Rogue Subclass Tier Ranking (Part 1) in Dungeons and Dragons 5e

this week's episode of our show has been sponsored by heroforge hero forge lets you design custom 3d miniatures for your tabletop role-playing games using their web-based character building platform you can fully customize your character's appearance choosing from hundreds of weapons armor and equipment and then positioning them in a dramatic pose your original miniature is 3d printed to order and shipped to your door the miniatures are finely detailed durable and an absolute joy to paint you can even download digital stl files to use with your own 3d printer for those of you that don't like painting miniatures good news you can even order the miniatures printed in full color with hero forge's new amazing color process and now onto this week's episode greetings my name is monty martin and i'm kelly mclaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything dungeons and dragons including advice for players and guides for dungeon masters we upload new videos on tuesdays and thursdays so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode today we are ranking the subclasses available to rogues in dungeons and dragons fifth edition we are starting with the three subclasses presented in the player's handbook the arcane trickster the assassin and the thief we will be covering the other subclasses available to rogues in xanathar's guide to everything and tasha's cauldron of everything in our follow-up subsequent videos if you look on the screen right now you're going to see the criteria that we use to rank the subclasses we are pitting the subclasses against each other and not those of other classes also keep in mind that during our ranking we are not taking into account role playing as we think that all rogues have an equal opportunity to be wonderfully role played we may suggest some multi-classing but it is not a core mechanic that we are looking at when determining our ranking of the subclasses well role-playing flavor is not a factor in our rankings we do consider all elements of how the game is played both combat exploration and social interaction so whether you want to overcome your foes as a rogue by stabbing them in the back sneaking past them or tricking them with your honeyed words we want to see which rogue subclasses allow your rogue to excel the most in these common types of adventuring situations there's a lot to discuss today so let's get rolling kicking things off is one of our favorite rogue subclasses that blend of stealth and spell casting the arcane trickster this subclass uses illusion and enchantment magic to bolster the rogue's skills cell refuge and combat abilities granting some minor spell casting capabilities in addition to the already amazing rogue toolkit right off the bat at third level the arcane trickster gains the ability to use spell casting intelligence is the spell casting attribute that the rogue arcane trickster is going to use and they get to cast up to fourth level spells most of the spells you pick are going to be from the enchantment or illusion schools of magic however you do get some key choices as you level up to pick outside of those however all the spells that you pick must be from the wizard spell list so while the vast majority of spells that you get as an arcane trickster are going to be enchantment and illusion which are two of the best schools of magic in the game you will get the opportunity to get at least one spell of each level that could be potentially from any school of magic in addition to this your arcane trickster learns three cantrips one is always mage hand but the other two cantrips can be whatever you want they can be any wizard can trip there's no school restriction on what those cantrips are so you can pick up awesome attack cantrips like booming blade or green flame blade or the more trixie spells like minor illusion and press digitation now arcane trickster rogues have to take magehand luckily mage hand is one of the coolest canned trips in the game but it's made even better by this next arcane trickster ability the mage hand ledger domain major hand ledger domain has three core components to it first of all you can stow an object the hand is holding in a container worn or carried by other creatures number two you can retrieve an object in a container worn or carried by another creature and three you can use these tools to pick locks and disarm traps at range this is some incredible utility for an already amazing can trip not only is this making mage hand amazing but mage hand is now also invisible for your arcane trickster in addition to all of this you can also use a bonus action granted by your cunning action to control the hand so well all that comes online at third level which is a lot of features to gain right away when you pick up a subclass at ninth level the arcane trickster gains magical ambush this feature means that when you cast a spell against a creature that you are hidden from that creature that creature has disadvantage on the first saving throw it makes against the spell so this is really handy to use with those tricky enchantment spells like tash's hideous laughter or whole person to really put a creature at your mercy at 13th level you get versatile trickster which means you can now use your mage hand to distract your enemies if there is an enemy within five feet of your mage hand you can use a bonus action on your turn to cause it to distract the enemy giving you advantage on your attack rules against that creature until the end of your turn basically turning your mage hand now into a mini