Rogue (Scout)

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Overview & Creation

Signaling for her companions to wait, a halfling creeps forward through the dungeon hall. She presses an ear to the door, then pulls out a set of tools and picks the lock in the blink of an eye. Then she disappears into the shadows as her fighter friend moves forward to kick the door open.   A human lurks in the shadows of an alley while his accomplice prepares for her part in the ambush. When their target — a notorious slaver — passes the alleyway, the accomplice cries out, the slaver comes to investigate, and the assassin’s blade cuts his throat before he can make a sound.   Suppressing a giggle, a gnome waggles her fingers and magically lifts the key ring from the guard’s belt. In a moment, the keys are in her hand, the cell door is open, and she and her companions are free to make their escape.   Rogues rely on skill, stealth, and their foes’ vulnerabilities to get the upper hand in any situation. They have a knack for finding the solution to just about any problem, demonstrating a resourcefulness and versatility that is the cornerstone of any successful adventuring party.  

Skill and Precision

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Rogues devote as much effort to mastering the use of a variety of skills as they do to perfecting their combat abilities, giving them a broad expertise that few other characters can match. Many rogues focus on stealth and deception, while others refine the skills that help them in a dungeon environment, such as climbing, finding and disarming traps, and opening locks.   When it comes to combat, rogues prioritize cunning over brute strength. A rogue would rather make one precise strike, placing it exactly where the attack will hurt the target most, than wear an opponent down with a barrage of attacks. Rogues have an almost supernatural knack for avoiding danger, and a few learn magical tricks to supplement their other abilities.  

A Shady Living

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Every town and city has its share of rogues. Most of them live up to the worst stereotypes of the class, making a living as burglars, assassins, cutpurses, and con artists. Often, these scoundrels are organized into thieves’ guilds or crime families. Plenty of rogues operate independently, but even they sometimes recruit apprentices to help them in their scams and heists. A few rogues make an honest living as locksmiths, investigators, or exterminators, which can be a dangerous job in a world where dire rats—and wererats—haunt the sewers.   As adventurers, rogues fall on both sides of the law. Some are hardened criminals who decide to seek their fortune in treasure hoards, while others take up a life of adventure to escape from the law. Some have learned and perfected their skills with the explicit purpose of infiltrating ancient ruins and hidden crypts in search of treasure.  

Creating a Rogue

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As you create your rogue character, consider the character’s relationship to the law. Do you have a criminal past—or present? Are you on the run from the law or from an angry thieves’ guild master? Or did you leave your guild in search of bigger risks and bigger rewards? Is it greed that drives you in your adventures, or some other desire or ideal?   What was the trigger that led you away from your previous life? Did a great con or heist gone terribly wrong cause you to reevaluate your career? Maybe you were lucky and a successful robbery gave you the coin you needed to escape the squalor of your life. Did wanderlust finally call you away from your home? Perhaps you suddenly found yourself cut off from your family or your mentor, and you had to find a new means of support. Or maybe you made a new friend—another member of your adventuring party—who showed you new possibilities for earning a living and employing your particular talents.  

QUICK BUILD

You can make a rogue quickly by following these suggestions. First, Dexterity should be your highest ability score. Make Intelligence your next-highest if you want to excel at Investigation or plan to take up the Arcane Trickster archetype. Choose Charisma instead if you plan to emphasize deception and social interaction. Second, choose the charlatan background.  

The Rogue

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Sneak Attack	Features
1st	+2	1d6	Expertise, Sneak Attack, Thieves' Cant
2nd	+2	1d6	Cunning Action
3rd	+2	2d6	Roguish Archetype
4th	+2	2d6	Ability Score Improvement
5th	+3	3d6	Uncanny Dodge
6th	+3	3d6	Expertise
7th	+3	4d6	Evasion
8th	+3	4d6	Ability Score Improvement
9th	+4	5d6	Roguish Archetype Feature
10th	+4	5d6	Ability Score Improvement
11th	+4	6d6	Reliable Talent
12th	+4	6d6	Ability Score Improvement
13th	+5	7d6	Roguish Archetype Feature
14th	+5	7d6	Blindsense
15th	+5	8d6	Slippery Mind
16th	+5	8d6	Ability Score Improvement
17th	+6	9d6	Roguish Archetype Feature
18th	+6	9d6	Elusive
19th	+6	10d6	Ability Score Improvement
20th	+6	10d6	Stroke of Luck

 

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Class Features

Expertise

At 1st level, choose two of your skill proficiencies, or one of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves’ tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.   At 6th level, you can choose two more of your proficiencies (in skills or with thieves’ tools) to gain this benefit.  

