One D&D: New Rogue Nerfed

[Bobthewizard]

I'm pretty sure dual wielding crossbows works fine because you can use your 1/turn free object interaction at any time during the attack action to reload (When you have a free hand).

Start with 2 hand crossbows, 1 loaded and 1 unloaded
1) Declare the Attack Action this triggers being able to use your offhand attack since you have a light weapon in each hand
2) Make your Mainhand attack
3) Stow main hand crossbow (Triggered from step 2)
4) Make your Offhand crossbow attack reloading as part of that attack
5) Use your free object interaction to reload your Offhand crossbow
6) Draw your mainhand crossbow (Triggered from step 4)

So every turn you simply alternate which crossbow is loaded and use that one to attack first.

This shows using the offhand crossbow when you have one main attack. Can this work with extra attack too? Two main hand attacks and then the off-hand attack. Or with Swift Quiver's bonus action attacks.

[Corran]

So, it is quite possible to make a Rogue that gets an off-turn sneak attack 90%+ turns.

I think you are right. We only have a mildly optimized table my issue would be taking this away from Rogues. Even if you can sneak attack twice a round an optimized Fighter can easily put damage out better than a Rogue and safer.

It must be hard balancing for optimizing tables and unoptimized tables.

It's not about optimized and unoptimized tables. Let me explain.

First of all, the impression that I get from the whole thread is that the pinacle of rogue optimization is about getting off turn sneak attack. I dont agree but I'll roll with it for the sake of the conversation. So with that noted, yes, there are certain abilities in the game that would allow a rogue to get a reaction attack. Now, a party might be filled with characters who get such abilities, or it might have zero of it. Optimization does not have a 1:1 correlation with that, cause when optimizing a party, boosting the rogue's dpr does not necessarily have to be one of your priorities (either because you have more pressing needs, or because the investment is too much for the potential benefit).

So, you end up with games where rogues hit harder and with games where rogues hit softer. Is it an issue that the rogue's performance (in this case damage performance) will vary from game to game? Dont you have the same with fighters when they are played in a game where allies can provide a source of advantage compared to playing them in a game where no advantage is to be found? Isn't a barbarian far more effective in a party with good combat healing and status denial than in a party without? Doesn't a glass canon perform better in a party that can cover for it than in one that cannot? I think that I can produce about 20 solid examples (simply by going through my memory of past campaigns before even trying to think of hypothetical ones), where the effectiveness of a class (generalizing from a character of that class) will vary significantly depending on the party. That's not something that needs to be fixed, it's what adds depth to the game and what makes thinking of the mechanics interesting.

The perceived issue of the damage variance could be very well toned down a bit, especially if it looks like it annoys too many people. But this should be done with care in regard to two things. Firstly, dont mess with the class's theme by getting rid of mechanics that help portray aspects of it (eg dont make rogue OA's more trivial than they currently are, cause it's non sensical for the rogue to tickle enemies who turn their back to flee). Secondly, dont make the rogue perform more similarly to a fighter than they currently do. So let enough variance to a rogue's damage to differentiate offensive combat performance enough from the fighter's, and by no means dont make their combat contribution similar. We dont need rogues that strike as (consistently) hard as fighters. We need rogues who can fight in ways that fighters cannot, and a few damage spikes (that will match or outdo a weapons' specialist performance like the fighter is) under circumstances that make sense for the rogue class to excel under.

[stoutstien]

I am interested to hear how that goes. My direct experience is limited on Uncanny Dodge, but based on similar abilities I have misgivings on its effectiveness against multiple attacks.
The other big feature would be evasion? Not going to argue against that being good, my only concern with it is if it will be applicable enough of the time.

It went ok overall. Still had issues with becoming one noted in later levels.

[Bobthewizard]

Maybe they should add back sneak attack for opportunity attacks when someone leaves your reach, but not for other reaction attacks.

Once on each of your turns when you take the Attack Action, and if you use your reaction to make an opportunity attack when an enemy moves out of your reach, you can deal extra damage to one creature you hit with an Attack Roll if you’re attacking with a Finesse Weapon or a Ranged Weapon and if at least one of the following requirements is met...

This would allow an extra sneak attack for a normal opportunity attack but remove the riposte, commander's strike, order cleric stuff.

[Gignere]

Maybe they should add back sneak attack for opportunity attacks when someone leaves your reach, but not for other reaction attacks.

Once on each of your turns when you take the Attack Action, and if you use your reaction to make an opportunity attack when an enemy moves out of your reach, you can deal extra damage to one creature you hit with an Attack Roll if you’re attacking with a Finesse Weapon or a Ranged Weapon and if at least one of the following requirements is met...

This would allow an extra sneak attack for a normal opportunity attack but remove the riposte, commander's strike, order cleric stuff.

They need to bring it back for ready an attack action because everyone else can use their abilities on ready attacks except for rogues. Say a rogue can’t reach a target and they ready an action to attack or ready an attack so an ally can get close to the enemy so the rogue could qualify for sneak attack, these tactics should allow for SA.

[Corran]

Maybe they should add back sneak attack for opportunity attacks when someone leaves your reach, but not for other reaction attacks.

Once on each of your turns when you take the Attack Action, and if you use your reaction to make an opportunity attack when an enemy moves out of your reach, you can deal extra damage to one creature you hit with an Attack Roll if you’re attacking with a Finesse Weapon or a Ranged Weapon and if at least one of the following requirements is met...

