Rogues in 2022

[Waldo52]

We've seen a lot of cool changes in Arelith recently. Shamans got some new synergy with rangers, rangers got that whole thing and some new unique feats/builds/etc. The spellsword happened, the cleric paths happened, and if we're looking a bit farther back the warlock update was huge. Blackguards are in a better place, and so on and so forth. A lot of these new options are quite powerful.

And yet the rogue still kind of languishes in the corner, a victim of power creep and the core mechanics of third edition DnD. This is a martial class, if a bizarre and very alternative martial class. And yet the attack bonuses of rogues tend to suck. We're talking ABs in the lower to mid forties fully warded, disregarding super-short term buffs like bless. AC is a rogue's friend, especially with epic dodge, but the tricks we need to pull to get our AC in a good place disproportionately gut us. If your fighter doesn't like taking the attack penalties for improved expertise, try doing it with rogue AB. Divine shield still helps somewhat, and I'm not complaining about the nerf, but you're spending two to three feats for divine goodies with a class that tends to be very feat starved.

In my experience rogues can absolutely curb stomp casters, especially if they're caught unawares. They can also completely trounce some of those more predictable low AC strength builds with poison and crippling strike. But many of my combats have basically been rogue stomps. Death often occurs within seconds of being set to hostile. I think it's time for rogues to get some kind of love.

I'll end this post with a few observations:

-This is a martial class, one often geared towards two weapon fighting or divine feats, that doesn't get any bonus combat feats.

-Attack bonus remains sadly low. I've been told Spellswords can easily attain ABs and ACs in the mid fifties, and they're 8th level casters.

-Arelith wiki suggests there are different ways to play a rogue, and this is true. There's the dex based warrior, the skill monkey, the diplomat, etc. But where is the path support? Minor DC differences aside, a level 30 rogue's trap does as much damage as some random rogue dip character. A more social rogue has relatively few options within the class to support a bluff/intimidate/etc. play style. Grenades are a cool angle, but DCs do feel a bit low. And it feels like lobbing fire bombs was never intended to be a viable strategy.

The class has so many facets that could be much stronger and more compelling.

[garrbear758]

1. Comparing rogue to spellsword, which looks extremely overtuned right now, isn't a very good comparison.

2. +6 to trap DCs that don't account for spellcraft in the save is far from minor.

Otherwise I do somewhat agree with you. I don't think they need feats but they could use a small ab bump, especially now that divine dip on them has been toned down.

[Spriggan Bride]

Rogues do get weapon finesse for free and the grenades and other boons are all upgrades over stock NWN, so it's not like the class never got love, but I think it was one of the first to be majorly upgraded and maybe could use a look, I dunno.

Also that wiki text is ancient (like 2008 ancient at least) and meant for a less build-crazy time so all of its rogue suggestions should be taken with a grain of salt. STILL, that text would actually be a good template if someone were to consider making some variable rogue paths. Ye olde 24/6 is still pretty good in a lot of ways but I'd like to play other kinds of rogues too (arcane trickster please..)

[Richrd]

From the perspective of someone who's played a STR rogue build after returning to Arelith:
1. AB bonuses will never be as high as full BAB classes and that's good. Rogues have skills, tactical utility, tools and fantastic cross-class synergies.
2. Rogue multiclassing into other rogue-ish classes has been made more comfortable and rewarding than ever before.
3. I don't see how "lower to mid forties fully warded" is an issue. You say it like you will never hit things reliably. And if you are going face-to-face against someone with 50+ or even 60+ AC as a rogue you should be losing. Don't go full surprised pikachi face meme because you couldn't just whack a super optimized AC tank in a direct confrontation.
4. AC is good but when you put it as "your friend" it makes me think that you assume AC to be a rogue's big strength. Another statement I disagree with. Rogues can reach stupid high sneak attack bonuses. You have the mundane tools that require high rogue CLs to be even useable and are therefore useless to everyone else. UMD. Sneaking. Fantastic amounts of skill points per level. As a rogue you have an entire clique, not just one friend.
5. I myself do not understand how exactly rogue is geared towards divine feats. Maybe it's some super-ultra-meta that I have failed to notice yet but I for one don't think a PC with a big investment into rogue levels (or rogue related classes) can really be considered a divine build.
6. As mentioned by garrbear, you can't really compare a rogue to a spellsword.
7. The paths you think a rogue needs already do exist. It's called multi-classing.

