The biggest buff is that they can use the Nick property to attack twice every round, doubling the chances of dealing sneak attack and still being able to dash, disangage and hide because you dont use a BA anymore
I think the optimal approach is to have a Vex weapon in one hand and a Nick weapon in the other. That way, you use Steady Aim or Hide to get advantage on your first attack and use Vex to get advantage on your second attack.
@@kongoaurius In the playtest, you could use two masteries in the same turn if you were using two different weapons. I assume that is unchanged in the final version, but we'll have to see it to be certain.
> "[Sneak attack pool] ...sometimes the rogue doesn't need all of those dice to do damage." You wash your damn mouth out with soap. I need ALL of those dice, MORE of those dice I tell you!
Yeah it was horrible to hear. The Rogue is already the worst class in 5e, only getting passable damage with reaction sneak attacks. The gap has really widened now, especially with Fighters and Barbarians becoming so much better at skill checks. It seems to be another case of Crawford not understanding what features are powerful, like with Brutal Critical.
I wonder if the omitted Mage Hand Legerdemain improvement is the ability to cast it as a bonus action instead of needing to cast it as an action and then control as a bonus action.
Per the DnD Beyond article: when you use the Trip option of Cunning Strike on one enemy, you can target an additional creature within 5 feet of your Mage Hand
Been saying for a while each class should have an invocation type customization thing for a specific class feature. Smite, sneak attack, meta magic, pet, wildshape, maneuvers, rage, inspiration, martial arts etc etc
Druid would be so much more streamlined if you had wildshapes based off of "templates," and you get a certain number and type per level (i.e., swimming speed, flight, multiattack, resistance)
Having Playtested this: the Assassin is still weak, the Thief is very dependent on good magic items but astonishingly powerful, Arcane Trickster is still fun, and I'm assuming the Soulknife is okay-ish. Rogues are well built for fights against groups of Orcs, and Bosses with minions because it persistently hits the breakpoints for taking out smaller enemies, and now has options to debuff stronger ones. The Rogue has a SERIOUS weakpoint though: it's terrible against huge solo monsters. None of the Masteries or Cunning Strikes interact with those at all, so high level play is boned. In my game about killing Dragons, the Rogue can't kill Dragons.
As soon as I heard they could use magic items as a bonus action I was like "no way". Pipes of Haunting as a bonus action is wild. Have an artificer in the party and you are better at using their items than they are.
I always love your insights. You're always the 1st place I go to for my D&D content news. I hope that this schedule of daily videos doesn't overwhelm you. But I really do appreciate the videos. Thanks!
I prefer watching these Vids for the first-time with your Analysis alongside. The position you take of overall health of the game first is what make them way more interesting.
So its confirmed... Well, someone had to be the weakest and its nice that the margin is not nearly as big as with 2014 monk, but as a Rogue player it still makes me a bit sad. Also, I will really miss disarm option.
That or crawford pushing his glasses up every time he makes some corny comment just before he and todd share a creepy laugh. God their vids are corporate sometimes
@@masterd4964I just hope they sell enough 2024 phb that Jeremy can afford new nose pads on his glasses! I suspect he thinks that it makes him look like Clark Kent.
I feel like so much of these videos boil down to either: A) We figured out how to format our books and make a cohesive rules system! B) We have actually playtested our rules and have (maybe) made it balanced! C) We have brand new ideas (which really came from older editions)! it only took 10 years...
Why are you just whining? There is nothing substantial or productive in what you said. You're just making a bunch of (baseless) attacks, with biased wording. Stop bringing everyone down by injecting negativity where none needs to be.
@@hawkname1234 bro, they were LITERALLY bragging about creating a cohesive rules glossary in a previous video. Look, you can play 5e and enjoy it, I do to! I am just going to be honest about the quality of the product they release. And, honestly, if we want a better product, we should point it out.
I'd like to state for the record that Star Wars 5e was doing "give up Sneak Attack for specific effects" before OneD&D did. It was at 3rd level, came from your subclass, and you got 2 or 3 unique options depending on the subclass, and it always cost 2d6 dice.
It's worth noting with the Assassin's Steady Aim that, although you can't move before activating it, you don't have to immediately use the advantage. As an assassin, you can use Steady Aim at the start of your turn, move, stab someone at advantage, and move away. It probably would have been less confusing to remove all movement restrictions, but the fact that you can't move before activating it shouldn't be a problem most of the time.
@@carlcramer9269 True, but the movement restriction is kind of unintuitive anyway given that the whole point of the feature is to wave movement restrictions, so I could see people accidentally getting it (close to) right.
I'm not sure how badly it would unbalance things, but I think im going to homebrew disarm as an available choice with cunning action. Really liked that as an option.
Pretty sure why they removed it was to keep the DM's job simple. If a creature has only one melee weapon in its stat block, what will it do after being disarmed?
I'm a rogue main here: My biggest problem is the dependency with the master and players. I need a master that give me advantage and my party that give me sneak attack. If I don't have this i need to find a way to deal sneak attack or just, attack. Steady aims i found a lot of table banning it because it's resolve an issue giving too much power (I saw just giving sneak attack was just fine) Base class: having thing to do other than big damage is cool, but still doesn't give me way to achive my sneaky attack, if not with steady aim. Assassins: assassins was quite a joke on how noob trap is it, i like the fact they give advantage on initiative, but the steady aim issue still remain. The main problem with the potion damage is that a lot of monsters are immune to that, so good luck. Arcane Trickster: It was ok, now that the AT doesn't have any school of magic restriction is just free estate Soulknife: I didn't like the concept and i didn't play it, i'm honest Thief: It's good thing they give actually text law for the thief. Stay hidden after attacking is good, and a good way to the master to hate you Overall, yeah it's good, but still reliant on others or steady aim
This is so strange. In my experience it is pretty easy to sneak attack already: have at least one melee companion or just hide with BA (towns, forests, dungeons present a lot of opportunities to hide). When I play with a rogue in party they sneak attack in 80%+ cases. And what is the problem with steady aim? Never seen it get banned by anybody. And now as SA is a base feature fewer DMs will think about banning it.
I guess your tables can't say no to steady aim now at least. Imo, a rogue should be hitting sneak attack just about every turn at a table that cares about optimising at all.
@@АртемСорокин-п7ь yeah unless you are against monsters with blindsight, tremor sense, in a map with no cover, and the monster have a lot of AC. Usually i land shots, but i cast find familiar often. I saw a lot of player taking the swashbuckler for the always confirmed sneak attack on hit
Here is Infranaut's tiny, day one patch I really like: When you take Steady Aim, you decide whether you want Advantage on the roll or to increase your Sneak Attack Dice by a number of d6s equal to your Prof Bonus if the attack hits. I feel like this adds a fun level of risk/reward to the Rogue, and in situations where you already qualify for SA you just get a damage increase.
Exactly my thoughts. They say "better not mess with the rogue, it was fine". To which I add : it was fine in 2014 before they gave other classes ways to do what the rogues do. Now rogues don't really have a place in the game.
I’m shocked they spoke so highly of the 2914 Rogue. Sneak attack is great and all, but that’s their whole shtick. 1 big attack per turn and try not to die. In context then sneak attack isn’t really that much damage. Also so disappointed that they didn’t change the levels for subclass features. 3 and 9 are too far apart. Big missed opportunity that will bite them when they have to front load all their rogue subclasses as the level 3 feature is basically all that’s relevant to most players. If the level 3 ability is a dud, or even just ok, the subclass is dead. You aren’t going to level 9 to make it work.
I worry that steady aim will remove all the fun of the rogue. Rogues never really had a problem getting their sneak attack before. Nearly any party comp would allow for an adjacent ally, and some combination of bonus action hiding and party synergy would often be enough to get advantage on top of that. Now instead of having to be situationally aware, the rogue can just stand in one place and bonus action for infinite advantage. The worst kind of fights are those when no one ever has a reason to move.
I know it’s not a common opinion, but I don’t think surprise was as broken as it was treated. It made sense in a turn-based combat system. And they didn’t have to wreck it - the simplest fix was to abandon the whole-group-or-nothing mechanic and just make it creature-to-creature. If a creature is unaware of another creature, the undetected creature has surprise on that enemy. Make surprise advantage on the first attack roll and autocrit or an enhanced crit (maybe raw dice roll of 15+) and it’s fixed. And before someone complains about party being too favored in 5e, the rule would apply in both directions. So if you’re a DM with a party that’s getting too cocky, have a bugbear or wight sneak up on the casters from behind during an encounter to keep them humble and on their toes!
Aware this is an optimization channel so we are going to focus on the number and core math of the class so this is probably the wrong audience but I think these changes are great, even if they don't fix the rouges damage. The rogue is one of the most popular classes in the game to play because it feels cool to sneak around due a powerful attack every turn, anecdotally multiple player in my games have played rogues in my campaigns and enjoyed them for this reason, they don't seem to care/notice that the damage doesn't scale well enough. With that in mind the ability to turn you damage into a different effect every turn (effectively an unlimited use of 3 battle master manoeuvres) will definitely appeal to the 'casual player', add that to the fact that it will be easier to trigger sneak attack by using the 'nick' mastery and I think you will have a lot of happy players.
Calling the soul knife the supernatural assassin is weird to me. Did we forget the phantom? I feel it's much more assassin-like. It can move through objects/floors/walls.
A rule which has an exception can be a good rule. A rule which has an exception, but that exception also has an exception is a bad rule. And if that exception to the exception also has an exception, it's a stupid rule.
