Rogue Archetype feature issues Thief/Arcane Trickster

[Silverfang]

The Thief gets Use Magic Device at 13, while The Arcane Trickster gets Versatile Trickster. I haven't dug through all the magic items, but to me it seems like the Arcane Trickster would benefit a lot more from use magic device than a Thief would. Versatile Trickster could be easily re-flavored to get rid of Mage Hand to use the bonus action to cause a distraction. To me, that seems more like something a Thief would be able to do. Maybe I'm missing something, but not only does that seem better from an optimization standpoint but also from a flavor standpoint to me. Am I missing something?

[Chronos]

Arcane Trickster gets the ability to use a number of items, anyway, by virtue of being a spellcaster. So Use Magic Device would be partly redundant on them.

[heavyfuel]

Could be simple balance, since UMD is leagues better than Versatile Trickster (if we assume a campaign with regular amounts of magic items)

But probably it's that Rogues were famous in 3.0 for being one of the two classes that had access to UMD, and that they wanted to make the Thief archetype the most Rogue of the archetypes. (I think they also had UMD in earlier versions, but I could be wrong as it's been over a decade since I played them)

Also, if your DM allows Sneak Attack to be used with Spells, having a way to get advantage is a great to set it up. It also seems kinda hard to refluff bonus action as a distraction when you're 30ft away from somebody

[Silverfang]

True to both comments, and like I said, I haven't gone through all the magical items, but one that sticks out to me is the robe of the Archmagi, it would be very useful to have for them and as for advantage at range, the only time you'd need it is when you aren't hidden or gaining it from some other bonus, I could see a good thief being able to "look for a weak spot" or taking advantage of a momentary distraction, maybe even writing out ranged altogether for that ability if necessary. Are there really that many items that simply require you to be able to cast spells and not a specific class to use?

[Ninjadeadbeard]

True to both comments, and like I said, I haven't gone through all the magical items, but one that sticks out to me is the robe of the Archmagi, it would be very useful to have for them and as for advantage at range, the only time you'd need it is when you aren't hidden or gaining it from some other bonus, I could see a good thief being able to "look for a weak spot" or taking advantage of a momentary distraction, maybe even writing out ranged altogether for that ability if necessary. Are there really that many items that simply require you to be able to cast spells and not a specific class to use?

Technically, there are no magic items. None whatsoever. Unless you're playing with the optional magic item rules. ;)

Also, I get the feeling that you're confusing rogues and thieves. Rest assured they can be wildly different. AT gets Mage Hand because, hear me out, he is a mage! he is a sneaky mage, while Thief is a sneaky locksmith, and Assassin is a sneaky cutthroat. Not all Rogues are criminals.

[Chronos]

Robe of the Archmage is massively useful to anyone who can use it, and would be even more massively useful to a full caster. If you're an arcane trickster in a party with a wizard, sorcerer, or warlock, it really wouldn't benefit the party as a whole for you to bogart the robe.