Baldur's Gate 3: Rogue Class Overview

[Music] foreign what's going on everybody mortum here this time bringing you another class overview for Baldur's Gate 3 with the Rogue a class often known for its skill and precision both on and off the battlefield and with that in mind what we're covering here is mostly class fantasy class mechanics things like that we're not getting too deep into the math of these things mostly just what to expect from playing one and on that note with Baldur's Gate 3 in particular there have been some significant changes here and there to the Rogue class to make them more applicable to a video game and while much of it transfers straight from the tabletop version there have been a few things altered to fit the game so something to keep in mind as we move through this for sure the first thing I want to talk about here is the class fantasy of a rogue because it is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be especially since when thinking of a rogue you likely already have an idea of what that is in your head and in many ways you would absolutely be correct about that whether they be be Outlaws pardon criminals thieves assassins a rogue can be and Encompass many different walks of life sides of the law even many of them aren't necessarily doing anything illegal even if they are still associated with Shady individuals where a fighter will focus on martial excellence in combat Rogues often spend just as much effort mastering the use of skills outside of combat which is why they're especially Adept at picking locks perhaps as their most notable thing that said they can also be incredibly effective assassins or thieves by utilizing stealth which often requires knowledge of disarming traps or even being a really Adept climber a rogue will be focusing on learning as much as possible about the skills necessary to plunder a dungeon or steal from a mansion and because of that on the non-combat side of things in particular you really have a lot of options for role play in terms of a rogue such as where you got those skills from and we'll double back to that because on the combat side of things Rogues are known for deadly efficiency specifically they like to exploit enemies weaknesses which takes the form of their unique class mechanics sneak attack and when you put all that together Rogues are typically light on their feet while using their agility to again exploit enemy weakness but when it comes to creating a rogue or playing as one and what you want to role play there it's important to note that while many Rogues are very much so associated with criminal dealings they certainly don't have to be there are very much so legal ways for a rogue to ply their trade or simply apply their knowledge for what they are good at this could take the form of Simply being a locksmith investigating things as a private detective or perhaps even as an exterminator they might even simply have trained to be a rogue specifically to be a treasure hunter and go adventuring so because of that especially on the role play side of things when it comes to playing a rogue you might want to consider what your relationship to the law actually is were you perhaps working for some sort of Thieves Guild were you an assassin For Hire or maybe the beginnings of a hard life caused you to pick up skills simply to survive all of which are valid answers for a rogue which can make them particularly interesting to play from there though let's move on to some of our class mechanics starting with our general info as a class rogue's Focus primarily on dexterity they're typically going to be using finesse weapons to make use of that dexterity even in combat but dexterity is often used as the basis for many of their skills as well such as stealth or picking locks after dexterity though you kind of have a lot of wiggle room here depending on the subclass you pick up which may or may not include a little bit of magic you might want to grab some intelligence to help you out there Charisma can be especially useful if you pick up skills devoted to sort of lying and Charming your way through situations which is also very much so on brand for a rogue but your primary ability score is dexterity in terms of proficiencies however we are going to be proficient with light armor simple weapons hand crossbows long swords rapiers and short swords however when talking about proficiencies when it comes to a rogue it's also a good idea to mention the skills just like with The Bard because Rogues are known for being very skilled in many things as such as a class they get to pick four skills right at character creation in addition to any they have picked up via their background or their race and right away at level 1 you'll get to take expertise in two of these which will double the bonus for that skill it's very possible to have a rogue right at level one that gets like a plus seven to something like stealth or picking a lock which is a great representation of their initial training so if you want someone who can perform a variety of tasks and pass a lot of ability checks Rogues are a great way to go in addition to the Bard but now let's talk about a few of our class mechanics also starting at level 1 and perhaps the defining feature of a rogue really is their sneak attack and in fifth Edition d and d and Baldur's Gate where a game can be exploited sneak attacks going to be a big deal essentially what this allows us to do is hit an enemy's weak spot for an extra 1d6 damage at level 1 though this will increase as you level up to the level cap of Baldur's Gate 3 with a maximum of 6 D6 so a potential extra 36 damage however in order to make this attack there are a few prerequisites you have to have advantage on the attack roll there's a variety of ways to gain Advantage but in lieu of not being able to get Advantage specifically which is simply an increased chance to hit the target it's also possible to sneak attack if there is another Ally within five feet of the enemy which represents flanking them now in Baldur's Gate 3 in particular it's worth a mention that this is not passive damage added if the requirements are met but rather this is a separate Rogue ability that you have to activate that will add the sneak attack damage onto the attack but in the right circumstances this makes Rogues increase incredibly deadly because if they hit an enemy while they are not seeing thus granting them Advantage they'll get a significant boost to the attack or if you're simply flanking an enemy and they're distracted you have that potential as well and this is what makes rogue's great damage dealers under certain conditions that you can maximize to really lean into the class fantasy that said it's not the only thing we get starting at second level we get cunning action this allows us in balder's Gate 3 to take the dash or disengage action as a bonus action instead of a full action this effectively means we can run twice as far as we would normally be able to and then still take our action at the end of it which would normally be a whole turn for another class and when combined with one of the subclasses we'll talk about this can be especially useful but you'll get cunning action as a base level 2 Rogue regardless from there at fifth level we would pick up uncanny Dodge which allows you when attacked by an enemy that you can see you'll get to use your reaction potentially to half the damage against you which is a nice defensive option that would replace an extra a tank that you might normally get as a marshall character at seventh level they pick up evasion which allows them to make dexterity saving throws to take zero damage instead of the normal half when attacked by things that are AOE in nature so like a Wizard's spell you'd normally make a dexterity save to half that damage but if a rogue with evasion makes that save they take zero damage and if they fail it they take half damage thus reducing the damage from aoes and then at level 11 you pick up reliable Talent which would allow you to on any skill role that you are proficient in that you roll below a 10 you could take a 10 instead and for Baldur's Gate 3 those are the important ones to know as the level cap is 12 and everything else comes beyond that the rest of their class features and mechanics are going to come from their subclasses in particular we're going to get three of these in the launch version of the game which are the Arcane trickster the thief and the Assassin two of these are in Early Access Arcane trickster and Thief with assassin SN being added on launch now the one I want to start with is actually thief because I think they've made some really interesting changes here thief in the table top is very much so focused on sneaking and a lot of extra Mobility to enable that sneaking however they've made some specific changes in Baldur's Gate 3 that make it potentially incredibly combat effective primarily with their starting fast hands ability right at level 3 when you pick a subclass fast hands is going to give you an additional bonus action in the tabletop version this lets you use your cunning actions to take any dexterity check rather than just the dash or disengage options such as allowing you to disarm a trap open a lock Etc but in a video game that wouldn't be super useful so they changed it to just give you an extra bonus action which might not sound like much but this is effectively going to allow you to take a cunning action to Dash and move twice as far while also getting a full main hand attack and an offhand attack if you were to say dual wield and in potential combination with other abilities to give you more attacks that could be particularly useful they also made a change to Second Story work in the tabletop version this is supposed to allow you to climb faster than normal effectively without it costing you extra movement and if you were to run and jump you could add more feet to that jump based on your dexterity modifier but here they've simply caused it to give you resistance to Falling damage instead which again is a little more directly impactful in a video game and honestly jump is already incredibly powerful so it really didn't need the extra buff that's mostly what you can expect from thief in Baldur's Gate 3 and if you're picking this subclass it's really going to come down to how impactful you manage to make the fast hands change the other one in Early Access however is Arcane trickster this is another one-third Caster that allows us to augment our Rogue abilities with some small amounts of wizard magic because this is wizard magic all of this magic is going to use our intelligence ability score but this allows us to do some fun things specific to an Arcane trickster Rogue however is their Mage hand you'll get magehand as a free can trip for taking this archetype however in addition to what magehand can normally do and Arcane trickster's magehand is going to be invisible and also be able to perform extra action such as picking a lock or disarming a trap which effectively means you can do those things at range which adds a lot of Versatility on the potentially non-combat side of things however specifically in combat some of these spells that you'll be able to get will be particularly useful to a rogue mostly these are going to focus on the illusion and enchantment skills and maybe a little bit of divination but while what's available to you is relatively small they are very useful such as picking up the true strike cantrip which is going to Grant you advantage on an attack which could mean very specifically setting up your sneak attacks that way you could also pick up things like sleep to knock enemies out again to Aid the non-combat side of things along with spells like color spray or disguise self Etc just a lot of stuff to facilitate being a rogue so while you won't get