My beautiful unarmed master isn't until next week?! I am also super curious what they did with the bard after reverting to class spell lists. Overall glad they are teasing the new features but they definitely seem to be saving the best for last ;-)
While I wish there were a few bigger improvements to the Rogue post-UA 6 similar to the other Martials, I admit it will still be more fun compared to the 2014 version. I had a pretty good experience playtesting the UA 6 Rogue, so I am still looking forward to making a new Rogue with the new rules.
Idk if rogue is gonna be weakest. W/o gwm/sharpshooter/smites, seems like 2 sneakattacks per round might be one of the better ways to deal damage competitively with spellcasters. That and maybe berzerker. Hopefully mirror image+sentinel still works. If so, that and vex seem like a solid option to be a good damage dealer in 5.24e.
Is there any chance you'll do a summary video once these are over? I can't stand watching these corporate presentations, and I'm mostly here just for the couple minutes where you go over what the changes actually mean.
"Sometimes you don't need all that damage, so what if we let you do other things in trade?" - I feel like this would make more sense if most of these effects weren't only affecting the same target. Sneak attack is wasted on overkills and this does little about that. Also using the unconscious option for non-lethality seems terrible lol.
So disappointed they didn't fix cunning strike. 5 and 11 needed an additional dice or cunning strikes needed to just be add ons. Maybe even just give the Rogue extra attack. The Rogue SHOULD be the highest DPS class imo. I don't know how they got on this idea that you need to be using your sneak attack dice for other things. the class already struggled in damage. Even magic weapons don't fix it very much because they get fewer attacks.
For the psychic blades they needed to give your bonus action Blade the nick mastery. And the blades need to replace any attack. just anytime that you would be able to attack with a weapon it can be a psychic blade. Especially without magic item support I fear that is soul knife is going to be better off throwing daggers at some point at least as an off hand attack.
The fake interview format is always a but grating, but these two manage to make it worse than any other I've seen. Seeing Crawford laugh about correcting options from.2014 - which he was responsible for and defended vigourously for years - is super cringe.
I still think on rouge you want to start out or multiclass into a class that gets extra attack. Itll never ruin the flavor of the rouge and its just better to get extra attack. Then go a full 20 in rouge 9/10 id say.
What is with the weirdly clickbaity negative subtitles for all the classes this last week? It's weird for a channel normally so positive and forward thinking. Anywho, you do you. Got the engagement in the end I guess.
Forcing rogue into being a ranged class is disappointing. Feel like they need more sneak attack dice at higher level, or at least increase the dice to d8 or d10's as you get higher level. Rogue damage drops off after level 5, and is abysmal after level 15.
Saw the DND channel post the video an hour ago, started watching, and was like “wait did treantmonk post his reaction already?” and was pleasantly surprised
One thing I hope: the weapon list is larger. In the playtests, there were only three options on Finesse weapons: Vex on a D8 Rapier, Nick and Vex on light weapons, and Slow on a d4 Whip. So there's literally one option on a D8 weapon. It wasn't a problem before that 5e had ridiculously small weapon list compared to most other TTRPGs, because there were so few traits a weapon can have. With Mastery, there's actually a reason to have a big weapon list now. Something like a D8 Slashing Finesse Saber with Slow, or some sort of club or flail with Finesse so a Rogue can gain Sap, would go a long way.
I feel like they should give rogues Sneak Attack on ALL weapons they get as default proficiencies. Longsword + simple weapons would give Rogues a taste of what every other martial (I think) already has.
@@bigguy679 That'd work. There's no doubt a lot of ways to accomplish it. I love that Brutal Ruffian sorts of Rogues who are strength based are reasonably well supported in 4e or Pathfinder 2e. But I still think the weapon list from the playtest needed at least a few more options. A d8 one-handed Slow weapon would be great for sword-and-board tank-type characters, a useful control option.
I really want clubs added as a weapon they can sneak attack with because it makes sense for criminals to use such a weapon to strike an unexpected blow.
@@МаратГабдуллин-б5ф maybe I’d have been better off saying earlier D&D editions. Just compare 5e to 4e, 3/3.5, AD&D 2e, Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e. Far fewer weapon choices in 5e. And that was fine for 10 years of 5e, but Mastery changes things. The weapon list overall is far too small now.
There's the nick property, so they still have 3 sneak attack attempts at level 1 on each turn if they have advantage (one from the from the regular attack, one from the extra attack from nick with the second weapon and the third from the bonus action with the first light weapon), so if the first light weapon have another weapon mastery property, even without multiclassing, they can use 1 mastery property twice and do 1 sneak attack in a turn, so rogues have less chance of missing their one big attack and waste their turn. And at level 5 with cunning strike, you can combo it with weapon mastery and apply 2 (1 from weapon mastery and 1 from cunning strike) debuffs, and at level 11 you can apply 3 debuffs, so rogue without multiclassing is much more consistent and versetile now, it might not even need multiclassing to get extra attack anymore, and that's without considering the subclass changes.
I read that people were expecting a short rest resource. I thought it made sense, I remember they said that every class now had a reason to take a short rest.
The new rogue is fine, if you leave it exactly as is and also add a short rest resource that lets them add extra damage on a sneak attack. Without that it's far, far too weak. Why would I play a rogue instead of just a dex fighter flavored as a rogue? A valor bard will probably end up being capable of out-dpring a rogue if they build right
@@override367A free use per short rest of a Cunning Strike would be good? It'd also strongly entice players to try them out instead of favoring damage out of habit
I'd have preferred something slightly more creative than what's effectively just a damage boost. One interesting suggestion I saw was Stroke of Luck earlier, but as a 10 instead of a 20. I think you could have that, but then at level 11 it changes to the rogue's level, eventually becoming 20, and then you add another small feature on top of that capstone.
With rogues, so much of their overall balance seems to be in strong repeatable (does not rely on spell slots) out-of-combat utility. It's not that rogue utility is useless, and it can be very valuable the table in a lot of circumstances. It's just that however much WotC thinks it balances out over the course of a campaign, balance in fights is what matters most to most players. This isn't Pathfinder 2e where skills are actually useful in combat, and having twice as many skill perks can matter.
"balance in fights is what matters most to most players" Having played for over 40 years now, I have not decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing. DnD can and should focus on combat, as combat is one of the more fun things to do. But there are several classes, such as the Rogue and Ranger, that provide out of combat value. Bard too. How much or how little really depends on the campaign, and should be discussed before hand so players know if they are building a class that can have it's moment to shine. Nobody likes sitting at sesh after sesh with nothing to do.
@@jmnemonic99 What strikes me is that it feels bad if session after session you either have nothing to do outside combat, but the same is also true if you have nothing to do inside combat. That’s the big innovation of damage Cantrips-a wizard with no spells can feel like they’re contributing. I’m glad folks like Barbarians and Fighters are getting a little bit more out-of-combat utility. Pathfinder 2e did a lot for this with the 3 action system and multiple attack penalties. You don’t want to spend 3 actions attacking in most cases because the miss chances keep going up, so folks use utility skills to debuff enemies. Rogues have twice as many skill increases and skill feats, so they can do more different more things well in combat, deception tricks, intimidation tricks, and so forth. The impact of any individual skill use is small, but that’s ok. Putting small debuffs on enemies adds up when everyone is tossing one in there in addition to their attack each turn.
@@jmnemonic99 The issue is that skills and what not are cool but others can use them as well and most parties can cover the essential skills without ever considering a rogue. Like you said Ranger and Bard also cover a lot of out of combat utility while retaining spells slots and combat prowess due to said spells slots. Rogue is just the posterchild for whats wrong with DnD martials, WotC doesnt want to raise them to super human status. So Rogues can just hide, they cant turn invisible because thats magic and they dont have magic. Rogues can't shadowstep because blink is a spell and they dont have magic. Rogues also get it the worst because they are also not a combat class so they can't even be a dpr monster or meatshield. All the utility a rogue can provide is skills and skills aren't magic and thus have strong limitations in most games bound by "realism" compared to a wizard who can just cast spells that do the same thing but bend the laws of physics and reason.
@@jmnemonic99 This is why I warn people away from Rogue. If you want utility, you're better off going Bard, Artificer, or Ranger. All three of these have repeatable and low resource utility value. But they can also do this while being an asset in combat. It's not fun being in a combat when your character is making virtually zero impact.
I do think one of the big issues with rogue being balanced around 5e's out-of-combat play is that the designers barely have a conception of what that play even looks like outside of spells. And folks might argue that's a good thing, that it better enables roleplay and active problem solving to not have icky rules in the way, but it means that there's next to no mechanical support for any idea a group can have about out-of-combat play without making a lot of assumptions. Many games with a lot less cruft have a better idea of how explorative or narrative play work on a fundamental level---limited skill checks and dungeon turns in OSR games, building up resources in Lancer, gaining opportunities and using Fabula Points in Fabula Ultima---and having a baseline of play makes it much easier to work with those systems in out-of-combat play than 5e can generally offer. The fact that the designers have next to no idea on how out-of-combat play, and by extension skills, are meant to work in 5e means they can't really design interesting options for either---Jack of All Trades, Expertise, and Reliable Talent are ultimately boring designs which just tweak numbers---and players don't get to choose any interesting options either unless they have access to spellcasting, which are often overtuned to simply solve problems as opposed to being a piece of a solution.
"doing well, seem to like". Bro it's 3,487 views in the first 43 minutes, we are CHOMPING at the BIT for these videos. You clarify everything they say... now up to 3532 / 44 Minutes.