[Azensor]

Honestly? rogue is one of those calls that have a trick for just about everything.

From the various greandes to the debuff traps.. that said the playstyle if you use the /full/ rogue kit is very slow, very methodical so its rare that most dungeon-hunting groups will give the rogue the time to setup..but if the do? The rogue can make mincemeat of just about any normal content.

[La Villa Strangiato]

Basically what everyone else said here.

Rogue is a good solid class. Spellsword, like Garrbear said, is just ridiculously overtuned. Your sneak attacks, crippling strikes, and grenades all make you excellent at juking people, especially mages. You're just not supposed to 1v1 in a fight.

[LichBait]

Rogue is in a good spot I feel. More ab looks nice on paper, but frankly a good rogue catches people flatfoot so the mid 40s is usually enough. If you're fighting fair, a rogue isn't going to win against a solid full BAB build most of the time.

[AstralUniverse]

I *thought* rogue could use 1-2 extra ab in comparison to the current state but then talked about it with several different players/devs and thought about it further. Rogue is fine. 44 ab as a stealther with big sneak damage is fine. The class is more 'pro' tier in pvp than others and always has been the case. I sense that even 1-2 ab buff to rogue would result in following nerfs before long.

[Sombricimos]

The only thing I would like to see for Rogue is a selectable feat (not automatically granted on a certain level is what I meant) that doubles* the range for sneak/death attacks when using ranged weapons

*Double, or whatever multiplier would be balanced

[MRFTW]

The only thing I don't like about building a rogue in 2022 is that you're sort-of forced to figure out how you're going to not leave tracks. This leads to deep rogues being shoehorned into ranger dip unless you're a no-track race, in which case you have options that are a straight upgrade, generally.

[Eyeliner]

The only thing I don't like about building a rogue in 2022 is that you're sort-of forced to figure out how you're going to not leave tracks. This leads to deep rogues being shoehorned into ranger dip unless you're a no-track race, in which case you have options that are a straight upgrade, generally.

Yeah, or being a harper or zhent which are super-rogues. Ranger/rogue does work pretty well but it would be cool if you could take trackless step as an epic rogue feat.

[Subtext]

My issue with *deep* rogues is mostly that they are supposed to be versatile but given the must-haves they must bring in order to be competitive, building them feels a lot stricter than it should be. I get it, you don't *have* to build optimally but that feels much easier said for other classes that can at least excel in PvE even without much effort put in (like everything with a summon).

I do think what has been done to Paladins or Warlocks would work amazingly well for Rogues too - having different kind of specializations with according abilities could serve quite nicely in making them fit in better to what Arelith is today. This *could* mean having some of their current specials stripped from the base rogue and instead divided up among different specializations with a higher individual impact.

Very rough example:
Witchhunter - A rogue version of the paladin inquisitor path - more combat focused with a chance to circumvent sneak attack immunity. Perhaps even encouraged as a crossbow build...but might not have full access to grenade arsenal

It's really just a very rough idea from the top of my head, not that I did put much thought into it.

On a different note, what I suppose could be done in lieu of a big rework would be expanding the list of rogue special feats. Trackless step has been mentioned a few times and I do think it's really missing. Insightful Strike comes to mind to me as well (for example) but before this goes into suggestion territory, I'll leave it at that

[AstralUniverse]

My issue with *deep* rogues is mostly that they are supposed to be versatile but given the must-haves they must bring in order to be competitive, building them feels a lot stricter than it should be.

This is a good point. Rogue needs a lot of stuff to stay competitive. This is why they have a lot of skill points and bonus feats from lvl 10. But their gear 'space' is identical to everyone else's so when we're talking about boosting some skills REALLY high, they still need to narrow down to 2-3 skills at best, like everyone else.

[Waldo52]

My issue with *deep* rogues is mostly that they are supposed to be versatile but given the must-haves they must bring in order to be competitive, building them feels a lot stricter than it should be. I get it, you don't *have* to build optimally but that feels much easier said for other classes that can at least excel in PvE even without much effort put in (like everything with a summon).

