Urchin Fighter

[dededo11]

Can a fighter with the Urchin background (and achery fighting style) fill the role of a rogue in a party?

[Man_Over_Game]

Primary goals of a "thief":

Pick locks.
Fix traps.
Steal stuff.
Don't get caught.
Shoot things really hard.

You can do most of that with a good Dexterity score and the proper skills, and you can get 2 skills and 2 languages/tools from your background.

Just modify the Urchin slightly, granting you Stealth, Investigation, Thieves' Tools and Dice Set proficiency, and you'll be good. Maybe pick up Acrobatics and Perception as your Fighter Skills, and you're done!

(There are official rules to creating/modifying a background in the section just before backgrounds in the Player's Handbook.)

[sophontteks]

It depends on the role. You can fill in aspects of it, but you are not a rogue.

[ChildofLuthic]

I've often called the urchin and criminal backgrounds "rogue in a pinch". A rogue will obviously do rogue stuff better, but if no one wants to play a rogue, having someone with that background is helpful.

[JeenLeen]

I've often called the urchin and criminal backgrounds "rogue in a pinch". A rogue will obviously do rogue stuff better, but if no one wants to play a rogue, having someone with that background is helpful.

I whole-heartedly agree. While I'd be nervous in a party completely without Thieves' Tool proficiency, having anyone with the Urchin background (or Criminal) would make me feel comfortable. Sure, you don't get Expertise with it, but you still have proficiency and that's probably good enough for most of the locked doors and traps you'll encounter.

[Slipperychicken]

I've done it before, and it gives me things to do outside combat. Such as most of the things a thief does, but with 2 or 3 fewer points of modifier. Absolutely worth it.

It's really nice to sometimes not fall asleep between fights

[Corran]

Check with the GM in case they let you switch one of the background's languages/tools with thieves' cant. Else ask the GM if you can learn it during downtime. It's such a nice feature!

[Man_Over_Game]

Check with the GM in case they let you switch one of the background's languages/tools with thieves' cant. Else ask the GM if you can learn it during downtime. It's such a nice feature!

Heh, with my suggestion, I had to improvise a slot for the Tool/Language section, and just decided on the Dice Set.

But thinking about it, Thieves' Cant is basically just a language (kinda like undercommon). I don't see too many reasons why it wouldn't work.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

When our rogue died, our DM actually started a mini sidequest with our Arcane Archer Fighter where he started tracking down thieves guild contacts. He did it first just to get thieves' tools, then he continued finding contacts to learn thieves' cant, and now he's training to get proficiency in the tools. Already he's pretty damn rogue-y and it fits the narrative.

So, in short, yes.

Thieves' tool proficiency, stealth, and perception/investigation makes anyone a passible rogue.

[Keravath]

From the point of view of activities often associated with rogues ..
- find and disarm traps
- open locks
.. then any character can do these.

However, there are some skills and tool proficiencies that make it more feasible.
- some traps and locks will require thieves tool proficiency and a set of thieves tools to even be possible to disarm or open
- the other skills that are important are:
- perception - you need to see the traps
- investigation - you need to figure out the traps
- arcana - magical traps are a thing and arcana skill can help with figuring these out

The rogue does this best because they get expertise in 4 skills by level 6, they have proficiency with thieves tools and they are the only class who can take expertise with thieves tools.

Bards are next since they receive expertise at levels 3 and 10 again for a total of 4 skills.

After that comes any other character with thieves tool proficiency and proficiency in perception and investigation. For many situations this is sufficient but there may be trap filled dungeons with DC20 traps where you would really like a rogue with expertise in these skills and thieves tools to be finding and disarming the traps. However, a lot of the time, any character with the right background and skills will work.