Strength Rogues.

[Aksolotli]

Half-Orcs are not yet in game but if i remember Strength->Dexterity Rogues can be made work in BG3.

[Jon]

Sure, there's plenty of builds that can be made to 'work' its a different story how effective they are tho.

[Aksolotli]

Originally posted by Jon:

Sure, there's plenty of builds that can be made to 'work' its a different story how effective they are tho.

I mean if i remember correctly this is how it works
1. Longsword is Strength weapon
2. You pick the Dual Wielder perk so you can dual wield them
3. You have 16 Strength
4. You now use Assassinite
5. You have 16 Dexterity
6. Assassanite gains more damage the higher the Dexterity is

I don't fully remember did Longsword take all the damage from Strength but basicly it's like rush to >20 Strength then on to >20 Dexterity.

While it it is confusing at first but you basicly dump both Strength and Dexterity on it meaning you got to blow a lot of damage. Sure this build is NOT 150% functioning on current Early Access but can become quite the power house later in the actual release.

[RealDealBreaker]

Strength rogues will work just fine. Sneak attack works if you use a ranged weapon or a finesse weapon, but a finesse weapon can use either STR or DEX. Your ability to sneak attack at range will be limited as be good with proper ranged weapons (like bows) but you could still throw a dagger (which only works because although a thrown weapon is not considered a ranged weapon, a dagger is a finesse weapon and thus satisfies that route to activating sneak attack).

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

You can Shove better as a Str Rogue, and Sneak Attack only requires that the weapon be a Finesse weapon, which uses either your Str or Dex modifier, whichever is higher.

You'll only lose out on AC, initiative and Dex saving throws, unless you also increase Dex as well.

You could multiclass into Fighter, for example to take Champion at level three for crit-fishing, and also take the Dueling fighting style and use a rapier/shield and still get your Sneak Attacks in while also yeeting fools off of cliffs for instant kills.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by Aksolotli:

Originally posted by Jon:

Sure, there's plenty of builds that can be made to 'work' its a different story how effective they are tho.

I mean if i remember correctly this is how it works
1. Longsword is Strength weapon
2. You pick the Dual Wielder perk so you can dual wield them
3. You have 16 Strength
4. You now use Assassinite
5. You have 16 Dexterity
6. Assassanite gains more damage the higher the Dexterity is

I don't fully remember did Longsword take all the damage from Strength but basicly it's like rush to >20 Strength then on to >20 Dexterity.

While it it is confusing at first but you basicly dump both Strength and Dexterity on it meaning you got to blow a lot of damage. Sure this build is NOT 150% functioning on current Early Access but can become quite the power house later in the actual release.

That wouldn't work really. Because you couldn't sneak attack with a long sword and sneak attack before any other feature is why you would want to be a rogue in the first place. As great as assassinate is, it is only ever going to be once per combat and sneak attack is every round (plus potentially an opportunity attack on another turn using your reaction).

edit: also assassinate doesn't get more damage from dex. Assassinate (the level 3 assassin rogue feature) reads as "Starting at 3rd level, you are at your deadliest when you get the drop on your enemies. You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn't taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit."

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

D&D needs a feat that turns any melee weapon, as long as it does not have the heavy property, into a finesse weapon.

[Aksolotli]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

D&D needs a feat that turns any melee weapon, as long as it does not have the heavy property, into a finesse weapon.

In my opinion it needs way more weapon specific feats, just like in the older edition.

[dolby]

No way to know until we get full game...

AS is in EA you are leaving a lot of damage on the table if you going STR rogue due to how lariana made sneak attack active skill only. Meaning you gonna hit for ♥♥♥♥ with your crapy dex on your Second range sneak attack in that turn.



With no passive sneak attack charge, strength rogeus will sux compared to dex if Larian doesn't fixes sneak attack and makes it work with reactions.

Even if they just slap on added reactions for it and just leave active icones as they are that let you do 2 sneak attacks Per turn (melee and range) STR rogue should be more or less dead. Depends on IF and how they change-fix it.

They should do that anyway due to multiple other reasons as well, so hopefully they did that and we can have a proper sneak attack rogue with or without dex...

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit."

