It's hard to judge how powerful the Rogue is without playing one since it's major damage feature is so situational. So a call out to the Rogue players out there:
- About how often do you get to sneak attack?
- About how often you attack with advantage?
- How combat effective do you feel you are compared to the rest of the party?
Any notes you can include about your party composition, rogue path, weapons of choice, and levels of play would be very helpful. This way we can all have perspective on your feedback!
1: Every round, so far.
2: About 1/10 the attacks.
3: Somewhat below par. But, once you add in the scouting and tactics we got from it (i.e. protection from good and evil against the litch), it's been pretty good.
1. Pretty much every time they attack.
2. Once per round due to the rogue's familiar using the help action. For everyone else, advantage is usually gained with advantage, so about once per encounter.
3. The rogue is a bit subpar in combat. Its damage is not spectacular, and its survivability is even worse. In theory this should be made up for due to increased skills, but in practice the randomness of the d20 makes the rogue not particularly better than any other high Dex PCs with a similar skillset. This should change at level 10 with higher expertise and reliable talent.
From my experience of the last playtest: Which had very similar rules
(although two weapon fighting and Cunning Action being limited by your single bonus action was not a thing)
Almost always had sneak attack from either our Paladin or Barbarian being in melee.
- Note you can sneak attack with a ranged weapon against an enermy withing 5' of your allies.
Alot of the time this was via Advantage from our rather liberal interpreation of the hiding rules. So my Lightfoot Halfling rogue used Naturally Stealth combined with Cunning Action to Hide behind a party member, then pop out and shoot with Advantage (and so sneak attack!) with a handcross bow . I think a rather less liberal DM might interpret it differently...
At 2nd-4th levels it felt pretty damn convincing. But monster AC and HPs in the playtest was noticably wussier than what we see in the MM. And that's also before Fighters, Paladins, Rangers and Barbarians get their second attack at level 5.
Then poor Errol died to an Inflict Wounds spell from an evil cleric he was chasing down: good times.
(Also fun fact about attacking with Advantage, as you're rolling two dice you have almost twice the chance of getting a critical hit)
CriticalBastard wrote:
CriticalBastard wrote:
Mistwell wrote:
I have yet to play a straight rogue, but my MC rogues get their sneak attack damage pretty regularly. Being able to get it just by having an ally within 5 feet of your target really helps. Getting advantage on a regular basis is pretty hard. I'm currently playing a rogue/ranger/monk who has the assassin archetype. I need to take the Alert feat to boost my Initiative in order to make getting advantage a more regular thing.
By the way, a crit with sneak attack + hunter's mark is pretty wicked. One of the guys in my group keeps moaning that getting to double all those extra dice of damage on a crit is overpowered. 
Ramzour wrote:
I'm a DM, so I can't say much about how effective my players feel, but here's what I've noticed.
1. Almost every time. All he needs is a party member in melee with the opponent. We're playing Lost Mine of Phandelver, and pretty much all of our fights have been in tight enough quarters that an ally entering melee with the opposition is guaranteed.
2. Not all that often. Our rogue isn't really trying though. He doesn't bother to attempt to hide so that he can gain advantage.
3. He looks quite effective to me. As we were finishing up the Redbrand Hideout, I mentioned to the group that it looked like character contribution was pretty equal. In our party of tiefling fighter, human monk, human cleric (life), dragonborn (blue) rogue, human sorcerer (wild mage), drow wizard (transmuter), it seemed to me like everyone was contributing excellently.
The fighter player felt disappointed with his contribution in the last session, but it was mostly a matter of perception. He was missing a lot due to bad dice rolls, and that's especially irritating when you waste Action Surge. His AC and hp were the best in the party and he was absorbing a lot of attacks and only got wounded two or three times. Once he realized that the redbrands each had two attacks, he felt a bit better, but he initially felt like he just kept missing and kept getting hit (which wasn't true).
Back to the point, rogues are excellent, IMO. Cunning Action is crazy good. Our rogue wasn't even optimized. He had a dagger in his off-hand (for when he wasn't using Cunning Action). The party is only 2nd level, but I haven't been disappointed by any of the classes.
