Rogue Week: Rogues in the Game
image credit: Bogdan Marica
Ambushing: Combat with a rogue is all about the ambush, and itâs up to you to set it up. Scout ahead of the party and carefully keep an eye and ear out for unwary prey by listening at doors or around corners. Scan the battlefield for potential hiding places, areas that are heavily obscured, or total cover which will give you advantage to proc your Sneak Attacks. If you are an Arcane Trickster, use your illusions to set up the ambush. You have your full damage potential (especially as the Assassin subclass) when you have a surprise round. Itâs essentially a second sneak attack instead of just one, which is normally enough to kill most CR 2-3 creatures at an average level. At higher CRs, this damage is essential to keep up with your allies.
Speaking of allies, fill the party in on your plans so they can act accordingly. You donât need to tell people what to do (that never feels good) but you can say âLooks like the goblins havenât noticed us yet. I can sneak over to those bushes and backstab the big guy but Iâll need some cover. If one of you sticks with me, I can keep getting in some cheap shots to bring them down.â Itâs not explicitly telling other players what to do, but it lets them know what you can do and how to make the most out of them. And trust me, you will need your allies because past the first few rounds, itâs a lot more difficult to break away from combat to hide so you will need that flanking clause to give yourself Sneak Attack.
Action Economy: As a rogue, your bonus actions and reactions are pretty full. You will be using your bonus action to either hide or disengage (so you can go hide) thanks to Cunning Action. Dual-wielding is thus affected because your bonus action attack canât be made. If you have to choose, only make that extra attack when it has a Sneak Attack applied. Your reaction, while you might be tempted to use it for attacks of opportunity, I would advise against it unless it will have a Sneak Attack applied. Otherwise, if youâre high enough level, you should always wait to use your Uncanny Dodge to halve the damage of an incoming attack. You are fragile and need that damage reduction for survival, and a non-sneak attack is just not worth it.
Magic Fingers: Know when to use your thieving skills. Steal that guardâs keys or steal that magic amulet from the big bad or those weapons from the sleeping guards. You can even earn a bit of pocket change by pickpocketing the upper class you see in towns and cities. I would advise against stealing from other players as it often leads to you getting killed or kicked out of the party. These guys decided to keep you around and are okay with you stealing from and killing other people. To a street urchin or criminal, thatâs pretty much family.
Use your investigative skills to check for traps you can disable. You have pretty good DEX saves and Evasion so you will be able to dodge pretty much all traps that donât target your mind. Even poison traps will need to hit you before they impose CON saves, so you are still pretty safe as a scout.
Donât forget to use kits other than your Thieves Tools. A Forgery Kit can help you get into well-guarded places without needing an entire mini adventure. Heck, if no one notices you can set up a land grant for yourself and set up a stronghold with some good checks. A Disguise Kit can do the same thing as a Forgery Kit with the added bonus of looking like a specific person which opens up new roleplaying opportunities. A Poisonerâs Kit seems handy at first, but when you take into account how long it takes to make even simple poisons it looks a lot less promising. The Poisonerâs Kit is best used when harvesting poisons from monsters because itâs quicker and usually stronger.
Roleplaying: Seeking out the back alleys and shady dealers is the easiest way for you to roleplay a rogue. You can usually trust another thief to give you a useful perspective on the local militia, the government, the merchants, and the daily comings and goings. Joining a thievesâ guild can be not only a fun story experience but also open up a lot of avenues that might otherwise be closed to you.
When dealing with NPCs, you are essentially the same thing as a bard but primarily employ Deception rather than Persuasion. I mean, most people wouldnât trust you otherwise if they knew you were a rogue! A little advice, donât make your lies too outlandish. That will most likely get you disadvantage at best or at worst cause you more problems down the road. Smaller twists of the truth can be explained away as forgetfulness or bad intel. The city that was destroyed by a dragon is going to be harder to explain when itâs found safe and sound.
