out why everysinglehoard of coins is perfectly divisible by the total number of party members.
I believe the intent is "rogues are better out of combat because they're Experts, they should suck in combat because combat is where Warriors get to shine!"
No, that's not the intent at all. No need to warp arguments.
The intent is that since rogues bring a lot of additional utility out of combat (and not just related to hour long solo heists), their damage should probably be strong, but slightly less than a class like fighter. Heck, I think almost every class should be a little under fighter in terms of consistent single target damage.
No one is saying rogues shouldn't still be very effective in combat.
Can't say I really agree with that because while rogues do have more out of combat utility it's not like fighters ONLY have damage. They have more AC, more HP and their damage is not conditional upon meeting the requirements of sneak attack. Than depending on your subclass your gonna have either BM maneuvers or rune knight powers or echo knight stuff etc ya know.
So I don't really have a problem with the rogue's sneak doing good damage, my fighter can be in the group or kinda stuck solo and my damage remains what it is. God forbid your rogue also ever gets frightened or restrained and eats disadvantage which just shuts off sneak attack as well
My logic is not that it should go away because it rarely happens, my logic is that the rare builds that enable it to routinely happen mess with the balance of the game. As I explained earlier, there are other ways to make Sneak Attack cool and powerful if you don't think it's either of those things. Those ways change the playing field for everybody, not just the people who min-max to make Sneak Attack better. And if you're going to add any of those changes, then you need to remove the ability to abuse the feature. Admittedly, people abusing Sneak Attack doesn't break the game, but because some people have found a way to make it much, much better, the rest of us are stuck with Wizards of the Coast not being able to improve it without only allowing it once per a round. So I guess I'm not strongly against people finding ways to use Sneak Attack like this, but as long as people are able to do this, then Sneak Attack can't be made cooler for the rest of us and remains at a more mediocre level for the vast majority of players.
PS- I'm not arguing for not allowing Sneak Attack on spells, I should have made that clearer, I'm arguing for allowing Sneak Attack to be used only once per a round. I'll update the original post to reflect that, and I don't know whether or not I should/could change the poll to ask a question that is closer to what I was talking about when I started this thread.
The only thing with this is your assuming that this change has something to do with them improving sneak attack, the feature didn't improve at all in this playtest it just got worse. I'm not sure where the idea that they are going to grow the feature after restricting it has come from, was this something stated in a video or a twitter post that I missed? That after restricting sneak attack it was going to be expanded on? Because from the playtest material we've been handed I don't see any signs of improvement
Mostly I'm remembering one of my absolute favorite D&D moments, where we wrapped session for the night but I still had energy and was feeling froggy. SO I asked the DM and our party's other resident sneak if they had time to run a quick post-credits scene where Other Sneak and I infiltrated the home of a suspicious NPC and searched for Sus Shit. What followed was about forty-five minutes of heccin' Deadly Shadows-esque super sneaky stealthy heist gameplay in which we secured critical information we relayed to the party next session, changing the course of the campaign (slightly).
That was absolutely amazing, and also something I could never in a billion years have gotten away with in-session with an entire party at the table. People simply do not allow their sneaky critters to do Sneaky Critter Things, not without getting memey, impatient, and demanding the run get wrapped up so somebody else can take a turn already. And I can't (entirely) fault them for doing so. Why should they have to sit around and watch a Sneaky Critter do Sneaky Critter shit for forty minutes instead of play D&D themselves?
Which, sadly, means there's honestly very little reason to make or play a Sneaky Critter. Which, given the rogue's entire class identity......
I feel this is an issue that falls more on how the DM runs the game and the players being good sports. While the Sneaky Critter(s) are doing something sneaky, there is no reason the rest the group can't be doing their own thing. Of course you don't want every session to be split between separate groups, but as long as everyone is getting a turn at being special, then it shouldn't be an issue. Now if you have that one person that is constantly trying to "Hog the Spotlight", that is a whole other issue.