I do think what has been done to Paladins or Warlocks would work amazingly well for Rogues too - having different kind of specializations with according abilities could serve quite nicely in making them fit in better to what Arelith is today. This *could* mean having some of their current specials stripped from the base rogue and instead divided up among different specializations with a higher individual impact.

Very rough example:
Witchhunter - A rogue version of the paladin inquisitor path - more combat focused with a chance to circumvent sneak attack immunity. Perhaps even encouraged as a crossbow build...but might not have full access to grenade arsenal

It's really just a very rough idea from the top of my head, not that I did put much thought into it.

On a different note, what I suppose could be done in lieu of a big rework would be expanding the list of rogue special feats. Trackless step has been mentioned a few times and I do think it's really missing. Insightful Strike comes to mind to me as well (for example) but before this goes into suggestion territory, I'll leave it at that

Great post! I think we need a path system just to keep different rogues feeling unique. I love my blackguard rogue, fighter and ranger rogues look excellent and IB is in a good place even despite its brutal feat starvation. But as a class we really have a lot of hoops to jump through. I was about to type out the list of mandatory or near mandatory feats for rogues but my wrist got sore just thinking about it. I'm somewhat okay with the fact that we all need the same 12+ feats just to function, that's the nature of the class. But let's have some fun flavor/path options too so we're not just building a resume for epic dodge.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I feel like the best grenade is at level 18, because the level 24 ones can be liabilities in group pvp. There are situations where they are great, like if you are alone, with a bunch of archers or with a group who all have great reflex that isn't spell craft reliant. But in my experience, they have stayed in pocket more often than not because the people you team up with are not likely to be built with your grenades in mind.

Beyond that though, I think rogues are in a decent spot.

[xf1313]

Vote for some rogue path as well, would be cool. Currently all rogues feel the same, unless people do 26something 4rogue, which can rp a rogue well and with unique fighting styles

[Cuchilla]

Since the latest overhauls of rogue, it has become a very interesting class to play, with many possibilities. As long as you don't consider rogue melee'ing everything, charging spawn groups, etc., there are so many things a rogue can do: Sneak (at high speed!). Get rich without having to kill everything you meet on your way. Thinking out strategies to single out spawns. And so on and so forth. Brain before raw blade power (?!). With the traditional addition of +5 fighter/ranger you also get a "fairly good" ab. If you absolutely want to get into infights.

[Tabby]

Since the latest overhauls of rogue, it has become a very interesting class to play, with many possibilities. As long as you don't consider rogue melee'ing everything, charging spawn groups, etc., there are so many things a rogue can do: Sneak (at high speed!). Get rich without having to kill everything you meet on your way. Thinking out strategies to single out spawns. And so on and so forth. Brain before raw blade power (?!). With the traditional addition of +5 fighter/ranger you also get a "fairly good" ab. If you absolutely want to get into infights.

Agreed! Been playing a Rogue, 25/5 (Rogue/Ranger) the possibilities for a Rogue is awesome. Grenades/Scrolls/Wands/UMD
A Rogue sneak attack with bow is.. veey dangerous, but the fact that you can at distance look at a spawn hiding, and decide not to engage, makes the Rogue able to reach everywhere.
As said! Brain before Brawn

[Party in the forest at midnight]

It would be nice if rogues were able to compete better in cloak and dagger areas. It is the traditional cloak and dagger class, but for those ends it is best as a minor dip for classes with much more powerful tools to spy with. The best quaterbreakers aren't rogues, the best spies aren't rogues. And being mundane gives them a distinct weakness in being scry bait. Hope you like having to re-apply imp invis wands every 7 minutes if you're stealthing places you shouldn't be. Scrying will pierce your disguise, going around disguised won't keep you safe.

