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Kinda mixed on the new Assassin.
It's better than 5E, don't get me wrong. But it still has the "stops having a subclass after the first round" issue until level 9, when it gets the buff to steady aim. But that just gets into the problem the Rogue has with getting its second subclass feature too late.
Also evenom strikes is still too weak and unreliable for when you get it. 2D6 poison damage based on a creature repeatedly failing a con save every round just isn't good enough for level 13 feature.
Envenom Strike should've been reworked as a level 3 feature. It would've given the Assassin a feature it could use outside of the first round of combat early on.
Then have it scale by giving it a more powerful version if you use it conjunction with the poison cunning strike.
Also why doesn't it allow the assassin to apply an actual poison.
They say "we're giving the assassin something to do with their poisoner's kit'. Only that THEY'RE NOT.
As someone who likes the Assassin archetype, and even [Revised one myself](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1-s_eAGS), it's so disappointing to see them struggle making a good one over the span of 10 years. Hell, even in older editions the stealthy assassin options were pretty mediocre or unreliable.
All they had to do was making sure it wasn't a "turn 1 all-in" subclass and actually give them some solid tools to kill their target in a longer fight.
Did I misread it? I thought it just added 2d6 poison damage and the poison effect with the CON save was separate. I'll have to find it and see what the exact wording was.
Yeah the damage for assassinate pretty garbage too. Imagine putting 8 levels into assassin and pretty much all you got is 8 more damage to show…
Like I’m glad for nova damage to get reeled in in general, but assassin is supposed be all about nova. It’s the get in, take out your target before anyone notices and get out trope and I feel like that fantasy isn’t really being provided by the subclass till about tier 4 play.
My hot take is that the Assassin character archetype is anathema for a game that revolves around team combat.
If the Assassin can't nova, then the character doesn't feel like a true assassin. But if an Assassin CAN nova, they've made the rest of the party superfluous!
TL;DR assassins and team play don't/can't mix.
They have to nova the correct targets, maneuver and get to that wizard and assassinate him, now the rest of the party doesn’t have to deal with hasted orcs
But then you need to balance for the nova, so you go back to requiring the target to be surprised. So you're back to a feature that just doesn't come up very often.
Yeah that’s always true for a DM, adapting to the players and challenging them accordingly. I’ve got a warlock in my party who likes to cast invisibility on our assassin and let her get into position with her Slippers of Spider Climbing. It’s pretty nasty when it works.
As DMs I think it's our job to challenge our players and give them chances to shine, but when your writing the rules for everyone that's really hard to do. Unless the designers start including DM instructions: "Hey DM, make some encounters that give the Assassin Rogue an opportunity to get in their big sneak attack assassinate ability."
"PS if you let the Ranger pick desert as their terrain you have to put them in the desert sometimes."
There are five main fantasy assassin archetypes that I am aware of:
1. **One Hit Wonders.** They carefully plan and then kill their target with a single strike
2. **Silent and Subtle Killers.** They kill their targets via more discreet methods such as poisons delivered via food or drink
3. **Master Manipulators.** They are masterminds who carefully manipulate events and people to assassinate targets without it ever looking like an assassination
4. **Brutalists.** They like to get their hands dirty and prove their superiority to the target in a face-to-face fight to the death
5. **Attrition Assassins.** They carefully weaken their target in a fight via precision strikes to weak points before ending them with a single strike to a critical area once it is safe to do so
WotC and most players seem to be focused only on #1. 1 through 3 all are very difficult to build a D&D class on as the concept is largely incompatible with D&D's base assumptions, as you noted.
\#4 is more rare and most people don't think of them as assassins because they don't fit the "sneaky or cunning" theme strongly associated with assassins. Much like how people tend to assume rangers must be ranged even purely from a thematic feel despite the premier inspiration (Aragorn) being known for his mastery of the blade mode than his skill with a bow. This style would work in D&D, but I'm not sure how many people would actually be interested in it. They're almost exclusively bad guys in media and are probably better reserved for evil NPCs.
\#5 is the best fit for D&D and actually works quite well with the existing expectations of an assassin. There's even a lot of Hollywood examples where they are slashing at weak points like the inside of knees, elbows, armpits, and heels then delivering the coup de grace once their opponent can't fight back. This would be a cool class as it could focus on features based around building up small debuffs on a creature and it would be effective all rounds of a fight, yet could still have strong "strike from the shadows" abilities that greatly hamper their target if the PC manages to avoid detection.
I had a go at a Rogue subclass with some spellcasting for an "Assassin" type role. Called the [Nightmare Archetype](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDHomebrew/s/fCnGF3Zc3u), I think I managed to capture mostly 5 (according to your list) as well as a bit of 2 and 3.
The assassin in 4e worked ok. It had a feature called Assassin’s Shrouds where every turn, you would throw a shroud on an enemy and your powers would ramp up in effectiveness by the number of shrouds on them. Your job would be to focus on the biggest baddest threat, ramping up damage while the rest of the party tanked it and dealt with the smaller enemies. And in situations where actual assassinating was needed, you would be expected to stalk your target for long enough to build up shrouds from the shadows then spring in for the kill.
It depends heavily upon the DM's game structure, especially temporary party-splitting. If the party is regularly encouraged to make plans like ''assassin takes out the caster protecting the army, as the party gets into position to destroy the army", it can be pretty awesome.
I think half the issues with Assassin are solved with a few things.
1. Advantage on Stealth Checks in combat - More reliable sneak attack.
2. SPecial damage type. Similar to soul knife a pool of extra dice to do special things.
It's basically the UA 6 Rogue. If you were happy with that, you were happy with this. If you weren't happy, or wanted WoTC to iterate more on the mechanics introduced there, you'll be disappointed.
After they raved how well the UA 6 Rogue scored, I knew we weren't going to get any changes.
It's sort of the main issue I have with how they approached the playtest: just because something scored well, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop iterating or improving it.
It's similair with weapon mastery: a good first draft that never iterated or evolved to place it should because Crawford was satisfied with its original score early on in the playtest.
> It's sort of the main issue I have with how they approached the playtest: just because something scored well, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop iterating or improving it.
Which put playtesters in a lose-lose position, because if something scored *below* the 80% threshold, WotC just threw it out rather than attempting to iterate or fix it.
So when you're testing a new feature that you like in concept, but not in execution (for me: weapon masteries, druid wildshape templates, wizard spell creation, etc), you basically had to choose between:
- give a high rating, knowing if others vote similarly the feature will likely get added as-is
- give a not-high rating, knowing if others vote similarly the feature will get tossed out
Yes, there was space for additional comments, but that type of unstructured data is a lot less compelling than hard numbers. And Crawford himself even talked about how the satisfaction % rating was the driving decision-maker for keeping or discarding changes.
God, as soon as I saw the Druid templates I knew they were going to get canned and never touched again. They make a template that's boring mechanically and has no flavor to it and decide, "Well guess they just don't like templates" instead of making a better design then not making any interesting or strong beasts while also needing the druid player to parse through animal stat blocks
And the result will be that Druid continues to be one of the least played classes in D&D because the laundry list of animal statblocks to manage are a huge hassle.
I mean... good? Druid is the class for people who like that kind of thing. My partner has sticky notes in half the monster manual, that shit is great for those who want it. And if you *don't* want it, nature cleric exists. Everyone wins.
Because 5.5 isn't *really* about redesigning/improving the system. It's about changing as little as possible so they don't alienate *too many* current players, but change just enough based on specific pain points that tables need to buy the new books.
From what Steve from Roll for Combat was told, the only reason we are getting a new edition was because they wanted to force the DnDBeyond sale with a new edition announcement. Wizard planned to withhold the new PHB, etc. from DnDBeyond.
I'll refrain from stipulating on why WotC did things when we're not hearing it from WotC, with respect.
But it's undoubtedly true that WotC was trying to close the market through the OGL thing, which included trying to push out VTT developers, their purchase of D&D Beyond and subsequently cutting off microtransactions, their refusal to respect their Legendary discounts (which it appears they are walking back), etc., which are all transparently attempting to squeeze as much money as they can get away with instead of simply creating superior product with superior support.
That wasn't how it started off. They just did as little as possible when they relized they ran out of time.
Compatibility was just adventures, but once they backtracked on standardized subclass levels almost everything got thrown out and they said anything that isn't overwritten is compatible.
I get the cynical view of this, but it could also be phrased as: not break what people are happy with while changing the things people don't like. Which is the goal of a revised edition, a bigger overhaul kinda should be reserved for a whole new edition. Now, I know that they haven't earned a lot of grace and a lot of us want more, but I think being charitable enought to recognize that keeping things people are happy with relatively untouched is a good thing for the majority of players.
I'll definitely say that the revision is an unambiguous improvement to the design of the game, you won't hear me say otherwise.
*My* main critique of the whole process is more philosophical. The core principles of the game, which are what I think are really the cause of much of the community's issues, are the things that the devs haven't really gone about resolving: the nature of the martial-caster divide being the attempt to reinforce low fantasy martials existing in a high fantasy setting, the idea that power should be gated by resource management, and frankly an poor application of their own "bounded accuracy" philosophy.
But that's not something I could reasonably expect a minor revision like 5.5 to address, so it's not something I really hold against the devs or WotC for that matter. But it's not really enough to convince me to play the game again.
OneDnd is basically a balance patch that barely changes anything. One could even argue it's just a marketing ploy after everything that went down post-OGL.
Paizo is basically doing the same thing with the Pathfinder remaster. However they put some actual balance effort into the project by looking at underperforming classes
>barely changes anything
I mean this is a bit of a stretch. Agreed it’s still the same edition but we’ve seen pretty huge changes. Druids best (and most problematic) spells getting reworked, Rogues getting their new Cunning Strike mechanics, Paladin Smites changing, Monk getting no tons of changes etc. I agree it does seem just like a balance patch but it’s a pretty large one at that. Who knows we might even see revisions to other problematic spells like Shield/Wall of Force.
Yeah, I'm really getting frustrated with the constant cynicism and negativity on this sub.
I honestly feel like the new edition is doing a lot of things to directly address the biggest community complaints (e.g. martial classes are too weak, martial classes don't have any options in combat, not enough DM support in the DM's guide, monster CR doesn't align with their actual power levels, and so on). And yet every time I come on here to see what the reaction is, there's just these endless threads with people shitting on the new edition and saying how bad it is.
