What drives a poor reputation for the Rogue class?

[LudicSavant]

So what's your argument for it being, as you put it, 'very strong?'

Welcome to 5e D&D, where certain character considerations (like the above) are only granted to (certain) spellcasting classes, or specific magic items, and if you're not a spellcasting class or don't have access to the right magic item(s), get F'd.
Assassin is not immune to this.

You sure aren't making it sound very strong here.

Well sure. The subclass is "Assassin," not "Imposter Specialist," or something. You're supposed to be able to get in, murder your target, and get out without being caught. Now, as a whole, is the Assassin good at this? Not really

Or here.

Soulknife has repeatedly come up as a much better subclass than the Assassin. I won't disagree with that, generally speaking

Or here.

Rogues get Slippery Mind, which covers this concern. Sure, they don't get it until quite late, and it's not an amazingly strong feature for evading magic, but it's about as good as anybody else (who isn't a high level spellcaster) gets.

You just described a few of the reasons it does not cover this concern.

That's gonna be determined, case-by-case, between you and your DM. Do you just lazily say, "I use Infiltration Expertise and have this new fake identity I'd like to use now," or do you discuss the nitty-gritty of it and hash these things out?

I discuss the nitty-gritty and hash these things out.

[Psyren]

Soulknife has repeatedly come up as a much better subclass than the Assassin. I won't disagree with that, generally speaking, but I would like to know how a Soulknife handles your list of critiques? How would a Soulknife:
•Learn relevant languages.
•Pass themselves off as exotic creatures like succubi or giants.
•Know things that the fake identity should know.
•Evade divinations or other means of supernatural detection.
•Etc.

That's just it, Soulknife has a number of these gaps too. (Even the language one - their telepathy bypasses it and works on unwilling targets, but I wouldn't be about to go around talking into the heads of strangers unless I had to.)

But you know what their subclass does give them? The ability to teleport and turn invisible, as well as turn just about any failed skill checks into successes. You can bypass quite a lot of the checkpoints where the weaknesses you listed might come into play by doing those things. Who cares about crafting an ironclad persona to let you wander around the King's gala all night without being questioned, when you can blink up to his balcony and wait for him in the privy instead, then teleport out again once the deed is done? Garden-variety skill checks should be more than enough to get me past the perimeter if the outside wall is too far from it (sure, you can have all my weapons officer *snerk*). And I didn't even need 7 days of prep time to do it.

[LudicSavant]

Soulknife has repeatedly come up as a much better subclass than the Assassin. I won't disagree with that, generally speaking, but I would like to know how a Soulknife handles your list of critiques? How would a Soulknife:
•Learn relevant languages.
•Pass themselves off as exotic creatures like succubi or giants.
•Know things that the fake identity should know.
•Evade divinations or other means of supernatural detection.
•Etc.

Soulknives have features that offer some but not all of these things. In addition to features that do a whole lot else (which not only can give you an alternate solution to infiltration problems, but also takes more pressure off other party member resources so that your teammates have more room to help fill in some more of your gaps).

For example,

• They can significantly boost checks to create disguises and forgeries for their allies in addition to themselves, using the psi-die.
• They can significantly boost checks to know or discover information, using the psi-die. They can also use a telepathic link to someone who isn't present, who may know or be able to look up or divine information.
• They can use telepathy, which is helpful for passing yourself off as a number of exotic creatures (such as succubi). It is also extremely helpful for coordinating schemes with your team in general.

All of the above is just part of the level 3 feature.

[Schwann145]

So what's your argument for it being, as you put it, 'very strong?'

Based on this post, there seems to be a conflict on what "it" is referring to. You seem to be asking me to defend the Assassin as a very strong subclass. I've never been doing that; I've been defending two of it's abilities in a vacuum.

The Infiltration Expertise ability allows you to bypass the dice rolling mechanic. Considering dice rolling determines if you can fail, bypassing that, by definition, is "very strong." It could also be argued that it allows you to put together your false identities both faster and cheaper than if you were creating them via skill use. Seven days sounds like a lot until you break down *everything* it would require you to do in order to have an equally strong cover identity. You could easily be looking at multiple weeks of effort and certainly more than 25gp in expenses.

The Imposter ability is another ability that allows you to generally bypass the dice rolling mechanic. Very strong. And on the rare occasion(s) you do have to roll your dice in relation, you're guaranteed to have Advantage on the roll.

"Is the Assassin a good subclass for Rogue in D&D 5e?" is an entirely different question.

All of the above is just part of the level 3 feature.

I can't help but notice you aren't really addressing the same criticisms that you presented for Assassin.
Using the psi-dice to set higher DCs don't help you learn languages, for instance. Neither does creating psychic weapons. Being telepathic helps you convince someone that you're an "exotic" creature, but based on your assumptions for 13th+ level gameplay, that could mean dozens of potential creatures. You certainly aren't convincing anyone that you're any one specific creature with telepathy, and certainly not a creature that requires size adjustments and isn't known for having telepathy, like a giant.