@@LithmusEarth Nah you're def on the right track. Champing on the bit is the OG saying, but champing is a direct synonym to chomping AND the google ngram has chomping at the bit as the more common usage in publications.
@@Gn0mestradamus Those are some very kind words from out on the internet. I appreciate the insight. Thank you for your time. I even at the time I made that second comment or whatever I looked it up, the internet says it was champing as the idiom.
I always thought it would be neat if the assassin was the defacto damage dealer, change their sneak to d8s, maybe give bonus "cunning points" so they can do some of the lower sneak attack options for free, as if they rolled like 1-3 extra sneak attack without the damage. I understand why they don't change the sneak attacks to d8s as it's very hard to get a bunch (like 10+) of d8s for most people
You really only need one d8. Roll it multiple times and add as you roll, take the average damage and multiply it, or just roll half the times then double the sum. There's a lot of ways you can do multi-dice rolls with a single die, and honestly it's easier for some tables due to the space it saves.
I think it'd be cool for Assassin's to specialize in first round burst, so every ability works for round 1. At level 3 they get advantage on initiative and attack rolls during round 1, maybe it would be nice for level 9 to give you an extra attack during round 1, might even have been cool if they got that old thief capstone where you get a second turn during round 1 for.
@@CJWproductions It's the 'appearing out of nowhere' that's just immersion breaking to me. Rather than fixing poisons and kits at baseline to encourage their use, they've just folded the benefit into the class as being indistinguishable to "you just magically deal poison damage now". Poisons should have been an augmentation option; anyone regardless of class can buy, harvest, or craft (give tool proficiencies a reason to exist). The rogue already had the thematics in their existing class features to set them up the the 'best' poison users. Fast Hands (or some similar variation depending on subclass) could easily have been elaborated as being ideal for applying poisons to weapons more efficiently in the action economy. No, we just get them operating on videogame logic instead. "You have poisons now. They're better that basic poisons from adventuring gear, so that item's now pointless. But it's not an item you have to make/carry/hide. It's not something you can give to an ally or apply to traps, it only exists when you specifically make a sneak attack. Never mind if the DM sets up a story where the rogue is disarmed for narrative reasons; the rogue is just able to produce poison at the moment of attack anyway.... because magic?"
better yet: the poison exists in this Schrödinger's state of being there but not being there at the same time. You have poisons you can use for attacks... but you can't trade it, or sell it. It's better than the 100 gp basic poison, and you have infinite amounts... but you cannot part with in under any situation.
Pretty sure you'll still be able to use the Xanathar's guide swashbuckler with the new version of the rogue. And it wouldn't surprise me if they made a revised version in the future
They should have been adding cunning strikes features, not removing them (disarm). I worry about the value of the trip cunning strike given how easy it is for other martials to use topple more often (with extra attack) and without giving up damage. Also it would have been cool if soulknife got a cunning strikes feature that caused the frightened condition or something. Finally, I worry that rogues won’t have enough damage compared to other classes. I wonder if sneak attack should be d8s or should get an extra d6 at each tier level or something.
It's interesting to me to hear them talk about the old rogue with such high regard because it's always struck me as being very mild in capability, so very glad Chris' commentary is there to keep me feeling slightly more sane
in the optimisation community it was always seen as incredibly underwhelming outside of the context of getting a few levels in it on a different main class, and was a contender for the worst class in the game already. I personally dont see those announced changes changing it much
Yeah the causal player and optimizer perspective on this class were WILDLY different. I believe it was the second or third most played class in the game so I can understand why they didn't want to change it too much? But at the same time, look what they did to the fighter which is THE most played class lmao. Honestly they could just through extra attack on the rogue and it would have kept up with the balance changes to the other martials. I may just homebrew that...
The Rogue is in an odd place, because it's a class that's objectively pretty bad, but it FEELS good to play. It doesn't scale well at higher levels, its primary damage source is situational despite being balanced around happening every turn, and skill monkeys really aren't that valuable when spells exist to just bypass many skill checks. But with that said, it feels fucking awesome to roll so many dice on an attack and to add such an obscenely large number to a skill check so that failure is impossible. It's like the opposite of the Ranger, in that sense.
Rogues kind of get extra attack if they're holding a dagger in the off-hand... But something like a 1/sr or pb/sr ability to just add your sneak attack dice to a hit whether it qualifies or not, or some other QOL or damage boost would have been nice.
layman players and DM's see big number on skill check and barely competitive melee combat DPR and go "OOOOH it's so strong!" even though Skills in 5E have very few RAW applications and are really just the DM making up stuff based on vibes...
I still feel the Thief is a watered down Arcane Trickster. Thief can climb? Arcane Trickster can spider climb and more spells. Thief can bonus action sleight of hand? Arcane Trickster can mage hand sleight of hand at range and more... the bonus action magic item is too DM and campaign dependent :(
If the rogue is only slightly weaker on DPR, then that should be ok. The extra capability for added effects as well as the defense options makes the rogue base class well rounded. The extra skills and expertise make the rogue useful in many cases. Weak for one aspect is balanced by versatility in all the others.
I have a few thoughts about this. I think the most important one is that they can't make sneak attack deal great damage on its own because they have to balance around the fact that teammates can give you a reaction sneak attack. Sneak attack kinda has to be a little bit sub-par because of that. I see it like this, I've never heard a non optimizer complain about the rogue damage, and optimized parties with a rogue will enable off turn sneak attacks, so everyone is pretty happy. Does that make sense?
@@SophiaAphrodite of which you get 1, sneak attack doesnt even compete with classes that get 2 weapon attacks after level 5 which is every other martial. So yes everyone else is doing that damage and they get to do it over 2 hits so if they miss 1 they still do half damage unlike the rogue who loses a round of damage.
A problem I had with the 2014 rogue which seemed made worse by UA (so probably not changed much by release) is a feeling of "Rather than a pure rogue, I can build a rogue/fighter who will be better at _everything_ than my pure rogue".
Yeah, been playing a Rogue for almost 3 years in a long-term campaign. And by Rogue, I mean my first 4 levels were in Rogue and the rest have been in Gloomstalker Ranger lol.
@@haukionkannel Nah, most classes don't combine as well as rogue and fighter, because for a caster you're delaying spellcasting, and for a non-caster you're usually getting redundancy in extra attack, which is a huge part of your power budget. Rogue and fighter have features that both stack and are non-redundant (e.g. expertise and tactical mind work together just fine). Other multiclasses also work well for rogue but are more likely to interfere with your theme.
That is so true. The missing second attack makes them already much weaker in 2014. The new update with trading sneak dice does not feel well here. They should have given those options without the trade-off and also add the swashbuckler with a second attack at least.
Soul Knife should take the Sentinel Feat. Since the "psychic blades" feature now works with opportunity attacks specifically, and given the rewording as pointed out by Colby in his thief rogue build, you can prock sneak attack multiple times with your core feature more often (if an ally within five feet gets attacked, for example.)
I've enjoyed your videos for years. Unfortunately, I have no interest in buying the new WOTC material. Originally, they said it was just an update and it would be backwards compatible. The more I hear , it's anything but compatible. I understand that creaters who depend on this for an income need to play the WOTC game but I'm out. When a company continues to crap on its community, they no longer deserve our money. Good luck to you Chris. I hope the new release fails miserably but you creaters are able to salvage a living.
I'm not usually saying a lot on these sorts of things, but I'm wondering if the rogue will have better feat compatibility with the new iteration, since that 3rd feat coming in at 10th level wasn't the biggest bonus, damage wise, before with how things were.
Sentinel feat seems to be streamlined and much more viable for a rogue than it used to be. biggest change is that characters with sentinel can now actually work together.
Psychic blades have equivalent damage to a pair of +3 daggers, with better throwing range. They just don't have the increase in to hit chance that magical weapons get.
@@nathans9764 having an increased hit chance increases your damage chance too. Now, that's not AS much the case as it is for bigger weapons but it's definitely a big consideration. +3 is toward end game, so let's assume level 13ish. Then, assuming 20 Dex and a target AC of 19, let's compare. A +3 to damage will do, on average, is 6.3. A +3 to damage and attacks will do, on average, is 7.8. Again, this isn't as big a difference as say, a maul, but any added damage is impacted. So on top of that you have sneak attacks dice, so, adding that The +3 to damage w/ sneak attack, does on average: 21 The +3 damage and attack w/sneak attack, does on average: 26 So, it's a difference of 5 damage per round, over a 4 round combat that's *20* less damage. This is only exacerbated by any additional sources of damage
I think the rogue was always kind of sneakily weak - the difference was the Rogue was FUN, so people didn't mind if it was weaker than some other classes. The Ranger and Monk weren't as fun for people, in addition to being weak. I wouldn't be upset if this version of the Rogue is the "weakest" class, because it still has everything fun, and like Chris says, it won't be a huge gap.
@@dwil0311 Agree. Ang honestly that's what I like most about the new Ranger - yes, its combat is more powerful and more fun, but I really love the "Expert" style of the playtest ranger. I hope that's still there in the 2024 version, even if they dropped the Expert tag as an official group.
