The thing is: The role of Skill-Monkey alone doesn't make a class. Skill System suck in 5e. It's too DM-dependent that varies like a *lot* from table to table. Skills alone can't make a class good enough, especially in a game where 80% of the rules are about Combat.
It has already made many players at their table feel less fun due to all kinds of reasons. A good team up might even make them less shine on skills while they're also bad in combats. They don't have much to offer in a combat besides hit once and run. Cunning Strikes help a lot but still not enough in OneD&D, since others are getting much too.
The Fighter and many other classes are all good at skills now. Rogue's Skils-Power got less and less valuable to compensate its DRP, since other classes are tend to be good at both skills and combat.
Lastly, I mean, couple of more dices for Rogue's DPR wouldn't hurt, right?
Players who might wanna play a glass-cannon kind of Assassin would be more happy. New players wouldn't need to be optimized to do good damage.
Rogue is fun, but it's not that good enough to be overpowered with a couple of dices boosted in their DRP, especially in a group with optimization, they're being bottom. It breaks nothing. The fantasy or the playstyle would remain still but better.
Everyone smart would literally just cunning action ready an action to attack at the start of the next person’s turn. Since it’s no longer the rogue’s turn they can qualify for sneak attack again. This would be better than just giving them extra attack but clunky. It takes very little thought to make this work. So it might be too strong
Maybe Cunning Action adds Ready actionOnly to use it as an attack, and with the penalty of doing it WITH DISADVANTAGE (This will be neutralized if an advantage is obtained.)
That is still clunky and easy to abuse. Smart players that play with flanking rules would still just be doing this every time, but at least they would need a teammate to set them up. If this was the change it’s easier to just give them a cunning action attack on their turn at disadvantage that expends their reaction. That would allow them to do everything people are trying to do and keep it all contained in one turn. It would also make that use of a reaction more baseline and understandable for all players not just pros.
I think the main way to remove the abuse is to not re-set the Sneak Attack dice for it. Sure, you can make an over-watch attack, but you aren't going to get Sneak Attack with it (unless you didn't use them during your turn). It becomes like the Monk's free Bonus Action Attack, except that it can be used outside of your turn (limited by the reaction condition you set for it) ... and consumes BOTH your BA and your Reaction. But it could benefit from, or be used to establish, Vex. Not as overly powerful as a Reaction based Sneak Attack, but still useful. It might also need the same weapon restriction as Sneak Attack (finesse or ranged), even if you're not using Sneak Attack dice for it.
"If you choose the Ready option for this Cunning Action, you may only ready a single attack. You may set aside some of this turn's unused Sneak Attack dice for this Reaction attack, but no other Sneak Attack dice will be usable with that readied attack. Whether you do so or not, the attack readied this way may only be made using a finesse weapon or ranged weapon."
Essentially I want all Rogues to have access to the same damage without having to build the Rogue and party around guaranteeing a reaction attack most rounds, as it's such a weird way for Rogues to play in practice. I want Rogues to be high risk, high reward combatants who can mess up a target but get into trouble fast if they can't escape afterwards.
One thing I'd consider is adding yet-another Cunning Action option, where the rogue can Ready an off-turn attack (technically a delayed "extra" attack). That way they could proc a second sneak attack per round without needing an AoO or party member's feature, but have to burn their bonus action to do it (giving up Steady Aim or the other Cunning Actions, etc).
Such a thing might want some other restriction, probably on exactly what the trigger can be. But I'd be fine with letting it be melee or ranged.
I was thinking more along the lines of something that encourages riskier play but for greater rewards.
So Sneak Attack would apply on advantage or adjacent ally as normal, but you can only Sneak Attack once per round (once you've landed one, you can't do so again until your next turn).
But to compensate you might instead get an auto-crit if you were hidden from your target at the start of the turn (needs to be set up in advance), or attack it from behind with a melee strike and an adjacent ally of yours (heavily encourages the enemy to focus its attention on you instead) etc. Assassins might still have the benefit of being able to do this automatically in the first round, and/or maybe they roll their criticals twice and use the better damage?