If you're going to make specific points against Assassin as an infiltrator, and then can't provide solutions to those exact criticisms for a different subclass, that's a pretty weak argument.

[LudicSavant]

I can't help but notice you aren't really addressing the same criticisms that you presented for Assassin.
Using the psi-dice to set higher DCs don't help you learn languages, for instance.

It does, however, address other bullet points that were on the list, which you seem to have suddenly forgotten about.

[Schwann145]

It does, however, address other bullet points that were on the list, which you seem to have suddenly forgotten about.

But I asked you specifically to address your own criticisms, including learning extra languages for cover identities.
You have failed to do that, yet you were comfortable holding it against the Assassin. Why?

as well as turn just about any failed skill checks into successes.

You seem to be really hamming up the Psi-Dice's value. They're essentially a selfish Bardic Inspiration, yet I've never heard anyone refer to BA as strong enough to "turn just about any failed checks into successes."

You can bypass quite a lot of the checkpoints where the weaknesses you listed might come into play by doing those things. Who cares about crafting an ironclad persona to let you wander around the King's gala all night without being questioned, when you can blink up to his balcony and wait for him in the privy instead, then teleport out again once the deed is done?

Yes, I'm sure you can teleport that close to royalty that you're trying to assassinate. Definitely. No magical protections; why would they?

[LudicSavant]

But I asked you specifically to address your own criticisms

I addressed my own criticisms. You don't need to do everything that Assassin cannot in order to be better than the Assassin. Some is enough.

But since you seem focused on language barriers in particular, Soulknives actually do get some tools for that (unlike Assassins). Sure, they don't learn extra languages, but they do gain a non-language-dependent telepathy. You can establish a telepathic link to a translator. So as long as I can get a volunteer who knows the local language, I'm out ahead.

You know how a lot of spy archetypes have someone on the outside feeding them intel? Soulknife gets an ability that lets you do that at level 3.

you were comfortable holding it against the Assassin. Why?

I hold such things (and more) against both, and in the final evaluation, the Assassin ends up with more points against them.

[Skrum]

You have failed to do that, yet you were comfortable holding it against the Assassin. Why?

At the end of the day, even the soulknife is still a rogue. And rogue is bad (relatively speaking - pages 1 through 8 of this thread cover it pretty well). Soulknife happens to be better than assassin, but they're both still tied to the rogue chassis. The best thing that can be said about them is that if the game is more or less tailored to their strengths, they'll do well.

But in the "average game," I don't think either are all that good for deep infiltration, assassination, etc.

[Psyren]

You seem to be really hamming up the Psi-Dice's value. They're essentially a selfish Bardic Inspiration, yet I've never heard anyone refer to BA as strong enough to "turn just about any failed checks into successes."

1) On its own the Psi-Dice would just be BI, yes. But you're forgetting that rogues have Reliable Talent + Expertise + constant advantage due to Tool proficiency that all stack with the Psi dice.

2) Also unlike BI, you also only expend psi-dice when they work.

So no, no ham here.

Yes, I'm sure you can teleport that close to royalty that you're trying to assassinate. Definitely. No magical protections; why would they?

So royalty have protection against spell-less teleportation, telepathic communication and invisibility - but not against rando 7-day fake IDs?

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't get those questions from caster players hardly ever, and when I do they're new players. That might be because I run every combat on a map so players can make those calculations for themselves, and I expect them to do so. As for picking spells to prep, I find players do that without saying anything as the party is discussing what they're doing at the start of an adventuring day. So both of these things, at my table, take very little time. Certainly much less than moving through an unknown space.

Lucky. At my table casters take forever trying to perfect their turns with their limitless options.

I stopped in amazement at this and then I thought it over and realised that you (when a DM or player) are just dealing with very different encounters to me. Certainly very different to encounters I run as a DM

I tend to run a good number of my encounters as "problem solving while being punched in the face". The encounter will have multiple often competing objectives and part of the design of it in the game is to see which objectives the characters choose to focus on. I very rarely run any encounter where the only objective is kill or be killed. I would definitely state that anything I regard as a centrepiece encounter will be like this, maybe the rather trivial ones that are only there to deplete a few resources don't have that level of thought going into them but the key important ones will be.

So when I am running things the flexibility, mobility and wide skill options of the rogue are all relevant not just outside combat but very often in combat. Rogues are excellent in that environment, they can do things resource-free that casters need to spend resources on doing should they even have an appropriate spell.

In anything resembling a white room environment I can see how Rogue would look the weakest of the classes. Its core class fantasy has been somewhat excluded from the encounter by encounter design.

Another example of how tables are different and some things will shine at one table and not at others.

I'm in an infiltration focused game. Since this is an infiltration focused game, I am engaging in complex infiltration challenges, and enemies include counterintelligence agents and the like.

The assassin just gets in. Period. The end. They have infiltrated. With the feature Infiltration Expertise. No checks. Done.

So say I'm an Assassin. I use Infiltration Expertise and now have a fake ID without needing to roll for it.

