What drives a poor reputation for the Rogue class?

[Dr.Samurai]

Agreed. You could move it to level 3 with the other abilities and come up with an entirely new ability for level 9 and it wouldn't make assassins at all overpowered.

I'd be good with this. More and sooner is the way to go.

Which loops us back to the underlying issue with the class design: the Rogue often does not support the group unit as well as some other classes can.

The Soulknife, at least has sharable telepathy, but it seems clear, that other classes, like the Fighter class, often have subclasses that can help others directly with their powers, and the Rogue class very rarely does.

Does anyone in the party ever use Ritual Casting? In ten minutes a rogue can clear 2,000ft of dungeon corridors at a slow pace, or search a room, or search 10 doors for traps, and notice monsters/threats ahead of time and go back to tell the party what's up ahead. Since they're doing this at a slow pace, they can use Stealth, and with, presumably Expertise, they will hopefully go unnoticed.

The 2024 PHB was finalized, I believe, so it seems doubtful that the Rogue design philosophy will change that much, based off the known base class chassis changes for 2024.

I wouldn't want to do away with their niche, but I'd be fine with adding other stuff so they can excel just as much with the party. Could be something like where if someone takes lead at a certain pillar of play, it provides benefits to the party. For fighters it could be combat/defenses, rogues it could be dungeon exploration, etc.

On a separate track, sending a lone party member forward to scout without Fire support or communication has been a contentious practice going back decades. We used to jokingly call the scouting party member, “Ghoul Bait” even back in 1e.

Overwatch, Fire Support, Kill Zones, and Unit Communication are concerns that military units consider.

Seems like scouting ahead is not going anywhere any time soon.

But at this point these types of things (overwatch, communication, etc) can be done to some degree as well. A wizard can send their familiar with the rogue as Overwatch, and limited fire support with touch spells, and some communication, though ideally the rogue wouldn't have to speak out loud to communicate and risk blowing their cover. A warlock can use their tome with that invocation to cast Sending at-will to the rogue, and do the same with their familiar as a wizard (within 100ft).

A scribes wizard could send the Manifest Mind up ahead and cast any spell from the mind (so long as it is within 300ft). It sheds dim light though so not great for stealth.

Anyways, no guarantee you'll have any of this, but cool to think about possible elite teams like this.

Or have another subclass breakpoint around level 6 *mumble grumble*

Also agreed.