Yea, fighter's are across the board better in combat, no matter what tactics you use. Outside of combat rogues have a slight edge but nowhere near to the extent that fighter's have an edge in combat. I don't mind one class being slightly better at one area of the game than another, assuming that overall the two classes balance against each other. Right now, the rogue does not balance against other classes overall.
I don't think this is the case since it says that only rogues are trained in the use of thieves tools and you have to have thieves tools to open locks and remove traps. Without a rogue there is no way around those obstacles without making a lot of noise breaking doors or just letting the fighter walk into all the traps.
That isn't good design. That is broken design. Right now, anyone can choose the thief background. Anyone who does will effectively only get two trained skills instead of three (as disable device is useless without proficiency in thieves tools). Once multiclassing is available, assuming the game stays the way it is, if that trait is easily available via multiclassing nobody who understands the math behind the game will ever choose to play the rogue class. You will be able to build a character who fits that role more effectively by dipping into the rogue class, and primarily building your character with other classes. That is assuming that they don't add that trait to the thief background, as something needs to be done about that useless skill. Nobody should be penalized for picking the thief background, and right now everyone who does not choose the rogue class effectively is.
In the meantime, given the current state of the game, the rogue class gets relegated to a disable device bot. You are hands down inferior at every aspect of combat, so every time the group gets into a fight (which, in my experience, even in RP heavy games, tends to be quite often) you will feel like a second rate character who cannot contribute in any unique way. Even outside of combat, often the fighter will be able to use Mighty Exertion in a way that allows him to shine brighter than you (though overall you will usually be more effective). The only time you will really get a chance to shine for sure is when you come to a door at the fighter cannot just kick in with Mighty Exertion (and, by cannot I mean that a Strength check is not even allowed, because if a Strength check is allowed the fighter will have a statistically good chance of making the check even if it is of a Godly 25 DC), or when you come to a trap that the group cannot find some way of creatively setting off without hurting the group. (You will also get a chance to shine when you just want to sneak around, but by doing so you can't really help the group, except, perhaps, by scouting for them.) Basically, the DM has to throw challenges specifically geared towards your character, that only your character can find any way of overcoming, to give you any chance to shine. So, for 9/10th of the game you feel like a useless character, and for 1/10th of the game everyone else feels like a useless character... but only for a couple of seconds; then you go back to being the useless character. That is terrible game design.
It also still leaves the rogue being, overall, underpowered. It is just that, despite being overall underpowered, there is one area of the game where a DM can create a challenge that only a rogue can overcome. That area of the game is also very acute, and does not, overall, make up for the rogue's ineffective design. It just forces someone to play the rogue, and for most of the game, very likely, not enjoy the experience. Yes, some people won't care. But many of us, including many of us who are huge rogue fans, that is not the case. Rogues are my favorite character archetype. I would not play a rogue given the current ruleset. And, for the most part, I too care more about narrative than anything else. I merely happen to be a little more attuned to the imbalance than you seem to be.
The problem is with encounter design. People are too used to 4e where an adventure was just three rooms with monsters in them. Rogues are not afforded a lot of opportunties to break those encounters. Making adventurers that can be aproached in multiple ways, is key in helping rogues find their place.
I am actually not "too used to 4e adventure design." I really disliked 4e adventure design. I far prefer WFRPG 3e for its open sandbox/multiple methods of dealing with a problem adventure design. My opinion still holds. Even with multiple methods of dealing with a problem, there will be too few opportunities for a rogue to really shine given the current state of the classes. The rogue’s benefits are lopsided compared to its drawbacks. I don't need it to be as good as the fighter in combat, but given the current state of the game it needs to have a few unique tricks that it can pull out to, at least momentary, shine even in combat. Once that happens, and the rogue can momentarily shine in combat just like the fighter can momentarily shine out of combat, I will be content.
I do think there is an issue with stealth though. Rogues are supposed to be stealthy but as long as the dwarf in plate is hanging around, they never get to do much with it. Rogues need a way to help their whole group be more stealthy. That opens a lot of potential options to make encounters much easier with a rogue around.
What rogues need is for the drastic imbalance in combat to be reduced slightly. Right now they are strong out of combat. That is how it should be. Right now, even out of combat, other classes can often shine brighter than the rogue. Overall the rogue will be more effective, but other classes can contribute in very real, and very unique, ways. The rogue should be able to say the same in combat. Being better in one area of the game doesn't mean that you should be so much better than any given class does not get a chance to shine in such an encounter at all, mechanically speaking.
