2024 Player's Handbook: The Rogue might now be the weakest class in D&D5e

[@pablovegaarroyo5713]

Did you see the video in the official channel and said to you nah I'll wait for treantmonk video? 😅😂

[@TreantmonksTemple]

As you should!

[@TsukiShimizu]

That was my first instinct as well!

[@matthewwade8849]

I actually got the notification for Treantmonk's video first...

[@SaraphDarklaw]

I did that.

[@jacobthompson4444]

Yup.

[@DnDDeepDive]

Thanks for the shoutout Chris! Loving these analysis vids. ❤

[@N7spectre117]

Colby Appearance!

[@giltigt]

I had accidentally left KZbin on 0.25 speed. I was quite concerned for your health there for a moment, Chris. Glad to see it was my mistake 😂

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Now you know what I sound like drunk!

[@LyleAshbaugh]

That’s rich!😂😂😂

[@kongoaurius]

The biggest buff is that they can use the Nick property to attack twice every round, doubling the chances of dealing sneak attack and still being able to dash, disangage and hide because you dont use a BA anymore

[@hawkname1234]

Great point.

[@kclubok]

I think the optimal approach is to have a Vex weapon in one hand and a Nick weapon in the other. That way, you use Steady Aim or Hide to get advantage on your first attack and use Vex to get advantage on your second attack.

[@kongoaurius]

@@kclubok I'm really not sure if you can use two masteries in the same turn or if you need to have Nick in both weapons to use it

[@kclubok]

@@kongoaurius In the playtest, you could use two masteries in the same turn if you were using two different weapons. I assume that is unchanged in the final version, but we'll have to see it to be certain.

[@GlacialScion]

​@@kclubokIt's the thing which would make dual-wielding worth doing, and make it a lot more interesting, so hopefully they kept it.

[@federicoghezzi1261]

I read that people were expecting a short rest resource. I thought it made sense, I remember they said that every class now had a reason to take a short rest.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I was too.

[@override367]

The new rogue is fine, if you leave it exactly as is and also add a short rest resource that lets them add extra damage on a sneak attack. Without that it's far, far too weak. Why would I play a rogue instead of just a dex fighter flavored as a rogue? A valor bard will probably end up being capable of out-dpring a rogue if they build right

[@zTom_]

​@@override367A free use per short rest of a Cunning Strike would be good? It'd also strongly entice players to try them out instead of favoring damage out of habit

[@shadow-faye]

​@@zTom_ 2d6 free to use on cunning strike each short rest would be cool

[@derektom14]

I'd have preferred something slightly more creative than what's effectively just a damage boost. One interesting suggestion I saw was Stroke of Luck earlier, but as a 10 instead of a 20. I think you could have that, but then at level 11 it changes to the rogue's level, eventually becoming 20, and then you add another small feature on top of that capstone.

[@DerekRawlings]

Is it really a "pact" week if Warlock is only showing up on Tuesday?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Nice.

[@John-xd9wr]

Everyone take 1D4 psychic damage.

[@novissstatic]

Loving your coverage of the PHB 2024 stuff! Love the comparisons between UA, Final 2024, and 2014!

[@kelvinhernandezsalas8818]

Saw the DND channel post the video an hour ago, started watching, and was like “wait did treantmonk post his reaction already?” and was pleasantly surprised

[@LithmusEarth]

"doing well, seem to like". Bro it's 3,487 views in the first 43 minutes, we are CHOMPING at the BIT for these videos. You clarify everything they say... now up to 3532 / 44 Minutes.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Fair enough, they are rocking!

[@jonahsalyers5979]

*champing

[@LithmusEarth]

@@jonahsalyers5979 it is champing, i bet that's a fairly common misnomer, is to say chomping.

[@Gn0mestradamus]

​@@LithmusEarth Nah you're def on the right track. Champing on the bit is the OG saying, but champing is a direct synonym to chomping AND the google ngram has chomping at the bit as the more common usage in publications.

[@LithmusEarth]

@@Gn0mestradamus Those are some very kind words from out on the internet. I appreciate the insight. Thank you for your time. I even at the time I made that second comment or whatever I looked it up, the internet says it was champing as the idiom.

[@thebitterfig9903]

One thing I hope: the weapon list is larger. In the playtests, there were only three options on Finesse weapons: Vex on a D8 Rapier, Nick and Vex on light weapons, and Slow on a d4 Whip. So there's literally one option on a D8 weapon. It wasn't a problem before that 5e had ridiculously small weapon list compared to most other TTRPGs, because there were so few traits a weapon can have. With Mastery, there's actually a reason to have a big weapon list now. Something like a D8 Slashing Finesse Saber with Slow, or some sort of club or flail with Finesse so a Rogue can gain Sap, would go a long way.

[@bigguy679]

I feel like they should give rogues Sneak Attack on ALL weapons they get as default proficiencies. Longsword + simple weapons would give Rogues a taste of what every other martial (I think) already has.

[@thebitterfig9903]

@@bigguy679 That'd work. There's no doubt a lot of ways to accomplish it. I love that Brutal Ruffian sorts of Rogues who are strength based are reasonably well supported in 4e or Pathfinder 2e. But I still think the weapon list from the playtest needed at least a few more options. A d8 one-handed Slow weapon would be great for sword-and-board tank-type characters, a useful control option.

[@cronykil74]

I really want clubs added as a weapon they can sneak attack with because it makes sense for criminals to use such a weapon to strike an unexpected blow.

[@thebitterfig9903]

@@МаратГабдуллин-б5ф maybe I’d have been better off saying earlier D&D editions. Just compare 5e to 4e, 3/3.5, AD&D 2e, Pathfinder, Pathfinder 2e. Far fewer weapon choices in 5e. And that was fine for 10 years of 5e, but Mastery changes things. The weapon list overall is far too small now.

