One D&D: New Rogue Nerfed

[Psyren]

• Level 1: Expertise in Thieves' Tool: Should be given along with Expertise in 2 Skills of their choice, as a way of setting them apart from other Experts.
• Level 2: Steady Aim: As a bonus action, you give yourself advantage on your next attack roll on the current turn. You can use this bonus action only if you haven't moved during this turn, and after you use the bonus action, your speed is 0 until the end of the current turn. Given along with Cunning Action, as written.
• Level 5: Assassinate: You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit. A very solid reason to stick with Rogue for at least 5 levels, and a great alternative to Extra Attack. (This would also mean abolishing or reworking the Assassin subclass, which I'm fine with). If not this, then Rogues need some other reliable damage buff.
• Level 7: Uncanny Dodge and Expertise (again): Assassinate is enough for level 5. Push Uncanny Dodge to level 7. Expertise by itself is way too weak an ability for level 7.
• Level 11: Reliable Talent+: If you roll 9 or lower on an Ability Check, you can treat a roll of 9 or lower as 10. (Not limited to Skill and Tool checks. So it also buffs Initiative, untrained checks).
• Level 15: Slippery Mind: You gain proficiency in Wisdom and Charisma Saves, and you make Int, Wis, and Cha Saves with Advantage. At this level Rogues have to deal with high level spells. They should have some strong defense against them. (Keeping in mind that this is still weaker than a Paladin's Save boosting Aura).
• Level 20: A actual capstone: I don't actually care what it is. But all classes should get a real capstone that makes taking 20 levels of one class truly worth it. But I'm sure there are lots of options.

1) Agree with them getting Thief Tool Expertise, either as an option or in addition to their two expertises. In fact its a bit weird that none of the Experts have this option, but Rogues especially.

2) I wouldn't mind Steady Aim being another Cunning Action use.

3) Assassinate shouldn't be a base rogue feature. I would keep Uncanny Dodge here.

4) I would put a bonus feat at 6 (so you get a feat/ASI at the regular cadence of 4/6/8/10) and move the subclass feature to 7. That should allow rogues to have pretty solid offense and defense in a very approachable and exciting way through all the Tiers.

5) I'm fine with Reliable Talent only working with things you're proficient in. You have to train with something to make it reliable after all - and if it can't be trained (Initiative) then there's no way to be reliable at it.

6) Slippery Mind granting proficiency is enough. Advantage to all the mental saves would be a slap in the face to Gnome Rogues.

7) The problem with the Epic Boon Feats is that they suck. That's what needs to be fixed here.

Matching the fighter featwise could be okay, though in general I still expect everyone to get more feats, I hope following class iterations will have feats every 3 levels or ASI+Feat or something.

Given that they're keeping the baseline of ASIs/feats at 4/8/12/16/19 I expect that's what it will stay for most classes. Warriors (and Warrior-hybrids like Ranger, Paladin and Rogue) will then get more than other classes.

[Corran]

So I think we have a rough consensus that WotC limited Sneak Attack the Rogue's turn because its too swingy and hard to predict. Players optimizes to get it regularly, and they're twice as effective. Players doesn't optimize for it or doesn't realize how to pull it off because they're new, and now they're sub-par. Same issue with Fast Hands getting Use and Object. Either you optimize for it and its a big boost, or you don't and its mostly worthless because you don't know what you're doing.

Emphasis added (along with the letter s). It usually takes more than one player doing something to have the rogue's sneak attack trigger twice per round. Also, because I've seen it in other posts, twice effective is a horrible exhaggeration. They are not even twice effective offenssively, cause it's hard to keep of turn SA procing round after round.