Of course, the real problem, I think, is that the fighter is just a little overpowered in combat at the moment. Between the best armor, the best HP, the best weapons, the second best damage bonus (the monk's is a little better), and two attacks a round, he has too much going for him. What they need to do is make it so that Deadly Strike only allows you to add the best damage roll of your expertise dice, not all of your expertise dice, to any single attack. If they do that the fighter's DPR will still be the best of any class. But hey, that is ok. The discrepancy just won't be as big. Meanwhile, I think that the rogue's sneak attack should also be given a slight boost, but not in terms of damage. Rather, I think that any creature struck by the sneak attack should grant advantage to anyone that attacks it until the start of the rogue's next turn. That slight boost keeps the rogue feeling unique, sneaky, helps the whole group, and will tend to keep other characters close to the target that the rogue is attacking (which in turn helps him get sneak attack more often), but will not make the rogue feel like the primary combat character in the group.
Right now, anyone can choose the thief background. Anyone who does will effectively only get two trained skills instead of three (as disable device is useless without proficiency in thieves tools)....In the meantime, given the current state of the game, the rogue class gets relegated to a disable device bot.
I will admit this is a serious problem. TBH I hate skills as a game mechanic altogether. If I have high dexterity and low strength I will take dex skills and not strength skills. Soon my dex skills are nearly auto-pass and my strength skills are near auto-fail. It is min-maxxing written directly into the game. Rogues take this flawed design to new levels by being EVEN BETTER at skills, but only the skills related to being a thief, which is just more min-maxxing. This is retarded.
But it doesn't dispell my point that rogues have a use to the party. It may be a poorly implemented use, but you do need a disarm bot, and that is what rogues do well.
What I would like to see is more failure mitigation in rogues. If they fail a stealth check to sneak past guards, or fail a trap disarm roll, they should get abilities that make those failures less dire than if it happened to someone else. These would make rogues take more risks, which rogues would have more fun with. I never see rogues try to pick pocket or break into the kings castle becuase they don't want their character out of the game do to one bad roll. Let thieves be thieves without skill checks becoming Save or Jail.
You are hands down inferior at every aspect of combat, so every time the group gets into a fight (which, in my experience, even in RP heavy games, tends to be quite often) you will feel like a second rate character who cannot contribute in any unique way.
Their HP and AC is not all that much less, factoring in Dex and Con and sneak attack, in practice, is pretty indistinquishable from Deadly Strike with how easy it is to apply. The elephant in the room, of course, is fighters getting an extra attack at level 6. Yeap. Seeing as how rangers entirely broke 4e almost solely because they had two attacks round, I can only surmise that either the designers never played 4e, which seems unlikely, or they deliberately decided to make fighters vastly outperform rogues.
Lets have a little faith. Class imbalance is the result of unforseen build exploitations or mechanics being more powerful in practice than intended. This mechanic makes fighters twice as powerful. It is obvious and designed to be that way, so lets not pretend we spotted something the designers hadn't noticed.
Even outside of combat, often the fighter will be able to use Mighty Exertion in a way that allows him to shine brighter than you (though overall you will usually be more effective).
Mighty Exertion means kicking down the door. This will logically alert many encounters of your presence. A smart DM will make this tacticly unwise in most cicumstances.
I am actually not "too used to 4e adventure design." I really disliked 4e adventure design. I far prefer WFRPG 3e for its open sandbox/multiple methods of dealing with a problem adventure design.
This goes back to my point about failure mitigation. Giving rogues lots of abilities to solve problems is useless if they are too afraid to use them, or if they all involve solo adventuring. I really think that if you implement failure mitigation to encourage rogues to be bigger risk takers, and some mechanic to allow them to bring the dwarf in plate along on their stealth operations, they will be a valued addition to any party as more than just a disable device bot.
Of course, the real problem, I think, is that the fighter is just a little overpowered in combat at the moment. Between the best armor, the best HP, the best weapons, the second best damage bonus (the monk's is a little better), and two attacks a round, he has too much going for him.
Again they have a lot going for them in any sustained direct conventional combat encounter. And this is do almost entirely by the extra attack at level 6 and not much else. I have seen entire encounters trivialised by a single Sleep spell or Fireball, so lets not get worked up over fighters being good at something.
Rogues have a use to the party and while it may be trickier to for them to shine than a fighter, that just means the GM has his work cut out for him and needs to make his adventures more sandboxxy.