It's just an idea but I actually agreed with the once per round sneak attack limitation in the earlier Rogue playtest, but they implemented it horribly as it only worked on your own turn, so you could no longer Ready an ambush attack, and they got nothing to compensate the loss of the double Sneak Attack which, while strong, wasn't exactly game breaking as Rogues are still relatively fragile – the main problem was that a Rogue that didn't build for that effectively had half the damage of ones who did.
So I'd like to see them limited again to a once per round Sneak Attack (can be on anyone's turn depending upon how you set it up, just not multiple turns per round) but with a way to boost it by taking bigger risks to encourage more "Rogue-like" play (in the sense of playing a Rogue, not the videogames that are designed to kill you a lot). Because it feels like 5e Rogues have drifted away from the sneaky back-stabbers into just being a mostly ranged platform as there isn't much advantage to the riskier melee builds.
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.
Another cute idea (again, I think Rogue is fine): Bonus Action "committed attack" where you add PB-D6 to your sneak attack damage if you hit. So you're forgoing Hide/Disengage/etc (more risk) for more damage, that scales better than a regular off-hand attack, and puts more weight on a single attack roll.
The thing is: The role of Skill-Monkey alone doesn't make a class.
The thing is: being a skill-monkey should not be free. It shouldn't be the only thing a class can do, but if a class is stronger in one area, it should expect to be weaker in others.
The thing is: The role of Skill-Monkey alone doesn't make a class.
The thing is: being a skill-monkey should not be free. It shouldn't be the only thing a class can do, but if a class is stronger in one area, it should expect to be weaker in others.
other than monk, they have democratized being good at skills now. You have casters who have various abilities that achieve similar things to skills, and martials, who now have boosts to skills.
Not to mention classes in 5e are not really designed with that weakness theory in mind. They are designed to align to a class fantasy. Wizards have no weak area, Sorcerers have no weak area. Warlocks have no weak area. I dont think clerics or paladins have a weak area.
classes mostly arent good at certain things because it doesnt align with thier fantasy, not because they need to be bad it. Wizards have low HP, because that lines up with the concept, but they arent actually defensively weak. Clerics, are tough, strong, and deadly, because the concept of the armored cleric demands it.
If all the other classes were designed to be weak in some areas to balance strengths in others then it would make sense, but thats not the case in the current iteration of UA. And skill monkey is not really an appropriate defining fantasy for the rogue concept.
even if you subscribe to that school, they are still too far behind without off turn attacks to be considered OK balance for their skill proficiencies.
Knock is basically mastery of locks, and the wizard isnt a weakling in exchange for it.
The thing is: The role of Skill-Monkey alone doesn't make a class.
The thing is: being a skill-monkey should not be free. It shouldn't be the only thing a class can do, but if a class is stronger in one area, it should expect to be weaker in others.
other than monk, they have democratized being good at skills now. You have casters who have various abilities that achieve similar things to skills, and martials, who now have boosts to skills.
Not to mention classes in 5e are not really designed with that weakness theory in mind. They are designed to align to a class fantasy. Wizards have no weak area, Sorcerers have no weak area. Warlocks have no weak area. I dont think clerics or paladins have a weak area.
classes mostly arent good at certain things because it doesnt align with thier fantasy, not because they need to be bad it. Wizards have low HP, because that lines up with the concept, but they arent actually defensively weak. Clerics, are tough, strong, and deadly, because the concept of the armored cleric demands it.
If all the other classes were designed to be weak in some areas to balance strengths in others then it would make sense, but thats not the case in the current iteration of UA. And skill monkey is not really an appropriate defining fantasy for the rogue concept.
even if you subscribe to that school, they are still too far behind without off turn attacks to be considered OK balance for their skill proficiencies.
Knock is basically mastery of locks, and the wizard isnt a weakling in exchange for it.
People have been talking about the martial caster imbalance for a long time, it seems WotC hasn't really done anything in one D&D to address it frankly but this is separate to where rogue compares to the non-casters and half-casters.