[@uchihajunior5648]

There's the nick property, so they still have 3 sneak attack attempts at level 1 on each turn if they have advantage (one from the from the regular attack, one from the extra attack from nick with the second weapon and the third from the bonus action with the first light weapon), so if the first light weapon have another weapon mastery property, even without multiclassing, they can use 1 mastery property twice and do 1 sneak attack in a turn, so rogues have less chance of missing their one big attack and waste their turn. And at level 5 with cunning strike, you can combo it with weapon mastery and apply 2 (1 from weapon mastery and 1 from cunning strike) debuffs, and at level 11 you can apply 3 debuffs, so rogue without multiclassing is much more consistent and versetile now, it might not even need multiclassing to get extra attack anymore, and that's without considering the subclass changes.

[@Rallykat]

It's interesting to me to hear them talk about the old rogue with such high regard because it's always struck me as being very mild in capability, so very glad Chris' commentary is there to keep me feeling slightly more sane

[@rookie2128]

in the optimisation community it was always seen as incredibly underwhelming outside of the context of getting a few levels in it on a different main class, and was a contender for the worst class in the game already. I personally dont see those announced changes changing it much

[@bradleywindham4927]

Yeah the causal player and optimizer perspective on this class were WILDLY different. I believe it was the second or third most played class in the game so I can understand why they didn't want to change it too much? But at the same time, look what they did to the fighter which is THE most played class lmao. Honestly they could just through extra attack on the rogue and it would have kept up with the balance changes to the other martials. I may just homebrew that...

[@wekashipo7507]

The Rogue is in an odd place, because it's a class that's objectively pretty bad, but it FEELS good to play. It doesn't scale well at higher levels, its primary damage source is situational despite being balanced around happening every turn, and skill monkeys really aren't that valuable when spells exist to just bypass many skill checks. But with that said, it feels fucking awesome to roll so many dice on an attack and to add such an obscenely large number to a skill check so that failure is impossible. It's like the opposite of the Ranger, in that sense.

[@malusvir]

Rogues kind of get extra attack if they're holding a dagger in the off-hand... But something like a 1/sr or pb/sr ability to just add your sneak attack dice to a hit whether it qualifies or not, or some other QOL or damage boost would have been nice.

[@Golbleen]

layman players and DM's see big number on skill check and barely competitive melee combat DPR and go "OOOOH it's so strong!" even though Skills in 5E have very few RAW applications and are really just the DM making up stuff based on vibes...

[@Reoh0z]

> "[Sneak attack pool] ...sometimes the rogue doesn't need all of those dice to do damage." You wash your damn mouth out with soap. I need ALL of those dice, MORE of those dice I tell you!

[@jakubgodlewski9104]

Yeah it was horrible to hear. The Rogue is already the worst class in 5e, only getting passable damage with reaction sneak attacks. The gap has really widened now, especially with Fighters and Barbarians becoming so much better at skill checks. It seems to be another case of Crawford not understanding what features are powerful, like with Brutal Critical.

[@AwesomeWookiee]

Having Playtested this: the Assassin is still weak, the Thief is very dependent on good magic items but astonishingly powerful, Arcane Trickster is still fun, and I'm assuming the Soulknife is okay-ish. Rogues are well built for fights against groups of Orcs, and Bosses with minions because it persistently hits the breakpoints for taking out smaller enemies, and now has options to debuff stronger ones. The Rogue has a SERIOUS weakpoint though: it's terrible against huge solo monsters. None of the Masteries or Cunning Strikes interact with those at all, so high level play is boned. In my game about killing Dragons, the Rogue can't kill Dragons.

[@nicolocarolo9787]

Off topic, what do you think about the new fighter and specifically the Eldritch Knight?

[@AwesomeWookiee]

​​@@nicolocarolo9787 Very excited to play one, especially with the new Jump spell. Going to try a Final Fantasy dragoon (finally!)

[@floofzykitty5072]

As soon as I heard they could use magic items as a bonus action I was like "no way". Pipes of Haunting as a bonus action is wild. Have an artificer in the party and you are better at using their items than they are.

[@AwesomeWookiee]

Also, best Thief Tactic: Cunning Strike Disarm, Cunning Action to pick up and stow their weapon. "Hey Ogre, Greatclub who?"

[@timeforsuchaword]

@@AwesomeWookiee cunning strike disarm is gone.

[@cocomotion-]

I wonder if the omitted Mage Hand Legerdemain improvement is the ability to cast it as a bonus action instead of needing to cast it as an action and then control as a bonus action.

[@Gnomeo5]

Per the DnD Beyond article: when you use the Trip option of Cunning Strike on one enemy, you can target an additional creature within 5 feet of your Mage Hand

[@inky7993]

​@@Gnomeo5They mentioned that part

[@dinomichalopoulos1517]

I was thinking that it would just be permanent.

[@xolotltolox7626]

They should also make it not require components

[@thebitterfig9903]

With rogues, so much of their overall balance seems to be in strong repeatable (does not rely on spell slots) out-of-combat utility. It's not that rogue utility is useless, and it can be very valuable the table in a lot of circumstances. It's just that however much WotC thinks it balances out over the course of a campaign, balance in fights is what matters most to most players. This isn't Pathfinder 2e where skills are actually useful in combat, and having twice as many skill perks can matter.

[@jmnemonic99]

"balance in fights is what matters most to most players" Having played for over 40 years now, I have not decided if that's a good thing or a bad thing. DnD can and should focus on combat, as combat is one of the more fun things to do. But there are several classes, such as the Rogue and Ranger, that provide out of combat value. Bard too. How much or how little really depends on the campaign, and should be discussed before hand so players know if they are building a class that can have it's moment to shine. Nobody likes sitting at sesh after sesh with nothing to do.

[@thebitterfig9903]

@@jmnemonic99 What strikes me is that it feels bad if session after session you either have nothing to do outside combat, but the same is also true if you have nothing to do inside combat. That’s the big innovation of damage Cantrips-a wizard with no spells can feel like they’re contributing. I’m glad folks like Barbarians and Fighters are getting a little bit more out-of-combat utility. Pathfinder 2e did a lot for this with the 3 action system and multiple attack penalties. You don’t want to spend 3 actions attacking in most cases because the miss chances keep going up, so folks use utility skills to debuff enemies. Rogues have twice as many skill increases and skill feats, so they can do more different more things well in combat, deception tricks, intimidation tricks, and so forth. The impact of any individual skill use is small, but that’s ok. Putting small debuffs on enemies adds up when everyone is tossing one in there in addition to their attack each turn.