familiar at 17th level the arcane trickster gains the spell thief power which allows them that when an enemy spellcaster targets them with a spell or includes the rogue in an area of effect of a spell the arcane trickster can use their reaction to attempt to negate the spell by forcing the original spellcaster to make a saving throw against the arcane trickster's spell saving throw dc if this fails the arcane trickster prevents the caster of that spell from casting that spell for the next eight hours and the arcane trickster also then gets the ability to use that spell themself effectively stealing the spell from the spell caster the arcane trickster has to use their own spell slots to cast the spell and once they use this ability they can't use it again until they finish their long rest so let's talk about the arcane trickster this is one of the coolest subclasses i think in the whole game it combines two really incredible play styles that a lot of people love it combines the stealth and subterfuge of a rogue with spell casting which is something that a lot of people who play d d love having at their disposal not only that but with granting the rogue option the option to take wizard spells this opens it up to one of the most versatile play styles i think in the game where illusion enchantment can actually impact a lot of different elements of the game and you can really fine-tune your rogue to excel in what you want your rogue to be good at i find that when we look at the other subclasses presented to the rogue the hardest part about it is you have to ask yourself could an arcane trickster with the right spell selection do what this rogue subclass does better and in most cases the answer is yes with the combination of all of these abilities which i think are all really useful and taking one of the greatest cantrips in the game and making it a million times better is just off the chain in my books i think far and beyond this is the s tier for our rogue subclasses and all other subclasses are going to have to be compared to the arcane trickster i think we need to take a moment to fully conceptualize all the spells the arcane trickster can have in their arsenal because in in first reading of the arcane trickster it's really easy to look at the limited number of spells known and the limited number of spell slots and the restriction on the schools of magic you can access and write the subclass off as being too restricted but the small amount of flexibility that the arcane trickster gives the rogue as a whole is incredible first of all you can now bring spells like disguise self invisibility minor illusion major image silent image sleep all into your arsenal and if we just brought in invisibility and disguise self and gave that to a rogue well now you have the ability to infiltrate almost flawlessly because between your skills and your magic you're gonna get in somewhere invisibility is amazing at setting up an ambush or escaping alone and then illusions can be used in so many creative ways mage hand ledger domain allowing you to use your mage hand with your cunning action is utterly transformative in how the basic class feature works and unlike anything available to any of the other robe subclasses but then when we get into the real nitty gritty and see how the arcane trickster gains access to spells like find familiar or misty step or haste this is where your mind starts to really open up as the possibilities of what the subclass is a rogue getting fine familiar is an amazing asset because that familiar can be used to help enable your sneak attacks grant you advantage on skill checks and attack rules and be used to aid your scouting in unfathomable numbers of ways in addition to offering you tons of additional utility building on top of what you already get from may chance so the the fine familiar element of the arcane trickster alone is actually gigantic taking fine familiar as your arcane trickster is probably a must-have but then you can also do really tricksy things like get booming blade as one of your can trips and combine that with the shadow blade spell which is also an illusion spell and so now baked into your subclass features we actually have a real measurable way for the rogue to increase their damage dealing in a massive way not only does the arcane trickster have all these abilities to aid their stealth infiltration disguise capabilities and utility but they're actually a combat monster as well there's the possibility of being like oh well don't you need a good intelligence score well spells like find familiar shield haste misty step invisibility these spells don't care what your intelligence score is because they don't have saving throws and they don't have attack rolls even booming blade and shadowblade don't care what your intelligence score is because they boost your melee attacks i i think one of the really tough parts of comparison is that a lot of the other rogue subclasses a lot of their abilities allow them to do something that is quasi-magical or gives them advantage when they're using a specific set of skills but because the arcane trickster has access to magic oftentimes being flat out invisible is better than any amount of advantage on a stealth check and so the arcane trickster well they have a limited number of spell slots they can use those spell slots intelligently when it matters most and use their amazing skill sets when it doesn't matter so the arcane trickster always can fall back on the fact that yeah you're probably great at stealth just as good itself as any other rogue you're probably good at deception or persuasion