What drives a poor reputation for the Rogue class?

[KorvinStarmast]

Even the coldest hearted optimizer, is going to be fine with an Arcane Trickster in the party.

Yep.

Sure, and for rogues they do. They have the most DC reliability across multiple checks due to Reliable Talent,

Which comes on line when? Late Tier 2.
Plenty of campaigns end about there, or never get there.

For both static and changing DCs, and the best return on their 'resources' since they generally don't use any. For them, the d20 eventually has a range of 10-20 instead of 1-20, that's huge in a Bounded Accuracy system even without the big Expertise bonus they also get, or easily repeatable Advantage they also get.

Yes.

And it doesn't matter how many of these checks there are, how spaced out they are, how unexpected they are, the rogue's consistency is unmatched.

Kurt Kurageous, who used to post here a bit, plays a rogue in my Saltmarsh Campaign. Level 13. There's a lot of auto success going on. He also avoids melee/close range combat like the plague. (with good reason).

[Psyren]

Which comes on line when? Late Tier 2.
Plenty of campaigns end about there, or never get there.

1) It comes online at level 7 in the new Rogue, plenty of campaigns get there.
2) Even before that, Expertise covers a hell of a lot of the typical DCs you're likely to see, so they're still reliable.

[KorvinStarmast]

1) It comes online at level 7 in the new Rogue, plenty of campaigns get there.

Please don't move the goal posts. The 5e rogue is the topic of discussion, see the first post. (But I am glad that it moves up in D&Done).

2) Even before that, Expertise covers a hell of a lot of the typical DCs you're likely to see, so they're still reliable.

If you go vHuman, you can get really sick (if Tasha's options are included) and get Skill Expert at level 1.
Three expertise out of the gate.
I mean, if you are going to me a skill monkey, Lean Into It!

[Kane0]

1) It comes online at level 7 in the new Rogue, plenty of campaigns get there.

And thank goodness for that, though i dont like giving up sneak attack damage for cunning strike

[Dr.Samurai]

If you go vHuman, you can get really sick (if Tasha's options are included) and get Skill Expert at level 1.
Three expertise out of the gate.
I mean, if you are going to me a skill monkey, Lean Into It!

100%

Korvin, what is your favorite rogue subclass?

Also, wondering if something could be done with Kobold Fight Club and assassin... like putting together sample encounters at differing difficulty levels and seeing if the assassin can knock an enemy out in a surprise round.

[Just to Browse]

RE: Dr. Samurai, #809

You're not saying "that's not true", you're saying "you're putting words in my mouth" [insert receipts]. Okay I finally think I see what's happening here: What I'm doing (like, actually doing) is writing a dozen variations on what I consider to be the same thing. Since we're bringing receipts, is the first post where you bring up a rebuttal based on arguments I haven't made, and I let you know I never held that position. Subsequently there have been a lot of "it seems" and "I think" statements that also assume / infer / state / [pick a verb here that won't get me yelled at] things about me and my table, and so I've stated that same position in different ways. Sometimes that's "you've invented a position for me to hold" (p27), sometimes that's literally, word-for-word "None of these things are true" (p25).

All I've done is take the same idea "[not true thing] is not true" and messed with the verbiage because copy/pasting is kind of boring. Apparently you think some subset of these are fine, and others are strawman accusations. But I can assure you, with every fiber of my begin, every neuron active in my brain, every metaphorical board in the thesean ship that composes me, JTB, I consider all of these statements the same, and none of them are strawman accusations. I will gladly stop using whatever subset of those you deem strawman accusations, and I've suggested an idea (see "Stop saying "I never said that" / you're being uncharitable again" (p27)) for me to write instead. Let me know what you'd rather have me type there, and by god I will type like the wind!

I can't ever try to understand JTB without JTB accusing me of a fallacy. Hopefully this is addressed above, but also if you'd like to see an example of you asking me for clarification and me providing it, check out "JTB, explain this quote about being forced to do stuff." (p27). That also includes a joke about some strawman complaint... but that was a joke about a thing you said, not an actual "stop strawmanning me" bit.