But yes. It takes some system mastery and some teamwork to get the most out of a rogue's damage output. So in a way, removing pff turn SA's makes the class more self contained. Which sounds good but it doesn't have to be. Giving fighters rage and reckless attack would make them more self contained. Giving barbarians healing/regeneration would make them more self contained. But then you have a fighter who looks like a barbarian, and a barbarian who looks like, I dunno, a troll? (Off topic: Though regeneration on a barbarian sound like a very cool capstone-y level class/subclass ability). Normalizing the rogue's damage makes them look more lik fighters and rangers. Swingy damage adds to the things that set them apart, and more importantly, it is kind of on theme if you think about it. All that said assuming they do get a damage buff in the first place, other than subtle strikes (even if it comes in the form of feats, similarly to GWM, PAM and SS work for the warrior types). So, IMO swingy damage buff. Ie, old sneak attack, probably with a few restrictions (eg allowed only with melee weapon OAs), to reduce unintented combos (eg sentinel, haste, etc).

[Rukelnikov]

Given that they're keeping the baseline of ASIs/feats at 4/8/12/16/19 I expect that's what it will stay for most classes. Warriors (and Warrior-hybrids like Ranger, Paladin and Rogue) will then get more than other classes.

I doubt this batch of 12 classes will be the last time we see UA on classes, that's why I said in the following iteration.

[Psyren]

I doubt this batch of 12 classes will be the last time we see UA on classes, that's why I said in the following iteration.

Point, and you're right, we'll definitely see multiple iterations of these classes.

Having said that, I feel if they were planning to change something as fundamental as the ASI/feat progression they'd have tried it here - the design and power progression of every class and subclass depends on it, after all. For example, if they planned on making feats every 3 levels instead of every 4, balancing feats around 4th and 8th level is just wasted work that will need to be redone.

[Rukelnikov]

Point, and you're right, we'll definitely see multiple iterations of these classes.

Having said that, I feel if they were planning to change something as fundamental as the ASI/feat progression they'd have tried it here - the design and power progression of every class and subclass depends on it, after all. For example, if they planned on making feats every 3 levels instead of every 4, balancing feats around 4th and 8th level is just wasted work that will need to be redone.

Hmm yeah, idk... still feels like the feat at lvl 1 isn't enough to fix the feeling of too few feats.

[Garfunion]

On the topic of Fast Hands feature. Looking at the tavern brawler feat, we might be moving away from improved weapons in general. Thus the use an object action may become less of a thing. Items such as alchemist’s fire, acid, and holy water may have different proficiencies and probably use a regular attack action.

[Ortho]

I asked in another thread, but how are people reliably triggering off-turn attacks with rogues?

Opportunity attacks only happen if the DM decides to move the enemy. Readying an action with Haste requires another party member to set it up. Sentinel won't trigger if the creature attacks you. And Uncanny Dodge is always competing for your reaction anyways.

It would be nice to have, sure, but how the heck is this a common enough event that we're planning around it?

[Psyren]

I asked in another thread, but how are people reliably triggering off-turn attacks with rogues?

Opportunity attacks only happen if the DM decides to move the enemy. Readying an action with Haste requires another party member to set it up. Sentinel won't trigger if the creature attacks you. And Uncanny Dodge is always competing for your reaction anyways.

It would be nice to have, sure, but how the heck is this a common enough event that we're planning around it?

Arcane Trickster can currently trigger Sentinel solo with Mirror Image as it changes the attack's target from you to one of your images.

I can't speak for the other subclasses though - and again, I'm okay with them removing reaction SA as long as they get something else.

[Segev]

The easiest way to "spike increase" rogue damage would be to up their sneak attack die size at certain levels. The more sneak dice they have, the bigger a jump a die size boost becomes.

[Hael]

Or they could bite the bullet and bring back big critical hits.. Perhaps with expanded crit range, as well as larger multipliers.

Rogues are known for that sort of thing in the first place.. It dont know why they are so afraid of those sorts of builds (nerfing that was a bad takeaway from 3.5 experiences)

[Ortho]

Arcane Trickster can currently trigger Sentinel solo with Mirror Image as it changes the attack's target from you to one of your images.

I can't speak for the other subclasses though - and again, I'm okay with them removing reaction SA as long as they get something else.

I figured Arcane Tricksters could pull off something, but that doesn't fully answer my question.