[@luminous3558]

@@jmnemonic99 The issue is that skills and what not are cool but others can use them as well and most parties can cover the essential skills without ever considering a rogue. Like you said Ranger and Bard also cover a lot of out of combat utility while retaining spells slots and combat prowess due to said spells slots. Rogue is just the posterchild for whats wrong with DnD martials, WotC doesnt want to raise them to super human status. So Rogues can just hide, they cant turn invisible because thats magic and they dont have magic. Rogues can't shadowstep because blink is a spell and they dont have magic. Rogues also get it the worst because they are also not a combat class so they can't even be a dpr monster or meatshield. All the utility a rogue can provide is skills and skills aren't magic and thus have strong limitations in most games bound by "realism" compared to a wizard who can just cast spells that do the same thing but bend the laws of physics and reason.

[@0Regnier]

@@jmnemonic99 This is why I warn people away from Rogue. If you want utility, you're better off going Bard, Artificer, or Ranger. All three of these have repeatable and low resource utility value. But they can also do this while being an asset in combat. It's not fun being in a combat when your character is making virtually zero impact.

[@kenkoopa7903]

I do think one of the big issues with rogue being balanced around 5e's out-of-combat play is that the designers barely have a conception of what that play even looks like outside of spells. And folks might argue that's a good thing, that it better enables roleplay and active problem solving to not have icky rules in the way, but it means that there's next to no mechanical support for any idea a group can have about out-of-combat play without making a lot of assumptions. Many games with a lot less cruft have a better idea of how explorative or narrative play work on a fundamental level---limited skill checks and dungeon turns in OSR games, building up resources in Lancer, gaining opportunities and using Fabula Points in Fabula Ultima---and having a baseline of play makes it much easier to work with those systems in out-of-combat play than 5e can generally offer. The fact that the designers have next to no idea on how out-of-combat play, and by extension skills, are meant to work in 5e means they can't really design interesting options for either---Jack of All Trades, Expertise, and Reliable Talent are ultimately boring designs which just tweak numbers---and players don't get to choose any interesting options either unless they have access to spellcasting, which are often overtuned to simply solve problems as opposed to being a piece of a solution.

[@Ricardo-zo1ti]

Worst part of the rogue is your second subclass feature coming at level 9, that is what really kills the class

[@TheTwitchyBrownGuy]

I always thought it would be neat if the assassin was the defacto damage dealer, change their sneak to d8s, maybe give bonus "cunning points" so they can do some of the lower sneak attack options for free, as if they rolled like 1-3 extra sneak attack without the damage. I understand why they don't change the sneak attacks to d8s as it's very hard to get a bunch (like 10+) of d8s for most people

[@Arcahnslight]

You really only need one d8. Roll it multiple times and add as you roll, take the average damage and multiply it, or just roll half the times then double the sum. There's a lot of ways you can do multi-dice rolls with a single die, and honestly it's easier for some tables due to the space it saves.

[@matthewmoran1866]

I think it'd be cool for Assassin's to specialize in first round burst, so every ability works for round 1. At level 3 they get advantage on initiative and attack rolls during round 1, maybe it would be nice for level 9 to give you an extra attack during round 1, might even have been cool if they got that old thief capstone where you get a second turn during round 1 for.

[@OrangeTitan2]

Been saying for a while each class should have an invocation type customization thing for a specific class feature. Smite, sneak attack, meta magic, pet, wildshape, maneuvers, rage, inspiration, martial arts etc etc

[@benharder7816]

Druid would be so much more streamlined if you had wildshapes based off of "templates," and you get a certain number and type per level (i.e., swimming speed, flight, multiattack, resistance)

[@AnaseSkyrider]

I, too, wish 5e had class feats.

[@Wild_Rover]

Love the swashbuckler… really going to miss it

[@ClydeFake]

Me too. Maybe we'll see a revised option on a future book?

[@BROMLAZ]

Noooo that’s rubbish I like swashbuckler

[@neb985]

Pretty sure you'll still be able to use the Xanathar's guide swashbuckler with the new version of the rogue. And it wouldn't surprise me if they made a revised version in the future

[@carlcramer9269]

The swashbuckler will still be legal, it just didn't get updated. But I get your meaning.

[@juliamedina3322]

I know this is a hot take, but I like Xanathar's version more than the UA one. So I'm fine with it not being in the new PHB.

[@EnzikEnterprises]

I prefer watching these Vids for the first-time with your Analysis alongside. The position you take of overall health of the game first is what make them way more interesting.

[@01pantagruel]

A problem I had with the 2014 rogue which seemed made worse by UA (so probably not changed much by release) is a feeling of "Rather than a pure rogue, I can build a rogue/fighter who will be better at _everything_ than my pure rogue".

[@haukionkannel]

Every class is better if you add fighter… 😂

[@AnaseSkyrider]

​@@haukionkannel"Fighter is the bacon of multiclassing" - Dungeon Dudes

[@groovydude4511]

Yeah, been playing a Rogue for almost 3 years in a long-term campaign. And by Rogue, I mean my first 4 levels were in Rogue and the rest have been in Gloomstalker Ranger lol.

[@01pantagruel]

@@haukionkannel Nah, most classes don't combine as well as rogue and fighter, because for a caster you're delaying spellcasting, and for a non-caster you're usually getting redundancy in extra attack, which is a huge part of your power budget. Rogue and fighter have features that both stack and are non-redundant (e.g. expertise and tactical mind work together just fine). Other multiclasses also work well for rogue but are more likely to interfere with your theme.

[@jf649]

That is so true. The missing second attack makes them already much weaker in 2014. The new update with trading sneak dice does not feel well here. They should have given those options without the trade-off and also add the swashbuckler with a second attack at least.