It's jarring and rude to do the bolded header thing. Personally I think the overlapping multiquote thing is jarring and rude, especially when one of the multi-quote replies is (1) directed to people who I don't know exist (2) directly under a quote from me while (3) referring to a group that implies I am a member (4) the person who writes it thinks I'm disingenuous when I interpret it as directed towards me! That's happened in this thread, maybe twice? three times? but I mostly do my usual of mentioning it & moving on; if that's also what you're doing here, please understand that I hear you, but I cannot change because this is how I maintain my sanity on the internet.

You wrote an inaccurate header with an exclamation point, JTB. Already addressed, see "JTB, your bold summaries are rude / uncharitable / bad representations." (p27). Let me know if there are inaccurate comments or exclamation points; I'll remove them.

Gauntlet pt 2419441: Nuke didn't take damage from the golem. Yes, that one enemy specifically rolled low. Golems don't have an auto-hit feature, and DMs (usually) don't pre-roll attacks to determine strategy. I'm not sure what the implication here is.

There was no pressure at all from the golem. Most of the reason Nuke got attacked (and hit!) by other enemies in that fight was because he couldn't kite. The reason he had to cast animate objects at all is due in significant part to him not being able to kite. The golem's presence at the end of a hallway discouraged infinite kiting down that hallway. That is simply a thing that it did. I'm not sure how to make this more true aside from telling you that you should try kiting down a hall past a slow enemy, because it becomes clear why that's a bad idea reaaaall quick.

Nuke won the day easily. Nuke spent 3rd and 5th level spells, and then lost ~20 HP (20~30% of his total iirc) from enemies who could easily walk up to him because he couldn't kite. The Warrior lost ~30 HP and the Expert lost ~20 HP for similar reasons. These expenditures were low because of some lucky rolls (including from the golem, but also a few misses and low damage rolls from the veterans), but also because Nuke played pretty optimally. And of course the result was incredibly consequential, because it forced Nuke into a final fight with the mind flayer without any 5th-level slots, so he didn't have enough damaging spells to get through the final enemies before he perished. I have no idea, literally no idea at all, how a person experienced with D&D could watch that fight and think it was a curbstomp.

But why place a defender at the end of the hallway? My guess is to prevent kiting down the hall. But thankfully initial positioning isn't determined by the DM, so this has nothing to do with vibing or whatever. See "It's weird that the golem was placed on the far edge of the map." (p27)

There's no reason for the golem to engage in tactical play like that. It's frankly trivial to justify this. Off the top of my head: The mind flayer has instructed it to deal maximum damage at the expense of its life, and it's smart enough to know what dodging is.

Nuke only died later because enemies could harm him. Enemies harmed him in this fight. They harmed him quite a bit, and forced him to burn spell slots! This is just, like, verifiably true.

RE: Why won't you move on? See this is why I bold topics. "Why won't you move on?" isn't a conversation about why you think there's some strawman thing. I wrote it because you said "you're not taking the opportunity to move on.", and I explained why it seemed like I wasn't moving on (the answer is, I was! you just kept bringing up the strawman thing so I kept answering it!). Since you understand I'm gonna move on after this, I am hoping against all hope that you won't do any other talking about how I think you're a strawman or whatever.

Why mention that comment from Ludic where he asks you to be respectful? That's easy, thanks for asking. This isn't a defense of anything, just a reminder that certain behaviors, potentially considered "wrong in their accusations", "doubling down", "frustrating", "uncharitable", "rude", and "jarring" are not exclusive to my posts. It's just reminder that we should treat others with the respect we want. All the untangling in the world isn't going to be helpful if every serving comes with a side of snippy comments and [Small Amused]s!

[LudicSavant]

For a singular check or a set of checks the middle paragraph still holds. The combination of DCs on the locks, risk:reward ratio for the rolls, and investment:return on resource using options all needs to line up.

Agreed. The principles Xervous is referring to apply whether there's one check or twenty, and as a result it is very often not the case that a Rogue will solve 20 alarms in a row better than a Bard, even at levels where a Rogue has reliable talent.

@Psyren if you're curious I can elaborate on why when I get back home. Lemme know if you want me to.

[KorvinStarmast]

100%

Korvin, what is your favorite rogue subclass?