Say I'm not an assassin, and I want to walk around the place and ham it up with people as one of their own. I rolled five dice yesterday as an example of a level 9 rogue with a 14 charisma or intelligence rolling for their Disguise/Forgery check. Notice the 8, 10, and 15. These are not insurmountable. Your non-assassin could EASILY fail at the first contested ability check. This was the whole step Psyren was bypassing earlier. The dice are swingy.

And they are still swingy even with Expertise. Just add +4 to those rolls. Someone spots your fake ID and questions you and you use Deception. You might have a 12, 14, or 19. No Advantage since the entire reason you're rolling Deception is that your forgery/disguise was spotted. Maybe the person challenging you has Advantage on their passive check since... you know... you have a fake disguise/document. That's a 15 passive Insight plus mods. I don't know... seems not so guaranteed that you're waltzing in like you belong in the place. And that's just the front door that you're making these checks, nevermind when you get in and start interacting with people that aren't the guards. Better start popping those resources stat.

What it doesn't help me with is the ability to speak the local languages, or the ability to pass myself off as an exotic creature like a succubus or a giant, or to know things that someone in my position should know, or the ability to evade divinations or other forms of supernatural detection, or the ability to create new identities on the fly, or the ability to create identities for the party of renowned high level heroes that I'm traveling with, or for the VIP I want to safely smuggle out of the country, or the ability to just bypass all of the steps of a complex infiltration challenge that go much beyond 'okay, your letter of recommendation checks out, person I never met or heard of before.' And if you want to break into Faerie Fort Knox, you better believe that there's more to it than that.

Who can do all of this? And how, exactly? Like... what build are you using for an infiltration game?

Because it is easy to say things like this like "oh, by level 9 infiltration is going to involve supernatural creatures and divinations, and you'll need supernatural disguises". None of this is necessarily true, seems like another table thing, but assuming it is true for everyone, what is your go-to build for this?

And since this is a level 9 party, we're at a point where the opposition that might actually worry a competent party (especially if it's for more than a week) is stuff like illithids and archmages and angels and such. And the competition for your job is something like an Eloquence Bard.

Please continue. How do you foil the illithids and archmages and devils and liches and angels? What does the eloquence bard do exactly?

The most vehement defense just seems to amount to 'well the ability isn't useless!'

Lol, actually some of us are saying it's very strong.

I'm not compelled by your "no true infiltration" fallacy that narrows down infiltration games to "needs magic".

They're just going to tell you that "unfailing" means it beats all that stuff - language/species barriers, divinations, special senses, all of it. Never mind that what counts as an "obvious reason" to somebody who can read minds or who should personally know everyone in attendance or who is from an extraplanar culture or even who can see the future is very different than what would be obvious to someone who can't do those things, just ignore that clause entirely, it's flavor text. Why do you hate martials?

Lol

Hi DM, please give me credit for my forgery and disguise that I refuse to roll for, but let me get Advantage for it please...

That's just it, Soulknife has a number of these gaps too. (Even the language one - their telepathy bypasses it and works on unwilling targets, but I wouldn't be about to go around talking into the heads of strangers unless I had to.)

But you know what their subclass does give them? The ability to teleport and turn invisible, as well as turn just about any failed skill checks into successes. You can bypass quite a lot of the checkpoints where the weaknesses you listed might come into play by doing those things. Who cares about crafting an ironclad persona to let you wander around the King's gala all night without being questioned, when you can blink up to his balcony and wait for him in the privy instead, then teleport out again once the deed is done? Garden-variety skill checks should be more than enough to get me past the perimeter if the outside wall is too far from it (sure, you can have all my weapons officer *snerk*). And I didn't even need 7 days of prep time to do it.

"Your stupid assassin can't even deal with like... counter-measures man! The soulknife is so much better. He can just like... teleport all around the king whenever he wants and like not be seen because of invisibility and stuff."

Soulknives have features that offer some but not all of these things. In addition to features that do a whole lot else (which not only can give you an alternate solution to infiltration problems, but also takes more pressure off other party member resources so that your teammates have more room to help fill in some more of your gaps).

For example,[LIST][*] They can significantly boost checks to create disguises and forgeries for their allies in addition to themselves, using the psi-die.

How's that? Like... let's get specific here instead of making these generic claims. You only use Knack when you fail a check. The feature seems to me to be that when you're about to fail something, you draw on your psionics and potentially succeed instead because of your psionic power. Your foot slips and you're hanging by one hand and you're about to fall, but you draw on your psionic energy and are able to reestablish your hold and succeed at the climb check.

But in the case of the disguise and the forgery, you've already done the work. It's complete. The potential failure comes after the work has been done. Does Knack alter the disguise on the spot, change the words on the forgery? Manipulate the guard's mind?

If it does, you're now immediately spending some number of psi-dice just to get through the front door? See above, you could get some crappy rolls on those checks, and you're trying to disguise the entire party apparently, so 4 forgery checks and 4 disguise checks. So right off the bat you could be down 2-3 dice. And then you're going to use another for Telepathy. Then another to turn invisible, then more to teleport around. And we need to make sure we boost any failed checks as Psyren says.