No, sorry, rogues do not have a lot going for them in any sustained direct conventional combat encounter. Every single ability they have is a fighter ability but worse. That is not "allot going for them." They need some manner in which they can shine; that is to say, some unique manner. If deadly strike did what I suggest then the rogue would. They would still have the lowest DPR. At 10th level a rogue would have a DPR of 21, a Monk would have a DPR of 25 (but is a little worse at skill use), and a fighter would have a DPR of up to 32. They could opt for a slightly lower DPR (but still outperform everyone else) if they choose to go sword and board instead of two-handed sword, and they also open up some other tactical abilities in return. Similarly, they can choose to slightly lower their melee DPR, but still outperform everyone else, but gain significant ranged abilities. But, while the rogue might still have the lowest DPR, its DPR would be the spikiest (single largest number hits), and their forte would be giving advantage to the rest of the group. That would be fun. Meanwhile, outside of combat, everyone already compares to each other in a fairly balanced manner.
And no, I am not "going to cut the game designers some slack." I hope nobody else does either (and I am willing to bet that nobody did in the last feedback report given what Mike said he is going to be doing to the rogue in one of his latest articles). The point of this process is to let them know how we like the current rules so that they can gear them towards our tastes. I hate the current state of the rogue. If they are released looking like this, I won’t be buying this game.
Letting fighters attack twice a round not only deals double basic damage, but also lets them spread their damage among multiple targets with great versatility and doubles the odds of using their expertise dice. I'm not defending it. It puts fighters on a high pedestal to reach.
My argument was not defending it, I am merely saying that something this overt and slanted can't be an accident. The purpose of our feedback is to give them insight into things they may have missed. They obviously want fighters to humiliate every other class in conventional combat. That is clearly design intention.
So lets not waste time trying to figure out why rogues don't do as much damage. They obviously aren't meant to. We need to stop trying to make rogues catch up to fighters in stab-stab and instead try to figure out what they do bring to the party and determine if they have the tools to pull that off.
Yea, everyone has said they want fighters to be the kings of damage. That is fine. I want that too. That doesn't mean we are all ok with the current disparity. Showing how big the disparity currently is, and then showing a smart way to reduce it while sticking to the design goals, is not a waste of time. The disparity is too big. End of story. And, as I said, the idea proposed with my original post (which is not my own, by the way) is the best fix I have seen on these boards to date. It keeps a fighter's multiple attacks. It keeps fighters as the kings of DPR, rogues as the kings of skill use, and monks somewhere in between. But, it reduces the disparity in combat ability to something along the same lines as the current disparity between skill use.
And no, I don’t think the current disparity is something that is here to stay. It didn’t exist before this playtest packet, and we know that they are planning to add some changes that will reduce it as of the next playtest packet (as a result of the feedback we have given them about the rogue, fighter, and monk) because Mike Mearls has said so.
I think that anybody should be able to pick locks with thieves tools but with disadvantage. Given the high DC of most locks that is quite a tough call. And somebody trained in thieves tools should be able to pick a lock with disadvantage using suitable improvised tools, which, alongside skill mastery should mean that rogues can still pick most standard locks with some sort of equipment. I'd probably rule that adding mastery to a roll with disadvantage means you have to roll twice and take the lowest expertise die roll too, although if you spend more than one expertise die that could get messy.
Personally I like rogues who arent thieves. Why is hide bound tradition requiring I be a thief. (that was an issue in 4e)... did they sort of inverse it in 5e all thieves with any competance are automatically rogues?
I tried two different versions of the rogue to try. One with maneuvers, one without, and I think the one with maneuvers may work best if one thing is observed: All the classes get d6's for expertise dice. Sneak Attack wasn't made a maneuver, though; it was kept seperate. And the second has skill mastery, but I changed it so that you gain a number of skill rerolls a day. As you get higher in level and better in skills, this ability gets even better, but I can't see being too broken even at low levels (leastways, I hope not).
I agree with the concern CyberDave is citing in this thread but think this is the wrong way of going about fixing it.
As a core conceptual issue, Expertise and Maneuvers are a cool combination because they give the fighter major tactical considerations every round. As such, they're most effective when all the fighter's power is bound into those tactical choices. If Deadly Strike is 50% or 80% of the fighter's potential damage, and it's also his major source of extra defensive capacity and mobility, allocating those dice every round is an interesting choice. (BTW, this is one reason I don't like the way they moved dice recharge to the end of your turn and don't like the idea of making Parry a non-maneuver power.) If most of a fighter's offensive power comes from other stuff, then expertise dice become just a fiddly thing you have to keep track of.
I'd MUCH rather see them remove that extra attack than see them tone down Deadly Strike this severely. That second attack helps with some basic math concerns (like weapon/ability damage becoming less relevant as expertise dice scale up), but it has a negative impact on the class's flexibility. Now, powers like Glancing Blow and Whirlwind Attack are less useful, because EVERY fighter gets at least two chances to hit and/or two targets to strike at each turn.