Maybe. I've referenced shadowrun a few times and I guess I'd say their rogue is the decker, basically a hacker. And the consistent complaint for multiple editions is while the decker is doing there thing the other players are basically going on a pizza run or something.
There is a limit to frequency and how long players can get away with a I'm breaking off for solo time. Usually when the other party members get to be special everyone is doing something at the same time, yeah the fighter dished out crazy damage, killed the boss or whatever but the rogue was fighting right next to them. While Yurei is exaggerating it a bit in my experience the core issue does exist. It may not exist at some tables and with some groups but its pretty widespread.
I believe the intent is "rogues are better out of combat because they're Experts, they should suck in combat because combat is where Warriors get to shine!"
No, that's not the intent at all. No need to warp arguments.
The intent is that since rogues bring a lot of additional utility out of combat (and not just related to hour long solo heists), their damage should probably be strong, but slightly less than a class like fighter. Heck, I think almost every class should be a little under fighter in terms of consistent single target damage.
No one is saying rogues shouldn't still be very effective in combat.
But rogues already do less damage over all compared to other classes like fighter even with having the ability to sneak attack twice a around. The new wording for sneak attack just puts them further behind. I don't see what justifies the nerf since they never had the problem of breaking the game like some people complain about. Even if they change it to once per round it still puts them far behind compared to fighters just not as much as the current wording in the UA.
Wotc seems to have just thrown out or put dead stops to anything that creates questions. Just look at explaining haste and ready sneak attacks. Make enough people confused that it's not "new player friendly"
My problem is on most of these "questions areas" it seems like they took the path of least resistance. So the community can be "the outsourced design team" rather than putting full design out. This is Early access testing not a beta.
My logic is not that it should go away because it rarely happens, my logic is that the rare builds that enable it to routinely happen mess with the balance of the game. As I explained earlier, there are other ways to make Sneak Attack cool and powerful if you don't think it's either of those things. Those ways change the playing field for everybody, not just the people who min-max to make Sneak Attack better. And if you're going to add any of those changes, then you need to remove the ability to abuse the feature. Admittedly, people abusing Sneak Attack doesn't break the game, but because some people have found a way to make it much, much better, the rest of us are stuck with Wizards of the Coast not being able to improve it without only allowing it once per a round. So I guess I'm not strongly against people finding ways to use Sneak Attack like this, but as long as people are able to do this, then Sneak Attack can't be made cooler for the rest of us and remains at a more mediocre level for the vast majority of players.
PS- I'm not arguing for not allowing Sneak Attack on spells, I should have made that clearer, I'm arguing for allowing Sneak Attack to be used only once per a round. I'll update the original post to reflect that, and I don't know whether or not I should/could change the poll to ask a question that is closer to what I was talking about when I started this thread.
The only thing with this is your assuming that this change has something to do with them improving sneak attack, the feature didn't improve at all in this playtest it just got worse. I'm not sure where the idea that they are going to grow the feature after restricting it has come from, was this something stated in a video or a twitter post that I missed? That after restricting sneak attack it was going to be expanded on? Because from the playtest material we've been handed I don't see any signs of improvement
They got the idea after the initial nerf to sneak attack in the first UA where critical damage was limited to damage from weapons. They were going on about the possibility of it being expanded but it didn't happen in the 2nd UA and just got worse. If there were ideas about expanding sneak attack after the nerf there would have been an example of it in the thief UA subclass. Those people need to stop being hopeful until there is an example of it in the UA. It needs to be tested as is and feed back be given on how bad it is.
Even if they did expand it some of the examples given was just as bad and didn't help the nerf.
At my games the Rogues (and other sneaky types, but mostly the rogues) were seldom on the battlefield. Too busy doing Sneaky Rogue Stuff in the next room, with the treasure chest, dragons hoard, etc... so being "effective" in combat was not high on their list of things to do. Typically they would show up in time to "contribute" to the combat (IE: shoot the Big Bad from max range once or twice) do a victory lap and hope the cleric/ranger/paladin doesnt notice the suspiciously new looking hilt/fancy new ring/amulet they are wearing. And pray that the party never figures out why everysinglehoard of coins is perfectly divisible by the total number of party members.