Sword_of_Spirit wrote:
The rogue in my group (played by my son) applies sneak attack almost every attack.
He gains advantage less often maybe 1 or 2 times a session...3 on a good outing.
He is awesomely effective. At 4th level he averages around 18 points of damage per hit and hits pretty often.
The interesting choice he has to make is if he should attack with main hand and off hand or save his bonus action for cunning action. Most of the times he saves his action for cunning action so he can disengage if he is in melee.
Get it most of the time. Sometimes the first round is a bit iffy, as I have no allies in melee. Often I use the ready action, waiting until an ally is next to an enemy, but I've missed out on attacking entirely once or twice due to using this action.
I play a 5th level thief in an ongoing campaign.
I sneak attack in about 99% of the attacks. Either I am hidden or a Fighter is next to the target.
I have advantage about 95% of the time. From level 2 onward it has been easy to attack from stealth, and use the Cunnng Action to stealth/hide after the shot. Rinse and Repeat.
I do not do as much damage as the Wizard who has Sleep and Fireball, but I keep up with just about everyone else in the group in regard to damage.
Recently got to level 2 and I'll see how effective cunning action is in regard to stealth and gaining advantage repeatedly. I'm thinking it'll vary wildly from GM to GM.
I don't play the rogue (I am DM), but he gets sneak attack in the vast majority of attacks that he makes... primarily because his party members help provide him opportunities, and the player is good at using the environment to his character's advantage.
The few rounds I can recall in which the player was not making a sneak attack were rounds in which he was finding sufficient cover to do so, and making a stealth check to hide so that the rest of the party did not have to concern themselves with turning away from what they were doing to see if the rogue needed some assistance.
Once, ever, in the course of playing from 1st to 5th level, has the character made an attack that was not a sneak attack - and he chose to do so because he would rather put more arrows into the approaching zombies that outnumbered and could surround the party if some of them weren't taken down before they closed into melee.
Thanks, this is hugely helpful everyone!
Ok, so far it's looking like if you have any melee allies, you'll be getting Sneak Attack about 4/5 of the rounds, more if you're using Cunning Action well and/or your party is good tactically.
Looks like Advantage is wildly variable. Maybe around 1/5 range unless you can abuse hide on Cunning Action in which case it shoot up to over 4/5. This likely depends heavily on how often you're forced to disengage with your Cunning Action.
That makes me think Mobility maybe be a key early feat grab for a Rogue, because it will usually eliminate the need to disengage, freeing up your bonus action for a hide or off hand attack.
CriticalBastard wrote:
Good points Rhenny, DM and halfling or wood elf are big factors. The setting as well I suppose since lighting and terrain could be huge factors.
I'm glad to see DMs are not giving monsters short term memory problems. Advantage is too strong, DMs should have a "fool me once" solution. I think I saw a post where someone said disadvantage on second check and "you know it won't work" on third check. This is especially necessary for halflings where it can just get silly.
CriticalBastard wrote:
I think the game designers' intent was to enable advantage in just those situations described above though. By RAW, those situations or rehiding and shooting around full cover or rehiding behind an ally for a halfing strictly speaking work to grant advantage, it just seems that some people don't care for it.
slaughterj wrote:
CriticalBastard wrote:
1. RogX/Ftr2 in our party gets sneak attack 99% of the time.
2. He gets advantage on about 30%-50% of attacks.
3. He has the most consistent DPR in the party. Other classes tend to be more burst damage.
Half Orc Paladin.
Hill Dwarf War Cleric.
Half -Elf Sorcerer.
Wood Elf Rog/Ftr2.
Its worth noting our Rogue went Wisdom over Constitution and took expertise in perception. VERY useful.
Lawolf wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
slaughterj wrote:
Noon wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Ramzour wrote:
Noon wrote:
I'm prepping a wood elf monk, not a rogue, and to me the most interesting part of Sneak Attack is "when your ally is within 5 ft of your target". If a Rogue and I set things up right, I expect to run in and stand next to somebody long enough for him to SA it, then I can finish my turn punching whoever needs it the most.
Eventually I'm going to m/c Rogue1 for the Expertise (and I'll get a neat little trick in MY pocket too).