or intimidation or whatever other skills you have in the mix but then you have the magic on top of it as your ace in the hole and that's a really hard combination to beat it's an aster so next up we come to what is probably the most bread and butter of all the rogues it is the first rogue that people look at and the one that is the most roguish of the rogues and that is the assassin let's take a look at the assassin and their abilities so when you take the assassin subclass you're going to get some bonus proficiencies in the disguise kit and the poisoners kit two tools which are criminally under-explained in the core rules and you really need to use the optional rules and xanathar's guide to everything to get the most out of these kits and really augment what i think what the assassin can do most people ignore those and just look at the other third level feature which is the assassinate ability and i think this is the real money shot of the assassin class and is probably what everyone is here for because this is the thing that makes new players drop their jaws starting at third level the assassin rogue has advantage against any foe who hasn't yet taken a turn in combat in addition to this any foe that is surprised the assassin automatically scores a critical hit against them if their attacks hit this ability when combined with the sheer number of dice that rogues are using for sneak attacks usually results in an assassin one shotting a normal enemy when they get the drop on them starting at ninth level the assassin gains infiltration expertise which allows them to spend seven days and 25 gold to come up with a new identity they get to passes this identity and have certifications and all the written work to prove who they are and thereafter once they adopt this new identity other creatures believe them to be that person until they give them an obvious reason not to i feel like i have a lot to say about this but i'll wait till i break down to say it yeah this is a strange ability and the next ability is also pretty strange too at 13th level you gain the imposter ability which allows you to un-earringly mimic another creature's speech writing and mannerisms as long as you've been able to observe them for at least three hours once you do this other creatures i guess understand that they're hearing the voice of that creature and the mannerisms of that creature but it doesn't make you look like them you're just mimicking them perfectly but if they're an ogre and you're a halfling i guess you still look like a halfling mimicking an ogre just perfectly if a casual observer it's indiscernible but if someone has a reason you have advantage on your deception check against them to convince them that you're a halfling pretending to be an ogre so there's that at 17th level you gain the ability death strike which means that if you hit a creature that is surprised it has to make a constitution saving throw on a failed save you double the damage of the attack against that creature also keep in mind that this pairs with the assassinate ability which means that you are automatically creating a creature that is surprised what this means to me is that at 17th level you still have the possibility of one-shotting enemies if you can get the drop on them so when i first set out into dungeons and dragons like most people one of the first things that i gravitated towards was the assassin rogue and it was a lot of fun there were some great moments with the assassin rogue when you do manage to get the surprise on the enemy it is killer you feel like the best rogue in the entire world when you don't get surprise and when we look at some of the other abilities this is when it gets a little clunky and may not be my favorite subclass for example if we talk about the level 9 the level 13 abilities infiltration expertise and imposter what's really confusing to me is i think this depends a lot on the dm that you are working with because i as a dm would forget about these options and if any player doesn't matter what they're playing asked me can i spend seven days making a disguise and spend some money to come up with this identity i wouldn't be like well you can't do that because only assassin rogues can do that no that sounds like a great idea and i would let anybody do that with the imposter we have so many different ways to mimic or or copy somebody we even see in our drakenheim campaign wrath who is a warlock combines disguise self and the actor feat to do these two things better than the assassin rogue does which also means that the arcane trickster could take the right spells and feats and do this better than the assassin rogue does that means that half of the abilities that you gain as an assassin rogue are confusing and borderline useless depending on the campaign you're playing in and how your dm interprets them the other major factor to keep in mind is that the assassinate ability the one that we're all so excited about which pairs so nicely with death strike relies on surprise and depending at the table you're playing with the dynamic of the party and the dm's interpretation of surprise this could be something that is excellent or doesn't come up barely ever surprise can be hard to get especially if you're the only sneaky person in a party of otherwise non-sneaky individuals it might actually be a big letdown and for that reason although i think the assassin has a great place at certain tables i want to give it a b because i think it really really depends on the campaign the party dynamic and the dm to make the assassin either excellent or not that great at all so i want