Why play a thief? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

JellyPooga

2017-02-21, 06:52 AM

In the lower tiers of levels 1-10, the Thief compares pretty poorly to the Arcane Trickster. Those higher level abilities though? Yeah, I'll take me some Thief!

UMD is GM dependent, sure, because you don't know what Magic Items you'll get, but being able to use anything? Great stuff and potentially very versatile (especially when it comes to Staves).

Having said that, there is something to be said for Fast Hands being explicitly non-magical; no "pre-casting" and no verbal component stick out as relatively significant and there's always the argument that the 30ft range limit is situationally useful, but those situations are...well, really rare. In the bragging match between an Arcane Trickster and a Thief, the Thief definitely wins points for simply walking a few paces closer to the door to pick the lock in double time and complete silence but for a subtle *click* when he's done, a dead-pan look on his face, compared to the Arcane Trickster "showing off" by chanting and wiggling his fingers from across the room to do the same.

The bonus to jumping and climbing from Second Story Work also has its place in low-level play, allowing a Rogue to dump Str and still clear a 10ft pit...something a similarly Str-dumped AT has to either make a check, get help or cast a spell to do. How often will you encounter the humble 10ft Pit Trap in those early levels?

Likewise with Supreme Sneak vs. Invisibility; the spell is great, but relying on it could turn out to be a mistake if you blunder into the wrong lair or find yourself in a position where you want to actually do something; one level 2 slot isn't much, but two level 2 slots is a rather significant drain on resources for an Arcane Trickster.

As for the Assassin...yeah, it's much better on paper/in theory than I've ever seen it be in play. It'd probably be great in a stealth-party...but how often do you ever get a whole party that doesn't have at least one "loud-mouthed" Barbarian, "clanking" Dwarf, "didn't bother with it" Wizard or their like?

Giant2005

2017-02-21, 07:02 AM

As the others said, the Thief already compares very favorably to the Assassin (who doesn't really bring much of anything to the table in practice). The problem with the Thief, the Assassin, and any other Rogue Subclass they release, is that the Arcane Trickster will always be better.
The Rogue gets almost all of its power from the Rogue chassis rather than the Subclasses - the Subclasses themselves (with the exception of their final ability) offer so little that the majority of their abilities are barely more than ribbons. The Arcane Trickster's 1/3 spellcasting is always going to be more useful than a bunch of near-ribbons, so the AT will always be king of the Rogues.

Specter

2017-02-21, 07:05 AM

Thief's problem is that its two main abilities are either totally situational (Second Story Work) or very unclear as to what can and can't be done with them (Fast Hands). If your DM is cool and you know you'll climb and jump a lot, then do it.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 08:20 AM

Thief is extremely underrated.
Arcane Trickster is very good, but relies upon limited resources.
Assassin is hugely overrated. It's very good.... *if* you get surprise, which is not as easy as some people want you to believe when the entire party is playing instead of just the rogue, and even if you do get surprise, you don't get anything else. Assassin is lackluster, but white room theorycrafters love it.
Thief, on the other hand, is considered lackluster by the white room theorycrafters, but at the table it's just as good as the AT. While the AT is very good but relies upon limited resources, the Thief is basically full of passive abilities.
The last time someone played and AT at our table, he decided to switch to an Assassin and found it lacking. He then switched to the Thief and had a blast. So he played all three, in the same game, with the same character, while the DM let him try them all out, and he found the Thief to be his favorite.
This is not uncommon.

LordVonDerp

2017-02-21, 08:23 AM

The bonus to jumping and climbing from Second Story Work also has its place in low-level play, allowing a Rogue to dump Str and still clear a 10ft pit...something a similarly Str-dumped AT has to either make a check, get help or cast a spell to do. How often will you encounter the humble 10ft Pit Trap in those early levels?
Don't forget, the bonus applies to height as well.

As for the Assassin...yeah, it's much better on paper/in theory than I've ever seen it be in play. It'd probably be great in a stealth-party...but how often do you ever get a whole party that doesn't have at least one "loud-mouthed" Barbarian, "clanking" Dwarf, "didn't bother with it" Wizard or their like?

Does that matter? You're not going to fail a group stealth check because of 1 person.

mgshamster

2017-02-21, 08:33 AM

The thief Archetype provides a lot of options for play in and out of combat, and their abilities never get used up.

Just this weekend I happened to be in a conversation with someone about how boring the rogue class was. They complained that they always had to do the same thing over and over and over. What were they playing? Arcane Trickster - the class that all the optimizers claim is the "best" rogue Archetype.

Meanwhile, the thief I'm playing has tons of options at level 4 - in and out of combat - and is an absolute blast to play. I've also never heard anyone who has *actually* played a thief complain about the class being weak or boring. Practically all the claims of the thief Archetype being useless or weak have come from people looking at the rules and never actually trying one.

My thief PC actually started as a sorcerer, but after the first session I didn't like how my abilities kept getting used up. I wasn't having fun. Changed the PC to a thief and I've had a blast ever since. No regrets whatsoever, despite so many people claiming the class is "weak."

He's in a party with a war cleric, a psionic (focused on melee), a fiend blade warlock, a wild mage sorcerer, a battlemaster, and a storm barbarian.

Prince Zahn

2017-02-21, 08:34 AM

Surprisingly enough, in the combats of an adventure I hosted for my group, the thief rogue was statistically speaking, the most useful and innovative of everyone, compared to a Trickery cleric, a Vengeance paladin, and a Totem Barbarian who were present.

pickpocketing and using equipment items such as those mentioned above as a bonus action made gave him a lot to do when he wasn't outrunning everybody or sneak attacking.
With high athletics and Acrobatics, Second Story work gave him a valuable edge against flying enemies.
He was particularly well suited for rigging a predetermined battlefield, such as an arena, with traps in a short amount of time right under everyone's noses.

there probably would have been more if the adventure would have lasted, we only got to about level 5, but a thief rogue can be a powerful asset in the hands of a savvy player.

djreynolds

2017-02-21, 08:35 AM

You can climb at your movement basically.

We fought a beholder, it crippled everyone but the thief who was able to move into position by climbing, hide, gain advantage and sneaking attack, rinse and repeat.

Any class can get a cantrip through race or magic initiate to get BB.

Thief is great.

Swashbuckler 3rd level perks are sweet, but a good DM will make soloing monsters very dangerous job.

Fast hands is useful, second story work can be game changing, up to your imagination.

clash

2017-02-21, 08:40 AM

Does that matter? You're not going to fail a group stealth check because of 1 person.

That's exactly why you fail group stealth checks. Your group is only as stealthy as it loudest member.

Prince Zahn

2017-02-21, 08:44 AM

That's exactly why you fail group stealth checks. Your group is only as stealthy as it loudest member.

that's also why group stealth checks are generally a bad idea if they can be avoided. stealth is better when scouting when it can be helped.

Tanarii

2017-02-21, 08:44 AM

Their fast hands ability is worse than an arcane trickster's mage hand legerdemain, which works similarly but at range, and they won't be able to compete in damage with the assassin.Fast Hands is, overall, far superior to AT's MH Legerdemain. It doesn't require an action to activate, and it doesn't require either a bonus action to get something into the hand, or an extra object interaction by the character. And a Bonus Action every round with Alchemist's Fire, Acid, Ballbearings, Caltrops is awesome. Or you can set a Hunter's Trap. Attach/detach a climbing kit. Use a Healing Kit.

Assassin's damage increase is very overrated. Surprise is extremely hard to achieve without splitting from the party or burning magical resources, because your entire party must make successful stealth checks against a creature to surprise them.

And don't forget you get second story work. That's a nice little icing on the cake, unless for some weird-ass reason you're never climbing in your adventures.

I personally like AT, but Thief is a solid sub-class, easily competitive with AT & Assassin through level 9.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 08:46 AM

That's exactly why you fail group stealth checks. Your group is only as stealthy as it loudest member.

Look up Group Checks in the PHB. There are rules specifically designed to circumvent that mindset.

edit: I'll make it easy for you:

W hen a number of individuals are trying to accom plish
som ething as a group, the DM might ask for a group
ability check. In such a situation, the characters w ho are
skilled at a particular task help cover those w ho aren't.
To make a group ability check, everyone in the group
m akes the ability check. If at least half the group
succeeds, the whole group succeeds. Otherwise,
the group fails.
Group checks don’t com e up very often, and they’re
m ost useful w hen all the characters succeed or
fail as a group. For example, when adventurers are
navigating a swamp, the DM might call for a group
W isdom (Survival) check to see if the characters can
avoid the quicksand, sinkholes, and other natural
hazards o f the environment. If at least half the group
succeeds, the successful characters are able to guide
their com panions out of danger. Otherwise, the group
stum bles into one o f these hazards.

DireSickFish

2017-02-21, 08:48 AM

Our group has found Thief to be the strongest of the archetypes.

The assasins damage boost looks nice on paper but is so situational that it rarely comes up. Often times the plot is acting upon the party, or there is some dialog before the fight. Arcane trickster is fun but a lot of the good enchantment and illusion spells don't do so well when they come online, or require saves.

The Thief's stuff all just works, and makes them better at what a lot of people think of when they think Rogue.

Hawkstar

2017-02-21, 08:55 AM

That's exactly why you fail group stealth checks. Your group is only as stealthy as it loudest member.

No, they're as stealthy as the median roll of the party. You fail group stealth checks because you have two bad-at-stealth people (Such as a Cleric and Fighter), or a good-at-stealth person bungles their roll.

djreynolds

2017-02-21, 08:57 AM

I climb up the wall... movement, still some left over
I hide... bonus action
I jump down, attacking with advantage

It is up to you how good classes like thief and champion can be. Use your terrain to your advantage

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 08:58 AM

JellyPooga

2017-02-21, 09:02 AM

Does that matter? You're not going to fail a group stealth check because of 1 person.

*At least* one non-stealthy person, *at least*. Even if your GM allows group Stealth (few do in my experience), you can and will fail because of two people and those dice are awful swingy...

Deleted

2017-02-21, 09:04 AM

Put of the PHB the theif is probabaly the best subclass you got.

Assassin: Hard to make work in actual play.

Arcane Trickster: Great on paper, but with so few spells and so far behind... You may as well just MC wizard or sorcerer.

Fast Hands is an amazing ability. You may not be able to use a magic item with it, but you can pull the magic item out of your bag with it. The Healer feat is amazing in conjunction with this. Additionally Sleight of Hand and Theives Tools at the cost of a Bonus Action is either the most awesome thing ever or just very useful.

Don't get me wrong, after level 10 the rogue drops off the map like all Martials but up until that point theives are pretty nice.

mgshamster

2017-02-21, 09:25 AM

Deleted

2017-02-21, 09:42 AM

Amen to that.

Not even close.

I missed what you quoted or I would have replied to it...

The thief is connected to a class that is well designed while the champion is terrible and connected to a class that isn't well designed.

Even for a simple character, the fighter (champion) is a joke. Remarkable athlete should be called "meh, athlete". People vastly over estimate both the fighter ans champion based on character options and not class options.

djreynolds

2017-02-21, 09:42 AM

I'll say again what I've said many times. Thief suffers from the same stigma as the Champion. It is actually VERY good at what it does, and is extremely underrated, but because it isn't flashy the theorycrafters don't like it and it therefore gets a bad wrap.

Amen to that.

Yes too both of you.

Your brain is your resource, thief and champion are for new players .....and also for experts. I like playing with my wits.

Terrain is often forgotten with theater of the mind.

Thief saves on party resources.

Saves on exploration spells, levitation, flying a rogue can climb and drop a rope. Now the wizard saves on spells, and can prepare something else...

Sneak attack is every turn, any rogue can put out serious hurt... allowing paladins to hold smites til later and casters to lean on cantrips and hold off on dropping and wasting say a fireball on 3 chaps

But second story work is strong, crazy as it sounds, children will often come up with more inventive ways to use it than old grumpy dwarves like myself.

Play one

Deleted

2017-02-21, 09:54 AM

Yes too both of you.

Your brain is your resource, thief and champion are for new players .....and also for experts. I like playing with my wits.

Terrain is often forgotten with theater of the mind.

Thief saves on party resources.

Saves on exploration spells, levitation, flying a rogue can climb and drop a rope. Now the wizard saves on spells, and can prepare something else...

Sneak attack is every turn, any rogue can put out serious hurt... allowing paladins to hold smites til later and casters to lean on cantrips and hold off on dropping and wasting say a fireball on 3 chaps

But second story work is strong, crazy as it sounds, children will often come up with more inventive ways to use it than old grumpy dwarves like myself.

Play one

Your brain isn't a class option.

When judging a class option, using outside items to justify that class option or try to make it worth it is... Just shows how bad that class option really is.

A character that isnt the champion can do everything the champion can do with remarkable athlete. It gives such a pitiful bonus that you can ignore it and see no actual difference in gamreplay (because it only affects non-prof checks and the dice are so swing).

It would be like playing a commoner and saying that the fact that they don't have class features means that you aren't "held back" and you can make the commoner do anything you want... Which can be replicated by any other class who on top of that, has tons of class features.

People really don't understand the concept of class feature versus character feature... Hot damn.

mgshamster

2017-02-21, 10:00 AM

Not even close.

I missed what you quoted or I would have replied to it...

The thief is connected to a class that is well designed while the champion is terrible and connected to a class that isn't well designed.

Even for a simple character, the fighter (champion) is a joke. Remarkable athlete should be called "meh, athlete". People vastly over estimate both the fighter ans champion based on character options and not class options.

Funny, my TWF champion PC holds up just fine in actual play. So have every other champion I've seen in game.

Odd how counter that is to the theorycrafters. Theory says "no," actually play says "yes." Usually, when testing something shows the theory to be off, one reanalyses the theory.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 10:07 AM

Funny, my TWF champion PC holds up just fine in actual play. So have every other champion I've seen in game.

Odd how counter that is to the theorycrafters. Theory says "no," actually play says "yes." Usually, when testing something shows the theory to be off, one reanalyses the theory.

He's one of the White Room Theorycrafters I was referring to, who haven't actually played one. Notice how he's talking about "judging class options" and so forth.
The problem is that these people have read a few lines of text, initially thought it to be bland, and have completely written off the concept. They will never reassess their idea because as far as they are concerned that option does't exist. They will never change their minds through play because they have already decided it isn't worth playing. They will never listen to the anecdotes and praises of people who have actually played it, because they have already made their minds up.

DireSickFish

2017-02-21, 10:17 AM

Your brain isn't a class option.

When judging a class option, using outside items to justify that class option or try to make it worth it is... Just shows how bad that class option really is.

A character that isnt the champion can do everything the champion can do with remarkable athlete. It gives such a pitiful bonus that you can ignore it and see no actual difference in gamreplay (because it only affects non-prof checks and the dice are so swing).

It would be like playing a commoner and saying that the fact that they don't have class features means that you aren't "held back" and you can make the commoner do anything you want... Which can be replicated by any other class who on top of that, has tons of class features.

People really don't understand the concept of class feature versus character feature... Hot damn.

Remarkable Athlete gives you a bonus to initiative checks. That's real good even if the rest of the ability checks don't come into play much. And what does it compare to? Student of war: which is mostly a ribbon ability and very DM dependent. Weapon Bond: a cool little trick for keeping your weapon at hand and impressing peasants with the summoning of it.

I'd say of the 3 that Remarkable Athlete is the best option. This level is more utility stuff than anything.

The base Fighter chassis also has really good DPR and survive ability.

Naanomi

2017-02-21, 10:20 AM

War_lord

2017-02-21, 10:23 AM

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 10:25 AM

The only "bad" Rogue archetype is the Assassin.

Sing it, brother! Can I get an Hallelujah!

Specter

2017-02-21, 10:34 AM

Jesus, people are still talking Remarkable Athlete? In a thief thread?

All level 7 fighter features are meant to let you be good at stuff you weren't before, without much use in battle. The only exception is the EK feature, and that's because their magic already lets them do some OoC stuff.

Champions get to drink and hold their breath more than anyone else, battlemasters get to be the insightful general, and Purple Dragon Knights get to be diplomats. The small initiative bonus is just a happy consequence.

mgshamster

2017-02-21, 10:45 AM

Having fun at the table isn't systematic testing... I've had fun with lots of demonstratably non-optimized options for years; none of that overturns the math. And no subclass has a monopoly on being creative... being a creative assassin is how you get those surprise rounds people are dismissing after all

I think you either quoted the wrong post or you're confusing what I wrote in the post you made with other posts.

Either way, there's literally zero systematic methodologies for testing d&d classes to date.

White room analysis doesn't take into many variable factors and often ignores important factors for ease of mathematical analysis design, and gameplay tends to be filled with anecdotes filed together with no overarching meta analysis between them.

There is no systematic testing, and pretending that there is can lead to having falsely confident opinions. As with all of the analyses for this game, all of them need to come with the caveat that it ignores certain favors and your personal experience may differ. That's truth in the analysis. Not doing so means you're either lying to yourself or to your audience.

The best we can get is to tie in the White room analyses with gameplay experience and see how they work together.

For the champion and the thief, one could claim with confidence, "White room analysis says these classes don't do as well as other archetypes, but there's a lot of reports of people enjoying the class. This likely means the difference in the math doesn't have as strong an effect as you might first assume."

But to pretend that a purely mathematical approach to analyzing classes is the be-all-end-all to design is wrong. And I say this as someone who does mathematical and scientific analysis as a career.

War_lord

2017-02-21, 11:03 AM

Mathematical analysis is great for getting combat data. But the graphs-and-probability approach really falls apart when it comes to the Exploration and Role play pillars.

Naanomi

2017-02-21, 11:38 AM

Not many aspects of the game can be analyzed in a purely analytical environment, and in every analysis there is going to be caveats where the numbers don't tell the whole picture. But when people jump in defending two weapon fighting or champion criticals (and I'm saying the answer to this question per se), we can make fairly definitive answers about efficacy between options... which doesn't mean the other options are not fun at the table, just that we can have meaningful discussions about the distinctions there

Hawkstar

2017-02-21, 11:40 AM

Remarkable Athlete gives you a bonus to initiative checks. That's real good even if the rest of the ability checks don't come into play much. And what does it compare to? Student of war: which is mostly a ribbon ability and very DM dependent. Weapon Bond: a cool little trick for keeping your weapon at hand and impressing peasants with the summoning of it.

I'd say of the 3 that Remarkable Athlete is the best option. This level is more utility stuff than anything.

