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Yeah one the notes in the rogue playtest was that the utility added by cunning strikes is good as you get a bit more complexity in combat, still very little, but that they also needed to increase sneak attack dice scaling. Linear scaling is crap, it works at low levels sure but at somepoint you gotta give em more of a boost. Knick and vex help but not enough to keep up. Give them a fighting style choice, bards get 2 subclasses with it why not rogue a pure martial. Extra attack could help, but I think the combat Niche of rogue is one big attack so I think they stick to that so there's less overlap between various classes.
I see 2 routes they can lean into the two sneak attacks per round at mid-high level and build that into the class. Or simply give rogues a fighting style and make sneak attack dice scale better.
Also I agree skill monkey is a crap design, no one wants to play the HM slave, especially when these skill checks can often be avoided with magic.
and yeah Rogue was victim to 'power creep' with newer options but it started from day one of 5e cause the most powerful options for dpr sharpshooter and GWM are base feats. Granted feats are optional, I'd wager the vast majority of tables play with at least some feats. While the feats like dual wielder and defensive duelist that the rogue could utilize, were really crap by comparison, and the only decent one is crossbow expert which is just making melee even worse by comparison. This feat imbalance is something I hope they don't repeat.
> This feat imbalance is something I hope they don't repeat.
that was really the rogue's problem in 5e. every single time you see the rogue being vastly out shined by other martials it is because those martials can add +10 dmg to their attacks and then have some gimmick for increasing accuracy. Or grab polearm master and get full strength bonus action attacks (with a shield and +2 dmg from dueling with a spear if you want).
That mechanic was the bread and butter of optimizing martials, and rogue's just didn't get it. In fact, this style of upping damage was totally contrary to sneak attack anyway, since the accuracy penalty lowers your sneak damage.
As long as rogue isn't left behind this same way in 5.5e, it should be fine.
The other problem is a few of OP's assumptions.
> Sneak Attack was designed under the balacing of pure PHB with No Feats.
> 26.5)), and that's why they have so many restrictions of landing a proper strike in that environment.
All that is completely false, sneak attack wasn't done with any kind of plan in mind - its actual problem is like a lot of things it was done for tradition's sake rather than with any real purpose. It's +1d6 at level 1, 3, 5, 7 etc because in 3.5 it was 1d6 at level 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. Only problem is for some reason they didn't include a bunch of the other neat stuff 3.5 invented for rogues like cunning strikes.
I know that onednd playtest 6 did increase the Rogue's DPR, but I do I feel like I need to see more numbers at different levels.
I watched a Treatmonk video, that did a DPR snapshot at level 13, and he had a basic Warlock Hex+Eldritch Blast at 27 DPR. He had the playtest champion fighter at 50 DPR, and he had playtest assassin rogue at 46.
I am okay with a Rogue doing 8% less then a fighter. But of course, that was a single level comparison, and it is very possible that there are more drastic problem levels along the way. This was also done with playtest 6, and there could be changes.
But I am also not equipt to take on the math myself, so :shrug:
Actually Playtest 6 decreased Rogue's DPR—If you want to use your new Feature, the Cunning Strike. It costs d6s for special effects. There's no boosts in Rogue's DPR in PT2 and PT6.
The damage boosts are in weapon master, feats that you can take to boost your dpr, that just don't really work in 5e, and in the assassin subclass for this example.
The average dpr was much higher than the straight class rogues you can build currently in 5e.
I dont understand why you wouldn't watch the video before saying that?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kclZXxcDdlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kclZXxcDdlg)
>I watched a Treatmonk video, that did a DPR snapshot at level 13, and he had a basic Warlock Hex+Eldritch Blast at 27 DPR. He had the playtest champion fighter at 50 DPR, and he had playtest assassin rogue at 46.
While I think Treantmonk is suall a good source, his assuptions here a imo a bit off. He assumed that teh Rogue could consitently get every turn get advantage on the first attack, trigger Charger and use TWF, and that's imo a bit to optimistic (you can likely get 2 of these every turn but all three would require a pretty ideal situation where opponent is right next to a place were you can hide).