And this is what I mean. Everybody breaks out the memes the moment rogues try and do Rogue Shit(TM), assumes the players are being actively poisonous and stealing from the party, and insists the rogue be tethered to the party at all times without ever allowing the rogue to do what the class is built to do.
Just...ban the class, if that's what one thinks all rogues are. Just state outright "I don't allow rogues at my table, or Criminal backgrounds." And for Avandra's sake, stop assuming every last single player of a given broad classification is a raging asstroll out to do nothing but cause grief and problems.
At my games the Rogues (and other sneaky types, but mostly the rogues) were seldom on the battlefield. Too busy doing Sneaky Rogue Stuff in the next room, with the treasure chest, dragons hoard, etc... so being "effective" in combat was not high on their list of things to do. Typically they would show up in time to "contribute" to the combat (IE: shoot the Big Bad from max range once or twice) do a victory lap and hope the cleric/ranger/paladin doesnt notice the suspiciously new looking hilt/fancy new ring/amulet they are wearing. And pray that the party never figures out why everysinglehoard of coins is perfectly divisible by the total number of party members.
That is because your players fall into the tropes on how a rogue should act, but that isn't the only way to play a rogue. There many books portraying rogues differently that they don't follow your games example at all. Even the rogues I played were different from each other and never played the same with each one using different tactics depending on the build. They more fell in line with different characters from different books.
Examples of different rogues:
Eric and his mother from Spell, Sword, And Stealth series.
Kylar Stern, Durzo Blint, & Viridiana from Night Angel Trilogy
Tasslehoff Burrfoot from the Dragonlance.
Calder Martin and Shera from the Elder Empire series
Hearn from Shadowdance series.
If the rogues on your table likes to take the good items for himself them you should slide in some cursed items. Some that are funny curses, others that hinders, some that are detrimental, and some that are insidious until it is noticed later on.
Like a ring of truth that is cursed to never come off unless someone casts remove curse.
At my games the Rogues (and other sneaky types, but mostly the rogues) were seldom on the battlefield. Too busy doing Sneaky Rogue Stuff in the next room, with the treasure chest, dragons hoard, etc... so being "effective" in combat was not high on their list of things to do. Typically they would show up in time to "contribute" to the combat (IE: shoot the Big Bad from max range once or twice) do a victory lap and hope the cleric/ranger/paladin doesnt notice the suspiciously new looking hilt/fancy new ring/amulet they are wearing. And pray that the party never figures out why everysinglehoard of coins is perfectly divisible by the total number of party members.
And this is what I mean. Everybody breaks out the memes the moment rogues try and do Rogue Shit(TM), assumes the players are being actively poisonous and stealing from the party, and insists the rogue be tethered to the party at all times without ever allowing the rogue to do what the class is built to do.
Just...ban the class, if that's what one thinks all rogues are. Just state outright "I don't allow rogues at my table, or Criminal backgrounds." And for Avandra's sake, stop assuming every last single player of a given broad classification is a raging asstroll out to do nothing but cause grief and problems.
How in the nine hells did you go from the Rogues/sneaky types skimmingand playing it for laughs to out right toxic @$$#0!3ery?
We have a simple set of rules at the table... Skimming (making the coinage divide evenly will be tolerated) snagging the odd non-magical trinket and trash pre-hoard divvy is fine. You do not steal and/or hide the Maguffin from the party. You do not rob the naive clueless Barbarian PC blind (cheating him at cards in the tavern? That is on you when he catches you). You do not hide, abscond with, remove, thieve, or otherwise steal any items vital to another players character. (That means the Clerics holy symbol, the mages spell books, any casters foci, any casters component pouch, etc...). Magic items tend to be obvious and many carry curses... let the magic types check those first; then call dibs if it would fit your characters style. If you choose to do the these little things expect the PCs to call you out on occasion. As long as no ones feelings are hurt and it is understood to be for laughs everything is copacetic.
or to put it succinctly --- "Don't $#!+ where you eat" Use the Rogue/Sneaky type to troll the table and expect there to be repercussions.