Meaning it will be op in bg 3 as most other things... Cos of how the game is made and how surprise round works.

The whole first round you gonna be criting all the time on everything you combine that with broken op weapons, buffs... extra attack - haste, bonus actions and action surge and no working rest...

Most likely nothing will be even a live at the end of first round in any fight. Heh this will be so funny at full release if it's gonna be anything like EA. The game will be beyond easy IF they didn't change stuff..

[Metallicus]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

D&D needs a feat that turns any melee weapon, as long as it does not have the heavy property, into a finesse weapon.

This is a weakness of the 5e system. Not enough depth.

[Aldain]

Originally posted by Metallicus:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

D&D needs a feat that turns any melee weapon, as long as it does not have the heavy property, into a finesse weapon.

This is a weakness of the 5e system. Not enough depth.

That's not a 5e issue, that's a "WotC never actually printed all that much depth for 5e" issue.

Solasta's Modding community for example actually not only has that as a feat but even a subclass or two as well, 5e could have a lot of modular depth added to it pretty easily without snapping the balance in half thanks to bounded accuraccy.

WotC is just too busy shooting themselves in both feet repeatedly to actually iterate and improve on the system.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by dolby:

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit."

Meaning it will be op in bg 3 as most other things... Cos of how the game is made and how surprise round works.

The whole first round you gonna be criting all the time on everything you combine that with broken op weapons, buffs... extra attack - haste, bonus actions and action surge and no working rest...

Most likely nothing will be even a live at the end of first round in any fight. Heh this will be so funny at full release if it's gonna be anything like EA. The game will be beyond easy IF they didn't change stuff..

No, because you will not always surprise enemies. And surprise can literally only occur in the first round. And you have to act before them in that first round in order to benefit form the hit=crit on assassinate AND in order for them to be surprised (one their turn comes up they lose the surprised condition). A strength based rogue will typically have lower dex and thus lower initiative and be less likely to act early.

Edit: And again, you can't sneak attack with a long sword so that crit on a long sword will only deal 2d8 + STR (or 2d10 + str if twohanding it) which averages 9 + STR (or 11 +STR) vs a REGULAR sneak attack with a short sword which would deal 2d6 + STR or DEX at level 1 and increase by 1d6 every odd level (and that sneak attack could crit which would double the total number of dice making sneak attack that much more important than a crit with a long sword).

TL;DR: Sneak attack is far more important than assassinate, OP misunderstood both assassinate and sneak attack, and despite all that a STR based rogue can still work just not for the reasons OP thought.

[dolby]

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

Originally posted by dolby:

Meaning it will be op in bg 3 as most other things... Cos of how the game is made and how surprise round works.

The whole first round you gonna be criting all the time on everything you combine that with broken op weapons, buffs... extra attack - haste, bonus actions and action surge and no working rest...

Most likely nothing will be even a live at the end of first round in any fight. Heh this will be so funny at full release if it's gonna be anything like EA. The game will be beyond easy IF they didn't change stuff..

No, because you will not always surprise enemies. And surprise can literally only occur in the first round. And you have to act before them in that first round in order to benefit form the hit=crit on assassinate AND in order for them to be surprised (one their turn comes up they lose the surprised condition). A strength based rogue will typically have lower dex and thus lower initiative and be less likely to act early.

Edit: And again, you can't sneak attack with a long sword so that crit on a long sword will only deal 2d8 + STR (or 2d10 + str if twohanding it) which averages 9 + STR (or 11 +STR) vs a REGULAR sneak attack with a short sword which would deal 2d6 + STR or DEX at level 1 and increase by 1d6 every odd level (and that sneak attack could crit which would double the total number of dice making sneak attack that much more important than a crit with a long sword).

TL;DR: Sneak attack is far more important than assassinate, OP misunderstood both assassinate and sneak attack, and despite all that a STR based rogue can still work just not for the reasons OP thought.

OH why do i even bother. That stuff has nothing to do what i posted Like i said you can sneak attack twice per turn right now once with rapier and one time with ranged attack... THat range attack will be bad with STR build.... can't say it any more simple than that.