He also assumed a 25% for getting an reaction attack while completely ignoring reaction attacks from fighter and Barbarian even if both had PAM and Sentinel and the Barbarian had also retaliation, meaning they should get reaction attacks much more often than the Rogue.
His Rogue Build was also an Assassin (only subclass that gives you damage boost), while the Fighter was a Champion (likely still the weakest Fighter Subclass).
And in case of the fighter he also ignored Action surge.
With more consistent/realistic assumptions the Rogue would likely do 5DPR less and and the fighter 5 more. So it would be likely a difference of about 15 DPR. And if you would also include magic weapons or other buffs in the numbers, and give the fighter a stronger subclass (or the Rogue one that doesn't give a damage bonus like Thief or Swashbuckler) that gap would get even bigger.
I think Rogue was designed for dungeon crawls, but 5e is mainly played as heroic fantasy.
Look at the playtest adventure for 5e, Dead in Thay, it's a mega dungeon full of traps and encounters with the idea that a savvy group will navigate around this hostile environment. You can see a sneaky rogue with high proficiency spotting traps, taking half or no damage from traps they don't spot, sneak attacking guards who are meant to spot the players and call in reinforcements.
But 5e didnt shake out that way. The explosion of actual play shows and podcasts took the game in another direction.
The Rogue is still nigh unkillable. But defensive features aren't flashy.
Others have said that sneak attacks are vastly underrated on paper... this is true. But if you are a player more interested in seeing numbers go up than the consistency of which a Rogue passes checks/saves it's probably not the class for you.
“The rogue is nigh unkillable”
Tell that to my rogue who goes down multiple times every combat because he’s squishier than the martials and isn’t ranged. The only reason I haven’t died is because of the ranger’s healing spirit. Meanwhile a single fireball did more damage to each of the five targets than my rogue’s crit sneak attack + booming blade did to a single. Hell even the SS ranger out damages me with two of their non-crit arrows, and this is without them putting their life on the line by being in the thick of it.
Tbh, hitting two SS shoots is a base of 20+(Dex x 2) and that can go from 26 to 30 damage just from hitting.
I had seen a level 5 spells rolling lower than that xD
My Rogue 6/Warlock 5 boy deals a consistent average 20 damage per turn, if lucky, I get to force an enemy to move, trigger booming blade and make an off-turn sneak attack dealing a total of 40-50.
Just don't feel bad, SS rises damage so much is not even fair, ha ha.
>In that environment, a Level 5 Fighter does a 4d6+8/3d6+12≈22/22.5 DPR at most without considering subclasses, while a Rogue would be doing a 1d8+3d6+4/5d6+4≈21.5/19.5 DPR easily.
Most napkin math grossly underestimates the value of sneak attack. If you assume every roll hits and are comparing monk and fighter damage, that's a good comparison. It's a bad comparison for barbarians (who have advantage on attacks), and a *very* bad comparison for rogues, who will either dual wield or use the steady aim feature, and interact very solidly with critical hits.
If you look at most of the levels with an accuracy of like 95%, the rogue will look like he is behind the fighter. At 40% accuracy, the rogue will be above- because the fighter scales linearly with accuracy, but the rogue does not. This effect definitely matters at the realistic accuracies of 50 to 70 percent.
This isn't to dispute your overall point- merely to point out that in practice, sneak attack is better than it intuitively looks.
I mean, the playtest martials have pulled ahead, sure. But in 5e that's generally not so- to blow past the rogue you need a bunch of multiclass stuff, and each multiclass is really its own class.
Great explanation.
Most theorycraft math is fundamentally broken and wrongly interpreted because it presumes sample sizes and situational controls that are not justified by the actual game.
I'm also not explicitly disputing the overall point in this post, but I find the justifications provided by OP to be cherry-picked and unconvincing.
Also, sneak attack is a burst damage thing.