The only one I have spent a lot of time playing is Arcane Trickster. Good balance of features. My Thief journeys ended early due to campaigns ending early. We have a Tier 4 group whose swashbuckler began as the UA swashbuckler, and then became the SCAG swashbuckler, and she's level 17. But she also took 3 levels in bard for her own reasons.
She's effective.

I don't think our Salt Marsh campaign will get to 15. I am running into player stall as we approach 14 (they are about to discover the surprise that has been lurking for two RL years) and I am not sure how long the group will want to keep going. I have a sub quest (Rod of Seven Parts) that they seem utterly indifferent to. Have a 'go help in the civil war/succession struggle in The Great Kingdom' that has landed like a lead balloon. We may dive into the Abyss or something to do with devils. There's an old tomb adventure designed for level 15 that I have ready to go, I have dropped a few hooks, and they have shown apathy for the most part.

This saddens me, since I am interested to see what Kurk K does with his Thief Rogue at higher levels. He has really embraced the role.

[Psyren]

Please don't move the goal posts. The 5e rogue is the topic of discussion, see the first post. (But I am glad that it moves up in D&Done).

And which contract did you have me sign to only promise to discuss 2014? Why would I wallow in outdated design only to conclude that it's outdated? That gets us nowhere but stagnation.

2024 is relevant because it shows us what the designers felt/feel isn't working from 2014, it's as simple as that.

Agreed. The principles Xervous is referring to apply whether there's one check or twenty, and as a result it is very often not the case that a Rogue will solve 20 alarms in a row better than a Bard, even at levels where a Rogue has reliable talent.

@Psyren if you're curious I can elaborate on why when I get back home. Lemme know if you want me to.

I'm always fine reading your reasoning (and most everyone's for that matter) even in cases where I don't or am unlikely to agree with the conclusion.

For the Bard specifically, I have no doubt that by spending resources they can keep up with or even exceed the skill capabilities of a resourceless rogue - but challenging those resources is part of the DM's remit too.

[KorvinStarmast]

2024 is relevant because it shows us what the designers felt/feel isn't working from 2014, it's as simple as that.

No.
You moved the goalpost since you responded to my post, and I posted about actual play in an actual edition that has been played for 10 years and which experience I am drawing on to make the point.
I am following this 5e thread on the 5e forum.
D&Done isn't yet published.
From the PHB, Psyren.
This is Reliable Talent.

Reliable Talent
By 11th level, you have refined your chosen skills until they approach perfection. Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.

That is what I was talking about. That is the end of Tier 2/Start of Tier 3, and that is what I referred to and you responded about something else.

You moved the goal posts. So I correctly asked you not to.

That we share common ground on the impending change meeting our sense of "where it fits better" is to the good.

[Psyren]

No.

Yep.

Read the PHB, Psyren.
This is Reliable Talent.
That is what I was talking about. That is the end of Tier 2/Start of Tier 3, and that is what I referred to and you responded about something else.

I'm aware, and pointing out that they lowered the level in 2024 was agreement with you that level 9 is too high for that feature.

You moved the goal posts. So I correctly asked you not to.

There are no "goal posts." You were right that 2014 Rogue's RT is at a level that it takes a while for many campaigns to reach. I'm right in pointing out that they're improving that. Both facts can be true.

[faegames]

I think this also has to do with gameplay optimisation and the advent of less crunch. Classes can more easily fill in for each other. In the past you had to rely on rogues for finding traps and lock picking, next to being an absolute beast in skills. Now everyone can find traps (and they're not that prevalent anymore) + most 5E parties forget to lock a lot of things ;)
There's so much focus on combat utility and that wasn't the strong suit of the rogue. Same as previous incarnations of bard that were a perfect support unit, but couldn't meaningfully contribute to battle.

[Schwann145]

I'm aware, and pointing out that they lowered the level in 2024 was agreement with you that level 9 is too high for that feature.
...
I'm right in pointing out that they're improving that. Both facts can be true.

Did they? We know this for sure? It's 100% confirmed that Reliable Talent will be moved to a lower level in D&Done?

2024 is relevant because it shows us what the designers felt/feel isn't working from 2014, it's as simple as that.

To be fair, it goes both ways. After all, they're also showing us that they're fine with Rogue continuing to have a ton of space between subclass abilities going forward.


