Not every person you meet is a Knight in Shining Armor, a wise grandpa wizard, a caring priest, or a humble peasant. The world is full of thieves, bandits, spies, burglars, assassins, scoundrels, and hitmen, resorting to sneakiness and Combat Pragmatism for their own profit (most of the time). While these people can be dangerous, they should be limited by what their bodies can handle... Right?
You're not as safe as you think: magic is a great enabler for roguishness and sketchiness.
Just like the Magic Knight is the union of strength and sorcery, the Magical Rogue is The Sneaky Guy, but with added supernatural abilities. Sometimes it's an individual who managed to master both arcane knowledge, or Psychic Powers, and street savviness. Other times, a lucky thief found a Spell Blade, a Ring of Power, or some other magical equipment. If Religion Is Magic, then someone made a Deal with the Devil — or even with a God of Evil. Any member of a Mage Species, undead, or another supernatural race, acting out Dirty Business, can qualify as a Magical Rogue. In a Character Class System, they can be considered combinations of the "thief" and "mage" or "priest" archetypes.
Magic has had a connotation of "sketchiness" for a very long time in Western cultures — mostly because magic does not exist in real life. As such, people claiming to be healers or soothsayers were discovered to be just charlatans and Fake Faith Healers; even stage magicians, who only use "magic" to entertain, fundamentally rely on trickery and deceit for their profession. As such, even in settings where magic is real, at least one character will use it for deceit. The fact that magic was condemned by Christianity and a few other religions doesn't help its negative connotations.
Similar to Magic Knights, Magical Rogues are limited by Competitive Balance in what they can do with magic. In fact, they show less variety than Magic Knights: you'll rarely find a rogue with Healing Hands, for example. Since mage characters tend to be squishy, and rogue characters to be fragile, their combination naturally ends up being a Glass Cannon: can potentially kill (or at least neutralize) any opponent with little to no effort, but is defenseless if caught at the wrong time.
In contrast with Magic Knights — who use spells that directly deal, tank, or reverse damage — Magical Rogues' magic is a vehicle of deceit, with some overlap with Antagonist Abilities. Invisibility in any form is very widespread; other powers may include glamour, manipulative charms, disruptive Status Effects, Mind Reading, telekinesis, Super-Senses and super-mobility (like flight or wall running); the strongest can have some form of teleportation, clairvoyance, time manipulation or intangibility.
Offensive spells are popular as well, but they rarely are as flashy as the ones used by other magic users — poison manipulation and instant death are preferred over fireballs, lightning bolts, or giant storms of giant beams. They can employ Confusion Fu to further make them more unpredictable. If magic is generally eye- and ear-catching — either because casting it requires loud incantations or conspicuous movements, or because it's accompanied by colorful glowing or weird sounds — Magical Rogues will be some of the few (if not the only) builds that have access to a stealthier form of magic.
Ninjas, the most prestigious of the rogue classes, are traditionally portrayed as having a recognizable set of magical powers, like summoning a Ninja Log, Elemental Powers, Self-Duplication, or Animorphism. Any ninja character that uses magic, but only the recurring ninja powers, goes into the Sub-Trope Magical Ninjutsu.
Another trend in fantasy works that deserves mention is the Magic Bard: starting from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it's common to have a build acting like a Guile Hero with access to Magic Musicnote . Depending on the work, this may be treated as a mystically-leaning rogue, a rogue-leaning mage, or an archetype in and of itself — acting as either a generalist, diplomatic, or "quirky" class. Add bard examples here if the work treats them as a mage/rogue intersection.
See also the Mage Marksman, which combines magic with ranged weaponry; overlap sometimes occurs between these two archetypes. Compare and contrast Video Game Stealing, Phantom Thief, and Impossible Theft — which may be unrealistic, but aren't always portrayed as magical. Sister Trope to Intangible Theft, and to Psychic Operative. Also a Super-Trope to Shapeshifting Trickster and Master of Illusion.
Examples:
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Films — Animation
- The Princess and the Frog: Dr. Facilier runs a sketchy business offering, among other things, palm readings and tailor-made remedies. Lawrence assumes he's a conman who wants to swindle people into bad deals, and while this is true, the doctor is also a powerful sorcerer who abuses the rules of his mystical powers to screw Naveen into accepting a Magically Binding Contract that turns him into a frog, and plans on going after the rest of New Orleans.