Meanwhile, the assassin is simply accepted, and could work to have the party come in without sneaking. Like... the assassin can use all of their expertise skills AS WELL but as a person that doesn't have to work to be accepted as belonging there.

[*] They can significantly boost checks to know or discover information, using the psi-die.

The assassin can learn this information first hand with any number of disguises/personas in various circles/organizations/etc.

Bard: What about you assassin, did you learn anything as Temerius, the sage?
Assassin: Yes, I spent time at the college with the other sages. This is what they believe may work, and how we get it...

Bard: What about you assassin, did you learn anything as Harfeld, the bounty hunter?
Assassin: Yes, I spoke with the captain of the guard at length at the gate house, and this is what has happened in the last few weeks that he attributes to this cult.

Bard: What about you assassin, did you learn anything as Fable, the Fool?
Assassin: Yes, while at the ball, I overheard that wagons have been arriving in the dead of night at the Barrimov estate; we should probably begin our search there.

You could be anywhere as anyone if you lean into this feature and invest into it. But in many games this feature won't have the room/time to breathe.

They can also use a telepathic link to someone who isn't present, who may know or be able to look up or divine information.

Don't they have to be able to see the person to establish the link?

[*] They can use telepathy, which is helpful for passing yourself off as a number of exotic creatures (such as succubi).

Why is this necessary again?

I mean... certainly it is easy to agree that Infiltration Expertise is not Disguise Self or Polymorph. If someone is like "I need to pretend I'm a giant or a dragon" I'm not going to recommend Infiltration Expertise. But... I'm not sure why this matters.

It is also extremely helpful for coordinating schemes with your team in general.

Seems like something a spellcaster can provide, no?

All of the above is just part of the level 3 feature.

I'm not sure what all of the above amounts to. It's nice. But I don't think it does what Infiltration Expertise does.

[LudicSavant]

They're just going to tell you that "unfailing" means it beats all that stuff - language/species barriers, divinations, special senses, all of it. Never mind that what counts as an "obvious reason" to somebody who can read minds or who should personally know everyone in attendance or who is from an extraplanar culture or even who can see the future is very different than what would be obvious to someone who can't do those things, just ignore that clause entirely, it's flavor text

Looks like you called it.

Lol, actually some of us are saying it's very strong.

The assassin just gets in. Period. The end.

Who can do all of this? And how, exactly?

Apparently you think the Assassin does, if they just 'get in, period, the end.'

But the feature does not do those things. It gives you (and only you) a fake identity without a roll after a week of casting time. It does not solve all the possible steps of a successful infiltration mission.

[Dr.Samurai]

Looks like you called it.

I'm talking about getting in. The part people keep glossing over is the disguises and forgeries which are getting you in in the first place. You guys have now resorted to calling it a "fake ID" as if it's a trivial thing, but it's actually the beginning of this entire process.

I recognize that it doesn't help against Detect Thoughts, or trying to masquerade as a giant, and it doesn't grant Telepathy or address all of your other parameters. So help me understand how you see this working.

Apparently you think the Assassin does.

You obviously know that I don't. Please answer the questions to substantiate your claims.

The assassin doesn't have telepathy, can't learn languages on the fly, can't teleport or turn invisible, can't pose as a giant/demon, etc. Who is doing these things? How do you see this working? What exactly are we trying to infiltrate that requires this?

Please elaborate.

[tokek]

Are we setting the bar impossibly high here?

Impersonating a non-humanoid and gaining its languages can only be done with True Polymorph. But by the time you are at levels where you can do that Truesight is common enough that True Polymorph will be seen through.

It’s not only rogue that can’t do it- no class in the game can reliably do it. We are setting the bar impossibly high.

Rogues are pretty good at infiltrating. So are a few others like Whispers Bard. But nothing can possibly succeed when we set the bar this high (unless we unfairly remove the bar for magic by assuming no counters to it will be used)

[LudicSavant]

Are we setting the bar impossibly high here?

The misplaced bar is requiring someone to do all of the things, instead of simply doing more things than the Assassin.

[strangebloke]

I appreciate you Strangebloke but, respectfully, people have been saying that the assassin's features are just things you can normally do with skill/tool checks, and do them better. So maybe the word "useless" wasn't used, but certainly that's what is being said, that you basically don't have subclass features at those levels.

My hackles go up when I feel like the criticism is too strong or unwarranted, and trite. Because this stuff spreads all across the D&D community and makes people think that 80% of the player options are garbage and they don't give it a second thought because this is what everyone else is saying.

I appreciate you Samurai but I believe that you often get your hackles up in optimization discussions because you on some level feel like your enjoyment of the hobby or how you like to play is being threatened.

Certainly, I think you agree that Infiltration Expertise is weaker than normal skill checks in at least two respects:

1. you can't impersonate someone
2. you need a week of prep.

Both of these shortcomings are worth considering. Of course as I said earlier it has advantages as well. The biggest by far is if you're in a deep cover context and we assume that infiltration expertise covers bluff checks. Having an unfailing bluff/disguise/forgery against anyone you meet is pretty useful in such a context!