to expand on a couple points that that you made kelly i completely agree that infiltration expertise and imposter are non-abilities there is no reason why any character couldn't do this i don't understand why these are class features any creative player that is like i want to come up with a fake identity i'd be like of course you can come up with a fake identity i guess these abilities just say that you automatically succeed at doing that but then the rules themselves of both these abilities explain all the conditions under which they could still fail which would be the conditions under which anybody doing these things would possibly fail so i don't get it it feels like you basically don't have a 9th level or 13th level class feature because anyone could do these things i i think i also want to point out a couple really big flaws with assassinate a creature in combat is surprised until it takes its first turn it still rolls for initiative and then it doesn't act on that turn so if you're playing an assassin rogue and you get surprise and then you roll two on your initiative and all the enemies beat you on initiative you don't get assassinate it doesn't work because those enemies went in the initiative order before you and became unsurprised because their turns have already been skipped a generous dungeon master could house rule that and i think the biggest reason why people lose their minds over the assassin is a lot of people don't run surprise correctly flat out i think a lot of the surprise rules are kind of clutchy and uh they've changed so many times over the editions of dungeons and dragons that's not 100 clear how they work and so people get them wrong and oftentimes a very generous interpretation of surprise makes the assassin rogue seem stronger than they are so we have to ask ourselves the question like how often is the assassin going to get these crits because if they're getting surprised on every single combat encounter that's still only double damage like on your first attack i don't think i don't give out surprise 100 of the time as a dm are you gonna get surprised fifty percent of the time is getting a free crit fifty percent of the time on your first attack in combat maybe is that good if you think that's good and you think you can make that work and i agree there's a way to make that work there's a way to make this strategy work and i absolutely think as well it's ripe for multi-classing right like there's some great multi-class builds that use fighters extra attack and combine it with or a paladin so you're getting multiple crits and then you're cooking with gas but on its own yeah it's it's a b but by our metrics like a b is s tier in the right campaign and unfortunately the right campaign is the campaign where you've got a new dm who doesn't know how surprise works yeah i think that like again we have to compare it directly to the other subclasses which means that if you talk about the arcane tricks you're being able to pile on damage on most of their attacks and compare that to the minimal chance of both being able to surprise be higher in initiative and land that massive hit once in a combat encounter versus being able to stack on damage all the time in the long run the arcane trickster just comes out way ahead on the damage output over an entire campaign ahead of the assassin the assassin can take out a single target if all of the cards fall in place for them but if any step along that way goes wrong they lose that massive attack and are now just pretty much a regular rogue and that means that the subclass isn't adding that much uh what's what's the word that i always say i always say that i'm looking for a subclass that has broad applications with their abilities yeah these abilities sound great on paper but are they broadly applicable i don't think so i think they're actually extremely narrow in when they can come into play and that is the detriment totally let's just think about this if you imagine that your average adventuring day you have four combat encounters and you get surprised on two of them you got to use your subclass ability twice arcane tricksters have more than two spell slots right away and they can use cantrips every single round of combat as an assassin like outside of that surprise round you don't have anything that above above and beyond the base rogue you've got nothing play an arcane trickster take the actor feat and disguise self and become a better assassin and infiltrator so let's move on to the thief the the thief the bilbo baggins of the rogue subclasses pretty much this is a pretty bare bone subclass because this is the one that's included in the basic rules as like the default rogue and so it kind of has the most generic features of all the rogue subclasses at third level you gain the fast hands ability which expands the options that you have for using your cutting action ability normally with cutting action you can dash disengage or hide but with fast hands you can use it to make a dexterity slate of hand check disarm a trap or open a lock with thieves tools or to use the use an action option which is a very nebulous option which depending on how your dm interprets it could be everything from drinking a potion uh possibly some people have interpreted this way to just interacting with the environment in interesting ways so it gives you more ways to interact with the environment use objects perhaps use your gear and equipment or even just do things like throw levers kick open doors and interact with things in the environment a third level you're also going to gain second story work which means that