I feel like they could have given rogues a pool of Cunning Strike dice equal to their Proficiency Bonus that they can use without subtracting from their Sneak attack, refreshing on a long rest. It feels like they mostly side-graded the rogue instead of upgrading them (which they needed a bit of). Maybe I'm delusional because rogues have my favourite class fantasy, but if they want them to be more of a utility/skill monkey class, then give them more utility and skill proficiencies (perhaps Jack of All Trades or an out-of-combat sneak attack equivalent?), and if they want them to be battlefield miscreants, then give them all Fast Hands as part of cunning action. At least nick give melee rogues a poor man's extra attack to free up their bonus action, but not having extra attack or fighting styles makes them feel out of place as 'Weapon Masters', considering that they get Weapon Mastery access.
@@Woeboez Congratulations. That's the whole reason why they made the changes they did, genius. It's called having options and not just being able to do everything just because it makes you feel good.
I hate the jump between level 3 and 9 for rogue subclasses. At least they gave us more meat in the middle, but it makes the classes samy. Apparently he did misspeak when he talked about 3 attacks per turn with nick
So the rogue overall has been made a little more interesting but not necessarily that much more powerful. The subclasses have all been given fantastic quality of life buffs that let them use their core features in new and interesting ways, which is really nice. But there is still one subclass being abused in the design process: The Assassin... One of the most under-invested-in classes in 5e2014. One of the most disliked designs in the game. There are a hundred ways to make them more interesting and more consistent but what we are seeing here is the bare minimum effort in adjustment while leaving the underlying problems unresolved. The Assassin is is still the only subclass that has zero creative decision making in combat, no unique abilities to choose from just the things you already had but inflating some of them to make the others less appealing by comparison, and this up to date shiny new rework is STILL allowed to lose their core shtick entirely based on a roll at the start of a battle. Why would I suggest to a someone to play this subclass? Why are their creative options artificially limited in this way when all the others had so many unique mechanics added? 16:50 "able to use their core shtick reliably- in most battles, unless the d20 is totally cruel to them." They KNOW the Assassin can just lose their main feature based on a pair of fumbled d20 rolls for initiative. Please, just let them CHOOSE when they want to apply that bonus damage! Why do they have to give up their plan to focus on the evil Necromancer and instead just boosted stab a random Skeleton warrior who happens to be in front of them, just based on the Necromancer rolling high on initiative. Why is it unthinkable that an assassin would want to wait for more than 6 seconds until the BBEG is distracted by their battle with three other heroes to go in for the kill? Thats the fantasy! The assassin exploits opportunity, the moment you think you are safe, the moment you get distracted and slip up - THATS when the assassin should get to say "I am destroying this fool." If they want to do that at the start of combat because there's a good target, GREAT, let them choose to do that... but if they think the party can handle the minions on their own, if they want to wait for the lieutenant to come out of hiding, for the BBEG to come out from behind the Wall of Force in the third phase of the fight... I ask why would you intentionally prevent that in the design?
Good thing they released the 50th Anniversary book where they call the OG creators like Gygax a bunch of racist misogynistic bigots before releasing the new edition. Saved me a bunch of money. Maybe you should switch to Pathfinder. I can't keep ignoring Hasbro's attitude anymore.
So i was going over the new feats. I dont think rogue is weakest for damage output because EVERYTHING is reduced. No more +10 from sharpshooter or gr wep mastery. No more paladin smite. Or at least not as good. Gloomstalker loses the extra attack. Overall i think everything is weaker but sneak attack seems the same.
I find more and more I'm liking pathfinder 2. I'm not saying DND is dead or anything like that its just wow they seem to have missed the mark on 5.5. Feels lacklustre. I should review the whole book but this is how I feel.
"The rogue is working really well." Am I alone in thinking that the rogue is not even in the top half of classes? In 5e Chris rated every subclass a C or lower. Most lower. Removing the spell school limitations for Trickster is huge. That was a stupid limitation.
@@SophiaAphrodite ranger is only good because of broken bullshit like gloomstalker, pwt/surprise, lifeberries, conjure animals, etc. literally all of this has been gutted, and rangers that didn't take broken options like that were not that powerful
25:05 Oh, thank the Lord! I can't wait to see the improvement. I'm guessing (praying) you can cast _Mage Hand_ with Cunning Action. Otherwise, it's like, "I either constantly cast _Mage Hand_ outside combat so I have it when combat breaks out, or I waste my first turn each encounter to cast _Mage Hand_ again."
I truly hate Reliable Talent. Talk about a class feature that either tempts DC inflation or the DM simply to drop certain challenges. To be clear the rogue NEEDS something like that but not the way it was designed.
@@carlcramer9269 As I said, I think they need *something* but I really hate RT, which removes drama and engenders some of the exact same problems bounded accuracy was designed to fight. I played a high level rogue for a while and found that the DM was always shopping for super high DCs precisely because there was NO drama in anything I tried to do in which I was proficient/had expertise at lower DCs. I didn't really have to make any kind of decision all that often, either. You could say this was just bad DMing but it was actually quite common in previous editions and I think it's induced by the mechanic. RT encourages adversarial relationships between DM and player and is, well, boring. (I have similar objections to other autosuccess mechanics that are in the 2014 Ranger, for the same reasons---things that aren't a challenge simply disappear from the game entirely.) This is totally off the top of my head but, maybe something like: *Rogueish Fortune* (Level 1 ability): As a rogue, you have an outrageous fortune that sometimes helps you do things that more ordinary adventurers could not do. You may add +D10 to an attack, ability check, or save. This die must be rolled after rolling the D20 but before it is resolved. You gain an additional die when you have 5 levels in Rogue, 2 additional dice when you have 11 levels in Rogue, and 3 additional dice when you have 17 levels in Rogue. This feature resets on a short or long rest. It's pretty much the opposite of reliable but instead leans into rogues being tricky and exciting. It also gives the Rogue something to be happy about at short rests. To be clear, I am sure it could be improved and would need playtesting, but unlike RT, it requires the player to be engaged.
So Envenom Weapon let’s you ignore resistance, regardless of wording I’m going to rule it also ignores advantage on poison saves so if you have a fancy poison, like Crawler Mucus, you’re more likely to land it on normally resistant enemies.
Did you see the video in the official channel and said to you nah I'll wait for treantmonk video? 😅😂
As you should!
That was my first instinct as well!
I actually got the notification for Treantmonk's video first...
I did that.
Yup.
Thanks for the shoutout Chris! Loving these analysis vids. ❤
Colby Appearance!
The biggest buff is that they can use the Nick property to attack twice every round, doubling the chances of dealing sneak attack and still being able to dash, disangage and hide because you dont use a BA anymore
Great point.
I think the optimal approach is to have a Vex weapon in one hand and a Nick weapon in the other. That way, you use Steady Aim or Hide to get advantage on your first attack and use Vex to get advantage on your second attack.
@@kclubok I'm really not sure if you can use two masteries in the same turn or if you need to have Nick in both weapons to use it
@@kongoaurius In the playtest, you could use two masteries in the same turn if you were using two different weapons. I assume that is unchanged in the final version, but we'll have to see it to be certain.
@@kclubokIt's the thing which would make dual-wielding worth doing, and make it a lot more interesting, so hopefully they kept it.
> "[Sneak attack pool] ...sometimes the rogue doesn't need all of those dice to do damage."
You wash your damn mouth out with soap. I need ALL of those dice, MORE of those dice I tell you!
Yeah it was horrible to hear. The Rogue is already the worst class in 5e, only getting passable damage with reaction sneak attacks. The gap has really widened now, especially with Fighters and Barbarians becoming so much better at skill checks.
It seems to be another case of Crawford not understanding what features are powerful, like with Brutal Critical.
I wonder if the omitted Mage Hand Legerdemain improvement is the ability to cast it as a bonus action instead of needing to cast it as an action and then control as a bonus action.
Per the DnD Beyond article: when you use the Trip option of Cunning Strike on one enemy, you can target an additional creature within 5 feet of your Mage Hand
@@Gnomeo5They mentioned that part
I was thinking that it would just be permanent.
They should also make it not require components
Been saying for a while each class should have an invocation type customization thing for a specific class feature. Smite, sneak attack, meta magic, pet, wildshape, maneuvers, rage, inspiration, martial arts etc etc
Druid would be so much more streamlined if you had wildshapes based off of "templates," and you get a certain number and type per level (i.e., swimming speed, flight, multiattack, resistance)
I, too, wish 5e had class feats.
The biggest negative is the theif is massively reliant on the DM to provide magic items to feel good.
Having Playtested this: the Assassin is still weak, the Thief is very dependent on good magic items but astonishingly powerful, Arcane Trickster is still fun, and I'm assuming the Soulknife is okay-ish.
Rogues are well built for fights against groups of Orcs, and Bosses with minions because it persistently hits the breakpoints for taking out smaller enemies, and now has options to debuff stronger ones.
The Rogue has a SERIOUS weakpoint though: it's terrible against huge solo monsters. None of the Masteries or Cunning Strikes interact with those at all, so high level play is boned. In my game about killing Dragons, the Rogue can't kill Dragons.
Off topic, what do you think about the new fighter and specifically the Eldritch Knight?
@@nicolocarolo9787 Very excited to play one, especially with the new Jump spell. Going to try a Final Fantasy dragoon (finally!)
As soon as I heard they could use magic items as a bonus action I was like "no way". Pipes of Haunting as a bonus action is wild. Have an artificer in the party and you are better at using their items than they are.
Also, best Thief Tactic: Cunning Strike Disarm, Cunning Action to pick up and stow their weapon. "Hey Ogre, Greatclub who?"
@@AwesomeWookiee cunning strike disarm is gone.
I always love your insights. You're always the 1st place I go to for my D&D content news. I hope that this schedule of daily videos doesn't overwhelm you. But I really do appreciate the videos. Thanks!