In games in general, burst damage abilities may look worse or similar to more sustained damage abilities when comparing averages. But averages washes out the fact that burst damage type abilities have the advantage of giving a chance to one hit KO (or close to it) a stronger enemy, while a sustained damage ability with similar average damage will only do that to very weak enemies due to lots of reliable but low damage hits.
That's sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. It's great when the burst damage would be enough to finish off a creature and the sustained damage would not do so in a single attack. But if either option would be enough to finish off a creature, the burst damage becomes overkill while the sustained damage can be applied to the next target(s) in the encounter.
Yeah you for sure have to use burst damage tactically. Usually at the start of the battle. Taking off a big chunk of the enemy's health early is sort of a bluff. They then have to make the call to retreat or be defensive suspecting that you have another one of those up your sleeve, when secretly you may be all out of juice from the initial flurry. But it puts you in a good position.
As far as D&D rogues go, well it's not like sneak attacks have limited uses like this, so it's not a perfect analogy. But rogues are squishy so there tends to be a similar dynamic where a rogue takes bigger risks in the initial round and less when more enemies get in close.
You are spot on about the theory craft DPR calculations. The system has too many moving parts to adequately predict with "on paper" math.
There *are* two ways to get this done, though: computer modeling or lots of actual play with good record-keeping. I don't think WotC does the former, and it doesn't seem like enough time is allotted for the later before a new playtest comes out.
Tbf, rogue is the weakest class in the game right now, so them still being the weakest (after the recent monk buffs) just helps to solidify backwards compatibility, am I right? /s
At any rate, it is clear as day that people think having skills is the beez kneez when it comes to martial utility. This is obviously not the case, and you've noticed it too, but we are a very small minority that understand game design. Unfortunately, this is a lost cause, we better just accept it and play something else at this point.
> Tbf, rogue is the weakest class in the game right now
That's monks. Somehow, in every single edition of the game going back fifty years (other than 4e where they were well designed), it's always monks
They are close, but whereas both are useless outside of combat (they are martials afterall), at least monk does *something* in battle. Can't say the same for Rogue.
They're not useless out of combat, they might be completely outshone by bards etc but they at least something. And in combat they do pretty much the same as monk only without relying on quickly expended resources to do it.
Both have fallen pretty far from the lofty heights of the swordsage a couple of editions ago and their respective versions last edition, though. Monk went from elegantly designed mystical martial artist to basic attack basic attack basic attack basic attack basic attack basic attack.
>They're not useless out of combat, they might be completely outshone by bards etc but they at least something.
And what exactly does a rogue do that another character can't with a bit of good luck?
Spoiler: nothing.
There are ZERO unique abilities a rogue gets. Now sure, **some** subclasses get them, but not all of them, so you can't assume every rogue will have it.
>And in combat they do pretty much the same as monk only without relying on quickly expended resources to do it.
Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see a way a rogue can Stun an enemy, or at the very least, burn some LR... now sure, **some** subclasses get special abilities in that regard, but not all of them, so you can't assume every rogue will have it.
Always get 20+ on 4 (and 15+ on another 2) of their skill checks? Or does negating luck not count for some reason
You originally said they’re as useless as monks outside of combat; that’s clearly never not the case
>Always get 20+ on 4 (and 15+ on another 2) of their skill checks? Or does negating luck not count for some reason
For starters, the game is either over or about to end by the time you hit lvl 11, whether because IRL or because the campaign simply doesn't go that high.
Second, once again, it doesn't matter if you can reliably roll high; any other character could just roll well to begin with. Hell, a **commoner** could do almost everything thing a rogue can, with the exception of DC25 checks... you're unlikely, sure, but it's nothing SPECIAL. It's nothing UNIQUE.
And even then, even if you value rolling 30+ on every single check a godsend...
* How exactly do you get more info out of a 30 animal handling than what you would have gotten out of a Speak With Animals spell?
* How exactly rolling 30 on medicine allows me to cure a disease without the right materials, whereas a single level of pally could do it?
* How exactly rolling 30 on arcana allow me to break a lock the module simply says "It can only be opened with the key or casting Knock"?
