D&D (2024) Rogues and sneak attacks... Must all rogues have it?

[Horwath]

Sneak attack is baked into rogue class for ages now and do all rogues want it?

There is a lack of a class that is a pure skill monkey without this backstabing knee capping fighting style.

It would be a hassle to make a completely new class and rogue does the skill monkey base really good.

It just needs more of it.


Variant:
every time you would get +1d6 increase for sneak attack(even at 1st level) you can pick instead;

1. bonus skill proficiency and one choice of one tool, language or weapon.
or
2. gain expertise in one skill or tool that you are proficient.


this variant would seriously lack combat potential so maybe it would not be a good idea in 2-4 party size, but this would be ideal 5th character in a party, especially if there is lots of "gain 2 skills at 1st level classes" in the rest of the party.

ofc, you can pick only half of your sneak attack dice for this to keep some combat presence or mix it however you want.

 

[wedgeski]

Why do you feel the game needs a "pure skill monkey"...?

 

[delericho]

I would be really wary of removing combat ability from a class to beef up skills. If you're specifically not wanting sneak attack, I might instead be tempted to try to persuade your DM to let you play another class but add some of the skill monkey elements of the Rogue.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Entirely feasible houserule. If you can run it and try it out and see how it works, I don't foresee any immediate major unbalanced problems. But whether hamstringing your abilities in combat scenes is worth the additional gain in non-combat scenes ends up being beneficial to the enjoyment of the Rogue player is probably going to be greatly dependent on the type of game being run and the style of the DM's play.

Speaking personally... I find the d20 roll to be the much greater impact on skill use than whatever bonuses or modifiers the character has from proficiency and/or expertise. So a character gaining more of them still doesn't make them seem like more of a so-called "skill monkey" per se. Yes, the Rogue will do better on average over a wider swathe of different skill checks... but that won't impact the number of times they're still rolling 1s and 2s and blowing their checks. And those events have a much more psychological impact than the entire suite of skill check rolls over the entirety of the campaign where the Rogue will have ended up doing slightly statistically better than before.

 

[Horwath]

Why do you feel the game needs a "pure skill monkey"...?

because I have seen various abominations of Rogue(scout)/Bard(lore)/Cleric(knowledge) to get to that goal...

Me being guilty of one myself, haha

This would be simpler...

 

[DEFCON 1]

because I have seen various abominations of Rogue(scout)/Bard(lore)/Cleric(knowledge) to get to that goal...

Me being guilty of one myself, haha

This would be simpler...

Yeah, in a case like this... where the options are a player creating a Frankenstein's Monster of a multiclass that cares not for the narrative of why the PC has these three classes... and just doing some class feature exchanges for a single class to give the player what they want... I'll always go with the latter.

If the player is willing to give up combat ability for a wider skill ability, I have no problem with that... provided that the Rogue's background and backstory at least tries to tip their cap as to why they know so much "stuff". If you're going to make a true jack-of-all-trades type of character, I'd at least hope you actually played that up in the fiction too. Bard players often do it... so I'd hope this Rogue did the same.

 

[Horwath]

Yeah, in a case like this... where the options are a player creating a Frankenstein's Monster of a multiclass that cares not for the narrative of why the PC has these three classes... and just doing some class feature exchanges for a single class to give the player what they want... I'll always go with the latter.

If the player is willing to give up combat ability for a wider skill ability, I have no problem with that... provided that the Rogue's background and backstory at least tries to tip their cap as to why they know so much "stuff". If you're going to make a true jack-of-all-trades type of character, I'd at least hope you actually played that up in the fiction too. Bard players often do it... so I'd hope this Rogue did the same.

my character had a concept of polymath and spymaster dealing in information,

only damaging spell was cantrip vicious mockery.

all other spells divination, illusion, enchantment and avoiding damage.

 

[DEFCON 1]

my character had a concept of polymath and spymaster dealing in information,

only damaging spell was cantrip vicious mockery.

all other spells divination, illusion, enchantment and avoiding damage.

Something like this, I'd be all-in on helping you get to where you wanted to go.

 

[Minigiant]

The problem isn't that all rogues must have sneak attack.
It's that all skill monkeys are rogues.

Really, there should be more classes in 5e. Shoehorning every skill user into the "underworld crime class" wasn't a great idea to me an a forced trope D&D and D&D clones need to eventually get away from.

 

[Horwath]

The problem isn't that all rogues must have sneak attack.
It's that all skill monkeys are rogues.

Really, there should be more classes in 5e. Shoehorning every skill user into the "underworld crime class" wasn't a great idea to me an a forced trope D&D and D&D clones need to eventually get away from.

when you remove sneak attack from rogue, you remove most of the underworld baggage, just give option that you can take any tool or language instead of starting thief tools and extra language instead of thieves cant and you have pure expert.
Just dont take assassin or thief subclass.
Mastermind, inquisitive, arcane trickster and even scout work great as subclasses for this option.