---

Simply put, speaking with authority on material that has not been published does no one any good, and playtest material definitely does not count as an authority, so relying on it is wishful thinking at best.

[Xervous]

Sure, and for rogues they do. They have the most DC reliability across multiple checks due to Reliable Talent, for both static an changing DCs, and the best return on their 'resources' since they generally don't use any. For them, the d20 eventually has a range of 10-20 instead of 1-20, that's huge in a Bounded Accuracy system even without the big Expertise bonus they also get, or easily repeatable Advantage they also get.



If the answer to autosuccess is "no" (which again, the rogue has a better chance of that being a "yes" than just about any other class due to genre convention if nothing else, but for the sake of argument), then as per above, their chances of failure across multiple checks is lower than that of others. And it doesn't matter how many of these checks there are, how spaced out they are, how unexpected they are, the rogue's consistency is unmatched.

I agree with you that for an individual task, "teeing one up for the rogue" and their sweet spot might feel contrived. But multiple checks in succession plays to their strengths pretty well, and again, it's pretty organic to have situations that call for that. Take BG3 for example - there are places like the Sharlympics, the Bank Vault, Lorroakan's Tower or the Temple of Bhaal that are absolutely lousy with traps and other skill challenges, all of which you would rationally expect to be designed that way in-universe. I've met tons of new players that absolutely despise Astarion yet keep him around anyway (perhaps not realizing that Withers can make anyone a rogue) purely so they can more easily bypass such things. That's a significant class fantasy rogue players are drawn to the class for, and it delivers.

When it comes down to slicing up the pie there’s a much narrower set of circumstances that leave the rogue in a place where its talents actually shine.

For tasks with trivial consequences on failure the only ones that highlight a rogue are those with DCs out of reach of other characters

For tasks where the consequences involve resource attrition there is a sweet spot in the middle where rogue’s reliability gets you a better payout than the resources being risked. If the difficulty is too low then other characters become reliable enough to take the gamble. If the difficulty climbs too high then the rogue is likely burning resources on scratch off lottery tickets.

For tasks with significant consequences on failure the party only wants to roll if there’s no good alternatives. At the low end of difficulty rogue satisfies the auto success, but most characters probably wouldn’t screw things up if they had to make the roll. In the middle the party is happy to have the rogue if they’re forced to make the check, but it’s suicidal to actively pursue such rolls. At the high end, difficult rolls with horrible consequences on failure, players need to be involved in something monumentally stupid for the rogue to be their only slim chance at averting disaster.

Lacking unique resources of its own, the rogue has decided what caliber of tasks it can address during character creation. It gets no final say on the difficulty of tasks once the GM has established the scene. If a rogue wants to get the spotlight it’s not sufficient to simply pursue tasks in which the rogue has skill investment; the rogue also needs a GM who is both cognizant of the rogue’s limitations and willing to run a game that serves up these quick time events for the rogue. If the GM is unaware of or unable to fully set up tasks that highlight the rogue without encroachment then the rogue stumbles or gets usurped. If the GM doesn’t want to run the game that way then the rogue only gets their highlight if they identify the regions of the world that fit into the narrow band of numbers and pursue tasks there while the party is in that band of numbers.

[Psyren]

Did they? We know this for sure? It's 100% confirmed that Reliable Talent will be moved to a lower level in D&Done?

Nothing is 100% until the book is in hand, but we know the last one got over 80% satisfaction, so I'm comfortable putting my gp where my mouth is.

To be fair, it goes both ways. After all, they're also showing us that they're fine with Rogue continuing to have a ton of space between subclass abilities going forward.

Yes, because they created an entirely new subsystem in the base class to fill that subclass gap. If we're not getting standardized subclass levels (which would have eliminated the gap entirely, and been my preference) then this approach is the next best thing they could have done.

Simply put, speaking with authority on material that has not been published does no one any good

Well I'm going to keep doing it, because I'm naturally confident in the material they've presented and see no reason not to. You're of course free to ignore my posts about it (or anything else for that matter).

When it comes down to slicing up the pie there’s a much narrower set of circumstances that leave the rogue in a place where its talents actually shine.