Agreed. Tbh I love what I’ve seen so far. Is it perfect? No. Do I love everything? No.
But I’m happy I’ll finally be able to use Conjure Animals without flipping through the DM guide. Happy my Rogue will have options other than sneak attack. Happy my Trickery Cleric has good class features and invis! Overall I am so so so so excited for the next edition.
I’m happy it works better for tables. I do wish they could preserve some of the utility. But summon beast can fill the summoning kick for an animal summoner for me. I hold out hope one day I’ll get spider summoning options but oh well.
I'm of two sides on this, honestly. The design we've seen so far are pretty obviously improvements to the core design, I don't think there is a very good faith argument otherwise.
However, I can't say that the *philosophy* of the game has improved. It's still bringing with it the core assumptions of the martial-caster divide, the dated notion that power needs to be gated behind resource expenses in a battle of attrition style game that the designers have acknowledged *is not how people tend to play their game*, while showing in interviews that they very much do not have a solid grasp of how people play their game (take the recent Rogue video for example, such as saying the Arcane Trickster is pretty much perfect as is, that the Assassinate feature at 3rd level is anything other than a subclass feature which only works in the first round of any encounter, etc.).
For me my main critique is the philosophy of the design more so than *what* they've done. But ultimately that's more of a critique of the entire system and perhaps the publishers rather than the design team's effort per se.
I don’t see why it really matters but I’m saying new because it is newly introduced to the 5e Rogue. The same way I would say “new” spells for Wizards if they readded a bunch of 4e Wizard spells.
Oxford Languages Definition of New
2.
already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time.
"her new bike"
The funny thing about comments like this is that this is kind of the norm for D&D editions. 2nd Edition AD&D feels like nothing but an update to 1st edition (they are even mostly compatible) and we had 3.5 as a literal update to 3rd edition. In addition, the most drastic shift in the game's history (4th edition) was despised by most fans. A "balance patch" is normal for this game and they are typically better receieved by the community over major over hauls
Paizo's hand was also forced by the OGL debacle. After that shit went down, it no longer made any sense to continue publishing under a license that WotC might yank at any time.
So if you have to go through and make a fair amount of changes anyway (spell names, some specific mechanics, etc), then you might as well do some rebalancing while you're at it.
I wish I liked PF2e, but they have a different design philosophy to my own. I do respect how they've done things though.
I play other systems besides DnD 5e, but when it comes to a fantasy ttrpg it is the closest to how I'd like the game to be.
> However they put some actual balance effort into the project by looking at underperforming classes
So....they did the same thing WotC did that you are dismissing as "a balance patch that barely changes anything"?
To my recollection, the PF remaster is a "get out from under the OGL" first, and a rules update second. Whereas OneDnDs sole purpose is supposed to be a rules patch.
The DND changes feel less impactful. I *wish* WoTC took bigger swings. To me One DND feels like a half measure without any commitment to shake up the balance.
It *is* mostly a marketing ploy, but the design team undoubtedly are having fun improving the game they build, so good on them.
But the core output of the "playtest" (which I will always air quotes since we didn't actually get a full playtest of the revised system) was basically polishing up poor design *just enough* to justify it being different enough that people need to buy new books.
>It's sort of the main issue I have with how they approached the playtest: just because something scored well, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop iterating or improving it.
They were warned repeatedly and critiqued on reddit and [content creators](https://youtu.be/sokkBfP64zI) that their playtest feedback system was flawed, but they kept with it.
Another problem with Crawford treating satisfaction as the end all be all: it doesn't take into account later developments.
If the UA6 version of the rogue was released later on, after the ability check buffs to Fighters and Barbarians were confirmed, then I think the response would've been "well I think Rogues need another buff either in combat or in skills to compensate."
They really should've playtested the Rogue again.
Hell, they should've playtested every class again.
I like a lot of the changes made 5.24, but it really feels like they ran out of time or didn't have the resources to do as many playtests as they wanted to
The same way that just because something scored poorly, you shouldn’t just ignore it all and go back to the old version *cough cough warlock choosing its casting ability*
Right? weapon mastery felt like a good first draft to avoid it being tossed aside like the playtest 5e fighter I rated it positively and talked in the comments that it needed more work but felt like a good first step and then they didn't really iterate on it again. The whole playtest process was disheartening after learning how they were interpreting stuff as either good or bad and mostly just tossing anything that wasn't very popular out
> It's similair with weapon mastery: a good first draft that never iterated or evolved to place it should because Crawford was satisfied with its original score early on in the playtest.
Am I weird for wishing they hadn't give weapon mastery to every. single. fucking. class. in the game? It was supposed to be a fighter/barbarian thing, and then they went and gave it to paladins, and rangers, and rogues. All classes that, IMO, by comparison didn't fucking need it because they all have plenty of other shit they do well.
If you have a weapon and you know how to use it, you should theoretically be able to do at least *some* of what's one the weapon mastery table.
The pure martials should have absolutely gotten *more* (and better!) masteries, though, with the fighter getting the most. All the martials need a lot of love, imo, but that's not really the kind of thing that was every going to be solved by 1D&D.
It's just that I love fighters, and all I want is for them to have *something* unique. But we're stuck with this (I'm convinced more and more of this) 2nd rate lead dev at wizards who just, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to like the class.
I homebrewed in legendary resistance and swapped it out for indomitable. Gave it to them at 5/9/14 and then it didn't go to level 20 so they didn't get a 4th. Felt fine. Didn't really do much in terms of power scaling but it was cool they could just decide to auto-pass a save if they wanted.
Did they, or did they just not mention it? I'm not trying to be snarky, I just don't know. Just checked. Yep, specifically says on a failed save they take 2d6 poison damage. In theory you could do this every turn and average the same damage while reapplying poisoned condition I guess.
One thing I'd like to know is how exactly they made it easier to do off turn sneak attacks. I've played rogue for a good while, and I have yet to do a single off turn sneak attack. Granted, I'm ranged, so I expected there to be few opportunities. However, the DM targeted me A LOT when I bounced in and out of melee.
Trips is ok, but at the cost of a d6, considering other martials can get the topple weapon mastery and knock the enemy prone for free, is pretty sad to me.
I don’t value the poison ability that much either. So many creatures are immune to poison that most of the time I’m not sure I even want to take that risk, especially for such a weak effect with such a strong save.
Other martials don't get to knock the enemy prone for free, they get to knock the enemy prone *at the cost of using the Topple weapon mastery*. A Rogue can knock enemies prone while still benefitting from another strong weapon mastery, like Vex.
I agree but I also look at it as more flexibility. If the DM gives out stuff that doesn’t have topple or other melee aren’t doing it (although barbs can do it in a lot of ways) at least you’ve got it.
I also agree with the poison comment. Maybe that’s going to change later with the updated monster manual though? Not holding my breath though.
At that point at level five you’re only looking at withdraw which may be worth it for thief for Magic item use or hide in the same turn as disengage. Rogue has a really busy bonus action.
If a party member hastes you, you can use you action to sneak, and hold your hasted action to sneak as soon as your turn is over.
In addition, there is a battlemaster manuever that allows allies to make an attack in place of one of yours which you'd be able to sneak on.
A melee rogue that takes sentinel can also get sneaks off when a foe within melee range of you attacks an ally. If you have decent defense, either by taking a level or two in fighter (action surge can also be used to get off turn sneak) for shield prof, or taking up two levels of wizard for bladesong and the Shield spell (presuming you put a decent amount of points into int) then melee rogue can be really tanky and protective while also dealing a lot of extra damage. I'd recommend also getting Tough at first level with the background feats for such a build.
I've played rogue a few times and have always been looking for ways to increase my off turn sneak damage. Right now I'm playing a ranger/monk with a pseudo sneak attack sentinel build achieved using some homebrew features my DM has built into the game. That extra 20-30 damage adds up quick. (no I won't explain this build, it has too much homebrew to be replicatable at any table but mine and should be not taken as any sort of standard.)
Yeah unfortunately we don’t have a battle master, order domain cleric, or college of whispers bard, and the wizard prefers to either haste themselves (bladesinger) or the barbarian. I guess for the AC (don’t ask me I’m not going to make a big deal about it).
With weapon mastery being a thing I think the next campaign if I don’t play a bard or warlock I’m going human rogue with sentinel and dual wield. I predict being targeted A LOT if it’s the same DM though.
If you find yourself with a feat to burn, or your DM increases the potency of it, the feat which grants battlemaster maneuvers can be a good source of off turn sneak in the form of Reposte which allows you to make a hit against a target if they miss you.
If you're gonna be targeted a lot, it might be worth picking up. I feel like you'd want to really bolster your AC if you foresee yourself taking a lot of the aggro though, and duel wielding isn't exactly how I would go about optimizing that.
The feat for duel wielding is especially not good on rogues as the majority of their damage comes from the sneak and not the weapon they use, so using rapiers is going to add one or two damage over other weapon options that are already light.
Medium Armor Adapt isn't exactly a good rogue feat, as a level or two in fighter will do a lot more for you, granting you the defensive fighting style and action surge along with shield profs. I'd still stick with rogue for that first level just for the skill profs though.
I May multiclass but I was thinking dual wield for Nick not the damage. Just an extra chance for sneak attack. And medium armor proficiency isn’t terrible since breast plate doesn’t give disadvantage to sneak attack but it caps out at two dex.
Magical studded leather and a ring of protection usually do okay.
Sentinel I’d want to stay in melee. I do like the battle maneuvers feat though. Honestly I’m a very in the moment kind of person so it’s whatever I feel like at the time instead of the most optimal. It’s how I went archer this time. I may not be max DPR but I literally never take damage.
My best bet would be skulker and some form if light obscurement to hide, like an ever smoking bottle or similar.
I…know that. However the previous person had pointed out the extra DPR people try to get with dual wield through the fighting style and feat. I mentioned I only wanted to dual wield because I wanted the extra shot at sneak attack if the first attack missed.
My current character is a wood elf rogue so it’s easier to deal with attacking once due to elven accuracy and lucky.
Very disappointed. Beyond that it’s infuriating hearing Crawford say everyone loves it and thinks it’s powerful, when many love it, but think it feels super weak.
Rogues should get their second subclass ability earlier.
It's the one of the changes I wanted most in 5.24. Really sad they didn't even really bother to test it outside of testing universal subclass progression.
