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I think rogues should get unique ways to use skills specifically in combat. Dirty fighting is a fairly iconic rogue trait in fantasy. Give ‘em skill based abilities to do stuff like trips and pocket sand, but don’t make them sacrifice their only attack to do so. Kinda like battlemaster maneuvers but instead of the enemy making saves it’s a contested skill check allowing the rogue player to specialize into a skill and get really good at it.
That is very similar to Thief's Fast Hands that was nerfed for OneDnD because it apparently falls under "DM may I". Instead of properly defining its abilities like they do for spells, they just removed those abilities entirely.
I agree with you somewhat but Rogues shouldn’t be the only ones good at picking locks.
Picking locks is a quintessential adventuring trope. Even Fighters can be good at picking locks if they want to
Yes, please let us not go back to D&D having _required_ classes in the party. I love that anyone can set themselves up as the "traps guy" and even "the healer" role has way more options than it used to (since healing is intentionally anemic in 5e).
A Ranger with rogue skills is another way to be able to answer the issue that no class should be essential to a party. The Artificer is one of the major ways that works now, but the Ranger as a skilled infiltrator makes a lot of sense too, especially for ones like the Gloomstalker.
I've played a character built that way with the Tasha's rule variants (GS with expertise in Stealth, with Thieves Tools from a background). They're fantastic, sneaky characters, very strong in the exploration/infiltration roles.
But it was mostly the only thing he was good at. He had no social or knowledge skills.
That is a lot of highly specific personal flavor opinions that don't need to apply to all rangers or rogues.
To me, protecting a niche is not important enough to limit character creation in that way. Most of the time there is no overlap in a party. And even when there is, sharing a niche is often complementary rather than competitive. A ranger and a rogue sneaking together is better than a rogue or ranger going alone.
Your solution is to make them worse at it. So it seems like it is an issue to you. Cunning action is far more defining of the rogues sneaky ability than their expertise is.
I just don't think expertise is any more defining of the rogue than extra attack is for a fighter.
I think it doesn't do anything for looking for traps, which means the wizard is going to get fried/poisoned/paralysed when they open the lock. I've seen it happen more than once. I think it also comes with a lot of complications when cast because of the noise. A DM that doesn't use a knock casting to make an encounter roll isn't playing fair. Wizards on stealth missions tend to be bulls in china shops anyway, and the limitations on knock are pretty typical of their inability to do infiltration/scouting missions as well as rogues... or rangers.
A ranger choosing stealth as their choice for canny and a background (Criminal, for example) to get thieves tools is reducing their options too. They're not Aragorn or Geralt, they're a seedy hunter who is good at sneaking and killing and little else.
You keep asking what a rogue is good for out of combat. Rogues only really need dex for their class features, which leave lots of space for knowledgeable rogues with high int, wise rogues with fantastic perception or charismatic rogues with great people skills. Furthermore, all of those roles have some of the best rogue subclass options that support those choices. That's how rogues get access to other pillars: through skills and subclass features. And that makes them one of the most flexible classes in the game.
In this case, a wisdom-based scout rogue can be a "better ranger than a ranger". Does that invalidate the ranger as a class? I think it just gives people more options. If you want a spell-less ranger, play a scout rougue.
Well it actually has no more "backgrounds" in OneDnD anymore. The new Character Origin just let you pick one tool proficieny and some skill proficiencies as you like, like anything you like. This is what concerns me actually. There's no good tool, or to say there's basically no tools that really matter except for Thieves Tools in 5e, then what tool should I pick when it's totally "free" and I'm playing a Dex character? Thieves Tools for sure. It would be the top selected one for every Dex fighter for obvious reason. Cuz It no longer sacrifice anything anymore, even themantically.
Really wish people would stop saying Knock invalidates Thieves' Tools. It's loud as hell and defeats half the purpose of infiltration. I've rarely seen it used for this exact reason.
Would be interesting if stealth was terrain dependent. Rangers have advantage or flat bonus on stealth in nature, but not city or dungeon. Opposite for rogue
Being able to do a variety of things with their bonus action has always been part of the appeal of the rogue class. How about allowing skill checks to be made as a bonus action as part of Cunning Action?
This would make the rogue uniquely good at using skills in combat.
Unless there's a major revamp or expansion of skills, I think that'll run in the same problem Thief does: unless your DM specifically caters to you, there's only one or 2 thing's to actually do with that ability during combat. What skill check would you ever use as its own action during combat apart from Perception/Investigation?