[@stevesmith4600]

I always love your insights. You're always the 1st place I go to for my D&D content news. I hope that this schedule of daily videos doesn't overwhelm you. But I really do appreciate the videos. Thanks!

[@stejmon]

Rogue video hasn't dropped till I see a notification for your video about it. But that's just me😁.

[@Yarradras]

You reach level 3 choose assassin and then out of thin air a pouch of makeup appears as well as some vial of poisons.

[@jaspermooren5883]

Or you just say that you make your own. Which is the far more sensible explanation.

[@CJWproductions]

Of all the classes, the Rogue managing to get something expensive for free, no questions asked, is the most believable.

[@zhornlegacy7936]

@@CJWproductions It's the 'appearing out of nowhere' that's just immersion breaking to me. Rather than fixing poisons and kits at baseline to encourage their use, they've just folded the benefit into the class as being indistinguishable to "you just magically deal poison damage now". Poisons should have been an augmentation option; anyone regardless of class can buy, harvest, or craft (give tool proficiencies a reason to exist). The rogue already had the thematics in their existing class features to set them up the the 'best' poison users. Fast Hands (or some similar variation depending on subclass) could easily have been elaborated as being ideal for applying poisons to weapons more efficiently in the action economy. No, we just get them operating on videogame logic instead. "You have poisons now. They're better that basic poisons from adventuring gear, so that item's now pointless. But it's not an item you have to make/carry/hide. It's not something you can give to an ally or apply to traps, it only exists when you specifically make a sneak attack. Never mind if the DM sets up a story where the rogue is disarmed for narrative reasons; the rogue is just able to produce poison at the moment of attack anyway.... because magic?"

[@zhornlegacy7936]

better yet: the poison exists in this Schrödinger's state of being there but not being there at the same time. You have poisons you can use for attacks... but you can't trade it, or sell it. It's better than the 100 gp basic poison, and you have infinite amounts... but you cannot part with in under any situation.

[@justinsellers9402]

This is more thieve's cant. Worthless RP BS to say they made a buff to the class.

[@jamesknowles9236]

The most requested soulknife feature wasn't about opportunity attacks, it was about scaling damage on the psychic blades.

[@Flaraen]

Not sure that's true

[@Finakechi]

I'm curious if the fix to Opportunity attacks will fix the Extra Attacks issue as well.

[@SophiaAphrodite]

IT does not need to damage scale.

[@nathans9764]

Psychic blades have equivalent damage to a pair of +3 daggers, with better throwing range. They just don't have the increase in to hit chance that magical weapons get.

[@darkestlight660]

​@@nathans9764 having an increased hit chance increases your damage chance too. Now, that's not AS much the case as it is for bigger weapons but it's definitely a big consideration. +3 is toward end game, so let's assume level 13ish. Then, assuming 20 Dex and a target AC of 19, let's compare. A +3 to damage will do, on average, is 6.3. A +3 to damage and attacks will do, on average, is 7.8. Again, this isn't as big a difference as say, a maul, but any added damage is impacted. So on top of that you have sneak attacks dice, so, adding that The +3 to damage w/ sneak attack, does on average: 21 The +3 damage and attack w/sneak attack, does on average: 26 So, it's a difference of 5 damage per round, over a 4 round combat that's *20* less damage. This is only exacerbated by any additional sources of damage

[@justinschmelzel8806]

The biggest negative is the theif is massively reliant on the DM to provide magic items to feel good.

[@charrleschervanik3632]

Soul Knife should take the Sentinel Feat. Since the "psychic blades" feature now works with opportunity attacks specifically, and given the rewording as pointed out by Colby in his thief rogue build, you can prock sneak attack multiple times with your core feature more often (if an ally within five feet gets attacked, for example.)

[@kaien17]

So its confirmed... Well, someone had to be the weakest and its nice that the margin is not nearly as big as with 2014 monk, but as a Rogue player it still makes me a bit sad. Also, I will really miss disarm option.

[@mjb91]

Maybe the disarm cunning strike will be tied to the swashbuckler when it's re-released.

[@braylonchampion5908]

The visible excitement when you said Warlock tomorrow is the best thing I’ve heard all week

[@Arcahnslight]

Someone needs to make a montage of Todd just nodding like an automaton and saying "perfect" again and again.

[@Pererro4ever]

Or randomly laughing

[@MrTrilbe]

wouldn't that be every video they make just as one video?

[@parheliaa]

@@MrTrilbe He speaks in full sentences twice here!

[@masterd4964]

That or crawford pushing his glasses up every time he makes some corny comment just before he and todd share a creepy laugh. God their vids are corporate sometimes

[@Wintermute909]

​@@masterd4964I just hope they sell enough 2024 phb that Jeremy can afford new nose pads on his glasses! I suspect he thinks that it makes him look like Clark Kent.

[@mrmuffins951]

Thanks for going over the schedule at the beginning! I agree, the schedule looks pact this week!

[@joelcamilo5436]

Pun intended, I hope

[@m.b.8701]

Ha I was gonna say, nice pun!

[@elementzero3379]

"Pact"? That man is a Warlock! Grab your pitchforks and torches!

[@garryame4008]

It's pretty ironic that Treantmonk's favorite class to be wizard and not a certain unarmed martial class, lol

[@blackshard641]

Maybe he's just branching out.

[@arcanerecovery2567]

@@blackshard641 Leafing through the comments and replies I was able to uproot your clever pun.

[@jackbarman7063]

They should have been adding cunning strikes features, not removing them (disarm). I worry about the value of the trip cunning strike given how easy it is for other martials to use topple more often (with extra attack) and without giving up damage. Also it would have been cool if soulknife got a cunning strikes feature that caused the frightened condition or something. Finally, I worry that rogues won’t have enough damage compared to other classes. I wonder if sneak attack should be d8s or should get an extra d6 at each tier level or something.

[@luizkormann314]

I consider treantmonk's react as the oficial release

[@barcster2003]

He defintely gives more details.

[@mydir2772]

Such busy two weeks for you. Thank you for taking the time !