Sneak Attack

Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe’s distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.   You don’t need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn’t incapacitated, and you don’t have disadvantage on the attack roll.   The amount of the extra damage increases as you gain levels in this class, as shown in the Sneak Attack column of the Rogue table.  

Thieves’ Cant

During your rogue training you learned thieves’ cant, a secret mix of dialect, jargon, and code that allows you to hide messages in seemingly normal conversation. Only another creature that knows thieves’ cant understands such messages. It takes four times longer to convey such a message than it does to speak the same idea plainly.   In addition, you understand a set of secret signs and symbols used to convey short, simple messages, such as whether an area is dangerous or the territory of a thieves’ guild, whether loot is nearby, or whether the people in an area are easy marks or will provide a safe house for thieves on the run.  

Cunning Action

Starting at 2nd level, your quick thinking and agility allow you to move and act quickly. You can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.  

Roguish Archetype

At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you emulate in the exercise of your rogue abilities: Thief, detailed at the end of the class description, or one from another source. Your archetype choice grants you features at 3rd level and then again at 9th, 13th, and 17th level.  

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 10th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.   Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead.  

Uncanny Dodge

Starting at 5th level, when an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.  

Expertise

At 6th level, choose two more of your skill proficiencies, or one more of your skill proficiencies and your proficiency with thieves’ tools. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.  

Evasion

Beginning at 7th level, you can nimbly dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as an ancient red dragon’s fiery breath or an ice storm spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.  

Reliable Talent

By 11th level, you have refined your chosen skills until they approach perfection. Whenever you make an ability check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10.  

Blindsense

Starting at 14th level, if you are able to hear, you are aware of the location of any hidden or invisible creature within 10 feet of you.  

Slippery Mind

By 15th level, you have acquired greater mental strength. You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws.  

Elusive

Beginning at 18th level, you are so evasive that attackers rarely gain the upper hand against you. No attack roll has advantage against you while you aren’t incapacitated.  

Stroke of Luck

At 20th level, you have an uncanny knack for succeeding when you need to. If your attack misses a target within range, you can turn the miss into a hit. Alternatively, if you fail an ability check, you can treat the d20 roll as a 20.   Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

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Starting Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:  

• (a) a rapier or (b) a shortsword
• (a) a shortbow and quiver of 20 arrows or (b) a shortsword
• (a) a burglar’s pack, (b) a dungeoneer’s pack, or (c) an explorer’s pack
• Leather armor, two daggers, and thieves’ tools

 

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Subclass Options

Roguish Archetypes

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Rogues have many features in common, including their emphasis on perfecting their skills, their precise and deadly approach to combat, and their increasingly quick reflexes. But different rogues steer those talents in varying directions, embodied by the rogue archetypes. Your choice of archetype is a reflection of your focus—not necessarily an indication of your chosen profession, but a description of your preferred techniques.  

Scout

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You are skilled in stealth and surviving far from the streets of a city, allowing you to scout ahead of your companions during expeditions. Rogues who embrace this archetype are at home in the wilderness and among barbarians and rangers, and many Scouts serve as the eyes and ears of war bands. Ambusher, spy, bounty hunter — these are just a few of the roles that Scouts assume as they range the world.  

Scout Features

Rogue Level	Feature
3rd	Skirmisher, Survivalist
9th	Superior Mobility
13th	Ambush Master
17th	Sudden Strike

Skirmisher

Starting at 3rd level, you are difficult to pin down during a fight. You can move up to half your speed as a reaction when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.  

Survivalist

When you choose this archetype at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Nature and Survival skills if you don’t already have it. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of those proficiencies.  

Superior Mobility

At 9th level, your walking speed increases by 10 feet. If you have a climbing or swimming speed, this increase applies to that speed as well.  

Ambush Master

Starting at 13th level, you excel at leading ambushes and acting first in a fight.   You have advantage on initiative rolls. In addition, the first creature you hit during the first round of a combat becomes easier for you and others to strike; attack rolls against that target have advantage until the start of your next turn.  