[newaccountwhodis]

I feel that Rogues have always been a utility class as others have said, what they lack in combat prowess they make up for in big brain moves for example as Tabby pointed out using a bow you sneak in to a room lay the field with traps then throw an acid bomb to slow them down as you pick them off with a bow the survivors will run in to the traps and die that way, personally I think that's way more fun than running in swinging a sword wildly at mobs.. The one thing I've always had a problem with is one of the main functions of a Rogue is what they bring to the party for dungeons i.e disabling traps and opening locks, stuff like that its always bothered me that anyone with 1 point in both skills becomes a "professional" able to unlock runic chests and epic traps easily with a simple gear swap to me it takes away from what the rogue was designed to do. I always thought if the difficulty of opening locks were increased to a point where dedicate rogues were able to open them with tools would be a lot of fun it could open up a lot different avenues such as new rp angles such as "professional dungeon diver seeks employment" stuff like that I think would be a lot of fun! rogues doing what rogues do best while bringing something to the group other than sneak attacks.

[Kaymon24]

Rogues are a fun class to play. They have many skills to use which the skill buff some months ago giving them 2 more skills was awesome. They can do a lot and are very flexible in many situations. A properly made rogue can handle... most things.

Of course when facing a caster, they are more than likely going to lose. But what makes rogues so good is they are the perfect class for utility and well roundness everywhere else. A master of disguise. A master of stealth. A master of evasion and dodge. A trapper and lockpick. The grenade DC's are outrageous, but last only a few seconds which makes it meh.

I personally played a 6 fighter 24 rogue build. I enjoyed the character but realized something with it: the class is not as good as the other prestige classes out there.

Shadow dancer's shadow daze can get their DC's in the late 30's and it last much longer than the rogue's stun grenades which gives them plenty of time to take down their target with the expense of less levels (19 SD compared to 24 rogue). Shadow Dancers even have a shadow with them to -guard them making PVE a breeze when sneak attacking their enemies.

Assassin's get unlimited Ethereal Visage. Their darkness spell gives them UltraVision. Their "assassinate" ability gives them ridiculous amounts of bonus damage along with the ability to paralyze their targets at a 38 to 40 DC.

Rogues need to be better. Have their grenades last longer, give them feats in higher levels so they aren't feat starved (can make sense since they have the most skills anyway). Make the class have not only it's own uniqueness, but a perk that makes it more enjoyable to play and stands out with the rest of the two prestige thief classes that are currently much more fun and overpowering than it.

[Waldo52]

Rogues are a fun class to play. They have many skills to use which the skill buff some months ago giving them 2 more skills was awesome. They can do a lot and are very flexible in many situations. A properly made rogue can handle... most things.

Of course when facing a caster, they are more than likely going to lose. But what makes rogues so good is they are the perfect class for utility and well roundness everywhere else. A master of disguise. A master of stealth. A master of evasion and dodge. A trapper and lockpick. The grenade DC's are outrageous, but last only a few seconds which makes it meh.

I personally played a 6 fighter 24 rogue build. I enjoyed the character but realized something with it: the class is not as good as the other prestige classes out there.

Shadow dancer's shadow daze can get their DC's in the late 30's and it last much longer than the rogue's stun grenades which gives them plenty of time to take down their target with the expense of less levels (19 SD compared to 24 rogue). Shadow Dancers even have a shadow with them to -guard them making PVE a breeze when sneak attacking their enemies.

Assassin's get unlimited Ethereal Visage. Their darkness spell gives them UltraVision. Their "assassinate" ability gives them ridiculous amounts of bonus damage along with the ability to paralyze their targets at a 38 to 40 DC.

Rogues need to be better. Have their grenades last longer, give them feats in higher levels so they aren't feat starved (can make sense since they have the most skills anyway). Make the class have not only it's own uniqueness, but a perk that makes it more enjoyable to play and stands out with the rest of the two prestige thief classes that are currently much more fun and overpowering than it.

Good points. I didn't even think to bring up the shadowdancer. While I can swear I remember reading something about plans for a top to bottom shadowdancer overhaul, for now the class is insane with massive stealth bonuses on top of HiPS and identical summon silliness. It all sounds a bit excessive even before shadow daze. The class loses out on grenades for better grenades and can actually take care of itself in PvE, seems a bit excessive.

By the way it's a bit of a derailment but what's going to become of shadowdancers? Like I said before I think I heard something about tentative plans to revise them, but that was many months ago if I'm even remembering right.

