I'm not saying I dont worry about numbers, I'm saying that was the instruction of WOTC. I personally think, numbers will effect feedback. So when people commented on rogue, it was mostly just how good the features seem. They also didnt know what many classes final form will be. But now, they said classes are close to complete. So you can have a better idea of where things stand, barring changes.
Assassin is ehhhh currently. at 17 it may become an assassin but under that, its a bit anemic. Everyone can use traps, but traps are mostly bad due to never scaling. Likewise poisons, unless the DM will allow rare powerful poisons, and poisons also have monster immunity to deal with.
like I said, i'm far from the only one with an issue. I didnt create this thread, I'm just more inclined to debate the issue. There are Bunch of unconnected people, and their reasoning and number are valid. If they make changes, it won't be based on the current surveys, because the current surveys have no question about rogue.
And I'm not approaching this from an 'encroachment' mindset. I don't think other classes are too good and need to be weakened. Most of the changes make sense and fit the fantasy. A barbarian, stalking their prey like wild animals makes a lot of sense. Fighters using tactics/learning to be better at skills makes sense. Rogue currently is almost fine, its damage is just undertuned relative to other classes. Or it could have some other new mechanic I haven't thought of that can make it lag less in combat
basically this is the type of thing number crunchers will notice first, reg players will notice it as they play campaigns. I tested the rogue thief, it was fun to try to use traps and object interactions, but reality was its damage was questionable.
we showed some simplified calculations of t1 and t2 rogue, but the gap continues to be very large later on. I think I can make a build on any class that steps on rogue in damage.
the thing is, they can't patch this stuff later. This will always represent the baseline rogue experience, and, if bard still gets access to a decent spell list, it will be the lowest dps in a class by a noticeable margin. (unless they get off turn play off) I don't know if its a good idea for rogue to need to be half fighter, or a have a BM buddy to be on par.
and especially if they create better monsters, and more t3 and t4 monsters/content as they claimed they are planning via MM and DMG.
Yes, any class can use traps, dunno why you'd think it'd be Rogue exclusive, they aren't the highest damage but they are effective, more so in choke points. A hunting trap basically reduces a creature to 0 movement until a strength check is passed, causing basically a blockage in the choke point is strong.
Assassin gives you advantage on initiative, advantage on attacks against any creature that hasn't had a moved yet (on 1st round) and adds your level to the sneak attack damage on the first round, it's a lot of extra damage and when mixed with the surprised condition. The fact they even are looking at removing the auto critical hit you use to be able to get, should be telling of just how well Assassin was doing with surprise, if Rogue was really in a poor position, you'd be seeing a lot more people complaining about that since a guaranteed critical hit would add more than rogue level, in damage.
The numbers have mostly not been valid, I've even pointed out before where you've made some bad assumptions, like only using a single weapon on a rogue, or completely ignoring the Arcane Trickster subclass. You also made assumptions like a barbarian can reckless attack every round of every combat, like there is no issue with doing that when a barbarian that reckless attacks that much is going to fold in combat, it also works on assumptions that melee based martial are always in melee range. All rogues can work in melee or medium range (~30 foot) and have very little impact on their damage, as long as rogue gets their sneak attack off.
Poisons in 5E are weak damage outside of Purple Worm Poison and Wyvern Poison, sure, the poisoned condition is not weak just a lot of immune creatures. The UA has literally added the Cunning Strike option to poison which switches 1d6 sneak attack damage (~3.5) to inflict the poisoned condition, which against vulnerable creatures gives them disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, all you need for this is to have a poisoner's kit on you (you don't even need poisoner's proficiency), so against all creatures not immune to the poisoned condition, rogue is now very much more effective. An assassin at level 13 gets to add 2d6 poison damage and ignores poison resistance (but not immunity). Yes poison has a lot of immunity, it's about 1/4th of all monsters (undead, fiends, elementals & constructions mostly), but on the flip side that is about 3/4ths it works against and as you aren't specifically speccing into poison, it's good on those that aren't immune. Most the time poison sucks because you actually have to spec specifically into it but rogue's cunning strike option is merely one option among many.
Overall, I believe rogue is in a really good spot and I really don't see any valid justification that indicates any actual issue for Rogue at all, it's mostly people just complaining that other classes can now expand vital resources to temporarily infringe on rogue's territory for a very short duration of time, most of the time being not worthwhile options or just make playing the game without NEEDING a rogue, more viable. Rogue is in my opinion still in a position where it's impact on a party is still too high, you get thieves' tool proficiency (the most used toolkit in the game), you get a very healthy access to skills, which you can get expertise in which is permanently active, and the complaint is that Barbarian can maybe sneak half-way around a dungeon, cas in 99% of tables, DMs are not going to go at the weird speeds you implied as if characters permanently in battle and that they instantly scan a room, get through doors and bypass all traps and remembering that two of these activities barbarian gets nothing in (thieves' tools) and your fighter is burning second winds on picking locks and disarming traps...
It's just way too out there to think that all the ability checks and actions a rogue takes can be replaced by these new features, it really can't and for a strength based fighter, they are going to be at a huge disadvantage, and still at a disadvantage on normal skill check. Yes a fighter can add a 1d10 to a failed check, but if that is a stealth check they got a 9 on (6(die)+3(prof)+0(dex)), it's still far behind the rogue that got a 20 (10(reliable talent)+6+4) at level 7, so for strength based fighter, they don't even have a chance and if they take disadvantage on top from armour... too far behind, a dex based fighter is a little better but then a dex based fighter is more in the realms as an alternative to a rogue or ranger and not the front-line tank like a str based fighter/paladin/barbarian. If anything this thread seems more to be complaining that other martial classes that aren't rogue, can have at least some fun when there isn't a rogue about.
ok, we debated math for pages, my conclusion imo are still valid, that rogue does significantly less damage than other martials and its a problem.
but you don't believe me, or the other exhaustive analysis out there. Fine.
let me ask this instead, at what ratio of damage would you say rogue has a problem that needs to be corrected.
lets say(hypothetical) the average of monk/fighter/barbarian damage is 100dpr (to make the math easy) at what dpr does the rogue have a problem that needs correcting. Assuming all the other factors are as they are in one dnd (access to skills, survivability, support etc)
is 50dpr ok? 75dpr?
just so we can get an understanding of what each of us would theoretically find acceptable.
I feel like people bringing up that Tactical Mind shares its resource with the Fighter's self-heal are forgetting that Second Wind is actually a rather unreliable and poorly-scaling source of healing. d10 + Fighter level can whiff easily and is quickly outpaced beyond early levels, especially when Tactical Mind doesn't cost anything at all if it doesn't help you pass the check.
It's still a limited resource if it does. A given exploration scene can have half a dozen or more checks as you and your party sneak around, follow tracks, look for traps, spot hidden creatures or secret passages, examine bodies, recall knowledge about what you find, traverse obstacles and gaps, and more. A given social interaction scene can involve diplomacy, deception, browbeating, intuition, reading body language, picking up on lies or half-truths and more.
The fighter starts with a whopping TWO uses of Tactical Mind per rest (and you only get one use back on a short rest, not both), which eventually increases all the way to four. If you're relying on that to be on par with the rogue, your ability to do so is very limited at all levels. The rogue meanwhile doesn't care how many checks are in a given scene, the abilities they get to overcome them (except for Stroke of Luck) are constant/passive. Hell, they can even keep exploring or interacting while the fighter is resting, since they themselves may not need to. If your table and Gwar1's can't find any ways to make that differentiation matter, the problem is your tables, not the game.
And all of the above is assuming you never need Second Wind for healing either.
Yes, any class can use traps, dunno why you'd think it'd be Rogue exclusive, they aren't the highest damage but they are effective, more so in choke points. A hunting trap basically reduces a creature to 0 movement until a strength check is passed, causing basically a blockage in the choke point is strong.
Assassin gives you advantage on initiative, advantage on attacks against any creature that hasn't had a moved yet (on 1st round) and adds your level to the sneak attack damage on the first round, it's a lot of extra damage and when mixed with the surprised condition. The fact they even are looking at removing the auto critical hit you use to be able to get, should be telling of just how well Assassin was doing with surprise, if Rogue was really in a poor position, you'd be seeing a lot more people complaining about that since a guaranteed critical hit would add more than rogue level, in damage.
The numbers have mostly not been valid, I've even pointed out before where you've made some bad assumptions, like only using a single weapon on a rogue, or completely ignoring the Arcane Trickster subclass. You also made assumptions like a barbarian can reckless attack every round of every combat, like there is no issue with doing that when a barbarian that reckless attacks that much is going to fold in combat, it also works on assumptions that melee based martial are always in melee range. All rogues can work in melee or medium range (~30 foot) and have very little impact on their damage, as long as rogue gets their sneak attack off.
Poisons in 5E are weak damage outside of Purple Worm Poison and Wyvern Poison, sure, the poisoned condition is not weak just a lot of immune creatures. The UA has literally added the Cunning Strike option to poison which switches 1d6 sneak attack damage (~3.5) to inflict the poisoned condition, which against vulnerable creatures gives them disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, all you need for this is to have a poisoner's kit on you (you don't even need poisoner's proficiency), so against all creatures not immune to the poisoned condition, rogue is now very much more effective. An assassin at level 13 gets to add 2d6 poison damage and ignores poison resistance (but not immunity). Yes poison has a lot of immunity, it's about 1/4th of all monsters (undead, fiends, elementals & constructions mostly), but on the flip side that is about 3/4ths it works against and as you aren't specifically speccing into poison, it's good on those that aren't immune. Most the time poison sucks because you actually have to spec specifically into it but rogue's cunning strike option is merely one option among many.
Overall, I believe rogue is in a really good spot and I really don't see any valid justification that indicates any actual issue for Rogue at all, it's mostly people just complaining that other classes can now expand vital resources to temporarily infringe on rogue's territory for a very short duration of time, most of the time being not worthwhile options or just make playing the game without NEEDING a rogue, more viable. Rogue is in my opinion still in a position where it's impact on a party is still too high, you get thieves' tool proficiency (the most used toolkit in the game), you get a very healthy access to skills, which you can get expertise in which is permanently active, and the complaint is that Barbarian can maybe sneak half-way around a dungeon, cas in 99% of tables, DMs are not going to go at the weird speeds you implied as if characters permanently in battle and that they instantly scan a room, get through doors and bypass all traps and remembering that two of these activities barbarian gets nothing in (thieves' tools) and your fighter is burning second winds on picking locks and disarming traps...
