I actually have so much feedback that i could probably fill a few pages so i thought i'd start with one of the more egregious examples that i haven't seen feedback on yet: the rogue

rogues in 5e are known to be quite strong before lvl 5 and strongly fall of from there. good this game doesn't go beyond 4th level because they got nerfed into the ground.


first level they get:

sneak attack.
which should apply automatically as long as it's conditions apply. now that it is a specific action it doesnt apply on offhand attacks which it should! incidentally offhand attacks don't get your ability modifier to hit. probably a bug but this would also nerf sneak attack. additionally opportunity attacks should apply sneak attack which they do not; another nerf.

expertise
that's right! what would rogues be without expertise? double proficiency bonus to two skills of your choice! oh there is no expertise? really. why?


second level:

cunning action
this defines the play-style of rogues in 5e. dash, disengage and hide as a bonus action. oh right everybody can do this now. silly me!


third level:

your sneak attack gets better! this is how your damage scales as a rogue! even though it scales poorly it makes a big difference. but it doesn't in this game. it doesn't get better.

subclasses
arcane trickster! you get an improved mage hand and two other cantrips! (you don't get mage hand you have to chose it) really strong because you can choose booming blade and such! (no you can't)
or thief were you get really good at climbing. jk! you "master the art of falling" no joke that's what it says. wtf.
and you can use items with your bonus action! o wait everybody can do that too. just give him two bonus actions. there fixed.(actually not that bad of a fix though)


as you can see, it's not just nerfs that rub me the wrong way. it's also the loss of flavour. expertise and cunning action are defining traits of rogues. at least they could be.

rogues don't actually feel that weak right now because, as i said, they are really good before level 5. but at 5th level pretty much everyone's power level doubles and rogues get like 25% better. that'd be a problem.


look forward to next episode where i will talk about spells!

You might want to change the title of your thread. Calling yourself an 'expert' is asking for trouble.

Summon the council!

oh i know! give me all the trouble! the drama! the romance! the bloodshed!

I always play rogues. But as much as I am enjoying BG3 I can't for the life of me see any reason to be a rogue over a ranger. The ranger can do nearly everything the rogue can, and more, and what it can't do doesn't compete at all to the 'more' that it can.

Sneak attack doesn't automatically apply to the first hit that lands, or ever has to apply if you don't want it to, for instance

Although Sadurian is right that calling yourself an "expert" is asking for nitpicks, your crticism of the rogue is spot on. It's...fine levels 1-4 right now, but not nearly as good as it should be. If nothing changes, post level 5 they will be terrible. I genuinely don't understand sneak attack not scaling. It must be a bug, right?

You're out of luck if you're looking for romance from me. I'm not I'm up for the bloodshed, either, come to that. Maybe I could pluck an eyebrow hair or something?

rogue imho is the best argument against action economy refactoring: sounds cool, something breaks

edit: actually in pnp you can choose when to proc sneak attack since you can

this implementation of sneak attack is rather clucky but pnp legal

Actually Thief has top DPR now thanks to additional bonus action.

its not all about DPR tho.

With rogues, it kind of is.

Expertise?

Should they? As far as I know, you can only make one sneak attack per turn which would include attacks as reactions (AoO).

Definitely agree on the changed Cunning Action and lack of Expertise as a pretty big nerf to rogues though.

You'd be surprised how many D&D players would disagree.

I've had long arguments (in real life and online) about how I prefer to play an 'interesting' but weaker character, and been roundly berated for not calculating the DPR and maximising and therefore being a burden to the rest of the party.

I even dared play a social rogue once. The horror!

i wonder how broken 2 bonus actions can be multiclassing anywhere else: battlemaster? quickening sorcerer? Expecially if they dont stick to pnp leveled spell limitations: 3 fireballs per round sounds a good 3 levels dips to me

I kinda feel like while this game takes a lot from D&D 5e... I think that expecting it to be 1:1 from 5e is kinda silly. Taking Inspiration from 5e is awesome but it should still be its own game.

Once per turn, no matter how many Attacks you have, and it has to be with a Finesse or ranged weapon.

Ive yet to have anything that is a typical rogue expertise skill come into play. I can pickpocket, disarm, and lockpick everything pretty much first try. EA, at least, is pure combat for rogues.

Right? I can imagine nothing more horrible than playing DnD and the thing that matters most is DPR. by that point, I might as well not play an RPG

Reactions are out of turn and you can sneak attack on them.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2015/06/18/sneak-once-per-turn/

There are people who take these things terribly seriously, and somehow personally. If their character is not maximised, it apparently means that they are not fully-rounded human beings.

once per turn includes enemy turns! otherwise it would say once per round.

That isn't the issue. You cant use any of that in this game. I play arcane trickster, still don't need expertise. Yes, they need to add it to the game, but I hardly think its doing anyone a disservice in EA. What are the times you have been shaking your fists and saying "Darn you just normal having proficiency!!"

Interesting, suddenly our rogue becomes a lot more effective in our PnP group

i agree with you.
but since it is based on 5e i criticised it on that merit. if bg3 manages to make more good changes than bad ones i would be happy!
there are good changes in there but as of yet they are overshadowed by bad ones in my opinion.

Not many people I run into know that one haha, nothing in the description of it really implies you can - its more that they said it isnt the case that you can't as they didn't expand it further than "your turn" restrictions. I didn't know it for a long time either!

Wow. I'm just ... wow. Half the point of the rogue is its utility. That's where like most of the fun is. I can't even imagine being at a table with players who would berate you for not maximizing DPS in a roleplaying game. When I'm at the table with my dice how much damage I can squeeze out is the last thing on my list of character building.

Depends on the table /shrug. Some are combat, some are RP. Ive DMed games where the players didn't get into a single combat for 5 sessions. Also had a single encounter run 7 hours. Well rounded is usually a good way to go, or at least target specific things because you know your DM likes to torment you and you decide to foil their nefarious plots. In a game like this though, that performance expertise is likely to crop up less than in a game where a DM puts things in that would require performance because they like your character and want you to have fun.

Rogues and Monks should be the only classes who can disengage as a bonus action. Letting everyone do it makes these classes so much less special. It makes no sense and definitely doesn't make the game more fun.

Magic is also fun! Give half Wizard spell progression to every class? And then give Wizards Action Surge in return because that's a LOT of fun. See where I'm going? Probably Larian hates classes and thinks their DOS system was better. Anyway back to Rogues...

You should be able to attempt sneak attack again with off-hand if main hand misses. That's about the only reason to use two weapons.

And sometimes I don't want to sneak attack on my first attack. Maybe there's a 1hp enemy to kill so I can move and sneak attack someone else.

The expert has spoken

I think that way of thinking started to really blossom during 3.0. 3.0 was really a powergamer system, very set up to min/max.

Doesn't matter when any class can exploit hide/stealth like hell in this game

The Rogue really has had much of its flavor stripped away by giving jump/disengage as a bonus to everyone. Just changing that would help solidify the identity of the class in this game.

Expertise really should be in the game, too. Whether it's "needed" to pick locks is not the point - it allows you to further identify what kind of rogue the character is. It also solidifies the Rogue as a highly skilled character.

this pretty much sums it up.

There are other classes that get's expertise too, so yeah it needs in.


Just a not on Sneak Attack. I have criticized it before too, because it doesn't seem to be upgrading, and all the other poor implementations of it. (Ranged sneack attack not going off when you are: Sneaking, getting a back attack, while eleveated and the enemy is threatened.)

But I do actually think the improved sneak attack in. I looked at the combat log after a SA hit and it had this very very weird calculation going on where it checked your level and substracted and added something. And then multiplied the attack by two. I checked because the attack did 12 damage (max damage on 2d6)

So it seems to me they are doing 1d6*2 and not 2d6. If this is the case it's actually a huge buff, but it's not described anywhere... and while it is a buff it seems like a buff that will become very swingy over time.