The other Rogue/Sneaky things they were doing? Disarming traps, picking locks, and otherwise scouting out the area and securing it for the party.
Well fighters pretty much only do single target damage as well. Whether their damage should be worse is a bit more debatable to me as fighters are usually more tanky. But then again I think fighters should be gaining a lot out of combat this edition. Their combat is decent, I'd like some versatility but they really need more out of combat.
And as an aside I'd give rogues maneuvers in combat to diversify their options past sneak attack damage. Hey call them all sneak attack but give them a hamstring move etc.
Fighters can spread their damage over several attacks, hitting several enemies. They can tank on the frontlines. With battlemaster maneuvers, fighters can get tactical as hell. Rogues lack all that. They can pretty much only sneak attack. Making their only option of dealing damage weaker would suck. What about the idea of a deadly assassin?
Mostly I'm remembering one of my absolute favorite D&D moments, where we wrapped session for the night but I still had energy and was feeling froggy. SO I asked the DM and our party's other resident sneak if they had time to run a quick post-credits scene where Other Sneak and I infiltrated the home of a suspicious NPC and searched for Sus Shit. What followed was about forty-five minutes of heccin' Deadly Shadows-esque super sneaky stealthy heist gameplay in which we secured critical information we relayed to the party next session, changing the course of the campaign (slightly).
That was absolutely amazing, and also something I could never in a billion years have gotten away with in-session with an entire party at the table. People simply do not allow their sneaky critters to do Sneaky Critter Things, not without getting memey, impatient, and demanding the run get wrapped up so somebody else can take a turn already. And I can't (entirely) fault them for doing so. Why should they have to sit around and watch a Sneaky Critter do Sneaky Critter shit for forty minutes instead of play D&D themselves?
Which, sadly, means there's honestly very little reason to make or play a Sneaky Critter. Which, given the rogue's entire class identity......
I feel this is an issue that falls more on how the DM runs the game and the players being good sports. While the Sneaky Critter(s) are doing something sneaky, there is no reason the rest the group can't be doing their own thing. Of course you don't want every session to be split between separate groups, but as long as everyone is getting a turn at being special, then it shouldn't be an issue. Now if you have that one person that is constantly trying to "Hog the Spotlight", that is a whole other issue.
Maybe. I've referenced shadowrun a few times and I guess I'd say their rogue is the decker, basically a hacker. And the consistent complaint for multiple editions is while the decker is doing there thing the other players are basically going on a pizza run or something.
There is a limit to frequency and how long players can get away with a I'm breaking off for solo time. Usually when the other party members get to be special everyone is doing something at the same time, yeah the fighter dished out crazy damage, killed the boss or whatever but the rogue was fighting right next to them. While Yurei is exaggerating it a bit in my experience the core issue does exist. It may not exist at some tables and with some groups but its pretty widespread.
Handling the Frequency is part of being a DM and in my opinion a good player isn't looking to do solo time every session. I find that all the players at the table want to do things that aren't exactly group activities. Those that play Social characters like to RP through their information gathering. The Scout characters like to move ahead of the party dealing with traps and spotting dangers. The Researchers like to spend time in libraries reading books. All of these things let people do what their characters are designed to do and gives them a chance to participate in the other two pillars of D&D. When the party is split up, I don't focus on any one person or group for too long. That amount of time will vary but after you have played with a group long enough, you will find the right balance.
I don't doubt that you have experienced issues, but my experience tells me that the issues tend to be at tables with conflicting playstyles, not because of the game itself.