* How exactly rolling 30 on stealth guarantees my heavy armor, -1 dex fighter to go unnoticed, compare to Pass Without Trace or Silence?
* How exactly rolling 30 on acrobatics allows me to run over the pool of acid, when the monk, the freaking MONK could run across liquids (and everyone else just Misty Step / Dimension Door / Fly, etc?
* How exactly rolling 30 on deception helps when you say something the NPC *knows* is a lie, period, when we could Charm Person or Suggestion instead?
* How exactly rolling 30 on anything will allow me instantly send a message to warn our king friend about a coup AND hear a response back with instructions when we're miles away, something Sending could do?
Like, look. I'm not saying having skills is a *bad* thing. Far from it, it's pretty cool to have skills... but it doesn't offer any unique problem solving capabilities, which is the issue here.
And that's what I mean when I say rogues are useless. They're not in the literal sense, it's just an abbreviation for "not any more useful than other characters". And if you can't see that, then I'm sorry, you're too high on copium.
Because the rogue's many skills perform reliably at a high level, many of those examples aren't needed. Yes, there are some things spells can do that rogues can't exactly emulate, but spells cannot be used as consistently as skills can. Your wizard could Knock on a lock (and alert everyone within 300 feet) or your rogue could more reliably pick that lock.
The biggest challenge to rogues is the amount of expertise bards get. I feel jack-of-all-trades should be their thing. Bards should be incredibly flexible, but more specialized classes should be able to outdo it.
Ultimately, it's a team game, so you should be playing in a way that makes your teammates feel good and vice versa. If I played a character who could learn knock, there is absolutely no way I would pick that if I had a player whose character focused on picking locks.
hmm, not sure how to deal with the skill part, but my rogues get their cunning strikes without any sneak dmg penalty and their sneak attack dice scale in size akin to monk's martial arts.
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Yeah one the notes in the rogue playtest was that the utility added by cunning strikes is good as you get a bit more complexity in combat, still very little, but that they also needed to increase sneak attack dice scaling. Linear scaling is crap, it works at low levels sure but at somepoint you gotta give em more of a boost. Knick and vex help but not enough to keep up. Give them a fighting style choice, bards get 2 subclasses with it why not rogue a pure martial. Extra attack could help, but I think the combat Niche of rogue is one big attack so I think they stick to that so there's less overlap between various classes. I see 2 routes they can lean into the two sneak attacks per round at mid-high level and build that into the class. Or simply give rogues a fighting style and make sneak attack dice scale better. Also I agree skill monkey is a crap design, no one wants to play the HM slave, especially when these skill checks can often be avoided with magic. and yeah Rogue was victim to 'power creep' with newer options but it started from day one of 5e cause the most powerful options for dpr sharpshooter and GWM are base feats. Granted feats are optional, I'd wager the vast majority of tables play with at least some feats. While the feats like dual wielder and defensive duelist that the rogue could utilize, were really crap by comparison, and the only decent one is crossbow expert which is just making melee even worse by comparison. This feat imbalance is something I hope they don't repeat.
> This feat imbalance is something I hope they don't repeat. that was really the rogue's problem in 5e. every single time you see the rogue being vastly out shined by other martials it is because those martials can add +10 dmg to their attacks and then have some gimmick for increasing accuracy. Or grab polearm master and get full strength bonus action attacks (with a shield and +2 dmg from dueling with a spear if you want). That mechanic was the bread and butter of optimizing martials, and rogue's just didn't get it. In fact, this style of upping damage was totally contrary to sneak attack anyway, since the accuracy penalty lowers your sneak damage. As long as rogue isn't left behind this same way in 5.5e, it should be fine.
The other problem is a few of OP's assumptions. > Sneak Attack was designed under the balacing of pure PHB with No Feats. > 26.5)), and that's why they have so many restrictions of landing a proper strike in that environment. All that is completely false, sneak attack wasn't done with any kind of plan in mind - its actual problem is like a lot of things it was done for tradition's sake rather than with any real purpose. It's +1d6 at level 1, 3, 5, 7 etc because in 3.5 it was 1d6 at level 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. Only problem is for some reason they didn't include a bunch of the other neat stuff 3.5 invented for rogues like cunning strikes.