It's just way too out there to think that all the ability checks and actions a rogue takes can be replaced by these new features, it really can't and for a strength based fighter, they are going to be at a huge disadvantage, and still at a disadvantage on normal skill check. Yes a fighter can add a 1d10 to a failed check, but if that is a stealth check they got a 9 on (6(die)+3(prof)+0(dex)), it's still far behind the rogue that got a 20 (10(reliable talent)+6+4) at level 7, so for strength based fighter, they don't even have a chance and if they take disadvantage on top from armour... too far behind, a dex based fighter is a little better but then a dex based fighter is more in the realms as an alternative to a rogue or ranger and not the front-line tank like a str based fighter/paladin/barbarian. If anything this thread seems more to be complaining that other martial classes that aren't rogue, can have at least some fun when there isn't a rogue about.
ok, we debated math for pages, my conclusion imo are still valid, that rogue does significantly less damage than other martials and its a problem.
but you don't believe me, or the other exhaustive analysis out there. Fine.
let me ask this instead, at what ratio of damage would you say rogue has a problem that needs to be corrected.
lets say(hypothetical) the average of monk/fighter/barbarian damage is 100dpr (to make the math easy) at what dpr does the rogue have a problem that needs correcting. Assuming all the other factors are as they are in one dnd (access to skills, survivability, support etc)
is 50dpr ok? 75dpr?
just so we can get an understanding of what each of us would theoretically find acceptable.
For same level? An optimized rogue to optimized fighter is fine at 66.7 to 100, with a normal rogue to a normal fighter build being more like 80 to 100 being fine. A fighter that optimizes only for combat should shine in it because they aren't doing well in any other area, if they do not fully optimize then the gap should be smaller. Rogue already shines in exploration, they have specialised things like thieves cant and one other additional language which means they can get social encounters that only they can deal with.
Ignoring feats and subclasses for the minute, going shortsword and scimitar vs a greatsword. This is basically base class vs base class with weapon mastery and assuming rogue sneak attacks first chance they get and that they can sneak attack on any attack. I am assuming GWF so 2d6 will be 8.33 instead of 7 for the greatsword.
Base class vs Base class, fighter and rogue are really close to each other on passive damage and so it really is just down to fighter gets action surge. But what this means is to get to the points you're complaining about, it requires optimizing feats which is not a base class issue, it is a feat issue. Now I'm not going to bother doing a subclass vs. subclass comparison of every subclass, different subclasses do fundamentally different things and an arcane trickster remains competitive with most of the higher damage fighter subclasses, fighter has more damage focused subclasses but battlemaster is likely the main comparison. Magic weapons will slightly favour fighter from level 11+ since it's 3 attacks vs. 2 attacks but magic items and weapons already make things messier to begin with.
Feats, could there be more feats for damage for Rogue? possibly, but this isn't something that can't be remedied later on, it can. However another fundamental point is that the optimized rogue build is something you've been avoiding, it's the 2-hand crossbow build you can get at level 10. What you do do is take the feats weapon training (level 4), crossbow expert (level 8) and finally sharpshooter (level 10). All those feats give dexterity +1 as an option, so you get your +5 modifier at level 10, you can from level 8 make two crossbow attacks per round to which you get to add your ability modifier to both attacks, get advantage to most attacks (vex), you ignore the distance penalty for being within 5 foot, and can from level 10, increase the range you do this from, from 30 foot to 120 foot. So Overall, no, sorry, I just don't see it from your perspective. Rogue optimized for damage can be doing only 66.7% of an optimized fighters damage and still be perfectly fine.
So it may even be the case that the % could be lower than 66.7%, because you're comparing a class that does it's most optimal damage at a range of 120 foot against one that does it's most optimal damage only within 10 foot, using a build that needs to stand on the front lines and has to invest primarily into strength, and thus heavy armour (incurring the disadvantage to stealth). For fighters to be anywhere near as competitive on skill checks as you've been going on, they can't also be this heavily melee focused build with polearms, it simply does not go together.
I feel like people bringing up that Tactical Mind shares its resource with the Fighter's self-heal are forgetting that Second Wind is actually a rather unreliable and poorly-scaling source of healing. d10 + Fighter level can whiff easily and is quickly outpaced beyond early levels, especially when Tactical Mind doesn't cost anything at all if it doesn't help you pass the check.
It's still a limited resource if it does. A given exploration scene can have half a dozen or more checks as you and your party sneak around, follow tracks, look for traps, spot hidden creatures or secret passages, examine bodies, recall knowledge about what you find, traverse obstacles and gaps, and more. A given social interaction scene can involve diplomacy, deception, browbeating, intuition, reading body language, picking up on lies or half-truths and more.
The fighter starts with a whopping TWO uses of Tactical Mind per rest (and you only get one use back on a short rest, not both), which eventually increases all the way to four. If you're relying on that to be on par with the rogue, your ability to do so is very limited at all levels. The rogue meanwhile doesn't care how many checks are in a given scene, the abilities they get to overcome them (except for Stroke of Luck) are constant/passive. Hell, they can even keep exploring or interacting while the fighter is resting, since they themselves may not need to. If your table and Gwar1's can't find any ways to make that differentiation matter, the problem is your tables, not the game.
And all of the above is assuming you never need Second Wind for healing either.
Since you mentioned my name, I must say;
You clearly misunderstood my point this whole time.
The point is not that tactical mind, or primal knowledge destroys any value of rogue, the point is its no longer a black and white issue as it was in 2014, that rogue was the only martial with good skill use.
These other classes can at times equal or surpass rogue, and in other cases rogue is better. Tactical mind essentially allows fighter to make a few hard valuable skill checks per day. Primal knowledge+rage makes barbarian great at hunting, intimidating, and ambushing enemies preferably in pre or post combat situations.
This is a way better skill, and martial design. Martials needed to be good at skills in ways that tie into their class fantasy. This is good. No objections.
the issue is,
if 2014 rogue was considered 'balanced' based on the fact that it was far and away king of martial skill use, and its was able to do 80% of your average martials DPS,
then how is it still balanced now that the average martial dps has increased(but rogue's hasnt) and the average martial has gained better skill use, that in some situations surpasses rogue?
hypothetically;
if in 2014 rogue dpr =80%martialdpr while rogue skill =200%martial skillpower is balanced
how is 2024 rogue dpr=65%martialdpr while rogue skill =150%martial skill power
not underpowered?
the numbers are just examples, the key is they are relatively lower in both metrics in 2024.
this only makes sense if you think rogues were relatively overpowered in 2014, which I definitely do not.
or if you believe in 2024, skillpowers value has increased drastically, which I definitely do not.
now, you could claim rogues dpr isnt a lower %, but thats just not true in most cases(unless they offturn), and/or you could claim they aren't relatively less dominant in skills than they were, but doing so would imply primal knowledge, tactical mind, new deft explorer, etc provide no value.
Yes, any class can use traps, dunno why you'd think it'd be Rogue exclusive, they aren't the highest damage but they are effective, more so in choke points. A hunting trap basically reduces a creature to 0 movement until a strength check is passed, causing basically a blockage in the choke point is strong.
Assassin gives you advantage on initiative, advantage on attacks against any creature that hasn't had a moved yet (on 1st round) and adds your level to the sneak attack damage on the first round, it's a lot of extra damage and when mixed with the surprised condition. The fact they even are looking at removing the auto critical hit you use to be able to get, should be telling of just how well Assassin was doing with surprise, if Rogue was really in a poor position, you'd be seeing a lot more people complaining about that since a guaranteed critical hit would add more than rogue level, in damage.
The numbers have mostly not been valid, I've even pointed out before where you've made some bad assumptions, like only using a single weapon on a rogue, or completely ignoring the Arcane Trickster subclass. You also made assumptions like a barbarian can reckless attack every round of every combat, like there is no issue with doing that when a barbarian that reckless attacks that much is going to fold in combat, it also works on assumptions that melee based martial are always in melee range. All rogues can work in melee or medium range (~30 foot) and have very little impact on their damage, as long as rogue gets their sneak attack off.
Poisons in 5E are weak damage outside of Purple Worm Poison and Wyvern Poison, sure, the poisoned condition is not weak just a lot of immune creatures. The UA has literally added the Cunning Strike option to poison which switches 1d6 sneak attack damage (~3.5) to inflict the poisoned condition, which against vulnerable creatures gives them disadvantage on ability checks and attack rolls, all you need for this is to have a poisoner's kit on you (you don't even need poisoner's proficiency), so against all creatures not immune to the poisoned condition, rogue is now very much more effective. An assassin at level 13 gets to add 2d6 poison damage and ignores poison resistance (but not immunity). Yes poison has a lot of immunity, it's about 1/4th of all monsters (undead, fiends, elementals & constructions mostly), but on the flip side that is about 3/4ths it works against and as you aren't specifically speccing into poison, it's good on those that aren't immune. Most the time poison sucks because you actually have to spec specifically into it but rogue's cunning strike option is merely one option among many.
Overall, I believe rogue is in a really good spot and I really don't see any valid justification that indicates any actual issue for Rogue at all, it's mostly people just complaining that other classes can now expand vital resources to temporarily infringe on rogue's territory for a very short duration of time, most of the time being not worthwhile options or just make playing the game without NEEDING a rogue, more viable. Rogue is in my opinion still in a position where it's impact on a party is still too high, you get thieves' tool proficiency (the most used toolkit in the game), you get a very healthy access to skills, which you can get expertise in which is permanently active, and the complaint is that Barbarian can maybe sneak half-way around a dungeon, cas in 99% of tables, DMs are not going to go at the weird speeds you implied as if characters permanently in battle and that they instantly scan a room, get through doors and bypass all traps and remembering that two of these activities barbarian gets nothing in (thieves' tools) and your fighter is burning second winds on picking locks and disarming traps...
