D&D 5.5E: The New Rogue Slinks Out of the Shadows
Wizards of the Coast has revealed the new Rogue. Weapon mastery, new sneak attacks, and buffed subclasses await you.
Wizards of the Coast has a new preview of the reworked 5.5E Rogue. And if you’re familiar with Unearthed Arcana, Playtest 6, a lot is going to look familiar. But even if you recognize a lot here, there are still some surprising new changes. And if you haven’t checked out the playtest, don’t worry, we’ve got you.
A few big changes in a nutshell. By and large, Rogues have had their subclasses retweaked and made a little more “modern”. But, they’ve also seen a change when it comes to their biggest feature, Sneak Attack. Rogues have a new feature that lets them trade damage for effects. And when it comes to subclasses, the Assassin is sitting pretty.
So pull up your hood and make some stealth checks, it’s time to go Rogue.
The 5.5E Rogue – Stealth, Subterfuge, and Stabbery
First things first. The Rogue looks a lot like it did in Playtest 6. Which is both good and bad. Good, because WotC made some fun mechanical choices. Bad because they reverted one of the best things to ever happen to the Rogue, the altered subclass feature gain rate.
Basically, for a few weeks, WotC flirted with making all of the subclasses universal – no matter what youwe re playing, you would gain subclass features at Level 3, 6, 9 and so on. Which was great for the Rogue, who is so starved of subclass features that they’re probably only ever going to see the level 3 one. There’s a six level gulf before you get another little bit of identity from your subclass. So if you wanted to play an Assassin, what you get at level 3 is what you have for most of your adventuring career.
Unless WotC has changed it so that high level play isn’t so grueling to both prep for and play through. There’s a reason campaigns tend to end around levels 7-10. After that, D&D gets a little wibbly. Not unplayable, but it can be a jarring change to go from picking things from the book and seeing what sounds fun, to having to take your party’s specific encounter ending abilities into consideration.
But we’re here to talk about Rogues.
The biggest change to the way Rogues play is in the new Cunning Strike. These are new options you can pick when you would deal sneak attack damage, and you can trade off some of that damage to do an effect like disarm someone, poison them, knock them prone, or disengage as part of the attack. I really like this mechanic, even if it does lower your overall damage, it’s still a real fun use of the ability. It gives you more to do in a fight than just piles of damage. And that’s on top of access to the new Weapon Mastery system.
They also get Steady Aim, which lets you give up your movement to gain advantage on your next attack roll. And of course, all the other bells and whistles, like evasion, and uncanny dodge, and of course, reliable talent so you never have to roll below a 10 on a skill check ever again.
Subclasses for the 5.5E Rogue
The 5.5E Rogue sees a big change to the subclasses. The Assassin is sitting real pretty now. They are no longer dependent on Surprise to get heaps of extra damage. Instead, they just have to go before whoever they are targeting, which a Rogue Assassin likely will, because they have advantage on Initiative.
At 9th level you can better disguise yourself. But you also gain the new ability to use the Rogue’s Steady Aim feature while on the move. This is a very cool new buff that will emphasize what kinds of things the Rogue can get up to.
Thief Rogues are the iconic Rogue class. They’re all about stealing things, being stealthy, and doing things very quickly. For starters, Fast Hands lets them use a magic item that takes an action to activate as a boonus action on top of the usual stuff. They also can use a new Cunning Strike to stay hidden while making attacks, and can attune to more magic items than anyone else.
Arcane Tricksters are basically unchanged. They do what they’ve always done. Versatile Trickster has now changed a little, now the ability lets Arcane Tricksters use their Mage Hand to Disarm or Trip a creature within 5 feet of your Mage Hand. Which is amazing. But you have to be at level 13 to even add this to your repertoire.
Finally, the Soul Knife. My personal favorite, this is the psionic Rogue subclass. It is basically the same as it used to be in Tasha’s Cauldron, but with a few key tweaks. Quality of life stuff that should have been there to begin with. Their psychic blades can be used for opportunity attacks, now, which they should have been able to do from the start. And they also get a Weapon Mastery property: Vex.
All this in the new Player’s Handook, out September 17th!
