Ever since the class was simply called "Thief," Rogues have been a major part of the iconic party construction, and one of the first classes to come to mind when thinking of fantasy RPGs. It's a class that is essential to get right, but doing it justice in modern gaming can be difficult. One of the reasons the Rogue is iconic is because in historical iterations of the game, there are certain things that only the Rogue could do, like interacting with traps.
In Realm of Runes, however, there are no niches that cannot be filled in some capacity by almost every class. Many of the historical Rogue's mainstays, like lock picking, stealth and trap finding, are things that have been entirely moved to the realm of skills rather than being class abilities. While this may seem like the things that make the Rogue special have been poached by everyone else, it merely means that to Rogue has to be updated to take this new paradigm into account.
SKILL MASTERY
Rogues have always been especially dependent on their skills, and this is a natural focus for the class in Realm of Runes. No other class interacts with the skill system in Realm of Runes as effectively and efficiently as the Rogue, and yet the Rogue doesn't have to spend class feats or features on making that happen if they don't want to. This skill mastery is achieved in a few different ways to help ensure that Rogues are always unparalleled with skills.
All classes provide a choice of two specific skills that a character of that class can be an expert with during character creation, and then several skills that the character is trained with. The Rogue's quantity of trained skills is unmatched by any other class, and it also gets 2 free skill increases as part of its initial proficiency instead of picking from specific skills. This means that Rogues can choose expert proficiency with any two skills of their choice if they want it, or can decide to use those to be trained in even more skills, at their discretion. This potential expertise is in addition to the expert skill granted by background, the bonus skill increase for having high intelligence, and the skill boost provided during the Details step of character creation.
Speaking of skill boosts, while most characters can use a skill boost as either a skill increase or skill feat, a Rogue always gets both every time. Each time a Rogue levels up, they don't have to make that hard decision of whether they want to make their proficiency better with a skill or expand a skill's utility with a feat. Better still, the skill increase and feat they get this way do not have to be for the same skill. And, as further icing on the cake of skill mastery, Rogues get early access to higher proficiency tiers with skills, and can achieve master proficiency at 5th-level instead of 7th, and legendary proficiency at 11th instead of 13th.
SNEAK ATTACK
Another iconic Rogue ability has always been bonus damage under certain circumstances to make up for the fact that Rogues are typically unable to do quite as much damage as other classes, or take as much punishment if they stay on the front lines. In Realm of Runes, Rogues can deal Sneak Attack (extra precision damage) any time the target is flanked or flat-footed. There is no distance limit, as there has been in other iterations of the hobby, and ranged Rogues can also rejoice that flanked is condition applied to an creature if any enemies are flanking it, it doesn't matter who. So if you're playing a Rogue because you want to use your Sneak Attack to be a devastating sniper, just having your allies in position is enough to make sure you get your Sneak Attacks off. Sneak Attack also helps Rogues keep up with damage, as they tend to have their ability modifiers pulled in many different directions, and therefore are likely to have lower Strength for damage-dealing than other, more focused classes.
FOCUSED VAGUERY
Of all classes in Realm of Runes, Rogues have the least well-defined class identity, and tend to be natural dabblers. If it seems like all the other classes have been given license to steal toys from the Rogue's sandbox, Rogues, in turn, have been given license to steal toys from the sandboxes of all the other classes. Many Rogue class feats make the Rogue better in extremely diverse ways, allowing each Rogue to fill many different party niches as necessary, and many different ones at once. The greatest extreme of this phenomenon is the Professional Amateur feat, which removes level prerequisites for Dedication Feats, and also grants one the Rogue qualifies for immediately. This makes Rogues the only class capable of being multi-classed right from 1st level if they choose.
ROGUE SPECIALTIES
As if Rogues weren't already one of the most diverse classes, each Rogue further differentiates itself from others of its class by choosing a specialty at 1st-level. This specialty provides some exclusive abilities, and also adds certain conditions under which the Rogue's Sneak Attack is empowered. A large number of Rogue class feats have additional effects for those of a particular specialty which align with that specialty's theme. These are always additional benefits, and any Rogue can choose any class feat, even if it doesn't have extra utility for them. The available Rogue specialties include brutality, finesse, ingenuity, and magical trickster.
BRUTALITY
Brutality Rogues tend to prefer to cow their problems into submission, and tend to focus on making sure their enemies are frightened of them. These Rogues are less reliant on clever positioning and tactics in combat, because they can deal Sneak Attack damage to targets with the scared condition, even if they aren't flat-footed or flanked. If they deal Sneak Attack damage to scared targets, their Sneak Attack dice improve in size, too. Rogue class feats with extra utility for brutality specialists add different ways to make targets scared, which is helpful since the condition naturally reduces itself over time and keeping up the terror is necessary to make sure it sticks.
FINESSE
Finesse Rogues tend to be elegant and nimble combatants, and care a lot more about precision and dexterity over raw strength and brute force. These Rogues can almost entirely ignore Strength as an ability (if they aren't worried about carrying capacity), as they can use their Agility modifier instead of their Strength modifier when dealing damage with an agile or finesse weapon. If the weapon is both agile and finesse, their Sneak Attack damage dice improve in size, too. Rogue class feats with extra utility for finesse specialists improve the Rogue's mobility, helping them to function as excellent skirmishers, striking hard while always staying frustratingly out of an enemy's reach.
INGENUITY
Ingenuity Rogues look at the class's natural aptitude for skills and decide that they would like more of that, thank you very much. These Rogues can use Intelligence as the key ability for any skill. Since Rogues already have a lot of skills to go around, this additional focus on Intelligence means that an ingenuity Rogue will always have the most improved skills of any character in the game, and will have unparalleled consistency with all of them. If an ingenuity specialist uses Recall Knowledge (or Recall General Knowledge) to successfully identify an enemy, their Sneak Attack dice improve in size against that foe until it is slain. Rogue class feats with extra utility for ingenuity specialists provide additional utility for skills, and reward clever and tactical play.
MAGICAL TRICKSTER
One of the most repeated questions Rogue players have asked over the history of the hobby is "what if the Rogue had spells, too?" Usually this required multi-classing, or the use of special Prestige Classes to pull off, but not in Realm of Runes. Magical trickster Rogues get access to Cantrips as a bonus feat, freeing up their class feats for other Rogue things, or to freely double-down for more spells. This makes magical trickster Rogues the only secondary casters (those without spell slots) to have free access to Cantrips they can use all day. If a magical trickster deals Sneak Attack using a spell, the size of its Sneak Attack damage dice improve as well. Rogue class feats with extra utility for magical tricksters tend to add extra functionality for magic outside of its normal function and, while all Rogues can gain a Spell Repertoire that uses Spell Points to cast, a magical trickster will always know more spells than any other Rogue.
CLASS FEATS
As mentioned, Rogue class feats cover an incredibly broad array of potential abilities, and thus do not sort themselves well into specific categories. Broadly speaking, Rogue class feats can be used to improve its casting ability (if it chooses to have any), improve its use of skills in or out of combat, improve its Sneak Attack (by dealing more dice, bigger dice, or dealing those dice when they might otherwise be unable to), and other quality-of-life improvements. This broad diversity helps ensure that no two Rogues are entirely alike, and assuming anything about a Rogue's skill set and tactics is a bad idea.
The Rogue is a fresh take on an iconic class. Diverse and exceptionally malleable, there is no party construction that doesn't benefit from, and become more well rounded by, having a Rogue in the mix. Access to ether arcane or occult magic, and easy access to quick multi-classing, means that Rogues are always able to adapt and overcome, serving equally well as front-line combatants, supporters, or whatever roles the party needs most. Next time we'll take a wider look at Realm of Runes overall, and explore how the various book types interact with each other, and how they each help you run fun and engaging game sessions using the system.
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