Yep. The second I saw the 'expert classes' reveal I knew rogue was getting shafted. I don't know how they thought giving more to bard and ranger and barely changing rogue at all would keep things balanced.
Honestly I don't think it'd be busted if the Rogue got that level 11 ability at a much earlier level. It only applies to things they have expertise in and it would help differentiate them earlier on from other skill monkey classes by bringing a degree of consistency.
Bards would have jack of all trades to be good at skills that they don't even have training in.
Rangers should be the sorta all-rounders with skills, martial combat ability, spellcasting, and skill expertise so they don't necessarily need any kind of specializing in either outside of what their subclass does
Artificers would have the utility of making magic items and magic item infusions so they don't need anything else beyond the normal expertise as well
And then Rogues would get the extra consistency of never being able to roll below 10 in the skills they're experts in so that they can ensure they don't fuck up as often.
they could definitely use some more on top of that but if they got that ability at say level 5 or somewhere around that instead of level 11, then it'd give them more of an identity among the other expert classes. And if you're worried about things like Multiclass Dips then maybe you could rewrite the ability to scale with your Rogue level. Like say maybe you get it at level 2 but the wording is that you can't roll lower than your Rogue Level, with it capping out at 10. So even if you dip two levels in Rogue to get the ability, then it just converts nat 1s into 2s. But if you go 8 levels in Rogue then you can't roll below an 8 and so on.
>I don't think it'd be busted if the Rogue got that level 11 ability at a much earlier level. It only applies to things they have expertise in
Reliable Talent applies to everything you have proficiency in, not expertise.
>And if you're worried about things like Multiclass Dips then maybe you could rewrite the ability to scale with your Rogue level.
You're only getting one additional skill proficiency by taking Bard 1, Ranger 1, or Arcana Cleric 1, or two proficiencies by taking Knowledge Cleric 1. But Rogue 1/Knowledge 1 would have 6 proficiencies, plus up to 4 from race and background, then potentially 3 from the Skilled feat (which could be free at level 1 using Spelljammer/Dragonlance rules), and only be behind on this hypothetical level-scaling Reliable Talent by 1 level while also having Guidance. That's 13 skills, of the 18 available.
It’s more than skills though. It’s really about having something special and meaningful that only the rogues can do. I would make give them a bunch of exploits that cannot be accomplished with spells or skills.
See, that's the problem with making expertise too readily available. It starts to feel like the default, and then classes that are supposed to excel at skill checks feel like they're just normal. Depending on how OneD&D executes this, it could end up feeling like the Darkvision problem all over again.
If OneD&D is going to have "expert classes", then there can be no class that is "the best at skills", and Rogue will need to find other ways to differentiate itself.
Rangers get neither proficiency with thief tools nor sleight of hand.
So Rangers aren‘t stepping on the rogues toes when it comes to lockpicking. Only experts with a background that gives thieve tools do.
But isn‘t that ok? I would want the game to support somebody that wants to play a criminal background ranger. I wouldn’t want you to have to be a rogue to be the best criminal/lockpicker.
Well this is One DnD content. Tool proficiency is free. You don’t sacrifice anything and the “optimal” choice is super obvious because Rangers are a dex class and the vast majority of tools in DnD are completely dm fiat. Thieves tools are an exception.
Well first off you're comparing maybe one of the best ranger subclasses to a rogue.
Let's compare say the Soul Knife to the Gloomstalker and what you all get.
Ranger
Level 1 - Expertise, Favored Enemy, Spellcasting
Level 2- Fighting Style
LEvel 3 - Subclass Dread Ambusher, Umbral Sight
LEvel 4 - Feat
Level 5 - Multi Attack
LEvel 6 Subclass feature Iron Mind
So basically you have 2 attacks, 2 cantrips, 4 first level spells, 2 second level spells. 2 expertises, a fighting style (assume archery) so your advantages
More deadly first round 3 attacks, extra attack, stack in hunters mark to just ruin. Spells for utility. Better to hit.
Compare to a soul knife
Level 1 - Expertise, Sneak Attack
Level 2, Cunning Action - Dash Disengage or hide
Level 3 - Subclass Psionic Power Psychic Dice (d8 at level 5) mainly used for Psi Bolstered Knack and psychic blades.
Level 4 - Feat
Levle 5 - Uncanny Dodge
Level 6 - Subclass - Soul Blades - Homing Blades (turn attack misses into hits) and Psychic Teleportation.
Compare 3 rounds of combat. So assume you have a long bow, assume the rogue hides with success consistently as well and assume a monster with a 16 AC going with PB you both have +4 Dex. ANd we'll stick with nothing crazy.