Films — Live-Action
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: One of the movie's side protagonists, Simon Aumar, is a half-elf sorcerer who use to perform heists as part of a gang of thieves lead by the film's protagonist, Edgin Darvis, before the events of the movie. When Edgin and Holga reunite with Simon after breaking out of prison, they find him performing a lame stage show featuring simple and unimpressive feats of magic... while secretly using telekinesis to pick the spectators' valuables out of their pockets.
Literature
- The Blacktongue Thief has their Thieves' Guild called the Takers' Guild and they actually own and run the Magicker's Guild plus a few other guilds. The result is a separation between a thief from the Takers' Guild and an "amateur". Besides some legal protection, the Guild-trained thief or assassin will have been taught many skills including magic. This training isn't free and eventually a thief will need to pay back the Guild either in money or service.
- Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser: The Gray Mouser was formerly a wizards apprentice before he embarked on his new career as an adventurer thief. He still remembers a few spells and bits of occult knowledge.
- Monmouth of 100 Cupboards is this, wielding a ragtag mix of Green Man power and wizard training along with a very sharp knife and, when all else fails, his bare hands. The other wizards tend to avert this, considering this sort of combat beneath them.
Wizard: Monmouth, you are only fit for kitchens if you need a blade to do your killing.
- The Stormlight Archive: Of the ten orders of Knights Radiant, the Lightweavers specialize in illusions and disguises, plus they have a supernaturally Photographic Memory and aptitude for patterns of all kinds — from codes to locking mechanisms. Shallan assembles a group of Lightweaver spies, at least one of whom was already in the intelligence business before she became a Radiant.
- Tolkien's Legendarium: Hobbits have an almost supernatural predisposition for elusiveness, so much that even their real origin is shrouded in mystery. Their small stature (even shorter not as bulky as the resident dwarves), their silent footsteps, and the fact that the major races in Middle-Earth don't care for "halflings" (if they're aware of them at all), make sneaking away very easy for hobbits, and they have enough skill and guile to become a Spanner in the Works. Bilbo Baggins joined to act as a "burglar" during the quest to free Erebor from Smaug... And managed to find a golden Ring of Power that makes the wearer invisible (to mortals). In both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, hobbits become the main users of the One Ring, often to great effect.
- The Wandering Inn: The Grand Design of Isthekenous can allow for people to level up in this way. For example, if one has both the [Mage] and [Rogue] classes, it is possible to consolidate that into something like [Magical Rogue].
Live-Action TV
- Skeleton Crew (2024): While only an Incompletely Trained force sensitive, Jod Na Nawood makes the best of his limited powers as a pirate captain.
Tabletop Games
- The Crooked Moon: The Sinner Rogue subclass has the ability to use jinxes to affect a target's luck and/or dexterity, or to inflict various negative statuses on the target. The subclass also has the ability to magically summon gambling-themed weaponry called jinx weapons.
- Dungeons & Dragons: There are many ways to cast spells while playing as a Thief or Rogue, like multiclassing, using enchanted items, or promoting to prestige or subclasses. The Ranger class is also typically somewhere between "wilderness-focused Magical Rogue" and "Magic Knight who Fights Like a Normal", using similar weapons to a Fighter but having an unusual amount of stealth-related spells and Utility Magic rather than direct magical attacks.
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition - base classes:
- The basic Rogue has access to the rare Use Magic Device skill, which allows them to to cast spells from scrolls, wands and staffs as if they were a spellcaster. In combination with wands of Projectile Spells this can be quite rewarding, as it enables elemental-damage sneak attacks which bypass armor and strike certain foes For Massive Damage. By spamming cheap wands of cure light wounds or lesser vigor they can even fill a healer role, albeit limited to After-Action Patch-Up rather than proper Combat Medic status.
- Complete Adventurer: The Ninja is a more "loner assassin" take on the Rogue archetype: they lack the Rogue's sixth sense against traps and ambushes, and their form of Back Stab (sudden strike) applies only while attacking from stealth, not while flanking with an ally. In addition to some more mundane acrobatics and poisoning skills, they have supernatural abilities tied to Ki Manipulation - this includes turning briefly invisible or ghostly (which later extends to seeing and striking actual ghosts), as well as concealing themselves from Crystal Balls and other scrying magic. Despite the mystique they are generally seen as weaker than Rogues due to their less reliable damage output and worse skill points, with their lack of access to the rogue's Use Magic Device skill meaning they can actually end up less magical as well.
