We ran into an issue in our game today, and I’m just wondering if anyone else has seen this or might know a solution.
One of our players is (well, was…) a ranger. Every time he would use animal companion (after level 5, this wasn’t always the case), it would instantly aggro him and start a combat. No one else had him marked as an enemy, only the ranger. We once tried attacking it when we were in camp, and Astorian ran over to heal it. If no one made any moves and just ended their turn, the combat rotation just went in circles and nothing would happen. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Why don’t you fine rogues playable/useful ? I fight myself practically married to Astarion (and Shadowheart) In pretty much every playthrough because rogue is so useful/core. Not just for lock picking and trap disarming when needed, but also just for raw damage. In my first playthrough I had Astarion sneaking around and one shot nearly the entire goblin camp with stealth archery by himself. He killed everything with one arrow but the ogre and the two goblins next to it and the two goblins high up in their towers.
Outside of sneak damage (which in longer combats/higher difficulties is micromanaging hell in combat) every other class except cleric* consistently out-damages rogues. You can kinda make up the difference with the dual hand crossbow/Thief subclass cheese, but only until level 6 where every other class (except cleric*) awakens and can consistently do more damage per round after the first round. If you never get into combat, like your example, rogues can be powerful, but realistically a barbarian with half the levels will have better action economy and damage per turn the second combat starts.
*This isn’t to say clerics can’t be powerhouses, but the best/consistent damage output for clerics isn’t online until level 8+(war domain multi with either paladin or fighter, or monk if you want to be extra spicy), at which point your cleric really should be focused on healing/buffing and not doing practically any damage themselves.
Rogues aren’t meant to be your primary damage dealers…? They’re best employed for their skills (talking, opening shit, stealing, being your lover, etc) over their combat abilities. They generally have more skill points to spend and more proficiencies. But I still agree that in the video game, stealth kinda sucks. Cones of vision are too wide for the smallish areas pretty much every encounter happens in. Plus there is no day/night cycle, and most of the game is spent in the sun.
Unlike something like WoW, d&d rogues aren’t “dps.” Clerics too. They focus more on healing, history, religion, and control through buffs/debuffs.
If you just want maximum damage output: Be a monk.
Thief Rogue is THE best 3 dip, but Rogues offer nothing between 3 and 11 that matters for this game. Reliable Talent is amazing but comes on line too late to matter for a 12 lvl campaign.
And Sneak Attack is functionally worthless. It’s a once per round damage buff (I’ve pulled off the Reaction SA twice in one campaign with a Battle Master). It gets out paced by Smite and fricking ring/gauntlet bonuses.
If your class feature is outpaced by ring bonuses it’s pretty much doomed.
I’m able to get a sneak attack almost every round what? Do you just never get advantage?
Please read the comment again. You missed the point.
I was referencing that I was only able the set up the opportunity attack SA twice in one run. SA is normally only 6d6 per turn but this brings it up to 12d6 for the round via a proc on an enemy’s turn.
Ring bonuses are 2-8 damage per attack, in a game that allows several builds to make 12+ attacks per round. The rings alone have dealt a round’s worth of SA at 5 attacks.
SA in 5e is pretty bad. It WAS really good in former editions when it was added to every attack in the form of Precision damage.