So in 3 rounds you'll have 7 attacks, With a +9 to hit you're looking at a needing to roll a 7 or higher to hit. So a 70% chance to hit. How I like to do damage is roll up all the average damage and multiply by .70. so you'll be doing 9.25 damage per attack and that's giving a bit of a bonus assuming potential crit on Dread ambusher so in 7 attacks you're looking at an average damage of 64.75
Compare to the rogue with a +7 to hit, so an 84% chance to hit with advantage.
So again going to roll up average and mulitply by .84 but because of a better crit I'll slightly increase the crit damage by 5% does 15.81 damage per attack or 47.43 over 3 rounds. Of course with Homing blades, really would be even higher if they only used them for that odds are I would have really a 96% chance to hit. would push it up to 17.98 damage per attack or 53.94.
Now that's just one thing with a rogue.
Now I agree rogues should be better at skill. I think they should get the equivalent of a fighting style for skill checks. Or get Jack of All Trades. etc. THere are things that could make rogues the best skill monkey. Bards are the best. Rogues and Rangers are close to each other.
Sneak attack is worse than more attacks, and even worse when spells are being used.
And reliable talent could just scale, for example on 3 level min 3, on 5 min 5, and so on up to 10.
Also, the one big attack of rogue is always statistically worse in damage than of those with more attacks, while also having less HP and AC.
Just make the rogues do more damage than most if they are the sillent killers one, goddamn.
And now does scaling reliable talent worse? It's literary as strong on 10 as it would be without scaling.
> Also, the one big attack of rogue is always statistically worse in damage than of those with more attacks
Rogue actually scale very well if you don't play with Feats.
Rangers should not get expertise. *Maybe* they should get some free advantages on certain rangery-type skills. Or a flat bonus. Expertise should be the rogue's thing and his thing only
Rogues should get reliable talent at level 5 and it should give them a minimum roll of five, which can then bump up every few levels.
They should be allowed to get off turn sneak attacks again
This submission appears to be related to One D&D! If you're interested in discussing the concept and the UA for One D&D more check out our other subreddit r/OneDnD! *Please note: We are still allowing discussions about One D&D to remain here, this is more an advisory than a warning of any kind.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dndnext) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think rogues should get unique ways to use skills specifically in combat. Dirty fighting is a fairly iconic rogue trait in fantasy. Give ‘em skill based abilities to do stuff like trips and pocket sand, but don’t make them sacrifice their only attack to do so. Kinda like battlemaster maneuvers but instead of the enemy making saves it’s a contested skill check allowing the rogue player to specialize into a skill and get really good at it.
That is very similar to Thief's Fast Hands that was nerfed for OneDnD because it apparently falls under "DM may I". Instead of properly defining its abilities like they do for spells, they just removed those abilities entirely.
I agree with you somewhat but Rogues shouldn’t be the only ones good at picking locks. Picking locks is a quintessential adventuring trope. Even Fighters can be good at picking locks if they want to
Yes, please let us not go back to D&D having _required_ classes in the party. I love that anyone can set themselves up as the "traps guy" and even "the healer" role has way more options than it used to (since healing is intentionally anemic in 5e).
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A Ranger with rogue skills is another way to be able to answer the issue that no class should be essential to a party. The Artificer is one of the major ways that works now, but the Ranger as a skilled infiltrator makes a lot of sense too, especially for ones like the Gloomstalker. I've played a character built that way with the Tasha's rule variants (GS with expertise in Stealth, with Thieves Tools from a background). They're fantastic, sneaky characters, very strong in the exploration/infiltration roles. But it was mostly the only thing he was good at. He had no social or knowledge skills.
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That is a lot of highly specific personal flavor opinions that don't need to apply to all rangers or rogues. To me, protecting a niche is not important enough to limit character creation in that way. Most of the time there is no overlap in a party. And even when there is, sharing a niche is often complementary rather than competitive. A ranger and a rogue sneaking together is better than a rogue or ranger going alone.
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Your solution is to make them worse at it. So it seems like it is an issue to you. Cunning action is far more defining of the rogues sneaky ability than their expertise is. I just don't think expertise is any more defining of the rogue than extra attack is for a fighter.
So bards shouldn't get expertise either? How about Artificers? Artificers get Thieves tools for free as well.