For tasks with trivial consequences on failure the only ones that highlight a rogue are those with DCs out of reach of other characters

"Tasks with trivial consequences" shouldn't involve a roll/DC at all, for anyone. DMG 237 is crystal clear on this.

For tasks where the consequences involve resource attrition there is a sweet spot in the middle where rogue’s reliability gets you a better payout than the resources being risked. If the difficulty is too low then other characters become reliable enough to take the gamble. If the difficulty climbs too high then the rogue is likely burning resources on scratch off lottery tickets.

Asking this again - what resources is the rogue burning? This is where you're continually losing me by not elaborating.

For tasks with significant consequences on failure the party only wants to roll if there’s no good alternatives. At the low end of difficulty rogue satisfies the auto success, but most characters probably wouldn’t screw things up if they had to make the roll. In the middle the party is happy to have the rogue if they’re forced to make the check, but it’s suicidal to actively pursue such rolls. At the high end, difficult rolls with horrible consequences on failure, players need to be involved in something monumentally stupid for the rogue to be their only slim chance at averting disaster.

You have a major conflation here that is muddying your point - "significant consequences" and "horrible/suicidal consequences" are not at all the same thing. I agree that the party should be avoiding the latter as much as possible, but the former can easily be worth it and allow the rogue to shine.

[LudicSavant]

"significant consequences" and "horrible/suicidal consequences" are not at all the same thing. I agree that the party should be avoiding the latter as much as possible, but the former can easily be worth it and allow the rogue to shine.

For what you're thinking of as significant-but-not-disastrous consequence, I believe Xervous is addressing that in the previous paragraph, here:

For tasks where the consequences involve resource attrition there is a sweet spot in the middle where rogue’s reliability gets you a better payout than the resources being risked. If the difficulty is too low then other characters become reliable enough to take the gamble. If the difficulty climbs too high then the rogue is likely burning resources on scratch off lottery tickets.

Asking this again - what resources is the rogue burning? This is where you're continually losing me by not elaborating.

In short, the opportunity to avoid the consequences of the task.

For a simple example: "a trap activates, and a party member is now damaged and afflicted with a debilitating status ailment."

This means they risked resource (HP) and resource (whatever it would take the party to cure the status ailment, or whatever it would cost to not cure it).

[Xervous]

"Tasks with trivial consequences" shouldn't involve a roll/DC at all, for anyone. DMG 237 is crystal clear on this.

In mapping out the full range of outcomes tasks with trivial consequences of failure were included for the sake of completeness. As rolls are not to be called for, it being a simple question of is this task possible or not for the character, the only way such tasks of negligible risk highlight the rogue is if they are set out of reach of other characters but within the rogue's reach. That is of course if the GM is using some mechanical basis for determining who can or can't auto complete a given skill related task.

Asking this again - what resources is the rogue burning? This is where you're continually losing me by not elaborating.

Looking to BG3, there are three resources in play whenever you prod a character towards a lock or a trap. The consumable tools, the character's HP (in the case of traps) and the means of replenishment, and one that's easily overlooked: the player's spare time. Depletion of the tools quite literally locks you out of progress, failure on the variety of traps often leads to lost health, and even in the case of functionally infinite healing and toolkits (which is achievable given time) there's the time it would take to click through an arbitrary number of rolls at low success rate.

5e does not burden the players with the classic video game consumable lockpicks, health loss to traps is plain as day, tedious repetition at the table can be skipped to its inevitable conclusion, but time is still something a task may consume. In the case of confronting the series of locks in a heist proposed earlier (qty 10+?) each lock that is not an auto success consumes a variable amount of the party's time. Obvious consequences of the party running out of time include things like "The McGuffin is no longer in the area" or "A patrol happens upon you". From the GM side of things, any set of DCs and Patrol clocks / Mission Time Limit that falls outside the rogue performance band is not a scenario that necessarily highlights the rogue. Undershoot on difficulty and you widen the set of characters that can comfortably progress this task in the heist. Overshoot and the rogue will be rolling at a losing game, and the party will be better off looking for alternative means by which to progress.