It's just way too out there to think that all the ability checks and actions a rogue takes can be replaced by these new features, it really can't and for a strength based fighter, they are going to be at a huge disadvantage, and still at a disadvantage on normal skill check. Yes a fighter can add a 1d10 to a failed check, but if that is a stealth check they got a 9 on (6(die)+3(prof)+0(dex)), it's still far behind the rogue that got a 20 (10(reliable talent)+6+4) at level 7, so for strength based fighter, they don't even have a chance and if they take disadvantage on top from armour... too far behind, a dex based fighter is a little better but then a dex based fighter is more in the realms as an alternative to a rogue or ranger and not the front-line tank like a str based fighter/paladin/barbarian. If anything this thread seems more to be complaining that other martial classes that aren't rogue, can have at least some fun when there isn't a rogue about.
ok, we debated math for pages, my conclusion imo are still valid, that rogue does significantly less damage than other martials and its a problem.
but you don't believe me, or the other exhaustive analysis out there. Fine.
let me ask this instead, at what ratio of damage would you say rogue has a problem that needs to be corrected.
lets say(hypothetical) the average of monk/fighter/barbarian damage is 100dpr (to make the math easy) at what dpr does the rogue have a problem that needs correcting. Assuming all the other factors are as they are in one dnd (access to skills, survivability, support etc)
is 50dpr ok? 75dpr?
just so we can get an understanding of what each of us would theoretically find acceptable.
For same level? An optimized rogue to optimized fighter is fine at 66.7 to 100, with a normal rogue to a normal fighter build being more like 80 to 100 being fine. A fighter that optimizes only for combat should shine in it because they aren't doing well in any other area, if they do not fully optimize then the gap should be smaller. Rogue already shines in exploration, they have specialised things like thieves cant and one other additional language which means they can get social encounters that only they can deal with.
Ignoring feats and subclasses for the minute, going shortsword and scimitar vs a greatsword. This is basically base class vs base class with weapon mastery and assuming rogue sneak attacks first chance they get and that they can sneak attack on any attack. I am assuming GWF so 2d6 will be 8.33 instead of 7 for the greatsword.
Base class vs Base class, fighter and rogue are really close to each other on passive damage and so it really is just down to fighter gets action surge. But what this means is to get to the points you're complaining about, it requires optimizing feats which is not a base class issue, it is a feat issue. Now I'm not going to bother doing a subclass vs. subclass comparison of every subclass, different subclasses do fundamentally different things and an arcane trickster remains competitive with most of the higher damage fighter subclasses, fighter has more damage focused subclasses but battlemaster is likely the main comparison. Magic weapons will slightly favour fighter from level 11+ since it's 3 attacks vs. 2 attacks but magic items and weapons already make things messier to begin with.
Feats, could there be more feats for damage for Rogue? possibly, but this isn't something that can't be remedied later on, it can. However another fundamental point is that the optimized rogue build is something you've been avoiding, it's the 2-hand crossbow build you can get at level 10. What you do do is take the feats weapon training (level 4), crossbow expert (level 8) and finally sharpshooter (level 10). All those feats give dexterity +1 as an option, so you get your +5 modifier at level 10, you can from level 8 make two crossbow attacks per round to which you get to add your ability modifier to both attacks, get advantage to most attacks (vex), you ignore the distance penalty for being within 5 foot, and can from level 10, increase the range you do this from, from 30 foot to 120 foot. So Overall, no, sorry, I just don't see it from your perspective. Rogue optimized for damage can be doing only 66.7% of an optimized fighters damage and still be perfectly fine.
So it may even be the case that the % could be lower than 66.7%, because you're comparing a class that does it's most optimal damage at a range of 120 foot against one that does it's most optimal damage only within 10 foot, using a build that needs to stand on the front lines and has to invest primarily into strength, and thus heavy armour (incurring the disadvantage to stealth). For fighters to be anywhere near as competitive on skill checks as you've been going on, they can't also be this heavily melee focused build with polearms, it simply does not go together.
ignoring feats in a rogue versus fighter analysis is a problem, since not only does the fighter receive feats as class features, but rogue doesnt benefit nearly as much from feats. Likewise ignoring subclasses, though understandable due to complexity, also favors rogue since their subclasses often give no dpr, while that is rare for fighter.
I won't debate this with you, but I'll leave some one else's more detailed analysis, if you care, its fine if you don't
regardless to those numbers, I sort of agree, I think the normal rogue should be around 85%, however I think the optimized dpr rogue should also be around 85%. I don't see the need to increase the relative power, especially that drastically, considering other classes don't pay this type of tax for OoC power.
so, our major difference is you don't believe rogues are as far behind as I do, and you think optimized dpr rogues should be pretty bad at dpr.
for tldr of the data I linked in the context of this discussion.
the normal rogue is about 50-60% of the simple monk. (mercy monk just doing basics)
the optimized rogue is about 65%ish of optimized fighter.
also as an aside, the guy shows a rogue/fighter being pretty high up there, and gaining virtually all the skill benefits of rogue. Take that as you will, since MC is optional, and not the primary balance, but yeah.
ignoring feats in a rogue versus fighter analysis is a problem, since not only does the fighter receive feats as class features, but rogue doesnt benefit nearly as much from feats. Likewise ignoring subclasses, though understandable due to complexity, also favors rogue since their subclasses often give no dpr, while that is rare for fighter.
Ignoring feats isn't an issue, it's an assessment of the base class itself, which is important, if the issue were in the base class, you'd see it in the numbers I supplied, clearly rogue as a BASE CLASS, does not have any issues.
You can't really compare the numbers they have here because they don't even have Arcane Trickster listed, if you're looking for the optimal damage then it will be Arcane Trickster, but since I can be bothered enough to actually read through this, there are numerous issues with the numbers they put together for EK (Action surge damage /4? that is assuming action surge every 4 turns of combat! picking up Shillelagh from no where... and basically requires more than 1 Bonus Action per turn to actually be feasible). We can also tell that the Rogues here weren't probably optimized, since it should be apparent that most builds don't mention feats past level 10... all the fighter ones mention them up to level 19, so that is 3 missing feats for all the rogue builds (12, 14, 19). And then despite all of this, it's near the 66.7% line that it should be near.
They have the Rogue Assassin down as 39.27 DPR at level 10
So how much does an Arcane Trickster do at level 10, well let's look at the following build:
Savage Attacker (Lucky is technically better but harder to simulate in maths), Skulker (4th level), Elven Accuracy (8th level), Charger (10th level). With savage attacker, 2d8 would average 10.85 instead of 9, for a critical 20.6 instead of 18. Anydice
If you're in dim light or darkness, you have advantage every attack, if you do not, you switch the scimitar for a short sword to vex the target, 65% of the time you have advantage, that is an average DPR of 40.667830451. So anywhere with dim light or darkness, you're doing 10% over more damage with almost a full 5 more DPR, without those, you're still doing over 1 more DPR. Personally I think Lucky is far better but it can't be mapped like this, you won't get solid numbers, the ability to create advantage where you didn't have advantage means even less missed critical hit opportunities, Lucky would be significantly more useful to Rogue than Fighter for this and the fact fighter just does less damage on a per hit basis.
This maths is complicated and needs a lot of checking but my point stands, Arcane Trickster is the best DPR subclass for rogue.
Now, if you're comparing it to some weird shillelagh build Eldritch Knight that is not even build legal, since it states Magic Initiate Warlock and somehow has Shillelagh from an unknown source, then you might see why I have some issues with those numbers. Personally I will give benefit of doubt and say it was meant to be Magic Initiate Druid but even then the numbers assume you always have hex/hunter's mark on your target, so you get the full power of a Bonus Action attack, which would make EK look way more powerful than it is but except for BBEGs, I really don't think you're gunna see that occur too often. I can tell this, because I cross compared to the spreadsheet and noticed how it's dealing with the Hex damage.
Personally I don't like this EK build, you only have 1 BA and you need 2 BAs to get up to having Shillelagh and Hunter's Mark/Hex up together, let alone if you need to re-apply Hunter's Mark/Hex, and also the fact there is a concentration spell on a tank, which is going to take damage. These numbers for this EK are theoretical, they are basically impossible to achieve in practice. It also does the sin of assuming an action surge every 4 rounds, which is very..... optimistic, if you only have 12 rounds of combats a day and 2 short rests, then yea... that could be possible, but I think it's too optimistic in favour of fighter. They do the same thing for Assassin with the level, that is probably why they have two columns for level (which is redundant but hey), but I can see it being closer to every 4 turns since it's basically per encounter and you would expect more encounters than uses of action surge in the average adventuring day.
I get what they are doing to get there, abusing the weapon swapping of their off-hand weapon, which is in itself an abuse that UA8 is trying to rectify and has gotten a step closer to stopping, they are abusing Master of Armaments with weapon swapping, using Vex, Nick and Push. They need Push to insist that they get the full booming blade damage (which if I used that for the Arcane Trickster, would increase the damage too), they also are using find familiar to insist they get an extra advantage a round, which again in practice... not always reliable, the UA4 version of find familiar would not work well with this, since the familiar always goes after you and other party members aren't going to hold back on attacking just because you want that advantage. this is all Hyper optimistic theoretical damage and that is why it seems so high.
Now if you say they are sticking to just PHB UAs switch Elven Accuracy for Dual Wielder and go with a Rapier for off-hand, still averages 39.5 DPR, which still beats the numbers in the spreadsheet for Assassin. Basically never underestimate the arcane trickster.
TL;DR the numbers you think are reliable, just simply aren't. That Spreadsheet is good but it's not perfect and it does have mistakes and flaws, it makes rogue look worse than it is and Eldritch Knight look way better than it actually is.
regardless to those numbers, I sort of agree, I think the normal rogue should be around 85%, however I think the optimized dpr rogue should also be around 85%. I don't see the need to increase the relative power, especially that drastically, considering other classes don't pay this type of tax for OoC power.
The reason is simple, an optimized Fighter has nothing else they can do, they put everything into just combat, an optimized rogue put their feats into combat but their class features, skills and their ASIs are simply more diverse. That STR based fighter isn't going to pass that many stealth checks even with tactical mind, they are going to struggle and most skill checks entirely, they have basically only one skill they are good at and that is Athletics, if they go STR > CON > DEX, tactical mind is not bridging the gap to stealth, sleight of hand, etc. If they got STR > CON > WIS against a rogue of DEX > CON > WIS, they might get an okay rivally on perception or insight but they fundamentally have two less skills to begin with, they are just not rivalling a skill monkey like Rogue. A fighter that is not optimized has likely picked up something else that they can do, maybe they picked up the actors feat, or they picked up Inspiring Leader, or maybe they picked up Observant to get that Perception or Insight expertise and the BA search action.
