Jack the Lad posted:

That's so bad. And lazy. Holy smokes.

Splicer posted:

He'll get super pissy about you being a power gamer. What was his reasoning as to why you playing exactly as written in the book was 'cheating"?

ActusRhesus posted:

I can't cast fireball every round so you can't sneak attack every round. No poo poo.

Generic Octopus posted:

I like how Insightful Manipulator is the Battle Master's Know Your Enemy but worse and at a higher level.

dwarf74 posted:

Helping as a bonus action and that redirect thing are both pretty solid, at least.

Splicer posted:

Yes but how is that cheating.

No I'm seriously baffled here.

dwarf74 posted:

Helping as a bonus action and that redirect thing are both pretty solid, at least.

ActusRhesus posted:

I can't cast fireball every round so you can't sneak attack every round. No poo poo.

Generic Octopus posted:

Master of Tactics is okay, but hampered by the fact that a Rogue normally uses that bonus action for either twf or Cunning Action.

goatface posted:

Please don't play with bad people.

ActusRhesus posted:

I like the rest of the group.

Generic Octopus posted:

Misdirection sorta sucks because they only get 1 reaction per round, so it's basically only useful against 1 ranged attacker per round firing from behind their ally. There's also the fact that it's a level 13 ability. At least it doesn't require an asinine save to work when the conditions are met.

Sage Genesis posted:

Pfox posted:

"The man in the robes is of lower class level than you."

"Okay! I pull out my dagger and demand his coinpurse."

"Instead of purse, he pulls out his wand and obliterates you in a word. Please reroll."

Vanguard Warden posted:

I find it baffling that the people arguing about how OP certain martial classes are almost never do the actual math to see how things compare. Martial classes tend to be very straightforward in terms of damage per round and survivability, so it's not hard to calculate things at any given level.

Vanguard Warden posted:

I find it baffling that the people arguing about how OP certain martial classes are almost never do the actual math to see how things compare. Martial classes tend to be very straightforward in terms of damage per round and survivability, so it's not hard to calculate things at any given level.

Assuming a 60% chance to hit a target and no magical equipment or feats, a 20th level rogue wielding two 1d6 finesse weapons (and getting sneak attack every round) does an average of 39.4 damage per round. Using a shortbow drops the rogue down to around 28 damage per round. A 20th level champion fighter with a greatsword and the great weapon fighting style does an average of 37 damage per round, but has a better armor class and HP pool. A 20th level barbarian with a greataxe who is both raging and reckless attacking does an average of 31.11 damage per round (and is likely resistant to all damage types).

Sneak attack seems impactful because it's so frontloaded, but any martial class can attain roughly similar damage outputs. Once you bring feats into the equation, rogues fall behind massively; A 20th level battlemaster fighter with a longbow, the archery fighting style and the sharpshooter feat does 36 damage per round from up to 600 feet away before you factor in maneuvers like Precision Attack (which you don't have to use when you know you've rolled too low for it to help, or too high for it to matter). Switching to a single hand crossbow with the crossbow master feat bumps it up to 42.5 damage per round from up to 120 feet away, and lets you fire off shots in melee with no penalty. Rogues, meanwhile, get no significant benefit from feats, as none of them really affect the rogue's source of damage (bonus damage from non-weapon dice on a single attack per round).

EDIT: Also note that you can be a 10th level valor bard with Swift Quiver cast for four longbow attacks per turn instead of a 20th level fighter.


Yeah, I've never understood that part of those features. Last time I checked, NPCs didn't have class levels, they had CRs, which are not equivalent. Is the DM expected to just reverse-engineer it on the fly?

quote:

NPC STAT BLOCKS

Appendix B of the Monster Manual contains stat blocks for common NPC archetypes such as bandits and guards, as well as tips for customizing them. Those tips include adding racial traits from the Player's Handbook, equipping NPCs with magic items, and swapping armor, weapons, and spells.

If you want to take an NPC stat block and adapt it for a specific monster race, apply the ability modifiers and add the features listed in the NPC Features table. If the NPC's AC, hit points, attack bonus, or damage changes, recalculate its challenge rating.

CREATING NPCs FROM SCRATCH

If you decide to build an NPC the same way you build a player character, you can skip choosing a background and instead pick two skill proficiencies for the NPC. If you need completely new statistics for an NPC, you have two options:

* You can create an NPC stat block (similar to the ones in the Monster Manual) as you would a monster stat block, as discussed in the previous section.
* You can build the NPC as you would a player character, as discussed in the Player's Handbook.

MONSTERS WITH CLASSES

You can use the rules in chapter 3 of the Player's Handbook to give class levels to a monster. For example, you can turn an ordinary werewolf into a werewolf with four levels of the barbarian class (such a monster would be expressed as "Werewolf, 4th-level barbarian").

Start with the monster's stat block. The monster gains all the class features for every class level you add, with the following exceptions:

* The monster doesn't gain the starting equipment of the added class.
* For each class level you add, the monster gains one Hit Die of its normal type (based on its size), ignoring the class's Hit Die progression.
* The monster's proficiency bonus is based on its challenge rating, not its class levels.