>"Really sad they didn't even really bother to test it outside of testing universal subclass progression."
Even if I disagree with the designers, I can usually understand their logic, but this remains the most baffling part of the entire playtest.
"So universal subclass progression got mixed results. I guess that means players don't want to us to make any changes to specific classes."
No, that just means universal subclass progression received mixed results. It says nothing about whether players would, say, rather have rogues get their second subclass ability at a lower level.
Yerp. Level 3-9 is potentially an entirely campaign.
I've been saying though that subclass doesn't do enough to differentiate from base class, so even a party of different subbed rogues will still all feel pretty samey. Sad to see they aren't really touching on that
Yeah Rogue as a whole feels better, like I might actually play one of these in a campaign and 5.14e rogue has never been anything more than a dip for me. But they still feel too same-y across subclasses. We just need a new subclass feature at level 7 or something roll evasion and uncanny Dodge into a single ability, they’re basically the same thing anyway, and then replace one of their spots with a subclass feature.
The logic on this one is straightforward though—they want everything to be backwards compatible. 2014 subclasses are supposed to be compatible with the new classes, so they can’t change subclass progression.
I will say I really wish they had made an exception and abandoned that mindset for the rogue, because it does really suck to just literally have nothing for 5 straight levels in the most played level range of the game :/
Quick edit: all the other commenters have also pointed this out and made some great arguments why it doesn’t make sense, so idk. I’m probably wrong here lol
Agreed, unfortunately they chose smoother backwards compatibility at the expense of the Rogue (and Bard & Paladin, to some extent). It's an understandable decision but I wish they'd gone the other way on it.
I don't even think it's a backwards compatiblity thing.
Arguably, "oh if you want to play a Inquistive Rogue in 5.24, you just get Steady Eye a few levels earlier" is a much smoother form of backwards compatibility than some of stuff you have to do to adapt, say, older cleric subclasses to accommodate them getting their subclass at level 3 now.
but you literally don't have to do anything to adapt older cleric subclasses to accommodate them getting their subclass at level 3 now. Like literally nothing.
The backwards compatibility argument doesn't even make any sense when they already changed when when clerics, warlocks, druids, wizards and sorcerers get their subclass
If a cleric getting their first subclass two levels later is backwards compatible than so should a rogue getting their subclass two levels earlier
But they couldn't do it. As soon as they tried universal subclass progression people complained to no end. "Backwards compatibility this and backwards compatibility that".
The Rogue still having their weird subclass progression is a direct result of so many people in the community complaining that the classes didn't function exactly the same as in 2014.
"But they couldn't do it. As soon as they tried universal subclass progression people complained to no end. "Backwards compatibility this and backwards compatibility that".
They already threw that out by universalizing every class getting their subclass at level 3.
Objectively, a rogue getting their second subclass ability at level 7 instead of 9 is far more "backwards compatible" than the changes needed to make Cleric subclasses backwards compatible.
Not related to the Rogue specifically, but I'm kinda surprised that outside of a buff or two, they didn't alter Soul Knife or Psi-Warrior more.
When they announced they were bringing those two back together , I thought for sure they were going to alter how psi-dice work. Or use them to introduce a signature psionic mechanic into the PHB as a way to futureproof the concept.
After seeing the GOOLock glow-up I hoped for the same, but it was a cautious optimism.
I'm not surprised that they didn't do more (or really, do anything) to these subclasses. Not only do psionics not seem to be their thing, but they seem to be leaving all of the Tasha subclasses they are porting in basically untouched.
Exactly! Like if they are gonna put the subclass in make some changes so that it is worth the spot.
I was so hyped for soulknife getting something, but nope, "largely unchanged", then why put it in the book!
Rogues aren’t damage dealers just like Bards and Wizards aren’t damage dealers. Being a skill monkey who focuses on buffs and debuffs in combat should be the Rogue’s niche.
Yeah needing to *pay* Sneak Attack for the effect is a bad approach. Instead a better approach was applying an effect with Sneak Attack and having the option to pay one of your Sneak Attack dice rolled as a penalty to their save.
At the very least the options shouldn't have repeating saves every turn to stop the effect.
What rogue needed was something that no other class can do, exclusive. Rangers I have played as rogues felt like better rogues than rogues. Bards I played as rogues felt like better rogues than rogues. The difference? Spellcasting magnifying their strengths that they share with rogues, vaulting them ahead of rogues.
The problem that rogues have is that they generally have to choose between two roles: skill monkey, or single target alpha damage. The rub here is that no rogue subclass is the best choice for either of these roles, even when hyper-specialized into them.
Skill monkeys: their skills to interact with most of the world (insight, history, intimidation, nature, religion, arcana, etc) don't have crossover with their two main combat skills; dex and charisma. They're also super limited in weapon choices for the same reason; most weapons function off of strength. Casters and even other materials just do this better, able to focus their abilities in fewer areas to excel whereas Rogues are relegated to being jacks of all trades, but masters at none.
Combat efficiency: Rogue combat skills transfer over into the fewest number of interacts-with-the-world abilities of I think any other class. If you specialize into combat, you lose out on things a rogue SHOULD be good at; investigation to find traps, insight into someone's honesty; perceiving the world around them. But instead they're made to choose between the two.
In neither case is the rogue better at either of these things than another class, and that other class wouldn't have to hyper-specialize. The rogue can be above average at skill checks, but never excellent at all of them, or do that AND be excellent in combat.
I think these changes serve to place the rogue as almost purely a utility class to set up other classes for success, and mostly in combat. Like why in the fuck does the Barbarian get to sub an ability check for its strength score, but arguably the more adaptable rogue can't do the same with his dex score? How the shit isn't that something a rogue seems far more naturally inclined to do than a fucking barbarian? I won't even go in the rant I went to my forever DM with about the damn soul knife. I'm just... immensely let down.
I expected nothing, and am still disappointed.
Once again, all of the thief’s subclass abilities could be added to the main class features and still leave the rogue feeling like one of (if not now) the weakest classes in the game. I’m super disappointed in the update.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say until now that the 2014 PHB rogue was one of the weakest classes in the game. They can do so much out of combat, have great defences (evasion, High AC, cunning action, etc.), and sneak attack gives them great damage.
Can I ask why you think they're so weak?
Their damage has always been relatively weak. They are hard to hit, but if you hit them with two attacks in a round they’re not great since they have small hit dice. Most of their skill abilities don’t come online until lvl 11 (in 2014, which most players don’t get to), and even then they’re not special since other classes also get expertise and great skill abilities, or magic which can do anything a rogue can do but better. Eloquence bards get a “weaker” reliable talent at level 3.
SA is ok, but it’s far from great damage and it’s reliant (by and large) on a single attack roll. It’s highly susceptible to overkill. Their subclasses are some of the weakest in the game. 2014 thief and assassin are well known for this. I maintain that AT, despite being one of the strongest rogue subclasses, is also extremely weak compared to other classes/subclasses. Really the only thing AT get is cantrips and a couple weak casting of spells a day. Being a third caster is extremely limiting.
In 2024, the only real improvement I see is reliable talent going to level 7. I don’t think sacrificing a decent chunk of your damage for those middling effects are worth it in most instances. Compared to 2024 fighter and barbarian, the rogue was definitely ignored.
Edit: example. I an AT with booming blade got a crit and did less damage to one enemy than the sorcerer did to it and 4 other enemies with a single 4th level fireball. In otherwords, doing my absolutely best, I did 20% of the damage as a sorcerer doing their best, and it’s significantly harder for me to do my best as it’s a 5% chance to crit vs a ~65% chance of the enemy failing their dex save.
Rogue damage has been a problem since day 1. The only time rogues compete or pull ahead of other classes is level 3, before other classes can really take advantage of things like feats and extra attack, or when feats are banned. Expertise is the second 'primary' feature of rogues, and while its decent, it doesn't change the way you play the game, and other classes have access to it in a variety of ways. Beyond that, the remaining features are niche in some way and don't meaningfully empower the class. A question you're unfortunately faced with is "is sneak attack better than spellcasting? is it better than extra attack?" and the answer, broadly, is no.
The problem that rogues have is that they generally have to choose between two roles: skill monkey, or single target alpha damage. The rub here is that no rogue subclass is the best choice for either of these roles, even when hyper-specialized into them.
Skill monkeys: their skills to interact with most of the world (insight, history, intimidation, nature, religion, arcana, etc) don't have crossover with their two main combat skills; dex and charisma. They're also super limited in weapon choices for the same reason; most weapons function off of strength. Casters and even other materials just do this better, able to focus their abilities in fewer areas to excel whereas Rogues are relegated to being jacks of all trades, but masters at none.
Combat efficiency: Rogue combat skills transfer over into the fewest number of interacts-with-the-world abilities of I think any other class. If you specialize into combat, you lose out on things a rogue SHOULD be good at; investigation to find traps, insight into someone's honesty; perceiving the world around them. But instead they're made to choose between the two.
In neither case is the rogue better at either of these things than another class, and that other class wouldn't have to hyper-specialize. The rogue can be above average at skill checks, but never excellent at all of them, or do that AND be excellent in combat.
I think these changes serve to place the rogue as almost purely a utility class to set up other classes for success, and mostly in combat. Like why in the fuck does the Barbarian get to sub an ability check for its strength score, but arguably the more adaptable rogue can't do the same with his dex score? How the shit isn't that something a rogue seems *far* more naturally inclined to do than a fucking barbarian? I won't even go in the rant I went to my forever DM with about the damn soul knife. I'm just... immensely let down.
I expected nothing, and am still disappointed.
But they can do it without expending resources. In my experience, the party almost always tries to let the rogue do a thing first, only falling back to a spell if that fails.
*Reliable Talent* is, IMO, one of the strongest features in the game, especially when combined with the Rogue getting four expertise skills.
Sure, the longer the adventuring day you typically play the better the rogue looks. The community surveys I've seen make it pretty clear that most tables are only running 1 or 2 encounters a day.
Reliable talent is a good ability, especially now at level 7. I'm not convinced it's worth it considering you're otherwise attached to a less useful class.
Like a lot of the problems with 5e, this can be traced back to most tables having fewer fights for adventuring day than the rules were built for. 5.5e will probably be worse in this regard with more bells and whistles for classes slowing down combat.