- Also in Complete Adventurer, the Spellthief is a rogue-like class which receives limited sorcerer spellcasting, as well as the ability to steal one of a foe's available spells on a successful sneak attack (letting them either cast that spell at its original strength, or expend its energy to fuel one of their own spells). At higher levels they can also steal a Status Buff from the target, steal monster abilities such as energy resistance or attacks which work like a spell, and passively absorb spells that strike them.
- Complete Arcane: The Warlock (an exotic spellcaster which receives fewer and weaker spells than normal, but can use them at will) has many options leaning in this direction, including Charm Person, Beguiling Influence (significantly buffs the user's social skills), Flee the Scene (teleport a short distance while leaving behind an illlusory decoy), Walk Unseen (invisibility that can be kept up all day) and Retributive Invisibility (invisibility that explodes and harms anyone who manages to dispel it).
- Complete Psionic: The Lurk is a take on this using the psionics subsystem; gaining up to 6th level psionic powers. Their form of sneak attack is weaker and requires maintaining psionic focus to use, but they can expend a small number of power points to enhance the attack with "augments" in the form of Status Ailments or bypassing special defences. The Ebon Saint Prestige Class in the same book expands on this with its own set of "dire augments" which can steal a struck target's memories or physical appearance.
- Dragon Compendium: The Mountebank is a class resembling a Rogue/Warlock hybrid, with abilities derived from a Deal with the Devil. In place of a conventional Back Stab they have a "Beguiling Stare" which clouds the minds of others, and can deal bonus damage with their attacks after catching an opponent in the stare or making a successful feint (while weaker than sneak attack, it works even on targets without weak points). At higher levels they gain a handful of illusion and teleportation abilities, including the ability to project a false Character Alignment that can fool Detect Evil.
- Dungeonscape: The Factotum base class is styled as "the ultimate Jack of All Trades"; in addition to rogue-like abilities they get Arcane Dilettante (study a wizard spellbook to prepare a Simplified Spellcasting version of that spell; can eventually cast up to seven different spells per day in this way) and Opportunistic Piety (channel divine energy a limited number of times per day to provide minor healing or Turn Undead). At high levels they also gain the supernatural Cunning Breach ability, allowing them to bypass Damage Reduction and Spell Resistance for 1 turn.
- Player's Handbook II: The Beguiler is a spellcasting class with a variant of the rogue's Sneak Attack class feature which instead of adding bonus damage to attacks, makes their spells harder to resist. Beguilers also have high Charisma and are good diplomats, manipulators, and leaders.
- The Psychic Rogue, published in a web article, is a variant of the Rogue class which can manifest up to 5th level psionic powers (at the cost of slight downgrades to its other abilities), resulting in a character somewhere between a regular Rogue and the Lurk class above.
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition - prestige classes:
- The core rules alone have no less than four Prestige Classes which could be considered Magical Rogues. The Arcane Trickster is for multiclass characters with Rogue and Wizard/Sorcerer levels, advancing both ability sets and adding the signature tricks of "Ranged Legerdemain" (allows using skills like Open Lock and Sleight of Hand from a distance) and "Impromptu Sneak Attack" (perform a Back Stab from any position). The Shadowdancer is for characters who are skilled at dodging, granting some abilities of the Rogue class as well as a grab bag of minor Casting a Shadow abilities - teleporting through shadows, getting a Living Shadow as a companion, and Hide in Plain Sight (using the Hide skill even when there's nothing to hide behind). The Assassin learns a handful of spells to enhance their ability to kill things, including the rare Modify Memory and in later supplements options like Sniper's Shot (removes the range limit on sneak attacks) and Heart Ripper (a ranged One-Hit Kill which does exactly what it sounds like). Finally the Blackguard (despite being an Evil Counterpart to the Paladin) makes gestures to this, requiring the Hide skill to enter and gaining minor sneak attack as they grow in level.
- Book of Exalted Deeds: The Slayer of Domiel is a Lawful Good "sacred assassin" in service of the paragon archon Domiel, aimed at a character with 5 levels in Rogue. They progress sneak attack at Rogue strength, have a somewhat Awesome, but Impractical "Death Touch" for finishing off evil creatures,note and also gain the Detect Evil and Divine Grace abilities of a paladin. They also gain some spellcasting from a mostly stealth-related spell list, though with some unusual options like speak with dead, holy sword and vision of heaven.