I feel this is an issue that falls more on how the DM runs the game and the players being good sports. While the Sneaky Critter(s) are doing something sneaky, there is no reason the rest the group can't be doing their own thing.
The problem is... most of the time what the Sneaky Critters are doing is recon to gather information about What To Do Next, and the other PCs can't go on to whatever's next without first having the information. Now, it's possible to set up information gathering that is split between multiple groups (the Social People are at the Suspiciously Evil Nobleman's ball mingling and being a distraction, the Brainy Guy looks up some records in the library, the Sneaky People go looking through all the back rooms for clues, and the Fighter gets into a duel for some reason), but it's tricky to set up, often seems contrived, and may simply make no sense for a lot of scenarios
It's okay to have fairly short scenes that only involve a fraction of the party, but stealth recon missions can actually take a really long time to resolve; an hour focused on the recon mission while everyone else sits around being bored isn't acceptable.
I think this nerf to sneak attack is unnecessary. In a SKT campaign I ran there was an arcane trickster rogue who had the mobile feat and he often would use booming blade sneak attacks when he could...it didn't break anything and helped with crowd control on some situations as smarter monsters would have to consider if they wanted to take the dmg from moving and melee or try to range attack a target if they could. He also would use readied actions at times to help set up situations where he could get a sneak attack in due to enemy placement and situations where he couldn't get a sneak attack in if he used the attack action. Now neither of those options are possible in one dnd. However we haven't seen arcane trickster yet, for all we know that subclass might be specifically be allowed to sneak attack with some spells that target a single target and have an attack roll.
Also that arcane trickster wasn't played as a scoundrel but more of a quasi arcane archer/swordsman that happened to be really good at dealing with traps.
It looks like in one dnd such playstyle is trying to be stomped out in favor of you suck in combat so just be a noncombat 'skill monkey'.
An easy fix is already suggested to limit sneak attack to once a round so if you sneak as a reaction or someone else's action sets you up for it you don't get to sneak attack on your turn. Combine that with letting it be any weapon attack with a ranged or finesse weapon that gets advantage or has an ally within 5ft of target and not just part of attack action and the problems will for the most part go away. The only nice change in one dnd is that TWF no longer conflicts with cunning action.
My logic is not that it should go away because it rarely happens, my logic is that the rare builds that enable it to routinely happen mess with the balance of the game. As I explained earlier, there are other ways to make Sneak Attack cool and powerful if you don't think it's either of those things. Those ways change the playing field for everybody, not just the people who min-max to make Sneak Attack better. And if you're going to add any of those changes, then you need to remove the ability to abuse the feature. Admittedly, people abusing Sneak Attack doesn't break the game, but because some people have found a way to make it much, much better, the rest of us are stuck with Wizards of the Coast not being able to improve it without only allowing it once per a round. So I guess I'm not strongly against people finding ways to use Sneak Attack like this, but as long as people are able to do this, then Sneak Attack can't be made cooler for the rest of us and remains at a more mediocre level for the vast majority of players.
PS- I'm not arguing for not allowing Sneak Attack on spells, I should have made that clearer, I'm arguing for allowing Sneak Attack to be used only once per a round. I'll update the original post to reflect that, and I don't know whether or not I should/could change the poll to ask a question that is closer to what I was talking about when I started this thread.
The only thing with this is your assuming that this change has something to do with them improving sneak attack, the feature didn't improve at all in this playtest it just got worse. I'm not sure where the idea that they are going to grow the feature after restricting it has come from, was this something stated in a video or a twitter post that I missed? That after restricting sneak attack it was going to be expanded on? Because from the playtest material we've been handed I don't see any signs of improvement
Been seeing this on the reddit as well with hopeful thoughts or trying to guess where development is going and assuming that a change will be met with another change down the road and yeah I agree they need to stop. These are the changes presented to you to try out, give feedback based on what has been given to you. Even if that feedback might be "this would be ok if you buffed it in other ways" don't just make an assumption that it's ok because 'clearly' they'll be improving it down the road right?