Once you finish adding class levels to a monster, feel free to tweak its ability scores as you see fit (for example, raising the monster's Intelligence score so that the monster is a more effective wizard), and make whatever other adjustments are needed. You'll need to recalculate its challenge rating as though you had designed the monster from scratch.

Depending on the monster and the number of class levels you add to it, its challenge rating might change very little or increase dramatically. For example, a werewolf that gains four barbarian levels is a much greater threat than it was before. In contrast, the hit points, spells, and other class features that an ancient red dragon gains from five levels of wizard don't increase its challenge rating.

kingcobweb posted:

Mastermind seems to fit the mold of the archetypes with a pretty cool level 3 feature and complete garbage at 6 and 9

If you have a reasonable way to make use of 'infiltration expertise' I'm dying to hear

Sage Genesis posted:

But they don't have a feature at level 6? And what is "infiltration expertise"?

gradenko_2000 posted:

Monsters can have class levels:

kingcobweb posted:

Mastermind seems to fit the mold of the archetypes with a pretty cool level 3 feature and complete garbage at 6 and 9

If you have a reasonable way to make use of 'infiltration expertise' I'm dying to hear

kingcobweb posted:

okay as specified earlier I'm a total newbie but

Why are you assuming 2x 1d6 melee or 1x 1d8? Rogues get proficiency in rapier so they should be wielding 2x 1d8 (with dual wielding feat), and if you're ranged with crossbow feat you can use one hand crossbow to fire twice with action/bonus action (per sage advice). Alternatively to crossbow, even without feats a high elf or wood elf ranged Rogue does 1d8 with longbow at level one.

EDIT: wait you might have already accounted for the 2d6 hand crossbow, my bad

Also in this fighter vs rogue comparison you're just assuming that they hit every round, when a lot of Rogue's skills are geared toward gaining them advantage on most attacks. This should give them 84% chance to hit when they would have 60% chance, if I've done the math right on advantage. Then you can add in the Assassin crit in the surprise round

Mendrian posted:

This might be my ignorance but how are rogues more likely to get advantage? Stealth?

Also 1d6 to 1d8 is the difference of like +1 average damage per attack. I mean we want the rogue to outdamage the Fighter, that's sort of the point.

kingcobweb posted:

Also in this fighter vs rogue comparison you're just assuming that they hit every round, when a lot of Rogue's skills are geared toward gaining them advantage on most attacks. This should give them 84% chance to hit when they would have 60% chance, if I've done the math right on advantage. Then you can add in the Assassin crit in the surprise round

Mendrian posted:

Also 1d6 to 1d8 is the difference of like +1 average damage per attack. I mean we want the rogue to outdamage the Fighter, that's sort of the point.

Vanguard Warden posted:

As for the assassin crit, it's only one round in combat, that only occurs if your party surprises the target and you beat the target on initiative, because surprise ends as soon as the creature's turn comes up, even if it doesn't get to do anything on that first turn. You also need to be able to reach the creature in the first turn of combat, and you need to to hit with the attack. You also had a 95% chance to crit in the first place, so it's only effective if that doesn't happen as well. Meanwhile, if you're a thief instead of an assassin, you get none of this anyway.

Vanguard Warden posted:

It's +1 damage on a hit, +2 damage on a crit, which comes out to +0.65 average damage per swing after chance to hit. It's not exactly the best use of an ASI.

Sage Genesis posted:

What I'm personally wondering is how that guy would react to 3e Rogues. Same bonus sneak attack damage but it works on every single attack, and Rogues get several of them simply through BAB iteration. If anything the 5e Rogue is hugely nerfed compared to that.

DrOgreface posted:

Except that in 3e, a ton of monster types (undead, constructs, plants, oozes) were immune to precision damage. Between that and DR, there will be combat encounters where your character will not be able to contribute at all. If it's an undead heavy campaign, reroll.

kingcobweb posted:

Oh wow this is NOT how I interpreted Assassinate. Is this the official ruling?

PHB189 posted:

Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends.

Vanguard Warden posted:

According to Mike Mearls, it is.

kingcobweb posted:

That's loving dumb

Vanguard Warden posted:

Admittedly, the PHB is nebulous and doesn't at all mention how long surprise lasts.

Father Wendigo posted:

Hello, welcome to 5e. Enjoy your stay.

There's a reason why the Assassin's second only to beastmaster as the trapiest trap class this side of the Samurai.

kingcobweb posted:

Is Thief actually any better?

kingcobweb posted:

That's loving dumb

Pfox posted:

My point was more that being able to determine whether or not an entity has a lower class level than you do is a pretty immaterial ability given the absolutely huge imbalance between classes.

Generic Octopus posted:

Kinda-not-really. They get the ability to take 2 turns in the first round of combat...at level 17. Otherwise they're both kinda bleh.

Splicer posted:

Also since any monster you encounter is going to be monster + class level, either it's going to be a lower class level than you or it's going to wipe the party. The only possible use for it is so that the GM can say "Well if the rogue had checked him out you'd have known he was going to kill you all "