- Complete Adventurer: The Daggerspell Mage Prestige Class combines rogue abilities and arcane spellcasting with a fighting style based around Dual Wielding daggers and casting spells through them. This includes imbuing their offensive spells with cutting properties, as well as the ability to throw a spell-imbued dagger to make Spell Blade attacks at range. A counterpart Daggerspell Shaper prestige class exists for multiclass Rogue/Druids - dual-wielders who can retain some of the benefits of their equipment while in wild shape, including their daggers melding into their animal form's claws while retaining all their special properties.
- Complete Divine: Black Flame Zealots are similar to Assassins, but slowly progress existing divine spellcasting rather than having dedicated spells of their own. Their signature ability is wreathing their weapon in black flames, which eventually they can will to instantly consume the body of any creature slain by their sneak attack or death attack.
- Also in Complete Divine, the Temple Raider of Olidammara is a Prestige Class for rogue types who are invited to receive special training from the priesthood of Olidammara (a god known as The Laughing Rogue) in order to steal knowledge and treasures from the temples of other deities. Their spell list is small, but includes both tricksy spells like disguise self and cleric-style support like neutralize poison.
- Complete Scoundrel: The Unseen Seer Prestige Class can be entered by stealthy characters who can also cast at least two divination spells. It's a Squishy Wizard which also advances Rogue abilities like sneak attack, and gets enhanced divination spells (as well as defence against these spells when cast by enemies) at the cost of their skill in other schools of magic slightly degrading.
- Dragon Magic: Hand of the Winged Masters is a Prestige Class for rogue types with Dragon Ancestry who work as servants to dragons. They unlock Super-Senses and the ability to hide from them, can charge their sneak attack or skirmish with the energy of their dragon ancestor's Breath Weapon for increased damage, and double the duration of any Status Buff cast on them by a Wizard or Sorcerer (the latter category including dragons).
- Dungeonscape: The Trapsmith Prestige Class (not to be confused with the Combat Trapsmith) is a Trap Master and specialist in Trap Disarming who also learns some surprisingly potent spells (mostly Status Buffs, various forms of Dispel Magic, and effects which let them view other locations or reshape stone).
- Magic of Incarnum: Umbral Disciple is a Prestige Class for Rogues who dabble in incarnum's Diverting Power mechanics (with some support for Monk entry as well). They gain the ability to wreath themselves in shadows to obscure their outline or briefly extend their reach, to detect unseen things, and to make attacks which damage the target's Strength score.
- Psionics Handbook: The 3.0 soulknife Prestige Class gains both psionic powers and a strong sneak attack progression (at the same speed as a Rogue); their signature ability is generating a Psylocke-esque "mind blade" which can deliver powers or inflict damage to The Six Stats. In 3.5's Expanded Psionics Handbook, Soulknife became a base class which drifted further from this archetype, retaining access to stealth-related skills but having a Charged Attack in place of sneak attack, and dropping all psionic abilities beyond the mind blade itself; this unfortunatelynote made it a Master of None and one of the weakest classes in the game.
- Races of Destiny: Scar Enforcer is a Prestige Class for half-elves who grew to despise both sides of their ancestry. While they mostly operate like Rogues with a few Hunter of Their Own Kind bonuses, they also slowly advance existing spellcasting ability if they had it, and they gain a Humanshifting ability limited to imitating humans or elves.
- Sandstorm: Scorpion Heritors begin as stealthy characters who adopt the scorpion as their totem. While largely similar to Rogues, their good save is Fortitude rather than Reflex,note and they gain Acquired Poison Immunity to scorpion venom along with various totemic abilities including tremorsense, poisonous saliva, hiding their scent, and the ability to transform into a Tiny scorpion or grow a scorpion tail.
- Dark Hunter (Complete Warrior) and the goblinoid-exclusive Stonedeath Assassin (Races of Stone) are similar Prestige Classes for assassins who operate in caves, with the magical ability to camouflage themselves against stone. The latter can actually cast meld into stone a few times per day, can perform a Shatterpoint Tap against stone objects/creatures, and have a variant of the Assassin's death attack ability which turns slain targets to stone.
- Dragonmarked (Eberron): The Black Dogs are halfling assassins with magical abilities related to creating and enhancing poisons. Their techniques are a sinister extension of the ones wielded by House Ghallanda chefs, who use the Least powers of the Mark of Hospitality to magically create and flavour food.
- Lost Empires of Faerun (Forgotten Realms): Cultists of the Shattered Peak are humans of Netherese descent who have vowed to never let the corrupt Magocracy of Netheril rise again, functioning as both intimidating activists and as Mage Killers. They gain the Sneak Attack and Death Attack abilities, along with a signature form of Smite which targets arcane spellcasters. Their training also includes Wizard spellcasting but limited to the schools of abjuration and enchantment, and they cannot have any arcane spellcasting ability before they enter the class.