Wizards and Sorcerers definitely have weak areas, they are the lowest HP classes in the game and get about the least proficiencies for weapons and armor of any classes, in fact neither Wizard or Sorcerer can don armour via their base class proficiencies, which is a part of the issue with races that granted medium armour proficiency. This makes them the classes with the lowest survivability, now there are spells like mage armour and shield that help but those are using the precious spell casting resources, so they have a weakness in terms of survivability and that most of their actions are limited by a resource.
Paladin sucks at ranged combat and sucks at stealth, sure there are DEX builds that are possible but then you lose damage, AC and the ability to multiclass well with most of those given that Paladin is a MAD class, paladin is also reliant on a long rest resource. Cleric is pretty strong for sure, they get some truly terrifying spell combos, at least one D&D is breaking the spiritual weapon & Guardian spirits combo.
Warlock's strong and weak points are the most varied of any class since it's the most customizable class in the game but it's near impossible to build a warlock that doesn't have some weakness or another. Warlock has the least slots of any caster, and while they recover on short rest, it leads to warlocks basically needing a lot rests, at least one d&d is giving 1 free recharge of a slot? not sure it overly addresses the issue but WotC only attempt at fixing that was to move warlock to the same half-caster progression as Paladin, Ranger & Artificer with mystic arcanum to patch it up (at a horrible level of invocation tax).
This all said, party dependence is not the same thing as weakness, it is not about what classes have what weaknesses but about what each class brings to the party. A paladin, fighter or barbarian brings a strong martial fighter who can take damage and stand on the front lines, a druid, cleric or bard brings strong amount of party support while a Wizard, sorcerer or warlock brings magical firepower and rogue, ranger and bard brings skill monkey to the table. Of course in this you probably see an issue, monk was never mentioned while bard was mentioned twice, it's also not inconceivable that paladin could potentially be considered a support either, but most of paladin's "support" is close ranged to themselves for most of the game. This is overly simplifying things a bit but people saying rogue ain't brining stuff to the table, are misguided.
if a class is stronger in one area, it should expect to be weaker in others.
Yes and I can't wait the day for that statement to be applied impartially everywhere. Until then I think people can share their feedback.
To focus. The current trend was, correct me if I'm wrong, given the reinforcement of skills in others class due to popular demands, could the rogue have a combat reinforcement, and it was actually not directly aimed at raw dammage but more staple options. Seems fair to me.
Like u said. Stronger in one area weaker in others. To extend that I don't think spells, abilities, heal, or mitigation have been factored yet. Should they ? Rogue has some good abilities but its restricted, and its an easy lever to pull out (and they started it).
Any stage of developpement requires compromise. Just be honest with everything.
other than monk, they have democratized being good at skills now. You have casters who have various abilities that achieve similar things to skills, and martials, who now have boosts to skills.
Not to mention classes in 5e are not really designed with that weakness theory in mind. They are designed to align to a class fantasy. Wizards have no weak area, Sorcerers have no weak area. Warlocks have no weak area. I dont think clerics or paladins have a weak area.
classes mostly arent good at certain things because it doesnt align with thier fantasy, not because they need to be bad it. Wizards have low HP, because that lines up with the concept, but they arent actually defensively weak. Clerics, are tough, strong, and deadly, because the concept of the armored cleric demands it.
If all the other classes were designed to be weak in some areas to balance strengths in others then it would make sense, but thats not the case in the current iteration of UA. And skill monkey is not really an appropriate defining fantasy for the rogue concept.
even if you subscribe to that school, they are still too far behind without off turn attacks to be considered OK balance for their skill proficiencies.
Knock is basically mastery of locks, and the wizard isnt a weakling in exchange for it.
1) More classes can be good at skills, sure - but few can be as great at them as rogues, due to 4 starting skills + Thieves Tools, 4x Expertise, Reliable Talent, Bonus ASI, and Stroke of Luck, all of which are purely from the base class before backgrounds, species traits, and subclasses are considered.
2) Knock is not "mastery of locks." It's a last resort if you don't have a skillmonkey. It's loud enough that you might as well have had the Barbarian bash it open and alert all the guards that way. (Hell, the Barbarian might actually be better, at least you can Silence him.)