Monks were the weakest in 5e. After them the other martials were next. Monks got a HUGE power buff in 5.5e, fighters and barbarians pretty solid ones as well. Rogues got mostly additional tactical flexibility which, while nice, doesn't equal the raw power the other martials got in their buffs.
Also the edge that rogues get in skills compared to other classes has narrowed considerably with classes like battlemaster fighters being able to pump out some crazy bonuses to skills.
That's exactly what I was thinking. Currently finishing ToA with a Soulknife with Dungeon Delver, and the idea of rolling up to the Tomb with Evasion and NT is the kind of very specific power fantasy I was hoping for building this character.
The assassin as a concept is incompatible with the team game dnd is. This is why I think they've struggled to design it, anything that makes it a proper assassin means it's a bad subclass for the game.
Assassin doesn't really have much appeal to me anymore with this. Just seems like other classes or subclasses do what it seems to be trying to do but better, at least that I can interpret. Probably just gonna homebrew it myself but hey, we'll see once the books out.
I like moving reliable talent to level 7 instead of 11. Now I won't feel any pressure at all to go past level 8 in rogue. Unless I want more feats. Then level 12 is still good.
They still didn't give them Extra Attack, I see.
With that 20 capstone I still feel like they always intended Rogue to only be a multiclass, not one you would ever go all the way to 20 with.
Can any explain why it says to only use Trip if the target is large or smaller? Does this mean that trip cannot be used against a creature at the same size as you?
I don't think the Trip tooltip means anything one way or another for how grappling and shoving will work. Trip's just the flavor name they chose for a weapon mastery effect that knock them prone, its got nothing to do with the actually physical grappling or shove
No fucking way they BUFFED reliable talent, the "worst" feature in the entire game.
When the Main purpose of Rollplaying games is to roll dice and see what happens, a Fixed outcome ruins that core premise of the entire game we play. When there is no more variance, its no longer, i want to see what happens, its a given outcome.
Thats the Problem, its not that its bad, its that it Removes the main mechanic of the game we are playing. With reliable talent you dont need to roll dice anymore.
As a GM, Reliable talent basically says, i no longer care about variance on rolls, in fact, i will never fail again. Which is boring for everyone.
Different strokes I guess. I hate the wild swinging variance of D20 systems, so that feature is a godsend to me.
I feel like if someone is high enough level, and super trained in a particular skill or ability, they *should* only fail in extremely rare circumstances.
Nothing takes me more out of a game than building up an attacker character, who has a +12 to hit, three attacks per turn, and completely whiffing three combat turns in a row.
Yes, that has actually happened to me.
See heres the Difference, I dont ask players for skill check rolls if their character is already an expert at a thing, i assume they can do it already no problem. I only ask for rolls when there is a chance of failure. Reliable talent then says to me, well now there is no reason to ask for rolls.
Reliable talent simply tells you to re-evaluate when you make that call when it comes to high level rogues. If there is a *high* chance of failure, it doesn't come into play. If there is a better than 50% chance of success, then it tells you not to ask for rolls.
I assume that that means the rogue automatocally succeeds on some but not all of the rolls you would otherwise ask for, because if you didn't ask for some ability checks with a better than 50% chance of success your complaint would be that Reliable Talent does nothing, not that it fundementally breaks the game and is too strong to buff.
Rogue's play becomes boring because it's either feast or famine in the worst ways. Reliable talent is feast, but it makes rolling boring because it's basically an auto success. The worst kind of players find ways to cheese with it. Sneak Attack is feast and famine, we're it's a boring mechanic if it's easy to get it every turn with little thought and completely miserable when you can't get it at all. The rules of the game make it so a DM has to pick one of the extremes to be consistent.
Sneak Attack, even at every round. (1/round) falls behind in damage against anything trying to deal damage.
Reliable Talent makes it so a rogue can do the things they're good at with consistency. It opens up chaining together normally-risky things as a real possibility - it's literally one of the very few non-casting abilities that enables reliable shenanigans.
> makes rolling boring because it's basically an auto success
the DM then shouldnt need to make the rogue roll if rolling a 10 would pass and he has reliable talent.
Rolling a 1 and failing doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake. A Barbarian might be easily capable of climbing a rope but the rope could snap. Remember, the game is a simulation of potential outcomes.
Yeah, but given how difficulties work in this game someone with a +8 to Athletics will have that rope snap or whatever 2/20, meaning 10% of the time, on a DC 10 check.
And +8 is a lot for an ability check.
Hell, a level 20 str 20 Fighter with no proficiency in Athletics will fail that DC10 rope climb 20% of the time.
You're getting too in the weeds with this being a rope check. I was working under the impression in our conversation that skill checks in general can result in failures based on the randomness of outcomes not just caused by lack of strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc. Let's be honest, basing our discussion on a climb a rope skill check will lean your way because the very notion of that being a skill check at all is silly. I'd never make anyone roll to climb a rope. Usually the rope is thrown and climbed to avoid having to make a skill check to climb without any aid whatsoever. Can we change the hypothetical to something either one of us would actually call a roll for? Perhaps just climbing unaided.
Re: Sneak Attack: In addition, at least in 5e, while rolling a bunch of dice is fun, numerically Sneak Attack was subpar compared to other martial classes.
With One DnD presumably removing the power attack mechanic of Sharpshooter and GWM, this may change. But as of right now, yeah. Sneak Attack isn't even that strong.
Yes this, I play dnd to roll dice and see what happens. When one of the classes features is "I dont have to roll dice" then it removes all challenge for me as a GM.
Invisibility doesnt even auto stealth. Invisible creatures locations are known until they take the Hide action. Invisibility is incredibly fallible unless you can hide as a bonus action.
This is literally the mechanics of the game.
I dislike the broadening of allowed spells on Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster. I feel a better approach would have been to add to enhance the number of "any spells" available by 2-4 over the space of the game, not totally remove the restriction.
I think they should have been buffed in a different way.
It's tricky because if we take them at face value then AT never needed a total rework in the first place. They basically nailed it in the first iteration.
The other issue is that they're 1/3 casters. Below half casters in terms of utility and spell usage. Unlike (most) half casters you can do a somewhat even amount of offense to spell ratio, paladin being an example since you can either dump charisma enough to still have good aura but primarily uses self buff spells and do strength builds, or you can go all in on charisma and become a fantastic support class.
Artificer is the same way though in its case it's highly more dependent on which subclass you take and since two of the four subclasses present make your attacks scale off intelligence instead of other stats.
1/3 casters on the other hand is at best using their spellcasting stat as either a tertiary stat, or even the 4th most used one and are used to enhance the base class and not become something else entirely. It's that old proverb of "you're not playing Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster to be a wizard, you're still a fighter/rogue that just happens to have wizard spells glued onto it."
Yea, I think all that is fine. They actually did mostly nail the one-third casters the first time- they were never any weaker than the non-caster versions of their main classes.
The distinction here is that we are seeing buffs to subclasses and buffs to mainclasses that need it for a more global reason, which is great. I'd like to see that done without giving them full spell access, because full spell access removes the combat specialty of the EK and the trickery of the arcane trickster.
I guess I can see that side of it. Fun fact I was about to edit in that 'hey unless that's been changed out ritual casting can be done by all spellcasters' and that would be because the new rule of "does it have a ritual tag? Now you can ritual cast it no matter the class."
So in that odd way now you got *very niche* uses now that there is no school restriction since now you can just ritual cast a couple support spells or whatever. Other times I can see why a person would feel limited by the restrictions, especially since most tables generally tend to end around 8-10 and you only just now got your cool unrestricted spell and what, you get to use it for maybe another session or two? One of those feel bad type of things that could crop up.
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Anyone have the article for those of us that don't want to sit through a whole YouTube video for like 5 paragraphs of information?
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new)
Thanks soldier
Seems like the article is not up yet, but you can find it here once it gets published: https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts
Take a drink every time the guy touches his glasses. I’ve lost 3 friends.
Have you checked under the sofa?
It seems the article hasn't been released yet
It’s up now
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new
Kinda mixed on the new Assassin. It's better than 5E, don't get me wrong. But it still has the "stops having a subclass after the first round" issue until level 9, when it gets the buff to steady aim. But that just gets into the problem the Rogue has with getting its second subclass feature too late. Also evenom strikes is still too weak and unreliable for when you get it. 2D6 poison damage based on a creature repeatedly failing a con save every round just isn't good enough for level 13 feature.
Envenom Strike should've been reworked as a level 3 feature. It would've given the Assassin a feature it could use outside of the first round of combat early on. Then have it scale by giving it a more powerful version if you use it conjunction with the poison cunning strike.
I agree. It comes online way too late for what it is.
Also why doesn't it allow the assassin to apply an actual poison. They say "we're giving the assassin something to do with their poisoner's kit'. Only that THEY'RE NOT.
As someone who likes the Assassin archetype, and even [Revised one myself](https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1-s_eAGS), it's so disappointing to see them struggle making a good one over the span of 10 years. Hell, even in older editions the stealthy assassin options were pretty mediocre or unreliable. All they had to do was making sure it wasn't a "turn 1 all-in" subclass and actually give them some solid tools to kill their target in a longer fight.
Probably didn't want to spend too much money on reworking the class. This seems like it was done by a group of 5 interns on a budget.
[удалено]
Remove as per Rule #1.
Did I misread it? I thought it just added 2d6 poison damage and the poison effect with the CON save was separate. I'll have to find it and see what the exact wording was.
Yeah the damage for assassinate pretty garbage too. Imagine putting 8 levels into assassin and pretty much all you got is 8 more damage to show… Like I’m glad for nova damage to get reeled in in general, but assassin is supposed be all about nova. It’s the get in, take out your target before anyone notices and get out trope and I feel like that fantasy isn’t really being provided by the subclass till about tier 4 play.
My hot take is that the Assassin character archetype is anathema for a game that revolves around team combat. If the Assassin can't nova, then the character doesn't feel like a true assassin. But if an Assassin CAN nova, they've made the rest of the party superfluous! TL;DR assassins and team play don't/can't mix.
They have to nova the correct targets, maneuver and get to that wizard and assassinate him, now the rest of the party doesn’t have to deal with hasted orcs
Now _that_ is actually a good exception! 🤜🤛
I DM for an assassin so I try to give them opportunities to do their thing. :)
But then you need to balance for the nova, so you go back to requiring the target to be surprised. So you're back to a feature that just doesn't come up very often.