- The percents associated with each color are the success rate for the individual task.
- The pattern holds for lower task % success rates, I left them out as the chart would get overly cluttered with 15 sets of bars. If desired that plot could also be supplied

Here we are looking at designing the pairing of clock size and DC for this series of locks. We're going with 10 locks for this example. I'll start this off with some assumptions to narrow down the options

1. The patrol is a complication rather than a failure state
2. The rogue should be able to reliably (66%+) avoid springing the patrol on the party
3. Other characters should be at least unreliable (33%-) at the task, and ideally a poor choice(25%-). "The barbarian rolls a 20 on the INT check" is the sort of thing we want to avoid here. Hinting at or simply exposing the clock to the players will give everyone including the rogue proof that the rogue is actually doing something awesome here that others are unable to do.

Hedging out characters that have a bonus 4 lower than the rogue (R-4) points us to a clock of size +7 and a DC that gives the rogue 85% success rate on an individual lock.

To get close to hedging out (R-3) we look to clock size +8 and giving the rogue a 95% success rate.

For a perfect hedge out you just give the rogue auto success, force everyone below their bonus to roll, and require perfection. Perfectly teed up.


Nudging the DC or the clock size even slightly yields a massive change when working around the design point. I fully understand that the average GM cannot or will not spend time on this math. This is a lot of work to make something that the GM knows will highlight the rogue. It's also really easy to miss the comfort region on account of the system's strong response to changes in variables around the design point. The closer another character's bonus is to the rogue's, the narrower the bullseye becomes, and the GM is tossing half blind. If no other character is within a +6 of the rogue then it's easy to put together such a task set for the given table, but I will still flag such a scenario as any player might correctly remark "oh wow I could have done all that with a 14 dex bard".

To summarize that rambling wall, I'll bet against most attempts to set up a task that's supposed to highlight the rogue because it's often such a narrow scene design that you're either going to fiat "rogue only", arrive at numeric "rogue only" except with extra steps and a few asterisks, or produce a structure that might only deliver out of sheer dumb luck.

[Psyren]

Looking to BG3, there are three resources in play whenever you prod a character towards a lock or a trap. The consumable tools, the character's HP (in the case of traps) and the means of replenishment, and one that's easily overlooked: the player's spare time. Depletion of the tools quite literally locks you out of progress, failure on the variety of traps often leads to lost health, and even in the case of functionally infinite healing and toolkits (which is achievable given time) there's the time it would take to click through an arbitrary number of rolls at low success rate.

1) Just to be clear, I was using BG3 purely as an example of how environments with a gauntlet of successive checks can be reasonably organic/intuitive components of a campaign, rather than contrived to specifically make the rogue shine. Several of the other things you mention about BG3, like how it approaches both Thieves' Tools and time expenditure, are not RAW for tabletop 5e (nor for 5.5e.)

2) For BG3 Thieves' Tools and Trap Kits being "consumables" specifically, in that game you only expend them if you fail your check. That's actually MORE benefit to the Rogue character, who again is the only class in the game with both RT+Exp and thus is less likely to burn a kit due to a bad roll. Note too that BG3 also uses the "Nat 1 = auto failure regardless of DC" houserule on skill checks too, which Reliable Talent also (only?) defeats. Being a video game, it's unable to apply the DM judgement of simply waiving a roll, so that ~5% failure chance is not possible to circumvent.

3) You're making assumptions about time that seem based more in the way you like to personally play than in any kind of expected or printed rule (see below.)

5e does not burden the players with the classic video game consumable lockpicks, health loss to traps is plain as day, tedious repetition at the table can be skipped to its inevitable conclusion, but time is still something a task may consume. In the case of confronting the series of locks in a heist proposed earlier (qty 10+?) each lock that is not an auto success consumes a variable amount of the party's time. Obvious consequences of the party running out of time include things like "The McGuffin is no longer in the area" or "A patrol happens upon you". From the GM side of things, any set of DCs and Patrol clocks / Mission Time Limit that falls outside the rogue performance band is not a scenario that necessarily highlights the rogue. Undershoot on difficulty and you widen the set of characters that can comfortably progress this task in the heist. Overshoot and the rogue will be rolling at a losing game, and the party will be better off looking for alternative means by which to progress.