[Psyren]

Or they could bite the bullet and bring back big critical hits.. Perhaps with expanded crit range, as well as larger multipliers.

Rogues are known for that sort of thing in the first place.. It dont know why they are so afraid of those sorts of builds (nerfing that was a bad takeaway from 3.5 experiences)

They did bring back crit sneak this UA

I figured Arcane Tricksters could pull off something, but that doesn't fully answer my question.

Not sure what to tell you then, that was the answer - AT, OAs, or allies.

It wasn't quite 2x SA but it was much better than 1x.

[Corran]

I figured Arcane Tricksters could pull off something, but that doesn't fully answer my question.

Spoiler

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1)[/B] Let's start with the second, ie finding ways to attack when it's not your turn.
a) The first thing you want to look at here is your allies. Depending on if and on how much they can help with that (eg battlemaster with commander's strike, order cleric, ally cater with disonant whispers, fear, eyebite; some DMs will allow command too), you'll have to invest accordingly to fill the gap.
b) For a ranged approach, the only way I know of to attack off turn is through haste (attack on your turn with your haste action and use your action to ready an attack that will(?) trigger outside your own turn). It has a bad rap, but I think this is because it's just game-y. I wouldn't call it overpowered by any means, it's just powerful and very nice to have once it becomes available (either through an ally and later on from you, so you can free your ally's concentration to be used for something more useful for starters, assuming they are still hasting your butt at tier 3). At tier 3, haste means that you get to become a range speciallist one/a few times per day.
c) For a melee approach there are two ways I know of. Sentinel is one of them. Stick next to an ally and hope that not everyone will focus on you (whenever I am thinking about a sentinel rogue I am thinking literally of a moving target). This can work if you ally is built both to invite yet at the same time to somehow also endure a lot of pressure, while you make yourself enough of an unattrctive target despite having sentinel when compared to that ally of yours. And you do that by stacking as much AC as you can, and by getting your hands on retributory abilities that punish enemies for focusing on you (eg riposte being great here as a kind of bluff, since you really want to keep your reaction free for that sentinel attack). This approach sacrifices mobility obviously and is demanding on building for AC and countermeasures that I'd say it kind of shoehorns you into an inflexible melee build, at least most of the time. I'd still take sentinel on an arcane trickster rogue that does not speciallize too fast and too much on this kind of melee approach, but I'd probably delay it until the high levels (and I'd most likely rely on multiclassing -battlemaster- to impove this approach's overall effectiveness still).
d) The other way to attempt off turn sneak attack with a melee build is through OA's. As mentioned earlier, spells like disonant whispers and the like can help here. But so can spells that create a heavily obscured area if you have a way to see through it. Blindsense comes at level 14, so this may not be an option, or it may be an option for later. But if you want, you can get devil's sight or blind fighting through a feat or (preferably) through multiclassing, and pair them with spells like fog cloud and darkness (which may come from you or from an ally) as approrpiate. Inside a heavily obscured area no one has to stay still, because OA's generally wont apply. So you can hide with your bonus action and end your turn next to an enemy who will need to move on their turn; if you allied inside the obscured area keep moving on their turn, this enemy could be any enemy at all. Ideally pick one that needs to go down fast and who also happens to get their turn after enough enemies have already acted since your last turn. This mean that you reveal your position only after enough enemies have already gone. Because if you are using this to take down a nasty, which will have the opportunity to attack you on its turn since you attacked it with an OA during its turn and before it ended, you probably dont want any more attention than that. So yeah, that's the jist of it. Attack with BB and advantage enemy A on your turn, then hide and move next to any enemy, and when that enemy starts moving you get an OA attack with advantage against them. Meanwhile you have a chance at being hidden between the end of your turn and your OA's occurence. And if the enemy you are using your OA on is not the same enemy you attacked with BB on your turn, then BB's secondary damage triggers when enemy A moves at their turn too. Cut down on the number of OA's if survivability starts becoming an issue, and be wary of enemies' readied actions and of grapples; particularly of readied grapples. You want expertise in stealth for sure, and some anti-grappling defense; at the very least expertise in either athletics or acribatics. Darkness is mobile, lasts longer and is easier to pick up since it's an illusion spell, but fog cloud eats a lower level slot, covers a larger area and affects more enemies than darkness does. If you cannot count for allies for either of these and you have to pick one yourself, it's a tough choice, and you'd have to also take into account which of blind fighting or devil's sight is more to your preference and/or easier to get.
ps: Greater invisibility can be used to the same effect. You can get it at level 19, so it practically falls under the kind of synergy you'd be looking at your allies for. But it's a spell that is definitelly worth mentioning when discussing rogues.