2) Knock is not "mastery of locks." It's a last resort if you don't have a skillmonkey. It's loud enough that you might as well have had the Barbarian bash it open and alert all the guards that way. (Hell, the Barbarian might actually be better, at least you can Silence him.)
Knock in 5e is low enough value that I generally don't even bother to learn it. If I don't care about stealth, there are no shortage of ways through a door other than picking the lock.
2) Knock is not "mastery of locks." It's a last resort if you don't have a skillmonkey. It's loud enough that you might as well have had the Barbarian bash it open and alert all the guards that way. (Hell, the Barbarian might actually be better, at least you can Silence him.)
Knock in 5e is low enough value that I generally don't even bother to learn it. If I don't care about stealth, there are no shortage of ways through a door other than picking the lock.
The only real benefit of the knock spell is having someone else that can bust locks when things start going wrong (enemies are onto you already), or if you encounter an arcane lock and all else fails. It's not a terrible one to have prepared for a heist, but as a general spell you always have ready it's a tougher sell unless the party lacks a Rogue or anyone else that can fill-in (like an Artificer, high Dexterity criminal etc.).
First choice is, and should always be, a properly equipped Rogue; others can fill in but nobody's going to be better as only a Rogue can get expertise in thieves' tools, combined with Reliable Talent they can beating DC 20+ locks without even trying.
In the playtest Rogues get Reliable Talent earlier now (7th-level) but they don't seem to get expertise in thieves' tools anymore, but I'm not sure if that means anything or not; they've briefly talked about changes to how tools work but we haven't heard anything since. A lot of groups just use sleight of hand and treat thieves tools as a bonus (e.g- advantage) but I'm not sure if we know how that's going to be written yet. Tools have always been a poorly written section of the 5e rules.
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.
if a class is stronger in one area, it should expect to be weaker in others.
Yes and I can't wait the day for that statement to be applied impartially everywhere. Until then I think people can share their feedback.
To focus. The current trend was, correct me if I'm wrong, given the reinforcement of skills in others class due to popular demands, could the rogue have a combat reinforcement, and it was actually not directly aimed at raw dammage but more staple options. Seems fair to me.
Oh, not more damage, but more options? Like something where you could sacrifice some damage to impose one of a variety of conditions? Like the very thing that has been added in the UA via Cunning Strike?
Let's be honest here, it is not about more options. There are already tons of options in the game, it's just that currently you have to sacrifice damage to do non-damage things. Which makes sense - some classes specialize in damage and have minimal out-of-combat options, others specialize in out of combat options and have lower damage - but it appears that players don't like that design. Instead they want every class to be able to do everything, equally well. This will inevitably lead to power-creep because without classes having distinct roles, there will always be the class that is just "the best" at everything, and a class that is "the worst" at everything, and people will argue for that "the worst" class to be buffed up to be at least average, leaving a new class to be "the worst" and moving the average upwards. Repeat the cycle until every class is an OP nightmare and we need a whole new edition to reset the game.
Why are people specifically trying to make off-turn sneak attack a feature? What possible character fantasy is "I can't sneak attack twice when attacking, but through some magic, when it isn't my turn any more, I can sneak attack one more time" possibly fulfilling? Who is actually excited about having to sneak attack, then ready-action-when-I'm-done-I'm-going-to-sneak-attack-again?
Why are people specifically trying to make off-turn sneak attack a feature? What possible character fantasy is "I can't sneak attack twice when attacking, but through some magic, when it isn't my turn any more, I can sneak attack one more time" possibly fulfilling? Who is actually excited about having to sneak attack, then ready-action-when-I'm-done-I'm-going-to-sneak-attack-again?
Stop with this silly nonsense, I beg you.
Stabbing an enemy in the back when they turn and move away from you is an extremely rogue-ish thing to do. The problem is exclusively is the stupid combo with Haste & Ready action. To be honest, a lot of exploits in D&D rely on inappropriate use of the Ready action, Readying an action for "when my turn ends" or for "at the start of their turn" are illegal meta-gaming clauses. In the in-game world turns do not exist and character/creatures don't know when it is / isn't another creature's turn.