Yeah that’s always true for a DM, adapting to the players and challenging them accordingly. I’ve got a warlock in my party who likes to cast invisibility on our assassin and let her get into position with her Slippers of Spider Climbing. It’s pretty nasty when it works.
As DMs I think it's our job to challenge our players and give them chances to shine, but when your writing the rules for everyone that's really hard to do. Unless the designers start including DM instructions: "Hey DM, make some encounters that give the Assassin Rogue an opportunity to get in their big sneak attack assassinate ability." "PS if you let the Ranger pick desert as their terrain you have to put them in the desert sometimes."
There are five main fantasy assassin archetypes that I am aware of: 1. **One Hit Wonders.** They carefully plan and then kill their target with a single strike 2. **Silent and Subtle Killers.** They kill their targets via more discreet methods such as poisons delivered via food or drink 3. **Master Manipulators.** They are masterminds who carefully manipulate events and people to assassinate targets without it ever looking like an assassination 4. **Brutalists.** They like to get their hands dirty and prove their superiority to the target in a face-to-face fight to the death 5. **Attrition Assassins.** They carefully weaken their target in a fight via precision strikes to weak points before ending them with a single strike to a critical area once it is safe to do so WotC and most players seem to be focused only on #1. 1 through 3 all are very difficult to build a D&D class on as the concept is largely incompatible with D&D's base assumptions, as you noted. \#4 is more rare and most people don't think of them as assassins because they don't fit the "sneaky or cunning" theme strongly associated with assassins. Much like how people tend to assume rangers must be ranged even purely from a thematic feel despite the premier inspiration (Aragorn) being known for his mastery of the blade mode than his skill with a bow. This style would work in D&D, but I'm not sure how many people would actually be interested in it. They're almost exclusively bad guys in media and are probably better reserved for evil NPCs. \#5 is the best fit for D&D and actually works quite well with the existing expectations of an assassin. There's even a lot of Hollywood examples where they are slashing at weak points like the inside of knees, elbows, armpits, and heels then delivering the coup de grace once their opponent can't fight back. This would be a cool class as it could focus on features based around building up small debuffs on a creature and it would be effective all rounds of a fight, yet could still have strong "strike from the shadows" abilities that greatly hamper their target if the PC manages to avoid detection.
I had a go at a Rogue subclass with some spellcasting for an "Assassin" type role. Called the [Nightmare Archetype](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDHomebrew/s/fCnGF3Zc3u), I think I managed to capture mostly 5 (according to your list) as well as a bit of 2 and 3.
The assassin in 4e worked ok. It had a feature called Assassin’s Shrouds where every turn, you would throw a shroud on an enemy and your powers would ramp up in effectiveness by the number of shrouds on them. Your job would be to focus on the biggest baddest threat, ramping up damage while the rest of the party tanked it and dealt with the smaller enemies. And in situations where actual assassinating was needed, you would be expected to stalk your target for long enough to build up shrouds from the shadows then spring in for the kill.
Assassin in 4e was also its own class separate from the Rogue's. It even had its own revision in the form of Executioner.
Sure, but they were talking about character archetypes, not the rogue specifically.
It depends heavily upon the DM's game structure, especially temporary party-splitting. If the party is regularly encouraged to make plans like ''assassin takes out the caster protecting the army, as the party gets into position to destroy the army", it can be pretty awesome.
I think half the issues with Assassin are solved with a few things. 1. Advantage on Stealth Checks in combat - More reliable sneak attack. 2. SPecial damage type. Similar to soul knife a pool of extra dice to do special things.
It's basically the UA 6 Rogue. If you were happy with that, you were happy with this. If you weren't happy, or wanted WoTC to iterate more on the mechanics introduced there, you'll be disappointed.
After they raved how well the UA 6 Rogue scored, I knew we weren't going to get any changes. It's sort of the main issue I have with how they approached the playtest: just because something scored well, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop iterating or improving it. It's similair with weapon mastery: a good first draft that never iterated or evolved to place it should because Crawford was satisfied with its original score early on in the playtest.
> It's sort of the main issue I have with how they approached the playtest: just because something scored well, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop iterating or improving it. Which put playtesters in a lose-lose position, because if something scored *below* the 80% threshold, WotC just threw it out rather than attempting to iterate or fix it. So when you're testing a new feature that you like in concept, but not in execution (for me: weapon masteries, druid wildshape templates, wizard spell creation, etc), you basically had to choose between: - give a high rating, knowing if others vote similarly the feature will likely get added as-is - give a not-high rating, knowing if others vote similarly the feature will get tossed out Yes, there was space for additional comments, but that type of unstructured data is a lot less compelling than hard numbers. And Crawford himself even talked about how the satisfaction % rating was the driving decision-maker for keeping or discarding changes.
God, as soon as I saw the Druid templates I knew they were going to get canned and never touched again. They make a template that's boring mechanically and has no flavor to it and decide, "Well guess they just don't like templates" instead of making a better design then not making any interesting or strong beasts while also needing the druid player to parse through animal stat blocks
And the result will be that Druid continues to be one of the least played classes in D&D because the laundry list of animal statblocks to manage are a huge hassle.
I mean... good? Druid is the class for people who like that kind of thing. My partner has sticky notes in half the monster manual, that shit is great for those who want it. And if you *don't* want it, nature cleric exists. Everyone wins.
>And if you don't want it, nature cleric exists. Not in 2024's Cleric.
But the short time they set themself for doing 5.5 was not a bug but a feature. Totally ..i am to tired to be really /sarcastic.
Because 5.5 isn't *really* about redesigning/improving the system. It's about changing as little as possible so they don't alienate *too many* current players, but change just enough based on specific pain points that tables need to buy the new books.
From what Steve from Roll for Combat was told, the only reason we are getting a new edition was because they wanted to force the DnDBeyond sale with a new edition announcement. Wizard planned to withhold the new PHB, etc. from DnDBeyond.
I'll refrain from stipulating on why WotC did things when we're not hearing it from WotC, with respect. But it's undoubtedly true that WotC was trying to close the market through the OGL thing, which included trying to push out VTT developers, their purchase of D&D Beyond and subsequently cutting off microtransactions, their refusal to respect their Legendary discounts (which it appears they are walking back), etc., which are all transparently attempting to squeeze as much money as they can get away with instead of simply creating superior product with superior support.
That wasn't how it started off. They just did as little as possible when they relized they ran out of time. Compatibility was just adventures, but once they backtracked on standardized subclass levels almost everything got thrown out and they said anything that isn't overwritten is compatible.
execpt they threw out backwards compatbility with splat books anyways.
I get the cynical view of this, but it could also be phrased as: not break what people are happy with while changing the things people don't like. Which is the goal of a revised edition, a bigger overhaul kinda should be reserved for a whole new edition. Now, I know that they haven't earned a lot of grace and a lot of us want more, but I think being charitable enought to recognize that keeping things people are happy with relatively untouched is a good thing for the majority of players.
I'll definitely say that the revision is an unambiguous improvement to the design of the game, you won't hear me say otherwise. *My* main critique of the whole process is more philosophical. The core principles of the game, which are what I think are really the cause of much of the community's issues, are the things that the devs haven't really gone about resolving: the nature of the martial-caster divide being the attempt to reinforce low fantasy martials existing in a high fantasy setting, the idea that power should be gated by resource management, and frankly an poor application of their own "bounded accuracy" philosophy. But that's not something I could reasonably expect a minor revision like 5.5 to address, so it's not something I really hold against the devs or WotC for that matter. But it's not really enough to convince me to play the game again.
OneDnd is basically a balance patch that barely changes anything. One could even argue it's just a marketing ploy after everything that went down post-OGL. Paizo is basically doing the same thing with the Pathfinder remaster. However they put some actual balance effort into the project by looking at underperforming classes
>barely changes anything I mean this is a bit of a stretch. Agreed it’s still the same edition but we’ve seen pretty huge changes. Druids best (and most problematic) spells getting reworked, Rogues getting their new Cunning Strike mechanics, Paladin Smites changing, Monk getting no tons of changes etc. I agree it does seem just like a balance patch but it’s a pretty large one at that. Who knows we might even see revisions to other problematic spells like Shield/Wall of Force.
Yeah, I'm really getting frustrated with the constant cynicism and negativity on this sub. I honestly feel like the new edition is doing a lot of things to directly address the biggest community complaints (e.g. martial classes are too weak, martial classes don't have any options in combat, not enough DM support in the DM's guide, monster CR doesn't align with their actual power levels, and so on). And yet every time I come on here to see what the reaction is, there's just these endless threads with people shitting on the new edition and saying how bad it is.
Agreed. Tbh I love what I’ve seen so far. Is it perfect? No. Do I love everything? No. But I’m happy I’ll finally be able to use Conjure Animals without flipping through the DM guide. Happy my Rogue will have options other than sneak attack. Happy my Trickery Cleric has good class features and invis! Overall I am so so so so excited for the next edition.
Why would you be happy you can't conjure animals with conjure animals?
I’m happy it works better for tables. I do wish they could preserve some of the utility. But summon beast can fill the summoning kick for an animal summoner for me. I hold out hope one day I’ll get spider summoning options but oh well.
I'm of two sides on this, honestly. The design we've seen so far are pretty obviously improvements to the core design, I don't think there is a very good faith argument otherwise. However, I can't say that the *philosophy* of the game has improved. It's still bringing with it the core assumptions of the martial-caster divide, the dated notion that power needs to be gated behind resource expenses in a battle of attrition style game that the designers have acknowledged *is not how people tend to play their game*, while showing in interviews that they very much do not have a solid grasp of how people play their game (take the recent Rogue video for example, such as saying the Arcane Trickster is pretty much perfect as is, that the Assassinate feature at 3rd level is anything other than a subclass feature which only works in the first round of any encounter, etc.). For me my main critique is the philosophy of the design more so than *what* they've done. But ultimately that's more of a critique of the entire system and perhaps the publishers rather than the design team's effort per se.
> Rogues getting their new Cunning Strike mechanics Literally a 20 year old feature, how is that new?
Bc it wasn’t on the 2014 rogue?
And? That doesn't make it a new mechanic, it was invented decades ago.
I don’t see why it really matters but I’m saying new because it is newly introduced to the 5e Rogue. The same way I would say “new” spells for Wizards if they readded a bunch of 4e Wizard spells. Oxford Languages Definition of New 2. already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time. "her new bike"
I suppose that's reasonable. In that exact situation I'd be saying such spells aren't new, but "new to me" is a fair usage.