The base Fighter chassis also has really good DPR and survive ability.
Actually, it competes with progressing superiority dice or spellcasting, and as such comes up insultingly short.

The bonus is to initiative is trivial. The rest is an offensive joke. It makes you at best an average athlete, and if athletics benefits, it's "slightly less unremarkable than the party bookworm" athlete.

Potato_Priest

2017-02-21, 02:07 PM

The Arcane Trickster isn't a Rogue spellcaster. It's a Rogue that can augment their sneaking skills with magic. If you go in into it expecting a hybrid class, you're going to be disappointed. The only "bad" Rogue archetype is the Assassin.

I've played an arcane trickster and played alongside at least 3 assassins over time. The assassins actually did extremely well (we tend to not have many fighters/paladins/clerics to bungle our stealth checks, since almost everyone at my table who isn't an assassin plays a wizard)

In any case, most of what I'm hearing is that the thief is less party-dependent than the assassin, and more sustainable than the arcane trickster? It seems to me that the sustainability thing isn't a big issue though, because an arcane trickster is going to run out of slots slower than the wizard (not using them in combat as much) and is still a rogue when they do. Arcane tricksters also really benefit from creativity, as mage hand legerdemain has amazing versatility.

mephnick

2017-02-21, 02:45 PM

Look up Group Checks in the PHB. There are rules specifically designed to circumvent that mindset.

But not meant to be used to circumvent stealth checks.

But this has already been argued to death in other threads.

War_lord

2017-02-21, 02:49 PM

Arcane Trickster is probably slightly better then Thief, in my estimation anyway. Not better enough that I'd avoid playing a mundane (thief) Rogue.

As for Assassin half the features are hyper situational, you might be able to get a lot of mileage out of the Assassinate/Death Strike synergy if the party co-operates with that (you're only as surprising as Sir Clanksalot the Paladin is willing to be). The other half just plain suck, they're both hyper situational (don't help you in a dungeon.), They take too long to enact (a week for IE and three hours of observation for imposter), they duplicate things easily obtainable magic or tools already do, and they explicitly don't work together. IE explicitly doesn't let you construct an identity that belongs to someone else, and Imposter is all about helping you pass yourself off as another person.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 02:56 PM

But not meant to be used to circumvent stealth checks.

But this has already been argued to death in other threads.

What has been argued in other threads is whether or not a group stealth check can or should be used to create surprise, and how that might work.
There is zero reason to believe that group checks were not "meant to circumvent" stealth checks.
The very description of group checks itself lends to the idea that stealth checks (where the group passes or fails as a group, because, you know, you're only as stealthy as your loudest member, so give that guy a hand/pointers already) were indeed a possibility.

MeeposFire

2017-02-21, 03:01 PM

I find thieves to be very useful and effective. My only complaint was that they stripped magic item usage with fast hands when they put out the DM's guide. Before that it was legal (though apparently not intended) and looking back at it allowing magic items to work with it was not overpowered and would really help make UMD to be much better at the higher levels. You only get 3 items to attune to and any item that requires an action to use competes with sneak attack so it makes many items just not worth using and that takes a bit of the fun out of UMD. So in my games we delete the thrown in the last minute rule found in the DMG and return magic item use to fast hands and have not had a problem since.

War_lord

2017-02-21, 03:31 PM

"Use magic item" also suffers as, given the rarity of magic items recommended in 5e, it's unlikely the party will be encountering a lot of useful magical doodads that they can't use but the Rogue wants.

Rogues in general are super front loaded.

Citan

2017-02-21, 04:00 PM

So, it would seem to me that from a mechanical standpoint the thief rogue subclass is straight inferior at low and midling levels (1-10). Their fast hands ability is worse than an arcane trickster's mage hand legerdemain, which works similarly but at range, and they won't be able to compete in damage with the assassin. Supreme sneak is useful, but there are countless artifacts that can replicate its effects without a speed decrease, and an arcane trickster with invisibility can gain superior benefits at a lower level (with cost, of course). Second story work seems to be their main stand-out feature, and it's not very attractive. At most, it increases jump distance and climbing speed a little, which is extremely situational at best. In general, I see no reason I'd want to play a thief rather than an arcane trickster or assassin. Have I overlooked something, or is thief just bad at common levels of play?
Thief is as strong as your imagination can push it. No more, no less.
In capable hands it's by far the "more powerful" (if this kind of comparison can hold any meaning though).

With that said...

Fast Hands is, overall, far superior to AT's MH Legerdemain. It doesn't require an action to activate, and it doesn't require either a bonus action to get something into the hand, or an extra object interaction by the character. And a Bonus Action every round with Alchemist's Fire, Acid, Ballbearings, Caltrops is awesome. Or you can set a Hunter's Trap. Attach/detach a climbing kit. Use a Healing Kit.

I disagree on this. FH is not superior, nor MHL, there are just different in how and when to use them.
Mage Hand can be incredibly valuable to disarm traps in safety, pick up unreachable objects (the classic "key through bars"), creating distractions (opening doors from a distance), removing an enemy's potion or component pouch, etc. Like, you are locked into a face to face with a fighter, you have an enemy mage close by who you want to disable. MHL allows you to first try removing the component pouch, then decide if it's worth it to move.

FH allows the same kind of things but only at close range, but has greater versatility thanks to Use an Object, so it depends much on player smarts.

I would give a slight upper hand to MGL out of combat because of invisibility, and a slight upper hand to Fast Hands into combat because of larger choice. ;)
>>> Both are equally great if you learn how to use them. ;)

Prince Zahn

2017-02-21, 04:21 PM

Thief is as strong as your imagination can push it. No more, no less.
In capable hands it's by far the "more powerful" (if this kind of comparison can hold any meaning though). The fact that is has immense potential in the right hands alone makes it incredibly potent, you play a thief when you want to rely on your creativity. Uninspired thieves are the ones that end up in the Big House.

With that said...

I disagree on this. FH is not superior, nor MHL, there are just different in how and when to use them.
Mage Hand can be incredibly valuable to disarm traps in safety, pick up unreachable objects (the classic "key through bars"), creating distractions (opening doors from a distance), removing an enemy's potion or component pouch, etc. Like, you are locked into a face to face with a fighter, you have an enemy mage close by who you want to disable. MHL allows you to first try removing the component pouch, then decide if it's worth it to move.

FH allows the same kind of things but only at close range, but has greater versatility thanks to Use an Object, so it depends much on player smarts.

I would give a slight upper hand to MGL out of combat because of invisibility, and a slight upper hand to Fast Hands into combat because of larger choice. ;)
>>> Both are equally great if you learn how to use them. ;)I'd second this, and add that the two aforementioned subclasses rely on different player strengths to be at their most potent: The AT gets a boost of magic (resource management, not having to physically approach what your target object or mark. that gives him more reliable means of doing what the rogue does best - trickery, theft, backstabbing, you name it; The thief, in contrast, relies on creativity, speed (in terms of getting things done faster), using what you are given, and using the area around you in your favor.

and then there's the assassin... I never seen one in action so I don't know exactly what they were trying to do there :smalltongue:

any given player should approach the rogue with his own strengths at heart, that's how you make the thief rogue shine, or the AT rogue shine, and maybe the Assassin rogue too but again I've never played with one.

Potato_Priest

2017-02-21, 04:37 PM

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-21, 04:45 PM

MeeposFire

2017-02-21, 04:59 PM

Arcane trickster lacks the ability to use items as effectively or as quickly which is what the thief excels at. A good arcane trickster is one that tends to find effective ways to use spells (this being a more traditional method of optimizing things tend to be well known). A good thief tends to build around using items and skill checks in combat effectively. This is why you tend to see people talk about being creative because frankly most of what you see in discussions here do not apply to what a thief can do so in order to make use of what it can you tend to have to make some creative choices. Some common ones are using a number of items (my favorite of course is the healing kit with the feat) as a bonus action and then using a bonus action sleight of hand or thieves tools in situations where tricksters cannot (if the hand is not already in the right place then arcane trickster action economy trying to pull these things off become problematic while the thief can do it just by getting into melee range which is a tactic for many rogues anyway).

War_lord

2017-02-21, 05:03 PM

I'm not asking for "why the thief is better in the hands of a good player than an arcane trickster in the hands of a bad player", I'm asking about why either player should choose it over the alternative.

For flavor reasons. There's a lot of characters in fantasy and myth who are mundane heroes, but defeat powerful forces through their wits and courage. The character Garrett, for example, from the Thief series of stealth games, would be a fundamentally different character if he was able to magically charm people or pick locks remotely with an invisible hand.

Dr.Samurai

2017-02-21, 05:14 PM

So, it would seem to me that from a mechanical standpoint the thief rogue subclass is straight inferior at low and midling levels (1-10). Their fast hands ability is worse than an arcane trickster's mage hand legerdemain, which works similarly but at range, and they won't be able to compete in damage with the assassin.
Hang on. It almost seems like you're drawing your conclusion based on a comparison to the other two archetypes at the same time.

In other words, the Arcane Trickster isn't out-damaging the Thief, even if you think MHL is the similar to FH.

And the Assassin doesn't have that utility of FH, even if you think he is out-damaging the Thief.

To the first point, I think the two are about even. I agree with Citan's comments on Fast Hands and Mage Hand Legerdemain. They each have their strengths and are useful in different ways. I wouldn't say MHL is better than the other given that Fast Hands is capable of doing more as a bonus action than Mage Hand is (and you have to use an action to cast Mage Hand).

To the second point, this is laughable. How reliably do you think parties get surprise *And* win initiative in order to say the Assassin is certainly out-damaging the thief?

Supreme sneak is useful, but there are countless artifacts that can replicate its effects without a speed decrease, and an arcane trickster with invisibility can gain superior benefits at a lower level (with cost, of course).
Do you mean magic items or actual artifacts?

In either case, the issue is the same and you've already said it: cost.

The thief needs conditions to be able to Stealth. The Arcane Trickster can cast Invisible, but to do so must use a spell slot and maintain Concentration. Here, the Trickster has some serious utility, since he can do it anywhere and can even cast it on other people. But the rogue just has always on Advantage on Stealth checks. Meaning when he can hide, he *can* Hide.

The slot matters because it means the Trickster has to be mindful of when he is using this utility. The rogue can be chased and Hide. Or enter a room and Hide. And plan to infiltrate and Hide. The Trickster has the spell slot. He can turn Invisible anywhere so long as he has the spell slot, but he can't just roll with Advantage on Stealth checks whenever he needs to.

Also, this is a comparison between the Trickster and the Thief. Notice the Assassin doesn't really have anything to compare here.

Second story work seems to be their main stand-out feature, and it's not very attractive. At most, it increases jump distance and climbing speed a little, which is extremely situational at best.
You climb at your speed, which is helpful, and you'll jump an extra square. It's bizarre to me that you claim the assassin is out-damaging people, then turn around and call improvements to jumping and climbing "extremely situational at best". I smell a forgone conclusion...

If the rogue is the one that can disable traps, and he has to reach the disabling mechanism on the other side of the trap, being able to climb his speed and jump that extra square can be key. It makes him better at his job. It makes him better at scouting.

In general, I see no reason I'd want to play a thief rather than an arcane trickster or assassin. Have I overlooked something, or is thief just bad at common levels of play?
Well, you haven't given any reasons to play the Trickster or the Assassin. You've just sort of dismissed the features of the Thief.

Contrast

2017-02-21, 05:21 PM

I don't quite see the attraction to Fast Hands that most other people seem to be seeing. I agree with others that if you actually use the rules as written trying to use Mage Hand in combat is pretty impractical (versatile trickster is even worse as you can't move the hand as part of the bonus action).

Sure there are some nice things you can do with Fast Hands that you normally wouldn't bother with because they'd take an action. But playing as an arcane trickster I can't think of a single combat round when I didn't use my bonus action. So by using fast hands you're giving up whatever you would have been doing with cunning action which is typically, in my experience, more useful to you than whatever you might achieve with the use an object action. Critically (and this is a theme of thief) - if what you were trying to do was really amazing, any of the other classes can do it as well (just at the cost of an action). Second storey work seems to me to be so weak as to effectively be a ribbon ability - you can still climb and jump without this. If doesn't even make you any better at climbing, if your DM makes you take an athletics check you're still going to roll exactly the same. Supreme sneak is alright but replicated by a number of items and outshone by the ability to go invisible. Use Magic Device is only useful if you find a restricted magic item AND there's no-one else who can use it in the party AND you want to use it. That's a lot of ands.

For those saying thief is good because there's no resource expenditure, I would point out that not being able to step up your game when you need to isn't exactly an amazing selling point. Also, I feel if that's your goal then swashbuckler is a far better bet in terms of just giving you new abilities which improve your flexibility without clashing with other abilities.

That all said, being a thief is fine because being a rogue is fine. Mastermind suffers a similar problem to thief in terms of conflict on actions and ribbon abilities, as others have said assassin is overrated unless you're getting a lot of surprise rounds which most people don't (even if you don't have a terrible stealth score as a party I generally find the party invariably tries to talk first or something). For my money the ranking goes arcane trickster, swashbuckler, assassin, thief, mastermind (though I could be convinced to swap assassin and thief, I just really like disguises so I put some value on the assassins other abilities which others don't so much).

Potato_Priest

2017-02-21, 05:22 PM

snip

Thank you. Those were some good arguments for the thief. It would appear that I did overlook the benefits of supreme sneak to quite a large extent.

In my experience, assassins are quite powerful in play, and not as maligned as others might suggest. It may have something to do with the popular classes at our table being more dex-based.

Anyways, thank you for your insightful comments!

Prince Zahn

2017-02-21, 05:27 PM

I see a lot of posts here talking about how the thief is as good as you are creative. That's true of any class. An EK can be just as creative as a thief, and just as powerful when they are.

I'm not asking for "why the thief is better in the hands of a good player than an arcane trickster in the hands of a bad player", I'm asking about why either player should choose it over the alternative.

Simple, the creative potential of the thief's abilities is significantly lot broader than that of an AT. Fast hands gives you more bonus action options (and good ones too), which would also mean you could supposedly get almost 200% more things done in, say, 1 minute (10 rounds), than an AT ever could in that time.

second-story work makes climbing and jumping a non-issue (especially as i mentioned in an earlier post: If you also invest in acrobatics and athletics in this archetype, you become much more of an asset when taking on flying creatures, even without a bow.) or can quickly get on high ground and shoot arrows at enemies for easy SA damage. The AT can choreograph a fake hand into position.
UMD doesn't just mean you can use whatever magic items he gives you, it also means that you can use your friends' magic items if the need arises. It also means that if you get magic items they can be just as useful for you as the class they were intended for, and there's no guarantee that when you get magic items they must be tailored to your party structure. This means that nearly all magic items are always relevant to your party.

The last ability gives you two turns in the first round of nearly every combat! How is that not incredible? Double the SA! double the movement! and double the Cunning Action! Double the Creativity! EVERY TIME - DOUBLE TIME!

to sum up, there is a whole bunch of stuff you can do here. You have a lot more options than an AT gets, depending on the gear you have, the monsters you are fighting, and the battleground which is 80% of the time more than an empty arena. and as mentioned before, these abilities are passive and always relevant. While every class can be more effective with creative players, the thief is geared for creative players more than any other class.

djreynolds

2017-02-21, 05:33 PM

If you fight in any terrain, other than flat 2 dimensional plane, a thief can use second story work to gain cover, concealment, and hide.

You can climb 30ft up a wall.

It seems silly, right.... who cares.

It opens up tactics you may never have thought to use.

We fought a beholder, antimagic and rays of disintegration, the thief was able to climb the walls to get behind and change the fight.

It can be a useful to useless ability... but in this instance was game changers.

A thief can use terrain like no other class without resource expenditure.

And in OotA, lots of terrain features to use. In a city or castle... same thing. Now in a flat desert... well not so much.

Try the archetype out.

Potato_Priest

2017-02-21, 05:34 PM

ad_hoc

2017-02-21, 05:47 PM

Adding in support for the arguments that the Thief is the quintessential Rogue. The Rogue in general relies on circumstance, the Thief moreso.

The assassin is actually bad. It is the weakest of the Rogue subclasses. If you want a combat Rogue then the Swashbuckler is better.

MeeposFire

2017-02-21, 06:01 PM

Simple, the creative potential of the thief's abilities is significantly lot broader than that of an AT. Fast hands gives you more bonus action options (and good ones too), which would also mean you could supposedly get almost 200% more things done in, say, 1 minute (10 rounds), than an AT ever could in that time.

second-story work makes climbing and jumping a non-issue (especially as i mentioned in an earlier post: If you also invest in acrobatics and athletics in this archetype, you become much more of an asset when taking on flying creatures, even without a bow.) or can quickly get on high ground and shoot arrows at enemies for easy SA damage. The AT can choreograph a fake hand into position.
UMD doesn't just mean you can use whatever magic items he gives you, it also means that you can use your friends' magic items if the need arises. It also means that if you get magic items they can be just as useful for you as the class they were intended for, and there's no guarantee that when you get magic items they must be tailored to your party structure. This means that nearly all magic items are always relevant to your party.

The last ability gives you two turns in the first round of nearly every combat! How is that not incredible? Double the SA! double the movement! and double the Cunning Action! Double the Creativity! EVERY TIME - DOUBLE TIME!

to sum up, there is a whole bunch of stuff you can do here. You have a lot more options than an AT gets, depending on the gear you have, the monsters you are fighting, and the battleground which is 80% of the time more than an empty arena. and as mentioned before, these abilities are passive and always relevant. While every class can be more effective with creative players, the thief is geared for creative players more than any other class.

The unfortunate part of using your friends items is that so many items require attunement that while you could use the item you may not have the time to attune to it so that you can use it.

Of course there are items that do not require attunement but most of those are not direct combat items or are basic items that probably do not have a class, race, or level restriction on them.

danpit2991

2017-02-21, 06:04 PM

Why play a thief????

to steal stuff

Cybren

2017-02-21, 06:07 PM

I think you either quoted the wrong post or you're confusing what I wrote in the post you made with other posts.

Either way, there's literally zero systematic methodologies for testing d&d classes to date.

White room analysis doesn't take into many variable factors and often ignores important factors for ease of mathematical analysis design, and gameplay tends to be filled with anecdotes filed together with no overarching meta analysis between them.

There is no systematic testing, and pretending that there is can lead to having falsely confident opinions. As with all of the analyses for this game, all of them need to come with the caveat that it ignores certain favors and your personal experience may differ. That's truth in the analysis. Not doing so means you're either lying to yourself or to your audience.