I prefer watching these Vids for the first-time with your Analysis alongside.
The position you take of overall health of the game first is what make them way more interesting.
So its confirmed... Well, someone had to be the weakest and its nice that the margin is not nearly as big as with 2014 monk, but as a Rogue player it still makes me a bit sad. Also, I will really miss disarm option.
Maybe the disarm cunning strike will be tied to the swashbuckler when it's re-released.
Someone needs to make a montage of Todd just nodding like an automaton and saying "perfect" again and again.
Or randomly laughing
wouldn't that be every video they make just as one video?
@@MrTrilbe He speaks in full sentences twice here!
That or crawford pushing his glasses up every time he makes some corny comment just before he and todd share a creepy laugh. God their vids are corporate sometimes
@@masterd4964I just hope they sell enough 2024 phb that Jeremy can afford new nose pads on his glasses!
I suspect he thinks that it makes him look like Clark Kent.
Such busy two weeks for you. Thank you for taking the time !
I feel like so much of these videos boil down to either:
A) We figured out how to format our books and make a cohesive rules system!
B) We have actually playtested our rules and have (maybe) made it balanced!
C) We have brand new ideas (which really came from older editions)!
it only took 10 years...
Why are you just whining? There is nothing substantial or productive in what you said. You're just making a bunch of (baseless) attacks, with biased wording. Stop bringing everyone down by injecting negativity where none needs to be.
@@hawkname1234 bro, they were LITERALLY bragging about creating a cohesive rules glossary in a previous video. Look, you can play 5e and enjoy it, I do to! I am just going to be honest about the quality of the product they release. And, honestly, if we want a better product, we should point it out.
I'd like to state for the record that Star Wars 5e was doing "give up Sneak Attack for specific effects" before OneD&D did. It was at 3rd level, came from your subclass, and you got 2 or 3 unique options depending on the subclass, and it always cost 2d6 dice.
It's worth noting with the Assassin's Steady Aim that, although you can't move before activating it, you don't have to immediately use the advantage. As an assassin, you can use Steady Aim at the start of your turn, move, stab someone at advantage, and move away. It probably would have been less confusing to remove all movement restrictions, but the fact that you can't move before activating it shouldn't be a problem most of the time.
I doubt that's how most tables are going to read it. Or the devs. But technically yu may be right, so it might apply at Treeantmonk's table. :o
@@carlcramer9269 True, but the movement restriction is kind of unintuitive anyway given that the whole point of the feature is to wave movement restrictions, so I could see people accidentally getting it (close to) right.
I always thought rogue was the 2nd weakest class after the monk. It makes sense after the monk buff that rogue is now the weakest.
Yep.
very much appreciate your reviews along with the reveals! thank you so much for making the extra efforts
I'm not sure how badly it would unbalance things, but I think im going to homebrew disarm as an available choice with cunning action. Really liked that as an option.
Pretty sure why they removed it was to keep the DM's job simple. If a creature has only one melee weapon in its stat block, what will it do after being disarmed?
I'm a rogue main here: My biggest problem is the dependency with the master and players. I need a master that give me advantage and my party that give me sneak attack. If I don't have this i need to find a way to deal sneak attack or just, attack. Steady aims i found a lot of table banning it because it's resolve an issue giving too much power (I saw just giving sneak attack was just fine)
Base class: having thing to do other than big damage is cool, but still doesn't give me way to achive my sneaky attack, if not with steady aim.
Assassins: assassins was quite a joke on how noob trap is it, i like the fact they give advantage on initiative, but the steady aim issue still remain. The main problem with the potion damage is that a lot of monsters are immune to that, so good luck.
Arcane Trickster: It was ok, now that the AT doesn't have any school of magic restriction is just free estate
Soulknife: I didn't like the concept and i didn't play it, i'm honest
Thief: It's good thing they give actually text law for the thief. Stay hidden after attacking is good, and a good way to the master to hate you
Overall, yeah it's good, but still reliant on others or steady aim
This is so strange. In my experience it is pretty easy to sneak attack already: have at least one melee companion or just hide with BA (towns, forests, dungeons present a lot of opportunities to hide). When I play with a rogue in party they sneak attack in 80%+ cases. And what is the problem with steady aim? Never seen it get banned by anybody. And now as SA is a base feature fewer DMs will think about banning it.
Yeah… now with weapon masters it is even easier!
I guess your tables can't say no to steady aim now at least. Imo, a rogue should be hitting sneak attack just about every turn at a table that cares about optimising at all.
@@АртемСорокин-п7ь yeah unless you are against monsters with blindsight, tremor sense, in a map with no cover, and the monster have a lot of AC. Usually i land shots, but i cast find familiar often. I saw a lot of player taking the swashbuckler for the always confirmed sneak attack on hit
I will say, there is a small chance the new monster manual is much less poison immunity focused. Would be a shadow buff to this assassin.
What he said: "What a packed week we're gonna have!"
What I heard: "What a PACT week we're gonna have!"
Here is Infranaut's tiny, day one patch I really like:
When you take Steady Aim, you decide whether you want Advantage on the roll or to increase your Sneak Attack Dice by a number of d6s equal to your Prof Bonus if the attack hits.
I feel like this adds a fun level of risk/reward to the Rogue, and in situations where you already qualify for SA you just get a damage increase.
Thanks for doing these videos, Chris! I love your observations and critiques!
Exactly my thoughts. They say "better not mess with the rogue, it was fine". To which I add : it was fine in 2014 before they gave other classes ways to do what the rogues do.
Now rogues don't really have a place in the game.
I’m shocked they spoke so highly of the 2914 Rogue. Sneak attack is great and all, but that’s their whole shtick. 1 big attack per turn and try not to die. In context then sneak attack isn’t really that much damage.
Also so disappointed that they didn’t change the levels for subclass features. 3 and 9 are too far apart. Big missed opportunity that will bite them when they have to front load all their rogue subclasses as the level 3 feature is basically all that’s relevant to most players. If the level 3 ability is a dud, or even just ok, the subclass is dead. You aren’t going to level 9 to make it work.
I worry that steady aim will remove all the fun of the rogue. Rogues never really had a problem getting their sneak attack before. Nearly any party comp would allow for an adjacent ally, and some combination of bonus action hiding and party synergy would often be enough to get advantage on top of that. Now instead of having to be situationally aware, the rogue can just stand in one place and bonus action for infinite advantage. The worst kind of fights are those when no one ever has a reason to move.
I know it’s not a common opinion, but I don’t think surprise was as broken as it was treated. It made sense in a turn-based combat system. And they didn’t have to wreck it - the simplest fix was to abandon the whole-group-or-nothing mechanic and just make it creature-to-creature. If a creature is unaware of another creature, the undetected creature has surprise on that enemy. Make surprise advantage on the first attack roll and autocrit or an enhanced crit (maybe raw dice roll of 15+) and it’s fixed.
And before someone complains about party being too favored in 5e, the rule would apply in both directions. So if you’re a DM with a party that’s getting too cocky, have a bugbear or wight sneak up on the casters from behind during an encounter to keep them humble and on their toes!
Suprise just plays badly in most groups. Having features rely on it just makes for unfun gameplay
Aware this is an optimization channel so we are going to focus on the number and core math of the class so this is probably the wrong audience but I think these changes are great, even if they don't fix the rouges damage. The rogue is one of the most popular classes in the game to play because it feels cool to sneak around due a powerful attack every turn, anecdotally multiple player in my games have played rogues in my campaigns and enjoyed them for this reason, they don't seem to care/notice that the damage doesn't scale well enough.
With that in mind the ability to turn you damage into a different effect every turn (effectively an unlimited use of 3 battle master manoeuvres) will definitely appeal to the 'casual player', add that to the fact that it will be easier to trigger sneak attack by using the 'nick' mastery and I think you will have a lot of happy players.
Wish Swashbuckler made it through. Hope it gets a modernization/revision in a future book.
It would have been nice to have a class feature to reduce the cost of sneak attack dice of cunning strike abilities around 12th level.
Calling the soul knife the supernatural assassin is weird to me. Did we forget the phantom? I feel it's much more assassin-like. It can move through objects/floors/walls.
A rule which has an exception can be a good rule.
A rule which has an exception, but that exception also has an exception is a bad rule.
And if that exception to the exception also has an exception, it's a stupid rule.
Assassin's Steady Aim might be used for crit fishing with some feats to consider.
My beautiful unarmed master isn't until next week?! I am also super curious what they did with the bard after reverting to class spell lists. Overall glad they are teasing the new features but they definitely seem to be saving the best for last ;-)
While I wish there were a few bigger improvements to the Rogue post-UA 6 similar to the other Martials, I admit it will still be more fun compared to the 2014 version. I had a pretty good experience playtesting the UA 6 Rogue, so I am still looking forward to making a new Rogue with the new rules.
Idk if rogue is gonna be weakest. W/o gwm/sharpshooter/smites, seems like 2 sneakattacks per round might be one of the better ways to deal damage competitively with spellcasters. That and maybe berzerker. Hopefully mirror image+sentinel still works. If so, that and vex seem like a solid option to be a good damage dealer in 5.24e.
how is the make a hidden attack and stay hidden option NOT an assassin option?
Is there any chance you'll do a summary video once these are over? I can't stand watching these corporate presentations, and I'm mostly here just for the couple minutes where you go over what the changes actually mean.