*snip*

To summarize that rambling wall, I'll bet against most attempts to set up a task that's supposed to highlight the rogue because it's often such a narrow scene design that you're either going to fiat "rogue only", arrive at numeric "rogue only" except with extra steps and a few asterisks, or produce a structure that might only deliver out of sheer dumb luck.

I appreciate the detailed analysis, but you're basing it on several assumptions I still disagree with.

First off, the time expenditure for picking a lock or disarming a trap isn't "variable," it defaults to an Action (or even a Bonus Action if you're a Thief with Fast Hands.) The DM can certainly use Complex Locks/Traps that take longer instead, but then you probably shouldn't be bypassing those with a single spell or ability check from another class either - and if you are then you've moved from not accommodating the Rogue to actively hosing them, and no class will perform as expected under such conditions.

Second, if nearby patrols or alerting someone that can move the Macguffin are truly a concern, then they are going to be even more of a concern for most alternative means of bypassing the lock or trap. Your Barbarian bashing it open, your Bard singing at it, or your Wizard casting Knock on it are far more likely to attract attention from a nearby patrol than a subtle rogue, but your analysis doesn't take that into account at all - nor can it.

For what you're thinking of as significant-but-not-disastrous consequence, he's addressing that in the previous paragraph, here:



In short, the opportunity to avoid the consequences of the task.

For a simple example: "a trap activates, and a party member is now damaged and afflicted with a debilitating status ailment."

This means they risked resource (HP) and resource (whatever it would take the party to cure the status ailment, or whatever it would cost to not cure it).

Resource attrition isn't just something that happens from spending spell slots. Indeed, the reason that having spells is a benefit at all is because you can spend them to slow the depletion of other resources.

1) I'm well aware that HP is a resource, but it's one that you'd be risking no matter which party member you task with disarming a dozen traps, so I'm still not seeing what the rogue is spending above and beyond what anyone else would. They're still expending considerably less in the aggregate I would say. (And I haven't even touched on things like e.g. DMs that use Degrees of Failure from the DMG, which is yet another scenario where Reliable Talent and Expertise excel.)

2) Even if you can equal or exceed the rogue's success rate by, say, casting spells, or singing at the Fighter it etc. - those other methods still have drawbacks of their own above and beyond whatever additional resources they cost, for example being loud or potentially more susceptible to mystic detection/interference.

[LudicSavant]

1) I'm well aware that HP is a resource, but it's one that you'd be risking no matter which party member you task with disarming a dozen traps

They may all be risking HP, but they face different risk-benefit ratios.

2) Even if you can equal or exceed the rogue's success rate by, say, casting spells, or singing at the Fighter it etc. - those other methods still have drawbacks of their own above and beyond whatever additional resources they cost, for example being loud or potentially more susceptible to mystic detection/interference.

I agree! But even when I consider those drawbacks, the Rogue still comes up light on my scale. (Elaborating, stand by for a fat post)

[Psyren]

They may all be risking HP, but they face different risk-benefit ratios.

Agreed, and I think the rogue's reliability and spammability improves theirs - especially as the density of challenges you get in a given scene increases. And high challenge density isn't an unreasonable scenario for an adventuring party to run into, which I don't think Xervous' initial judgement adequately accounted for; that's all I'm saying.

[LudicSavant]

Okay, say we want to avoid a high density of alarms.

Well, what kinds of alarms? The Alarm spell? A heavy vault door that grinds loudly when opened? Shriekers? A Magic Mouth that announces visitors? A stretch of wide open terrain overlooked by a well-staffed watchtower? A green dragon's regional effect? A burrowing creature with tremorsense on the prowl? Bounty hunters trying to track the PC on the wanted poster, one with wilderness tracking skills, another by consulting their god, a third by summoning an Invisible Stalker? An area choked with webs and populated by creatures with Web Sense? A mighty sphinx at the gate ready with a riddle? One of the hostages is actually a shapechanger plant? Mooks regularly checking if the treasure is still there, then waking up the guy who knows Locate Object if it's not? A door sealed with Arcane Lock and three Glyphs of Warding on it?