There are also lots of weird consequences here. First, this change makes Volley and Whirlwind Attack much better options than DS for total damage - so all the sudden, the fighter goes from being king of single-target damage to being an AOE attacker, trying to hit multiple enemies every round. Second, it means that if and when they add back in maneuvers that knock down, disarm, and push around enemies, the default attack will probably be to use one die for DS and the other(s) for those other effects.
Here's an alternate solution: Get rid of the second attack. Boost the power of maneuvers like Glancing Blow and Whirlwind Attack so that you can use them with multiple dice. If fighter damage is still too weak, boost his expertise dice by one die level: 1d6 at level 1, 3d12 at level 10. (If this makes weapon choice seem irrelevant, fix that by adding weapon specialization options that differentiate weapon choices by more than just their die type.) And hey, give the fighter more maneuvers. I'd start with DS and Parry plus one choice, and give extra maneuvers two out of every three levels (so at 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10). That way, a level 10 fighter has nine total maneuvers at his disposal - hardly a paralyzing selection, I'd wager, especially when a decent number of them will probably be defensive and/or conditional.
(We should also note that this may be largely a moot point already... Mike Mearls has already said that they're boosting spell damage, making cantrip damage scale, and turning Parry into a fighter class feature next time around, so it sounds like they're keeping the current scaling damage model and mostly adapting other classes to fit.)
I'd MUCH rather see them remove that extra attack than see them tone down Deadly Strike this severely. That second attack helps with some basic math concerns (like weapon/ability damage becoming less relevant as expertise dice scale up), but it has a negative impact on the class's flexibility. Now, powers like Glancing Blow and Whirlwind Attack are less useful, because EVERY fighter gets at least two chances to hit and/or two targets to strike at each turn.
There are also lots of weird consequences here. First, this change makes Volley and Whirlwind Attack much better options than DS for total damage - so all the sudden, the fighter goes from being king of single-target damage to being an AOE attacker, trying to hit multiple enemies every round. Second, it means that if and when they add back in maneuvers that knock down, disarm, and push around enemies, the default attack will probably be to use one die for DS and the other(s) for those other effects.
Let me get this straight, first you complain that two attacks a round make powers like whirlwind less useful, and then you complain that the proposed fix makes whirwind more useful? All right...
Look, given my proposed fix using two attacks against one target with DS on both attacks is still more effective than whirwind attack. You are wrong that the consequence would make volley or whirwind attack "much better options than DS" for total damage. One die of DS adds a bonus to damage. One die of whirwind lets you maybe roll one ED die against a different foe. The two damage bonuses are the same, but DS lets you stack more damage against a single target foe. With two attacks a round it is still better for you to use at least two of your ED on DS (unless you are surrounded by a horde of low HP creatures, in which case whirwind/volley are supposed to be the better options). The only consequence is that you will have to really think about what you want to spend your 3rd DS die on once you get it. Do you want to use it to improve your chance of rolling well with DS dice or do you want to use it to for another maneuver. The choice will be very real with no clear superior option. And, I think that is a good thing. One of the complaints people have right now is that fighters don't end up using their other maneuvers enough. My proposed fix will also fix that.
And, two attacks does not reduce the value of whirlwind or volley when you are fighting 3+ foes. Two attacks lets you hit two foes. If you need to hit more targets than that, whirlwind and volley become your go-to options.
Here's an alternate solution: Get rid of the second attack. Boost the power of maneuvers like Glancing Blow and Whirlwind Attack so that you can use them with multiple dice. If fighter damage is still too weak, boost his expertise dice by one die level: 1d6 at level 1, 3d12 at level 10. (If this makes weapon choice seem irrelevant, fix that by adding weapon specialization options that differentiate weapon choices by more than just their die type.) And hey, give the fighter more maneuvers. I'd start with DS and Parry plus one choice, and give extra maneuvers two out of every three levels (so at 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10). That way, a level 10 fighter has nine total maneuvers at his disposal - hardly a paralyzing selection, I'd wager, especially when a decent number of them will probably be defensive and/or conditional.
I hate it. It doesn't fix anything. Rogues will still be dealing damage via the same model as fighters, but worse. Fighters still won't be given a good reason to use anything but DS, except in very situational moments of combat. All in all, it is one of the worst fixes I have seen. Me and you will have to agree to disagree, because I think that the version I posted with my first post (which was actually suggested by someone else originally) is a much more elegant fix. It fixes the math, creates difference between the damage dealing models of the rogue and fighter, gives fighters more reasons to use one ED on something other than damage a round, and increases the value of a higher damage die weapon for the fighter. I see absolutely everything it is doing as a good thing...