"Sometimes you don't need all that damage, so what if we let you do other things in trade?" - I feel like this would make more sense if most of these effects weren't only affecting the same target. Sneak attack is wasted on overkills and this does little about that. Also using the unconscious option for non-lethality seems terrible lol.
When are you doing the monk?
So disappointed they didn't fix cunning strike. 5 and 11 needed an additional dice or cunning strikes needed to just be add ons. Maybe even just give the Rogue extra attack. The Rogue SHOULD be the highest DPS class imo.
I don't know how they got on this idea that you need to be using your sneak attack dice for other things. the class already struggled in damage. Even magic weapons don't fix it very much because they get fewer attacks.
It existed as feat or varient feature in 3.5
The Rogue is meant to be the skill monkey Martial, not the DPS class?
For the psychic blades they needed to give your bonus action Blade the nick mastery. And the blades need to replace any attack. just anytime that you would be able to attack with a weapon it can be a psychic blade. Especially without magic item support I fear that is soul knife is going to be better off throwing daggers at some point at least as an off hand attack.
I would homebrew to gain the nick weapon mastery you psychic blade dice damage drops to 1d4 that of dagger to avoid other crying foul.
Time to combo hold person with an assassin in the party to give multiple rounds of extra damage.
I'm looking for a list of races/species available to use in the upcoming PHB. Can anyone help?
Never underestimate WotC's ability to drop the ball when it comes to the Monk.
The fake interview format is always a but grating, but these two manage to make it worse than any other I've seen.
Seeing Crawford laugh about correcting options from.2014 - which he was responsible for and defended vigourously for years - is super cringe.
I still think on rouge you want to start out or multiclass into a class that gets extra attack. Itll never ruin the flavor of the rouge and its just better to get extra attack. Then go a full 20 in rouge 9/10 id say.
What is with the weirdly clickbaity negative subtitles for all the classes this last week? It's weird for a channel normally so positive and forward thinking. Anywho, you do you. Got the engagement in the end I guess.
I’m betting that the other change to Arcane Trickster you mentioned is that they can use the Hand for Somatic components.
i wish they scaled sneak attack dice.
17:45 they just fall of a wagon? Or you discover you had them all along?
We got the psy warrior and soulknife as main subclasses now, are they leaning more on psychic powers now?
Yes, they spoke of more psychic options in 5.1.
Forcing rogue into being a ranged class is disappointing. Feel like they need more sneak attack dice at higher level, or at least increase the dice to d8 or d10's as you get higher level. Rogue damage drops off after level 5, and is abysmal after level 15.
Rogue is the new monk?
Maybe this can be your title when you get to go in depth. Appreciate these breakdowns!
I had accidentally left TH-cam on 0.25 speed. I was quite concerned for your health there for a moment, Chris. Glad to see it was my mistake 😂
Now you know what I sound like drunk!
That’s rich!😂😂😂
Saw the DND channel post the video an hour ago, started watching, and was like “wait did treantmonk post his reaction already?” and was pleasantly surprised
Is it really a "pact" week if Warlock is only showing up on Tuesday?
Nice.
Everyone take 1D4 psychic damage.
Loving your coverage of the PHB 2024 stuff! Love the comparisons between UA, Final 2024, and 2014!
One thing I hope: the weapon list is larger. In the playtests, there were only three options on Finesse weapons: Vex on a D8 Rapier, Nick and Vex on light weapons, and Slow on a d4 Whip. So there's literally one option on a D8 weapon. It wasn't a problem before that 5e had ridiculously small weapon list compared to most other TTRPGs, because there were so few traits a weapon can have. With Mastery, there's actually a reason to have a big weapon list now. Something like a D8 Slashing Finesse Saber with Slow, or some sort of club or flail with Finesse so a Rogue can gain Sap, would go a long way.
I feel like they should give rogues Sneak Attack on ALL weapons they get as default proficiencies. Longsword + simple weapons would give Rogues a taste of what every other martial (I think) already has.
@@bigguy679 That'd work. There's no doubt a lot of ways to accomplish it. I love that Brutal Ruffian sorts of Rogues who are strength based are reasonably well supported in 4e or Pathfinder 2e.
But I still think the weapon list from the playtest needed at least a few more options. A d8 one-handed Slow weapon would be great for sword-and-board tank-type characters, a useful control option.
I really want clubs added as a weapon they can sneak attack with because it makes sense for criminals to use such a weapon to strike an unexpected blow.
@@МаратГабдуллин-б5ф maybe I’d have been better off saying earlier D&D editions. Just compare 5e to 4e, 3/3.5, AD&D 2e, Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e. Far fewer weapon choices in 5e. And that was fine for 10 years of 5e, but Mastery changes things. The weapon list overall is far too small now.
There's the nick property, so they still have 3 sneak attack attempts at level 1 on each turn if they have advantage (one from the from the regular attack, one from the extra attack from nick with the second weapon and the third from the bonus action with the first light weapon), so if the first light weapon have another weapon mastery property, even without multiclassing, they can use 1 mastery property twice and do 1 sneak attack in a turn, so rogues have less chance of missing their one big attack and waste their turn. And at level 5 with cunning strike, you can combo it with weapon mastery and apply 2 (1 from weapon mastery and 1 from cunning strike) debuffs, and at level 11 you can apply 3 debuffs, so rogue without multiclassing is much more consistent and versetile now, it might not even need multiclassing to get extra attack anymore, and that's without considering the subclass changes.
Worst part of the rogue is your second subclass feature coming at level 9, that is what really kills the class
I read that people were expecting a short rest resource. I thought it made sense, I remember they said that every class now had a reason to take a short rest.
I was too.
The new rogue is fine, if you leave it exactly as is and also add a short rest resource that lets them add extra damage on a sneak attack. Without that it's far, far too weak. Why would I play a rogue instead of just a dex fighter flavored as a rogue? A valor bard will probably end up being capable of out-dpring a rogue if they build right
@@override367A free use per short rest of a Cunning Strike would be good?
It'd also strongly entice players to try them out instead of favoring damage out of habit
@@zTom_ 2d6 free to use on cunning strike each short rest would be cool
I'd have preferred something slightly more creative than what's effectively just a damage boost. One interesting suggestion I saw was Stroke of Luck earlier, but as a 10 instead of a 20. I think you could have that, but then at level 11 it changes to the rogue's level, eventually becoming 20, and then you add another small feature on top of that capstone.
With rogues, so much of their overall balance seems to be in strong repeatable (does not rely on spell slots) out-of-combat utility. It's not that rogue utility is useless, and it can be very valuable the table in a lot of circumstances. It's just that however much WotC thinks it balances out over the course of a campaign, balance in fights is what matters most to most players. This isn't Pathfinder 2e where skills are actually useful in combat, and having twice as many skill perks can matter.
"balance in fights is what matters most to most players"
Having played for over 40 years now, I have not decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
DnD can and should focus on combat, as combat is one of the more fun things to do.
But there are several classes, such as the Rogue and Ranger, that provide out of combat value. Bard too. How much or how little really depends on the campaign, and should be discussed before hand so players know if they are building a class that can have it's moment to shine. Nobody likes sitting at sesh after sesh with nothing to do.
@@jmnemonic99 What strikes me is that it feels bad if session after session you either have nothing to do outside combat, but the same is also true if you have nothing to do inside combat. That’s the big innovation of damage Cantrips-a wizard with no spells can feel like they’re contributing. I’m glad folks like Barbarians and Fighters are getting a little bit more out-of-combat utility.
Pathfinder 2e did a lot for this with the 3 action system and multiple attack penalties. You don’t want to spend 3 actions attacking in most cases because the miss chances keep going up, so folks use utility skills to debuff enemies. Rogues have twice as many skill increases and skill feats, so they can do more different more things well in combat, deception tricks, intimidation tricks, and so forth. The impact of any individual skill use is small, but that’s ok. Putting small debuffs on enemies adds up when everyone is tossing one in there in addition to their attack each turn.
@@jmnemonic99 The issue is that skills and what not are cool but others can use them as well and most parties can cover the essential skills without ever considering a rogue. Like you said Ranger and Bard also cover a lot of out of combat utility while retaining spells slots and combat prowess due to said spells slots.
Rogue is just the posterchild for whats wrong with DnD martials, WotC doesnt want to raise them to super human status.
So Rogues can just hide, they cant turn invisible because thats magic and they dont have magic.
Rogues can't shadowstep because blink is a spell and they dont have magic.
Rogues also get it the worst because they are also not a combat class so they can't even be a dpr monster or meatshield.
All the utility a rogue can provide is skills and skills aren't magic and thus have strong limitations in most games bound by "realism" compared to a wizard who can just cast spells that do the same thing but bend the laws of physics and reason.
@@jmnemonic99 This is why I warn people away from Rogue. If you want utility, you're better off going Bard, Artificer, or Ranger. All three of these have repeatable and low resource utility value. But they can also do this while being an asset in combat. It's not fun being in a combat when your character is making virtually zero impact.
I do think one of the big issues with rogue being balanced around 5e's out-of-combat play is that the designers barely have a conception of what that play even looks like outside of spells. And folks might argue that's a good thing, that it better enables roleplay and active problem solving to not have icky rules in the way, but it means that there's next to no mechanical support for any idea a group can have about out-of-combat play without making a lot of assumptions. Many games with a lot less cruft have a better idea of how explorative or narrative play work on a fundamental level---limited skill checks and dungeon turns in OSR games, building up resources in Lancer, gaining opportunities and using Fabula Points in Fabula Ultima---and having a baseline of play makes it much easier to work with those systems in out-of-combat play than 5e can generally offer.