[@fasterpet]

If the rogue is only slightly weaker on DPR, then that should be ok. The extra capability for added effects as well as the defense options makes the rogue base class well rounded. The extra skills and expertise make the rogue useful in many cases. Weak for one aspect is balanced by versatility in all the others.

[@minimoose7890]

I always enjoy hearing your thoughts and opinions, Chris :)

[@onslaught147]

Stopped myself from watching the post on the official DND channel in favor of this. Appreciate your quick timing.

[@brianj.841]

Yup, me too. I didn't see a need to wade through the hype.

[@binolombardi]

Sentinel feat seems to be streamlined and much more viable for a rogue than it used to be. biggest change is that characters with sentinel can now actually work together.

[@FidasEternas]

I feel like so much of these videos boil down to either: A) We figured out how to format our books and make a cohesive rules system! B) We have actually playtested our rules and have (maybe) made it balanced! C) We have brand new ideas (which really came from older editions)! it only took 10 years...

[@hawkname1234]

Why are you just whining? There is nothing substantial or productive in what you said. You're just making a bunch of (baseless) attacks, with biased wording. Stop bringing everyone down by injecting negativity where none needs to be.

[@FidasEternas]

@@hawkname1234 bro, they were LITERALLY bragging about creating a cohesive rules glossary in a previous video. Look, you can play 5e and enjoy it, I do to! I am just going to be honest about the quality of the product they release. And, honestly, if we want a better product, we should point it out.

[@soysaucesausage]

The new Thief rules are so intriguing, can't wait to find out about items in 2024! If Common scrolls are cheap / can be crafted readily, it appears a Thief can cast Booming Blade as a bonus action and ready their action for an attack. They would likely need a level dip in wizard to make sure the spell is on their list before they hit level 13 but that is not a hard ask.

[@SavageGreywolf]

Booming Blade does not proc sneak attack, if that's what you're going for.

[@soysaucesausage]

@@SavageGreywolf It does! Sneak attack triggers on attacks made with weapons that are ranged or finesse. The text of Booming Blade is clear that you make a weapon attack as part of casting the spell.

[@scrubnub6203]

I always thought rogue was the 2nd weakest class after the monk. It makes sense after the monk buff that rogue is now the weakest.

[@mogalixir]

Yep.

[@lapetitecuillereetlepaindo3005]

Exactly my thoughts. They say "better not mess with the rogue, it was fine". To which I add : it was fine in 2014 before they gave other classes ways to do what the rogues do. Now rogues don't really have a place in the game.

[@prygrama9313]

Loving these videos so much. Hearing your opinions along with the newest information released makes the whole experience a whole lot nicer!

[@bigguy679]

I feel like they could have given rogues a pool of Cunning Strike dice equal to their Proficiency Bonus that they can use without subtracting from their Sneak attack, refreshing on a long rest. It feels like they mostly side-graded the rogue instead of upgrading them (which they needed a bit of). Maybe I'm delusional because rogues have my favourite class fantasy, but if they want them to be more of a utility/skill monkey class, then give them more utility and skill proficiencies (perhaps Jack of All Trades or an out-of-combat sneak attack equivalent?), and if they want them to be battlefield miscreants, then give them all Fast Hands as part of cunning action. At least nick give melee rogues a poor man's extra attack to free up their bonus action, but not having extra attack or fighting styles makes them feel out of place as 'Weapon Masters', considering that they get Weapon Mastery access.

[@spooderous]

Not everything in D&D has to be about doing damage.

[@Woeboez]

@@spooderous No, but when most of what the class can do in combat IS damage, you want it to be up to par.

[@spooderous]

@@Woeboez Congratulations. That's the whole reason why they made the changes they did, genius. It's called having options and not just being able to do everything just because it makes you feel good.

[@eXyliad]

I still feel the Thief is a watered down Arcane Trickster. Thief can climb? Arcane Trickster can spider climb and more spells. Thief can bonus action sleight of hand? Arcane Trickster can mage hand sleight of hand at range and more... the bonus action magic item is too DM and campaign dependent :(

[@rcschmidt668]

Chris, even through the changes to our favorite classes, it is good to see you continuing to work with Colby @d4.

[@davidc9005]

These guys are the dream team. Love it when they have collaborations

[@mikecarson7769]

very much appreciate your reviews along with the reveals! thank you so much for making the extra efforts

[@Throrface]

It's always interesting to see your take on the rogue because it usually ends up being the opposite of mine. In games where skills are meaningful the Rogue is an absolute powerhouse and they just got a whole lot better by getting access to Reliable Talent sooner. I'm very happy about cunning strike, but not all that happy about the loss of disarm.

[@shirak8]

So i was going over the new feats. I dont think rogue is weakest for damage output because EVERYTHING is reduced. No more +10 from sharpshooter or gr wep mastery. No more paladin smite. Or at least not as good. Gloomstalker loses the extra attack. Overall i think everything is weaker but sneak attack seems the same.

[@clarkside4493]

25:05 Oh, thank the Lord! I can't wait to see the improvement. I'm guessing (praying) you can cast _Mage Hand_ with Cunning Action. Otherwise, it's like, "I either constantly cast _Mage Hand_ outside combat so I have it when combat breaks out, or I waste my first turn each encounter to cast _Mage Hand_ again."

[@carlcramer9269]

Then again, you may want to cast Mage Hand so often that it is always active. :) Just have to convince the GM of this.

[@minikawildflower]

I think the rogue was always kind of sneakily weak - the difference was the Rogue was FUN, so people didn't mind if it was weaker than some other classes. The Ranger and Monk weren't as fun for people, in addition to being weak. I wouldn't be upset if this version of the Rogue is the "weakest" class, because it still has everything fun, and like Chris says, it won't be a huge gap.

[@dwil0311]

I also think people greatly underappreciate and undervalue the amount of utility the rogue brings to the table outside of combat.

[@minikawildflower]

@@dwil0311 Agree. Ang honestly that's what I like most about the new Ranger - yes, its combat is more powerful and more fun, but I really love the "Expert" style of the playtest ranger. I hope that's still there in the 2024 version, even if they dropped the Expert tag as an official group.