[Subtext]

It would be nice if rogues were able to compete better in cloak and dagger areas. It is the traditional cloak and dagger class, but for those ends it is best as a minor dip for classes with much more powerful tools to spy with. The best quaterbreakers aren't rogues, the best spies aren't rogues. And being mundane gives them a distinct weakness in being scry bait. Hope you like having to re-apply imp invis wands every 7 minutes if you're stealthing places you shouldn't be. Scrying will pierce your disguise, going around disguised won't keep you safe.

I would definitely agree with you. Whatever a rogue can do...someone else invariably does decidedly better. Even in the spy department. Especially wizards (with the mandatory pixie familiar) seem to be a better fit for the role - scrying AND getting to open all those locks and disabling all those traps? Amazing deal!
And this isn't meant to take a dunk on the power of good class combos and that rogues should necessarily achieve the end of all there - it's just that taking rogue levels often doesn't really add anything there to begin with.

A few people mentioned that rogues have a tool for every situation. You ain't wrong. But that applies to too many situations and especially in group settings you don't really get the set up time. Nor do I feel that it's particularly fun to design the equivalent of a Rube Goldberg machine if I want to tackle more casual content (I exaggerate). And in any case, you don't excel at anything either!
If you run a dungeon in a group, you're realistically just going to tag behind and do the looting...maybe help damage with sneak attacks while the "Properly built meatheads (tm)" actually crit their way through the hordes. Maybe you get to open boxes or disarm some traps...unless the wizard with their pixie familiar already got to it. Doing some big trap setup? Most of the time...nah. I've seen that happening once since I played here (about a year, which isn't much...but still) and that was when two rogues and an archer ran the King of Kings tomb in Sibayad. I may still exaggerate but you catch my drift.

Point being, you don't really bring anything to the group you wouldn't potentially do better as another class (spells, buffs or big di** damage) and you can't really solo level-appropriate content either without enough set up to make it either an expensive or very long trip. Add to that that you're extremely dependent on gear...and you get something oddly masochistic.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I never found my rogue weak in PVE. Once I got knockdown, everything fell over and died to sneak attacks. It's extremely satisfying. The only expensive gear I needed for leveling was my first set of wands. I used steel weapons and cave trash until 30 and I found people to craft my daggers, boots, and tunic. Fine elvens are only 20k, that's barely an expensive.

I don't like how people obsess on how rogues should be the ONLY class to disable traps or open locks. It harms party composition if you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO have one class with you. I like the server's solution by having areas with optional treasure rooms that have a DC 50 lock, or DC 40 traps. That takes a bit of skill investment, especially if your character isn't a rogue because the only way to handle dc30+ traps is to recover them if you're not a rogue, which boosts the DC by another 10. So it lets people who invest in skills to get loot, and there's a variety of classes that let you get those skills.

I don't understand the obsession with the pixie familiar either. Pixies aren't replacing rogues, it's weird sadism to think that only rogues should be able to bless the group with the ability to have loot. I'd rather see fun solutions for the class, rather than punishing other classes. And even if rogues became the only class that could obtain loot, that wouldn't solve any of my issues with the class.

[Subtext]

That's not at all what I said or meant! I don't want that either! Those were examples and like I said, I exaggerated a little.
(I don't even mind the pixie really...let's be real, every class can get to a "good enough" point when it comes to looting with a small skill investment and some cheap gear...that's really not the overall issue)

My point is that I don't feel like rogues are *currently* bringing much to the table that another class couldn't bring either while still being significantly better at other everyday stuff. I don't think they are terrible either! I just think they lack a way to focus and sort of push limits in one area or have some cool RP knicknacks. Hence I mentioned paths earlier - much like warlocks or paladins have been designed. I do think it was borderline genius what has been done there and I think it would be a great fit here too.

You mentioned like you feel them lacking in the cloak and dagger department. That could be one path. Silly idea...give that path the gimmick to misdirect scriers. ("What? I wanted to watch that shady halfling, not two drow flirting..."). Then you'd have something fun, useful for a spy role and wouldn't punish anyone else...except scriers in this case I suppose. (Not that I'm saying I'd want that, it was just something from the top of my head).