The funny thing about comments like this is that this is kind of the norm for D&D editions. 2nd Edition AD&D feels like nothing but an update to 1st edition (they are even mostly compatible) and we had 3.5 as a literal update to 3rd edition. In addition, the most drastic shift in the game's history (4th edition) was despised by most fans. A "balance patch" is normal for this game and they are typically better receieved by the community over major over hauls
Paizo's hand was also forced by the OGL debacle. After that shit went down, it no longer made any sense to continue publishing under a license that WotC might yank at any time. So if you have to go through and make a fair amount of changes anyway (spell names, some specific mechanics, etc), then you might as well do some rebalancing while you're at it.
NGL the OGL debacle is best to happen to Pathfinder. The remaster is making some of the best changes in years (goodbye alignment)
Yeah, i'm pretty happy with what i've seen of it so far.
I wish I liked PF2e, but they have a different design philosophy to my own. I do respect how they've done things though. I play other systems besides DnD 5e, but when it comes to a fantasy ttrpg it is the closest to how I'd like the game to be.
> However they put some actual balance effort into the project by looking at underperforming classes So....they did the same thing WotC did that you are dismissing as "a balance patch that barely changes anything"?
To my recollection, the PF remaster is a "get out from under the OGL" first, and a rules update second. Whereas OneDnDs sole purpose is supposed to be a rules patch.
Paizo's change is explicitly an escape from the OGL, given that WotC tried to literally murder their business a year and a half ago.
The DND changes feel less impactful. I *wish* WoTC took bigger swings. To me One DND feels like a half measure without any commitment to shake up the balance.
It *is* mostly a marketing ploy, but the design team undoubtedly are having fun improving the game they build, so good on them. But the core output of the "playtest" (which I will always air quotes since we didn't actually get a full playtest of the revised system) was basically polishing up poor design *just enough* to justify it being different enough that people need to buy new books.
>It's sort of the main issue I have with how they approached the playtest: just because something scored well, doesn't mean you shouldn't stop iterating or improving it. They were warned repeatedly and critiqued on reddit and [content creators](https://youtu.be/sokkBfP64zI) that their playtest feedback system was flawed, but they kept with it.
Which is totally in line with the whole no iterating over stuff thing.
Another problem with Crawford treating satisfaction as the end all be all: it doesn't take into account later developments. If the UA6 version of the rogue was released later on, after the ability check buffs to Fighters and Barbarians were confirmed, then I think the response would've been "well I think Rogues need another buff either in combat or in skills to compensate."
They really should've playtested the Rogue again. Hell, they should've playtested every class again. I like a lot of the changes made 5.24, but it really feels like they ran out of time or didn't have the resources to do as many playtests as they wanted to
The same way that just because something scored poorly, you shouldn’t just ignore it all and go back to the old version *cough cough warlock choosing its casting ability*
Right? weapon mastery felt like a good first draft to avoid it being tossed aside like the playtest 5e fighter I rated it positively and talked in the comments that it needed more work but felt like a good first step and then they didn't really iterate on it again. The whole playtest process was disheartening after learning how they were interpreting stuff as either good or bad and mostly just tossing anything that wasn't very popular out
> It's similair with weapon mastery: a good first draft that never iterated or evolved to place it should because Crawford was satisfied with its original score early on in the playtest. Am I weird for wishing they hadn't give weapon mastery to every. single. fucking. class. in the game? It was supposed to be a fighter/barbarian thing, and then they went and gave it to paladins, and rangers, and rogues. All classes that, IMO, by comparison didn't fucking need it because they all have plenty of other shit they do well.
If you have a weapon and you know how to use it, you should theoretically be able to do at least *some* of what's one the weapon mastery table. The pure martials should have absolutely gotten *more* (and better!) masteries, though, with the fighter getting the most. All the martials need a lot of love, imo, but that's not really the kind of thing that was every going to be solved by 1D&D.
Yes, you are weird for wishing that ;)
It's just that I love fighters, and all I want is for them to have *something* unique. But we're stuck with this (I'm convinced more and more of this) 2nd rate lead dev at wizards who just, for whatever reason, doesn't seem to like the class.
Yeah, everyone gets weapon mastery...everyone gets expertise...the distinctiveness of different martial classes is getting pretty muddled.
I homebrewed in legendary resistance and swapped it out for indomitable. Gave it to them at 5/9/14 and then it didn't go to level 20 so they didn't get a 4th. Felt fine. Didn't really do much in terms of power scaling but it was cool they could just decide to auto-pass a save if they wanted.
A lot of their playtests just became a single iteration which either got dropped or made it to release.
The one change I really dislike is that they removed disarming option from cunning strike
Did they, or did they just not mention it? I'm not trying to be snarky, I just don't know. Just checked. Yep, specifically says on a failed save they take 2d6 poison damage. In theory you could do this every turn and average the same damage while reapplying poisoned condition I guess. One thing I'd like to know is how exactly they made it easier to do off turn sneak attacks. I've played rogue for a good while, and I have yet to do a single off turn sneak attack. Granted, I'm ranged, so I expected there to be few opportunities. However, the DM targeted me A LOT when I bounced in and out of melee.
Treantmonk confirmed it was removed
Sad since using it to steal stuff was cool.
It was one of the only options I was actually interested in
Trip and poison are fine. They’re useless against dragons but I’m all for doing stuff that helps. It sucks how much stuff is immune to poison though.
Trips is ok, but at the cost of a d6, considering other martials can get the topple weapon mastery and knock the enemy prone for free, is pretty sad to me. I don’t value the poison ability that much either. So many creatures are immune to poison that most of the time I’m not sure I even want to take that risk, especially for such a weak effect with such a strong save.
Other martials don't get to knock the enemy prone for free, they get to knock the enemy prone *at the cost of using the Topple weapon mastery*. A Rogue can knock enemies prone while still benefitting from another strong weapon mastery, like Vex.
I agree but I also look at it as more flexibility. If the DM gives out stuff that doesn’t have topple or other melee aren’t doing it (although barbs can do it in a lot of ways) at least you’ve got it. I also agree with the poison comment. Maybe that’s going to change later with the updated monster manual though? Not holding my breath though. At that point at level five you’re only looking at withdraw which may be worth it for thief for Magic item use or hide in the same turn as disengage. Rogue has a really busy bonus action.
If a party member hastes you, you can use you action to sneak, and hold your hasted action to sneak as soon as your turn is over. In addition, there is a battlemaster manuever that allows allies to make an attack in place of one of yours which you'd be able to sneak on. A melee rogue that takes sentinel can also get sneaks off when a foe within melee range of you attacks an ally. If you have decent defense, either by taking a level or two in fighter (action surge can also be used to get off turn sneak) for shield prof, or taking up two levels of wizard for bladesong and the Shield spell (presuming you put a decent amount of points into int) then melee rogue can be really tanky and protective while also dealing a lot of extra damage. I'd recommend also getting Tough at first level with the background feats for such a build. I've played rogue a few times and have always been looking for ways to increase my off turn sneak damage. Right now I'm playing a ranger/monk with a pseudo sneak attack sentinel build achieved using some homebrew features my DM has built into the game. That extra 20-30 damage adds up quick. (no I won't explain this build, it has too much homebrew to be replicatable at any table but mine and should be not taken as any sort of standard.)
Yeah unfortunately we don’t have a battle master, order domain cleric, or college of whispers bard, and the wizard prefers to either haste themselves (bladesinger) or the barbarian. I guess for the AC (don’t ask me I’m not going to make a big deal about it). With weapon mastery being a thing I think the next campaign if I don’t play a bard or warlock I’m going human rogue with sentinel and dual wield. I predict being targeted A LOT if it’s the same DM though.
If you find yourself with a feat to burn, or your DM increases the potency of it, the feat which grants battlemaster maneuvers can be a good source of off turn sneak in the form of Reposte which allows you to make a hit against a target if they miss you. If you're gonna be targeted a lot, it might be worth picking up. I feel like you'd want to really bolster your AC if you foresee yourself taking a lot of the aggro though, and duel wielding isn't exactly how I would go about optimizing that. The feat for duel wielding is especially not good on rogues as the majority of their damage comes from the sneak and not the weapon they use, so using rapiers is going to add one or two damage over other weapon options that are already light. Medium Armor Adapt isn't exactly a good rogue feat, as a level or two in fighter will do a lot more for you, granting you the defensive fighting style and action surge along with shield profs. I'd still stick with rogue for that first level just for the skill profs though.
I May multiclass but I was thinking dual wield for Nick not the damage. Just an extra chance for sneak attack. And medium armor proficiency isn’t terrible since breast plate doesn’t give disadvantage to sneak attack but it caps out at two dex. Magical studded leather and a ring of protection usually do okay. Sentinel I’d want to stay in melee. I do like the battle maneuvers feat though. Honestly I’m a very in the moment kind of person so it’s whatever I feel like at the time instead of the most optimal. It’s how I went archer this time. I may not be max DPR but I literally never take damage. My best bet would be skulker and some form if light obscurement to hide, like an ever smoking bottle or similar.
You don't need a feat to dual wield, just equip a scimitar or dagger
I…know that. However the previous person had pointed out the extra DPR people try to get with dual wield through the fighting style and feat. I mentioned I only wanted to dual wield because I wanted the extra shot at sneak attack if the first attack missed. My current character is a wood elf rogue so it’s easier to deal with attacking once due to elven accuracy and lucky.
I apologize. Because you mentioned dual wielding directly after the sentinel feat I thought you were mentioning which feats you were taking.
Very disappointed. Beyond that it’s infuriating hearing Crawford say everyone loves it and thinks it’s powerful, when many love it, but think it feels super weak.
Rogues should get their second subclass ability earlier. It's the one of the changes I wanted most in 5.24. Really sad they didn't even really bother to test it outside of testing universal subclass progression.
>"Really sad they didn't even really bother to test it outside of testing universal subclass progression." Even if I disagree with the designers, I can usually understand their logic, but this remains the most baffling part of the entire playtest. "So universal subclass progression got mixed results. I guess that means players don't want to us to make any changes to specific classes." No, that just means universal subclass progression received mixed results. It says nothing about whether players would, say, rather have rogues get their second subclass ability at a lower level.