[@vortigern7021]

Fingers crossed for the Ranger.

[@PunknPixels]

i've already accepted they've massacred it lol

[@SophiaAphrodite]

It was already OP

[@turtley8581]

@@SophiaAphrodite ranger is only good because of broken bullshit like gloomstalker, pwt/surprise, lifeberries, conjure animals, etc. literally all of this has been gutted, and rangers that didn't take broken options like that were not that powerful

[@Harlizarrd]

Really appreciate your work this week!

[@AnaseSkyrider]

I'd like to state for the record that Star Wars 5e was doing "give up Sneak Attack for specific effects" before OneD&D did. It was at 3rd level, came from your subclass, and you got 2 or 3 unique options depending on the subclass, and it always cost 2d6 dice.

[@jordanprice6457]

Love to see the shout out to Colby at 14:30❤ It makes me happy to see my favorite creators supporting each other

[@treydudley7966]

When will wotc learn that sneak attack doesn’t do very much damage?

[@SophiaAphrodite]

It is add on damage to your attack, it is not meant to do a lot of damage. It is damage no one else can do.

[@gloryrod86]

I have a few thoughts about this. I think the most important one is that they can't make sneak attack deal great damage on its own because they have to balance around the fact that teammates can give you a reaction sneak attack. Sneak attack kinda has to be a little bit sub-par because of that. I see it like this, I've never heard a non optimizer complain about the rogue damage, and optimized parties with a rogue will enable off turn sneak attacks, so everyone is pretty happy. Does that make sense?

[@treydudley7966]

I wish they’d just return to multipliers. Start with 2x, work up to 5x at high level. Except assassins get to 7x

[@luminous3558]

@@SophiaAphrodite of which you get 1, sneak attack doesnt even compete with classes that get 2 weapon attacks after level 5 which is every other martial. So yes everyone else is doing that damage and they get to do it over 2 hits so if they miss 1 they still do half damage unlike the rogue who loses a round of damage.

[@Quoriadelta]

Came to watch this before seeing Colby’s assassin video only to see zero likes, glance at the post time and see 31 seconds…

[@matthewconlon2388]

So Envenom Weapon let’s you ignore resistance, regardless of wording I’m going to rule it also ignores advantage on poison saves so if you have a fancy poison, like Crawler Mucus, you’re more likely to land it on normally resistant enemies.

[@feltrix334]

It's worth noting with the Assassin's Steady Aim that, although you can't move before activating it, you don't have to immediately use the advantage. As an assassin, you can use Steady Aim at the start of your turn, move, stab someone at advantage, and move away. It probably would have been less confusing to remove all movement restrictions, but the fact that you can't move before activating it shouldn't be a problem most of the time.

[@carlcramer9269]

I doubt that's how most tables are going to read it. Or the devs. But technically yu may be right, so it might apply at Treeantmonk's table. :o

[@feltrix334]

@@carlcramer9269 True, but the movement restriction is kind of unintuitive anyway given that the whole point of the feature is to wave movement restrictions, so I could see people accidentally getting it (close to) right.

[@Gumby-vx7ki]

I totally want to play a Thief who's pockets are full of odd scrolls and magic items.

[@tagvolatile]

I'm not usually saying a lot on these sorts of things, but I'm wondering if the rogue will have better feat compatibility with the new iteration, since that 3rd feat coming in at 10th level wasn't the biggest bonus, damage wise, before with how things were.

[@idado3250]

Damn, that was a quick upload, thanks!

[@kurtoogle4576]

Thanks for doing these videos, Chris! I love your observations and critiques!

[@chameleon8844]

Awesome vid! I'll be waiting for the other reaction vids per schedule posted ❤❤❤

[@BMKoolaid]

I don't know why anyone is watching this on the D&D channel, when what Chris has is so much better. Thanks Chris for putting great content together!!

[@moonlight2870]

Cunning strike should not reduce damage. That alone would fix rogue. A rough way to fix this I thought off is to get each new optiob on different levels. Level 1 disarm Level 3 trip Level 5 poison Level 7 retreat Level 9 daze Level 11 blind Level 13 knock down Level 15: You can combine 2 This happens allong with your sneak attack and does not use any damage dice. It's fun and it incentivizes you to not multiclass from rogue. Also the extra damage from assassin should trigger on every attack rather than sneak attack, just so the two weapon fighting rogue can get qn extra oomph. They don't even get extra attack at level 5 anyway.

[@guilhermemelo3760]

I hate the jump between level 3 and 9 for rogue subclasses. At least they gave us more meat in the middle, but it makes the classes samy. Apparently he did misspeak when he talked about 3 attacks per turn with nick

[@kedraroth]

I honestly can't handle another ten years of rogues without a 6th level subclass feature and rogues playing exactly the same boring way as any other rogue no matter what subclass I have given feedback in any survey that happened, that is so disapointing, looks like that the worst design flaw of the class will continue

[@timeforsuchaword]

They even fixed it in an early playtest and then rolled it back.

[@SophiaAphrodite]

You did not watch the video apparently

[@Alex-rq8mh]

You would enjoy tales of the valiant 5e ..every class gets a subclass feature at 3rd..7th..11th and 15th level

[@lighthadoqdawg]

@@Alex-rq8mh they specifically were talking about the lack of gaining any features at 6th level. this seems liek more of the same problem.

[@notsochosenone5669]

@@Alex-rq8mh First couple of playtest packets of tales of the valiant was poorly written, and when i saw NERFED fighter i droped it completely. Is it any better now?