It looks like in one dnd such playstyle is trying to be stomped out in favor of you suck in combat so just be a noncombat 'skill monkey'.
And the problem with this is that both Ranger and Bard are getting just as many skills with expertise (albeit slightly later in their level progression in general), so the Rogue will not be special from that perspective either. In fact, with spells to cover any deficiencies they have in skills, both Ranger and Bard will most assuredly be superior to the Rogues in this respect as well.
I agree that this is a change for the better, though I think it will be worth getting some clarification regarding readied actions; I'd still like to be able to gain sneak attack when using my own readied action for situations where I'm well hidden and waiting for an enemy to pass me.
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I agree that this is a change for the better, though I think it will be worth getting some clarification regarding readied actions; I'd still like to be able to gain sneak attack when using my own readied action for situations where I'm well hidden and waiting for an enemy to pass me.
So what you are really saying is that it is not a change for the better since you want to keep your readied action sneak attack.
I agree that this is a change for the better, though I think it will be worth getting some clarification regarding readied actions; I'd still like to be able to gain sneak attack when using my own readied action for situations where I'm well hidden and waiting for an enemy to pass me.
So what you are really saying is that it is not a change for the better since you want to keep your readied action sneak attack.
No.
I'm saying it's probably an oversight because if the change is intended to prevent multiple sneak attacks per round then it shouldn't also prevent cases where a Rogue is making their one sneak attack out of sequence.
This is one of the reasons why we have Unearthed Arcana; so issues like that can be discovered.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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No, that's not the intent at all. No need to warp arguments.
The intent is that since rogues bring a lot of additional utility out of combat (and not just related to hour long solo heists), their damage should probably be strong, but slightly less than a class like fighter. Heck, I think almost every class should be a little under fighter in terms of consistent single target damage.
No one is saying rogues shouldn't still be very effective in combat.
At my games the Rogues (and other sneaky types, but mostly the rogues) were seldom on the battlefield.
Too busy doing Sneaky Rogue Stuff in the next room, with the treasure chest, dragons hoard, etc... so being "effective" in combat was not high on their list of things to do.
Typically they would show up in time to "contribute" to the combat (IE: shoot the Big Bad from max range once or twice) do a victory lap and hope the cleric/ranger/paladin doesnt notice the suspiciously new looking hilt/fancy new ring/amulet they are wearing. And pray that the party never figures out why every single hoard of coins is perfectly divisible by the total number of party members.
Can't say I really agree with that because while rogues do have more out of combat utility it's not like fighters ONLY have damage. They have more AC, more HP and their damage is not conditional upon meeting the requirements of sneak attack. Than depending on your subclass your gonna have either BM maneuvers or rune knight powers or echo knight stuff etc ya know.
So I don't really have a problem with the rogue's sneak doing good damage, my fighter can be in the group or kinda stuck solo and my damage remains what it is. God forbid your rogue also ever gets frightened or restrained and eats disadvantage which just shuts off sneak attack as well
The only thing with this is your assuming that this change has something to do with them improving sneak attack, the feature didn't improve at all in this playtest it just got worse. I'm not sure where the idea that they are going to grow the feature after restricting it has come from, was this something stated in a video or a twitter post that I missed? That after restricting sneak attack it was going to be expanded on? Because from the playtest material we've been handed I don't see any signs of improvement
Maybe. I've referenced shadowrun a few times and I guess I'd say their rogue is the decker, basically a hacker. And the consistent complaint for multiple editions is while the decker is doing there thing the other players are basically going on a pizza run or something.
There is a limit to frequency and how long players can get away with a I'm breaking off for solo time. Usually when the other party members get to be special everyone is doing something at the same time, yeah the fighter dished out crazy damage, killed the boss or whatever but the rogue was fighting right next to them. While Yurei is exaggerating it a bit in my experience the core issue does exist. It may not exist at some tables and with some groups but its pretty widespread.