The fact that the designers have next to no idea on how out-of-combat play, and by extension skills, are meant to work in 5e means they can't really design interesting options for either---Jack of All Trades, Expertise, and Reliable Talent are ultimately boring designs which just tweak numbers---and players don't get to choose any interesting options either unless they have access to spellcasting, which are often overtuned to simply solve problems as opposed to being a piece of a solution.
"doing well, seem to like". Bro it's 3,487 views in the first 43 minutes, we are CHOMPING at the BIT for these videos. You clarify everything they say... now up to 3532 / 44 Minutes.
Fair enough, they are rocking!
*champing
@@jonahsalyers5979 it is champing, i bet that's a fairly common misnomer, is to say chomping.
@@LithmusEarth Nah you're def on the right track. Champing on the bit is the OG saying, but champing is a direct synonym to chomping AND the google ngram has chomping at the bit as the more common usage in publications.
@@Gn0mestradamus Those are some very kind words from out on the internet. I appreciate the insight. Thank you for your time. I even at the time I made that second comment or whatever I looked it up, the internet says it was champing as the idiom.
I always thought it would be neat if the assassin was the defacto damage dealer, change their sneak to d8s, maybe give bonus "cunning points" so they can do some of the lower sneak attack options for free, as if they rolled like 1-3 extra sneak attack without the damage. I understand why they don't change the sneak attacks to d8s as it's very hard to get a bunch (like 10+) of d8s for most people
You really only need one d8. Roll it multiple times and add as you roll, take the average damage and multiply it, or just roll half the times then double the sum. There's a lot of ways you can do multi-dice rolls with a single die, and honestly it's easier for some tables due to the space it saves.
I think it'd be cool for Assassin's to specialize in first round burst, so every ability works for round 1. At level 3 they get advantage on initiative and attack rolls during round 1, maybe it would be nice for level 9 to give you an extra attack during round 1, might even have been cool if they got that old thief capstone where you get a second turn during round 1 for.
It's pretty ironic that Treantmonk's favorite class to be wizard and not a certain unarmed martial class, lol
Maybe he's just branching out.
@@blackshard641 Leafing through the comments and replies I was able to uproot your clever pun.
You reach level 3 choose assassin and then out of thin air a pouch of makeup appears as well as some vial of poisons.
Or you just say that you make your own. Which is the far more sensible explanation.
Of all the classes, the Rogue managing to get something expensive for free, no questions asked, is the most believable.
@@CJWproductions It's the 'appearing out of nowhere' that's just immersion breaking to me. Rather than fixing poisons and kits at baseline to encourage their use, they've just folded the benefit into the class as being indistinguishable to "you just magically deal poison damage now".
Poisons should have been an augmentation option; anyone regardless of class can buy, harvest, or craft (give tool proficiencies a reason to exist).
The rogue already had the thematics in their existing class features to set them up the the 'best' poison users.
Fast Hands (or some similar variation depending on subclass) could easily have been elaborated as being ideal for applying poisons to weapons more efficiently in the action economy.
No, we just get them operating on videogame logic instead.
"You have poisons now. They're better that basic poisons from adventuring gear, so that item's now pointless. But it's not an item you have to make/carry/hide. It's not something you can give to an ally or apply to traps, it only exists when you specifically make a sneak attack. Never mind if the DM sets up a story where the rogue is disarmed for narrative reasons; the rogue is just able to produce poison at the moment of attack anyway.... because magic?"
better yet: the poison exists in this Schrödinger's state of being there but not being there at the same time.
You have poisons you can use for attacks... but you can't trade it, or sell it.
It's better than the 100 gp basic poison, and you have infinite amounts... but you cannot part with in under any situation.
This is more thieve's cant. Worthless RP BS to say they made a buff to the class.
Love the swashbuckler… really going to miss it
Me too. Maybe we'll see a revised option on a future book?
Noooo that’s rubbish I like swashbuckler
Pretty sure you'll still be able to use the Xanathar's guide swashbuckler with the new version of the rogue. And it wouldn't surprise me if they made a revised version in the future
The swashbuckler will still be legal, it just didn't get updated.
But I get your meaning.
I know this is a hot take, but I like Xanathar's version more than the UA one. So I'm fine with it not being in the new PHB.
Came to watch this before seeing Colby’s assassin video only to see zero likes, glance at the post time and see 31 seconds…
Rogue video hasn't dropped till I see a notification for your video about it. But that's just me😁.
They should have been adding cunning strikes features, not removing them (disarm). I worry about the value of the trip cunning strike given how easy it is for other martials to use topple more often (with extra attack) and without giving up damage. Also it would have been cool if soulknife got a cunning strikes feature that caused the frightened condition or something. Finally, I worry that rogues won’t have enough damage compared to other classes. I wonder if sneak attack should be d8s or should get an extra d6 at each tier level or something.
The visible excitement when you said Warlock tomorrow is the best thing I’ve heard all week
I consider treantmonk's react as the oficial release
He defintely gives more details.
It's interesting to me to hear them talk about the old rogue with such high regard because it's always struck me as being very mild in capability, so very glad Chris' commentary is there to keep me feeling slightly more sane
in the optimisation community it was always seen as incredibly underwhelming outside of the context of getting a few levels in it on a different main class, and was a contender for the worst class in the game already. I personally dont see those announced changes changing it much
Yeah the causal player and optimizer perspective on this class were WILDLY different. I believe it was the second or third most played class in the game so I can understand why they didn't want to change it too much? But at the same time, look what they did to the fighter which is THE most played class lmao. Honestly they could just through extra attack on the rogue and it would have kept up with the balance changes to the other martials. I may just homebrew that...
The Rogue is in an odd place, because it's a class that's objectively pretty bad, but it FEELS good to play.
It doesn't scale well at higher levels, its primary damage source is situational despite being balanced around happening every turn, and skill monkeys really aren't that valuable when spells exist to just bypass many skill checks.
But with that said, it feels fucking awesome to roll so many dice on an attack and to add such an obscenely large number to a skill check so that failure is impossible.
It's like the opposite of the Ranger, in that sense.
Rogues kind of get extra attack if they're holding a dagger in the off-hand...
But something like a 1/sr or pb/sr ability to just add your sneak attack dice to a hit whether it qualifies or not, or some other QOL or damage boost would have been nice.
layman players and DM's see big number on skill check and barely competitive melee combat DPR and go "OOOOH it's so strong!" even though Skills in 5E have very few RAW applications and are really just the DM making up stuff based on vibes...
I still feel the Thief is a watered down Arcane Trickster. Thief can climb? Arcane Trickster can spider climb and more spells. Thief can bonus action sleight of hand? Arcane Trickster can mage hand sleight of hand at range and more... the bonus action magic item is too DM and campaign dependent :(
If the rogue is only slightly weaker on DPR, then that should be ok. The extra capability for added effects as well as the defense options makes the rogue base class well rounded. The extra skills and expertise make the rogue useful in many cases. Weak for one aspect is balanced by versatility in all the others.
When will wotc learn that sneak attack doesn’t do very much damage?
It is add on damage to your attack, it is not meant to do a lot of damage. It is damage no one else can do.
I have a few thoughts about this. I think the most important one is that they can't make sneak attack deal great damage on its own because they have to balance around the fact that teammates can give you a reaction sneak attack. Sneak attack kinda has to be a little bit sub-par because of that.
I see it like this, I've never heard a non optimizer complain about the rogue damage, and optimized parties with a rogue will enable off turn sneak attacks, so everyone is pretty happy. Does that make sense?
I wish they’d just return to multipliers. Start with 2x, work up to 5x at high level. Except assassins get to 7x
@@SophiaAphrodite of which you get 1, sneak attack doesnt even compete with classes that get 2 weapon attacks after level 5 which is every other martial.
So yes everyone else is doing that damage and they get to do it over 2 hits so if they miss 1 they still do half damage unlike the rogue who loses a round of damage.
A problem I had with the 2014 rogue which seemed made worse by UA (so probably not changed much by release) is a feeling of "Rather than a pure rogue, I can build a rogue/fighter who will be better at _everything_ than my pure rogue".
Every class is better if you add fighter… 😂
@@haukionkannel"Fighter is the bacon of multiclassing" - Dungeon Dudes
Yeah, been playing a Rogue for almost 3 years in a long-term campaign. And by Rogue, I mean my first 4 levels were in Rogue and the rest have been in Gloomstalker Ranger lol.
@@haukionkannel Nah, most classes don't combine as well as rogue and fighter, because for a caster you're delaying spellcasting, and for a non-caster you're usually getting redundancy in extra attack, which is a huge part of your power budget. Rogue and fighter have features that both stack and are non-redundant (e.g. expertise and tactical mind work together just fine). Other multiclasses also work well for rogue but are more likely to interfere with your theme.
That is so true. The missing second attack makes them already much weaker in 2014. The new update with trading sneak dice does not feel well here. They should have given those options without the trade-off and also add the swashbuckler with a second attack at least.
Soul Knife should take the Sentinel Feat. Since the "psychic blades" feature now works with opportunity attacks specifically, and given the rewording as pointed out by Colby in his thief rogue build, you can prock sneak attack multiple times with your core feature more often (if an ally within five feet gets attacked, for example.)