Personally though I find that kind of deep cover scenario where you have a week to prep ahead of time to be something that would simply never happen at any table I've played at, so the upside is barely relevant. It's always hard to establish what the heck most people are doing in their DND games, but I feel pretty confident that this is rare overall, and the biggest issue is that this creates a dilemna for the table since you're basically doing solo play.

Arguments in the vein of, "it's worse than X feat," or, "this background does the same thing," or, "it's no better than basic Skill rolls," are all arguments that work to seriously undervalue the ability and paint it as pretty useless.

No one has said the actual words, "it's a useless ability," but the dog-whistling about its uselessness has been pretty loud.

In truth, it's a very strong ability that just happens to be ill-suited to typical "adventure/combat heavy" D&D play. This makes it unpopular, but not weak or useless.

Why can't you just take people at their word? People don't call it useless, and there's no 'dog-whistles' here. We're just stating opinions on DND lol. If we truly thought this was worthless we could just say so. For example: the grappler feat is worthless. No need to mask my opinion there.

But by your own admission its not good in a typical D&D game, a game where people are adventuring and doing combat (DND is an adventure/combat system) which kind of just means its not.... that good. We can posit about some hypothetical game where this ability is useful, but its all going to be hypothetical. I really have no idea what an 'infiltration heavy' campaign looks like. DND doesn't really support that, and most of the stuff in DND that's relevant to this is, well. Divination Magic, which is allowed to be hugely overpowered for anti-iniltration purposes because the game doesn't really care about infiltration.

It's like trying to run a classic Poirot mystery in DND. Paladin casts Zone of Truth and the whole thing is over in 10 minutes. The game isn't set up to mechanically resolve a complex series of clues and hints. Mechanically, the game is about exploring and fighting and hanging out with your friends. Those are the things that the game tries to balance.

[tokek]

That's just it, Soulknife has a number of these gaps too. (Even the language one - their telepathy bypasses it and works on unwilling targets, but I wouldn't be about to go around talking into the heads of strangers unless I had to.)

Soulknife has all the tools you need. Yes, even for the language thing.

Telepathy - go full mission impossible here and have your linguist backup speaking silently in your head. Could be an NPC you have persuaded to help.

Additional ASI over the normal class baseline. If you want an infiltrator take Actor feat.

Expertise and plenty of it. You want expertise in deception here

Now just add a common potion - potion of comprehension. It’s common - if your DM won’t let you find one then your DM is railroading you away from infiltrating. There are other ways but the potion is the easiest and best

So you understand what is being said. You get instructions on what to say back telepathically and you can imitate the speech of your interpreter (actor feat never says you need to understand it yourself). It’s all ver Mission Impossible which fits a rogue theme like a glove.

But in a white room where the DM is making everything fail it fails. In that white room the task is impossible to all classes at all levels - how anyone thinks that’s a fun way to run a game is rather beyond me.

[Schwann145]

Please answer the questions to substantiate your claims.

The assassin doesn't have telepathy, can't learn languages on the fly, can't teleport or turn invisible, can't pose as a giant/demon, etc. Who is doing these things? How do you see this working? What exactly are we trying to infiltrate that requires this?

Please elaborate.

There's no interest in substantiating claims 'round here.
Clearly there's zero value in a disguise/forgery/con that goes uncontested to get in the door; you can just use skills and auto-succeed. And then once you're inside the door, because Assassin can't polymorph or mind blank themselves or spontaneously know new languages, they're bad at being infiltrators... and no, we're definitely not going to talk about how none of the other Rogue subclasses can either.

[LudicSavant]

Soulknife has all the tools you need. Yes, even for the language thing.

Telepathy - go full mission impossible here and have your linguist backup speaking silently in your head. Could be an NPC you have persuaded to help.

Yep, exactly what I said

[Schwann145]

Soulknife has all the tools you need. Yes, even for the language thing.

Oh? I wonder...

Additional ASI over the normal class baseline. If you want an infiltrator take Actor feat.

A "poor man's" Imposter. Not as good but still very helpful for sure.

Expertise and plenty of it. You want expertise in deception here

Dr.Samurai already provided a list of example rolls to show just how unreliable and swingy a d20 can be. Expertise certainly helps, but it can still fail you.
Not needing to roll is much better.

Telepathy - go full mission impossible here and have your linguist backup speaking silently in your head. Could be an NPC you have persuaded to help.
...
Now just add a common potion - potion of comprehension. It’s common - if your DM won’t let you find one then your DM is railroading you away from infiltrating. There are other ways but the potion is the easiest and best.

So you understand what is being said. You get instructions on what to say back telepathically and you can imitate the speech of your interpreter (actor feat never says you need to understand it yourself). It’s all very Mission Impossible which fits a rogue theme like a glove.