[Unoriginal]

There are a couple features that let you make a teammate attack on your turn. From what I've seen over the years on this forum, having said teammate be a Rogue was favored.

[Stangler]

It doesn't plateu hard necesarilly, spells can be used for damage, and you get more of those, whatever people like to say, magic weapons are a thing, and after level 5 is usually when they start falling in the hands of PCs, and extra damage on weapons favor more attacks, they also get the rather lousy damage increment at 18, and finally you can increase damage via Dex bumps.

Yeah relying on some Dex bumps and +1 weapons for damage increases is still a plateau. Relying only on spells means a very slow rate of progression with large spikes in progression which is the exact problem I am talking about. Level 6 and 7 are two of the more boring levels out there. It is hard to make these levels better because the Ranger is so OP at level 5.

Overall in terms of power progression the class sees very clear plateaus in level progression and spikes that are mostly fueled by spells as opposed to their core power which is martial. It is so bad it just doesn't make sense from a design POV.

To me this points to a pretty big rework of HM/pets and a continued rework of martial related feats.

[Stangler]

Giving Rogues a choice between archer or DW fighting styles at level 5 seems like an easy and obvious fix. If they later add improvements to fighting styles the Rogue can benefit but may be a bit behind the curve of martials.

[Unoriginal]

Giving Rogues a choice between archer or DW fighting styles at level 5 seems like an easy and obvious fix. If they later add improvements to fighting styles the Rogue can benefit but may be a bit behind the curve of martials.

I'd rather have the Rogues not get Fighting Styles. Except for subclasses like Swashbuckler who are a further specialisation.

[Stangler]

I'd rather have the Rogues not get Fighting Styles. Except for subclasses like Swashbuckler who are a further specialisation.

It is really hard to balance them without it. Especially if they introduce additional martial feats that build off fighting styles as a pre-requisite. We still really don't know how they are scaling up martials yet but once that is more settled it will be easier to explore options for the rogue.

They don't have to go the fighting style route of course but some baseline increase at level 5 would go a long way to making the rogue more competitive in terms of DPR.

[Yakk]

The easiest way to get an off-turn attack is "Scimitar of Speed". It lets you make an attack as a bonus action without using your attack action.

Then you use your action to ready an action on an obvious trigger that occurs soon. Like, "an ally makes an attack" when your ally is next in the initiative order, or whatever.

But the point is getting off-turn attacks is possible, and making a build that does it reliably isn't hard.

It isn't trivial, but it almost doubles a rogue's damage output.

They could ignore it. And then the aim Rogue damage output to where they want it, relative to everyone else.

And optimized rogues outdamage everyone else by almost 2x. Because this optimization, while quirky, isn't that resource intensive.

They could factor it in. And optimized Rogues damage output is equal to other classes optimized damage output.

And unoptimized Rogue damage output is abysmally bad, because 2x is a huge optimization swing that other classes are unlikely to hit.

They could spit the middle. Then baseline rogues will sort of suck, and optimized rogues will be better than other damage dealers.

The problem is, getting an off-turn attack isn't a huge resource investment, and the designers don't want it to be. For most classes, an off-turn attack past T1 gives them a 25% to at most 50% damage boost. For most rogues, we are talking almost 100%. If off-turn attack difficulty (order cleric, sentinal, etc) is based off of most melee classes, then the cost is going to be really low, and Rogue +100% damage output will make it insanely optimized for the cost. If it is based off of Rogue ROI, then off-turn attack abilities for everyone else will suck.