But I can see where SA might be a problem if your Rogue won't coordinate with allies or there aren't any melee guys in the group.
slaughterj wrote:
Situational SA caused an interesting issue at the table last night.
A good-sized group of goblins attacked the party, and before long there were three areas of skirmish going on.
Eventually, the Sorcerer found himself in melee combat with an attacking goblin. His Rogue finished an attack elsewhere, and had moved over to help out next turn.Sorcerer and Rogue were now side by side, in adjacent squares.
A second gob beelined onto the Rogue, engaged melee with her.
So basically we had melee attacks, one on one, with the Sorcerer and Rogue set up for the next turns.
Sorcerer does his thng.
Goblins do their thing, striking their respective targets successfully.
Rogue does her thing against her melee foe and does not attempt to hide, disengage, or anything other than straight "I swing my shortsword."
The Rogue hits her target, rolls damage.
Other members of the PT begin challenging the attack rulling, insisting that the 5E PH page 92 rule on SA applies and she should have another 1d6 damage, because of the proximity of the Sorcerer. Which makes NO sense to me since the Rogue's target was fully engaged in melee with, and was fully cognizant of where the Rogue was.
But because I couldn't find the exception, I granted the objection.
But thte lack of logic in this SA rule for situations like this is the very first time I've had a problem created by rule language in the PH.
Any thoughts?
Your players are correct. You applied the rule correctly.
In terms of explaining or describing the Sneak Attack damage in non-rules language, the foe's attention was divided between opponents, and the Rogue exploited this slight distraction. This is what Rogues excel at doing, and is why only they are able to inflict SA damage. Any distraction or split focus, such as being within 5 feet of a Rogue's ally, creates enough of an opportunity for the Rogue to land a more telling blow.
I'm playing a level 3 rogue about now. Our party has 3 fighters, a warlock and a wizard besides me. While the fighters are amazingly resilient by comparison, I don't really feel like I'm super fragile. This is because cunning action allows me to never be besides an enemy if I so choose, and to set myself up in such a position that it's logical for enemies to target others, or so that they simply can't really reach me.
We had a fight in a cramped room once, and nobody else could move for fear of AoO. I could just use Disengage as a Cunning Action and dance through the room, then end in such a spot that no enemy could get to me again. My extreme mobility has gotten longing glances from the rest of the party, and it makes me feel awesome in combat. My damage has been great so far. Rapier 1d8+4 + 2d6 holds up well even to Action Surges at this point. The fighters just have survivability on me, not damage.
I haven't been at level 3 for more than one scene, so haven't been able to use arcane trickster spells and such yet. I plan to get an eagle or something as a familiar. Someone above said it seemed strange that they can "aid" in combat, but this seems fine to me. An eagle flapping in your face and scratching you, even if it doesn't do enough harm to cause HP damage, definitely makes it harder to see that shiv coming.
I think Uncanny Dodge will make me really tanky, too.
Hello all,
When I'm reading the above I have the feeling we in our group are making a mistake with sneak attacks.
I have a elf rogue who is using dual weapons and a long bow. With the long bow he pretty much always has a sneak attack since he attacks creatures that are attacking other characters.. This does give him advantage right? And if he has advantage, he gets to make a sneak attack?
Anyway, that is the way we have been using sneak attacks so far.. But in comparison to the rest of the group (especially the druid) he is a powerhouse who pretty much hits for 10-15 points of damage every single round.. And since he has advantage, he rolls twice, most monsters have a low AC so he almost never misses an attack..
So to answer the questions in the original post:
1) How often: every single round
2) Advantage: every single round
3) Very effective!
If anyone can point out what we are doing wrong I'd be most grateful! 
Thanks!
Oh I forgot: of course I can find ways to get to him, but I try to approach encounters realistically.. If they run into a group of cultists most of them will engage the fighters and the other characters while he stays well out of reach.. It seems weird that they would just run for him while they are being attacked..
How do you guys handle stealth in combat?
Thanks again
FreakFire74 wrote:
Slyck314 wrote:
CriticalBastard wrote:
colemcm wrote: