Sure, but at that point, do you even really need a different name?

It's like a 'variant Fighter'.  Reduce the hit die by one step, increase the skills.  Kind of like the 'militant mage' in 2nd edition.  Increase HD, decrease spells known...  iirc.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;592623Indiana Jones specifically, what is he in D&D terms?  If you say Rogue (and there's an argument for it) how do you explain that overall, he tends to fight mostly fair?

Say what now?

Would that be the Indiana Jones who casually shoots the guy 10 feet away who has challenged him to a sword fight? Or maybe the Indiana Jones who throws sand in the boxers eyes and then lures him into an airplane propeller? The Indiana Jones who surprise jumps into people making them fall off a cliff from a moving truck? The Indiana Jones who plunges a flaming shish-kabob into an unarmed man? The Indiana Jones who pretends to be mind-controlled before sucker punching his foe? The Indiana Jones who punches people off a racing motor boat? The Indiana Jones who startles animals to start a stampede and toss market goods onto his foes? The Indiana Jones who punches a guy off a zepplin? Lets a guy drink from a poisoned cup? Tosses a guy onto a tank tred to be run over by the tank, and then lures another guy off a cliff on that same tank? Punches a guy into a nest of man-eating ants?

Indiana Jones fights well, and he's of a 'Good' alignment, but he doesn't fight "fair".  He's pretty much your classic rogue.

Quote from: Mistwell;593248Say what now?

Would that be the Indiana Jones who casually shoots the guy 10 feet away who has challenged him to a sword fight?.

To be fair, that wasn't Indiana Jones the character.  That was Harrison Ford having the trots and ad libbed the scene because he needed it to end right away.

But I agree with the rest

Quote from: Sacrosanct;593250To be fair, that wasn't Indiana Jones the character.  That was Harrison Ford having the trots and ad libbed the scene because he needed it to end right away.

Well, it was Ford's IDEA, sure, but they let it into the film.  So someone must have decided it fit the character.

All of Indie's tactics are just that.  A trope of thief/rogue from 1st edition on is that they attack when people aren't prepared.  Specifically stabbing people in the back who don't know that the thief is there, or beginning in 3rd edition, feinting to make them flat-footed.  

Even when Indie shoots the scimitar wielding attacker, the attacker is fully aware that he is in combat.  Indie doesn't 'feint', and doesn't shoot him in the back.  How is what he does any different from what a 'classic Fighter' would have done?  The short answer is, it's not.  

And when you're fighting a much stronger man who is a boxing specialist, and you're not what does a Fighter do any differently than Indiana Jones did?  The answer is - nothing.  

Perhaps it is easier to illustrate with another example from the other side.  Take anybody in Professional Wrestling.  It'd be hard to claim that they're anything other than Fighters, right?  So how come the Fighters in the WWE are constantly attacking people who aren't aware of the attack?  Hitting people in the back of the head with a steel chair after the opponent was distracted by a female yelling at them?  Hitting someone in the back of the head while they're focused on something else is the rogue's schtick.  

So we have a situation where a rogue is defined by two things.  The first is a fighting style marked by stabbing people in the back.  Indiana Jones (a rogue) doesn't fight that way).  WWE wrestlers, (Fighters) do fight that way.  A rogue is also defined by their interaction with traps and widely useful skills.  Indiana Jones matches that definition while the WWE wrestlers fail.  

Essentially the two dimensions that have defined rogues are not strictly compatible.  The game will be better if they're divorced from each other.

If that were to be done, you could have the 'Honorable Dwarven Trapsmith' as a valid character - someone who fights fair but also deals with traps.  You could also have the 'tricky warrior'.  Many of the fantasy bad-guys are warriors that 'cheat'.  A back-stabbing Fighter should be a choice, to represent that classic option from stories and movies.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;593302WWE wrestlers, (Fighters) do fight that way.

WWE's actors are bards, plain and simple.  I don't think they're supposed to depict anything like adventuring.  It's just soap opera for men.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;593224Sure, but at that point, do you even really need a different name?

It's like a 'variant Fighter'.  Reduce the hit die by one step, increase the skills.  Kind of like the 'militant mage' in 2nd edition.  Increase HD, decrease spells known...  iirc.