D&D basically requires engagement and classes and builds that have limited engagement, need to shine in those engagement areas, Rogue shines in that scout who can pick a lock in under a minute and spot the incoming orcs in the middle of the night, Rogue is basically not a class designed for maximizing damage, it is a class with a lot of party utility.
The point is not that tactical mind, or primal knowledge destroys any value of rogue, the point is its no longer a black and white issue as it was in 2014, that rogue was the only martial with good skill use.
...
These other classes can at times equal or surpass rogue, and in other cases rogue is better. Tactical mind essentially allows fighter to make a few hard valuable skill checks per day. Primal knowledge+rage makes barbarian great at hunting, intimidating, and ambushing enemies preferably in pre or post combat situations.
This is a way better skill, and martial design. Martials needed to be good at skills in ways that tie into their class fantasy. This is good. No objections.
I don't agree that numerically spiking above a rogue (which to be clear, if the rogue is built well this doesn't do that) once or twice per short rest by burning a combat resource = "surpassing rogue." The rogue not only never has to make such a tradeoff, to use it most effectively the other martials need to know in advance which skill checks are the best ones to burn their limited resources boosting, which no player will - only the DM has that information.
The best case scenario for the Barbarian is when two combats are exactly 9 minutes apart so that the rage they spent in the first fight lasts into the next one and on every relevant check in between. The worst case scenario is when they need to rage in the first combat, rage for out of combat stuff, and then rage again in the next combat with no short rest in between. But a lot of days will fall somewhere between these two extremes, where they at least have time to short rest and recover that rage they burned for out of combat things.
As for rogue - another source of routine advantage rogues have over other martials are tools, which they have much more room for in their chassis than fighters and barbarians do. The Xanathar's rules about tool + skill = advantage are becoming baseline in 2024, and the rogue is the one with a chassis that can allow them to easily pick up things like Forgery and Disguise kits etc in addition to their Thieves' Tools. The others, not so much.
ignoring feats in a rogue versus fighter analysis is a problem, since not only does the fighter receive feats as class features, but rogue doesnt benefit nearly as much from feats. Likewise ignoring subclasses, though understandable due to complexity, also favors rogue since their subclasses often give no dpr, while that is rare for fighter.
Ignoring feats isn't an issue, it's an assessment of the base class itself, which is important, if the issue were in the base class, you'd see it in the numbers I supplied, clearly rogue as a BASE CLASS, does not have any issues.
You can't really compare the numbers they have here because they don't even have Arcane Trickster listed, if you're looking for the optimal damage then it will be Arcane Trickster, but since I can be bothered enough to actually read through this, there are numerous issues with the numbers they put together for EK (Action surge damage /4? that is assuming action surge every 4 turns of combat! picking up Shillelagh from no where... and basically requires more than 1 Bonus Action per turn to actually be feasible). We can also tell that the Rogues here weren't probably optimized, since it should be apparent that most builds don't mention feats past level 10... all the fighter ones mention them up to level 19, so that is 3 missing feats for all the rogue builds (12, 14, 19). And then despite all of this, it's near the 66.7% line that it should be near.
They have the Rogue Assassin down as 39.27 DPR at level 10
So how much does an Arcane Trickster do at level 10, well let's look at the following build:
Savage Attacker (Lucky is technically better but harder to simulate in maths), Skulker (4th level), Elven Accuracy (8th level), Charger (10th level). With savage attacker, 2d8 would average 10.85 instead of 9, for a critical 20.6 instead of 18. Anydice
If you're in dim light or darkness, you have advantage every attack, if you do not, you switch the scimitar for a short sword to vex the target, 65% of the time you have advantage, that is an average DPR of 40.667830451. So anywhere with dim light or darkness, you're doing 10% over more damage with almost a full 5 more DPR, without those, you're still doing over 1 more DPR. Personally I think Lucky is far better but it can't be mapped like this, you won't get solid numbers, the ability to create advantage where you didn't have advantage means even less missed critical hit opportunities, Lucky would be significantly more useful to Rogue than Fighter for this and the fact fighter just does less damage on a per hit basis.
This maths is complicated and needs a lot of checking but my point stands, Arcane Trickster is the best DPR subclass for rogue.
Now, if you're comparing it to some weird shillelagh build Eldritch Knight that is not even build legal, since it states Magic Initiate Warlock and somehow has Shillelagh from an unknown source, then you might see why I have some issues with those numbers. Personally I will give benefit of doubt and say it was meant to be Magic Initiate Druid but even then the numbers assume you always have hex/hunter's mark on your target, so you get the full power of a Bonus Action attack, which would make EK look way more powerful than it is but except for BBEGs, I really don't think you're gunna see that occur too often. I can tell this, because I cross compared to the spreadsheet and noticed how it's dealing with the Hex damage.
Personally I don't like this EK build, you only have 1 BA and you need 2 BAs to get up to having Shillelagh and Hunter's Mark/Hex up together, let alone if you need to re-apply Hunter's Mark/Hex, and also the fact there is a concentration spell on a tank, which is going to take damage. These numbers for this EK are theoretical, they are basically impossible to achieve in practice. It also does the sin of assuming an action surge every 4 rounds, which is very..... optimistic, if you only have 12 rounds of combats a day and 2 short rests, then yea... that could be possible, but I think it's too optimistic in favour of fighter. They do the same thing for Assassin with the level, that is probably why they have two columns for level (which is redundant but hey), but I can see it being closer to every 4 turns since it's basically per encounter and you would expect more encounters than uses of action surge in the average adventuring day.
I get what they are doing to get there, abusing the weapon swapping of their off-hand weapon, which is in itself an abuse that UA8 is trying to rectify and has gotten a step closer to stopping, they are abusing Master of Armaments with weapon swapping, using Vex, Nick and Push. They need Push to insist that they get the full booming blade damage (which if I used that for the Arcane Trickster, would increase the damage too), they also are using find familiar to insist they get an extra advantage a round, which again in practice... not always reliable, the UA4 version of find familiar would not work well with this, since the familiar always goes after you and other party members aren't going to hold back on attacking just because you want that advantage. this is all Hyper optimistic theoretical damage and that is why it seems so high.
Now if you say they are sticking to just PHB UAs switch Elven Accuracy for Dual Wielder and go with a Rapier for off-hand, still averages 39.5 DPR, which still beats the numbers in the spreadsheet for Assassin. Basically never underestimate the arcane trickster.
TL;DR the numbers you think are reliable, just simply aren't. That Spreadsheet is good but it's not perfect and it does have mistakes and flaws, it makes rogue look worse than it is and Eldritch Knight look way better than it actually is.
regardless to those numbers, I sort of agree, I think the normal rogue should be around 85%, however I think the optimized dpr rogue should also be around 85%. I don't see the need to increase the relative power, especially that drastically, considering other classes don't pay this type of tax for OoC power.
The reason is simple, an optimized Fighter has nothing else they can do, they put everything into just combat, an optimized rogue put their feats into combat but their class features, skills and their ASIs are simply more diverse. That STR based fighter isn't going to pass that many stealth checks even with tactical mind, they are going to struggle and most skill checks entirely, they have basically only one skill they are good at and that is Athletics, if they go STR > CON > DEX, tactical mind is not bridging the gap to stealth, sleight of hand, etc. If they got STR > CON > WIS against a rogue of DEX > CON > WIS, they might get an okay rivally on perception or insight but they fundamentally have two less skills to begin with, they are just not rivalling a skill monkey like Rogue. A fighter that is not optimized has likely picked up something else that they can do, maybe they picked up the actors feat, or they picked up Inspiring Leader, or maybe they picked up Observant to get that Perception or Insight expertise and the BA search action.
D&D basically requires engagement and classes and builds that have limited engagement, need to shine in those engagement areas, Rogue shines in that scout who can pick a lock in under a minute and spot the incoming orcs in the middle of the night, Rogue is basically not a class designed for maximizing damage, it is a class with a lot of party utility.
the thing about doing 85% is 85% of a higher number is still a higher number. maybe I could see 75%, but 66? nah, the optimized rogue is still giving up things to be optimized, likely a subclass.
As far as his analysis, everyone has to make choices, his overall results aren't unique. As far as EK he has two different builds. the one that uses shillegah he says in his reddit post is a human who takes both warlock and druid. As far as why he picked two EK builds, I guess he wanted to compare them.
And I would say, Outside this discussion the assassin should probably be better at damage than arcane trickster. Not saying it actually is, I haven't done all the math, midlevel it isnt, but I think thats a design flaw of assassin and possibly arcane trickster.
The point is not that tactical mind, or primal knowledge destroys any value of rogue, the point is its no longer a black and white issue as it was in 2014, that rogue was the only martial with good skill use.
...
These other classes can at times equal or surpass rogue, and in other cases rogue is better. Tactical mind essentially allows fighter to make a few hard valuable skill checks per day. Primal knowledge+rage makes barbarian great at hunting, intimidating, and ambushing enemies preferably in pre or post combat situations.
This is a way better skill, and martial design. Martials needed to be good at skills in ways that tie into their class fantasy. This is good. No objections.
I don't agree that numerically spiking above a rogue (which to be clear, if the rogue is built well this doesn't do that) once or twice per short rest by burning a combat resource = "surpassing rogue." The rogue not only never has to make such a tradeoff, to use it most effectively the other martials need to know in advance which skill checks are the best ones to burn their limited resources boosting, which no player will - only the DM has that information.
The best case scenario for the Barbarian is when two combats are exactly 9 minutes apart so that the rage they spent in the first fight lasts into the next one and on every relevant check in between. The worst case scenario is when they need to rage in the first combat, rage for out of combat stuff, and then rage again in the next combat with no short rest in between. But a lot of days will fall somewhere between these two extremes, where they at least have time to short rest and recover that rage they burned for out of combat things.
As for rogue - another source of routine advantage rogues have over other martials are tools, which they have much more room for in their chassis than fighters and barbarians do. The Xanathar's rules about tool + skill = advantage are becoming baseline in 2024, and the rogue is the one with a chassis that can allow them to easily pick up things like Forgery and Disguise kits etc in addition to their Thieves' Tools. The others, not so much.