I agree with most of your sentiment, but just have to say: BB/GFB are not PHB spells. I know they are popular and I would hope they add spells outside the PHB (XGTE, too. I need toll the dead^^), but this is probably why BB is not available.

I noticed that too on the sneak attack calculation - kind of an odd choice. This also seems to interact with critical hits in crazy ways, with the sneak attack damage often being maximized.

Ironically BB/GFB is from Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide. While I don't need the Purple Dragon Knight, I'd sure like those two spells!

Pretty much agree with everything you said here, except your take on sneak attack. While I agree sneak attack should proc on offhand hits, having sneak attack as a separate key to a normal attack gives player's the choice to use sneak attack damage which is what the PHB specifically states, "you can..." Also, offhand attacks don't proc your ability modifier because you need the fighting style: two-weapon fighting.

Then drop the dnd name and make there own up inspired by dnd like pathfinder. Op is spot on

honestly i could take it either way. options are always good but having buttons for each attack with or without sneak attack will clutter the ui.
also i have seen videos of beginners often forgetting to select the special sneak attack and just attacking normally, this obviously wont affect people on this forum but is to be considered.

as for ability modifier for offhand: i was referring to the to hit bonus which is currently missing. you should not be getting positiv ability mod to dmg but to hit. this is currently backwards which i consider a bug.

Its not like they are unskilled without it. They maintain the 6v4 proficiency balance (unless youre ane elf then get perception auto added in so you can be 6v5 or 7v5/4).

Its not like im against D&D here, I DM 15 campaigns and run 3 sessions a week. I get the game, Im just not going to sit here and freak out over a warm and fuzzy like knowing you have expertise even though you can't use it when there are a million more high priority issues and you have to play the odds on the fact that a defining characteristic of the class will eventually be in there. It just isn't now - and it takes nothing away from EA by not being there. I guess I am in the camp where, considering jack of all trades is going to have to be added in at some point too, I am not concerned as to whether or not it is an "If" conversation, just a "when" and I don't think its high enough priority to drop everything to dump it in right now.

If you are not homebrewing at least a tiny bit of D&D, you are not playing D&D.
But that's my take :p

The best way to see if your home-brewed game is really D&D is to publish it as a new game.

The WoTC lawyers will very quickly see to it that you know if it is D&D or not.

Sneak attack is also only ONCE per turn, is not "automatic" as long the conditions apply, that would make the Rogue just insane...

once per turn is one of the conditions. i thought it was obvious. probably my bad.

Youre too trusting. Until larian says it missing is a bug/its just not implemented yet because its not finished i am assuming they simply forgot about it and we will never see it unless we nag them constantly.

They are trying to design the whole game. In addition to them handling the specific game and story they are making, they have to handle their mechanical implementation of the things that are not covered by the system but need to exist in a computer game adaptation of it. This gives them three distinct things. The base rules as a block, their non mechanical game design and story, the required adaptations to implement it all together. This means they do not have their minds focused so intently on comparing specific subsections of the rules to their game like a player trying to use understanding of the system to better understand this game might. This amount of specific focus is simply not going to be there.

Whats needed perhaps are full time class advocates and rules lawyers to constantly be pointing out conflicts to them and trying to bring out the richness of class flavor. Even if its not so important mechanically in the game as it currently is, the nice feeling about conceptually being super-skilled at certain things is enough to make the difference between picking one class over another. The sensation of 'being a rogue' can be made or broken by the knowledge of those skill checks being strongly in your favor. Many of the current complaints and concerns of the game do not need immediate fixes in the game itself and could be solved by simply having developer aknowledgement and the reassurance that it will be fixed at some point.

The mechanics create the fantasy. When your class has a certain mechanic, this grabs the imagination and immerses you in the class. Things like the current abjurers bonus hitpoints counting differently than it does in pnp actually affects your immersion because it changes the way you conceptualize what this ability is doing. The mechanics effectively are the character, and so for a rogue to be skilled, the mechanics must say they are or it wont feel right, you will not be immersing, but pretending on top of an immersion, your rogue will not be skilled but will only think it is.