Perhaps but its a class based system so you need classes and the path you specify leads to give up classes and just take options from a single list.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;593302All of Indie's tactics are just that.  A trope of thief/rogue from 1st edition on is that they attack when people aren't prepared.  Specifically stabbing people in the back who don't know that the thief is there, or beginning in 3rd edition, feinting to make them flat-footed.  

Even when Indie shoots the scimitar wielding attacker, the attacker is fully aware that he is in combat.  Indie doesn't 'feint', and doesn't shoot him in the back.  How is what he does any different from what a 'classic Fighter' would have done?  The short answer is, it's not.  

And when you're fighting a much stronger man who is a boxing specialist, and you're not what does a Fighter do any differently than Indiana Jones did?  The answer is - nothing.  

Perhaps it is easier to illustrate with another example from the other side.  Take anybody in Professional Wrestling.  It'd be hard to claim that they're anything other than Fighters, right?  So how come the Fighters in the WWE are constantly attacking people who aren't aware of the attack?  Hitting people in the back of the head with a steel chair after the opponent was distracted by a female yelling at them?  Hitting someone in the back of the head while they're focused on something else is the rogue's schtick.  

So we have a situation where a rogue is defined by two things.  The first is a fighting style marked by stabbing people in the back.  Indiana Jones (a rogue) doesn't fight that way).  WWE wrestlers, (Fighters) do fight that way.  A rogue is also defined by their interaction with traps and widely useful skills.  Indiana Jones matches that definition while the WWE wrestlers fail.  

Essentially the two dimensions that have defined rogues are not strictly compatible.  The game will be better if they're divorced from each other.

If that were to be done, you could have the 'Honorable Dwarven Trapsmith' as a valid character - someone who fights fair but also deals with traps.  You could also have the 'tricky warrior'.  Many of the fantasy bad-guys are warriors that 'cheat'.  A back-stabbing Fighter should be a choice, to represent that classic option from stories and movies.

I disagree with your premise none of these things define rougues at all. A rogue is defined by a role play approach to the character.
I played a tumbler rogue for years that neither backstabbed or could disarm traps instead being acrobats and master climbers and I have played conmen characters for years who focus on fast talking their way out of situations. Han Solo is as much as rogue as Indiana Jones.

Quote from: jibbajibba;593315I played a tumbler rogue for years that neither backstabbed or could disarm traps instead being acrobats and master climbers and I have played conmen characters for years who focus on fast talking their way out of situations. Han Solo is as much as rogue as Indiana Jones.

If you want to be a tumbler rogue (which should be an option), there's no good reason to give him automatic advancement in backstabbing.

On some level, characters need to be able to defend themselves in combat against appropriate enemies, but why do all rogues fight in basically the same way.  If you play an Indie rogue, you get sneak attack, even if don't want it and never use it.  Characters need access to character appropriate abilities.  The rogue fails for two reasons - trap guy could be someone else (ranger comes to. Mind with traps and snares) and backstabber could be anyone, especially evil fighters.

Quote from: RPGPundit;591763Well? What should it do? How should it be special? Should it exist at all? How traditional or radical should it be?

In a few D&D Next threads a while back (here and here), I made the following comments about Rogues/Thieves in D&D 5e, specifically because I oppose the idea of them being the system's "skill monkeys":

Quote from: John Morrow;537186I disagree [that rogues should be "the master of skills"].  I think all classes have justification for skills and would rather see all classes have decent skill acquisitions so that players can choose to have their characters have things to do out of combat.  A Fighter could learn how to fix weapons and armor, carouse, or deal with courtly etiquette.  A Cleric or Magic user could learn history or have investigation skills.  And so on.  And what I've seen the concentration of skill points in Thief do in 3.x is encourage players to take a few levels of Rogue just to get skill points, which is the tail wagging the dog.  I think this is the wrong way to go with Rogues.

I'd much rather see Rogues be master of movement and not getting hurt.  They should have the ability to move silently in shadows without being seen, move through combat without getting hit, roll with hits to lesson the demage, land from falls without getting hurt, flee from opponents chasing them, move across uneven terrain without penalty, and be able to use vertical surfaces to move.  I'm thinking less full-blown acrobat and more parkour (that page has a good list of maneuvers one could start with, too).  Stuff like this.  They should also have the ability to not only spot but dodge out of the way of traps that have been sprung.

Concerning the defense that "just to do their job Rogues needs additional skills":

Quote from: John Morrow;537534As someone who has played far more skill-based role-playing games than class-based role-playing games, I would argue that you are ignoring the fact that a fighter's combat abilities could also be considered skills, as can a wizard's casting ability.  All characters are a "collection of skills".  You have no problem with combat abilities of a fighter or the casting ability of a wizard being handled by a non-skill subsystem, but you insist that a thief's distinctive abilities be skills, which also implies that anyone could learn them.  The solution to keeping the Rogue's abilities distinctly Rogue abilities is to make them special class abilities rather than simply skills that anyone could learn if you didn't artificially starve them of enough skill points to be as good at it.

Later on, you argue that a 1e thief has essentially 4 skills.  Two of those skills are movement abilities of the sort I was talking about -- Stealth (the ability to move without detection) and Climb Walls (the ability to move up or across vertical surfaces).  The other two are not necessarily something every Rogue needs.

In response to comments about all of the different rogue archetypes in literature ("Sinbad, Aladin, Nift the Lean, The Grey Mouser, Locke Lamora, Cardinal Chang, Bilbo, Robin Hood, Dick Turpin, Silk, Jack of Shadows, Captain Jack Sparrow, The Scarlet Pimpernel, the list is endless and varied."):

Quote from: John Morrow;537534On the one hand, you complain about rogues being confined as a single narrow archetype out of many and then you turn around and confine fighters and wizards to single narrow archetypes, assuming that as long as they can hit things in combat or cast some spells, that's good enough and they don't need to do anything else.  I think that's nonsense.  What if I want to play a warrior scholar?  How about an investigative wizard?  How about a charismatic preacher cleric?  Without skills, I can't do that very well, so does it make sense that I'd need to dual class with Rogue to make those concepts work?  Or does everyone else have to one dimensional out of combat to carve out a niche for Rogues?

And not to put to much of a point on it but I would argue that several of your iconic Rogues look more like fighters to me, not Rogues.  By such an expansive standard, I would argue that the Three Musketeers would also be Rogues.  As for Bilbo, his "skill" is basically a magic ring.  He's about as much of a Rogue as any other random D&D peasant.

As for supporting the "fat greasy fence", I think that archetype is about as relevant to the typical D&D game as Friar Tuck would be as a Cleric archetype or David Copperfield would be as a Wizard archetype.  Nobody is taking a fat greasy fence into a dungeon.  In D&D 3.x terms, I'd represent the fat greasy fence maybe as an Expert, not a Rogue.  And if that's not convincing enough, I could provide you with dozens of potential Fighter, Cleric, and Wizard archetypes that your "they don't need skills" approach would also not support.

In short, since people seem to want Rogues with something to do in combat, I'd make the Rogue class the sort of action rogue that one sees surviving by movement and wits and overlaps a bit with the attempts to incorporate Dexterity-based Swashbuckers as a fighter subclass.  Make them about movement in combat -- moving without being seen, being able to get places where others can't get, and being able to slip past and away from enemies.  Give them some of the abilities seen in Duelist and Swashbuckler classes and prestige classes in 3.x.  They're not doing as much damage as others, but they're not taking as much, either.  And make all of the trap detection, trap disarming, appraisal, and so on skills that any character class could take.

Looking at that list of rogue archetypes of the source material above (given by jibbajibba) and adding in the Han Solos, Flynn Riders, Indiana Jones, and others commonly thought of as "rogues", very few are about picking locks or pockets.  Most are about sneaking in and running out without getting killed.  Movement.  

In fact, this all dovetails pretty well with the common euphemism for Rogues and Thieves in my gaming group.  They are called "quiet".  If a character is a "quiet" fighter or a "quiet" magic user, it means they have stealth and possibly other rogue skills.  And looking at this from an OSR perspective, maybe find and remove traps shouldn't be skills that you roll against at all but things that players have to describe and figure out on their own, perhaps with some sort of perception check to make some characters better at spotting unusual things like triggers than others.