I said surpassing the rogue in some cases. mathematically on a hard check, the fighter is better than the rogue untill proficiency becomes 16
and the point as I said is not that rogue is garbage at skills, its that they are relatively not as good as before in terms of skill.
even if you think they are awesome, you cannot deny other classes have improved.
and damage wise, martial's floor damage has raised. its not just the optimizer guys dealing big numbers.
the rogues damage has not increased, especially the non optimal builds(not off turn based) builds
this means they are relatively worse at damage, and relatively less dominant at skills.
if 2014 rogue was balanced, UA rogue is clearly not.
I'm not sure what your are saying is the big deal about tools? every character gets 1 tool from background, others get 1 tool from class and subclass. As far as using skills and tools on the same check, thats mostly going to be thieves tools, and everyone can select thieves tools from background if they want to. BM gets extra tools, samurai, so I'm not sure this is such a big deal that makes rogues stand out. And its certainly of limited value after the first one.
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
the thing about doing 85% is 85% of a higher number is still a higher number. maybe I could see 75%, but 66? nah, the optimized rogue is still giving up things to be optimized, likely a subclass.
As far as his analysis, everyone has to make choices, his overall results aren't unique. As far as EK he has two different builds. the one that uses shillegah he says in his reddit post is a human who takes both warlock and druid. As far as why he picked two EK builds, I guess he wanted to compare them.
And I would say, Outside this discussion the assassin should probably be better at damage than arcane trickster. Not saying it actually is, I haven't done all the math, midlevel it isnt, but I think thats a design flaw of assassin and possibly arcane trickster.
But a damage optimized Rogue isn't giving up much, since they already have so much in their toolkit and one of their best potential feats is the lucky feat, which is usable inside and outside of dungeon exploration. Fighter on the other hand is making a higher number of attacks and they do not have a feature like sneak attack, so lucky is less impactful. Let's remember Lucky was in 5E considered by far one of (,if not) the best feat in the game, Lucky is now even better for Rogue in the UA as it explicitly gives advantage, from level 9+, gives more uses then it did in 5E and it's now retroactive, meaning you only choose to use it after you already rolled the d20.
A damage optimized Rogue is focusing on dexterity, a damage focused fighter is focusing on strength, strength has 1 associated skill, Athletics, where Dexterity has 3, Acrobatics, Stealth & Sleight of Hand, additionally Rogue already gets Thieves' Tools proficiency which is usually associated to Dexterity as well.
A damage optimized Rogue is getting a higher initiative roll in combat, which will likely lead to 1 or 2 more turns in combat over an adventuring day. A damage based rogue is effective at range where a damage focused fighter is not, giving the Rogue even less lost damage in practice. Which means that, the 66.7% on paper becomes more like a 80-90% in practice.
Basically there are plenty of valid reasons why fighter should be able to optimize damage better than Rogue.
But ultimately, you optimize damage for fighter, you're not really picking up anything extra, you optimize damage for rogue you are picking up extra things from skills, class features, feats and the ability to attack from further away.
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
this is not the claim.
to be clear I have never said fighters are better than rogues at all skills at all times.
the claim is fighters are sometimes better than rogues, barbarians are sometimes better than rogues. Whereas before this was all the time.
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
this is not the claim.
to be clear I have never said fighters are better than rogues at all skills at all times.
the claim is fighters are sometimes better than rogues, barbarians are sometimes better than rogues. Whereas before this was all the time.
Anyone can sometimes be better than a rogue. What is point of the claim. A 5e Barbarian that is proficient in athletics is better at athletics check than a rogue that isn’t proficient in them. The 5e rogue was not always the best to make skill checks.
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
...and we're back to infinity.
Not 100% sure what that means. If you mean number of checks we never reach infinity. No one plays that long, but 5 or more is a real possibility. Could a fighter reliably make 5 skill checks expending a resource that can be use for other things?
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
this is not the claim.
to be clear I have never said fighters are better than rogues at all skills at all times.
the claim is fighters are sometimes better than rogues, barbarians are sometimes better than rogues. Whereas before this was all the time.
Anyone can sometimes be better than a rogue. What is point of the claim. A 5e Barbarian that is proficient in athletics is better at athletics check than a rogue that isn’t proficient in them. The 5e rogue was not always the best to make skill checks.
yeah your example makes no sense.
clearly we would be comparing skills the player has put some type of effort into.
also I don't think you really believe that other classes ability to use skills haven't improved and sometimes rivals rogues now in cases where it would not before. So whats the point of trying to create an inaccurate analogy?
rogue has persuation with expertise, fighter has proficiency and tactical mind, The person is no pushover. who do you choose to try to make the roll. Before the answer was rogue. now the answer is, if its important fighter. (unless its 17+)
you need to steal something from the jailer. sleight of hand, if he notices, you won't get another chance. dex fighter proficient versus rogue expertise. Before the answer was rogue, now its fighter.
you need someone to run point, perceiving, stealthing, tracking to set ambush/find the next group of monsters in the dungeon. the barbarian proficient in all. or the thief with expertise in all. Now, the answer before 7 is the barbarian. after 7, it depends on if you think the checks will be hard and the rogue's wis. Before the answer would be rogue.
the overall context and point is not that rogues are always inferior
the point is rogues relative strength in skills is now lower.
a hypothetical analogy;
lets say 100% represents the value a normal 2014 martial would have
if 2014 rogue was balanced
and their dpr was 75% and their skill power was 220%
and in 2024 martials are rebalanced
their dpr is 115% and their skillpower is 150%
how can the 2024 rogue be balanced if they are still
dpr 75% and skillpower 220%?
the point is not, nor has it ever been that other martials now have 220% skill power.
the only way they can be balanced in 2024 is if they were OP in 2014.
rogue has persuation with expertise, fighter has proficiency and tactical mind, The person is no pushover. who do you choose to try to make the roll. Before the answer was rogue. now the answer is, if its important fighter. (unless its 17+)
At what level? Tactical Mind is worth an average of 5.5 extra, which is nice, and while the Rogue's expertise is "only" +2 at earlier levels, if the Rogue is built to be the party's face then the gap is likely to be closed by having a higher Charisma (as the Fighter still wants to prioritise Strength and Constitution and maybe a little Dexterity first). Even if this only reduces the Fighter's lead to +2 that's still a +2 that requires spending Second Wind which is a really good self-heal (can make the difference between going down and staying up in a round, can save party healer spell slots etc.).
At higher levels the expertise gets more and more valuable so any lead that the Rogue has widens, or any lead the Fighter has is lost, pretty quickly, plus Reliable Talent then makes the Rogue's average roll even better (and more reliable) than the Fighter's since they can never roll below 10, which IIRC boosts their average by around +3. So if we're talking 7th-level a Rogue built as a face is probably looking at around +9 (+3 CHA, +3 proficiency, +3 expertise), with another +3 average for Reliable Talent, meanwhile the Fighter even if they have +3 CHA (debatable) would be at +6 with an optional +5.5 for Tactical Mind so only just about competing. But the Rogue only pulls further ahead the higher you go.
Tactical Mind is great, but a Fighter would need to give up ability score increases/feats to really optimise for Charisma skills compared to a Bard that's all about them, or a Rogue that only needs Dexterity (so can easily optimise for another score). This means that at best on a "pure" build (no multi-classing) that feature only enables Fighter to compete with a character built to do those things some of the time, because you're going to struggle to build a Fighter the same way without impacting it somewhere else.
Where it potentially becomes too much is when the Fighter manages to gain expertise, though the easiest way to do that is multi-classing as an expert class (so they might still be a Bard or Rogue in order to be "best" at skills). Either that or taking the Skill Expert feat if it continues as-is into OneD&D, though that's still giving up a feat choice to get it for only a single skill.
I do find it a bit strange that it works for any check, I expected it to be more limited than that (or to not apply to a check with expertise or such) which is why I said as much in the survey. It's most problematic for its stacking as that only makes dipping into Fighter appealing for more reasons on classes that already want to, and really we should want to get away from multi-classing being the obvious path for optimisers.
I think it's also worth keeping in mind that you're comparing a feature of Fighter that may not be in its final form yet, same with the Rogue for that matter as while the core of it probably won't change drastically at this point, there are almost certainly going to be further tweaks before final release. The important thing with the playtest is that they gave Fighters an out-of-combat feature to try, and I expect people will have been mostly positive about gaining such an ability, but it doesn't mean it won't be rebalanced to some degree if it competes too well with experts.
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Now if we can just get WotC to give the monk a skill boosting feature they can outdo Rogues too! Just kidding (on them outdoing rogue not monks getting a skill boost)
rogue has persuation with expertise, fighter has proficiency and tactical mind, The person is no pushover. who do you choose to try to make the roll. Before the answer was rogue. now the answer is, if its important fighter. (unless its 17+)
At what level? Tactical Mind is worth an average of 5.5 extra, which is nice, and while the Rogue's expertise is "only" +2 at earlier levels, if the Rogue is built to be the party's face then the gap is likely to be closed by having a higher Charisma (as the Fighter still wants to prioritise Strength and Constitution and maybe a little Dexterity first). Even if this only reduces the Fighter's lead to +2 that's still a +2 that requires spending Second Wind which is a really good self-heal (can make the difference between going down and staying up in a round, can save party healer spell slots etc.).
At higher levels the expertise gets more and more valuable so any lead that the Rogue has widens, or any lead the Fighter has is lost, pretty quickly, plus Reliable Talent then makes the Rogue's average roll even better (and more reliable) than the Fighter's since they can never roll below 10, which IIRC boosts their average by around +3. So if we're talking 7th-level a Rogue built as a face is probably looking at around +9 (+3 CHA, +3 proficiency, +3 expertise), with another +3 average for Reliable Talent, meanwhile the Fighter even if they have +3 CHA (debatable) would be at +6 with an optional +5.5 for Tactical Mind so only just about competing. But the Rogue only pulls further ahead the higher you go.
Tactical Mind is great, but a Fighter would need to give up ability score increases/feats to really optimise for Charisma skills compared to a Bard that's all about them, or a Rogue that only needs Dexterity (so can easily optimise for another score). This means that at best on a "pure" build (no multi-classing) that feature only enables Fighter to compete with a character built to do those things some of the time, because you're going to struggle to build a Fighter the same way without impacting it somewhere else.