[@anonimo2932]

I'm a rogue main here: My biggest problem is the dependency with the master and players. I need a master that give me advantage and my party that give me sneak attack. If I don't have this i need to find a way to deal sneak attack or just, attack. Steady aims i found a lot of table banning it because it's resolve an issue giving too much power (I saw just giving sneak attack was just fine) Base class: having thing to do other than big damage is cool, but still doesn't give me way to achive my sneaky attack, if not with steady aim. Assassins: assassins was quite a joke on how noob trap is it, i like the fact they give advantage on initiative, but the steady aim issue still remain. The main problem with the potion damage is that a lot of monsters are immune to that, so good luck. Arcane Trickster: It was ok, now that the AT doesn't have any school of magic restriction is just free estate Soulknife: I didn't like the concept and i didn't play it, i'm honest Thief: It's good thing they give actually text law for the thief. Stay hidden after attacking is good, and a good way to the master to hate you Overall, yeah it's good, but still reliant on others or steady aim

[@АртемСорокин-п7ь]

This is so strange. In my experience it is pretty easy to sneak attack already: have at least one melee companion or just hide with BA (towns, forests, dungeons present a lot of opportunities to hide). When I play with a rogue in party they sneak attack in 80%+ cases. And what is the problem with steady aim? Never seen it get banned by anybody. And now as SA is a base feature fewer DMs will think about banning it.

[@haukionkannel]

Yeah… now with weapon masters it is even easier!

[@lucasfarted]

I guess your tables can't say no to steady aim now at least. Imo, a rogue should be hitting sneak attack just about every turn at a table that cares about optimising at all.

[@anonimo2932]

@@АртемСорокин-п7ь yeah unless you are against monsters with blindsight, tremor sense, in a map with no cover, and the monster have a lot of AC. Usually i land shots, but i cast find familiar often. I saw a lot of player taking the swashbuckler for the always confirmed sneak attack on hit

[@sprintz33]

I will say, there is a small chance the new monster manual is much less poison immunity focused. Would be a shadow buff to this assassin.

[@daanopdebeeck2312]

Thank you Chris, you made my week (or month) by saying that covering the Warlock will be great to do, I'm so puummppeeddd!!!!

[@Reepicheep-1]

"Go watch Colby. "Don't worry, he's qued up next. A _Trip_ action is a wonderful surprise! Soul Knife: just play a Trixy with Shadow Blade

[@TreantmonksTemple]

We make a good double feature.

[@Fallout2008]

I find more and more I'm liking pathfinder 2. I'm not saying DND is dead or anything like that its just wow they seem to have missed the mark on 5.5. Feels lacklustre. I should review the whole book but this is how I feel.

[@StarRightStarTight]

I think cunning strike is being very undervalued. We’ll see how it is in actual play but I suspect it is going to be a game changer in that it allows resource free crowd control.

[@The482075]

Burly fighters up front, spell casters bringing spells like Hold Person, and Faerie Fire. Then Rogue throws Debuffs left right and centre.

[@SamiJ1508]

Something I used to do for the thief was rule that crossbows could be fired with a use object interaction. This meant they could save on the crossbow expert feat and also use heavier crossbows with a better damaged die. And, of course, they can use potions quickly. With these changes I'm not sure that you have to do that anymore. Just get them a magic item with a decent action to use early on instead. Though I still like my ruling on crossbows, it's nice for the class to have an option that actually works with the rules as written to give them an obvious boost in power. I think that the old Thief class was 100% ribbons. It is still a heavily DM dependent class for power because you need to be provided with things that you can use your bonus action on.

[@christophersaczynski4790]

Thanks for these videos! Love your logical analysis! Can't wait until you have the freedom the talk about ALL of it without one arm tied behind your back!

[@dcyphermanplays8233]

During these interviews that I really appreciate your coverage of these because the guy that's interviewing just agrees with everything said.

[@Umustalldie2]

Thanks Chris, looking forward to this week! Can’t wait to see Warlock, Druid, and Bards!

[@charlesfunnell3101]

Love your coverage. I skip the official videos and just watch yours. Almost by definition, there always has to be a weakest class. In your opinion, when designing a good game, what should be done about that paradigm? I’d appreciate any thoughts you have on that. As always, thank you for the content and I hope you get a break after these flurry of releases!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I don't know that you need to do anything about it beyond making sure the gap between the weakest and the rest isn't too large.

[@willdonelson960]

Here is Infranaut's tiny, day one patch I really like: When you take Steady Aim, you decide whether you want Advantage on the roll or to increase your Sneak Attack Dice by a number of d6s equal to your Prof Bonus if the attack hits. I feel like this adds a fun level of risk/reward to the Rogue, and in situations where you already qualify for SA you just get a damage increase.

[@occultnightingale1106]

God, I really don't like the framing Jeremy used at the beginning. "The Rogue gets _so many sneak attack dice_ that they might not want to deal damage!" At 19th level, Rogues get the ability to deal an additional 10d6+1d8+5 (average of 44.5) damage through sneak attack with a rapier. Compare to 20th level Fighters, who can deal 8d6+20 (average of 48) damage just by attacking four times with a greatsword or maul. Rogue lags behind. But wait, that's just melee. At 5th level, several spellcasters gain access to Fireball, which not only deals 8d6 (average 28) damage, but it's an area of effect that could deal in excess of 10x that original damage across multiple targets. Rogue does not deal that much damage, especially with the on-your-turn restriction. It's disingenuous to frame Rogue as some kind of uniquely heavy hitter, and speaks to the problem with these sit-down videos: they're both trying to sell the new version. Jeremy is describing the product, and the other guy (don't know his name) is just a hype man to set him up for it. That's, coincidentally, why Jeremy has been able to describe false information without question: the other guy hasn't read this material, which means his job is to take everything Jeremy says as gospel, and make it seem as good as possible. I'm really not a fan of this model for bringing information to the players, because it doesn't feel like I'm being instructed on game mechanics. It feels like a commercial wearing the skinsuit of an interview, which to me, feels more deceptive than a straight-up advertisement.

[@wookiee8544]

I'm not sure how badly it would unbalance things, but I think im going to homebrew disarm as an available choice with cunning action. Really liked that as an option.

[@carlcramer9269]

Pretty sure why they removed it was to keep the DM's job simple. If a creature has only one melee weapon in its stat block, what will it do after being disarmed?