The best we can get is to tie in the White room analyses with gameplay experience and see how they work together.

For the champion and the thief, one could claim with confidence, "White room analysis says these classes don't do as well as other archetypes, but there's a lot of reports of people enjoying the class. This likely means the difference in the math doesn't have as strong an effect as you might first assume."

But to pretend that a purely mathematical approach to analyzing classes is the be-all-end-all to design is wrong. And I say this as someone who does mathematical and scientific analysis as a career.

There's so many things in D&D that can't be quantitatively measured that leads to things being seen of as "weak" or "useless" because of that. That the inability to apply some universal set of metrics to evaluate it is itself somehow a weakness of the design. Which is ridiculous, but here we are.

Deleted

2017-02-21, 06:43 PM

Remarkable Athlete gives you a bonus to initiative checks. That's real good even if the rest of the ability checks don't come into play much. And what does it compare to? Student of war: which is mostly a ribbon ability and very DM dependent. Weapon Bond: a cool little trick for keeping your weapon at hand and impressing peasants with the summoning of it.

I'd say of the 3 that Remarkable Athlete is the best option. This level is more utility stuff than anything.

The base Fighter chassis also has really good DPR and survive ability.

Oooo a bonus to initiative in a game where the mechanics makes the game incredibly swingy... What, this bonus only goes up to +3...Yaaaaaaay! /s

It doesnt matter what it compares to on the fighter cause the fighter is a heap of garbage to begin with. Even the EK is badly designed. The fighter does one thing well, but can't do anything else.

At least the theif is connected to a good class and has synergy with its other class features.

The difference between the thief and champion is the thief has useful abilities. Disarming traps as a bonus action? Hell yes. Using an item on a bonus action? Hell yes.

War_lord

2017-02-21, 07:20 PM

Simple, the creative potential of the thief's abilities is significantly lot broader than that of an AT. Fast hands gives you more bonus action options (and good ones too), which would also mean you could supposedly get almost 200% more things done in, say, 1 minute (10 rounds), than an AT ever could in that time.

I don't agree that the Thieves abilities are broader then that of the AT, never mind significantly so. Fast hands lets you use your (already precious) bonus action to use object, sleight of hand or use your Thieves Tools. Mage Hand Legerdemain loses out big in action economy, action to cast, bonus action to move it and action to use. But it's invisible and it can be used remotely from up to 30 feet away, that's huge boost in terms of both safety and utility that's, in my opinion, well worth the action cost. Being able to pick pockets with reduced risk, disarm traps from 30 feet away and pull the enemy's sword out of its sheath and bring it to your feet are all great uses of the Hand that can't be done with Fast Hands.

second-story work makes climbing and jumping a non-issue (especially as i mentioned in an earlier post: If you also invest in acrobatics and athletics in this archetype, you become much more of an asset when taking on flying creatures, even without a bow.) or can quickly get on high ground and shoot arrows at enemies for easy SA damage. The AT can choreograph a fake hand into position.

The Arcane Trickster can also invest into Acrobatics and Athletics. Second Story work sounds great at a glance, but when you actually break it down it amounts to 5 feet of jump distance (useless) and "climb faster", which can be replicated by any number of spells.

Cybren

2017-02-21, 07:23 PM

The Arcane Trickster can also invest into Acrobatics and Athletics. Second Story work sounds great at a glance, but when you actually break it down it amounts to 5 feet of jump distance (useless) and "climb faster", which can be replicated by any number of spells.

I'm really curious why you think 5ft of jump distance is useless, given how significantly large that is an increase to normal long jump distance. As to being able to replicate climbing with spells. Yeah, sure. That's why the AT has spells! But having to use a spell to do something is intrinsically worse than being able to always do it, and it changes how the character plays in significant ways.

War_lord

2017-02-21, 07:31 PM

I'm really curious why you think 5ft of jump distance is useless, given how significantly large that is an increase to normal long jump distance. As to being able to replicate climbing with spells. Yeah, sure. That's why the AT has spells! But having to use a spell to do something is intrinsically worse than being able to always do it, and it changes how the character plays in significant ways.

How many situations are make or break based on another 5 feet of running jump distance? How many situations are make or break based on climbing 30 feet instead of 15 feet? Once a session, twice a session? Which spells can do to.

Cybren

2017-02-21, 07:33 PM

How many situations are make or break based on another 5 feet of running jump distance? How many situations are make or break based on climbing 30 feet instead of 15 feet?

Iunno, how many?

mgshamster

2017-02-21, 07:49 PM

The Arcane Trickster can also invest into Acrobatics and Athletics. Second Story work sounds great at a glance, but when you actually break it down it amounts to 5 feet of jump distance (useless) and "climb faster", which can be replicated by any number of spells.

Those spells cost you your prescious action. You only get one of those per round.

I mean, we need consider the price of an action for these (limited per day) spells, otherwise why would we even care about a (nearly unlimited) option of bonus actions, presented here:

Fast hands lets you use your (already precious) bonus action to use object, sleight of hand or use your Thieves Tools.

Tanarii

2017-02-21, 07:49 PM

I disagree on this. FH is not superior, nor MHL, there are just different in how and when to use them. Totally agree. I phrased it very poorly. I was reacting to the idea that Mage Hand could do everything that Fast Hands can do, but at range. That's not the case. Fast Hands does stuff with a single object interaction & bonus action that'd take either 2 object interactions and a bonus action, or 2 bonus actions, to do with MHL. And MHL requires an action to bring out. So in those specific things, in terms of action economy Fast Hands is superior.

Otoh you're totally right overall they're different. Neither is superior, overall. MHL can do things at range, and when if it doesn't require an object / tool, or the object / tool is already in the MH long before its needed, it's just as 'fast' as Fast Hands if it's already out.

How many situations are make or break based on another 5 feet of running jump distance? How many situations are make or break based on climbing 30 feet instead of 15 feet? Once a session, twice a session? Which spells can do to.5ft of jumping distance is an extra 5ft of difficult or obstructed terrain you can clear. (One extra square if you use battlemats.) My experience is those are fairly common on the battlefields. As are different elevations with steep slopes (or even cliffs), especially underground. So I consider second story work a combat bonus.

Personally as a DM I try to make sure to include interesting terrain even though I run TotM. But that's because I most recently came out of 4e where terrain can make or break how fun the game is.

Not counting battle, my general experience is when you really need climbing or jumping, you need lots of it, but not particularly an extended amount of it. So single spell use is more useful there. Barring things like infiltrating urban compounds of course. (Which I'll note a Assassin is better at. They just go through the front door.)

But Yeah, the ability is *really* something that will be YMMV, just as the Assassins Imposter ability is.

War_lord

2017-02-21, 07:57 PM

Those spells cost you your prescious action. You only get one of those per round.

I mean, we need consider the price of an action for these (limited per day) spells, otherwise why would we even care about a (nearly unlimited) option of bonus actions, presented here:

The point is that situations were you need to climb stuff quickly aren't going to come up that often.

Zalabim

2017-02-21, 10:20 PM

In any event, a spell the AT uses to help climb things isn't going to be Enchantment or Illusion, so it's a very limited resource in another way: Spells known.

TripleD

2017-02-21, 10:57 PM

The point is that situations were you need to climb stuff quickly aren't going to come up that often.

That's really DM dependent.

Does your DM only run combat in empty rooms? Useless.

Does you DM make an effort to include terrain at different elevations? Could come up all the time.

mgshamster

2017-02-21, 11:23 PM

That's really DM dependent.

Does your DM only run combat in empty rooms? Useless.

Does you DM make an effort to include terrain at different elevations? Could come up all the time.

Empty rooms with smooth frictionless surfaces are the only proper battle format for White Room analyses. Caves don't exist. Cities don't exist. Trees don't exist. No mountains, or cliff sides, or even dungeons with rough walls. No creatures of immense size like dragons.

Because none of those situations exist in D&D, then of course climbing will never come up. It's totally a rare situation! So of course, in this totally rare situation, an AT is going to invest one of their 13 spells to learn spider climb, because they're never going to need it since climbing is so rare.

Asmotherion

2017-02-21, 11:40 PM

Well, it's mostly an RP subclass. It's totally fine, if you're not focusing on damage, and can be very interesting to RP too.

Dr.Samurai

2017-02-21, 11:50 PM

The point is that situations were you need to climb stuff quickly aren't going to come up that often.
But what about when you have to move to the wall and climb? Whereas a regular rogue simply doesn't have the speed necessary to climb up to a ledge or lever or whatever because he already spent some speed walking, the thief climbs at a 1:1 ratio. What if you're prone and have to stand up and climb? What if your speed is halved? Or you're exhausted? What if there's difficult terrain in your way?

And I agree with Tanarii about the extra square of jumping. You're bypassing difficult terrain, obstacles, hazards, etc. Or, if you make the athletics check, you're adding one free square to your movement.

It seems to me these situations will come up much more frequently than the assassin needing to impersonate someone or mimic a person's handwriting perfectly.

With the Arcane Trickster, you have to be careful to simply assume that the Trickster can mimic everything the Thief is doing with spells. Spells known and slots are limited. Build a trickster that is using his spells to be stealthier and more mobile than the Thief, and then let's figure out what else the Trickster has going for him after he's surpassed the Thief with spells. Go to level 9, because I think that's where the OP's analysis ended. So you know four 1st level spells and two 2nd level spells, with four and two slots respectively. What spells are you grabbing?

Prince Zahn

2017-02-22, 12:22 AM

I just want to add, never before have I wanted to play a thief rogue more than when I started reading this thread. Had i not read it I would have leaned more towards arcane oriented characters like I always do.

Hawkstar

2017-02-22, 01:18 AM

Second Story work is great in urban adventures as well. Between that and Cunning Action (Fast hands optional), you may end up forming an agreement with the Guards - "You don't waste your time chasing me for minor ****, I don't waste your time leading you on ridiculous chases you have no hope of winning." (Throw in Tabaxi for even more "Neener Neener can't touch me!" fun)

Deleted

2017-02-22, 10:58 AM

Empty rooms with smooth frictionless surfaces are the only proper battle format for White Room analyses. Caves don't exist. Cities don't exist. Trees don't exist. No mountains, or cliff sides, or even dungeons with rough walls. No creatures of immense size like dragons.

Because none of those situations exist in D&D, then of course climbing will never come up. It's totally a rare situation! So of course, in this totally rare situation, an AT is going to invest one of their 13 spells to learn spider climb, because they're never going to need it since climbing is so rare.

Creatures don't exist either I guess...

I mean, the climb onto a bigger creature maneuver is fricken great for when you can't grapple the creature but don't want it to get away.

No one climbs from the tail of a dragon to the point on their back that they can't reach like a Thief.*

*note: safely tucked away from the dragon's breath weapon.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 01:59 PM

But what about when you have to move to the wall and climb? Whereas a regular rogue simply doesn't have the speed necessary to climb up to a ledge or lever or whatever because he already spent some speed walking, the thief climbs at a 1:1 ratio. What if you're prone and have to stand up and climb? What if your speed is halved? Or you're exhausted? What if there's difficult terrain in your way?

Are you running into these situations more then once per long rest? Then yes, having a weak always on ability is better then a strong magical ability that you can only pop once. I personally feel that needing to climbing things twice as fast isn't a situation that's going to arise that often. That's being misrepresented as me thinking it couldn't possibly be useful. I see it has being like the performance skill, nine times out of ten, you won't need it, but you'd be glad to have it when you do. But at the same time I feel my Arcane Trickster could magically compensate for his lack of Second Story work should I be forced to climb something quickly. Arcane Trickster does involve giving up some specialization in stereotypical "rogue stuff" in exchange for flexibility, and not all Rogues are of the climbing kind.

And I agree with Tanarii about the extra square of jumping. You're bypassing difficult terrain, obstacles, hazards, etc. Or, if you make the athletics check, you're adding one free square to your movement.

The running Jump distance for a PC, assuming a strength of 10 (highest most rogues will bother going) and not difficult terrain, is 10 feet. Bypassing an obstacle (which can be no taller then a quarter of the jump distance) is a DC 10 strength (athletics) check, Second Story Work doesn't help with that. With SSW and a strength of 10, you have a jump distance of exactly 15 feet. It only benefits you at all if that jump you're trying to make is either exactly 15 feet, or exactly 10 feet with difficult terrain. If it's any more then that, SSW doesn't help, if it's any shorter then that, the Arcane Trickster can make it just as easily, and he/she probably has a spell that can get them across that 20 foot chasm without any check.

It seems to me these situations will come up much more frequently than the assassin needing to impersonate someone or mimic a person's handwriting perfectly.

Yes, Assassins are terrible, they are to Archetypes what Medicine is to the skills list.

With the Arcane Trickster, you have to be careful to simply assume that the Trickster can mimic everything the Thief is doing with spells. Spells known and slots are limited. Build a trickster that is using his spells to be stealthier and more mobile than the Thief, and then let's figure out what else the Trickster has going for him after he's surpassed the Thief with spells. Go to level 9, because I think that's where the OP's analysis ended. So you know four 1st level spells and two 2nd level spells, with four and two slots respectively. What spells are you grabbing?

I'm not assuming that. The Thief can do "Rogue stuff" all day. The Arcane Trickster trades that consistency for a small pool of utility spells that can be used to temporarily augment their abilities to do things a Thief can't.

A level 9 Arcane trickster knows 6 spells, two of those can be from any Wizard school, but according to the RAW, the non-illusion/enchantment spell you learned at level 1 can't be swapped out.

Therefore my list would be:

Slot 1 (2nd level): Invisibility (Arcane Tricksters should always have this, up until they get their 3rd level slots and therefor the Greater version.)
Slot 2 (2nd level): Misty Step (Extra mobility is always good, particularly when it lets you go to any space you can see within 30 feet, that means through arrow slits and keyholes as well as across the "white room".)
Slot 3: Charm person (Synergy with your Magical Ambush ability, also useful in social encounters.)
Slot 4: Silent Image (This one is a little hard to advocate for it the white room, but an imaginative player can get a lot of use out of it, particularly combined with your minor illusion cantrip for sound generation.)
Slot 5: Tasha's Hideous Laughter (Crowd control, also creates an opening for escape or more sneak attacks.)
Slot 6: Feather fall OR Grease OR Fog Cloud OR Jump OR Longstrider

Tanarii

2017-02-22, 02:14 PM

I see it has being like the performance skill, nine times out of ten, you won't need it, but you'd be glad to have it when you do.I find that climbing and jumping are usually the exact opposite of the performance skill. To pull stats out of my ass I'd say 50% of all combats I run or play in have climbing or jumping as a useful (but not required) option. So extra climbing speed or jumping distance is a nice combat mobility boost.

Meanwhile Performance is almost exclusively useful in downtime, and almost never during play, except in very niche campaign styles. For downtime it's awesome ... you get a Wealthy lifestyle at zero cost. Of course, how important downtime is depends heavily on campaign style too.

The running Jump distance for a PC, assuming a strength of 10 (highest most rogues will bother going) and not difficult terrain, is 10 feet. Bypassing an obstacle (which can be no taller then a quarter of the jump distance) is a DC 10 strength (athletics) check, Second Story Work doesn't help with that. With SSW and a strength of 10, you have a jump distance of exactly 15 feet. It only benefits you at all if that jump you're trying to make is either exactly 15 feet, or exactly 10 feet with difficult terrain. If it's any more then that, SSW doesn't help, if it's any shorter then that, the Arcane Trickster can make it just as easily, and he/she probably has a spell that can get them across that 20 foot chasm without any check.It benefits you any time you make a running long jump between your Str score and your Str score + Dex modifier. Which doesn't require a check of any kind. (Edit: or a running high jump between 3+Str mod and 3+Str mod+Dex mod. It's a much bigger relative bonus for running High Jumps.)

I'll note that the majority of Rogues I see have a Str score of 8, in either Standard Array or Point Buy. They cannot clear bog-standard 10ft pit. Of course, that only matters if your DM always rounds sizes of things to be jumped to the nearest 5ft increment. :smallyuk: (Edit: And for running high jumps, for the average Rogue it is often a jump of 2ft height to a jump of 6-7ft.)

I do agree that overall the +Dex to long jump distance isn't like, TOTALLY AWESOME YOU GUYS! It's nice, a useful mobility boost to a class that frequently depends on mobility in combat, when jumping or climbing is often a useful thing to do in combat.

Fishyninja

2017-02-22, 03:11 PM

Therefore my list would be:

Slot 1 (2nd level): Invisibility (Arcane Tricksters should always have this, up until they get their 3rd level slots and therefor the Greater version.)
Slot 2 (2nd level): Misty Step (Extra mobility is always good, particularly when it lets you go to any space you can see within 30 feet, that means through arrow slits and keyholes as well as across the "white room".)
Slot 3: Charm person (Synergy with your Magical Ambush ability, also useful in social encounters.)
Slot 4: Silent Image (This one is a little hard to advocate for it the white room, but an imaginative player can get a lot of use out of it, particularly combined with your minor illusion cantrip for sound generation.)
Slot 5: Tasha's Hideous Laughter (Crowd control, also creates an opening for escape or more sneak attacks.)
Slot 6: Feather fall OR Grease OR Fog Cloud OR Jump OR Longstrider
Good List, I might use this as a reference.

JellyPooga

2017-02-22, 03:19 PM

I'll note that the majority of Rogues I see have a Str score of 8

Maybe it's just me (because I'm the only player who frequently ever plays a Rogue in the 5ed games I've played), but the notion of a Rogue with Strength less than 12 just kind of...bugs me. I discussed it a bit in the Rogue Guide thread knocking around at the moment, but Strength is incredibly valuable to your stereotypical Rogue. Divorce yourself from the notion that Strength is somehow "competing" with Dex as an attack stat and look at the other benefits; without a decent Str score, the image of the physically competent Rogue who is able to out-run the city guard, can scale a wall lickety-split, leap across roof-tops and otherwise generally be an athletic and physically competent bod...well, the image sort of falls apart. Expertise in Athletics and the Thief archetype can make up for any potential lack in the Str department, but consider what happens when you add that same compensation to a decent Strength score instead...a Str 12/Dex 16 Thief Rogue clears a long jump of 15ft without having to roll a die; the same distance someone that invested a whole lot more in Strength can. Expertise in Athletics giving you a +5 mod at level 1 is worthy of claiming to be "good" at it, compared to the Str: 8 Rogues' +3, which is merely "competent" (barely better than "proficient"). That +2 difference between Str 8 and Str 12 is pretty huge considering the relative rarity of bonuses in 5ed.