Going back to 3e, every Rogue attack had sneak attack, and rogues where expected to make 2-4 on their turn. An off turn attack with SA wasn't a huge %.

In 4e, the Rogue sneak attack feature was +1.5T damage dice. The attacks you made on your turn where usually large enough that the sneak attack damage dice gave you like +50%-75% damage.

Your off-turn attack was like 1/2 to 1/3 of the base damage of your on-turn attacks (past early heroic); X+.5X + .5X was 2X without SA, and 2.5X with SA off-turn, a 25% damage boost from allowing off-turn sneak attack. It was still substantial, but it didn't nearly double your damage dealing abilities.

(And this was in a game where off-turn attacks where really common).

Myself, I like the idea of giving Rogues a reaction attack baseline. Because it fits the Rogue "tricky fighter" thing, and gives Rogues a reason to pay attention off their turn.

If the Rogue is expected to get an off-turn attack 50% of the time or more, then getting it up to 100% is only a 33% boost, a reasonable ROI from optimization, not a 100% boost.

[Snowbluff]

Level 5: Assassinate: You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit. A very solid reason to stick with Rogue for at least 5 levels, and a great alternative to Extra Attack. (This would also mean abolishing or reworking the Assassin subclass, which I'm fine with). If not this, then Rogues need some other reliable damage buff.

I agree, Psyren and Snowbluff. A few solutions that makes sense to me involves giving Rogues a Bonus Action: Ready Action option, additional Reactions, Yakk’s suggested Disruptive Strike ability, an Impair ability which works like Caltrops, Nets etc.

Actually, how would everyone feel about Rogues explicitly getting traps? Rangers get the Snare spell, but Rogues could get non-spell Reactions to inflict poisons and blindness. I’m not sure if they should be stronger or weaker than battlemaster maneuvers (or Stunning Strike) but they could learn from that setup. If you want to be REALLY wild you could base rogue traps off of Infused Items- meaning you could give them to allies. The Mind Sharpener for example is not restricted to Artificers, why should choking and sneezing dust (poisoner’s kit, example trap) be restricted to Rogues for safe use?

I kinda like the idea of rolling some subclass features into the base class. Sadly, using items as a bonus action was one of the removed option, so it's unlikely to return in this current form. It would be a better way to make the class interesting, but with the way sneak attack is worded right now, it's still a worse form of how Fast hands used to work, which did let you do some flask rogue shenanigans.

As for how traps perform, there is some narrative potential. You could make a vague zone where there's 1 trap, have a literal trap like the bear trap (hard to work with DMs knowing everything), or just go entirely out of the narrative with reaction "but really it was always there." I like the zone idea personally, since I think it has a good balance of being effective and hidden, but also not being entirely made up. Also a rogue trap should probably go off even if they can't take a reaction.

[Witty Username]

Hm, A brief note that the rogue appears to be losing steady aim, which could be considered a nerf to cunning action. At least based on the ranger gains and losses in their features.
Also, sneak attack is unchanged but also nerfed by the changes proposed to crits is a nerf to rogue damage due to no longer applying to sneak attack.

Hm, Weapons: Simple Weapons, Martial Weapons that
have the Finesse Property

looks like they also lost proficiency in hand crossbow, unless there is a redesign I am unaware of.

[Talionis]

The issue was never that rogues were too OP with it but that there ends up being huge swings in balance with or without it. This makes it difficult to not only effectively balance the rogue but balance a host of other abilities like the order cleric ability, haste, commander strike, sentinel, and more.

There are also plenty of new players who may not even be aware of how important it is to try and get a reaction off.

Personally I found the prospect of using haste to get it off to be especially problematic from a design POV because it just felt like a loophole. I liked the idea that some rogues would want to stay in melee and potentially take more damage with the hope they could trigger a sentinel reaction or something.

I think it was more a problem with Haste and readied actions than Sneak Attack. The inability to ready a haste action is a little weird.