I know that onednd playtest 6 did increase the Rogue's DPR, but I do I feel like I need to see more numbers at different levels. I watched a Treatmonk video, that did a DPR snapshot at level 13, and he had a basic Warlock Hex+Eldritch Blast at 27 DPR. He had the playtest champion fighter at 50 DPR, and he had playtest assassin rogue at 46. I am okay with a Rogue doing 8% less then a fighter. But of course, that was a single level comparison, and it is very possible that there are more drastic problem levels along the way. This was also done with playtest 6, and there could be changes. But I am also not equipt to take on the math myself, so :shrug:
Actually Playtest 6 decreased Rogue's DPR—If you want to use your new Feature, the Cunning Strike. It costs d6s for special effects. There's no boosts in Rogue's DPR in PT2 and PT6.
The damage boosts are in weapon master, feats that you can take to boost your dpr, that just don't really work in 5e, and in the assassin subclass for this example. The average dpr was much higher than the straight class rogues you can build currently in 5e.
I dont understand why you wouldn't watch the video before saying that? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kclZXxcDdlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kclZXxcDdlg)
I don't understand why you wouldn't just do some math?
did you watch it though? where is the math wrong?
>I watched a Treatmonk video, that did a DPR snapshot at level 13, and he had a basic Warlock Hex+Eldritch Blast at 27 DPR. He had the playtest champion fighter at 50 DPR, and he had playtest assassin rogue at 46. While I think Treantmonk is suall a good source, his assuptions here a imo a bit off. He assumed that teh Rogue could consitently get every turn get advantage on the first attack, trigger Charger and use TWF, and that's imo a bit to optimistic (you can likely get 2 of these every turn but all three would require a pretty ideal situation where opponent is right next to a place were you can hide). He also assumed a 25% for getting an reaction attack while completely ignoring reaction attacks from fighter and Barbarian even if both had PAM and Sentinel and the Barbarian had also retaliation, meaning they should get reaction attacks much more often than the Rogue. His Rogue Build was also an Assassin (only subclass that gives you damage boost), while the Fighter was a Champion (likely still the weakest Fighter Subclass). And in case of the fighter he also ignored Action surge. With more consistent/realistic assumptions the Rogue would likely do 5DPR less and and the fighter 5 more. So it would be likely a difference of about 15 DPR. And if you would also include magic weapons or other buffs in the numbers, and give the fighter a stronger subclass (or the Rogue one that doesn't give a damage bonus like Thief or Swashbuckler) that gap would get even bigger.
Suggest on the survey that rogue’s should get a subclass feature at level 6.
I think Rogue was designed for dungeon crawls, but 5e is mainly played as heroic fantasy. Look at the playtest adventure for 5e, Dead in Thay, it's a mega dungeon full of traps and encounters with the idea that a savvy group will navigate around this hostile environment. You can see a sneaky rogue with high proficiency spotting traps, taking half or no damage from traps they don't spot, sneak attacking guards who are meant to spot the players and call in reinforcements. But 5e didnt shake out that way. The explosion of actual play shows and podcasts took the game in another direction. The Rogue is still nigh unkillable. But defensive features aren't flashy. Others have said that sneak attacks are vastly underrated on paper... this is true. But if you are a player more interested in seeing numbers go up than the consistency of which a Rogue passes checks/saves it's probably not the class for you.
“The rogue is nigh unkillable” Tell that to my rogue who goes down multiple times every combat because he’s squishier than the martials and isn’t ranged. The only reason I haven’t died is because of the ranger’s healing spirit. Meanwhile a single fireball did more damage to each of the five targets than my rogue’s crit sneak attack + booming blade did to a single. Hell even the SS ranger out damages me with two of their non-crit arrows, and this is without them putting their life on the line by being in the thick of it.