It's not like Str 12 is a huge investment either. I mean, what else are you putting those points in that's so vital? Charisma? Intelligence? They're just as (in)significant choices compared to investing in Strength instead. Is Str a primary Ability Score for Rogues? Hardly; it's not even secondary outside of some specific builds, but I think the "optimal" choice of hard-dumping Str on Rogues is something that needs to be debunked; yes, Str and Dex "compete" as attack stats, but that by no means implies that Str totally useless to your average Rogue. Besides, if you've only got Strength 8...how are you going to lug all your ill-gotten loot out of the dungeon? :smallbiggrin:

tl;dr - I dont' like "Fop" Rogues with Str 8.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-22, 03:27 PM

but according to the RAW, the non-illusion/enchantment spell you learned at level 1 can't be swapped out.

RAW, sure.
RAI, perfectly fine to swap it out with a spell from any school.
It states that when you swap spells, it must be an enchant/illusion spell, unless it was a spell you gained from level 8, 14, 20. Clearly it's saying that you still have to conform to the rules for your spells as described. You have to choose enchant/illus except for when you specifically don't. That one freebie at 3rd level is one that you specifically don't. So while strict RAW doesn't allow it, the intent pretty clearly does.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 04:02 PM

Maybe it's just me (because I'm the only player who frequently ever plays a Rogue in the 5ed games I've played), but the notion of a Rogue with Strength less than 12 just kind of...bugs me. I discussed it a bit in the Rogue Guide thread knocking around at the moment, but Strength is incredibly valuable to your stereotypical Rogue. Divorce yourself from the notion that Strength is somehow "competing" with Dex as an attack stat and look at the other benefits; without a decent Str score, the image of the physically competent Rogue who is able to out-run the city guard, can scale a wall lickety-split, leap across roof-tops and otherwise generally be an athletic and physically competent bod...well, the image sort of falls apart. Expertise in Athletics and the Thief archetype can make up for any potential lack in the Str department, but consider what happens when you add that same compensation to a decent Strength score instead...a Str 12/Dex 16 Thief Rogue clears a long jump of 15ft without having to roll a die; the same distance someone that invested a whole lot more in Strength can. Expertise in Athletics giving you a +5 mod at level 1 is worthy of claiming to be "good" at it, compared to the Str: 8 Rogues' +3, which is merely "competent" (barely better than "proficient"). That +2 difference between Str 8 and Str 12 is pretty huge considering the relative rarity of bonuses in 5ed.

It's not like Str 12 is a huge investment either. I mean, what else are you putting those points in that's so vital? Charisma? Intelligence? They're just as (in)significant choices compared to investing in Strength instead. Is Str a primary Ability Score for Rogues? Hardly; it's not even secondary outside of some specific builds, but I think the "optimal" choice of hard-dumping Str on Rogues is something that needs to be debunked; yes, Str and Dex "compete" as attack stats, but that by no means implies that Str totally useless to your average Rogue. Besides, if you've only got Strength 8...how are you going to lug all your ill-gotten loot out of the dungeon? :smallbiggrin:

tl;dr - I dont' like "Fop" Rogues with Str 8.

If you don't have 18-20 dex as a Rogue, I'm sorry, you shouldn't have bothered playing a Rogue. The skills you bring to the table as a Rogue (Sneak and Thieves Tools) key off of Dex, your ability to hit and damage things keys off your dex, a Rogue without dex, is a Rogue that isn't pulling their weight.

Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma all have multiple skills attached to them, the only thing an 8 strength Rogue misses out on is Athletics, and as you actually admit, proficiency and expertise more then compensate for a minus one. At level nine that proficiency/expertise bonus is a combined +8.

Strength isn't totally useless, it's just that virtually anything else is far more useful to your skill monkey character. And since when is being "athletic" limited to Strongman types? Plenty of very Athletic people don't have bodies made of huge slabs of muscle. The carrying capacity thing really isn't an issue, unless your DM is using the variant rules, in which case the guy whose entire thing is being fast shouldn't be on pack rat duty anyway.

Tanarii

2017-02-22, 04:14 PM

It's not like Str 12 is a huge investment either. I mean, what else are you putting those points in that's so vital? Charisma? Intelligence? They're just as (in)significant choices compared to investing in Strength instead. Is Str a primary Ability Score for Rogues? Hardly; it's not even secondary outside of some specific builds, but I think the "optimal" choice of hard-dumping Str on Rogues is something that needs to be debunked; yes, Str and Dex "compete" as attack stats, but that by no means implies that Str totally useless to your average Rogue. Besides, if you've only got Strength 8...how are you going to lug all your ill-gotten loot out of the dungeon? :smallbiggrin:

tl;dr - I dont' like "Fop" Rogues with Str 8.
I don't really like it either. It's just what I see a lot of. From what I've seen, the majority of players certainly would consider Int and Cha generally considered more important to Rogues than Str. I see this even in my campaign where I use the optional encumbrance rule, so Str is important even for non-Str-melee classes. The idea that Str and Dex are counterparts, and you generally only need one, is firmly embedded in the minds of many players. Excluding newbies, who generally "don't know better". I love newbies and how they just do what seems right, rather than whatever is group-think. :smallbiggrin:

Personally, for Rogues Wis is *always* my dump stat. Because it's traditional. ;) And because the Cleric (typically front rank) or Ranger/Monk (typically part of the scouting detachment with me) can spot the trap ... I'll focus on Int (Investigation) to figure out how to disarm it. If I know I'm going to be solo scouting, I'll just Expertise Perception to make up for it. But I'm not going to find many players who will agree with me on dumping Wis, on any character, let alone one who is seen as a scout.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-22, 04:17 PM

If you don't have 18-20 dex as a Rogue, I'm sorry, you shouldn't have bothered playing a Rogue.

This isn't 4e, and that mindset is outdated.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 04:33 PM

This isn't 4e, and that mindset is outdated.

The idea that Rogues should be as good at sneaking, picking locks and sneaking as they can is an outdated mindset now? Because it just sounds like knowing what my class features are to me. If someone wants to put points into strength because their Rogue "ain't no weakling" that's fine, but it's a character choice not a game choice. Strength is rather weak in 5e, things like DEX Paladins are a symptom of that.

Fishyninja

2017-02-22, 04:38 PM

Deleted

2017-02-22, 04:40 PM

This isn't 4e, and that mindset is outdated.

So the earliest I played 4e as in the 90's? Daaaamn boi, didn't know I was a timelord.

mgshamster

2017-02-22, 04:40 PM

The idea that Rogues should be as good at sneaking, picking locks and sneaking as they can is an outdated mindset now? Because it just sounds like knowing what my class features are to me. If someone wants to put points into strength because their Rogue "ain't no weakling" that's fine, but it's a character choice not a game choice. Strength is rather weak in 5e, things like DEX Paladins are a symptom of that.

Welcome to bounded accuracy, where the difference between a +3 and a +5 barely means anything, and the decision to increase your Dex means you're not improving elsewhere.

It all balances out fairly well, which opens up more character options compared to previous versions of the game where *not* improved your primary stat to max was a PC killer.

You no longer have to min-max in this game. Doing so is purely a character choice, not a game choice.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 04:46 PM

Deleted

2017-02-22, 04:52 PM

also you can very well play a strength optimized rogue. Sneak attack requires a finesse/ranged weapon, not an attack roll with dexterity.

Saw a Strength Rogue in play, might be the most powerful martial build out there.

Good damage, excellent athletics, medium armor + shield, and has features that make having a shield make sense (uncanny dodge allows you to take half damage, much like a shield reduces damage to you).

War_lord

2017-02-22, 05:21 PM

Welcome to bounded accuracy, where the difference between a +3 and a +5 barely means anything, and the decision to increase your Dex means you're not improving elsewhere.

It all balances out fairly well, which opens up more character options compared to previous versions of the game where *not* improved your primary stat to max was a PC killer.

You no longer have to min-max in this game. Doing so is purely a character choice, not a game choice.

I'm playing an Arcane Trickster, which is not a "min-maxed" class. In the same party, there's a Bard with a wisdom of 5 and Proficiency:Cooking Utensils, with a habit of getting distracted by shiny things and a Paladin with the Linguist feat. I'm yet to start screaming at them about optimization. I really don't think I'm a min-maxer, I wouldn't waste my time min-maxing, because 5e isn't a killer game. Making a character that's effective as possible isn't min-maxing, it's what you're meant to do. Making a build centered around Assassin novas is min-maxxing, making sure I can pick that door lock as the Rogue, is just being a Rogue.

The difference between +3 and +5 can be success or failure if the dice aren't going your way, and Rogues are typically called upon to roll their dice in situations where success brings great rewards, and failure means being stabbed, exploded, burned, cursed, imprisoned, eaten or caught with the king's new wife. If the party gets wiped because of a trap I failed to defuse or a Sneak attempt I botched, I've let them down and I've let myself down.

I'm not min-maxing, making sure my character, who calls himself a master thief, is actually good enough to justify that claim is both thematically appropriate, and good from a game perspective.

Knaight

2017-02-22, 05:36 PM

I'd argue that some of the abilities are being underestimated - yes, a spell will also give you the exceptional climbing and jumping. A spell also takes an action to cast, and that's a fairly significant cost. With that said, I'd also argue that the AT is the strongest rogue archetype, and because of the versatility of spells always will be. So why pick the others?

They fit the given character better. Sure, I could refluff spellcasting, but that's a gigantic pain and always ends up bizarre*, so it's not happening. I'll save the AT for the characters it fits**, and use thief for the characters it fits.

*Plus, it means dealing with the casting system. I really, really hate the casting system.
**Which in this context can be translated to "probably never use the AT even if I somehow switch from predominantly a GM to predominantly a player and end up in 5e games for the rest of my life".

mgshamster

2017-02-22, 05:43 PM

I'm not min-maxing, making sure my character, who calls himself a master thief, is actually good enough to justify that claim is both thematically appropriate, and good from a game perspective.

That's some good Orwellian Double Speak right there.

Trying to argue that maxing out a stat "or don't bother playing" is not min-maxing is pretty hilarious.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 05:45 PM

That's some good Orwellian Double Speak right there.

Trying to argue that maxing out a stat "or don't bother playing" is not min-maxing is pretty hilarious.

Don't bother playing a Rogue, you of course do not need to max out Dex on your Barbarian.

mgshamster

2017-02-22, 05:54 PM

Don't bother playing a Rogue, you of course do not need to max out Dex on your Barbarian.

Did you truly and honestly believe that this was in any way not understood by everyone reading this thread?

Cybren

2017-02-22, 05:54 PM

Don't bother playing a Rogue, you of course do not need to max out Dex on your Barbarian.

Why not just be a mountain dwarf rogue with medium armor, expertise in athletics, and maxed out strength?

War_lord

2017-02-22, 06:01 PM

Why not just be a mountain dwarf rogue with medium armor, expertise in athletics, and maxed out strength?

You can do that, but then you're a Martial grappling character, not a Rogue, even if your class says "Rogue" you're fundamentally taking up an entirely different role. I don't see a problem with that so long as you communicated to to the party that "hey, this Rogue isn't a "rogue" it's a specialist thug build".

Cybren

2017-02-22, 06:01 PM

You can do that, but then you're a Martial grappling character, not a Rogue, even if your class says "Rogue" you're fundamentally taking up an entirely different role.
no... you're a rogue.... because the only definition "rogue" has is "has the rogue class".

War_lord

2017-02-22, 06:12 PM

no... you're a rogue.... because the only definition "rogue" has is "has the rogue class".

Nope, "When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hut the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks".

Nothing cunning about Grab'n'stab.

Deleted

2017-02-22, 06:15 PM

Nope, "When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hut the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks".

Sorry but no.

I've played many rogues that prioritized strength over dex in the past.

You may call it a bandit or a brawny subclass, but it is still a rogue.

And really, out of all the martials, the Rogue has the strongest single hit... That can be fluffed anyway you like it.

JellyPooga

2017-02-22, 06:19 PM

War_lord

2017-02-22, 06:22 PM

And really, out of all the martials, the Rogue has the strongest single hit... That can be fluffed anyway you like it.

Rogue is not a Martial class. They've made Sneak attack very easy to procure, and the actual Martial classes are rather underwhelming. That's a balance issue, not a feature. My Elf Rogue can do the same amount of Sneak Attack damage, while actually being able to sneak, pick locks and disarm those traps.

Uh...isn't "grab'n'stab" intrinsically more "cunning" than "stab'n'stab"? One has more elements involved than the other and the more "cunning" plan usually involves more elements. Jus' sayin'.

Grabbing someone and holding them in place relies on brute strength, Orcs can do that. A "Cunning" fight implies a certain amount of planning and strategic thinking.

Specter

2017-02-22, 06:23 PM

Contrast

2017-02-22, 06:25 PM

Nope, "When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hut the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks".

Nothing cunning about Grab'n'stab.

Yeah you seem to have an incredibly narrow view of the class. Just because most rogues play a sneaky lockpicker does not mean you have to in the slightest. A thug with expertise in intimidation and atheletics who stabs people with a punch dagger is just as much of a rogue as your sneaky backstabber (arguably more effective since with athletics he potentially has a way to generate his own advantage).

Besides, with expertise you can play a sneaky lockpicker even with a mediocre dex score.

Tanarii

2017-02-22, 06:26 PM

Rogue is not a Martial class.... wut? :smallconfused:

You've been making some statements based on your own personal assumptions about what is and what is not "Rogue" in this thread, but this one is kind of mind-blowing. The AT is the only caster among the Rogue sub-classes, and it's a 1/3 Spellcasting caster. The Rogue absolutely is a Martial class.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 06:34 PM

Nope, "When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hut the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks".

Nothing cunning about Grab'n'stab.

please tell that to randy couture (for clarity- yes he didn't stab people, but he tied people up with clinches and standing grappling to avoid taking too many hits, which is one of the main reason he was able to have such a long career)

... wut? :smallconfused:

You've been making some statements based on your own personal assumptions about what is and what is not "Rogue" in this thread, but this one is kind of mind-blowing. The AT is the only caster among the Rogue sub-classes, and it's a 1/3 Spellcasting caster. The Rogue absolutely is a Martial class.

To be fair, i hate the use of the term "martial" to mean "isn't using magic". Every D&D class is "martial" in that the majority of their abilities tend to revolve around combat

JellyPooga

2017-02-22, 06:37 PM

Rogue is not a Martial class. They've made Sneak attack very easy to procure, and the actual Martial classes are rather underwhelming. That's a balance issue, not a feature. My Elf Rogue can do the same amount of Sneak Attack damage, while actually being able to sneak, pick locks and disarm those traps.

Rogue is definitely a "martial" Class.

Grabbing someone and holding them in place relies on brute strength, Orcs can do that. A "Cunning" fight implies a certain amount of planning and strategic thinking.

Grapple has little to do with strength actually. Advantage, Size and Expertise have far more impact than raw Strength. Aside from that particular fact, if you want a straight forward unthinking approach, just make an attack every turn. A Grapple followed by a little collusion with an ally to drag a foe through a Spike Growth or Moonbeam AoE, or putting a vulnerable foe in the way of a Paladins Smite or a Fighters six attacks (using Action Surge at level 11 plus) is much more cunning than "I attack the [guy]".

War_lord

2017-02-22, 07:00 PM

Something many seem to be forgetting is that Second Story Work doesn't let you just climb automatically, it lets you climb faster. If you're trying to climb a flat wall, any kind of Rogue would still have to beat a big DC to even start it. "I climb a 30ft. wall in combat!" If your DM didn't ask for a check, you shouldn't have done it.

And the debate between Arcane Trickster and Thief definitely should not be limited to climbing; I for instance would prefer just getting Booming Blade than any of the Thief's two abilities.

Eh, I personally use a Ranged weapon, which could be done with either Thief or Arcane Trickster, it's much easier to get Sneak attacks in from a distance, and Sneak attacks is were my damage comes from.... and because I find SCAG stuff rather too powerful as a whole.

Yeah you seem to have an incredibly narrow view of the class. Just because most rogues play a sneaky lockpicker does not mean you have to in the slightest. A thug with expertise in intimidation and atheletics who stabs people with a punch dagger is just as much of a rogue as your sneaky backstabber (arguably more effective since with athletics he potentially has a way to generate his own advantage).

Besides, with expertise you can play a sneaky lockpicker even with a mediocre dex score.

Intimidation doesn't have any relation to Strength, I can be a very intimidating Gnome if I use the right words.

What advantage does the Dwarf Rogue actually have over the traditional build, aside from creating Buddhist Koans?

With Expertise and a traditional build, I can be an Intimidating and Athletic Rogue even with mediocre Charisma and below average Strength. While still being an excellent Sneak and unmatched lock picker (only Rogues can apply expertise to Thieves Tools). I do the same amount of damage with 20 dexterity as I'd do with 20 strength, my AC is only slightly worse, Sneak attack is not hard to get and if I really needed to grapple I have expertise in Athletics, DEX is attached to three skills and my signature tool, it's also an important saving throw, DEX has better Ranged options.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 07:04 PM

What advantage does the Dwarf Rogue actually have over the traditional build, aside from creating Buddhist Koans?

medium armor +2 strength and con, allowing you to be better at grappling while offsetting the the defenses you give up by not having as high a dex.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 07:12 PM

medium armor +2 strength and con, allowing you to be better at grappling while offsetting the the defenses you give up by not having as high a dex.

...But you're having to use medium armor in order to offset your decision not to focus on DEX. The whole impetus behind the Mountain Dwarf build seems to be to sacrifice a bunch of versatility to grapple things, and thus gain advantage. But there's so many other ways to set up a sneak attack through the 5 feet rule and hiding that the whole thing seems a solution in search of a problem.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 07:17 PM

...But you're having to use medium armor in order to offset your decision not to focus on DEX. The whole impetus behind the Mountain Dwarf build seems to be to sacrifice a bunch of versatility to grapple things, and thus gain advantage. But there's so many other ways to set up a sneak attack through the 5 feet rule and hiding that the whole thing seems a solution in search of a problem.

1) what are you giving up, exactly?
2) who said anything about grappling just for sneak attack? You also get to use grappling to move people, hold them in place, pin them on the ground and fart in their mouths. Grappling is versatile in and of itself.

This isn't a huge tradeoff.