Where it potentially becomes too much is when the Fighter manages to gain expertise, though the easiest way to do that is multi-classing as an expert class (so they might still be a Bard or Rogue in order to be "best" at skills). Either that or taking the Skill Expert feat if it continues as-is into OneD&D, though that's still giving up a feat choice to get it for only a single skill.
I do find it a bit strange that it works for any check, I expected it to be more limited than that (or to not apply to a check with expertise or such) which is why I said as much in the survey. It's most problematic for its stacking as that only makes dipping into Fighter appealing for more reasons on classes that already want to, and really we should want to get away from multi-classing being the obvious path for optimisers.
I think it's also worth keeping in mind that you're comparing a feature of Fighter that may not be in its final form yet, same with the Rogue for that matter as while the core of it probably won't change drastically at this point, there are almost certainly going to be further tweaks before final release. The important thing with the playtest is that they gave Fighters an out-of-combat feature to try, and I expect people will have been mostly positive about gaining such an ability, but it doesn't mean it won't be rebalanced to some degree if it competes too well with experts.
to be clear to everyone, my point is not that tactical mind is too good or needs to be changed
tactical mind is imo a great game design.
flavorwise It allows the fighter, who is themed as the trained, professional, student of war to use its supposed experience to be better at skills in a limited way. They can't do it all the time, they are trading off battlefield recovery/movement for it. Its essentially designed such that they can make few important skill checks per day. But not many checks. Its got an interesting value proposition, and allows them to realistically participate in the OoC parts.
I am not saying martials should continue to be bad at OoC stuff to give rogues value.
the 2014 skill system design was poor, you never actually feel good at something with profiency alone, proficiency generally is designed to make you only noticeably good at things at high levels, and that assumes you are not attempting harder things as you level.
this should not continue.
increasing the martials OoC abilities was the right answer, even with monk's improvements, it should also get some type of increases imo, though I doubt it will happen.
to me, the concept of making different classes have differing strengths at skills but with different usecase/gamedesign for it is the right choice, but doing so necessitates a rebalancing of rogues overall ratios of dmg:survivability:combat utility:OoC utility. Damage is an obvious solution since its damage floor hasn't really increased, and its ceiling might be lower. (nothing to replace old sharpshooter)
Also the floor damage for a non optimizer rogue is fairly low, primarily due to most of rogue optimization being about landing reaction SA. And most of the ways of doing this go against the natural assumptions of rogue design. Like taking a tanking feat (sentinel) or picking the subclass that self describes as being primarily about trickery and mischief.
that said some of things you mention here are slightly off.
the fighter is just as capable as putting abilities in other scores as rogue. They both onrly need one stat, and fighter has more ASi/Feats. If the fighter wants to be a str/chr/con character he will still do 100% damage. Con is not the most important stat for fighter since they have recovery, and can choose high AC. fighter is purposefully designed to be one of the most adaptable classes in the game.
reliable talent has zero effect on any check that needs more than 9 on a roll to succeed. so if the check is a difficult one, the fighter is a better bet. Essentially if the party doesnt believe its an autowin for the rogue, the fighter is a better bet for the majority of the game.
to your other point, fighter isn't giving up resources, they are making decisions, about who the character is. in the context of this discussion, we were talking about dpr optimized characters vs dpr optimized characters, and normal characters versus normal characters. Neither one needs to, even can dedidicate all its customization to damage. Fighter gets 7 ability scores. attributes cap at 20, which only requires 1.5 ASi with point buy for the damage stat. Even if they select 3-4 dpr feats, that still leaves 4-3 non dpr feats. Which is generally enough to increase attribute level, or take skill focused feats if they desire, while still being a beast in battle.
Will every fighter make that choice? no. and thats fine. But its choice for fighter, by design.
Can the fighter be the most deadly, most durable most skillfull guy at the same time? no. But that has never been the claim.
You're not supposed to feel good at something with proficiency alone; you need a decent ability score too* to represent having both training and talent. If you have both of those things and you still don't feel good at something, your GM is probably setting the DCs too high, and/or you're in the sort of campaign where the two other inputs (magic and luck) are necessary too.
*or a middling ability score + expertise
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ok, we debated math for pages, my conclusion imo are still valid, that rogue does significantly less damage than other martials and its a problem.
but you don't believe me, or the other exhaustive analysis out there. Fine.
let me ask this instead, at what ratio of damage would you say rogue has a problem that needs to be corrected.
lets say(hypothetical) the average of monk/fighter/barbarian damage is 100dpr (to make the math easy) at what dpr does the rogue have a problem that needs correcting. Assuming all the other factors are as they are in one dnd (access to skills, survivability, support etc)
is 50dpr ok? 75dpr?
just so we can get an understanding of what each of us would theoretically find acceptable.
It's still a limited resource if it does. A given exploration scene can have half a dozen or more checks as you and your party sneak around, follow tracks, look for traps, spot hidden creatures or secret passages, examine bodies, recall knowledge about what you find, traverse obstacles and gaps, and more. A given social interaction scene can involve diplomacy, deception, browbeating, intuition, reading body language, picking up on lies or half-truths and more.
The fighter starts with a whopping TWO uses of Tactical Mind per rest (and you only get one use back on a short rest, not both), which eventually increases all the way to four. If you're relying on that to be on par with the rogue, your ability to do so is very limited at all levels. The rogue meanwhile doesn't care how many checks are in a given scene, the abilities they get to overcome them (except for Stroke of Luck) are constant/passive. Hell, they can even keep exploring or interacting while the fighter is resting, since they themselves may not need to. If your table and Gwar1's can't find any ways to make that differentiation matter, the problem is your tables, not the game.
And all of the above is assuming you never need Second Wind for healing either.
For same level? An optimized rogue to optimized fighter is fine at 66.7 to 100, with a normal rogue to a normal fighter build being more like 80 to 100 being fine. A fighter that optimizes only for combat should shine in it because they aren't doing well in any other area, if they do not fully optimize then the gap should be smaller. Rogue already shines in exploration, they have specialised things like thieves cant and one other additional language which means they can get social encounters that only they can deal with.
Ignoring feats and subclasses for the minute, going shortsword and scimitar vs a greatsword. This is basically base class vs base class with weapon mastery and assuming rogue sneak attacks first chance they get and that they can sneak attack on any attack. I am assuming GWF so 2d6 will be 8.33 instead of 7 for the greatsword.
level 1 Rogue 1d6 * 0.7 + 3 * 0.65 + 1d6 * 0.87 + 1d6 * 0.945 = ~10.73
level 1 Fighter 2d6 * 0.7 + 3 = ~8.83
level 5 Rogue 1d6 * 0.7 + 4 * 0.65 + 1d6 * 0.87 + 3d6 * 0.945 = ~18.02
level 5 fighter 2 * ( 2d6 * 0.7 + 4) = ~19.66
level 10 rogue 1d6 * 0.7 + 5 * 0.65 + 1d6 * 0.87 + 5d6 * 0.945 = ~25.28
level 10 fighter 2 * ( 2d6 * 0.7 + 5) = ~21.66
level 15 rogue 1d6 * 0.7 + 5 * 0.65 + 1d6 * 0.87 + 8d6 * 0.945 = ~35.21
level 15 fighter 3 * ( 2d6 * 0.7 + 5) = ~32.49
Level 20 rogue 1d6 * 0.7 + 5 * 0.65 + 1d6 * 0.87 + 10d6 * 0.945 = ~41.82
level 20 fighter 4 * ( 2d6 * 0.7 + 5) = ~43.32
Base class vs Base class, fighter and rogue are really close to each other on passive damage and so it really is just down to fighter gets action surge. But what this means is to get to the points you're complaining about, it requires optimizing feats which is not a base class issue, it is a feat issue. Now I'm not going to bother doing a subclass vs. subclass comparison of every subclass, different subclasses do fundamentally different things and an arcane trickster remains competitive with most of the higher damage fighter subclasses, fighter has more damage focused subclasses but battlemaster is likely the main comparison. Magic weapons will slightly favour fighter from level 11+ since it's 3 attacks vs. 2 attacks but magic items and weapons already make things messier to begin with.
Feats, could there be more feats for damage for Rogue? possibly, but this isn't something that can't be remedied later on, it can. However another fundamental point is that the optimized rogue build is something you've been avoiding, it's the 2-hand crossbow build you can get at level 10. What you do do is take the feats weapon training (level 4), crossbow expert (level 8) and finally sharpshooter (level 10). All those feats give dexterity +1 as an option, so you get your +5 modifier at level 10, you can from level 8 make two crossbow attacks per round to which you get to add your ability modifier to both attacks, get advantage to most attacks (vex), you ignore the distance penalty for being within 5 foot, and can from level 10, increase the range you do this from, from 30 foot to 120 foot. So Overall, no, sorry, I just don't see it from your perspective. Rogue optimized for damage can be doing only 66.7% of an optimized fighters damage and still be perfectly fine.
So it may even be the case that the % could be lower than 66.7%, because you're comparing a class that does it's most optimal damage at a range of 120 foot against one that does it's most optimal damage only within 10 foot, using a build that needs to stand on the front lines and has to invest primarily into strength, and thus heavy armour (incurring the disadvantage to stealth). For fighters to be anywhere near as competitive on skill checks as you've been going on, they can't also be this heavily melee focused build with polearms, it simply does not go together.
Since you mentioned my name, I must say;
You clearly misunderstood my point this whole time.
The point is not that tactical mind, or primal knowledge destroys any value of rogue, the point is its no longer a black and white issue as it was in 2014, that rogue was the only martial with good skill use.
These other classes can at times equal or surpass rogue, and in other cases rogue is better. Tactical mind essentially allows fighter to make a few hard valuable skill checks per day. Primal knowledge+rage makes barbarian great at hunting, intimidating, and ambushing enemies preferably in pre or post combat situations.