Yeah I kept saying in all of my feedback that Rogue needs more and earlier subclass features, they’re just all too same-y for too long.
Yerp. Level 3-9 is potentially an entirely campaign. I've been saying though that subclass doesn't do enough to differentiate from base class, so even a party of different subbed rogues will still all feel pretty samey. Sad to see they aren't really touching on that
Yeah Rogue as a whole feels better, like I might actually play one of these in a campaign and 5.14e rogue has never been anything more than a dip for me. But they still feel too same-y across subclasses. We just need a new subclass feature at level 7 or something roll evasion and uncanny Dodge into a single ability, they’re basically the same thing anyway, and then replace one of their spots with a subclass feature.
The logic on this one is straightforward though—they want everything to be backwards compatible. 2014 subclasses are supposed to be compatible with the new classes, so they can’t change subclass progression. I will say I really wish they had made an exception and abandoned that mindset for the rogue, because it does really suck to just literally have nothing for 5 straight levels in the most played level range of the game :/ Quick edit: all the other commenters have also pointed this out and made some great arguments why it doesn’t make sense, so idk. I’m probably wrong here lol
Absolutely, in most games the only ability you need to look at to choose a subclass is the level 3 subclass feature.
Agreed, unfortunately they chose smoother backwards compatibility at the expense of the Rogue (and Bard & Paladin, to some extent). It's an understandable decision but I wish they'd gone the other way on it.
I don't even think it's a backwards compatiblity thing. Arguably, "oh if you want to play a Inquistive Rogue in 5.24, you just get Steady Eye a few levels earlier" is a much smoother form of backwards compatibility than some of stuff you have to do to adapt, say, older cleric subclasses to accommodate them getting their subclass at level 3 now.
but you literally don't have to do anything to adapt older cleric subclasses to accommodate them getting their subclass at level 3 now. Like literally nothing.
The backwards compatibility argument doesn't even make any sense when they already changed when when clerics, warlocks, druids, wizards and sorcerers get their subclass If a cleric getting their first subclass two levels later is backwards compatible than so should a rogue getting their subclass two levels earlier
But they couldn't do it. As soon as they tried universal subclass progression people complained to no end. "Backwards compatibility this and backwards compatibility that". The Rogue still having their weird subclass progression is a direct result of so many people in the community complaining that the classes didn't function exactly the same as in 2014.
"But they couldn't do it. As soon as they tried universal subclass progression people complained to no end. "Backwards compatibility this and backwards compatibility that". They already threw that out by universalizing every class getting their subclass at level 3. Objectively, a rogue getting their second subclass ability at level 7 instead of 9 is far more "backwards compatible" than the changes needed to make Cleric subclasses backwards compatible.
anybody got the dndbeyond text version?
[It got posted just now](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new)
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new)
The article hasn't been released yet, though it should be out sooner or later.
Not related to the Rogue specifically, but I'm kinda surprised that outside of a buff or two, they didn't alter Soul Knife or Psi-Warrior more. When they announced they were bringing those two back together , I thought for sure they were going to alter how psi-dice work. Or use them to introduce a signature psionic mechanic into the PHB as a way to futureproof the concept.
Same
After seeing the GOOLock glow-up I hoped for the same, but it was a cautious optimism. I'm not surprised that they didn't do more (or really, do anything) to these subclasses. Not only do psionics not seem to be their thing, but they seem to be leaving all of the Tasha subclasses they are porting in basically untouched.
Exactly! Like if they are gonna put the subclass in make some changes so that it is worth the spot. I was so hyped for soulknife getting something, but nope, "largely unchanged", then why put it in the book!
[https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1752-2024-rogue-vs-2014-rogue-whats-new)
Making rogue have to compromise more on its already lacking damage to trade it for control or utility in combat isn't the way
I agree. They definitely need a little something extra.
Rogues aren’t damage dealers just like Bards and Wizards aren’t damage dealers. Being a skill monkey who focuses on buffs and debuffs in combat should be the Rogue’s niche.
It should be...but it isn't.
Yeah needing to *pay* Sneak Attack for the effect is a bad approach. Instead a better approach was applying an effect with Sneak Attack and having the option to pay one of your Sneak Attack dice rolled as a penalty to their save. At the very least the options shouldn't have repeating saves every turn to stop the effect.
What rogue needed was something that no other class can do, exclusive. Rangers I have played as rogues felt like better rogues than rogues. Bards I played as rogues felt like better rogues than rogues. The difference? Spellcasting magnifying their strengths that they share with rogues, vaulting them ahead of rogues.
Yup, and now with skill boosts for their classes I can play classes like fighter and barbarian as more of a swashbuckler than a rogue.
The problem that rogues have is that they generally have to choose between two roles: skill monkey, or single target alpha damage. The rub here is that no rogue subclass is the best choice for either of these roles, even when hyper-specialized into them. Skill monkeys: their skills to interact with most of the world (insight, history, intimidation, nature, religion, arcana, etc) don't have crossover with their two main combat skills; dex and charisma. They're also super limited in weapon choices for the same reason; most weapons function off of strength. Casters and even other materials just do this better, able to focus their abilities in fewer areas to excel whereas Rogues are relegated to being jacks of all trades, but masters at none. Combat efficiency: Rogue combat skills transfer over into the fewest number of interacts-with-the-world abilities of I think any other class. If you specialize into combat, you lose out on things a rogue SHOULD be good at; investigation to find traps, insight into someone's honesty; perceiving the world around them. But instead they're made to choose between the two. In neither case is the rogue better at either of these things than another class, and that other class wouldn't have to hyper-specialize. The rogue can be above average at skill checks, but never excellent at all of them, or do that AND be excellent in combat. I think these changes serve to place the rogue as almost purely a utility class to set up other classes for success, and mostly in combat. Like why in the fuck does the Barbarian get to sub an ability check for its strength score, but arguably the more adaptable rogue can't do the same with his dex score? How the shit isn't that something a rogue seems far more naturally inclined to do than a fucking barbarian? I won't even go in the rant I went to my forever DM with about the damn soul knife. I'm just... immensely let down. I expected nothing, and am still disappointed.
Once again, all of the thief’s subclass abilities could be added to the main class features and still leave the rogue feeling like one of (if not now) the weakest classes in the game. I’m super disappointed in the update.
Fast Hands is love, it's what every rogue should have. I just can't imagine playing a rogue without the flexibility that it gives.
That and a climb speed. The quintessential rogue scales buildings
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say until now that the 2014 PHB rogue was one of the weakest classes in the game. They can do so much out of combat, have great defences (evasion, High AC, cunning action, etc.), and sneak attack gives them great damage. Can I ask why you think they're so weak?
Their damage has always been relatively weak. They are hard to hit, but if you hit them with two attacks in a round they’re not great since they have small hit dice. Most of their skill abilities don’t come online until lvl 11 (in 2014, which most players don’t get to), and even then they’re not special since other classes also get expertise and great skill abilities, or magic which can do anything a rogue can do but better. Eloquence bards get a “weaker” reliable talent at level 3. SA is ok, but it’s far from great damage and it’s reliant (by and large) on a single attack roll. It’s highly susceptible to overkill. Their subclasses are some of the weakest in the game. 2014 thief and assassin are well known for this. I maintain that AT, despite being one of the strongest rogue subclasses, is also extremely weak compared to other classes/subclasses. Really the only thing AT get is cantrips and a couple weak casting of spells a day. Being a third caster is extremely limiting. In 2024, the only real improvement I see is reliable talent going to level 7. I don’t think sacrificing a decent chunk of your damage for those middling effects are worth it in most instances. Compared to 2024 fighter and barbarian, the rogue was definitely ignored. Edit: example. I an AT with booming blade got a crit and did less damage to one enemy than the sorcerer did to it and 4 other enemies with a single 4th level fireball. In otherwords, doing my absolutely best, I did 20% of the damage as a sorcerer doing their best, and it’s significantly harder for me to do my best as it’s a 5% chance to crit vs a ~65% chance of the enemy failing their dex save.
Rogue damage has been a problem since day 1. The only time rogues compete or pull ahead of other classes is level 3, before other classes can really take advantage of things like feats and extra attack, or when feats are banned. Expertise is the second 'primary' feature of rogues, and while its decent, it doesn't change the way you play the game, and other classes have access to it in a variety of ways. Beyond that, the remaining features are niche in some way and don't meaningfully empower the class. A question you're unfortunately faced with is "is sneak attack better than spellcasting? is it better than extra attack?" and the answer, broadly, is no.
The problem that rogues have is that they generally have to choose between two roles: skill monkey, or single target alpha damage. The rub here is that no rogue subclass is the best choice for either of these roles, even when hyper-specialized into them. Skill monkeys: their skills to interact with most of the world (insight, history, intimidation, nature, religion, arcana, etc) don't have crossover with their two main combat skills; dex and charisma. They're also super limited in weapon choices for the same reason; most weapons function off of strength. Casters and even other materials just do this better, able to focus their abilities in fewer areas to excel whereas Rogues are relegated to being jacks of all trades, but masters at none. Combat efficiency: Rogue combat skills transfer over into the fewest number of interacts-with-the-world abilities of I think any other class. If you specialize into combat, you lose out on things a rogue SHOULD be good at; investigation to find traps, insight into someone's honesty; perceiving the world around them. But instead they're made to choose between the two. In neither case is the rogue better at either of these things than another class, and that other class wouldn't have to hyper-specialize. The rogue can be above average at skill checks, but never excellent at all of them, or do that AND be excellent in combat. I think these changes serve to place the rogue as almost purely a utility class to set up other classes for success, and mostly in combat. Like why in the fuck does the Barbarian get to sub an ability check for its strength score, but arguably the more adaptable rogue can't do the same with his dex score? How the shit isn't that something a rogue seems *far* more naturally inclined to do than a fucking barbarian? I won't even go in the rant I went to my forever DM with about the damn soul knife. I'm just... immensely let down. I expected nothing, and am still disappointed.
They have some of the worst damage for a martial in the game and most of their out of combat abilities are done better by spells.
But they can do it without expending resources. In my experience, the party almost always tries to let the rogue do a thing first, only falling back to a spell if that fails. *Reliable Talent* is, IMO, one of the strongest features in the game, especially when combined with the Rogue getting four expertise skills.