As for your own character, make sure you have a motivation. Being a rogue just so you can get away with anything is just poor storytelling. What drives you? Is it greed or a lust for adventure? Why did you join the party? Maybe they can bring justice to the city where your government failed. What are you willing to kill for? Even assassins have codes of conduct or moral compasses. Answer these questions and you might have a better grasp on your character so you can more effectively play the role and make decisions.
Rogues Gonna Rogue: Give them opportunities to be a rogue. When filling rooms in your dungeon, add places to hide or cover for ranged combat. Put traps in your dungeon not just to wear down your players but for them to find and feel good about disabling. Use poison as loot for the rogue to use. Itâs like giving out healing potions except they kill people!
Rogues are best at roleplaying with other rogues. Having a thievesâ guild is a simple solution, but it can always be made more robust. Flesh out that guild. How organized is it? What sort of gestures, words, or symbols make up their Thieves Cant? What sorts of illicit activities are they involved in?
Something for rogues to roleplay against are people in power and governments. Someone has to make the kingdomâs laws to be broken! How do people in power antagonize rogues or the thieves guild? What activities and items are considered illegal? On the flip side, are there any people in power who need help from a rogue for assassination or thievery? The nobility are going to frequently become the targets of your partyâs rogue and their Deception skill checks, so make sure they are fleshed out with ambitions.
Challenging the Rogue: Rogues are good against weaker creatures caught out by their ambush (since they can get two sneak attacks in) and against larger creatures that are distracted by the tank of the group. To challenge a rogue, give them a hard-hitting enemy thatâs smart enough to take out the rogue once it realizes the damage output.
Other ways to force rogues out of their comfort zone include giving the enemy a good Perception check or reducing the environmental clutter for the rogue to hide in. Separating a rogue from the group or at least spreading out the party means the rogue canât just flank enemies for bonuses anymore, and must rely on stealth again.Ironically, some of the best ways to take down rogues are with the skills and tactics rogues use. High bursts of damage can make mincemeat out of their HP. Rogues have weak CON saves so poisons work wonderfully. Rogues also have low WIS saves so mind control is somewhat effective. Some rogues will opt to take Perception as a skill or even put Expertise in it, but those that donât can be punished by other stealthy creatures surprising them.
Thieving Thief: If you have a rogue that is a problem player that routinely steals from other PCs, hoards all the treasure they found. Itâs not ideal, but you canât NOT let that player steal from the party. But be aware that itâs happening and how often and how much is taken. Other players will start to notice if they are important objects or a large quantity of gold. They might begin to suspect the person in their group who is lauded every single encounter for their ability to be a thief or assassin, especially if they are in a dungeon with no one else around to steal anything.
Many players will think about flat-out killing the offending player. After all, theyâve likely had a lot of metagame anger building up at this point whenever the rogue steals something from the party and they fail their Perception check. However, itâs important to remind the players that the rogue has (most likely) been rather helpful in their adventures; maybe even saved someoneâs life. This behavior should be addressed, but ideally it should either end with the rogue giving back all or most of the stuff they stole or else with the players kicking the rogue out of the party. If the offending player has NOT been particularly helpful and has been actively working against the party and putting lives in danger, it will likely escalate beyond that.
If you donât want thievery to destroy a party composition, plant some loot that is worth stealing but wonât anger the party too much. A lizardfolkâs satchel of 10 sp isnât going to upset the other players out-of-game too much if itâs stolen by the party rogue. It just isnât enough to warrant an argument. Furthermore, a rogue âhidingâ 4,000 gp they found is difficult, physically speaking, unless they have a lot of time and a few Bags of Holding on hand. Most players will spot them shoveling gold coins into their pockets until they overflow and then not much else will fit on their person beyond that. For such a case, I would never allow a player to even attempt a skill check to hide that from other players. But to sate their greed, maybe let them pocket a handful of coins before the other players notice. Maybe they only pocket a single gem or piece of jewelry, but it was the most valuable of the bunch. The other players arenât starved of gold but the thief can still feel as if they are acting in-character for a thief.
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