Also, from the earlier threads:

Quote from: John Morrow;538225The problem is that skills and skill specialties doesn't define a Rogue.  It defines what D&D 3.x called an "Expert".  Sure, if you take Rogue skills you've got a Rogue but if you take knowledge skills, you've got a Scholar.  You could use skills to build anything, not just a Rogue.  So what you are really arguing is that there is nothing distinct about a Rogue that makes them distinctly special and so maybe Rogue shouldn't even be a stand-alone class.  Maybe it's just one collection of skills among many that a player could choose, or not, and a party might being along a lock and trap expert into a dungeon just like they might bring knowledge skill expert along for an urban investigative adventure.  They're like a carpenter, plumber, or electrician.  An expert you call in to solve a specific problem, perhaps best handled with an NPC.

Quote from: John Morrow;538228And if the weird stuff that a Rogue does is not separate enough to merit its own methodology, does the Rogue deserve a distinct class or is Rogue simply a flavor of a generic skill expertise class that could just as easily be a Scholar or Weaponsmith with a different selection of skills?

Concerning using skill rolls to resolve disarming a trap:

Quote from: John Morrow;538228But what about backstabbing?  What about scaling sheer surfaces?  What about moving stealthily without being seen or heard?  Sure, all of those things could be handled with skill rolls, but so could combat rolls and spell checks.

Part of what I have in mind goes back to the old GDW board game Asteroid.  One of the characters in that game was a jewel thief by the name of Alex.  The rule with Alex was that if he began and ended his turn hidden from a sentry robot, the robot wouldn't spot him even if he was visible during the move.  A simple rule that requires no skill rolls and is better for it.  How could that translate to D&D?  At first level, a Rogue can cross 5 feet without being spotted.  At second level, 10 feet.  At 3rd level, 15 feet.  Or maybe a somewhat slower progression.  The same thing could be done with sheer surfaces.  The Rogue gets a free 5 feet at first level and more as they go up.  Also give them better saves to dodge out of the way of trouble.  All not skill rolls.  

Movement already has non-skill rules and limits, which is why I focused on it.  It's also something that most of your iconic examples have in common.

Again, concerning Rogue as "skill monkey":

Quote from: John Morrow;538228Why require them to take the Rogue class of skills, then?  What would be wrong with simply calling your class "Expert" and if a player chooses to be an expert in stealth, picking pockets, disarming traps, and opening locks, then they pick those skills.  If they want to be a Scholar, they pick a different set of skills?

Concerning what a Rogue should be in D&D and what niche the class is meant to fill:

Quote from: John Morrow;538228In AD&D, the description of Thief states:

"The primary functions of a thief are: 1) picking pockets, 2) opening locks, 3) finding/removing traps, 4) moving silently, and 5) hiding in shadows."

D&D originally had a very narrow niche.  In arguing against a fairly narrow niche, I think you are arguing counter to the spirit of character classes which are designed around niche archetypes, not vague broad types of characters.  I think what you are talking about has more in common with the broad Champions categories of "brick", "energy projector", "speedster", etc.

Quote from: John Morrow;538228Not "a musketeer".  I was talking about the titular iconic characters, who should be some sort of Fighter on the basis of their fighting prowess.  They illustrate my point that there are plenty of Fighter character concepts that include rogue-like skills and abilities as well as other skills.  Any character class can make an argument for skills, and if all that defines a Rogue is that they spend even more time on skills, does that really make Rogue a distinct class that warrants forcing players to take Rogues skills to justify its existence?

Quote from: John Morrow;538228Frankly, I'd rate Bilbo a Commoner.  What Rogue-like skills does he actualy display?

Quote from: John Morrow;538228Sure, and being used to skill-based and point-buy systems, I can think of dozens of character types that have nothing to do with the traditional D&D thief that I could build with a robust skill system and lots of skill choices.  What I don't understand is why you think Rogues should be distinctly blesses in that regard.

Quote from: John Morrow;538228The desire to multi-class is often simply the desire to play concepts that don't fit neatly into the single class paradigm.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;593454On some level, characters need to be able to defend themselves in combat against appropriate enemies...