This would allow an extra sneak attack for a normal opportunity attack but remove the riposte, commander's strike, order cleric stuff.

If I am not mistaken, attacks granted by riposte, brace, sentinel, commander's strike, voice of authority and haste are not OA's. Rather, you are using your reaction to make a weapon attack.

Also, even with the current implementation, you can still end up with rogue OA's that dont proc sneak attack (which IMO is also something we could do without).

Lastly, and while I personally dont see it, it seems like for many folks the potential to double on sneak attack damage is looking like a vast difference in efficiency when playing a rogue, to the point that the class feels totally different when playing in a party that allows for lots of reactions for the rogue and when playing in a party that does not do that(again, I dont agree, but perception -even not totally accurate ones- are important when you want a class to be liked by an certain big number of people.

So, IMO they should find a way to deal with all 3 of the above simultaneously. One way to do this, would be to rewrite sneak attack as they have, but add one extra clause under sneak attack. This extra clause would go something like this. ".... Additionally, the rogue can add a Y amount of DX's on their opportunity attacks.". So this would disallow riposte and the like to have synergy with sneak attack, it would also allow the rogue to retain a strong OA even when they dont have advantage or an ally next to the fleeing enemy, and (assuming low enough values for Y and X) it would lower the damage variance a little more when reactions are utilized offenssively, which seems to put off some people.

My only concern is whether there are features that grant reaction attacks (that are no OA's) that should be allowed to work efficiently when used on a rogue. For example, while I dont think it's good game design to allow a rogue use riposte and brace more effectivelly than a battlemater while at the same time the battlemaster is the game's promise for playing someone good at these things is not good game design (not because it might be not obvious to some, but because it is misleading when glancing at the game mechanics), I have to wonder if it's a good idea to disallow features like commander's strike, voice of authority, sentinel and haste working efficiently with the rogue. It's not necessarily a bad thing making such options work with the rogue much more in line with how they would work when applied on other characters (say a fighter), but do these options then remain good enough to be worthwhile picking up? Maybe having the rogue add a ton of situational value to such options is not an ideal solution, but negating that means that these options should probably be reworked to offset losing that situational value from when being applied on a rogue, or abandoned entirely for new ones that would be worthwhile to pick up.

[Bobthewizard]

They need to bring it back for ready an attack action because everyone else can use their abilities on ready attacks except for rogues. Say a rogue can’t reach a target and they ready an action to attack or ready an attack so an ally can get close to the enemy so the rogue could qualify for sneak attack, these tactics should allow for SA.

For classes with extra attack, I thought you could only ready a single attack, not the full attack action. Is that right? If that's true, then maybe sneak attack shouldn't be allowed on a readied attack, since a fighter would only get one attack. I also think they were trying to get rid of the Haste or scimitar of speed readied action sneak attacks with rogues.

I'm interested to see what they end up doing with paladins. They nerfed GWM/SS which were a fighter's main way to keep up with smites, and they nerfed rogue's off-turn sneak attacks. I bet they'll do the same with paladin's smites, "Once on your turn when you take the attack action."

[Gignere]

For classes with extra attack, I thought you could only ready a single attack, not the full attack action. Is that right? If that's true, then maybe sneak attack shouldn't be allowed on a readied attack, since a fighter would only get one attack. I also think they were trying to get rid of the Haste or scimitar of speed readied action sneak attacks with rogues.

I'm interested to see what they end up doing with paladins. They nerfed GWM/SS which were a fighter's main way to keep up with smites, and they nerfed rogue's off-turn sneak attacks. I bet they'll do the same with paladin's smites, "Once on your turn when you take the attack action."

No you can’t extra attack but they’ll also have to get rid of maneuvers and rage damage off turn along with smite.

[Corran]

For classes with extra attack, I thought you could only ready a single attack, not the full attack action. Is that right? If that's true, then maybe sneak attack shouldn't be allowed on a readied attack, since a fighter would only get one attack.

Or maybe they should. I am not 100% sure of this, but I would not dismiss it as an option so that the rogue can be more in line with how fighters interact with readied actions (also, why would that be an actual game design goal anyway?). Leaving game balance aside for a minute and looking at themes, it makes sense for the rogue to be able to exploit opportunities better than a weapon specialist might. Say an enemy flier is using hit and run against a fighter. It makes sense for your average fighter to be thrown a little off their footing in that scenario, and they should rely on less conventional tools (like readying a grapple, or a special technique like sentinel) to counter the unfair enemy and even the odds. But a rogue? Do we want the rogue to rely on these alternative fighter techiques and turn to methods like grappling? Or do we want the rogue to be able to spot for opportunities and severely hurt the flier as it tries to pick them up (probably because the rogue is acting all scared and presents themselves as an easy target while in fact they are just waiting for the unassuming enemy to come close enough for them to deal a serious blow)?

[Xihirli]

Because that was the problem with 5e, too much melee damage from martials!
If everyone gets nerfed then that's cool I guess, I don't mind lower-powered games, but the designers looking at the thief rogue and saying "this does too much damage, and has an ability that's too fun and interesting" rubs me the wrong way something fierce.
Use an object bonus action was cool! It made caltrops and ball bearings relevant!
Gah!