Running into some issues here.
•I mentioned a Ring of Mind Shielding some pages back, which itself is only Uncommon, yet that was shot down as something you can't count on having, even in t3 gameplay, because of rarity or DM fiat or what have you. These folks are not interested in allowing you to rely on magic items.
•Telepathy's duration is random, and can fail you when you least expect it. You only get a number of hours equal to a roll of your Psionic Die, so that could even be as little as a single hour. Is that going to cut it? Maybe, maybe not. Definitely unreliable.
•Telepathy doesn't allow you to hear what is being said. So the infiltrating character has to hear the speech, understand what's being said, correctly mentally relate the statement to the telepathic support (a language they're not fluent in speaking, so expect mistakes), wait for a proper reply to the statement, then correctly state the reply audibly (again, a language they're not fluent in speaking). This is going to involve very long and awkward pauses and constant dice rolls to not screw up the statements.
And all of this could be for nothing more than casual conversation; just buttering people up or schmoozing to blend in properly, nevermind actual important information relevant to your goals.

Hmmm. No, I'm not convinced.

[Dr.Samurai]

Are we setting the bar impossibly high here?

Impersonating a non-humanoid and gaining its languages can only be done with True Polymorph. But by the time you are at levels where you can do that Truesight is common enough that True Polymorph will be seen through.

It’s not only rogue that can’t do it- no class in the game can reliably do it. We are setting the bar impossibly high.

Rogues are pretty good at infiltrating. So are a few others like Whispers Bard. But nothing can possibly succeed when we set the bar this high (unless we unfairly remove the bar for magic by assuming no counters to it will be used)

Indeed, this is why they will continue to say its not good enough, but won't provide a more detailed example of what they think good enough is.

The Infiltration Expertise can be foiled so easily but... apparently the Mind Flayer that comes up against a Mindblank or Nondetection is not going to be suspicious. They'll just let the uber optimized caster on their way, another success for the wizard!

The misplaced bar is requiring someone to do all of the things, instead of simply doing more things than the Assassin.

Show us. You mentioned Eloquence Bard being the competition. Explain what the bard is doing.

I appreciate you Samurai but I believe that you often get your hackles up in optimization discussions because you on some level feel like your enjoyment of the hobby or how you like to play is being threatened.

Oof... telling people to just take others at their word, while simultaneously psycho-analyzing them.

You've misunderstood me. Firstly, I enjoy all the games I'm in, and my enjoyment is regardless of what people on the internet think about how the game should be run. Secondly, in order to be threatened, I'd need to feel like there was substance to what optimizers are saying. And I don't. And I'm not sure how to convey that in any other way, apart from having said it several times in this thread already and calling people out. I am happy to keep probing the claims in this thread because I don't think they'll pass muster.

Complaining about slow travel pace while praising Pass Without Trace, complaining about Insightful Fighting being a contested all or nothing check, despite the fact that most monsters will fail this check just by nature of monster proficiencies and ability scores, assuming Expertise in Disguise/Forgery, forgetting that Psi-Bolstered Knack is only used on the failure, etc etc. A lot of this is misunderstood, wrong, or fluff commentary. And so, as I said, my hackles get raised because so many people believe this stuff, when it is either wrong, or really only applies to very specific tables. A claim I am happy to agree with by the way; Assassin features won't work well at certain tables.

But optimizers can't agree to that, because they have to believe that their table is the standard table, so that their "optimization" can actually mean something to everyone other than the group they play with. Like... Ludic is telling us the types of infiltration missions that are appropriate for level 9 players as if it's a law of the universe that you have to have telepathy, polymorph, mind blank, and whatever other features to succeed. But as we all know, there are huge variations between tables; number of short rests, number of encounters, monster tactics, adjudicating skills, adjudicating spells, downtime, encounter difficulties, encounter dynamics, number of players, magic item access, feats/multiclassing.

I mean... the list goes on and on and on and each of these vary in different ways. The best we can do is highlight in what ways this feature will work well, and it what ways it won't. In Descent to Avernus, we had no downtime and were on a clock. There's no way an assassin is going to be able to make these identities in that environment... unless another table runs the module differently and plays in such a way as to allow downtime and infiltration.

Certainly, I think you agree that Infiltration Expertise is weaker than normal skill checks in at least two respects:

1. you can't impersonate someone
2. you need a week of prep.

Both of these shortcomings are worth considering. Of course as I said earlier it has advantages as well. The biggest by far is if you're in a deep cover context and we assume that infiltration expertise covers bluff checks. Having an unfailing bluff/disguise/forgery against anyone you meet is pretty useful in such a context!

I would say these are limitations, but since Assassins can still use their skills and tools just like anyone else, in conjunction with Infiltration Expertise, I don't see the issue too much. The feature is meant to not let you fail except in the most obvious of cases. You bypass the contests. That's strong. And you still have your skills and Expertise and eventually Reliable Talent to supplement that feature, but the feature is powerful.

Personally though I find that kind of deep cover scenario where you have a week to prep ahead of time to be something that would simply never happen at any table I've played at, so the upside is barely relevant. It's always hard to establish what the heck most people are doing in their DND games, but I feel pretty confident that this is rare overall, and the biggest issue is that this creates a dilemna for the table since you're basically doing solo play.

I agree with all of this, except that the creation of the persona is part of a week of downtime, so everyone can be doing something.