Sudden Strike

Starting at 17th level, you can strike with deadly speed. If you take the Attack action on your turn, you can make one additional attack as a bonus action. This attack can benefit from your Sneak Attack even if you have already used it this turn, but you can’t use your Sneak Attack against the same target more than once in a turn.

Revised Ranger (Gloom Stalker)

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Overview & Creation

Warriors of the wilderness, rangers specialize in hunting the m onsters that threaten the edges of civilization—humanoid raiders, rampaging beasts and monstrosities, terrible giants, and deadly dragons. They learn to track their quarry as a predator does, moving stealthily through the wilds and hiding themselves in brush and rubble. Rangers focus their combat training on techniques that are particularly useful against their specific favored foes.  

The Ranger

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Features	Spells Known	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
1st	+2	Favored Enemy, Natural Explorer	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	+2	Fighting Style, Spellcasting	2	2	-	-	-	-
3rd	+2	Primeval Awareness, Ranger Conclave	3	3	-	-	-	-
4th	+2	Ability Score Improvement	3	3	-	-	-	-
5th	+3	Extra Attack	4	4	2	-	-	-
6th	+3	Favored Enemy Improvement	4	4	2	-	-	-
7th	+3	Ranger Conclave Feature	5	4	3	-	-	-
8th	+3	Ability Score Improvement, Fleet of Foot	5	4	3	-	-	-
9th	+4	-	6	4	3	2	-	-
10th	+4	Hide in Plain Sight	6	4	3	2	-	-
11th	+4	Ranger Conclave Feature	7	4	3	3	-	-
12th	+4	Ability Score Improvement	7	4	3	3	-	-
13th	+5	-	8	4	3	3	1	-
14th	+5	Favored Enemy Improvement, Vanish	8	4	3	3	1	-
15th	+5	Ranger Conclave Feature	9	4	3	3	2	-
16th	+5	Ability Score Improvement	9	4	3	3	2	-
17th	+6	-	10	4	3	3	3	1
18th	+6	Feral Senses	10	4	3	3	3	1
19th	+6	Ability Score Improvement	11	4	3	3	3	2
20th	+6	Foe Slayer	11	4	3	3	3	2

 

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Class Features

Favored Enemy

Beginning at 1st level, you have significant experience studying, tracking, hunting, and even talking to a certain type of enemy. Choose a type of favored enemy: aberrations, beasts, celestials, constructs, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, giants, monstrosities, oozes, plants, or undead. Alternatively, you can select two races of humanoid (such as gnolls and orcs) as favored enemies.   You have advantage on attack rolls and Wisdom (Survival) checks to track your favored enemies, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. When you gain this feature, you also learn one language of your choice that is spoken by your favored enemies, if they speak one at all.   You choose one additional favored enemy, as well as an associated language, at 6th and 14th level. As you gain levels, your choices should reflect the types of monsters you have encountered on your adventures.  

Natural Explorer

You are a master of navigating the natural world, and you react with swift and decisive action when attacked. This grants you the following benefits:

• You ignore difficult terrain.
• You have advantage on initiative rolls.
• On your first turn during combat, you have advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet acted.

In addition, you are skilled at navigating the wilderness. You gain the following benefits when traveling for an hour or more:

• Difficult terrain doesn’t slow your group’s travel.
• Your group can’t become lost except by magical means.
• Even when you are engaged in another activity while traveling (such as foraging, navigating, or tracking), you remain alert to danger.
• If you are traveling alone, you can move stealthily at a normal pace.
• When you forage, you find twice as much food as you normally would.
• While tracking other creatures, you also learn their exact number, their sizes, and how long ago they passed through the area.

Fighting Style

At 2nd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.  

Archery

You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons.  

Defense

While you are wearing armor, you gain a +1 bonus to AC.  

Dueling

When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.  

Two-Weapon Fighting

When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.  

Primeval Awareness

Beginning at 3rd level, you can use your action and expend one ranger spell slot to focus your awareness on the region around you. For 1 minute per level of the spell slot you expend, you can sense whether the following types of creatures are present within 1 mile of you (or within up to 6 miles if you are in your favored terrain): aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This feature doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.  

Ranger Conclave

At 3rd level, you choose an archetype that you strive to emulate: Beast Master, Dread Ambusher, Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker, Hunter, or Monster Slayer. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 11th, and 15th level.  

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.  

Extra Attack

Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.  