I've enjoyed your videos for years. Unfortunately, I have no interest in buying the new WOTC material. Originally, they said it was just an update and it would be backwards compatible. The more I hear , it's anything but compatible. I understand that creaters who depend on this for an income need to play the WOTC game but I'm out. When a company continues to crap on its community, they no longer deserve our money. Good luck to you Chris. I hope the new release fails miserably but you creaters are able to salvage a living.
I'm not usually saying a lot on these sorts of things, but I'm wondering if the rogue will have better feat compatibility with the new iteration, since that 3rd feat coming in at 10th level wasn't the biggest bonus, damage wise, before with how things were.
Sentinel feat seems to be streamlined and much more viable for a rogue than it used to be.
biggest change is that characters with sentinel can now actually work together.
The most requested soulknife feature wasn't about opportunity attacks, it was about scaling damage on the psychic blades.
Not sure that's true
I'm curious if the fix to Opportunity attacks will fix the Extra Attacks issue as well.
IT does not need to damage scale.
Psychic blades have equivalent damage to a pair of +3 daggers, with better throwing range. They just don't have the increase in to hit chance that magical weapons get.
@@nathans9764 having an increased hit chance increases your damage chance too. Now, that's not AS much the case as it is for bigger weapons but it's definitely a big consideration.
+3 is toward end game, so let's assume level 13ish. Then, assuming 20 Dex and a target AC of 19, let's compare.
A +3 to damage will do, on average, is 6.3.
A +3 to damage and attacks will do, on average, is 7.8.
Again, this isn't as big a difference as say, a maul, but any added damage is impacted. So on top of that you have sneak attacks dice, so, adding that
The +3 to damage w/ sneak attack, does on average: 21
The +3 damage and attack w/sneak attack, does on average: 26
So, it's a difference of 5 damage per round, over a 4 round combat that's *20* less damage. This is only exacerbated by any additional sources of damage
I think the rogue was always kind of sneakily weak - the difference was the Rogue was FUN, so people didn't mind if it was weaker than some other classes. The Ranger and Monk weren't as fun for people, in addition to being weak. I wouldn't be upset if this version of the Rogue is the "weakest" class, because it still has everything fun, and like Chris says, it won't be a huge gap.
I also think people greatly underappreciate and undervalue the amount of utility the rogue brings to the table outside of combat.
@@dwil0311 Agree. Ang honestly that's what I like most about the new Ranger - yes, its combat is more powerful and more fun, but I really love the "Expert" style of the playtest ranger. I hope that's still there in the 2024 version, even if they dropped the Expert tag as an official group.
I feel like they could have given rogues a pool of Cunning Strike dice equal to their Proficiency Bonus that they can use without subtracting from their Sneak attack, refreshing on a long rest. It feels like they mostly side-graded the rogue instead of upgrading them (which they needed a bit of). Maybe I'm delusional because rogues have my favourite class fantasy, but if they want them to be more of a utility/skill monkey class, then give them more utility and skill proficiencies (perhaps Jack of All Trades or an out-of-combat sneak attack equivalent?), and if they want them to be battlefield miscreants, then give them all Fast Hands as part of cunning action. At least nick give melee rogues a poor man's extra attack to free up their bonus action, but not having extra attack or fighting styles makes them feel out of place as 'Weapon Masters', considering that they get Weapon Mastery access.
Not everything in D&D has to be about doing damage.
@@spooderous No, but when most of what the class can do in combat IS damage, you want it to be up to par.
@@Woeboez Congratulations. That's the whole reason why they made the changes they did, genius. It's called having options and not just being able to do everything just because it makes you feel good.
I hate the jump between level 3 and 9 for rogue subclasses. At least they gave us more meat in the middle, but it makes the classes samy. Apparently he did misspeak when he talked about 3 attacks per turn with nick
So the rogue overall has been made a little more interesting but not necessarily that much more powerful. The subclasses have all been given fantastic quality of life buffs that let them use their core features in new and interesting ways, which is really nice.
But there is still one subclass being abused in the design process: The Assassin... One of the most under-invested-in classes in 5e2014. One of the most disliked designs in the game. There are a hundred ways to make them more interesting and more consistent but what we are seeing here is the bare minimum effort in adjustment while leaving the underlying problems unresolved.
The Assassin is is still the only subclass that has zero creative decision making in combat, no unique abilities to choose from just the things you already had but inflating some of them to make the others less appealing by comparison, and this up to date shiny new rework is STILL allowed to lose their core shtick entirely based on a roll at the start of a battle.
Why would I suggest to a someone to play this subclass? Why are their creative options artificially limited in this way when all the others had so many unique mechanics added?
16:50 "able to use their core shtick reliably- in most battles, unless the d20 is totally cruel to them."
They KNOW the Assassin can just lose their main feature based on a pair of fumbled d20 rolls for initiative. Please, just let them CHOOSE when they want to apply that bonus damage!
Why do they have to give up their plan to focus on the evil Necromancer and instead just boosted stab a random Skeleton warrior who happens to be in front of them, just based on the Necromancer rolling high on initiative.
Why is it unthinkable that an assassin would want to wait for more than 6 seconds until the BBEG is distracted by their battle with three other heroes to go in for the kill?
Thats the fantasy! The assassin exploits opportunity, the moment you think you are safe, the moment you get distracted and slip up - THATS when the assassin should get to say "I am destroying this fool."
If they want to do that at the start of combat because there's a good target, GREAT, let them choose to do that... but if they think the party can handle the minions on their own, if they want to wait for the lieutenant to come out of hiding, for the BBEG to come out from behind the Wall of Force in the third phase of the fight... I ask why would you intentionally prevent that in the design?
Good thing they released the 50th Anniversary book where they call the OG creators like Gygax a bunch of racist misogynistic bigots before releasing the new edition. Saved me a bunch of money. Maybe you should switch to Pathfinder. I can't keep ignoring Hasbro's attitude anymore.
So i was going over the new feats.
I dont think rogue is weakest for damage output because EVERYTHING is reduced. No more +10 from sharpshooter or gr wep mastery. No more paladin smite. Or at least not as good. Gloomstalker loses the extra attack. Overall i think everything is weaker but sneak attack seems the same.
I find more and more I'm liking pathfinder 2. I'm not saying DND is dead or anything like that its just wow they seem to have missed the mark on 5.5. Feels lacklustre. I should review the whole book but this is how I feel.
"The rogue is working really well." Am I alone in thinking that the rogue is not even in the top half of classes? In 5e Chris rated every subclass a C or lower. Most lower. Removing the spell school limitations for Trickster is huge. That was a stupid limitation.
Fingers crossed for the Ranger.
i've already accepted they've massacred it lol
It was already OP
@@SophiaAphrodite ranger is only good because of broken bullshit like gloomstalker, pwt/surprise, lifeberries, conjure animals, etc. literally all of this has been gutted, and rangers that didn't take broken options like that were not that powerful
I feel like everything will always have advantage, everything will always hit, and characters should just roll damage to save time.
Was Swashbuckler not extremely popular? I don't see why it was dropped. Seems there is a preoccupation wity psionics in the '24 PHB.
Missing the swashbuckler too
Arguably one of the three weakest classes...
"This is fine"--WOTC
Not a fan of cunning strike / sneak attack trade-offs. Makes the rogue much weaker compared to the updates from other classes.
Not substantially boosting Rogue is simply baffling to me. Disappointing.
25:05 Oh, thank the Lord! I can't wait to see the improvement. I'm guessing (praying) you can cast _Mage Hand_ with Cunning Action. Otherwise, it's like, "I either constantly cast _Mage Hand_ outside combat so I have it when combat breaks out, or I waste my first turn each encounter to cast _Mage Hand_ again."
Then again, you may want to cast Mage Hand so often that it is always active. :) Just have to convince the GM of this.
I truly hate Reliable Talent. Talk about a class feature that either tempts DC inflation or the DM simply to drop certain challenges.
To be clear the rogue NEEDS something like that but not the way it was designed.
Reliable talent at lower level is what allows a rogue to keep peace with all the non-combat utility the martial classes now get.
@@carlcramer9269 As I said, I think they need *something* but I really hate RT, which removes drama and engenders some of the exact same problems bounded accuracy was designed to fight. I played a high level rogue for a while and found that the DM was always shopping for super high DCs precisely because there was NO drama in anything I tried to do in which I was proficient/had expertise at lower DCs. I didn't really have to make any kind of decision all that often, either. You could say this was just bad DMing but it was actually quite common in previous editions and I think it's induced by the mechanic. RT encourages adversarial relationships between DM and player and is, well, boring. (I have similar objections to other autosuccess mechanics that are in the 2014 Ranger, for the same reasons---things that aren't a challenge simply disappear from the game entirely.)
This is totally off the top of my head but, maybe something like:
*Rogueish Fortune* (Level 1 ability): As a rogue, you have an outrageous fortune that sometimes helps you do things that more ordinary adventurers could not do. You may add +D10 to an attack, ability check, or save. This die must be rolled after rolling the D20 but before it is resolved. You gain an additional die when you have 5 levels in Rogue, 2 additional dice when you have 11 levels in Rogue, and 3 additional dice when you have 17 levels in Rogue. This feature resets on a short or long rest.
It's pretty much the opposite of reliable but instead leans into rogues being tricky and exciting. It also gives the Rogue something to be happy about at short rests.
To be clear, I am sure it could be improved and would need playtesting, but unlike RT, it requires the player to be engaged.
So Envenom Weapon let’s you ignore resistance, regardless of wording I’m going to rule it also ignores advantage on poison saves so if you have a fancy poison, like Crawler Mucus, you’re more likely to land it on normally resistant enemies.