This is a way better skill, and martial design. Martials needed to be good at skills in ways that tie into their class fantasy. This is good. No objections.
the issue is,
if 2014 rogue was considered 'balanced' based on the fact that it was far and away king of martial skill use, and its was able to do 80% of your average martials DPS,
then how is it still balanced now that the average martial dps has increased(but rogue's hasnt) and the average martial has gained better skill use, that in some situations surpasses rogue?
hypothetically;
if in 2014 rogue dpr =80%martialdpr while rogue skill =200%martial skillpower is balanced
how is 2024 rogue dpr=65%martialdpr while rogue skill =150%martial skill power
not underpowered?
the numbers are just examples, the key is they are relatively lower in both metrics in 2024.
this only makes sense if you think rogues were relatively overpowered in 2014, which I definitely do not.
or if you believe in 2024, skillpowers value has increased drastically, which I definitely do not.
now, you could claim rogues dpr isnt a lower %, but thats just not true in most cases(unless they offturn), and/or you could claim they aren't relatively less dominant in skills than they were, but doing so would imply primal knowledge, tactical mind, new deft explorer, etc provide no value.
ignoring feats in a rogue versus fighter analysis is a problem, since not only does the fighter receive feats as class features, but rogue doesnt benefit nearly as much from feats. Likewise ignoring subclasses, though understandable due to complexity, also favors rogue since their subclasses often give no dpr, while that is rare for fighter.
I won't debate this with you, but I'll leave some one else's more detailed analysis, if you care, its fine if you don't
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1swPiGeFYu6kSXr5vlPXqYYHJQ7JpFfZH/edit#gid=1686024488
and https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/17pcv8m/optimizing_in_onedd_a_thorough_analysis_of/ for the context, assumptions etc he tells you he is making.
regardless to those numbers, I sort of agree, I think the normal rogue should be around 85%, however I think the optimized dpr rogue should also be around 85%. I don't see the need to increase the relative power, especially that drastically, considering other classes don't pay this type of tax for OoC power.
so, our major difference is you don't believe rogues are as far behind as I do, and you think optimized dpr rogues should be pretty bad at dpr.
for tldr of the data I linked in the context of this discussion.
the normal rogue is about 50-60% of the simple monk. (mercy monk just doing basics)
the optimized rogue is about 65%ish of optimized fighter.
also as an aside, the guy shows a rogue/fighter being pretty high up there, and gaining virtually all the skill benefits of rogue. Take that as you will, since MC is optional, and not the primary balance, but yeah.
Ignoring feats isn't an issue, it's an assessment of the base class itself, which is important, if the issue were in the base class, you'd see it in the numbers I supplied, clearly rogue as a BASE CLASS, does not have any issues.
You can't really compare the numbers they have here because they don't even have Arcane Trickster listed, if you're looking for the optimal damage then it will be Arcane Trickster, but since I can be bothered enough to actually read through this, there are numerous issues with the numbers they put together for EK (Action surge damage /4? that is assuming action surge every 4 turns of combat! picking up Shillelagh from no where... and basically requires more than 1 Bonus Action per turn to actually be feasible). We can also tell that the Rogues here weren't probably optimized, since it should be apparent that most builds don't mention feats past level 10... all the fighter ones mention them up to level 19, so that is 3 missing feats for all the rogue builds (12, 14, 19). And then despite all of this, it's near the 66.7% line that it should be near.
They have the Rogue Assassin down as 39.27 DPR at level 10
So how much does an Arcane Trickster do at level 10, well let's look at the following build:
Savage Attacker (Lucky is technically better but harder to simulate in maths), Skulker (4th level), Elven Accuracy (8th level), Charger (10th level). With savage attacker, 2d8 would average 10.85 instead of 9, for a critical 20.6 instead of 18. Anydice
normal attacks, Shadowblade and Scimitar: ~10.85 *.60 + ~20.6 * 0.05 + 5 * 0.65 + 1d6 * 0.7 + (5d6 + 1d8) * 0.945 = ~34.03
With advantage for Shadowblade: ~10.85 * 0.814525 + ~20.6 * 0.1426 +5 * 0.957125 + 1d6 * 0.7 + (5d6 +1d8) * 1.146875709 = ~44.242046848
If you're in dim light or darkness, you have advantage every attack, if you do not, you switch the scimitar for a short sword to vex the target, 65% of the time you have advantage, that is an average DPR of 40.667830451. So anywhere with dim light or darkness, you're doing 10% over more damage with almost a full 5 more DPR, without those, you're still doing over 1 more DPR. Personally I think Lucky is far better but it can't be mapped like this, you won't get solid numbers, the ability to create advantage where you didn't have advantage means even less missed critical hit opportunities, Lucky would be significantly more useful to Rogue than Fighter for this and the fact fighter just does less damage on a per hit basis.
This maths is complicated and needs a lot of checking but my point stands, Arcane Trickster is the best DPR subclass for rogue.
Now, if you're comparing it to some weird shillelagh build Eldritch Knight that is not even build legal, since it states Magic Initiate Warlock and somehow has Shillelagh from an unknown source, then you might see why I have some issues with those numbers. Personally I will give benefit of doubt and say it was meant to be Magic Initiate Druid but even then the numbers assume you always have hex/hunter's mark on your target, so you get the full power of a Bonus Action attack, which would make EK look way more powerful than it is but except for BBEGs, I really don't think you're gunna see that occur too often. I can tell this, because I cross compared to the spreadsheet and noticed how it's dealing with the Hex damage.
Personally I don't like this EK build, you only have 1 BA and you need 2 BAs to get up to having Shillelagh and Hunter's Mark/Hex up together, let alone if you need to re-apply Hunter's Mark/Hex, and also the fact there is a concentration spell on a tank, which is going to take damage. These numbers for this EK are theoretical, they are basically impossible to achieve in practice. It also does the sin of assuming an action surge every 4 rounds, which is very..... optimistic, if you only have 12 rounds of combats a day and 2 short rests, then yea... that could be possible, but I think it's too optimistic in favour of fighter. They do the same thing for Assassin with the level, that is probably why they have two columns for level (which is redundant but hey), but I can see it being closer to every 4 turns since it's basically per encounter and you would expect more encounters than uses of action surge in the average adventuring day.
I get what they are doing to get there, abusing the weapon swapping of their off-hand weapon, which is in itself an abuse that UA8 is trying to rectify and has gotten a step closer to stopping, they are abusing Master of Armaments with weapon swapping, using Vex, Nick and Push. They need Push to insist that they get the full booming blade damage (which if I used that for the Arcane Trickster, would increase the damage too), they also are using find familiar to insist they get an extra advantage a round, which again in practice... not always reliable, the UA4 version of find familiar would not work well with this, since the familiar always goes after you and other party members aren't going to hold back on attacking just because you want that advantage. this is all Hyper optimistic theoretical damage and that is why it seems so high.
Now if you say they are sticking to just PHB UAs switch Elven Accuracy for Dual Wielder and go with a Rapier for off-hand, still averages 39.5 DPR, which still beats the numbers in the spreadsheet for Assassin. Basically never underestimate the arcane trickster.
normal attacks, Shadowblade and Scimitar: ~10.85 *.60 + ~20.6 * 0.05 + 5 * 0.65 + 1d8 * 0.7 + (5d6 + 1d8) * 0.945 = ~34.73
advantaged Shadowblade: ~10.85 * 0.78 + ~20.6 * 0.0975 +5 * 0.8775 + 1d8 * 0.7 + (5d6 +1d8) * 1.0944375 = ~42.086625
TL;DR the numbers you think are reliable, just simply aren't. That Spreadsheet is good but it's not perfect and it does have mistakes and flaws, it makes rogue look worse than it is and Eldritch Knight look way better than it actually is.
The reason is simple, an optimized Fighter has nothing else they can do, they put everything into just combat, an optimized rogue put their feats into combat but their class features, skills and their ASIs are simply more diverse. That STR based fighter isn't going to pass that many stealth checks even with tactical mind, they are going to struggle and most skill checks entirely, they have basically only one skill they are good at and that is Athletics, if they go STR > CON > DEX, tactical mind is not bridging the gap to stealth, sleight of hand, etc. If they got STR > CON > WIS against a rogue of DEX > CON > WIS, they might get an okay rivally on perception or insight but they fundamentally have two less skills to begin with, they are just not rivalling a skill monkey like Rogue. A fighter that is not optimized has likely picked up something else that they can do, maybe they picked up the actors feat, or they picked up Inspiring Leader, or maybe they picked up Observant to get that Perception or Insight expertise and the BA search action.
D&D basically requires engagement and classes and builds that have limited engagement, need to shine in those engagement areas, Rogue shines in that scout who can pick a lock in under a minute and spot the incoming orcs in the middle of the night, Rogue is basically not a class designed for maximizing damage, it is a class with a lot of party utility.
I don't agree that numerically spiking above a rogue (which to be clear, if the rogue is built well this doesn't do that) once or twice per short rest by burning a combat resource = "surpassing rogue." The rogue not only never has to make such a tradeoff, to use it most effectively the other martials need to know in advance which skill checks are the best ones to burn their limited resources boosting, which no player will - only the DM has that information.
The best case scenario for the Barbarian is when two combats are exactly 9 minutes apart so that the rage they spent in the first fight lasts into the next one and on every relevant check in between. The worst case scenario is when they need to rage in the first combat, rage for out of combat stuff, and then rage again in the next combat with no short rest in between. But a lot of days will fall somewhere between these two extremes, where they at least have time to short rest and recover that rage they burned for out of combat things.
As for rogue - another source of routine advantage rogues have over other martials are tools, which they have much more room for in their chassis than fighters and barbarians do. The Xanathar's rules about tool + skill = advantage are becoming baseline in 2024, and the rogue is the one with a chassis that can allow them to easily pick up things like Forgery and Disguise kits etc in addition to their Thieves' Tools. The others, not so much.
the thing about doing 85% is 85% of a higher number is still a higher number. maybe I could see 75%, but 66? nah, the optimized rogue is still giving up things to be optimized, likely a subclass.
As far as his analysis, everyone has to make choices, his overall results aren't unique. As far as EK he has two different builds. the one that uses shillegah he says in his reddit post is a human who takes both warlock and druid. As far as why he picked two EK builds, I guess he wanted to compare them.
And I would say, Outside this discussion the assassin should probably be better at damage than arcane trickster. Not saying it actually is, I haven't done all the math, midlevel it isnt, but I think thats a design flaw of assassin and possibly arcane trickster.