The infiltration can be actually sneaking into a place and doing deliberate things, which would be "solo play", though the party can still be involved somehow, we're sort of assuming, despite all of the fancy features that everyone gets access to nowadays, that the party is just standing around. But that might not be the case.

If the infiltration is less actively going through and more like information finding, then it can be glossed over to some degree. "Did I learn anything useful while hob-nobbing with the nobles?" "Yes, you learned xyz". Here it is more about just having the access to these people, and being privy to the things they talk about, rather than trying to convince people to tell you stuff, or sneaking into a drawer and looking through notes.

I see the feature as having powerful long term benefits, you can use it in situations where you're not trying to sneak in and kill someone; you can just take on the life of someone else and get information you wouldn't otherwise have access to, make connections, gain status in guilds or other organizations, etc. Think Count of Monte Cristo, show up as an extremely wealthy noble from a distant land, and insinuate yourself into high society, and plots can go from there. In this way, you can originate and/or facilitate opportunities and avenues for the entire party in ways that we normally think casters can do out of combat with downtime. But you can do this with all sorts of cover, in all strata of society.

And you can also prepare for a traditional infiltration mission as well to go in and merc someone.

@Tokek... a soulknife can't be said to have everything they need if they have to link up to a linguist. I don't see the difference between the linguist providing you with language help, and the linguist providing you with language help AND telepathy.

[tokek]

•Telepathy doesn't allow you to hear what is being said. So the infiltrating character has to hear the speech, understand what's being said, correctly mentally relate the statement to the telepathic support (a language they're not fluent in speaking, so expect mistakes), wait for a proper reply to the statement, then correctly state the reply audibly (again, a language they're not fluent in speaking). This is going to involve very long and awkward pauses and constant dice rolls to not screw up the statements.
And all of this could be for nothing more than casual conversation; just buttering people up or schmoozing to blend in properly, nevermind actual important information relevant to your goals.

Hmmm. No, I'm not convinced.

It works in the fantasy espionage genre that is the Mission Impossible franchise. If it does not work in your games then that is a problem with your DM not wanting fantasy espionage. That is a DM problem not a problem with the rogue class.

It should be handled as a single deception roll per person or group you are deceiving. The roll is at advantage as per the feat description. You have expertise and psi dice. Yes there is risk - hey a game with no sweaty palm moments is not a proper game. We want those clicky clacky maths rocks to do something.

But if the DM wants to make it unachievable and un-fun they can. As with all things in the game. If the DM is a jerk this whole scenario is completely unachievable for all classes at all levels.

[tokek]

@Tokek... a soulknife can't be said to have everything they need if they have to link up to a linguist. I don't see the difference between the linguist providing you with language help, and the linguist providing you with language help AND telepathy.

Teamwork makes the dream work

Honestly the idea that a lone character should be able to do everything by sheer force of what is in their class feature list is really boring to me. How do you even run a fun game as a DM that way? The characters are engaging with the environment, using features of the environment in interesting ways - that is the essence of good game-play to my mind

An NPC who knows the local language should be assumed to exist in nearly all situations where infiltration/espionage would ever be an option. An NPC who is a high level telepath and knows the local language should be vastly harder to find if not impossible. But as the rogue is the high level telepath they have that covered and only need to acquire the common thing which is a local commoner who speaks the local language.

If the DM deems that no such person exists then the DM rather has the whole thing on rails. I'm sure in their head they have one pre-planned way to solve the problem but we here on the internet have no clue where their railroaded scenario is supposed to go and I see little point caring.

As for the time duration part - yes and time pressure is a good thing for drama and tension.

[Schwann145]

It works in the fantasy espionage genre that is the Mission Impossible franchise.

The difference is the "guy at the desk" in the MI franchise has eyes and ears on the room (via hidden microphones and cameras). Telepathy doesn't provide that. Also, the MI guy pretty much always speaks the language. If the radio link dies for [plot] reasons, they aren't suddenly totally helpless. If your telepathy link dies and you were using it for basic language communication, you're just totally screwed; no dice roll can save you.

But, honestly, this shouldn't ever be an issue. Language just doesn't come up as a barrier, ever. If it does, part of the game will be preparing for (ie: learning) the language before attempting to infiltrate anything.

What I'm really interested in is how the Soulknife plans to impersonate a giant.

[tokek]

The difference is the "guy at the desk" in the MI franchise has eyes and ears on the room (via hidden microphones and cameras). Telepathy doesn't provide that. Also, the MI guy pretty much always speaks the language. If the radio link dies for [plot] reasons, they aren't suddenly totally helpless. If your telepathy link dies and you were using it for basic language communication, you're just totally screwed; no dice roll can save you.

But, honestly, this shouldn't ever be an issue. Language just doesn't come up as a barrier, ever. If it does, part of the game will be preparing for (ie: learning) the language before attempting to infiltrate anything.

What I'm really interested in is how the Soulknife plans to impersonate a giant.

By the time its possible you are in tier 4 and you should assume magical defences will see through it often enough that its not a viable option anyway.