Fleet of Foot

Beginning at 8th level, you can use the Dash action as a bonus action on your turn.  

Hide in Plain Sight

Starting at 10th level, you can spend 1 minute creating camouflage for yourself. You must have access to fresh mud, dirt, plants, soot, and other naturally occurring materials with which to create your camouflage. Once you are camouflaged in this way, you can try to hide by pressing yourself up against a solid surface, such as a tree or wall, that is at least as tall and wide as you are. You gain a +10 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) checks as long as you remain there without moving or taking actions.   Once you move or take an action or a reaction, you must camouflage yourself again to gain this benefit.  

Vanish

Starting at 14th level, you can use the Hide action as a bonus action on your turn. Also, you can’t be tracked by nonmagical means, unless you choose to leave a trail.  

Feral Senses

At 18th level, you gain preternatural senses that help you fight creatures you can’t see. When you attack a creature you can’t see, your inability to see it doesn’t impose disadvantage on your attack rolls against it.   You are also aware of the location of any invisible creature within 30 feet of you, provided that the creature isn’t hidden from you and you aren’t blinded or deafened.  

Foe Slayer

At 20th level, you become an unparalleled hunter. Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack roll or the damage roll of an attack you make. You can choose to use this feature before or after the roll, but before any effects of the roll are applied.

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Starting Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) scale mail or (b) leather armor
• (a) two shortswords or (b) two simple melee weapons
• (a) a dungeoneer’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
• A longbow and a quiver of 20 arrows

 

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Spellcasting

By the time you reach 2nd level, you have learned to use the magical essence of nature to cast spells, much as a druid does.

Spell Slots

The Ranger table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.   For example, if you know the 1st-level spell animal friendship and have a 1st-level and a 2nd level spell slot available, you can cast animal friendship using either slot.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know two 1st-level spells of your choice from the ranger spell list.   The Spells Known column of the Ranger table shows when you learn more ranger spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For instance, when you reach 5th level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.   Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the ranger spells you know and replace it with another spell from the ranger spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Spellcasting Ability

Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for your ranger spells, since your magic draws on your attunement to nature. You use your Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Wisdom modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a ranger spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.   Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier   Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier

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Subclass Options

Ranger Conclaves

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Across the wilds, rangers come together to form conclaves—loose associations whose members share a similar outlook on how best to protect nature from those who would despoil it. Choose Beast Master, Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker, Hunter, or Monster Slayer.  

Gloom Stalker Conclave

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Gloom Stalkers are at home in the darkest places: deep under the earth, in gloomy alleyways, in primeval forests, and wherever else the light dims. Most folk enter such places with trepidation, but a Gloom Stalker ventures boldly into the darkness, seeking to ambush threats before they can reach the broader world. Such rangers are often found in the Underdark, but they will go any place where evil lurks in the shadows.  

Gloom Stalker Magic

Starting at 3rd level, you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown in the Gloom Stalker Spells table. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn't count against the number of ranger spells you know.  

Gloom Stalker Spells

Ranger Level	Spell
3rd	disguise self
5th	rope trick
9th	fear
13th	greater invisibility
17th	seeming

Dread Ambusher

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At 3rd level, you master the art of the ambush. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Wisdom modifier.   At the start of your first turn of each combat, your walking speed increases by 10 feet, which lasts until the end of that turn. If you take the Attack action on that turn, you can make one additional weapon attack as part of that action. If that attack hits, the target takes an extra 1d8 damage of the weapon's damage type.  

Umbral Sight

At 3rd level, you gain darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. If you a lready have dark vision from your race, its range increases by 30 feet.   You are also adept at evading creatures that rely on darkvision. While in darkness, you are invisible to any creature that relies on darkvision to see you in that darkness.  

Iron Mind

By 7th level, you have honed your ability to resist the mind-altering powers of your prey. You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. If you already have this proficiency, you instead gain proficiency in Intelligence or Charisma saving throws (your choice).  

Stalker's Flurry

At 11th level, you learn to attack with such unexpected speed that you can turn a miss into another strike. Once, on each of your turns when you miss with a weapon attack, you can make another weapon attack as part of the same action.  

Shadowy Dodge

Starting at 15th level, you can dodge in unforeseen ways, with wisps of supernatural shadow around you. Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you and doesn't have advantage on the roll, you can use your reaction to impose disadvantage on it. You must use this feature before you know the outcome of the attack roll.