[@jf649]

Missing the swashbuckler too

[@Thrashlock]

I love that you can see him seethe every time they omit an important change he knows about, or they just straight up lie about the content. Really makes me wonder if they have additional class content in a different part of the book as optional rules, of if they land in the DMG for balancing and creating new classes/content.

[@Chris_the_Nerd]

Loving their release of these videos and your response/reaction vids…even if I die a little on the inside when JC says archetype wrong.

[@SirEliteGrunt]

I agree on the rogue being the weakest class for the combat pillar but I think in the social and exploration pillars it is near the top. With reliable talent being a lower level the potential for being skill focused is very high.

[@broomemike1]

I feel like there was a melee buff that you aren't mentioning, which comes from the weapon Mastery for light weapons: The fact that you can swing twice without using up your bonus action. This seems like it really increases the likelihood of landing a sneak attack, since you could hide then swing twice or dash in next to your buddies. I feel like you're very used to optimizing with your multi- class builds to get a second attack that you might be missing this buff for single class rogues.

[@AnaseSkyrider]

It's not really much of a buff. A CBE Rogue doesn't need a BA to dash or disengage very often, so the BA they spend on a 1d4 attack works just fine, and they don't need a fighting style to get the bonus ability damage.

[@ansatheatrocious6083]

​@@AnaseSkyriderCBE most likely wont je the same in the new books so that isn't really a point of comparison.

[@AnaseSkyrider]

@@ansatheatrocious6083 I seriously doubt they removed the bonus action attack, or whatever equivalent buffs they have to do to work it into TWF while being mechanically basically the same.

[@jf649]

Not a fan of cunning strike / sneak attack trade-offs. Makes the rogue much weaker compared to the updates from other classes.

[@lincolnmaahs18]

I think rogue should get free uses of cunning strike per short rest. Or a feature that gives them additional sneak attack dice equal to their PB once per short rest if they have advantage. Or both!

[@TheRowdyJ]

hey chris, i know this video is over a month old, but now you can talk about how good the new trickster is going to be. they can give up sneak die for affects like posioning. well, with the trickster, you can have summon undead. get the rotting claw from the spell, sneak attack someone causing poison and hit em with the claw causing paralaysis. if youre a kobold, theres advantage right off the bat. walk up on someone, roar, stick em, hit em with the claw and they are paralyzed? thats a death sentence.

[@mythno394]

Looking forward to aeeing a deeper look at the soul knife. The current version is really cool, but I wished it had some sort of weapon bonding like the eldritch knight so you could use magical weapons with the knife features.

[@optimus2200]

Great Glad to see that the thief is still the best rouge and now even much much better

[@codymarshall587]

Man, first time seeing your channel- you seem to be a very intense. Kinda scary, kinda intimidating!

[@justinsellers9402]

"The rogue is working really well." Am I alone in thinking that the rogue is not even in the top half of classes? In 5e Chris rated every subclass a C or lower. Most lower. Removing the spell school limitations for Trickster is huge. That was a stupid limitation.

[@sanjuancb]

Was Swashbuckler not extremely popular? I don't see why it was dropped. Seems there is a preoccupation wity psionics in the '24 PHB.

[@crimfan]

I truly hate Reliable Talent. Talk about a class feature that either tempts DC inflation or the DM simply to drop certain challenges. To be clear the rogue NEEDS something like that but not the way it was designed.

[@carlcramer9269]

Reliable talent at lower level is what allows a rogue to keep peace with all the non-combat utility the martial classes now get.

[@crimfan]

​@@carlcramer9269 As I said, I think they need *something* but I really hate RT, which removes drama and engenders some of the exact same problems bounded accuracy was designed to fight. I played a high level rogue for a while and found that the DM was always shopping for super high DCs precisely because there was NO drama in anything I tried to do in which I was proficient/had expertise at lower DCs. I didn't really have to make any kind of decision all that often, either. You could say this was just bad DMing but it was actually quite common in previous editions and I think it's induced by the mechanic. RT encourages adversarial relationships between DM and player and is, well, boring. (I have similar objections to other autosuccess mechanics that are in the 2014 Ranger, for the same reasons---things that aren't a challenge simply disappear from the game entirely.) This is totally off the top of my head but, maybe something like: *Rogueish Fortune* (Level 1 ability): As a rogue, you have an outrageous fortune that sometimes helps you do things that more ordinary adventurers could not do. You may add +D10 to an attack, ability check, or save. This die must be rolled after rolling the D20 but before it is resolved. You gain an additional die when you have 5 levels in Rogue, 2 additional dice when you have 11 levels in Rogue, and 3 additional dice when you have 17 levels in Rogue. This feature resets on a short or long rest. It's pretty much the opposite of reliable but instead leans into rogues being tricky and exciting. It also gives the Rogue something to be happy about at short rests. To be clear, I am sure it could be improved and would need playtesting, but unlike RT, it requires the player to be engaged.

[@micahiwaasa9304]

Finally fast hands will play like it looks like it should and like how I've always wanted it to play, essentially having ring of the ram, dust of sneezing and choking, etc as their extra attack.

[@Jon-wq2ne]

Great vids Chris, keep them coming!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Aye aye sir!

[@thewelshwarrior4634]

Aware this is an optimization channel so we are going to focus on the number and core math of the class so this is probably the wrong audience but I think these changes are great, even if they don't fix the rouges damage. The rogue is one of the most popular classes in the game to play because it feels cool to sneak around due a powerful attack every turn, anecdotally multiple player in my games have played rogues in my campaigns and enjoyed them for this reason, they don't seem to care/notice that the damage doesn't scale well enough. With that in mind the ability to turn you damage into a different effect every turn (effectively an unlimited use of 3 battle master manoeuvres) will definitely appeal to the 'casual player', add that to the fact that it will be easier to trigger sneak attack by using the 'nick' mastery and I think you will have a lot of happy players.

[@tylerpridgen8618]

While I wish there were a few bigger improvements to the Rogue post-UA 6 similar to the other Martials, I admit it will still be more fun compared to the 2014 version. I had a pretty good experience playtesting the UA 6 Rogue, so I am still looking forward to making a new Rogue with the new rules.