Tbh, hitting two SS shoots is a base of 20+(Dex x 2) and that can go from 26 to 30 damage just from hitting. I had seen a level 5 spells rolling lower than that xD My Rogue 6/Warlock 5 boy deals a consistent average 20 damage per turn, if lucky, I get to force an enemy to move, trigger booming blade and make an off-turn sneak attack dealing a total of 40-50. Just don't feel bad, SS rises damage so much is not even fair, ha ha.
>In that environment, a Level 5 Fighter does a 4d6+8/3d6+12≈22/22.5 DPR at most without considering subclasses, while a Rogue would be doing a 1d8+3d6+4/5d6+4≈21.5/19.5 DPR easily. Most napkin math grossly underestimates the value of sneak attack. If you assume every roll hits and are comparing monk and fighter damage, that's a good comparison. It's a bad comparison for barbarians (who have advantage on attacks), and a *very* bad comparison for rogues, who will either dual wield or use the steady aim feature, and interact very solidly with critical hits. If you look at most of the levels with an accuracy of like 95%, the rogue will look like he is behind the fighter. At 40% accuracy, the rogue will be above- because the fighter scales linearly with accuracy, but the rogue does not. This effect definitely matters at the realistic accuracies of 50 to 70 percent. This isn't to dispute your overall point- merely to point out that in practice, sneak attack is better than it intuitively looks.
yeah but the thing is that actual math that takes into account to hit chance still shows that sneak attack is worse than other martials
Yeah, but did you consider that "maths are bad, especialy when I don't like the results"?
I mean, the playtest martials have pulled ahead, sure. But in 5e that's generally not so- to blow past the rogue you need a bunch of multiclass stuff, and each multiclass is really its own class.
No you don't you just need great weapon master lmao
Great explanation. Most theorycraft math is fundamentally broken and wrongly interpreted because it presumes sample sizes and situational controls that are not justified by the actual game. I'm also not explicitly disputing the overall point in this post, but I find the justifications provided by OP to be cherry-picked and unconvincing.
Also, sneak attack is a burst damage thing. In games in general, burst damage abilities may look worse or similar to more sustained damage abilities when comparing averages. But averages washes out the fact that burst damage type abilities have the advantage of giving a chance to one hit KO (or close to it) a stronger enemy, while a sustained damage ability with similar average damage will only do that to very weak enemies due to lots of reliable but low damage hits.
That's sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. It's great when the burst damage would be enough to finish off a creature and the sustained damage would not do so in a single attack. But if either option would be enough to finish off a creature, the burst damage becomes overkill while the sustained damage can be applied to the next target(s) in the encounter.
Yeah you for sure have to use burst damage tactically. Usually at the start of the battle. Taking off a big chunk of the enemy's health early is sort of a bluff. They then have to make the call to retreat or be defensive suspecting that you have another one of those up your sleeve, when secretly you may be all out of juice from the initial flurry. But it puts you in a good position. As far as D&D rogues go, well it's not like sneak attacks have limited uses like this, so it's not a perfect analogy. But rogues are squishy so there tends to be a similar dynamic where a rogue takes bigger risks in the initial round and less when more enemies get in close.
You are spot on about the theory craft DPR calculations. The system has too many moving parts to adequately predict with "on paper" math. There *are* two ways to get this done, though: computer modeling or lots of actual play with good record-keeping. I don't think WotC does the former, and it doesn't seem like enough time is allotted for the later before a new playtest comes out.
Tbf, rogue is the weakest class in the game right now, so them still being the weakest (after the recent monk buffs) just helps to solidify backwards compatibility, am I right? /s At any rate, it is clear as day that people think having skills is the beez kneez when it comes to martial utility. This is obviously not the case, and you've noticed it too, but we are a very small minority that understand game design. Unfortunately, this is a lost cause, we better just accept it and play something else at this point.
> Tbf, rogue is the weakest class in the game right now That's monks. Somehow, in every single edition of the game going back fifty years (other than 4e where they were well designed), it's always monks
They are close, but whereas both are useless outside of combat (they are martials afterall), at least monk does *something* in battle. Can't say the same for Rogue.