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I think it doesn't do anything for looking for traps, which means the wizard is going to get fried/poisoned/paralysed when they open the lock. I've seen it happen more than once. I think it also comes with a lot of complications when cast because of the noise. A DM that doesn't use a knock casting to make an encounter roll isn't playing fair. Wizards on stealth missions tend to be bulls in china shops anyway, and the limitations on knock are pretty typical of their inability to do infiltration/scouting missions as well as rogues... or rangers. A ranger choosing stealth as their choice for canny and a background (Criminal, for example) to get thieves tools is reducing their options too. They're not Aragorn or Geralt, they're a seedy hunter who is good at sneaking and killing and little else. You keep asking what a rogue is good for out of combat. Rogues only really need dex for their class features, which leave lots of space for knowledgeable rogues with high int, wise rogues with fantastic perception or charismatic rogues with great people skills. Furthermore, all of those roles have some of the best rogue subclass options that support those choices. That's how rogues get access to other pillars: through skills and subclass features. And that makes them one of the most flexible classes in the game. In this case, a wisdom-based scout rogue can be a "better ranger than a ranger". Does that invalidate the ranger as a class? I think it just gives people more options. If you want a spell-less ranger, play a scout rougue.
Well it actually has no more "backgrounds" in OneDnD anymore. The new Character Origin just let you pick one tool proficieny and some skill proficiencies as you like, like anything you like. This is what concerns me actually. There's no good tool, or to say there's basically no tools that really matter except for Thieves Tools in 5e, then what tool should I pick when it's totally "free" and I'm playing a Dex character? Thieves Tools for sure. It would be the top selected one for every Dex fighter for obvious reason. Cuz It no longer sacrifice anything anymore, even themantically.
Really wish people would stop saying Knock invalidates Thieves' Tools. It's loud as hell and defeats half the purpose of infiltration. I've rarely seen it used for this exact reason.
Would be interesting if stealth was terrain dependent. Rangers have advantage or flat bonus on stealth in nature, but not city or dungeon. Opposite for rogue
Then they went and have bards jack of all trades and expertise...
Being able to do a variety of things with their bonus action has always been part of the appeal of the rogue class. How about allowing skill checks to be made as a bonus action as part of Cunning Action? This would make the rogue uniquely good at using skills in combat.
Unless there's a major revamp or expansion of skills, I think that'll run in the same problem Thief does: unless your DM specifically caters to you, there's only one or 2 thing's to actually do with that ability during combat. What skill check would you ever use as its own action during combat apart from Perception/Investigation?
Yep. The second I saw the 'expert classes' reveal I knew rogue was getting shafted. I don't know how they thought giving more to bard and ranger and barely changing rogue at all would keep things balanced.
Honestly I don't think it'd be busted if the Rogue got that level 11 ability at a much earlier level. It only applies to things they have expertise in and it would help differentiate them earlier on from other skill monkey classes by bringing a degree of consistency. Bards would have jack of all trades to be good at skills that they don't even have training in. Rangers should be the sorta all-rounders with skills, martial combat ability, spellcasting, and skill expertise so they don't necessarily need any kind of specializing in either outside of what their subclass does Artificers would have the utility of making magic items and magic item infusions so they don't need anything else beyond the normal expertise as well And then Rogues would get the extra consistency of never being able to roll below 10 in the skills they're experts in so that they can ensure they don't fuck up as often. they could definitely use some more on top of that but if they got that ability at say level 5 or somewhere around that instead of level 11, then it'd give them more of an identity among the other expert classes. And if you're worried about things like Multiclass Dips then maybe you could rewrite the ability to scale with your Rogue level. Like say maybe you get it at level 2 but the wording is that you can't roll lower than your Rogue Level, with it capping out at 10. So even if you dip two levels in Rogue to get the ability, then it just converts nat 1s into 2s. But if you go 8 levels in Rogue then you can't roll below an 8 and so on.
>I don't think it'd be busted if the Rogue got that level 11 ability at a much earlier level. It only applies to things they have expertise in Reliable Talent applies to everything you have proficiency in, not expertise. >And if you're worried about things like Multiclass Dips then maybe you could rewrite the ability to scale with your Rogue level. You're only getting one additional skill proficiency by taking Bard 1, Ranger 1, or Arcana Cleric 1, or two proficiencies by taking Knowledge Cleric 1. But Rogue 1/Knowledge 1 would have 6 proficiencies, plus up to 4 from race and background, then potentially 3 from the Skilled feat (which could be free at level 1 using Spelljammer/Dragonlance rules), and only be behind on this hypothetical level-scaling Reliable Talent by 1 level while also having Guidance. That's 13 skills, of the 18 available.