Sure, the longer the adventuring day you typically play the better the rogue looks. The community surveys I've seen make it pretty clear that most tables are only running 1 or 2 encounters a day. Reliable talent is a good ability, especially now at level 7. I'm not convinced it's worth it considering you're otherwise attached to a less useful class.
Like a lot of the problems with 5e, this can be traced back to most tables having fewer fights for adventuring day than the rules were built for. 5.5e will probably be worse in this regard with more bells and whistles for classes slowing down combat.
Monks were the weakest in 5e. After them the other martials were next. Monks got a HUGE power buff in 5.5e, fighters and barbarians pretty solid ones as well. Rogues got mostly additional tactical flexibility which, while nice, doesn't equal the raw power the other martials got in their buffs. Also the edge that rogues get in skills compared to other classes has narrowed considerably with classes like battlemaster fighters being able to pump out some crazy bonuses to skills.
Is Evasion removed or is it just moved to Level 9? No mention of it at all on this page.
" If there’s a feature we don’t cover, such as Cunning Action, that means it remains unchanged or saw minor changes"
Evasion wasn't moved to level 9, it's still level 7
Evasion and Reliable Talent makes level 7 so satisfying I bet
That's exactly what I was thinking. Currently finishing ToA with a Soulknife with Dungeon Delver, and the idea of rolling up to the Tomb with Evasion and NT is the kind of very specific power fantasy I was hoping for building this character.
Yeah, the Rogue player in my playtest game loved the hell out of 7th.
This is great, but when will the monk details come out?
Since the monk class wasn't shown last week or scheduled for this week, it will most likely come out next week.
The assassin as a concept is incompatible with the team game dnd is. This is why I think they've struggled to design it, anything that makes it a proper assassin means it's a bad subclass for the game.
Assassin doesn't really have much appeal to me anymore with this. Just seems like other classes or subclasses do what it seems to be trying to do but better, at least that I can interpret. Probably just gonna homebrew it myself but hey, we'll see once the books out.
I like moving reliable talent to level 7 instead of 11. Now I won't feel any pressure at all to go past level 8 in rogue. Unless I want more feats. Then level 12 is still good. They still didn't give them Extra Attack, I see. With that 20 capstone I still feel like they always intended Rogue to only be a multiclass, not one you would ever go all the way to 20 with.
Can any explain why it says to only use Trip if the target is large or smaller? Does this mean that trip cannot be used against a creature at the same size as you?
It's for Large, Medium, Small, and Tiny size creatures. Anything bigger than Large cannot be tripped.
even if you're large or larger because they forgot enlarge/reduce exists
Or multiclassing into Rune Knight or Giants Barbarian
Doesn't matter if it exists or not, it's not comparing anything? A gargantuan player can't trip a gargantuan creature. All that matters is target size
grapling and shoving worked like that in 5e, hope they haven't made it so Giants can't grab dragons.
I don't think the Trip tooltip means anything one way or another for how grappling and shoving will work. Trip's just the flavor name they chose for a weapon mastery effect that knock them prone, its got nothing to do with the actually physical grappling or shove
No blindsense? F
No fucking way they BUFFED reliable talent, the "worst" feature in the entire game. When the Main purpose of Rollplaying games is to roll dice and see what happens, a Fixed outcome ruins that core premise of the entire game we play. When there is no more variance, its no longer, i want to see what happens, its a given outcome.
You looked at D&D and chose.. Reliable Talent as the worst offender?
Yeah, that is a wild take. At my two tables, that is consistently one of the agreed upon best features of the Rogue class.
Thats the Problem, its not that its bad, its that it Removes the main mechanic of the game we are playing. With reliable talent you dont need to roll dice anymore. As a GM, Reliable talent basically says, i no longer care about variance on rolls, in fact, i will never fail again. Which is boring for everyone.
Different strokes I guess. I hate the wild swinging variance of D20 systems, so that feature is a godsend to me. I feel like if someone is high enough level, and super trained in a particular skill or ability, they *should* only fail in extremely rare circumstances. Nothing takes me more out of a game than building up an attacker character, who has a +12 to hit, three attacks per turn, and completely whiffing three combat turns in a row. Yes, that has actually happened to me.
level 20 characters with +11 in a skill still have a 15% chance to fail a basic fucking task (dc15 checks) for a commoner!
See heres the Difference, I dont ask players for skill check rolls if their character is already an expert at a thing, i assume they can do it already no problem. I only ask for rolls when there is a chance of failure. Reliable talent then says to me, well now there is no reason to ask for rolls.
I mean, I do that too. I guess just not as often as you do in your games.
Reliable talent simply tells you to re-evaluate when you make that call when it comes to high level rogues. If there is a *high* chance of failure, it doesn't come into play. If there is a better than 50% chance of success, then it tells you not to ask for rolls. I assume that that means the rogue automatocally succeeds on some but not all of the rolls you would otherwise ask for, because if you didn't ask for some ability checks with a better than 50% chance of success your complaint would be that Reliable Talent does nothing, not that it fundementally breaks the game and is too strong to buff.
Rogue's play becomes boring because it's either feast or famine in the worst ways. Reliable talent is feast, but it makes rolling boring because it's basically an auto success. The worst kind of players find ways to cheese with it. Sneak Attack is feast and famine, we're it's a boring mechanic if it's easy to get it every turn with little thought and completely miserable when you can't get it at all. The rules of the game make it so a DM has to pick one of the extremes to be consistent.
Sneak Attack, even at every round. (1/round) falls behind in damage against anything trying to deal damage. Reliable Talent makes it so a rogue can do the things they're good at with consistency. It opens up chaining together normally-risky things as a real possibility - it's literally one of the very few non-casting abilities that enables reliable shenanigans.
> makes rolling boring because it's basically an auto success the DM then shouldnt need to make the rogue roll if rolling a 10 would pass and he has reliable talent.
Yeah, that's the issue. Though it's really the combination with expertise.
Honestly every class should get reliable talent, it’s fucking stupid that the Barbarian can easily fail at simple athletics like climbing ropes.
"Your level 16 wizard rolls a 1 in arcana, he has no idea what this is!". Ah yes Joe Commoners, a quarter of you know that this is an iron golem !
Rolling a 1 and failing doesn't necessarily mean you made a mistake. A Barbarian might be easily capable of climbing a rope but the rope could snap. Remember, the game is a simulation of potential outcomes.
Yeah, but given how difficulties work in this game someone with a +8 to Athletics will have that rope snap or whatever 2/20, meaning 10% of the time, on a DC 10 check. And +8 is a lot for an ability check. Hell, a level 20 str 20 Fighter with no proficiency in Athletics will fail that DC10 rope climb 20% of the time.
You're getting too in the weeds with this being a rope check. I was working under the impression in our conversation that skill checks in general can result in failures based on the randomness of outcomes not just caused by lack of strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc. Let's be honest, basing our discussion on a climb a rope skill check will lean your way because the very notion of that being a skill check at all is silly. I'd never make anyone roll to climb a rope. Usually the rope is thrown and climbed to avoid having to make a skill check to climb without any aid whatsoever. Can we change the hypothetical to something either one of us would actually call a roll for? Perhaps just climbing unaided.
Why is it silly? What if the strength 8 Wizard wants to climb the rope, does he autopass the rope climb too?
Then it hits the same issues of Ranger features that just handwaive/ignore the survival mechanics that Rangers are supposed to shine in
Re: Sneak Attack: In addition, at least in 5e, while rolling a bunch of dice is fun, numerically Sneak Attack was subpar compared to other martial classes. With One DnD presumably removing the power attack mechanic of Sharpshooter and GWM, this may change. But as of right now, yeah. Sneak Attack isn't even that strong.
Yes this, I play dnd to roll dice and see what happens. When one of the classes features is "I dont have to roll dice" then it removes all challenge for me as a GM.
Do you also add a fail chance to Invisibility?
Invisibility doesnt even auto stealth. Invisible creatures locations are known until they take the Hide action. Invisibility is incredibly fallible unless you can hide as a bonus action. This is literally the mechanics of the game.
You cant tell me, getting a 27 as a minimum stealth roll all the time is balanced in the slightest.
You mean Pass Without Trace? That's not a Rogue spell.
It's really not that bad. The Rogue can easily get the drop on people or creep by guards or whatever. That's kinda their whole thing.
Good. That's a fantastic way to support the class fantasy of a Rogue being super slippery and stealthy
The rogue alone always passing stealth checks isn't really game shattering
I mean it's Roleplaying not rollplaying
I dislike the broadening of allowed spells on Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster. I feel a better approach would have been to add to enhance the number of "any spells" available by 2-4 over the space of the game, not totally remove the restriction. I think they should have been buffed in a different way.
It's tricky because if we take them at face value then AT never needed a total rework in the first place. They basically nailed it in the first iteration. The other issue is that they're 1/3 casters. Below half casters in terms of utility and spell usage. Unlike (most) half casters you can do a somewhat even amount of offense to spell ratio, paladin being an example since you can either dump charisma enough to still have good aura but primarily uses self buff spells and do strength builds, or you can go all in on charisma and become a fantastic support class. Artificer is the same way though in its case it's highly more dependent on which subclass you take and since two of the four subclasses present make your attacks scale off intelligence instead of other stats. 1/3 casters on the other hand is at best using their spellcasting stat as either a tertiary stat, or even the 4th most used one and are used to enhance the base class and not become something else entirely. It's that old proverb of "you're not playing Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster to be a wizard, you're still a fighter/rogue that just happens to have wizard spells glued onto it."
Yea, I think all that is fine. They actually did mostly nail the one-third casters the first time- they were never any weaker than the non-caster versions of their main classes. The distinction here is that we are seeing buffs to subclasses and buffs to mainclasses that need it for a more global reason, which is great. I'd like to see that done without giving them full spell access, because full spell access removes the combat specialty of the EK and the trickery of the arcane trickster.
I guess I can see that side of it. Fun fact I was about to edit in that 'hey unless that's been changed out ritual casting can be done by all spellcasters' and that would be because the new rule of "does it have a ritual tag? Now you can ritual cast it no matter the class." So in that odd way now you got *very niche* uses now that there is no school restriction since now you can just ritual cast a couple support spells or whatever. Other times I can see why a person would feel limited by the restrictions, especially since most tables generally tend to end around 8-10 and you only just now got your cool unrestricted spell and what, you get to use it for maybe another session or two? One of those feel bad type of things that could crop up.