I get what you're saying generally, but this quoted bit I take some issue with. I suppose it depends on what exactly you mean, but why does a Rogue/Thief have to be able to go up against "appropriate enemies" (whatever that means) in combat? They often couldn't pre-3.x, and yet they were an often played class. Part of this is no doubt down to them being key to Save-or-Die avoidance in TSR D&D, but I really don't think that's the primary driver behind people playing the class in earlier editions...

The problem is the change in how skills work; before, the Thief was the ONLY character who could pick pocket, move silently, climb stuff, etc.

As soon as everyone could do those things, the thief just became the guy who could do it a little bit better. And then when that turned out to suck, they had to turn him into the "guy who was at least as kick-ass in combat as the fighter", which in turn fucks up both the Fighter AND the Rogue!

The ONLY way for the Thief to matter at all in any future edition is if the Thief can go back to being the ONLY guy who can do some very essential skills. And I'm not sure I see that happening.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;593707The ONLY way for the Thief to matter at all in any future edition is if the Thief can go back to being the ONLY guy who can do some very essential skills. And I'm not sure I see that happening.

RPGPundit

But do you think it should happen?

Quote from: RPGPundit;593707The problem is the change in how skills work; before, the Thief was the ONLY character who could pick pocket, move silently, climb stuff, etc.

The Thief wasn't a part of the original core D&D books and was added in the Greyhawk supplement, after appearing in The Thief Addition in the Great Plains Games Players Newsletter in 1974.  Everything I've seen from reading about descriptions of the earliest D&D games suggests that the players of those games largely dealt with things like traps and locked chests through the GM describing the situation and the players describing how their characters were going to deal with them.  

Reducing dealing with traps and locks to a thing that only a particular class can do is problematic because it restricts a core part of the traditional old school play experience, which is the players using their wits to evade and overcome traps based on descriptions provided by the GM and solutions devised by the players.  Several OSR blogs have commented on this (e.g., here, here, and here).  In addition, it creates serious verisimilitude problems for some people when characters aren't even allowed to try to do something without a special skill or feat, which is why they tried to move away from that in D&D 3e.

Quote from: RPGPundit;593707As soon as everyone could do those things, the thief just became the guy who could do it a little bit better. And then when that turned out to suck, they had to turn him into the "guy who was at least as kick-ass in combat as the fighter", which in turn fucks up both the Fighter AND the Rogue!

The issue of "What does the thief do when combat starts?" has been a problem in D&D and other role-playing games for as long as I can remember.  Any game that spends a significant amount of the game's time in combat is going to leave all of the players wanting something useful or at least interesting to do during combat.  So if you want to point the finger of blame at something here, I would point not to letting everyone do thief-like things but to combat becoming more complicated and involved and taking up a bigger portion of the game session and I think that's the driving force behind making all classes reasonably combat effective.  I think that's actually fairly reasonable, but I don't think the solution should be to make everyone equally effective.  Instead, the solution should be to give everyone something interesting or maybe helpful do to during combat, not giving them the ability to deal the same damage.

Quote from: RPGPundit;593707The ONLY way for the Thief to matter at all in any future edition is if the Thief can go back to being the ONLY guy who can do some very essential skills. And I'm not sure I see that happening.

And I think that would be every bit as much of an "immersion"/verisimilitude hit as things like healing surges are because there is no good in-game reason why anyone couldn't learn to pick locks or pockets and as the list of rogue archetypes from movies and literature I listed in my previous reply, which came from jibbajibba, is full of characters who are not primarily defined by their ability to pick locks and find traps.

Quote from: Gib;593708But do you think it should happen?

Ultimately, yes, I do to a certain extent. I don't think there's a big problem with saying that everyone has a chance to sneak around, but that if you're wearing plate mail its damn near impossible, and if you're a regular joe you have no particular special talent for it; whereas someone who's very trained and experienced in it will do much better.  And likewise, I think anyone should be able to try to kick in or break down a door, but most people shouldn't have the slightest fucking clue how to unlock a door without doing those things.
Finally, anyone may have the ability to spot that something is suspicious in a room, and maybe realize where the trap is; and may attempt common-sense solutions to activating or avoiding it. But in a medieval world only someone who's been specifically trained in the tricks of these mechanisms should have a chance of disarming them.

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