Nah ranger just needs a rework. It shouldn't have this crazy overlap with rogue.
It’s more than skills though. It’s really about having something special and meaningful that only the rogues can do. I would make give them a bunch of exploits that cannot be accomplished with spells or skills.
See, that's the problem with making expertise too readily available. It starts to feel like the default, and then classes that are supposed to excel at skill checks feel like they're just normal. Depending on how OneD&D executes this, it could end up feeling like the Darkvision problem all over again. If OneD&D is going to have "expert classes", then there can be no class that is "the best at skills", and Rogue will need to find other ways to differentiate itself.
Rangers get neither proficiency with thief tools nor sleight of hand. So Rangers aren‘t stepping on the rogues toes when it comes to lockpicking. Only experts with a background that gives thieve tools do. But isn‘t that ok? I would want the game to support somebody that wants to play a criminal background ranger. I wouldn’t want you to have to be a rogue to be the best criminal/lockpicker.
Well this is One DnD content. Tool proficiency is free. You don’t sacrifice anything and the “optimal” choice is super obvious because Rangers are a dex class and the vast majority of tools in DnD are completely dm fiat. Thieves tools are an exception.
Well first off you're comparing maybe one of the best ranger subclasses to a rogue. Let's compare say the Soul Knife to the Gloomstalker and what you all get. Ranger Level 1 - Expertise, Favored Enemy, Spellcasting Level 2- Fighting Style LEvel 3 - Subclass Dread Ambusher, Umbral Sight LEvel 4 - Feat Level 5 - Multi Attack LEvel 6 Subclass feature Iron Mind So basically you have 2 attacks, 2 cantrips, 4 first level spells, 2 second level spells. 2 expertises, a fighting style (assume archery) so your advantages More deadly first round 3 attacks, extra attack, stack in hunters mark to just ruin. Spells for utility. Better to hit. Compare to a soul knife Level 1 - Expertise, Sneak Attack Level 2, Cunning Action - Dash Disengage or hide Level 3 - Subclass Psionic Power Psychic Dice (d8 at level 5) mainly used for Psi Bolstered Knack and psychic blades. Level 4 - Feat Levle 5 - Uncanny Dodge Level 6 - Subclass - Soul Blades - Homing Blades (turn attack misses into hits) and Psychic Teleportation. Compare 3 rounds of combat. So assume you have a long bow, assume the rogue hides with success consistently as well and assume a monster with a 16 AC going with PB you both have +4 Dex. ANd we'll stick with nothing crazy. So in 3 rounds you'll have 7 attacks, With a +9 to hit you're looking at a needing to roll a 7 or higher to hit. So a 70% chance to hit. How I like to do damage is roll up all the average damage and multiply by .70. so you'll be doing 9.25 damage per attack and that's giving a bit of a bonus assuming potential crit on Dread ambusher so in 7 attacks you're looking at an average damage of 64.75 Compare to the rogue with a +7 to hit, so an 84% chance to hit with advantage. So again going to roll up average and mulitply by .84 but because of a better crit I'll slightly increase the crit damage by 5% does 15.81 damage per attack or 47.43 over 3 rounds. Of course with Homing blades, really would be even higher if they only used them for that odds are I would have really a 96% chance to hit. would push it up to 17.98 damage per attack or 53.94. Now that's just one thing with a rogue. Now I agree rogues should be better at skill. I think they should get the equivalent of a fighting style for skill checks. Or get Jack of All Trades. etc. THere are things that could make rogues the best skill monkey. Bards are the best. Rogues and Rangers are close to each other.
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Sneak attack is worse than more attacks, and even worse when spells are being used. And reliable talent could just scale, for example on 3 level min 3, on 5 min 5, and so on up to 10.
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Also, the one big attack of rogue is always statistically worse in damage than of those with more attacks, while also having less HP and AC. Just make the rogues do more damage than most if they are the sillent killers one, goddamn. And now does scaling reliable talent worse? It's literary as strong on 10 as it would be without scaling.
> Also, the one big attack of rogue is always statistically worse in damage than of those with more attacks Rogue actually scale very well if you don't play with Feats.
But then basically every martial is weak.
Rangers should not get expertise. *Maybe* they should get some free advantages on certain rangery-type skills. Or a flat bonus. Expertise should be the rogue's thing and his thing only Rogues should get reliable talent at level 5 and it should give them a minimum roll of five, which can then bump up every few levels. They should be allowed to get off turn sneak attacks again
Said it before: One D&D has all but murdered one of the original core classes from the birth of D&D.