Thats not a real opinion that people have is it?

I've seen some crazy takes on Sneak Attack, it wouldn't surprise me if this happened at least once in the entirety of our existence. Something about rolling a bunch of damage dice without expending resources really makes some people uncomfortable. They see the Paladin and the Sorcerer expending spell slots, the Fighter only having one Action Surge, etc... and come to the conclusion that the Rogue is inherently broken.

Not in my presence at least. I'm moreso mocking the meme format, as people keep using it whenever someone brings up that their build only works with thing x. I've seen it with free feats, smites, 1 level dips, specific feats, magic items, … Some of those takes were reasonable. Some were not. And while the format was made to criticise overreliance on one thing, I feel like it’s sometimes used too easily. Relying on an abilities is not bad in itself. Some builds only work because of abilities. And while it’s fair to bring up that it’s a bit one do dimensional, that doesn’t invalidate the build.

I once played with a DM that strictly ruled that rogues didn't get a sneak attack bonus unless I was in stealth and undetected by the enemy. (As he said its in the name: SNEAK attack) I brought up I could probably make that still work with a bow and I was immediately preemptively banned from using ranged weapons lol. That was a frustrating game.

Did the DM just not like Rogues or were they new to DnD?

To me it sounds just like AD&D 2e rules, in which the ability was called "Backstabbing."

Specialization is good, because when everybody in the party is good at one narrow field we all get to take turns doing cool things. If you make a character that's good at everything, nobody else gets to do anything.

I had a dm once say he was thinking about saying no about my rogue's "I shoot, move, bonus action hide around the corner" loop. But then he said he realized if he said no, my character would suck and it'd be no fun. I think that was the right call.

Very much this. It even feels very "rogueish" to employ that strategy and it’s far from broken, so I don’t see why you would ban it.

This as well. Because while a more diverse set of abilities would be cool, if you make it too diverse, everyone suddenly becomes a jack of all trades, master of many and that feels boring.

This is basically 5e sneak attack anyway (the 'not having it' aspect that is) You can only get a sneak attack if you have advantage on an enemy, and you know what? You don't have advantage on an enemy just cause you're flanking them, that's mentioned in the book as an optional rule the DM can allow (where flanking gives advantage) but isn't the usual rule. In 3e/3.5e/PF, an enemy being flanked confers benefits including allowing sneak attacks. In 5e the only way to sneak attack without needing advantage is by taking the swashbuckler (specialization? Archetype?).

> Specialization is good, because when everybody in the party is good at one narrow field we all get to take turns doing cool things. This is the premise behind Konosuba. The party leader is a generalist adventurer and everyone else hyper specializes: max CON 0 DEX tank, EXPLOSION wizard, and cleric with a wisdom dump stat.

In one campaign my DM said that the risk versus reward balance was off when using attack from *hidden, move, hide* each round on my Halfling Arcane Trickster. I countered that scenario was the reason I picked Halfling, and otherwise I would have been an Elf. He let me give up a cool elven made ranged weapon in an arcane ritual to permanently race change to Elf. I then proceeded to use Flanking to attack with super-advantage from Elven Accuracy, using Booming Blade. I followed up with Cunning Action Disengage if the target wasn't dead. It had the appearance of risk because it was a melee attack, but it was almost as safe as when I was hiding.

> In 5e the only way to sneak attack without needing advantage is by taking the swashbuckler (specialization? Archetype?). Actually, since 5e this has been rolled this into the standard sneak attack that every Rogue gets >You don't need Advantage on the attack roll if at least one of your allies is within 5 feet of the target, the ally doesn't have the Incapacitated condition, and you don't have Disadvantage on the attack roll. So you don't need flanking, you just need a buddy who is not unconscious.

Based on the other comments, some DMs seem to have an issue with that. Did they give a reason? I am extremely confused because I'm pretty sure that's not just the archetype, but also just RAW for rogue. Is there some ambiguity in the wording of the class that I'm just missing?

I've been hearing about DM's complaining about Rogues SA since 3.x days. These are the same guys who (allegedly) thought the monk was more powerful that the sorcerer because the monk's chart had so many more columns and class features. Why did you even play with this guy?

"it seems silly that you can just go around the corner and suddenly you're hidden. They know you're there" This was rebutted with "they know I'm somewhere over there, but not exactly where or when I'm going to pop out. I'm a 7th level rogue, I'm sure I have tricks you and I can't even think of". Sometimes people get like selectively simulationist. They'll ignore most of the game's gamey bits (inventory management, hit points and recovery, magic) but some things throw them off. Usually things that are closer to lived reality. For example, someone having no problem with a wizard hypnotizing an entire room, but balking at a fighter climbing a tall fence. There was also: "It seems like a lot of damage..." "I'm pretty sure rogue is balanced around doing sneak attack almost every round. The fighter gets multiple attacks, but I don't. Almost every other class gets a resource to burn like spell points or ki points or superiority dice. I have nothing. All I do is sneak attack. Without it, I'm a particularly accurate peasant that can run away real good. And I still miss about a quarter of the time, which means my whole turn accomplishes *nothing*" I wonder if the DMG or something published expected damage per round or per encounter somewhere.

Ah, good; honestly I remember taking rogue before this change was made (or perhaps it had been changed at that point but none of us at the table knew) and the problem was immediately evident; there's a lot of stuff in 5e that makes me wonder what the heck the creators were thinking and if perhaps they just rushed the whole thing along and decided to just fix up any oversight later.

"Selectively simulationist" is a great way to put it. I think everyone falls victim to that from time to time and I'm definitely stealing your turn of phrase.