Estrillian

2017-02-22, 07:18 PM

Look up Group Checks in the PHB. There are rules specifically designed to circumvent that mindset.

edit: I'll make it easy for you:

When a number of individuals are trying to accomplish
something as a group, the DM might ask for a group
ability check. In such a situation, the characters who are
skilled at a particular task help cover those who aren't.
To make a group ability check, everyone in the group
makes the ability check. If at least half the group
succeeds, the whole group succeeds. Otherwise,
the group fails.

Group checks don’t come up very often, and they’re
most useful w hen all the characters succeed or
fail as a group. For example, when adventurers are
navigating a swamp, the DM might call for a group
Wisdom (Survival) check to see if the characters can
avoid the quicksand, sinkholes, and other natural
hazards o f the environment. If at least half the group
succeeds, the successful characters are able to guide
their companions out of danger. Otherwise, the group
stumbles into one of these hazards.

There are no such things as Group Stealth Checks.

A Group Check, as the rules you quoted make clear, require a target number, so that you can adjudicate whether half the group has passed or not. Stealth checks don't have target numbers in the rules as written, instead they set the target for someone else's perception. Hence you cannot use a Group Check for stealth.

The Surprise rules on PHB 189 make this clear

the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

i.e. a monster is surprised only if it notices no threats, which means that *all* the stealth checks have to beat its passive perception. In other words it is the worst stealth check that determines if a creature is surprised.

Now of course you are free to work around this by saying that maybe a Group Stealth Check involves beating the Passive Perception of some set of observers, or that the median (mean?) stealth result determines the DC for a perception check, or something, but it is not the rules as we are given them. And intuitively it makes sense, how can you be more stealthy as a group than the least stealthy of you?

Citan

2017-02-22, 07:25 PM

If you don't have 18-20 dex as a Rogue, I'm sorry, you shouldn't have bothered playing a Rogue. The skills you bring to the table as a Rogue (Sneak and Thieves Tools) key off of Dex, your ability to hit and damage things keys off your dex, a Rogue without dex, is a Rogue that isn't pulling their weight.

Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma all have multiple skills attached to them, the only thing an 8 strength Rogue misses out on is Athletics, and as you actually admit, proficiency and expertise more then compensate for a minus one. At level nine that proficiency/expertise bonus is a combined +8.

Strength isn't totally useless, it's just that virtually anything else is far more useful to your skill monkey character. And since when is being "athletic" limited to Strongman types? Plenty of very Athletic people don't have bodies made of huge slabs of muscle. The carrying capacity thing really isn't an issue, unless your DM is using the variant rules, in which case the guy whose entire thing is being fast shouldn't be on pack rat duty anyway.
Wow. Impressive.
Much like someone else's post I read recently, you are great at pretending that your personal taste in playing the Rogue is actually the only right way.
Oh, wait! In fact, you are not.

1. Rogue requires "an attack made with a finesse weapon" to apply Sneak Attack, NOT "an attack made with DEX". Considering that Barbarian's rage requires explicitly STR to be used, this is not a miss from WoTC: they DON'T hardcode Dex to Rogue, for good reason.

2. What you say about proficiency + expertise works both way: you can very well be excellent at any DEX check with only 14-16 in it, precisely because you get so much "autobonus" as you level. And fluff-wise, you can easily argue that petty criminals have to try many things so you can easily imagine one being a skillmonkey for a group.

3. Even with high stat, you still are constrained by the d20 roll Swinginess... Except that Rogue also gets Reliable Talent which further reduces the impact of having 2-3 less points in your Dex. Also you can get Help from someone in some cases. Or Lucky. Or Bardic Inspiration. Or Bless. Or Divine Portent. Or Bend Luck.

4. Fluff-wise, as others exposed, Strength is as important for a criminal as Dexterity. Subtlety (in tactics) is not incompatible with brute force either.

TL;DR: come back on earth. You have every right to play a Rogue as you like it, but stop pretending you "know how a Rogue have to be played" (and pretend any other way is bad as a consequence). It's insulting to WoTC and, frankly, to the core concept of roleplaying in general, as it's reducting it to the simplest of video games, the hack and slashes...

War_lord

2017-02-22, 07:26 PM

1) what are you giving up, exactly?
2) who said anything about grappling just for sneak attack? You also get to use grappling to move people, hold them in place, pin them on the ground and fart in their mouths. Grappling is versatile in and of itself.

This isn't a huge tradeoff.

You're worse at Sneaking, Sleight of Hand, Acrobatics, Thieves tools and the ever common Dex save, in exchange for being better at Athletics.

Or I could a feat that isn't Grappler, like Lucky, or Crossbow Expert or Athlete? (Since people feel I'm wrong about climbing)

I get that there's a certain pride in building characters that break the mold of a given class, but it just ends up with a gimmick class.

Tanarii

2017-02-22, 07:26 PM

There are no such things as Group Stealth Checks.I've already pointed all this out to him in another thread. And yet he insists on holding this opinion that somehow you can use Group Checks with Stealth vs Perception, including for surprise.

I do agree it's possible to figure out a way to use them if you modify how you're using the rules. One option is to roll a Stealth Group Check against the average Passive Perception DC, or the highest only, to determine group vs group surprise. Or you could compare the Stealth checks against each Passive Perception as if a group check for that individual. Or you can do what DivisibleByZero stated he does in the other thread, and use the average result of the rolled Steath checks vs the Passive Perception of each individual on the other side. There are ways to make it work. But they're not what the rules specifically tell you to do for surprise, nor are they Group Checks as the rules define them.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 07:32 PM

There's no such thing as group stealth checks. A Half-Orc Paladin in Plate is not going to be as quiet as his allies in Studded Leather, and no amount of "help" from them would keep him from being heard.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 07:33 PM

You're worse at Sneaking, Sleight of Hand, Acrobatics, Thieves tools and the ever common Dex save, in exchange for being better at Athletics.

Or I could a feat that isn't Grappler, like Lucky, or Crossbow Expert or Athlete? (Since people feel I'm wrong about climbing)

why would you ever take grappler? Half of it doesn't do anything and the other half literally doesn't do anything. To be a good grappler, you do not take Grappler. You get expertise in athletics, or have a regular source of advantage, or a reliable source of bonuses, or some combo of the three. Additionally, a slightly smaller bonus to those skills is acceptable. There's no requirement a rogue have proficiency in sleight of hand. or acrobatics. a number (not all) of the uses of acrobatics are redundant with athletics, so you may not even be proficient in it. I don't even know why sleight of hand and acrobatics would be considered such a core part of the rogue identity. Stealth, thieves tools, sure, those i get. But not all rogues, even not all rogues with the thief archetype are actual thieves that pick your pocket and do backflips

War_lord

2017-02-22, 07:59 PM

why would you ever take grappler? Half of it doesn't do anything and the other half literally doesn't do anything. To be a good grappler, you do not take Grappler. You get expertise in athletics, or have a regular source of advantage, or a reliable source of bonuses, or some combo of the three. Additionally, a slightly smaller bonus to those skills is acceptable. There's no requirement a rogue have proficiency in sleight of hand. or acrobatics. a number (not all) of the uses of acrobatics are redundant with athletics, so you may not even be proficient in it. I don't even know why sleight of hand and acrobatics would be considered such a core part of the rogue identity. Stealth, thieves tools, sure, those i get. But not all rogues, even not all rogues with the thief archetype are actual thieves that pick your pocket and do backflips

A Grapple action is an Athletics check contested by the opponent's Athletics or Acrobatics. On a success it does two things, it applies the Grappled status effect, dropping the creature's speed to zero, and it lets the Grapper drag the target around. That's it. You literally can't actually "pin them to the ground" without the feat, you don't get advantage from grappling them without the feat. Unless all your fights happen to take place against large or smaller non-flying creatures on the edge of a volcano, and they come at you one at a time, being +5 better then my rogue at Grapple and Shove really isn't the massive advantage it's being painted as, he has expertise too.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 08:04 PM

A Grapple action is an Athletics check contested by the opponent's Athletics or Acrobatics. On a success it does two things, it applies the Grappled status effect, dropping the creature's speed to zero, and it lets the Grapper drag the target around. That's it. You literally can't actually "pin them to the ground" without the feat, you don't get advantage from grappling them without the feat. Unless all your fights happen to take place against large or smaller non-flying creatures on the edge of a volcano, and they come at you one at a time, being +5 better then my rogue at Grapple and Shove really isn't the massive advantage it's being painted as, he has expertise too.

Knock prone-> grapple-> opponent is on the ground with a speed of 0 and therefore cannot stand up. They can take actions, but have disadvantage to a lot of them. You have advantage because you are targeting a prone target with melee attacks. Grapple feat not needed.

Contrast

2017-02-22, 08:11 PM

If you've picked up the proficiency (dwarf, multiclassing), Shield Master is a pretty compelling feat as well (though amusingly it is not a pre-requisitie that you have proficiency to take Shield Master as I noticed one day). I've long thought about doing a strength rogue with a barbarian dip to laugh when someone tries to resist my advantaged expertised athletics (this from someone who thinks grappling is usually a waste of time).

It's not as intuitive as the typical dex rogue but its plenty viable. I was playing an arcane trickster and recently rebuilt him into a swashbuckler. I think I've rolled stealth maybe...once? And I've used my thieves tools maybe 2 or 3 times total. There are a lot of different ways to play a rogue.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 08:21 PM

Knock prone-> grapple-> opponent is on the ground with a speed of 0 and therefore cannot stand up. They can take actions, but have disadvantage to a lot of them. You have advantage because you are targeting a prone target with melee attacks. Grapple feat not needed.

Be 30ft away->be Hidden->shoot enemy in face->displace 30ft->Hide, repeat till enemy down.

Or hell, if you really want to be a 1v1 Melee Rogue, be a Swashbuckler and stab them in the face.

The whole knocking an enemy prone and then grappling them idea looks to be something that could be entirely invalidated by your DM not sharing your interpretation of grapple.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 08:24 PM

Be 30ft away->be Hidden->shoot enemy in face->displace 30ft->Hide, repeat till enemy down.

Or hell, if you really want to be a 1v1 Melee Rogue, be a Swashbuckler and stab them in the face.

As it turns out, ANY of the rogue subclasses can be be good at grappling. So yes, be a swashbuckler!

War_lord

2017-02-22, 08:34 PM

As it turns out, ANY of the rogue subclasses can be be good at grappling. So yes, be a swashbuckler!

But then you have Advantage anyway, and you don't need to either grapple them. Or force them to grapple with odd interpretations of the grapple rules. "putting someone prone is essentially pinning them"

Specter

2017-02-22, 08:39 PM

But then you have Advantage anyway, and you don't need to either grapple them. Or force them to grapple with odd interpretations of the grapple rules. "putting someone prone is essentially pinning them"

There's no odd interpretation in trip + grapple at all.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 08:46 PM

There's no odd interpretation in trip + grapple at all.

If you grapple someone who is prone, you pin them. A pin gives both parties the restrained condition, meaning neither has advantage against the other.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 08:57 PM

??? No, if you use the action from the grappler feat you apply the restrained condition. But grappling a prone target to stop it from getting up isn't applying restrained. They can still attack you, they just can't get up until they break the grappl. If you d done any jiu jitsu, you're basically in knee-on-belly. My description of it as "pinning" wasn't literal.

Specter

2017-02-22, 08:57 PM

If you grapple someone who is prone, you pin them. A pin gives both parties the restrained condition, meaning neither has advantage against the other.

And now the million dollar question: says who/what page?

War_lord

2017-02-22, 08:58 PM

And now the million dollar question: says who/what page?

http://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/07/15/grappling-a-prone-creature/

I interprete that to mean that enacting a grapple on a prone opponent has the same result as pinning them with the grappler feat.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 09:02 PM

Gizmogidget

2017-02-22, 09:13 PM

mgshamster

2017-02-22, 09:14 PM

If you grapple someone who is prone, you pin them. A pin gives both parties the restrained condition, meaning neither has advantage against the other.

Are you just making up rules now?

War_lord

2017-02-22, 09:16 PM

You seem to be misunderstanding what mearls is saying. He's saying "putting someone prone while grappling is akin to a pin" not "putting someone prone is mechanically identical to the use of the grappler feat that applies the restrained condition"

That sounds like a very tenuous interpretation to me, there's only one reference to pinning opponents in the Player's guide, and that's what's described under Grappler.

The person asks three questions:

Q1. Is a Grappled creature that is shoved prone still grappled.

A1: Still Grappled unless shoved out of the grappler's reach.

Q2. When grappling a prone creature, is the grappler able to do so still standing with all the advantages that entails?

A2. yes, grappling is a melee attack and IIRC those have advantage vs. prone targets.

Q3. Thats a useful tactic, but it does make me wonder about the worth of the grappling pin?

A3. Putting someone prone is essentially pinning them.

Mr Mearls said putting someone prone is essentially pinning them, in response to a question about the usefulness of the grappling pin. In the context of the question asked, I understand that to mean a direct relation is being drawn between the Grappling Pin and what happens when a prone creature is grappled.

Specter

2017-02-22, 09:34 PM

That sounds like a very tenuous interpretation to me, there's only one reference to pinning opponents in the Player's guide, and that's what's described under Grappler.

The person asks three questions:

Q1. Is a Grappled creature that is shoved prone still grappled.

A1: Still Grappled unless shoved out of the grappler's reach.

Q2. When grappling a prone creature, is the grappler able to do so still standing with all the advantages that entails?

A2. yes, grappling is a melee attack and IIRC those have advantage vs. prone targets.

Q3. Thats a useful tactic, but it does make me wonder about the worth of the grappling pin?

A3. Putting someone prone is essentially pinning them.

Mr Mearls said putting someone prone is essentially pinning them, in response to a question about the usefulness of the grappling pin. In the context of the question asked, I understand that to mean a direct relation is being drawn between the Grappling Pin and what happens when a prone creature is grappled.

This whole thing would go down ten times easier if you just admitted you were wrong.

The word 'pin' has no effect on the result of tripping and grappling someone, which is very easily described just reading both conditions in the PHB: a prone target who can't get up.

And no ruling about the game in general can be made based on feats, since they are an optional rule.

And finally, even if Mearls went out on a tweet saying "when you grapple a prone target you're both restrained like the feat", it wouldn't be RAW. So, there's that.

Cybren

2017-02-22, 09:45 PM

Mearls only ever gives his opinion and not an official rules answer, so even if you were correct in his intention with regards to the answer, you would be incorrect with its relevance with regards to the rules.

At any rate: your interpretation of someone's tweets is specious. He said it is "essentially pinning them", not "is applying the restrained condition as like the grappler feats pin ability". It's "essentially" pinning them because 1) their speed is 0 2) they can't stand up without breaking the grapple. 3) they have disadvantage on attack rolls while people targeting them have advantage. Those are the similarities. It doesn't apply the restrained condition

War_lord

2017-02-22, 09:56 PM

This whole thing would go down ten times easier if you just admitted you were wrong.

Except that I'm not. Everyone's life would be much easier if everyone who disagreed with them on any controversial matter just said "nah, I'm totally wrong about these things I believe", but that's not how life works, people are going to disagree with you on things, you declaring that they're wrong is in itself inherently opinion.

The word 'pin' has no effect on the result of tripping and grappling someone

Says who?

And no ruling about the game in general can be made based on feats, since they are an optional rule.

Says who?

And finally, even if Mearls went out on a tweet saying "when you grapple a prone target you're both restrained like the feat", it wouldn't be RAW. So, there's that.

Well, if that's the argument we're going to, that nothing that isn't explicitly spelled out in the book can be considered a ruling, then I counter with the argument that the DM is ultimately the final authority on rulings at any table. And if you as a DM interpret the grapple rules to mean one thing, and I as a DM at interpret the grapple rules to mean another thing at my table, we're both within our rights to do so.

Specter

2017-02-22, 10:06 PM

Except that I'm not. Everyone's life would be much easier if everyone who disagreed with them on any controversial matter just said "nah, I'm totally wrong about these things I believe", but that's not how life works, people are going to disagree with you on things, you declaring that they're wrong is in itself inherently opinion.

Says who?

Says who?

Well, if that's the argument we're going to, that nothing that isn't explicitly spelled out in the book can be considered a ruling, then I counter with the argument that the DM is ultimately the final authority on rulings at any table. And if you as a DM interpret the grapple rules to mean one one thing, and I as a DM at interpret the grapple rules to mean another thing at my table, we're both within our rights to do so.

Keep running, Gingerbread Man, you still can't escape.

You are giving rulings based merely on your opinion and your interpretation of a tweet and I'm just laying what's in the books. Sorry, nothing gets past those awful little things.

Who says a word has nothing to do with conditions that don't bring it up? Not sure, logic, I guess. What's next, Dungeon Delver only works in dungeons now?

Who says feats are an optional rule? The summary of the Player's Handbook. I imagine you got that far, right?

If you don't know it works, let's lay it out: there's RAW, as in the constitution of D&D, and then there's RAI, something the developers intended but didn't rule it explicitly. Until you can prove Mearls' intention was to replicate Grappler under prone+grappled, you're not even close to RAI, and RAW is left untouched by you until someone rewrites the book so it says what you want, i.e. never. Saying that DMs don't rule the game is a cute joke, I give you that, but just shows your appeal to irony after a lack of evidence.

War_lord

2017-02-22, 10:38 PM

Keep running, Gingerbread Man, you still can't escape.

I've seen people get less wound up then you, while discussing actual morals and politics with me.

You are giving rulings based merely on your opinion and your interpretation of a tweet and I'm just laying what's in the books. Sorry, nothing gets past those awful little things.

There's nothing in the books that specifically say "this is what happens when you try to grapple a creature that is prone". The absence of a ruling on something is not itself a rule as written. The absence of a specific rule for grappling a prone enemy does not mean that there's no room for a distinction to me made.

Who says a word has nothing to do with conditions that don't bring it up? Not sure, logic, I guess. What's next, Dungeon Delver only works in dungeons now?

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say with that, there's one reference to pinning enemies in the entire handbook, that's under the grappler feat. No, same as how Crossbow expert isn't limited to just crossbows. This is a different case.

Who says feats are an optional rule? The summary of the Player's Handbook. I imagine you got that far, right?

No, who says that you can't extrapolate anything from the flavour text of a feat? Less of the pointless hostility thanks.

If you don't know it works, let's lay it out: there's RAW, as in the constitution of D&D, and then there's RAI, something the developers intended but didn't rule it explicitly. Until you can prove Mearls' intention was to replicate Grappler under prone+grappled, you're not even close to RAI, and RAW is left untouched by you until someone rewrites the book so it says what you want, i.e. never.