Why are people specifically trying to make off-turn sneak attack a feature? What possible character fantasy is "I can't sneak attack twice when attacking, but through some magic, when it isn't my turn any more, I can sneak attack one more time" possibly fulfilling? Who is actually excited about having to sneak attack, then ready-action-when-I'm-done-I'm-going-to-sneak-attack-again?
Stop with this silly nonsense, I beg you.
the issue is, if they don't use it, they are approximately a whole sneak attacks worth of damage behind other characters in mid and high levels. And they already had a rogue who didnt have access to it, and people didnt like it. People liked to tactically use sneak attack, not always for more damage, but often a set up.
And the concept of attacking off your turn, doesnt require magic, It just represents a class that is reactive, or predictive, and both line up with the fanatsy of rogue.
This is the situation
If rogue needs to land off turn sneak attacks to compete with other classes damage, (and this is both casters and martials) and we should not remove off turn sneak attacks, How can the rogue be competitive with other classes.
2) Knock is not "mastery of locks." It's a last resort if you don't have a skillmonkey. It's loud enough that you might as well have had the Barbarian bash it open and alert all the guards that way. (Hell, the Barbarian might actually be better, at least you can Silence him.)
Knock in 5e is low enough value that I generally don't even bother to learn it. If I don't care about stealth, there are no shortage of ways through a door other than picking the lock.
The only real benefit of the knock spell is having someone else that can bust locks when things start going wrong (enemies are onto you already), or if you encounter an arcane lock and all else fails. It's not a terrible one to have prepared for a heist, but as a general spell you always have ready it's a tougher sell unless the party lacks a Rogue or anyone else that can fill-in (like an Artificer, high Dexterity criminal etc.).
First choice is, and should always be, a properly equipped Rogue; others can fill in but nobody's going to be better as only a Rogue can get expertise in thieves' tools, combined with Reliable Talent they can beating DC 20+ locks without even trying.
In the playtest Rogues get Reliable Talent earlier now (7th-level) but they don't seem to get expertise in thieves' tools anymore, but I'm not sure if that means anything or not; they've briefly talked about changes to how tools work but we haven't heard anything since. A lot of groups just use sleight of hand and treat thieves tools as a bonus (e.g- advantage) but I'm not sure if we know how that's going to be written yet. Tools have always been a poorly written section of the 5e rules.
Who is talking about a heist? thats a specific circumstance, In a heist, you can prepare any number of solutions to a problem. Generally speaking in dungeons, people kill monsters, combat is not quiet, you kill the enemies, then you investigate and open things.
Are you really suggestion rogues are designed to exist solely to open treasures quietly while on a heist? that is a microscopic use case. And it generally doesnt require a rogue. Knock is just one example, invisible, silence, pass without a trace, comprehend languages, charm, jump, longstrider, expeditious retreat, These things you claim you must have a rogue for, don't require a rogue at all. That's the casters, then you have the martials, Barbarian with advantage, best stat, and eventually minimum roll = strength stat. Fighter with +5.5 to a roll they fail. Artificers adding int to anyones roll. Yall are living in another time. Or a world you wish existed.
Right now, the floor on martial's dps has been raised, the floor on martial's versatility is closer to casters. Rogue 'skill monkeyness' was always a questionable reasoning for their other flaws. But now, It makes no sense. People are in general, better at o o combat use cases, and generally had their floor damage raised for normal play.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
And weapon mastery Vex
The thing is: The role of Skill-Monkey alone doesn't make a class. Skill System suck in 5e. It's too DM-dependent that varies like a *lot* from table to table. Skills alone can't make a class good enough, especially in a game where 80% of the rules are about Combat.
It has already made many players at their table feel less fun due to all kinds of reasons. A good team up might even make them less shine on skills while they're also bad in combats. They don't have much to offer in a combat besides hit once and run. Cunning Strikes help a lot but still not enough in OneD&D, since others are getting much too.
The Fighter and many other classes are all good at skills now. Rogue's Skils-Power got less and less valuable to compensate its DRP, since other classes are tend to be good at both skills and combat.
Lastly, I mean, couple of more dices for Rogue's DPR wouldn't hurt, right?