I’ve been at tables with rogues using Haste. There isn’t a balance or damage problem. At optimal tables it’s a big way for Rogues to keep up. But if you have similarly optimized characters the Rogue isn’t the high damage dealer.

All this is really doing is taking away opportunities for Rogues to keep up at the table doing what they do.

[Vorpalchicken]

If limited to only sneak attacking on your turn I agree that the sneak attack damage should be higher. A progression something like 1,2,2,3,4,4,5,6,6,7,8,8,9,10,10,11,12,12,13,14 would be nice. I'd rather keep d6s as if you're going to have 14 of one sort of die it will likely be d6s.

If criticals are also not going to apply to sneak attack (as hinted at in the character origins document) then I think sneak attack could be a number of dice equal to the rogue's level.

Another possible compromise bone to throw the rogue is to allow it to make an off turn sneak attack if they were not able to use it during their own turn.

[Corran]

Myself, I like the idea of giving Rogues a reaction attack baseline. Because it fits the Rogue "tricky fighter" thing, and gives Rogues a reason to pay attention off their turn.

+1

If the Rogue is expected to get an off-turn attack 50% of the time or more, then getting it up to 100% is only a 33% boost, a reasonable ROI from optimization, not a 100% boost.

That 50% is very prone to variance. So a change that can help offset this variance and at the same time does not mess with your quote above, would be to increase sneak attack damage and restrict how much of it can be applied off turn, say, with an OA. This way you can still hit lower than the fighter under normal conditions, probably higher or on par with the fighter when doing something rogue like, and rogues still have some incentive getting up front while reducing the gap between their OA and the next best non-spell one, also while they still get to stab in the back fleeing foes instead of giving them the equivalent of a pinch.

[jas61292]

Another possible compromise bone to throw the rogue is to allow it to make an off turn sneak attack if they were not able to use it during their own turn.

While I welcome the removal of double sneak attack, I think this should be the case. Just word it as before, but change turn to round. That's how a ton of people thought it worked already.

Doing it this way eliminates needing to do unintuitive or silly things to optimize damage, but does not get rid of the ability to ready an action and sneak attack with it, which is very important, given rogues will typically have high initiative. Going first would suck if you can't get Sneak Attack and also can't ready an action to get it once an ally moves into melee.

[Segev]

There are a couple features that let you make a teammate attack on your turn. From what I've seen over the years on this forum, having said teammate be a Rogue was favored.

I think they could keep the "when you take the attack action" wording to prevent unintentional sneak attack access, but they should re-enable off-turn sneak attacks when other PCs are deliberately handing out attack options by making those other PC abilities let them grant full-on attack actions (which may or may not permit only one attack regardless of multiattack/extra attack; see: haste).

[Xihirli]

Yeah, that would be a good way to make sure that only the features intended to work with Sneak Attack work with Sneak Attack.

[Stangler]

I think it was more a problem with Haste and readied actions than Sneak Attack. The inability to ready a haste action is a little weird.

I’ve been at tables with rogues using Haste. There isn’t a balance or damage problem. At optimal tables it’s a big way for Rogues to keep up. But if you have similarly optimized characters the Rogue isn’t the high damage dealer.

All this is really doing is taking away opportunities for Rogues to keep up at the table doing what they do.

If this was the only change sure, but they are re doing a lot of things so a change that gets rid of a feature that creates massive balance challenges for the developers is a good thing. Still need follow up on rebalancing the rogue but this feature was never a good solution to that problem.

[Kane0]

Could add the ability to add sneak attack to opportunity attacks at level 5, would sort of mimic warriors getting extra attack at 5

[Dr.Samurai]

It seems to me more inelegant to say "rogues can deal greater damage with precision strikes if they are able to hit an enemy with Advantage, or an enemy that is also fighting the rogue's ally in melee combat........ but only on their turn".

That last part actually seems more inelegant to me than the complaints about Haste or OAs or Riposte. Seems much more gamist than a feature that is telling us "the rogue is lethal when they have advantage".