There's a lot of different forms that alarms take, and there's no guarantee that Reliable Talent in a particular skill will resolve it. Even something as relatively simple as 'a watchtower with a good vantage point:' okay, I can probably pass the guard's Passive Perception, but do I have a feature that lets me even attempt to hide in plain sight in the first place (like Soulknife 13)? Can I bring the party with me, or am I doing a lone scout thing? What sort of actions can I take against the guys in the watchtower without breaking stealth? Do I have a feature that can prevent trackers from following my footsteps, since hide checks specifically don't apply to that? It's not like these things don't come up, the DMG specifically calls out monsters tracking PCs for a reason.

All of this is to say that things don't begin and end at 'make a stealth check.' It's more complex and interesting than that. (As an aside, this is also why PWT, while very strong, is not the auto-win it is sometimes made out to be -- a lot of stuff can still detect you, which is probably why the designers were okay with it in the first place).

____

Okay, so let's talk about Reliable Talent. Just how reliable is it, actually? If this is the feature that we're leaning on to let us keep up with the entire kit of Tier 3+ Bards then it's gotta be doing some really, really heavy lifting, because this is at a point where the Bard's sittin' on a mountain and it's just going rapidly ascend from there.

Reliable Talent is worth ~+2 to an open roll on average, or ~+0.7 to one with an advantage (which I often do if I'm specializing in a skill and tier 3+).

But let's get specific. Say I'm level 11 and I have an Investigation modifier of +9 (+4 prof, +4 expertise, +1 Int) and I wanna uncover some of these darned alarms.

Is it a passive check, such as the book advises to use if you "continually search" or for "things where the DM might not want to reveal the result" (such as for a hidden alarm)? Then Reliable Talent doesn't help me.

Is it an active check, and the DC is 10? Then Reliable Talent does squat.

Is the DC 20? Then again, Reliable Talent does squat.

Is the DC 15? Hurray! It does something! Well... if you roll a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. So for this hypothetical Rogue, it converts a DC 15 Investigation check from failure to success 25% of the time on a normal roll, or 6% of the time on an advantage roll.

Is it an opposed roll with no preset DC? Well, then it's worth about +2 to the check (on a normal roll) or +0.7 (on an advantage roll).

And... that's about it? It's consistent in the sense that certain activities will literally never fail, but not consistent with regards to how often it actually converts failures into successes. And that matters because tier 3 Bards toss out such conversions like confetti.

Like, I get where you're coming from about spammability. But if we're just leaning on Reliable Talent here instead of bigger features, then the amount of spam we need might be a whole heckuva lot (and it still needs to fit within the goldilocks zone that Xervous describes).

[Psyren]

There's a lot of different forms that alarms take, and there's no guarantee that Reliable Talent in a particular skill will resolve it.

I don't recall specifying "alarms," but for the sake of argument:

1) I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not looking for "guarantees" when I play D&D - that's why I chose a game that revolves around rolling dice in the first place.

2) Yes, if a given challenge bypasses the ability check system entirely, then the rogue is going to be at a disadvantage relative to a class that doesn't need to interact with that system. Personally speaking though, I think every single alarm you listed can reasonably interact with it in some way, even if the alarm itself is initially triggered.

All of this is to say that things don't begin and end at 'make a stealth check.' It's more complex and interesting than that. (As an aside, this is also why PWT, while very strong, is not the auto-win it is sometimes made out to be -- a lot of stuff can still detect you, which is probably why the designers were okay with it in the first place).

You're preaching to the choir here too. (Though I will say that even with it not being as insuperable as online discourse makes it out to be, I do still think PWT is overtuned - a +10 bonus is massive in this game - and hope that it gets revisited in 5.5e.)

Okay, so let's talk about Reliable Talent. Just how reliable is it, actually? If this is the feature that we're leaning on to let us keep up with the entire kit of Tier 3+ Bards then it's gotta be doing some really, really heavy lifting, because this is at a point where the Bard's sittin' on a mountain and it's just going rapidly ascend from there.

Gonna pause you there because I never said RT lets a rogue "keep up with the entire kit of a Tier 3+ Bard" I even specifically said that the Bard can and will likely still exceed the Rogue. But what I did point out is that the Bard has costs (both resources and opportunity costs) associated with using its kit that way. At your tables those costs may not matter, particularly due to optimal or skillful play, and that's fine.