I said surpassing the rogue in some cases. mathematically on a hard check, the fighter is better than the rogue untill proficiency becomes 16
and the point as I said is not that rogue is garbage at skills, its that they are relatively not as good as before in terms of skill.
even if you think they are awesome, you cannot deny other classes have improved.
and damage wise, martial's floor damage has raised. its not just the optimizer guys dealing big numbers.
the rogues damage has not increased, especially the non optimal builds(not off turn based) builds
this means they are relatively worse at damage, and relatively less dominant at skills.
if 2014 rogue was balanced, UA rogue is clearly not.
I'm not sure what your are saying is the big deal about tools? every character gets 1 tool from background, others get 1 tool from class and subclass. As far as using skills and tools on the same check, thats mostly going to be thieves tools, and everyone can select thieves tools from background if they want to. BM gets extra tools, samurai, so I'm not sure this is such a big deal that makes rogues stand out. And its certainly of limited value after the first one.
The only way you can claim the fighter is keeping up with the rogue in the skills department is if you are only comparing skills they are either both proficient or are both not proficient. If you factor that rogues have more proficiencies and expertise then you have to accept that fighters are no where near rogues in skills checks. Even if you say fighter can improve a skill check with a resource cost rogue can generally succeed more checks per day without any resource cost.
But a damage optimized Rogue isn't giving up much, since they already have so much in their toolkit and one of their best potential feats is the lucky feat, which is usable inside and outside of dungeon exploration. Fighter on the other hand is making a higher number of attacks and they do not have a feature like sneak attack, so lucky is less impactful. Let's remember Lucky was in 5E considered by far one of (,if not) the best feat in the game, Lucky is now even better for Rogue in the UA as it explicitly gives advantage, from level 9+, gives more uses then it did in 5E and it's now retroactive, meaning you only choose to use it after you already rolled the d20.
A damage optimized Rogue is focusing on dexterity, a damage focused fighter is focusing on strength, strength has 1 associated skill, Athletics, where Dexterity has 3, Acrobatics, Stealth & Sleight of Hand, additionally Rogue already gets Thieves' Tools proficiency which is usually associated to Dexterity as well.
A damage optimized Rogue is getting a higher initiative roll in combat, which will likely lead to 1 or 2 more turns in combat over an adventuring day. A damage based rogue is effective at range where a damage focused fighter is not, giving the Rogue even less lost damage in practice. Which means that, the 66.7% on paper becomes more like a 80-90% in practice.
Basically there are plenty of valid reasons why fighter should be able to optimize damage better than Rogue.
But ultimately, you optimize damage for fighter, you're not really picking up anything extra, you optimize damage for rogue you are picking up extra things from skills, class features, feats and the ability to attack from further away.
...and we're back to infinity.
this is not the claim.
to be clear I have never said fighters are better than rogues at all skills at all times.
the claim is fighters are sometimes better than rogues, barbarians are sometimes better than rogues. Whereas before this was all the time.
Anyone can sometimes be better than a rogue. What is point of the claim. A 5e Barbarian that is proficient in athletics is better at athletics check than a rogue that isn’t proficient in them. The 5e rogue was not always the best to make skill checks.
Not 100% sure what that means. If you mean number of checks we never reach infinity. No one plays that long, but 5 or more is a real possibility. Could a fighter reliably make 5 skill checks expending a resource that can be use for other things?
yeah your example makes no sense.
clearly we would be comparing skills the player has put some type of effort into.
also I don't think you really believe that other classes ability to use skills haven't improved and sometimes rivals rogues now in cases where it would not before. So whats the point of trying to create an inaccurate analogy?
rogue has persuation with expertise, fighter has proficiency and tactical mind, The person is no pushover. who do you choose to try to make the roll. Before the answer was rogue. now the answer is, if its important fighter. (unless its 17+)
you need to steal something from the jailer. sleight of hand, if he notices, you won't get another chance. dex fighter proficient versus rogue expertise. Before the answer was rogue, now its fighter.
you need someone to run point, perceiving, stealthing, tracking to set ambush/find the next group of monsters in the dungeon. the barbarian proficient in all. or the thief with expertise in all. Now, the answer before 7 is the barbarian. after 7, it depends on if you think the checks will be hard and the rogue's wis. Before the answer would be rogue.
the overall context and point is not that rogues are always inferior
the point is rogues relative strength in skills is now lower.
a hypothetical analogy;
lets say 100% represents the value a normal 2014 martial would have
if 2014 rogue was balanced
and their dpr was 75% and their skill power was 220%
and in 2024 martials are rebalanced
their dpr is 115% and their skillpower is 150%
how can the 2024 rogue be balanced if they are still
dpr 75% and skillpower 220%?
the point is not, nor has it ever been that other martials now have 220% skill power.
the only way they can be balanced in 2024 is if they were OP in 2014.
At what level? Tactical Mind is worth an average of 5.5 extra, which is nice, and while the Rogue's expertise is "only" +2 at earlier levels, if the Rogue is built to be the party's face then the gap is likely to be closed by having a higher Charisma (as the Fighter still wants to prioritise Strength and Constitution and maybe a little Dexterity first). Even if this only reduces the Fighter's lead to +2 that's still a +2 that requires spending Second Wind which is a really good self-heal (can make the difference between going down and staying up in a round, can save party healer spell slots etc.).
At higher levels the expertise gets more and more valuable so any lead that the Rogue has widens, or any lead the Fighter has is lost, pretty quickly, plus Reliable Talent then makes the Rogue's average roll even better (and more reliable) than the Fighter's since they can never roll below 10, which IIRC boosts their average by around +3. So if we're talking 7th-level a Rogue built as a face is probably looking at around +9 (+3 CHA, +3 proficiency, +3 expertise), with another +3 average for Reliable Talent, meanwhile the Fighter even if they have +3 CHA (debatable) would be at +6 with an optional +5.5 for Tactical Mind so only just about competing. But the Rogue only pulls further ahead the higher you go.
Tactical Mind is great, but a Fighter would need to give up ability score increases/feats to really optimise for Charisma skills compared to a Bard that's all about them, or a Rogue that only needs Dexterity (so can easily optimise for another score). This means that at best on a "pure" build (no multi-classing) that feature only enables Fighter to compete with a character built to do those things some of the time, because you're going to struggle to build a Fighter the same way without impacting it somewhere else.
Where it potentially becomes too much is when the Fighter manages to gain expertise, though the easiest way to do that is multi-classing as an expert class (so they might still be a Bard or Rogue in order to be "best" at skills). Either that or taking the Skill Expert feat if it continues as-is into OneD&D, though that's still giving up a feat choice to get it for only a single skill.
I do find it a bit strange that it works for any check, I expected it to be more limited than that (or to not apply to a check with expertise or such) which is why I said as much in the survey. It's most problematic for its stacking as that only makes dipping into Fighter appealing for more reasons on classes that already want to, and really we should want to get away from multi-classing being the obvious path for optimisers.
I think it's also worth keeping in mind that you're comparing a feature of Fighter that may not be in its final form yet, same with the Rogue for that matter as while the core of it probably won't change drastically at this point, there are almost certainly going to be further tweaks before final release. The important thing with the playtest is that they gave Fighters an out-of-combat feature to try, and I expect people will have been mostly positive about gaining such an ability, but it doesn't mean it won't be rebalanced to some degree if it competes too well with experts.
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Now if we can just get WotC to give the monk a skill boosting feature they can outdo Rogues too! Just kidding (on them outdoing rogue not monks getting a skill boost)
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to be clear to everyone, my point is not that tactical mind is too good or needs to be changed
tactical mind is imo a great game design.
flavorwise It allows the fighter, who is themed as the trained, professional, student of war to use its supposed experience to be better at skills in a limited way. They can't do it all the time, they are trading off battlefield recovery/movement for it. Its essentially designed such that they can make few important skill checks per day. But not many checks. Its got an interesting value proposition, and allows them to realistically participate in the OoC parts.
I am not saying martials should continue to be bad at OoC stuff to give rogues value.
the 2014 skill system design was poor, you never actually feel good at something with profiency alone, proficiency generally is designed to make you only noticeably good at things at high levels, and that assumes you are not attempting harder things as you level.
this should not continue.
increasing the martials OoC abilities was the right answer, even with monk's improvements, it should also get some type of increases imo, though I doubt it will happen.
to me, the concept of making different classes have differing strengths at skills but with different usecase/gamedesign for it is the right choice, but doing so necessitates a rebalancing of rogues overall ratios of dmg:survivability:combat utility:OoC utility. Damage is an obvious solution since its damage floor hasn't really increased, and its ceiling might be lower. (nothing to replace old sharpshooter)
Also the floor damage for a non optimizer rogue is fairly low, primarily due to most of rogue optimization being about landing reaction SA. And most of the ways of doing this go against the natural assumptions of rogue design. Like taking a tanking feat (sentinel) or picking the subclass that self describes as being primarily about trickery and mischief.
that said some of things you mention here are slightly off.
the fighter is just as capable as putting abilities in other scores as rogue. They both onrly need one stat, and fighter has more ASi/Feats. If the fighter wants to be a str/chr/con character he will still do 100% damage. Con is not the most important stat for fighter since they have recovery, and can choose high AC. fighter is purposefully designed to be one of the most adaptable classes in the game.
reliable talent has zero effect on any check that needs more than 9 on a roll to succeed. so if the check is a difficult one, the fighter is a better bet. Essentially if the party doesnt believe its an autowin for the rogue, the fighter is a better bet for the majority of the game.
to your other point, fighter isn't giving up resources, they are making decisions, about who the character is. in the context of this discussion, we were talking about dpr optimized characters vs dpr optimized characters, and normal characters versus normal characters. Neither one needs to, even can dedidicate all its customization to damage. Fighter gets 7 ability scores. attributes cap at 20, which only requires 1.5 ASi with point buy for the damage stat. Even if they select 3-4 dpr feats, that still leaves 4-3 non dpr feats. Which is generally enough to increase attribute level, or take skill focused feats if they desire, while still being a beast in battle.
Will every fighter make that choice? no. and thats fine. But its choice for fighter, by design.
Can the fighter be the most deadly, most durable most skillfull guy at the same time? no. But that has never been the claim.
You're not supposed to feel good at something with proficiency alone; you need a decent ability score too* to represent having both training and talent. If you have both of those things and you still don't feel good at something, your GM is probably setting the DCs too high, and/or you're in the sort of campaign where the two other inputs (magic and luck) are necessary too.
*or a middling ability score + expertise