you can now climb faster than usual and climbing no longer requires extra movement on top of that if you make a running jump you can add your dexterity modifier to the distance that you are jumping so now you're just a little bit more nimble than a regular rogue and better at scaling walls and getting over gaps which can be really useful in certain situations for exploration maneuverability or combat positioning at ninth level you gain supreme sneak power which as long as you're moving no more than half your speed you have advantage on your stealth checks pretty pretty good at 13th level you gain use magic device which means that your rogue can now ignore all class race and level requirements on the use of magic items as long as you can argue with your party on why you deserve those magic items more than them you can use anything you want at 17th level you gain the thief's reflexes ability you get to take two turns on your first round of combat as long as you're not surprised you take your first turn on your normal initiative and you take your second turn on your normal initiative minus 10. as long as you're not surprised two turns first round of combat pretty sweet there's a lot you can do with that even more than just sneak attacking twice i think the thief is cool i think that the thief is a subclass that rewards the same kind of creativity that is built into the core of the rogue as a whole one of the coolest things about the rogue in general is that you have no limited usabilities you have nothing that you're restricted on the number of times per day you can use it you don't need to take short rest or long rest to regain your powers and the thief continues this tradition just giving you a bunch of useful abilities that are always on that augment your base class features like you can use cunning action in more cool and creative ways you get a climbing speed you can jump further so you're more maneuverable you're better at stealth as long under certain conditions and you get the sweet ability to take two turns during the first round of combat which is amazing uh it just kind of mind-blowing in its implications and the ability to use magic device as kelly said you're gonna be hard-pressed to convince the wizard or sorcerer to let you use that staff of power but even just being able to carry along scrolls like pull the scroll of rey's dead off the dead body of the cleric to bring them back to life that's kind of clutch and the use and ac the ability to use an object with your cunning action opens up all sorts of weird possibilities and it really is up to dm interpretation whether you can use these things together like can you use your use magic device power and your fast hands to carry a wand of fireball and use that wanda fireball as a bonus action i think the answer is no um a lot of people tend to like get these big fantasies of carrying magic items around and using them as bonus actions i don't think a lot of dms are gonna let that fly and the the answers through sage advice and stuff are not entirely clear because specifically speaking use an object is not the same as using a magic item or drinking a potion but overall there's nothing here that blows my mind i don't think anything here is bad nothing here takes away from the rogue i think that there's a lot of great creativity that you could have to it but once again if you've got a lot of creativity i think mage hand ledger domain is gonna take you further than anything you get from this so i give the thief a b it's a solid b but again it just doesn't it lives in the shadow of the arcane trickster i'm willing to absolutely agree with that assessment i think that the thief is a b ranking now what's interesting is i both like the thief more and less than the assassins since we're putting them on the same level the assassin excels in very certain categories so if we talk about the rogue-based class you have the assassin that maybe is 25 better at this one very specific part of combat and then not better at all in all other aspects you have the thief who is like 5 better at everything but then you have the arcane trickster who is 50 better at everything so when we look at the thief and we look at all of their abilities it makes the rogue better at everything that you want your rogue to be able to do you're more pickpockety you are more maneuverable you can use any magic items you want you're better at sneaking you have better reflexes these are all really valuable to a rogue and there are certain rogues especially in like the right campaign where you're planning a heist or you have to sneak in and infiltrate somewhere anything that involves stealing and sneaking the thief is going to be a great choice but once again the arcane trickster might be a better one for those missions anyway so yeah i really have a hard time conceptualizing any conceivable scenario where the arcane trickster would not completely trounce other yeah and that's that's why like when we get into xanathar's there's some cool variances but i think when we look at these core three subclasses you have two that feel extremely roguey and are in no way bad but then you have this third one that blows the other two out of the water and lets you do what the other two do better and that means that we can't very well give them a's because they're not even as good as the arcane trickster at doing what they they're meant to do in the right campaign they're going to be a lot of fun to play but it's it's a b sub class and there's no reason that a b subclass shouldn't be taken it just means that it's you'd be surprised when an arcane trickster