Players who might wanna play a glass-cannon kind of Assassin would be more happy. New players wouldn't need to be optimized to do good damage.
Rogue is fun, but it's not that good enough to be overpowered with a couple of dices boosted in their DRP, especially in a group with optimization, they're being bottom. It breaks nothing. The fantasy or the playstyle would remain still but better.
That is still clunky and easy to abuse. Smart players that play with flanking rules would still just be doing this every time, but at least they would need a teammate to set them up. If this was the change it’s easier to just give them a cunning action attack on their turn at disadvantage that expends their reaction. That would allow them to do everything people are trying to do and keep it all contained in one turn. It would also make that use of a reaction more baseline and understandable for all players not just pros.
I think the main way to remove the abuse is to not re-set the Sneak Attack dice for it. Sure, you can make an over-watch attack, but you aren't going to get Sneak Attack with it (unless you didn't use them during your turn). It becomes like the Monk's free Bonus Action Attack, except that it can be used outside of your turn (limited by the reaction condition you set for it) ... and consumes BOTH your BA and your Reaction. But it could benefit from, or be used to establish, Vex. Not as overly powerful as a Reaction based Sneak Attack, but still useful. It might also need the same weapon restriction as Sneak Attack (finesse or ranged), even if you're not using Sneak Attack dice for it.
"If you choose the Ready option for this Cunning Action, you may only ready a single attack. You may set aside some of this turn's unused Sneak Attack dice for this Reaction attack, but no other Sneak Attack dice will be usable with that readied attack. Whether you do so or not, the attack readied this way may only be made using a finesse weapon or ranged weapon."
I was thinking more along the lines of something that encourages riskier play but for greater rewards.
So Sneak Attack would apply on advantage or adjacent ally as normal, but you can only Sneak Attack once per round (once you've landed one, you can't do so again until your next turn).
But to compensate you might instead get an auto-crit if you were hidden from your target at the start of the turn (needs to be set up in advance), or attack it from behind with a melee strike and an adjacent ally of yours (heavily encourages the enemy to focus its attention on you instead) etc. Assassins might still have the benefit of being able to do this automatically in the first round, and/or maybe they roll their criticals twice and use the better damage?
It's just an idea but I actually agreed with the once per round sneak attack limitation in the earlier Rogue playtest, but they implemented it horribly as it only worked on your own turn, so you could no longer Ready an ambush attack, and they got nothing to compensate the loss of the double Sneak Attack which, while strong, wasn't exactly game breaking as Rogues are still relatively fragile – the main problem was that a Rogue that didn't build for that effectively had half the damage of ones who did.
So I'd like to see them limited again to a once per round Sneak Attack (can be on anyone's turn depending upon how you set it up, just not multiple turns per round) but with a way to boost it by taking bigger risks to encourage more "Rogue-like" play (in the sense of playing a Rogue, not the videogames that are designed to kill you a lot). Because it feels like 5e Rogues have drifted away from the sneaky back-stabbers into just being a mostly ranged platform as there isn't much advantage to the riskier melee builds.
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.
Another cute idea (again, I think Rogue is fine): Bonus Action "committed attack" where you add PB-D6 to your sneak attack damage if you hit. So you're forgoing Hide/Disengage/etc (more risk) for more damage, that scales better than a regular off-hand attack, and puts more weight on a single attack roll.
There is the paladin for that.
And I don't think this is what people actually discussed previously.
Oh yes, we all know how much Paladins dominate at skill checks or using their spell slots to do anything besides smite and occasionally heal.
The thing is: being a skill-monkey should not be free. It shouldn't be the only thing a class can do, but if a class is stronger in one area, it should expect to be weaker in others.
other than monk, they have democratized being good at skills now. You have casters who have various abilities that achieve similar things to skills, and martials, who now have boosts to skills.
Not to mention classes in 5e are not really designed with that weakness theory in mind. They are designed to align to a class fantasy. Wizards have no weak area, Sorcerers have no weak area. Warlocks have no weak area. I dont think clerics or paladins have a weak area.
classes mostly arent good at certain things because it doesnt align with thier fantasy, not because they need to be bad it. Wizards have low HP, because that lines up with the concept, but they arent actually defensively weak. Clerics, are tough, strong, and deadly, because the concept of the armored cleric demands it.