RAW is not the "constitution of D&D". We wouldn't be having arguments about "rules as intended" if the Rules as written were written with constitutional clarity.

Saying that DMs don't rule the game is a cute joke, I give you that,

That's literally the exact opposite of what I just said. Are you even reading my posts any more? Or did you start seeing red when I questioned the utility of the Dwarf grappler build that people are trying to make out is some amazing paradigm shift instead of just a gimmicky niche build?

Page 4 of the DM's guide: the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

Tanarii

2017-02-22, 11:02 PM

For me it depends on the DM. I know one DM that when he rolls perception checks, every creature rolls them, whichh greatly reduces the chances of surprise. However another just rolls for whatever creature in the group has the highest modifier.

So if there is a group of 5 guards, and 1 of the guards has a 14 wisdom, then my chances of surprise are vastly different. Presuming I roll a ten unmodified, here are the chances of me surprising each group based on each DM>

DM that has all monsters roll
An 85.594% chance of getting spotted, not particularly good if I want to play an assassin

DM that has the 14 wisdom guard role
30% Which is far better

Honestly it depends who is running the game.
If whomever is running the game is using rolled perception checks when they aren't taking the Search action, instead of passive perception like the PHB says to do when a creature attempts to hide, or for determining surprise, yeah, it's gonna make hiding and achieving surprise even harder than intended. It's hard enough to hide just beating passive perception, or the highest if one is higher. And with your entire group having to beat a given creatures passive perception to achieve surprise, that's also difficult enough. (Easier if you somehow incorporate something like group checks of course. Even though I don't think that's the PHB way to do things, I still can see ways to incorporate it.)

Arenabait

2017-02-22, 11:14 PM

Okay, I'll end this right here.

On page 195 of the Phb, the grapple and shove actions are explained.

The "Grappled" condition, as invoked by using the "Grapple" special attack is described on page 290 of the Phb, and these are ALL of the bullet points depicted under the "Grappled" condition that page:

A grappled creature's speed becomes 0,and it can't benefit from any bonus to its speed.
The condition ends if the grappler is incapacitated (see the condition),
The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell.

As for the shove action, this is the exact wording, as used on page 195 of the Phb:

Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.

The target of your shove must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. You make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). If you win the contest, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.

I emboldened the most relevant part of the text above

Now, let's go over the "Prone" Condition, shall we?

A prone creature's only movement option is to crawl, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition.
The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls.
An attack roll against the creature has advantage if the attacker is within 5 feet of the creature. Otherwise, the attack roll has disadvantage.

I emboldened the relevant part of the bit above.

Now, let's go over the rules for standing up, shall we?

I will quote from the section titled "Being prone", on page 190 of the Phb

Standing up takes more effort; doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. For example, if your speed is 30 feet, you must spend 15 feet of movement to stand up. You can't stand up if you don't have enough movement left or if your speed is 0.

All in all, while you are grappled, your speed is 0. If the grappler takes the "Shove" action to knock you prone, you are knocked prone, and still grappled. In order to stand up, you need to spend half your movement. But you can't stand up while your speed is 0. Nowhere does it say anything about the grappler being stuck, or having a movement speed of 0. In fact, to quote page 195 in the Phb:

Moving a Grappled Creature. When you move, you can drag or carry the grappled creature with you, but your speed is halved, unless the creature is two or more sizes smaller than you.

It not only doesn't say that the grappler is stuck, it says that the grappler can still drag the grapplee. If you can give a quote from the Phb or Dmg where it supports what you are saying, I will accept it. If not, your point is invalid.

Specter

2017-02-22, 11:19 PM

I've seen people get less wound up then you, while discussing actual morals and politics with me.

There's nothing in the books that specifically say "this is what happens when you try to grapple a creature that is prone". The absence of a ruling on something is not itself a rule as written. The absence of a specific rule for grappling a prone enemy does not mean that there's no room for a distinction to me made.

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say with that, there's one reference to pinning enemies in the entire handbook, that's under the grappler feat. No, same as how Crossbow expert isn't limited to just crossbows. This is a different case.

No, who says that you can't extrapolate anything from the flavour text of a feat? Less of the pointless hostility thanks.

RAW is not the "constitution of D&D". We wouldn't be having arguments about "rules as intended" if the Rules as written were written with constitutional clarity.

That's literally the exact opposite of what I just said. Are you even reading my posts any more? Or did you start seeing red when I questioned the utility of the Dwarf grappler build that people are trying to make out is some amazing paradigm shift instead of just a gimmicky niche build?

Page 4 of the DM's guide: the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

Sorry, I can't respect those who get told to their face by many others they're wrong and find their opinions of matters to be more important than that. Gets the best of me sometimes.

You can't extrapolate from feats because grappling is not an optional rule, feats are. Feats must conform to what's official if they are to even exist in the game.

What you're missing (intentionally or not, who cares) is that conditions stack. In the same way someone can be charmed and restrained, they can also be prone and grappled. That's just the fact, see, no wiggle room here. Even if (if) you confirmed your theory, it's still against the book.

Some people make a living out of finding breaches in the constitution, they're called lawyers. That's acceptable. Doesn't mean you can't walk up in court and show a children's coloring book as law. A metaphor fitting your situation. Interpreting the books is one thing, interpreting a tweet about the book in your desired way and saying others have an 'odd interpretation'... don't try it. Really.

If you want an answer again, go to Sage Advice and askMearls what he meant with that tweet and post it here. Let's settle the RAI matter then, shall we?

Yep, didn't think so.

Arenabait

2017-02-22, 11:22 PM

Some people make a living out of finding breaches in the constitution, they're called lawyers. That's acceptable. Doesn't mean you can't walk up in court and show a children's coloring book as law.

This isn't so much bringing a coloring book, as bringing a letter written by the founding fathers, but your point still stands. Their word is not law, the published things are.

Crgaston

2017-02-22, 11:24 PM

Umm, ok... staying out of that argument. But.

One way for group stealth checks to make sense is for the sneaky guy to move ahead and then signal when it's clear for the clanky guy to move forward. Clanky guy is benefiting from the skill and advice of the sneaky guy. I'd allow this at half the part's move speed or less, depending on conditions.

mgshamster

2017-02-22, 11:29 PM

This isn't so much bringing a coloring book, as bringing a letter written by the founding fathers, but your point still stands. Their word is not law, the published things are.

Even with that, there's a few issues. 1) Mearls is not the rules guy. Jeremy Crawford is. They've flat out told us that. And 2) Sageadvice.eu is not the official sage advice column. It's just a third party who collects all the tweets. To get the official sage advice, you have to go to WOTC and download their sage advice document.

Since they're known for giving bad information in tweets, they have said to take Thier tweets as simple advice from a fellow DM, and not as an official ruling unless it appears in the official sage advice PDF on the WOTC website.

Heck, even Mearls has said that his tweets are from him as a DM, and to take it or leave it as you like.

Newtonsolo313

2017-02-22, 11:32 PM

Even with that, there's a few issues. 1) Mearls is not the rules guy. Jeremy Crawford is. They've flat out told us that. And 2) Sageadvice.eu is not the official sage advice column. It's just a third party who collects all the tweets. To get the official sage advice, you have to go to WOTC and download their sage advice document.

Since they're known for giving bad information in tweets, they have said to take Thier tweets as simple advice from a fellow DM, and not as an official ruling unless it appears in the official sage advice PDF on the WOTC website.

Heck, even Mearls has said that his tweets are from him as a DM, and to take it or leave it as you like.
So a letter written by franklin not Jefferson.
That is if I have my is history right

mgshamster

2017-02-22, 11:38 PM

So a letter written by franklin not Jefferson.
That is if I have my is history right

Franklin would have been a great DM.

Arenabait

2017-02-22, 11:43 PM

So a letter written by Franklin not Jefferson.
That is if I have my is history right

More like a letter written by Jefferson, but never actually made law. Also, this is a misinterpreted letter at that.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:06 AM

Being prone, gives your opponent advantage, and you disadvantage on attack rolls, specifically attack rolls. Grappling, and escaping a grapple is specifically not an attack roll, it is an attack action. So first you have to take an attack action to grapple the opponent, at which point they get to make an escape attempt. Then their turn comes around, and they get to make another escape check, and also hit you if they have a multi-attack. Then your turn comes around, and you make a shove attempt, assuming you succeed, they're now prone. Then their turn comes around, and they get to make another escape attempt, and also attack you, albeit with disadvantage. Now, finally, you can actually do sneak attack damage. This is assuming you don't roll badly or get mobbed at any pont

Meanwhile I've made two sneak attacks while you were off hugging a monster. Such a game changer that grapple is, assuming that the DM doesn't actually bother making a ruling about the difficulty of restraining an opponent with one arm while they're prone and you're somehow standing upright, you know the exact sort of ruling the DM's guide empowers the DM to make. But nope, a standing dictum about DM primacy going back years doesn't matter, because the RAW is apparently a constitution now. Even though literally the 4th page of the DMG tells the DM that he interprets the rules and chooses if we should enforce that interpretation or change the rule.

EDIT: Also, even Sage advice, says in the introduction, that it still doesn't replace DM adjudication.

Arenabait

2017-02-23, 12:12 AM

Being prone, gives your opponent advantage, and you disadvantage on attack rolls, specifically attack rolls. Grappling, and escaping a grapple is specifically not an attack roll, it is an attack action. So first you have to take an attack action to grapple the opponent, at which point they get to make an escape attempt. Then their turn comes around, and they get to make another escape check, and also hit you if they have a multi-attack. Then your turn comes around, and you make a shove attempt, assuming you succeed, they're now prone. Then their turn comes around, and they get to make another escape attempt, and also attack you, albeit with disadvantage. Now, finally, you can actually do sneak attack damage. This is assuming you don't roll badly or get mobbed at any pont

Meanwhile I've made two sneak attacks while you were off hugging a monster. Such a game changer that grapple is, assuming that the DM doesn't actually bother making a ruling about the difficulty of restraining an opponent with one arm while they're prone and you're somehow standing upright, you know the exact sort of ruling the DM's guide empowers the DM to make.

1. You're changing the subject. I wasn't talking about Grappling as a rogue being suboptimal (Because it almost always is)

2. You're not the DM in question here, so you don't get to decide what the DM decides.

3. Nobody said anything about you being upright. You're probably just crouching while you grapple him. Crouching imposes no penalty, and completely validates being able to have them prone and grappled while you aren't prone at all.

4. While you are grappled, you are able to also take the Shove and Grapple actions even while prone/grappled. IE, tripping them up so they also can't move, pulling them to the ground with you.

Dr.Samurai

2017-02-23, 12:13 AM

Arenabait

2017-02-23, 12:16 AM

Let me see if I'm following this right...

War_Lord said that to be a rogue, you must use Dexterity.

People claim that strength rogues are a fine option.

War_Lord says a person using strength to attack is not a rogue, and makes a reference to "grab"-and-stab, when no one had mentioned anything about grabbing or grappling anyone.

And now you're all debating rules about grappling...

Kudos to you War_Lord for making a nonsense claim and then distracting away from the inevitable and obvious counters to that claim.

Thank god someone finally pointed this out. Like, this isn't even sarcasm. I'm actually happy someone said it. On the other hand, I feel compelled to correct him on his complete and utter disregard for the rules of Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons

MeeposFire

2017-02-23, 12:20 AM

HIgh str on a rogue can be effective though to be honest I tend toward multiclass builds if I go with a high str rogue. The free medium armor (assuming you go with barbarian or fighter) and extra attack are very helpful on str rogues in particular.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:21 AM

1. You're changing the subject. I wasn't talking about Grappling as a rogue being suboptimal (Because it almost always is)

2. You're not the DM in question here, so you don't get to decide what the DM decides.

3. Nobody said anything about you being upright. You're probably just crouching while you grapple him. Crouching imposes no penalty, and completely validates being able to have them prone and grappled while you aren't prone at all.

4. While you are grappled, you are able to also take the Shove and Grapple actions even while prone/grappled.

Right, so we admit that Grapple Rogue is suboptimal, we agree that, in theory, it could be weakened even further if the DM has his own views on what is plausible grappling. So how is it good alternative to just playing the typical Rogue?

If you're crouching, then your speed would be effected, if you're standing and they're standing, and it's halfing your move speed, then logically, you trying to drag then while you're crouched and they're crawling, it should be even slower. But it isn't. It's almost like the grapple rules in this edition aren't intended to be exhaustive, and DMs should apply judgement to their use or something.

War_Lord says a person using strength to attack is not a rogue, and makes a reference to "grab"-and-stab, when no one had mentioned anything about grabbing or grappling anyone

There's a grand total of one Strength rogue build making the rounds.

Arenabait

2017-02-23, 12:22 AM

Arenabait

2017-02-23, 12:27 AM

Right, so we admit that Grapple Rogue is suboptimal, we agree that, in theory, it could be weakened even further if the DM has his own views on what is plausible grappling. So how is it good alternative to just playing the typical Rogue?

If you're crouching, then your speed would be effected, if you're standing and they're standing, and it's halfing your move speed, then logically, you trying to drag then while you're crouched and they're crawling, it should be even slower. But it isn't. It's almost like the grapple rules in this edition aren't intended to be exhaustive, and DMs should apply judgement to their use or something.

They're not crawling, they're getting dragged. And the movement speed penalty for dragging is covering everything that needs to be relevant.

Also, I feel like you're reading way to deeply into this. D&D has never been a game about perfect simulation of reality. In a world where pointy eared scholars in enchanted robes shoot fire out of the end of a magic stick, you can't act like everything needs to be as realistic as possible.

Dr.Samurai

2017-02-23, 12:28 AM

Thank god someone finally pointed this out. Like, this isn't even sarcasm. I'm actually happy someone said it.
Lol, yeah, I've been following throughout the day but haven't had a chance to post. I had to go back several times to figure out why in the world grappling suddenly became relevant to this discussion. Or rather, to determine that grappling never became relevant to this discussion lol.

On the other hand, I feel compelled to correct him on his complete and utter disregard for the rules of Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons
Yeah, I get that. Arguing for argument's sake is one of my favorite pastimes :smallbiggrin:.

But the grappling is such a side-issue here lol. Still... it's tempting to jump in...

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:28 AM

Your Rogue is wearing medium armor, has high strength and has five levels in fighter. Seems legit.

ad_hoc

2017-02-23, 12:29 AM

Cybren

2017-02-23, 12:31 AM

Your Rogue is wearing medium armor, has high strength and has five levels in fighter. Seems legit.

Only one of these things is a relevant point.

Cybren

2017-02-23, 12:33 AM

Lol, yeah, I've been following throughout the day but haven't had a chance to post. I had to go back several times to figure out why in the world grappling suddenly became relevant to this discussion. Or rather, to determine that grappling never became relevant to this discussion lol.

Yeah, I get that. Arguing for argument's sake is one of my favorite pastimes :smallbiggrin:.

But the grappling is such a side-issue here lol. Still... it's tempting to jump in...
Well, grappling came up as one example of a reason a rogue might invest in strength over dexterity, and he zeroed in on it and we never really progressed past that point

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:34 AM

Also, I feel like you're reading way to deeply into this. D&D has never been a game about perfect simulation of reality. In a world where pointy eared scholars in enchanted robes shoot fire out of the end of a magic stick, you can't act like everything needs to be as realistic as possible.

Verisimilitude is what I try to put in my D&D. Magic is part of the setting. A Character having an implausibly long arm so that they can make an oddball build of questionable actual Optimization trivialize some fights damages Verisimilitude in my opinion. Particularly when I see that same build get wheeled out every time someone dares to suggest Rogues don't need strength.

Attempting to escape your grapple and attacking you (even with multi-attack) requires 2 actions.

They could use the second attack of their multi attack to execute a shove of their own.

grub

2017-02-23, 12:41 AM

How dare someone play a game in a different way than you feel they should. The nerve.

Personally I dumped Str because my DM stated we were not using the encumbrance rules. I just use acrobatics for most things instead of athletics. I have proficiency in Athletics but expertise in Acrobatics. I find running in and out of combat more useful than trying to pin an opponent down.

Arenabait

2017-02-23, 12:45 AM

Verisimilitude is what I try to put in my D&D. Magic is part of the setting. A Character having an implausibly long arm so that they can make an oddball build of questionable actual Optimization trivialize some fights damages Verisilitude in my opinion. Particularly when I see that same build get wheeled out every time someone dares to suggest Rogues don't need strength.

You're completely right. Rogues Need Strength as much as they need wisdom. or charisma, or dexterity, or any other stat. For that matter, no class needs any particular stat, because nothing needs to be minmaxed. You want a barbnarian with 8 strength and 20 intellegence? Nothing stops you.

Also, earlier you were so hell bent on ignoring the rules, but the rules say what they say. If you want to change that at your table, go ahead! But nobody else cares, and we'll keep dragging a person by the hair while they're technically prone, even if they aren't face down in the dirt.

You want to use the rule that says the DM can change things to their liking? Go for it. But when you've got another sourcebook full of homebrew errata's, fixing things that you think don't make sense, think about whether you abused that rule or not. Besides, I doubt anyone's going to want to let you be DM by that point, so it really won't matter by the time everyone realizes you are actually interested in making and testing your own system, and less interested in the fun of any of the players.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:46 AM

Acrobatics and Athletics actually do different things, I'm seen some guides tell me that I didn't need one or the other, but personally I think it's worth taking both.

EDIT: The topic of homebrew leading to Chaotic Evil will be dealt with through PM. Could we maybe get back on topic?

Arenabait

2017-02-23, 12:48 AM

Acrobatics and Athletics actually do different things, I'm seen some guides tell me that I didn't need one or the other, but personally I think it's worth taking both.

Goddamn, he said something I agree with!!!

Dr.Samurai

2017-02-23, 01:14 AM

Are you running into these situations more then once per long rest? Then yes, having a weak always on ability is better then a strong magical ability that you can only pop once. I personally feel that needing to climbing things twice as fast isn't a situation that's going to arise that often.
What do you mean when you say "needing to climb things twice as fast"? Because I'm not imagining a ticking clock here or anything. But if the thief rogue can reach his destination in one turn instead of two, how's that not an advantage? Or a benefit? Why is it not worth mentioning?

I get that mileage will vary because the occurrence of difficult terrain and obstacles and battlefield terrain and many other variables will be different from table to table. But jumping and climbing are pretty common in my experience. Similar to how you don't always need to be able to pick a lock or disarm a trap from 30ft away, but it's nice to be able to do.