Not to mention in BG 3 surprise round works fine no matter your initiative so i would think assassinate will work the same way. No reason it shouldn't the easiest way to code it as well... So that is good enough reason for larian heh Not long now so we will see.
That extra round is all you need to nuke everything in bg 3. Did you even play the game? You use surprise round and ever fight is over IF you are half decent at game. After all you get a free round of turns to do whatever can't get anymore OP than that.

Just as referance there are only a few fights that you can't normally start with surprise round in Act 1 less then 5 lol so that says it ALL.

Hell, you can even metagame some of those like the harpy fight etc and use surprise round even on those by attacking them cos you know where they are.

And if all else fails and you really really want to have surprise ALL THE TIME even without Metaknowledge? You can allways just disengage TB mode in fights. By runing away and just coming back and restart the combat with surprise round from stealth... Even on the rare chance if that fight would start with cutsceen normally.

So yes surprise round is completely broken same as stealth it self.

[Aksolotli]

Originally posted by dolby:

Originally posted by RealDealBreaker:

No, because you will not always surprise enemies. And surprise can literally only occur in the first round. And you have to act before them in that first round in order to benefit form the hit=crit on assassinate AND in order for them to be surprised (one their turn comes up they lose the surprised condition). A strength based rogue will typically have lower dex and thus lower initiative and be less likely to act early.

Edit: And again, you can't sneak attack with a long sword so that crit on a long sword will only deal 2d8 + STR (or 2d10 + str if twohanding it) which averages 9 + STR (or 11 +STR) vs a REGULAR sneak attack with a short sword which would deal 2d6 + STR or DEX at level 1 and increase by 1d6 every odd level (and that sneak attack could crit which would double the total number of dice making sneak attack that much more important than a crit with a long sword).

TL;DR: Sneak attack is far more important than assassinate, OP misunderstood both assassinate and sneak attack, and despite all that a STR based rogue can still work just not for the reasons OP thought.

OH why do i even bother. That stuff has nothing to do what i posted Like i said you can sneak attack twice per turn right now once with rapier and one time with ranged attack... THat range attack will be bad with STR build.... can't say it any more simple than that.

Not to mention in BG 3 surprise round works fine no matter your initiative so i would think assassinate will work the same way. No reason it shouldn't the easiest way to code it as well... So that is good enough reason for larian heh
That extra round is all you need to nuke everything in bg 3. Did you even play the game? You use surprise round and ever fight is over IF you are half decent at game that is.

it's just going to be OP, as always like everything that larian made so far no balance at all... like thiefs extra bonus action, as just one tiny example heh but ok i digress.


Just as referance there are only a few fights that you can't normally start with surprise round in Act 1 less then 5 lol so that says it ALL.

Hell, you can even metagame some of those like the harpy fight etc and use surprise round even on those by attacking them cos you know where they are.

And if all else fails and you really really want to have surprise all the time with out fail you can even disengage TB mode. By runing away and just come back and restart the combat with surprise... Even if that fight would start with cutsceen.

So yes surprise round is completely broken same as stealth it self.

I wanna add to this i think the that Specter fight is very scripted so there is no possible way to surprise it? Now i think in previous builds he has was invisible so if you knew where AoE he would be surprised.
Hag is one of the better surprise bosses as you can kill her in turn one
Githyanki is kinda all over the place but they are very surpriseable too.

But i do agree that more enemies should need to be surpriseable. Maybe not now working as inted due to EA status. I understand some Grymforge boss not being a surpriseable too etc....

[dolby]

Originally posted by Aksolotli:

I wanna add to this i think the that Specter fight is very scripted so there is no possible way to surprise it?

yeah there are ways let say you are playing a ranger properly with scouting and stealth ... at that point you should trigger the boss with a raven while you wait around the corner as a proper scout.

Or you can just use fog spell as you would for scouting to mask your movements.. and that thing completely breaks the game so you can trigger surprise round that way or not and just do the fight in Real time with pause lol.

IF all else fails you drink invisibility potion and rtun away and come back and trigger surprise round you got loads of ways of how to do it the key is you scout with one character so not everyone gets sucked into combat. Aslong as that is an option surprise will always be easy and Broken op hell even without soloing it works to good as can be seen in all the youtube videos..