If all the other classes were designed to be weak in some areas to balance strengths in others then it would make sense, but thats not the case in the current iteration of UA. And skill monkey is not really an appropriate defining fantasy for the rogue concept.
even if you subscribe to that school, they are still too far behind without off turn attacks to be considered OK balance for their skill proficiencies.
Knock is basically mastery of locks, and the wizard isnt a weakling in exchange for it.
People have been talking about the martial caster imbalance for a long time, it seems WotC hasn't really done anything in one D&D to address it frankly but this is separate to where rogue compares to the non-casters and half-casters.
Wizards and Sorcerers definitely have weak areas, they are the lowest HP classes in the game and get about the least proficiencies for weapons and armor of any classes, in fact neither Wizard or Sorcerer can don armour via their base class proficiencies, which is a part of the issue with races that granted medium armour proficiency. This makes them the classes with the lowest survivability, now there are spells like mage armour and shield that help but those are using the precious spell casting resources, so they have a weakness in terms of survivability and that most of their actions are limited by a resource.
Paladin sucks at ranged combat and sucks at stealth, sure there are DEX builds that are possible but then you lose damage, AC and the ability to multiclass well with most of those given that Paladin is a MAD class, paladin is also reliant on a long rest resource. Cleric is pretty strong for sure, they get some truly terrifying spell combos, at least one D&D is breaking the spiritual weapon & Guardian spirits combo.
Warlock's strong and weak points are the most varied of any class since it's the most customizable class in the game but it's near impossible to build a warlock that doesn't have some weakness or another. Warlock has the least slots of any caster, and while they recover on short rest, it leads to warlocks basically needing a lot rests, at least one d&d is giving 1 free recharge of a slot? not sure it overly addresses the issue but WotC only attempt at fixing that was to move warlock to the same half-caster progression as Paladin, Ranger & Artificer with mystic arcanum to patch it up (at a horrible level of invocation tax).
This all said, party dependence is not the same thing as weakness, it is not about what classes have what weaknesses but about what each class brings to the party. A paladin, fighter or barbarian brings a strong martial fighter who can take damage and stand on the front lines, a druid, cleric or bard brings strong amount of party support while a Wizard, sorcerer or warlock brings magical firepower and rogue, ranger and bard brings skill monkey to the table. Of course in this you probably see an issue, monk was never mentioned while bard was mentioned twice, it's also not inconceivable that paladin could potentially be considered a support either, but most of paladin's "support" is close ranged to themselves for most of the game. This is overly simplifying things a bit but people saying rogue ain't brining stuff to the table, are misguided.
Yes and I can't wait the day for that statement to be applied impartially everywhere.
Until then I think people can share their feedback.
To focus. The current trend was, correct me if I'm wrong, given the reinforcement of skills in others class due to popular demands, could the rogue have a combat reinforcement, and it was actually not directly aimed at raw dammage but more staple options. Seems fair to me.
Like u said. Stronger in one area weaker in others.
To extend that I don't think spells, abilities, heal, or mitigation have been factored yet. Should they ? Rogue has some good abilities but its restricted, and its an easy lever to pull out (and they started it).
Any stage of developpement requires compromise. Just be honest with everything.
1) More classes can be good at skills, sure - but few can be as great at them as rogues, due to 4 starting skills + Thieves Tools, 4x Expertise, Reliable Talent, Bonus ASI, and Stroke of Luck, all of which are purely from the base class before backgrounds, species traits, and subclasses are considered.
2) Knock is not "mastery of locks." It's a last resort if you don't have a skillmonkey. It's loud enough that you might as well have had the Barbarian bash it open and alert all the guards that way. (Hell, the Barbarian might actually be better, at least you can Silence him.)
Knock in 5e is low enough value that I generally don't even bother to learn it. If I don't care about stealth, there are no shortage of ways through a door other than picking the lock.