That's being misrepresented as me thinking it couldn't possibly be useful. I see it has being like the performance skill, nine times out of ten, you won't need it, but you'd be glad to have it when you do.
I definitely disagree. I think it's expected that you'll need to climb and jump throughout a dungeon delve, whereas performance is good to earn coin in your downtime. There's a big difference between the two.

But at the same time I feel my Arcane Trickster could magically compensate for his lack of Second Story work should I be forced to climb something quickly.[quote]
With Spider Climb? That takes an action. The Thief could climb double the distance that you do. Or the same distance and take an action.
[quote]...not all Rogues are of the climbing kind.
Um, ok. You don't have to be a "climbing" rogue to benefit from SSW. You just climb at your normal speed. Always. No check needed unless it's slippery or particularly difficult.

Not all arcane tricksters are of the "I use my spell slots to do rogue things" kind.

The running Jump distance for a PC, assuming a strength of 10 (highest most rogues will bother going) and not difficult terrain, is 10 feet.
And for a thief it is now 15ft.

Bypassing an obstacle (which can be no taller then a quarter of the jump distance) is a DC 10 strength (athletics) check, Second Story Work doesn't help with that.
It does if the obstacle is inside of a 15ft jump. If you're jumping 15ft, you need to make a check. So if that obstacle is in your way, you're now making two checks, once for distance and one for the obstacle. SSW reduces that to one check.

Regarding the actual obstacle DC, I can see SSW justifying reducing the DC to 5. I know this isn't in the rules or anything, but since SSW is saying that you jump higher and further than normal, and you can leap 15ft across and 8ft up in the air, I can see how a 2.5ft obstacle wouldn't be much of a hindrance. But again, I admit this isn't in the books.

With SSW and a strength of 10, you have a jump distance of exactly 15 feet. It only benefits you at all if that jump you're trying to make is either exactly 15 feet, or exactly 10 feet with difficult terrain. If it's any more then that, SSW doesn't help...
First, I think we're just mostly disagreeing on how useful an extra square of movement is.

Secondly, the DM gets to set the DC for longer jumps:

Strength (Athletics): "You try to jump an unusually long distance..."

Ability Checks: "... the DM decides... the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Check. The more difficult a task, the higher its DC."

So I'd argue again that SSW justifies a lower DC. The check to jump 20ft should be different for the Thief, who can already jump 15ft with ease, than for the Arcane Trickster, who can only jump 10ft with ease.

Unless you want to argue that it's as difficult for the thief to add 5ft of jump distance as it is for the trickster to add 10ft of jump distance.

...the Arcane Trickster can make it just as easily, and he/she probably has a spell that can get them across that 20 foot chasm without any check.

Very true.

Yes, Assassins are terrible, they are to Archetypes what Medicine is to the skills list.
The OP justified his claims about the thief by conflating assassin damage with trickster utility. It seems prudent to point out the differences between all three archetypes.

I'm not assuming that. The Thief can do "Rogue stuff" all day. The Arcane Trickster trades that consistency for a small pool of utility spells that can be used to temporarily augment their abilities to do things a Thief can't.
We're in agreement.

Slot 1 (2nd level): Invisibility (Arcane Tricksters should always have this, up until they get their 3rd level slots and therefor the Greater version.)
Slot 2 (2nd level): Misty Step (Extra mobility is always good, particularly when it lets you go to any space you can see within 30 feet, that means through arrow slits and keyholes as well as across the "white room".)
Slot 3: Charm person (Synergy with your Magical Ambush ability, also useful in social encounters.)
Slot 4: Silent Image (This one is a little hard to advocate for it the white room, but an imaginative player can get a lot of use out of it, particularly combined with your minor illusion cantrip for sound generation.)
Slot 5: Tasha's Hideous Laughter (Crowd control, also creates an opening for escape or more sneak attacks.)
Slot 6: Feather fall OR Grease OR Fog Cloud OR Jump OR Longstrider
Nice list. I think Silent Image is a good pick, and benefits from creativity as much as Fast Hands can, so it makes sense to me.

Dr.Samurai

2017-02-23, 01:18 AM

Well, grappling came up as one example of a reason a rogue might invest in strength over dexterity, and he zeroed in on it and we never really progressed past that point
Yeah, I'm not seeing it. Unless it goes back before page 3. It looks to me he's the first one to mention a "martial grappling" something or other.

Also, would it be too much if SSW applied to standing jumps? Just as an aside :smallbiggrin:.

ad_hoc

2017-02-23, 01:22 AM

They could use the second attack of their multi attack to execute a shove of their own.

They can't. They need to take the Attack action to do that and then they only get 1 attack. If they want to attack multiple times they must take the Multi Attack action, and then they can't attempt to escape from your grapple, or shove.

It is okay to get rules wrong, but you are not only getting a lot of them wrong but not bothering to look them up before arguing with people.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 02:01 AM

What do you mean when you say "needing to climb things twice as fast"? Because I'm not imagining a ticking clock here or anything. But if the thief rogue can reach his destination in one turn instead of two, how's that not an advantage? Or a benefit? Why is it not worth mentioning?

I get that mileage will vary because the occurrence of difficult terrain and obstacles and battlefield terrain and many other variables will be different from table to table. But jumping and climbing are pretty common in my experience. Similar to how you don't always need to be able to pick a lock or disarm a trap from 30ft away, but it's nice to be able to do.

I definitely disagree. I think it's expected that you'll need to climb and jump throughout a dungeon delve, whereas performance is good to earn coin in your downtime. There's a big difference between the two.

If I'm not in combat, and I need to climb that wall, climbing it faster doesn't matter. It's only important if I'm trying to climb that wall in combat. And I just feel like there's other things I could be doing in combat, unless it's something very specific, like the party is climbing already and orcs start throwing rocks on top of us from the edge. I just feel that it's too specific to put forward as something that puts the Thief above the Arcane Trickster. It's situational, a feat replicates it and you can cast magic to compensate. In my mind a really strong ability is one that's going to be useful in many circumstances, that's why I like Mage Hand Legerdemain for example, it can do a lot of things for very little cost. SSW has no cost, but if you're not climbing things for whatever reason, it's not helping you.

With Spider Climb? That takes an action. The Thief could climb double the distance that you do. Or the same distance and take an action.

Um, ok. You don't have to be a "climbing" rogue to benefit from SSW. You just climb at your normal speed. Always. No check needed unless it's slippery or particularly difficult.

Not all arcane tricksters are of the "I use my spell slots to do rogue things" kind.

Spider Climb is actually pretty awful, I was just using it as an example of the Arcane Trickster's "utility belt" potential. I just don't think the climbing speed upgrade is "yes, this why you should the be the Thief over that Arcane Trickster build" it's nice to have when you're climbing stuff, but I don't think there's going to be a situation were that's the only good option.

First, I think we're just mostly disagreeing on how useful an extra square of movement is.

Yeah, pretty much. And it's less then a square if your build has less then 20 dex and only 10 strength, which is rather problematic on a battlemap of 5 foot squares. If its a theater of the mind game, that 5 feet might not even matter if the DM doesn't have an engineer's brain.

Citan

2017-02-23, 03:38 AM

Let me see if I'm following this right...

War_Lord said that to be a rogue, you must use Dexterity.

People claim that strength rogues are a fine option.

War_Lord says a person using strength to attack is not a rogue, and makes a reference to "grab"-and-stab, when no one had mentioned anything about grabbing or grappling anyone.

And now you're all debating rules about grappling...

Kudos to you War_Lord for making a nonsense claim and then distracting away from the inevitable and obvious counters to that claim.
Well, actually, I made a quick reference to it in my post arguing against his fallacy "Rogue = DEX" (although for a pure Rogue, I tend also to favor DEX, I don't reject the viability and fun value of STR based ,)).

So I may have a hint of responsibility here. :smalltongue:

djreynolds

2017-02-23, 03:57 AM

It is expensive for any class to have a high strength and dex, the standard array and AL has made it necessary to dump something (a complete mess this 15/14/... etc.. BS)

Now with that said, IMO almost every rogue should consider having expertise in athletics, you get 4 choices, but an AT has flying and levitate and other spells that help with exploration

And expertise in acrobatics, means not many foes can grapple you.

It is a toss up.

Hawkstar

2017-02-23, 05:44 AM

... You can't start with a 20 in DEX. Highest you can start with is 17, and it's generally better just to start with a 16. And, 12 STR does not compete with a Dex of 16+

Cybren

2017-02-23, 06:54 AM

... You can't start with a 20 in DEX. Highest you can start with is 17, and it's generally better just to start with a 16. And, 12 STR does not compete with a Dex of 16+

The default character generation method is rolling.

mgshamster

2017-02-23, 07:47 AM

The default character generation method is rolling.

Rolling OR Standard Array are the default. The rules say you pick one or the other.

Point Buy is the variant rule.

Cybren

2017-02-23, 07:50 AM

Rolling OR Standard Array are the default. The rules say you pick one or the other.

Point Buy is the variant rule.

It's a non-variant option, like taking average+.5 for hit dice, but it is not the default. The default is rolling, but you have the option to take the standard array. Hence: default.

mgshamster

2017-02-23, 07:53 AM

It's a non-variant option, like taking average+.5 for hit dice, but it is not the default. The default is rolling, but you have the option to take the standard array. Hence: default.

Fair. Unless you're in AL. ;)

Cybren

2017-02-23, 07:56 AM

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-23, 07:59 AM

There are no such things as Group Stealth Checks.

<snip>

Now of course you are free to work around this by saying that maybe a Group Stealth Check involves beating the Passive Perception of some set of observers,

That's not a workaround. That's how stealth works. Unless someone specifically spends their action to search, then it is opposed by passive, which is a set number. And you aren't going to try a group stealth check when people are actively searching for you. So yes, you can Group Stealth.

Cybren

2017-02-23, 08:15 AM

That's not a workaround. That's how stealth works. Unless someone specifically spends their action to search, then it is opposed by passive, which is a set number. And you aren't going to try a group stealth check when people are actively searching for you. So yes, you can Group Stealth.

The argument that there's no such thing as Group Stealth hinges on there being a set DC that you are rolling against, but with stealth, there is no set DC- it's variable for each potential observer (if there even is an observer. It's perfectly possible to be stealthy when there's no one around, after all, maybe someone ELSE is hiding...)

mgshamster

2017-02-23, 08:18 AM

Well, then you're playing in AL, so you've already lost (I kid, I'm sure AL is fine, I just remain skeptical of how fun D&D with strangers can be outside a con where you can easily get up disappear. Man, sure do wish WotC wasn't so terrible at digital stuff and their 4E tools were actually finished)

Ha!

I hear that Roll20 has good online tools for 5e, but I don't use Roll20, so it's second hand knowledge.

However, I do DM AL Games via PBP. And back before I had kids I was a DM for PFS (Pathfinder Society, which is their version of AL). It worked out rather well. I've never had someone leave a table unexpected in live play, and I've only lost two players in PBP AL Games (one bowed out due to life events, the other simply stopped posting).

But, back to the topic on hand! Someone mentioned that the grapple rogue is "sub-optimal." I feel like this would be a great time to point out that a suboptimal build in 5e isn't a game killer, and can work out just fine. Reducing one's ability in one area means improving it in another, and it's rather challenging to come up with a character that doesn't actually work in a 5e game.

About the only way I've ever seen to make a character that doesn't work and is unplayable in 5e is to drop your attack stat to 8 or lower, and them insist on attacking with that stat and not doing anything else. But then, that's a player actively trying to sabotage their own PC rather than someone honestly giving it a good try.

This brings us back to the idea that min-maxing is not required for 5e, and therefore is a play choice (nothing wrong with it, you can if you like). But it's not a game requirement or design choice. It's simply how a player wants to play.

ebbisis

2017-02-23, 08:23 AM

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-23, 08:24 AM

The argument that there's no such thing as Group Stealth hinges on there being a set DC that you are rolling against, but with stealth, there is no set DC- it's variable for each potential observer (if there even is an observer. It's perfectly possible to be stealthy when there's no one around, after all, maybe someone ELSE is hiding...)

That argument fails.
Everything has variable DCs depending on circumstance. So pick the highest passive perception and roll against that. If the group fails, the observer notifies his friends.
Group stealth check.

Cybren

2017-02-23, 08:31 AM

That argument fails.
Everything has variable DCs depending on circumstance. So pick the highest passive perception and roll against that. If the group fails, the observer notifies his friends.
Group stealth check.

I mean, i'm not endorsing any particular argument. I think group stealth, even if it isn't perfectly RAW, is probably preferable in play for a variety of reasons. (I mean, group stealth should be the primary use of group checks. There's few other checks that ultimately depend on total success or failure for the group, and if you're not doing a very sandboxy combat as war game, you probably aren't encouraging mixed unit tactics where one party member goes ahead solo to lure an enemy into an ambush or trap or something)

Cybren

2017-02-23, 08:34 AM

At the very least Fast Hands can equate to +2 AC in many cases. For example wielding 2 weapons , attacking with them , free action stow then bonus action ready shield. With a grappled enemy you can hit with your rapier then with one hand switch to shield. Also if you have a DM that likes to have mooks stomp/steal dropped weaponry (elf ranger drops long bow to draw 2H wep) it can be great.

That's interesting, because I'm not entirely sure if don/doff counts as "using" an item. I don't know that I'd let that fly in my game, but maybe? The ability IS called fast hands

War_lord

2017-02-23, 11:11 AM

Cybren

2017-02-23, 11:44 AM

You could drop a weapon (free action) and pick it back up (interaction) in one turn with fast hands. In 5e a shield technically counts as armor though, I would think the don/doff process gets in the way of using it with fast hands, you're not wearing the shield just by holding it, it takes an action to Don.

That was my thinking but really, it doesn't seem unreasonable given how shields were constructed. Even without a center grip you could have a guige (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guige). And with a center grip it's obviously trivial to "don" it.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:14 PM

That was my thinking but really, it doesn't seem unreasonable given how shields were constructed. Even without a center grip you could have a guige (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guige). And with a center grip it's obviously trivial to "don" it.

But it says a shield takes an action to don, and the PHB doesn't actually specify a particular kind of shield. So if we're just going by RAW, equipping the shield takes an action and you're not getting +2 AC just by holding it, it's treated as a piece of armor rather then a weapon. It's plausible, but not RAW.

DivisibleByZero

2017-02-23, 12:25 PM

But it says a shield takes an action to don, and the PHB doesn't actually specify a particular kind of shield.

Because in 5e there is only one kind of shield. Fluff it however you like, but mechanically every single shield in existence works exactly the same way.
-- counts as armor for non-proficiency penalties
-- takes an action to don
-- grants +2 AC

War_lord

2017-02-23, 12:39 PM

Because in 5e there is only one kind of shield. Fluff it however you like, but mechanically every single shield in existence works exactly the same way.
-- counts as armor for non-proficiency penalties
-- takes an action to don
-- grants +2 AC

That's what I just said.

RumoCrytuf

2017-02-23, 01:04 PM

Assassin is lackluster, but white room theorycrafters love it.
Thief, on the other hand, is considered lackluster by the white room theorycrafters, but at the table it's just as good as the AT.

But that's just a theory... a D&D theory!

I'll see myself out now...

JellyPooga

2017-02-23, 01:15 PM

But that's just a theory... a D&D theory!

I'll see myself out now...

It's all just a ruse to set all the other Rogue Archetypes at one anothers' throats and create a distracting "gang-war", while the Mastermind steals the Crown Jewels for himself...

LordVonDerp

2017-02-23, 02:45 PM

Jesus, people are still talking Remarkable Athlete? In a thief thread?

Champions get to drink and hold their breath more than anyone else,

Problem: neither of those is covered by remarkable athlete. Drinking is a con save vs poison (hence dwarf), and holding your breath would be an athletics check, which the champion would likely be proficient in.

jas61292

2017-02-23, 03:02 PM

Problem: neither of those is covered by remarkable athlete. Drinking is a con save vs poison (hence dwarf), and holding your breath would be an athletics check, which the champion would likely be proficient in.

I dint know about you, but as DM, holding your breath would absolutely be an unskilled Con check, not Athletics.

I agree on the alcohol though.

Specter

2017-02-23, 03:14 PM

Problem: neither of those is covered by remarkable athlete. Drinking is a con save vs poison (hence dwarf), and holding your breath would be an athletics check, which the champion would likely be proficient in.

Drinking in terms your body processing the alcohol? Definitely. But that happens later on. Drinking in terms of trying to drink more than someone is something you're actively trying to do can't be a save. I even made a thread about this the other day, and that seems the general consensus.

And holding your breath has nothing to do with Strenght.

JellyPooga

2017-02-23, 03:16 PM

And holding your breath has nothing to do with Strenght.

I'd make it a Con (Athletics) check myself. It's definitely something you can learn/train and Athletics is the running/jumping/swimming skill; I'd be happy (as a GM) to shove "breath holding" into the skill for physical things.

Fishyninja

2017-02-23, 03:20 PM

You also get to use grappling to move people, hold them in place, pin them on the ground and fart in their mouths. Grappling is versatile in and of itself.
This made me laugh a little bit too much and seriously.....I leave y'all alone for 24 hours and we get a 4 page grapple discussion?!

I have to admit I was temtped by the Thief but went for AT as I have yet to play a caster (I thought a 1/3 caster would be easier to work with :P).

War_lord

2017-02-23, 03:49 PM

Tanarii

2017-02-23, 04:09 PM

Holding your breath is a Con check (no skill applicable). Basic rules p61.

Holding your breath is 1+Con Mod minutes, after which you begin suffocating. You can suffocate for a number of Rounds equal to your Con mod. Then you drop to 0 hps. Suffocating, Basic Rules, p65.

The rules are clear on how to resolve holding your breath! :smallamused:

Coffee_Dragon

2017-02-23, 04:14 PM

I'd make it a Con (Athletics) check myself. It's definitely something you can learn/train and Athletics is the running/jumping/swimming skill; I'd be happy (as a GM) to shove "breath holding" into the skill for physical things.

I had managed to not post in this thread for so long (even when someone suggested a combat trick that relied on getting two bonus actions in a turn), but this is the same kind of backwards thinking that infests every skill thread and that I have sworn my life to defend against.

Having a high lung capacity and red blood cell count is great for doing athletics stuff, but it doesn't follow that if you have a knack for athletics stuff, that bonus consists of high lung capacity etc., and that this can be translated backwards to other things that benefit from a high lung capacity.