But rogues already do less damage over all compared to other classes like fighter even with having the ability to sneak attack twice a around. The new wording for sneak attack just puts them further behind. I don't see what justifies the nerf since they never had the problem of breaking the game like some people complain about. Even if they change it to once per round it still puts them far behind compared to fighters just not as much as the current wording in the UA.
Wotc seems to have just thrown out or put dead stops to anything that creates questions. Just look at explaining haste and ready sneak attacks. Make enough people confused that it's not "new player friendly"
My problem is on most of these "questions areas" it seems like they took the path of least resistance. So the community can be "the outsourced design team" rather than putting full design out. This is Early access testing not a beta.
They got the idea after the initial nerf to sneak attack in the first UA where critical damage was limited to damage from weapons. They were going on about the possibility of it being expanded but it didn't happen in the 2nd UA and just got worse. If there were ideas about expanding sneak attack after the nerf there would have been an example of it in the thief UA subclass. Those people need to stop being hopeful until there is an example of it in the UA. It needs to be tested as is and feed back be given on how bad it is.
Even if they did expand it some of the examples given was just as bad and didn't help the nerf.
And this is what I mean. Everybody breaks out the memes the moment rogues try and do Rogue Shit(TM), assumes the players are being actively poisonous and stealing from the party, and insists the rogue be tethered to the party at all times without ever allowing the rogue to do what the class is built to do.
Just...ban the class, if that's what one thinks all rogues are. Just state outright "I don't allow rogues at my table, or Criminal backgrounds." And for Avandra's sake, stop assuming every last single player of a given broad classification is a raging asstroll out to do nothing but cause grief and problems.
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That is because your players fall into the tropes on how a rogue should act, but that isn't the only way to play a rogue. There many books portraying rogues differently that they don't follow your games example at all. Even the rogues I played were different from each other and never played the same with each one using different tactics depending on the build. They more fell in line with different characters from different books.
Examples of different rogues:
Eric and his mother from Spell, Sword, And Stealth series.
Kylar Stern, Durzo Blint, & Viridiana from Night Angel Trilogy
Tasslehoff Burrfoot from the Dragonlance.
Calder Martin and Shera from the Elder Empire series
Hearn from Shadowdance series.
If the rogues on your table likes to take the good items for himself them you should slide in some cursed items. Some that are funny curses, others that hinders, some that are detrimental, and some that are insidious until it is noticed later on.
Like a ring of truth that is cursed to never come off unless someone casts remove curse.
How in the nine hells did you go from the Rogues/sneaky types skimming and playing it for laughs to out right toxic @$$#0!3ery?
We have a simple set of rules at the table...
Skimming (making the coinage divide evenly will be tolerated) snagging the odd non-magical trinket and trash pre-hoard divvy is fine.
You do not steal and/or hide the Maguffin from the party.
You do not rob the naive clueless Barbarian PC blind (cheating him at cards in the tavern? That is on you when he catches you).
You do not hide, abscond with, remove, thieve, or otherwise steal any items vital to another players character. (That means the Clerics holy symbol, the mages spell books, any casters foci, any casters component pouch, etc...).
Magic items tend to be obvious and many carry curses... let the magic types check those first; then call dibs if it would fit your characters style.
If you choose to do the these little things expect the PCs to call you out on occasion. As long as no ones feelings are hurt and it is understood to be for laughs everything is copacetic.
or to put it succinctly --- "Don't $#!+ where you eat"
Use the Rogue/Sneaky type to troll the table and expect there to be repercussions.
The other Rogue/Sneaky things they were doing? Disarming traps, picking locks, and otherwise scouting out the area and securing it for the party.
Fighters can spread their damage over several attacks, hitting several enemies. They can tank on the frontlines. With battlemaster maneuvers, fighters can get tactical as hell. Rogues lack all that. They can pretty much only sneak attack. Making their only option of dealing damage weaker would suck. What about the idea of a deadly assassin?