any particularly devastating spells as at the level cap of 12 in Baldur's Gate 3 this is going to give you access to level 2 spells if you use them in creative ways you can get a lot out of an Arcane trickster and if you take this all the way to level 9 when you are hidden from a creature and cast a spell on it they'll actually have a disadvantage on any saving throw against it which can help you make sure the spell actually hits or has its intended effect that does bring us to our last subclass with assassin however now if thief or Arcane trickster aren't your thing and you just want to go purely combat then assassin is really the way to go as this one focuses primarily on damage now right at level 3 when you pick up this archetype you gain the assassinate class feature which actually does two things for us and both are very strong for starters we gain advantage on any enemy that hasn't taken a turn in combat yet which gives us the potential to make use of our sneak attack much more than we might get to normally however the other half of this is that if we hit any creature that is surprised say from stealth or a simple surprise round that attack is automatically a critical hit and that guaranteed critical combined with our sneak attack damage can make for some devastating blows to enter combat with and this is why you'll often see people mention multi-classing this with a gloomstalker ranger which also has abilities that focus on dealing more damage right as you enter combat so these make a particularly deadly combo in addition to that though as an assassin you're also supposed to at level 9 get an ability called infiltration expertise which in the tabletop version is supposed to allow you to make effectively false identities for yourself to more easily infiltrate places and make your assassinations however I imagine that will be reworked in the launch version of Baldur's Gate 3 as it mechanically it doesn't quite work in a video game so they might simply give you like disguise self or something as an ability there but the main thing is the assassinate and what it can do for you in combat and that brings us to playing a rogue if you couldn't get the gist from everything I've mentioned here Rose as a character come down to a lot of non-combat utilities such as sneaking into places picking locks or in a dungeon environment simply being incredibly agile which is going to allow them to get around gaps or climb up things that other people might not be able to which might have its own utility so when it comes to playing a rogue do keep in mind that some of their skill set isn't necessarily directly translated right to the battlefield but when it comes to the battlefield in particular that is to say combat playing a rogue really comes down to maximizing your sneak attack be that attacking enemies from stealth or hitting when you have advantage in particular or simply making sure you position your allies correctly so you can make use of the flanking requirement to make your sneak attacks while also taking advantage of the significant amount of mobile that the class has via their cunning action so in combat that mostly amounts to setting up the hits you want to make and then appropriately sneak attacking however things do get a little more interesting when you talk about multi-classing a rogue because there's some interesting things you can do there I already mentioned the infamous Assassin gloomstalker Rogue and while it certainly might not be the most original of choices it is very effective because assassin and gloomstalker Ranger will allow you to set up an incredibly deadly first turn and an enemy before the fight even starts however a personal favorite of mine just because it's kind of silly is to multi-class them with a barbarian and in Baldur's Gate 3 where we already know they're removing the attribute requirements for multi-classing this might potentially be even better because barbarians have a lot of ways to gain advantage on their melee attacks which means with a rogue mixed in they can potentially add sneak attacks to their melee which is a novel approach even if it might at first glance not make a lot of sense to have a barbarian and a rogue multi-class together and then as always another simple option is to Simply mix them with fighter for the added survivability potentially the fighting style and action surge that fighter will give you can all make a rogue that much more deadly so as you can see there's a lot of ways to play a rogue but they have a lot of strengths many of them not necessarily even to do with combat in particular and getting the most out of the Rogue really requires you to lean into all of those things so whether they be a hardened criminal or a simple locksmith trying to make a living or someone trained particularly to delve a few dungeons in search of treasure Rogues make up a wide variety of characters and abilities which is what makes them so fun to play that said that is going to be everything for this video I certainly hope you enjoyed it hope you learned a few things if you did like comment subscribe all that YouTube jazz but regardless of any of that truly just thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate it may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music]

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 133,076

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, Baldurs Gate, BG3, BG2, BG1, Baldur's Gate, Connections, baldur's gate 3 story, baldurs gate 3, bg3 story, baldurs gate 1 & 2 before 3, bg3 multiplayer, bg3 gameplay, bg3 panel from hell, bg3 panel from hell recap, bg3 final panel from hell, bg3 release showcase, baldurs gate 3 release showcase, baldurs gate 3 panel from hell, bg3 multiclassing, baldurs gate 3 multiclassing, bg3 classes, bg3 rogue, bg3 rogue guide, bg3 rogue overview, bg3 rogue class

Id: 0m1vLLcQX_c

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 24 2023