The only real benefit of the knock spell is having someone else that can bust locks when things start going wrong (enemies are onto you already), or if you encounter an arcane lock and all else fails. It's not a terrible one to have prepared for a heist, but as a general spell you always have ready it's a tougher sell unless the party lacks a Rogue or anyone else that can fill-in (like an Artificer, high Dexterity criminal etc.).
First choice is, and should always be, a properly equipped Rogue; others can fill in but nobody's going to be better as only a Rogue can get expertise in thieves' tools, combined with Reliable Talent they can beating DC 20+ locks without even trying.
In the playtest Rogues get Reliable Talent earlier now (7th-level) but they don't seem to get expertise in thieves' tools anymore, but I'm not sure if that means anything or not; they've briefly talked about changes to how tools work but we haven't heard anything since. A lot of groups just use sleight of hand and treat thieves tools as a bonus (e.g- advantage) but I'm not sure if we know how that's going to be written yet. Tools have always been a poorly written section of the 5e rules.
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.
Oh, not more damage, but more options? Like something where you could sacrifice some damage to impose one of a variety of conditions? Like the very thing that has been added in the UA via Cunning Strike?
Let's be honest here, it is not about more options. There are already tons of options in the game, it's just that currently you have to sacrifice damage to do non-damage things. Which makes sense - some classes specialize in damage and have minimal out-of-combat options, others specialize in out of combat options and have lower damage - but it appears that players don't like that design. Instead they want every class to be able to do everything, equally well. This will inevitably lead to power-creep because without classes having distinct roles, there will always be the class that is just "the best" at everything, and a class that is "the worst" at everything, and people will argue for that "the worst" class to be buffed up to be at least average, leaving a new class to be "the worst" and moving the average upwards. Repeat the cycle until every class is an OP nightmare and we need a whole new edition to reset the game.
Why are people specifically trying to make off-turn sneak attack a feature?
What possible character fantasy is "I can't sneak attack twice when attacking, but through some magic, when it isn't my turn any more, I can sneak attack one more time" possibly fulfilling?
Who is actually excited about having to sneak attack, then ready-action-when-I'm-done-I'm-going-to-sneak-attack-again?
Stop with this silly nonsense, I beg you.
Stabbing an enemy in the back when they turn and move away from you is an extremely rogue-ish thing to do. The problem is exclusively is the stupid combo with Haste & Ready action. To be honest, a lot of exploits in D&D rely on inappropriate use of the Ready action, Readying an action for "when my turn ends" or for "at the start of their turn" are illegal meta-gaming clauses. In the in-game world turns do not exist and character/creatures don't know when it is / isn't another creature's turn.
the issue is, if they don't use it, they are approximately a whole sneak attacks worth of damage behind other characters in mid and high levels. And they already had a rogue who didnt have access to it, and people didnt like it. People liked to tactically use sneak attack, not always for more damage, but often a set up.
And the concept of attacking off your turn, doesnt require magic, It just represents a class that is reactive, or predictive, and both line up with the fanatsy of rogue.
This is the situation
If rogue needs to land off turn sneak attacks to compete with other classes damage, (and this is both casters and martials) and we should not remove off turn sneak attacks, How can the rogue be competitive with other classes.
Who is talking about a heist? thats a specific circumstance, In a heist, you can prepare any number of solutions to a problem. Generally speaking in dungeons, people kill monsters, combat is not quiet, you kill the enemies, then you investigate and open things.
Are you really suggestion rogues are designed to exist solely to open treasures quietly while on a heist? that is a microscopic use case. And it generally doesnt require a rogue. Knock is just one example, invisible, silence, pass without a trace, comprehend languages, charm, jump, longstrider, expeditious retreat, These things you claim you must have a rogue for, don't require a rogue at all. That's the casters, then you have the martials, Barbarian with advantage, best stat, and eventually minimum roll = strength stat. Fighter with +5.5 to a roll they fail. Artificers adding int to anyones roll. Yall are living in another time. Or a world you wish existed.
Right now, the floor on martial's dps has been raised, the floor on martial's versatility is closer to casters. Rogue 'skill monkeyness' was always a questionable reasoning for their other flaws. But now, It makes no sense. People are in general, better at o o combat use cases, and generally had their floor damage raised for normal play.