The real answer is the same as the real way that Ninjas usually infiltrated, get a bucket and a mop and act like a the person who is there to clean the latrines. But the real real answer is that the game should allow players to engage imaginatively with the environment and come up with fun ideas - not railroad them into "impersonate a giant or fail" situations.

[LudicSavant]

The real answer is the same as the real way that Ninjas usually infiltrated, get a bucket and a mop and act like a the person who is there to clean the latrines. But the real real answer is that the game should allow players to engage imaginatively with the environment and come up with fun ideas - not railroad them into "impersonate a giant or fail" situations.

Agreed! That's what Infiltration Expertise does: It lets you show up as the guy to clean the latrines, no roll required.

[Psyren]

Looks like you called it.

Apparently you think the Assassin does, if they just 'get in, period, the end.'

But the feature does not do those things. It gives you (and only you) a fake identity without a roll after a week of casting time. It does not solve all the possible steps of a successful infiltration mission.

And even the steps it covers have large potential flaws, because the PC has little to no control over what constitutes an "obvious reason" to a bunch of NPCs. Never mind NPCs a 9th-level PC might run into, to whom even automatically believing you are a particular person means absolute diddly, like a mindflayer colony.

[JellyPooga]

By the time its possible you are in tier 4 and you should assume magical defences will see through it often enough that its not a viable option anyway.

The real answer is the same as the real way that Ninjas usually infiltrated, get a bucket and a mop and act like a the person who is there to clean the latrines. But the real real answer is that the game should allow players to engage imaginatively with the environment and come up with fun ideas - not railroad them into "impersonate a giant or fail" situations.

Ah, but the really real question is do you need papers to go with your janitor disguise and is a forgery and a disguise check enough, or do you want to spend a week fabricating and establishing your backstory as Five-foot Dave the "Giant" and really selling the bit as a mute, idiot, short-stack, weakling that's only good for cleaning the latrines? Further, and let's face it more importantly, what ultra specific spell that I'll obviously always have prepared should I create to make sure I don't need to make any checks doing it instead of playing a Rogue? Should we call it Oxymoron or just Win D&D

[Dr.Samurai]

Teamwork makes the dream work

Honestly the idea that a lone character should be able to do everything by sheer force of what is in their class feature list is really boring to me. How do you even run a fun game as a DM that way? The characters are engaging with the environment, using features of the environment in interesting ways - that is the essence of good game-play to my mind

An NPC who knows the local language should be assumed to exist in nearly all situations where infiltration/espionage would ever be an option. An NPC who is a high level telepath and knows the local language should be vastly harder to find if not impossible. But as the rogue is the high level telepath they have that covered and only need to acquire the common thing which is a local commoner who speaks the local language.

If the DM deems that no such person exists then the DM rather has the whole thing on rails. I'm sure in their head they have one pre-planned way to solve the problem but we here on the internet have no clue where their railroaded scenario is supposed to go and I see little point caring.

As for the time duration part - yes and time pressure is a good thing for drama and tension.

I'm not suggesting that you find an NPC to do this, but you are part of an adventuring party. So if Telepathy is this critical, hopefully someone has access to it somehow. I'm just not sure, if we're saying these things are critical, but the rogue doesn't have to have all of them, how are we faulting the rogue?

What I'm really interested in is how the Soulknife plans to impersonate a giant.

It's simple you see.

When you're using mundane methods, magic will be there to stop you.

When you're using magic methods, the mundane will be there to get curbstomped by you.

So when the soulknife polymorphs into a giant somehow, the angels and demons and liches with Truesight are gone, and you're just infilitrating the tavern to sneak an ale.

But when the assassin is using a perfect false identity, then the supernatural players come out to use their Divination and defeat the assassin.

Child's play argumentation.

[tokek]

Agreed! That's what Infiltration Expertise does: It lets you show up as the guy to clean the latrines, no roll required.

Agreed

And other rogue subclasses can do it although they have to try harder and maybe roll some dice.

My issues with the Assassin subclass are that when it works its too good and when it doesn't work its trash. Its far too binary. The same comes up in its combat features - it either does nothing or it trivialises a combat where it works. As a DM I really don't like that much.

But that is not generally true of Rogue. Mostly it stays in the realm of being interesting and fun to both play and DM for. I mean sure another subclass might have to make a Deception check to infiltrate but they have reliable talent, expertise, maybe other boosts like psi dice. Its not like rogues can't make good rolls.

So long as we don't set the bar so insanely high that we are basically setting up a situation where the DM is declaring infiltration impossible. Which I think part of this conversation has been doing

[Psyren]

Agreed

And other rogue subclasses can do it although they have to try harder and maybe roll some dice.

Correct. And that's why I'd rather roll the dice, and get a (much) better feature instead, i.e. play a different subclass. And clearly most people thought that too, hence the PHB poll / subsequent UA.

Assuming Assassin even survived the playtest, I expect we'll see IE get changed/replaced yet again. I won't go as far as to say anything they land on will be better than 2014, but they certainly didn't have far to fall.