can pull off at the table you know it's like i love ice cream the assassin and the thief are like chocolate and vanilla ice cream i love those there's reasons to have chocolate ice cream there's reason to vanilla ice cream but then like the arcane trickster is like a super deluxe hot fudge sundae with all your favorite nuts and gubbins and fixins and everything on top of it and it's kind of like going to like that that amazing sunday bar where it's like hey here's amazing ice cream and what kind of toppings do you want on it yeah go wild put all the m ms on there you want to have peanuts and you want to have almonds go for it you want some caramel and chocolate how about some raspberry sauce it's kind of like the overload of all the amazing things and it just yeah throw it all on get yeah give it give give me give me yeah yeah i want yeah yep it's a great analogy because yeah my original thought is the thief feels like vanilla ice cream i have vanilla ice cream all the time it's a great topping to a lot of desserts and i love it and it's it's great but if i go out to the store to buy ice cream i'm not buying vanilla ice cream usually i'm buying like rocky road or yeah or something wild uh the ben and jerry's something delicious you know and that's that's the arcane trickster the arcane tricks just delicious where the thief is vanilla ice cream nobody nobody that i know really hates vanilla ice cream you know but you don't pick it so up on the screen right now you are going to see our final rankings for the three players handbook rogue subclasses but let's take a look at what our community thought of them so first of all the arcane trickster our community gave 37.1 s-tier rankings for the arcane trickster and gave a 40.4 a tier ranking 18 gave them a b and 3.7 and the remaining less gave it a c or lower so overall our community gives the arcane trickster an a i find it interesting it is actually the second most s tier votes out of all of the rogue subclasses but still very high up so it definitely lands in that a to s category when we look at the assassin we are looking at a 19.4 percent s tier a 34.9 a tier 30.8 percent b and a little bit for the c and d tier once again landing safely in the a tier but unlike the arcane trickster which was a2s the assassin seems to fall more a to b with a pretty even spread between those two points which i think is fair the thief has a similar ranking uh with only eight point eight percent giving an s-tier ranking 35.4 giving it an a 38.4 giving it a b and 13.7 giving it a c with only a sliver for d tier rankings this puts it pretty solidly in the b category but it's a high b um overall the rogue is very favorably rated by the community all three of these base subclasses and i think it does speak to how satisfying a rogue actually is to play that most players have such a positive experience playing the assassin the arcane trickster and the thief that you have a lot of fun with it no matter what i think it is a lot harder to see at first how much stronger the arcane trickster is compared to the other two though and it speaks to just how on paper the assassin looks really impressive so up on the screen right now again you'll see our final rankings and next to that you will see the community's overall rankings again pretty close and i think what's interesting is that we tended to pick the second most popular option from the community whether it was a b or s looking at the responses in our community survey a lot of the comments that people said was that the assassin is a very impressive one-trick pony and i think that that is a great way to describe it and many people commented on just how good the assassin multi-class is so i think that from that perspective it really raises the stock of the assassin whereas a lot of the comments that we got were very lukewarm about the thief and and universally people that were writing about the arcane trickster were talking about just how transformative it is as a subclass so a lot of great responses from our community poll as well it's of people leaving their thoughts and comments of just how strong the subclasses can all be just how strong the assassins gameplay can be when you play into it but i i personally think the arcane trickster is head and shoulders above the rest so this has been our tier ranking for rogue subclasses part one in dungeons and dragons 5th edition tell us about your thoughts on the player's handbook rogue subclasses in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters if you enjoy the work that we do here on youtube please consider checking us out on patreon by following the links in the description below you may also be interested to hear that we are coming out with a book we have partnered with ghostfire games to bring our drakenheim campaign to life in book form it'll be a campaign guide for fifth edition and you can find the links below for the mailing list to get on board and find out when the kickstarter is launching which should be later in 2021 so find all that in the description below and don't forget to check out our live play in the worlds of drakenheim which is tuesday night at 6 p.m eastern at twitch.tv slash dungeon underscore dudes you can find all of the previous episodes right up over there and we have plenty more rankings for the other classes and subclasses and dungeons of dragon's 5th edition right up over there please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 290,792

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: fEkv0q6R5FQ

Length: 37min 19sec (2239 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021