Handling the Frequency is part of being a DM and in my opinion a good player isn't looking to do solo time every session. I find that all the players at the table want to do things that aren't exactly group activities. Those that play Social characters like to RP through their information gathering. The Scout characters like to move ahead of the party dealing with traps and spotting dangers. The Researchers like to spend time in libraries reading books. All of these things let people do what their characters are designed to do and gives them a chance to participate in the other two pillars of D&D. When the party is split up, I don't focus on any one person or group for too long. That amount of time will vary but after you have played with a group long enough, you will find the right balance.
I don't doubt that you have experienced issues, but my experience tells me that the issues tend to be at tables with conflicting playstyles, not because of the game itself.
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The problem is... most of the time what the Sneaky Critters are doing is recon to gather information about What To Do Next, and the other PCs can't go on to whatever's next without first having the information. Now, it's possible to set up information gathering that is split between multiple groups (the Social People are at the Suspiciously Evil Nobleman's ball mingling and being a distraction, the Brainy Guy looks up some records in the library, the Sneaky People go looking through all the back rooms for clues, and the Fighter gets into a duel for some reason), but it's tricky to set up, often seems contrived, and may simply make no sense for a lot of scenarios
It's okay to have fairly short scenes that only involve a fraction of the party, but stealth recon missions can actually take a really long time to resolve; an hour focused on the recon mission while everyone else sits around being bored isn't acceptable.
I think this nerf to sneak attack is unnecessary. In a SKT campaign I ran there was an arcane trickster rogue who had the mobile feat and he often would use booming blade sneak attacks when he could...it didn't break anything and helped with crowd control on some situations as smarter monsters would have to consider if they wanted to take the dmg from moving and melee or try to range attack a target if they could. He also would use readied actions at times to help set up situations where he could get a sneak attack in due to enemy placement and situations where he couldn't get a sneak attack in if he used the attack action. Now neither of those options are possible in one dnd. However we haven't seen arcane trickster yet, for all we know that subclass might be specifically be allowed to sneak attack with some spells that target a single target and have an attack roll.
Also that arcane trickster wasn't played as a scoundrel but more of a quasi arcane archer/swordsman that happened to be really good at dealing with traps.
It looks like in one dnd such playstyle is trying to be stomped out in favor of you suck in combat so just be a noncombat 'skill monkey'.
An easy fix is already suggested to limit sneak attack to once a round so if you sneak as a reaction or someone else's action sets you up for it you don't get to sneak attack on your turn. Combine that with letting it be any weapon attack with a ranged or finesse weapon that gets advantage or has an ally within 5ft of target and not just part of attack action and the problems will for the most part go away. The only nice change in one dnd is that TWF no longer conflicts with cunning action.
Been seeing this on the reddit as well with hopeful thoughts or trying to guess where development is going and assuming that a change will be met with another change down the road and yeah I agree they need to stop. These are the changes presented to you to try out, give feedback based on what has been given to you. Even if that feedback might be "this would be ok if you buffed it in other ways" don't just make an assumption that it's ok because 'clearly' they'll be improving it down the road right?
And the problem with this is that both Ranger and Bard are getting just as many skills with expertise (albeit slightly later in their level progression in general), so the Rogue will not be special from that perspective either. In fact, with spells to cover any deficiencies they have in skills, both Ranger and Bard will most assuredly be superior to the Rogues in this respect as well.
I agree that this is a change for the better, though I think it will be worth getting some clarification regarding readied actions; I'd still like to be able to gain sneak attack when using my own readied action for situations where I'm well hidden and waiting for an enemy to pass me.
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So what you are really saying is that it is not a change for the better since you want to keep your readied action sneak attack.
No.
I'm saying it's probably an oversight because if the change is intended to prevent multiple sneak attacks per round then it shouldn't also prevent cases where a Rogue is making their one sneak attack out of sequence.
This is one of the reasons why we have Unearthed Arcana; so issues like that can be discovered.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.