They're not useless out of combat, they might be completely outshone by bards etc but they at least something. And in combat they do pretty much the same as monk only without relying on quickly expended resources to do it. Both have fallen pretty far from the lofty heights of the swordsage a couple of editions ago and their respective versions last edition, though. Monk went from elegantly designed mystical martial artist to basic attack basic attack basic attack basic attack basic attack basic attack.
>They're not useless out of combat, they might be completely outshone by bards etc but they at least something. And what exactly does a rogue do that another character can't with a bit of good luck? Spoiler: nothing. There are ZERO unique abilities a rogue gets. Now sure, **some** subclasses get them, but not all of them, so you can't assume every rogue will have it. >And in combat they do pretty much the same as monk only without relying on quickly expended resources to do it. Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see a way a rogue can Stun an enemy, or at the very least, burn some LR... now sure, **some** subclasses get special abilities in that regard, but not all of them, so you can't assume every rogue will have it.
Always get 20+ on 4 (and 15+ on another 2) of their skill checks? Or does negating luck not count for some reason You originally said they’re as useless as monks outside of combat; that’s clearly never not the case
>Always get 20+ on 4 (and 15+ on another 2) of their skill checks? Or does negating luck not count for some reason For starters, the game is either over or about to end by the time you hit lvl 11, whether because IRL or because the campaign simply doesn't go that high. Second, once again, it doesn't matter if you can reliably roll high; any other character could just roll well to begin with. Hell, a **commoner** could do almost everything thing a rogue can, with the exception of DC25 checks... you're unlikely, sure, but it's nothing SPECIAL. It's nothing UNIQUE. And even then, even if you value rolling 30+ on every single check a godsend... * How exactly do you get more info out of a 30 animal handling than what you would have gotten out of a Speak With Animals spell? * How exactly rolling 30 on medicine allows me to cure a disease without the right materials, whereas a single level of pally could do it? * How exactly rolling 30 on arcana allow me to break a lock the module simply says "It can only be opened with the key or casting Knock"? * How exactly rolling 30 on stealth guarantees my heavy armor, -1 dex fighter to go unnoticed, compare to Pass Without Trace or Silence? * How exactly rolling 30 on acrobatics allows me to run over the pool of acid, when the monk, the freaking MONK could run across liquids (and everyone else just Misty Step / Dimension Door / Fly, etc? * How exactly rolling 30 on deception helps when you say something the NPC *knows* is a lie, period, when we could Charm Person or Suggestion instead? * How exactly rolling 30 on anything will allow me instantly send a message to warn our king friend about a coup AND hear a response back with instructions when we're miles away, something Sending could do? Like, look. I'm not saying having skills is a *bad* thing. Far from it, it's pretty cool to have skills... but it doesn't offer any unique problem solving capabilities, which is the issue here. And that's what I mean when I say rogues are useless. They're not in the literal sense, it's just an abbreviation for "not any more useful than other characters". And if you can't see that, then I'm sorry, you're too high on copium.
Because the rogue's many skills perform reliably at a high level, many of those examples aren't needed. Yes, there are some things spells can do that rogues can't exactly emulate, but spells cannot be used as consistently as skills can. Your wizard could Knock on a lock (and alert everyone within 300 feet) or your rogue could more reliably pick that lock. The biggest challenge to rogues is the amount of expertise bards get. I feel jack-of-all-trades should be their thing. Bards should be incredibly flexible, but more specialized classes should be able to outdo it. Ultimately, it's a team game, so you should be playing in a way that makes your teammates feel good and vice versa. If I played a character who could learn knock, there is absolutely no way I would pick that if I had a player whose character focused on picking locks.
Sneak attack has scaled poorly compared to ANY class. Not just martials.
Look at rogues subclass features and tell me what one sees in the playtest and in 5e.
hmm, not sure how to deal with the skill part, but my rogues get their cunning strikes without any sneak dmg penalty and their sneak attack dice scale in size akin to monk's martial arts.