Why do Rogues get more ability increases than any other class apart from Fighters? As the mechanism of ability increases is an arbitrary boost, from the view point of class equality, why should a rogue get more increases than any other class except fighters? I can see why a fighter would get more as that gives access to feats, most of which are combat-related.
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5Are you asking about designer intent or something else like class balance? – Pyrotechnical Sep 26 '17 at 20:38
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3What problem are you trying to solve with this question? – KorvinStarmast Sep 26 '17 at 21:38
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1Here is a related answer that tries to explain who/what the rogue/thief is in the genre of swords and sorcery rpgs that includes D&D. – KorvinStarmast Sep 26 '17 at 21:53
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2Is your question why rogues get more than most classes, or why rogues & fighters get more than all the others? – nitsua60 Sep 27 '17 at 00:18
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@gizmo23 there were substantial edits to this, which were performed by someone other than yourself. Can you verify if those edits conform to your intent? – Pyrotechnical Sep 28 '17 at 13:23
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Rogues & Fighters in some form or another in previous editions of D&D gained more talents / feats as opposed to more spells or spell-like abilities. So it can be said that one part of this decision was to throw back to a previous version of the class.
Specifically at level 10 in 3.5 (maybe 3rd I do not recall) rogues had a small list of special feats they could access called Special Abilities.
A few of the 5e feats; such as Skulker, Dual Wielder, and particularly Skilled, seem to be directly lifted from that list as it was expanded over 3.5's long life.
The rogue seems designed for balance with this throwback feature in mind.
Burn the Artist
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1The 2e parallel was access to more Thief Skills, and abilities in AD&D. The 5e version is closest to the 3.5 version of course, but similar mechanics have been apart of the class for awhile. – Burn the Artist Sep 26 '17 at 23:58
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3Increasing thief skills with level has been a thing since the beginning of the thief class. It's not a parallel to getting more feats, it's a parallel to skills/non-weapon proficiencies/tool proficiencies/etc. You can see that in the conversion guides for the various editions. And Fighters certainly got no such thing! Fighters got additional attacks and to-hit and hit points and such, but hardly anything exceptional in terms of NWPs! In 3.x fighters get bonus feats, though. – Please stop being evil Sep 27 '17 at 00:45
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2And this is how 5e keeps the expectation of such a mechanic alive. It also gives the melee classes a little more customization as part of their growth. – Burn the Artist Sep 27 '17 at 01:13