Just like having a knack for picking locks doesn't mean you get a bonus to all tasks that require manual dexterity - the manual dexterity component is already baked into what you get from Dex, not what you get from adding proficiency.

The trap here is much the same as always: thinking that proficiency means "trained", so that if you have two big ogres with the same Con, but one has Athletics proficiency, you picture that one running on treadmills and lifting weights and doing push-ups while army sergeants shout at them, but the other one is just standing there looking dumb - and so you also imagine that while they may technically have the same Con, one of those Cons is really properly invisibly higher than the other, because push-ups.

But it is not so!

Oh and you can't do two bonus actions in a turn!!

And group stealth should be done on large scales and against indeterminate threats, not on tactical scales and against known threats!!!

And items of jump multiplication go well with Second-Story Work!!!!

And thief is the best subclasssssssss!!!!!

Knaight

2017-02-23, 04:28 PM

Fishyninja

2017-02-23, 04:48 PM

A 1/3 caster like the AT isn't really a casting class though, your spell slot progression is awful and you're still going to be getting your damage in from physical attacks, you also have a grand total of 13 spells at 20th level.
I understand that but as I've never played a caster I thought a partial caster would be good practice.

Coffee_Dragon

2017-02-23, 04:51 PM

One of the skills explicitly rolled into athletics is swimming. This isn't extrapolating to what is essentially an attribute, this is acknowledging that the sort of skill used to represent the diving capacity of pearl divers can be used for the core capabilities of pearl diving.

Then if someone's pearl diving, they get to add proficiency for Athletics because it involves swimming. Con (Athletics) seems perfectly reasonable for that, with your Con bonus being the physical component. The 5E skill system doesn't identify and extrapolate "core capabilities" of proficiencies.

Specter

2017-02-23, 05:03 PM

I understand that but as I've never played a caster I thought a partial caster would be good practice.

It'll be all right. The only steps not to ruin an Arcane Trickster:

1) Take Booming Blade and combine it with free disengage to annoy every enemy;
2) Take spells that rely on many different saves to target enemy weaknesses;
3) When Magical Ambush comes online, always try to hide so you can turn the tide of the combat with a disadvantaged spell.

But this is off-topic again. Hell!

War_lord

2017-02-23, 05:15 PM

Booming blade doesn't work with a Hand Crossbow.

jas61292

2017-02-23, 05:24 PM

It'll be all right. The only steps not to ruin an Arcane Trickster:

1) Take Booming Blade and combine it with free disengage to annoy every enemy;
2) Take spells that rely on many different saves to target enemy weaknesses;
3) When Magical Ambush comes online, always try to hide so you can turn the tide of the combat with a disadvantaged spell.

But this is off-topic again. Hell!

Personally, I have always hated the notion that you need Booming Blade. I mean, I certainly don't always want to play the most traditional rogues, but to me, rogues are fun for having a certain set of skills that something like Booming Blade doesn't really mesh with. I know the damage of it (or Green Flame Blade) is pretty much a strict upgrade for a rogue, but loud noises and bright lights are terrible things for a rouge to be making. Simply put, "Rogue" and "Boom" are opposites that do not belong in the same sentence.

Of course, you could always not use booming blade when you don't want to be heard, but I find myself not wanting to be heard often enough that I'd rather just have some other cantrip.

Specter

2017-02-23, 05:33 PM

Knaight

2017-02-23, 05:33 PM

Then if someone's pearl diving, they get to add proficiency for Athletics because it involves swimming. Con (Athletics) seems perfectly reasonable for that, with your Con bonus being the physical component. The 5E skill system doesn't identify and extrapolate "core capabilities" of proficiencies.

So you can use Athletics for breath holding, as long as you're also moving in an athletic way while doing so? In practice, that's just about every situation where it's likely to matter.

LordVonDerp

2017-02-23, 05:33 PM

Drinking in terms your body processing the alcohol? Definitely. But that happens later on. Drinking in terms of trying to drink more than someone is something you're actively trying to do can't be a save. I even made a thread about this the other day, and that seems the general consensus.
.

I dint know about you, but as DM, holding your breath would absolutely be an unskilled Con check, not Athletics.

I agree on the alcohol though.

Are you seriously trying to claim that diving, lung capacity, and cardio aren't athletic things?

A

And holding your breath has nothing to do with Strenght
noted, and irrelevant as I said Athletics, not Strength. Athletics(Con) would totally make sense here.

LordVonDerp

2017-02-23, 05:35 PM

Unlike other spells like Knock and Shatter which specify a noise happening, Booming Blade says no such thing. But anyway, Green-Flame Blade then?
Nice try, but Booming Blade does noise damage, so still no.

LordVonDerp

2017-02-23, 05:43 PM

Specter

2017-02-23, 05:46 PM

Nice try, but Booming Blade does noise damage, so still no.

Million dollar question for you now: how loud is the noise and how far can it be heard? Go on, give it a try.

LordVonDerp

2017-02-23, 06:10 PM

Million dollar question for you now: how loud is the noise and how far can it be heard? Go on, give it a try.

Loud enough to cause pain, so louder than a firecracker, with comparable range, because that's how sound works.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 06:11 PM

Page 196, "Thunder. A concussive burst of sound, such as the effects of the Thunderwave spell, deals Thunderdamage.

Page 282, description of the aforementioned Thunderwave: "the spell emits a thunderous boom audible out to 300 feet."

Specter

2017-02-23, 06:18 PM

Loud enough to cause pain, so louder than a firecracker, with comparable range, because that's how sound works.

Ok, so we conclude it has a sound. But other spells that deal thunder damage have a specific description have a distance specified distance, so whether it's heard by an enemy 500 feet away will be a DM call. If he rules it does, don't use it before a fight. Back to you at the studio.

War_lord

2017-02-23, 06:31 PM

Green-Flame Blade would be fine, assuming you're not trying to be stealthy.

Does assume that the DM is actually allowing SCAG stuff though.

Coffee_Dragon

2017-02-23, 06:38 PM

So you can use Athletics for breath holding, as long as you're also moving in an athletic way while doing so? In practice, that's just about every situation where it's likely to matter.

It could well turn out so; you're adding Athletics because it applies in some way, but not just because something that is good for something that Athletics applies to would also be good for the thing you are doing right now. For instance, if you're doing "vanilla" breath-holding in a flooded room while the rogue is looking for the drain switch, I would make that straight Con and not let you add profiency just because you started swimming in circles. Your Con holds the abstract info we're looking for there, Athletics doesn't.

To try to illustrate where I think statements are being conflated:

1. When pearl diving it helps to have a high oxygen capacity (Politifact s TRUE),

2. Therefore an expert pearl diver has both swimming experience and good physique (TRUE),

3. Therefore someone who has swimming experience also has a good physique (UNKNOWN).

Are you seriously trying to claim that diving, lung capacity, and cardio aren't athletic things

Lung capacity and cardiac output are absolutely good for athletic things - and acrobatics and fightan. But they are not what's represented by Athletics proficiency, they should make you better at physical stuff even without proficiency, and that part isn't counted double when you do have proficiency.

Sorry, but those are all part of athletics training, whether you like it or not.

I think one should be careful using the word "training" in reference to the 5E skill system lest one be led conceptually astray.

Coffee_Dragon

2017-02-23, 06:44 PM

Also, I cannot be held accountable for thematic weirdness caused by the Str/Con division of physical stats with no overlap.

Also, I would allow donning or doffing a shield with Fast Hands, since it's an action being done with an object. You just can't do it in the same turn you do TWF.

Also, what's the next derail coming up, bets being taken

Contrast

2017-02-23, 07:42 PM

Personally, I have always hated the notion that you need Booming Blade. I mean, I certainly don't always want to play the most traditional rogues, but to me, rogues are fun for having a certain set of skills that something like Booming Blade doesn't really mesh with. I know the damage of it (or Green Flame Blade) is pretty much a strict upgrade for a rogue, but loud noises and bright lights are terrible things for a rouge to be making. Simply put, "Rogue" and "Boom" are opposites that do not belong in the same sentence.

Of course, you could always not use booming blade when you don't want to be heard, but I find myself not wanting to be heard often enough that I'd rather just have some other cantrip.

The swashbuckler (or any rogue with a friend who therefore doesn't need to bother with all this scaredy cat sneaking business) says hello. Pretty sure I've never once taken the hide action while in combat with my rogue. Hiding is one way to play - it is not the only way. I mostly avoid it because it strains my credibility that enemies would somehow let their guard down because I keep ducking behind bits of cover before leaping out to stab them :smallbiggrin:

Booming blade doesn't work with a Hand Crossbow.

Did I miss where someone said it did or is holding a hand crossbow another thing you need to do in order to be playing rogue properlyTM?

War_lord

2017-02-23, 07:45 PM

If I'm getting my sneak attack off from 30 feet away instead of 5 feet, I'm making it 30 feet harder for an enemy without a ranged attack to get at me.

mgshamster

2017-02-23, 07:49 PM

Did I miss where someone said it did or is holding a hand crossbow another thing you need to do in order to be playing rogue properlyTM?

You're not a True Rogue if you don't have a hand crossbow and an 18+ dex. Nor are you a true scotsman.

Contrast

2017-02-23, 07:52 PM

It does make a lot more sense War_lord thinking strength rogues don't work if they think any rogue in melee range is already doing it wrong :smallbiggrin:

Saggo

2017-02-23, 08:06 PM

Loud enough to cause pain, so louder than a firecracker, with comparable range, because that's how sound works.

Science experiment: if you shiv someone and a 1-3d8 boom pops inside them like a hand surrounding a firecracker, how far does it travel?

Cybren

2017-02-23, 08:07 PM

Science experiment: if you shiv someone and a 1-3d8 boom pops inside them like a hand surrounding a firecracker, how far does it travel?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMvpmGb0Fcs

Probably louder than this

LordVonDerp

2017-02-23, 08:20 PM

Lung capacity and cardiac output are absolutely good for athletic things - and acrobatics and fightan. But they are not what's represented by Athletics proficiency, they should make you better at physical stuff even without proficiency, and that part isn't counted double when you do have proficiency.

They probably should, but since becoming proficient in a skill doesn't affect underlying stats, all we can really do to represent that is to apply the bonus.

JellyPooga

2017-02-23, 09:07 PM

I had managed to not post in this thread for so long (even when someone suggested a combat trick that relied on getting two bonus actions in a turn), but this is the same kind of backwards thinking that infests every skill thread and that I have sworn my life to defend against.

Having a high lung capacity and red blood cell count is great for doing athletics stuff, but it doesn't follow that if you have a knack for athletics stuff, that bonus consists of high lung capacity etc., and that this can be translated backwards to other things that benefit from a high lung capacity.

Just like having a knack for picking locks doesn't mean you get a bonus to all tasks that require manual dexterity - the manual dexterity component is already baked into what you get from Dex, not what you get from adding proficiency.

The trap here is much the same as always: thinking that proficiency means "trained", so that if you have two big ogres with the same Con, but one has Athletics proficiency, you picture that one running on treadmills and lifting weights and doing push-ups while army sergeants shout at them, but the other one is just standing there looking dumb - and so you also imagine that while they may technically have the same Con, one of those Cons is really properly invisibly higher than the other, because push-ups.

But it is not so!

Oh and you can't do two bonus actions in a turn!!

And group stealth should be done on large scales and against indeterminate threats, not on tactical scales and against known threats!!!

And items of jump multiplication go well with Second-Story Work!!!!

And thief is the best subclasssssssss!!!!!

Wow. I didn't realise such an off-hand comment about a call I might make on the fly as a GM would spark such a...response.

To explain my thinking and rolling with your lock-picking argument (because as has been pointed out and I forgot, holding your breath and suffocation has some pretty well codified RAW);

- Proficiency in Thieves Tools represents your skill/talent/training at picking locks.
- When doing something similar to picking a lock (let's say...disarming a trap mechanism), you could also add your proficiency in Thieves Tools. You could not add Thieves Tools proficiency to an attempt to play a piano or pick a pocket; those are also tasks involving manual dexterity, but are otherwise largely unrelated skills.
- If the task was clearly something relating to a different Ability Score than the norm (for disarming a trap, this might be Int, for example, as opposed to the "norm" of Dex), it's appropriate to use that instead.

Now translate this to holding ones breath;

- Athletics proficiency represents your skill/talent/training at (explicitly) running, jumping, climbing and swimming, as well as (implicitly) other physical activities of that nature.
- Being able to hold ones breath is in the same general field of skill/talent/training as swimming/diving at least, if not all athletic pursuits, so it's reasonable to assign proficiency. If we're adding Athletics to other "fitness" related checks such as endurance running, we should also be doing it for this form of endurance. We could not, however add Athletics to, say, an attempt to resist disease (putting aside the fact that it's normally a Saving Throw) or torture, because while they're related to endurance, they do not utilise the same "skills" involved in physical activity of the athletic variety.
- Str is clearly not an appropriate Ability Score. Con is, so let's use that.

Backwards thinking? Not in my book. "Breath holding" is an ability that can be considered distinct from overall health and constitution because it's a trainable ability related directly to the kind of activities covered by the Athletics skill.

Using your Athletics (Thieves Tools to pick locks) may lead to an increased overall Con (Dex), but learning how to use Athletics (Thieves Tools) will directly improve your ability to hold your breath (disarm traps).

The point is moot, due to the suffocation rules making me wrong, but I thought I'd have a go at explaining the thinking behind the post that finally set off the Coffee Dragon :smallwink:

MeeposFire

2017-02-23, 11:58 PM

Just so you know just because something is "loud" and can be heard from far away does not mean you can actually hear it. For instance elephants can emit sounds that can be heard miles away by other elephants and we will never hear them.

Booming blade is not described on what kind of sound it is. One could easily argue that the frequency is too low or high for your typical human (and one can assume other races of the humanoid type though who can say since we do not have any actual way of knowing for real) and so the sound is there and it can hurt you but you cannot actually hear its effect. One could also claim that it is very noticeable however unlike something like thunderwave or knock that went out of its way to let you know you cannot miss it booming blade does not.

Not that it matters to me stealth is actually not something I have really focused on much with my rogues over the years. Just never really liked using it that much.

mephnick

2017-02-24, 12:16 AM

Not that it matters to me stealth is actually not something I have really focused on much with my rogues over the years. Just never really liked using it that much.

Me neither. I almost always play a "dirty fighter" rogue in the thick of the fight, rather than "mr. shadow loner" shooting from hidden positions. The fact that people think rogue = stealth has always bothered me.

flynnhornfettle

2017-02-24, 01:00 AM

I apologize for not quoting the specific comment I'm responding to, I'm not sure how. But Fast Hands can be used to don/doff a shield, per Jeremy Crawford with an answer to a question on twitter on Nov 19 last year

Hawkstar

2017-02-24, 02:52 AM

I mostly avoid it because it strains my credibility that enemies would somehow let their guard down because I keep ducking behind bits of cover before leaping out to stab them :smallbiggrin:It's not so much "They let their guard down" and more "They don't know where to guard because they keep losing track of you in the clutter of the room, because you're that skilled at obfuscating your location."

Think Miko vs. Belkar in the warehouse.

Tanarii

2017-02-24, 09:12 AM

The swashbuckler (or any rogue with a friend who therefore doesn't need to bother with all this scaredy cat sneaking business) says hello. Pretty sure I've never once taken the hide action while in combat with my rogue. Hiding is one way to play - it is not the only way. I mostly avoid it because it strains my credibility that enemies would somehow let their guard down because I keep ducking behind bits of cover before leaping out to stab them :smallbiggrin:Many DMs don't allow pop-up hiding in combat. Some only allow it if the cover is sufficiently large compared to the Rogue so that the enemy can actually lose track of the Rogue.

The PHB leaves it vague and up to the DM on Stealth on purpose, exactly because many DMs and Players find the way Stealth was interpreted to work in earlier editions strains their credibility. Mearls effectively says as much in a video interview. (I'll see if I can find the link.)

Specter

2017-02-24, 10:11 AM

Science experiment: if you shiv someone and a 1-3d8 boom pops inside them like a hand surrounding a firecracker, how far does it travel?

D&D magic and science? Like that ever goes well...

Knaight

2017-02-24, 10:17 AM

Booming blade is not described on what kind of sound it is. One could easily argue that the frequency is too low or high for your typical human (and one can assume other races of the humanoid type though who can say since we do not have any actual way of knowing for real) and so the sound is there and it can hurt you but you cannot actually hear its effect. One could also claim that it is very noticeable however unlike something like thunderwave or knock that went out of its way to let you know you cannot miss it booming blade does not.

One could also note that the term "Booming" is generally not used for infrasound or ultrasound.

Cybren

2017-02-24, 10:19 AM

One could also note that the term "Booming" is generally not used for infrasound or ultrasound.

Clearly it's more like a whoopie cushion

Deleted

2017-02-24, 10:30 AM

D&D magic and science? Like that ever goes well...

Clarke's 3 laws

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

mgshamster

2017-02-24, 10:46 AM

Many DMs don't allow pop-up hiding in combat. Some only allow it if the cover is sufficiently large compared to the Rogue so that the enemy can actually lose track of the Rogue.

The PHB leaves it vague and up to the DM on Stealth on purpose, exactly because many DMs and Players find the way Stealth was interpreted to work in earlier editions strains their credibility. Mearls effectively says as much in a video interview. (I'll see if I can find the link.)

That's why you play a halfling. Hide behind your allies! :)

Tanarii

2017-02-24, 10:56 AM

Cybren

2017-02-24, 11:01 AM

Nothing says that Booming Blade, or thunder attacks, are particularly louder than normal battle. If you assume battle is about the same as a Vacuum Cleaner (70 dB) then at 30ft it sounds like a normal conversation (50 dB). If you want to assume Booming Blade and other thunder attacks are a bit louder and start at 80 dB, then the range goes from 30ft --> 90ft.

Meanwhile, if Thunderwave can be heard at 300ft, that means when you're right next to it, it's about as loud as a motorcycle at 25ft (90dB). In other words, it's louder standing next to a Motorcycle (100dB) than it is standing next to a Thunderwave (~90dB).

Links I used to make some massive assumptions in this post:
http://www.industrialnoisecontrol.com/comparative-noise-examples.htm
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-distance.htm

To be fair, D&D doesn't really model pressure waves in any deterministic way, else they'd rewrite the AoE spells to not feature square fireballs. The question becomes is thunder damage a sound that happens to hurt, or getting hurt from the sound? if it's the former, it's just magic. If it's the latter, they're just explosions, so they should all be pretty loud if they're capable of dealing damage.