- Underdark (Forgotten Realms): The Imaskari Vengeance Taker is aimed at lawful-aligned arcane spellcasters who have the Track feat and some dabbling in stealth skills, granting the Sneak Attack ability (at Rogue speed) and progressing their existing spells (at half speed). They can also spend a day focusing on a specific creature in order to designate them as their "Target of Vengeance" - gaining various skill and combat bonuses against that creature (similar to a powered-up version of the Ranger's favored enemy) and the ability to scry on them from afar.
- Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition has the arcane trickster subclass for the rogue: one of its spells is "Mage Hand", which summons a small, invisible floating hand, for making remote-controlled dexterous hand tricks, which are harder to interrupt. The 2024 rework also gives them the ability "Magical Ambush", which makes their spells harder to avoid or shrug off when they're hidden.
- Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition - base classes:
- Mage: The Awakening:
- The Carnival Melancholy are a Legacy of showmen and con artists that steal Sleepers' souls by having the Sleepers gamble them on games of chance, then use those pilfered souls to improve their own luck. Needless to say, they are Left-Handed; unfortunately for most of the involved, they tend to be charming and smart enough not to get caught.
- The Guardians of the Veil serve as the Pentacle's spies and secret police, and just about all of them — the social interaction-focused Prophets and religious zealot Messianics included — are spies and manipulators first and foremost. A large part of the Law of the Mask, their oral tradition (they're too paranoid to write it down), is basically a tradecraft manual. The Faceless faction, in particular, is a group of assassins and saboteurs known for their use of Mind and Life magic (and for causing many a Locked Room Mystery).
- Pathfinder adopts the Rogue character class from D&D 3rd Edition and lets them gain a few supernatural abilities through Rogue Talents, like shadow manipulation, illusory disguises, resistance to magical surveillance, and an emergency teleport.
- Vampire: The Masquerade: Clan Nosferatu's monstrous appearance forces them to exist covertly, so they established themselves as the spymasters of vampire society, aided by an innate knack for powers like Perception Filters, illusory disguises, and Animal Eye Spy.
- Warhammer Fantasy:
- The Grey Wizards are a secretive organization who serve as spies, investigators, and occasional assassins for the Empire. Their magic, the Lore of Shadows, is uniquely suited to the job, with effects like Perception Filters, illusory disguises, and memory modification.
- The Skaven clan Eshin's assassins have developed their own Black Magic discipline to supplement the Art of Silent Death. Those with an aptitude for sorcery can become chameleonic, Walk on Water, secrete poisons, and similar feats.
Video Games
- Baldur's Gate III: Based on the 5e ruleset, the "Arcane Trickster" subclass is available to Rogues. Being able to use Mage Hand, as well as some basic cantrips for confusing and befuddling enemies, can make for some fun encounters, pickpocketing, and puzzle-solving, if you don't mind not being able to do as much damage as the other Rogue sub-classes.
- Dishonored: Magic powers can be gained by contact with the Outsider and by purchasing whalebone trinkets — among the users there's also Corvo, the Player Character turned assassin. Magic can allow the user to teleport, see through walls, summon a Swarm of Rats, blast enemies with winds, and annihilate the bodies of the defeated. All these spells can be used and combo'd together to bypass or neutralize (if not kill) opponents.
- Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II: The Scoundrel skill line focuses on Back Stabbing, dirty fighting, and knifework, plus a few overtly supernatural abilities like Invisibility and Stealthy Teleportation.
- Dominions: Units with the Spy, Seducer or Assassin traits are used to disrupt the enemy, but they can also have access to magic as well. One example being the Bane Spider of Middle Age Machaka, a heavily armored assassin that dabbles in Glamour magic, enough to cast some spells to assist them.
- Dungeon Keeper 2: Rogues and their heroic counterparts the Thieves can cloak themselves in enemy territory to appear as part of that faction, plus they learn Invisibility when they reach a high level. Their magic supports their standard roles of scouting enemy bases, stealing money, and attacking from behind.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- The Nightblade and Bard classes, first introduced in The Elder Scrolls: Arena, mix the Magic and Stealth approaches: both possess the abilities to cast spells, pick locks, pilfer NPCs, and an increased chance to inflict critical hits. The Nightblade, in particular, specializes in a Glass Cannon route in comparison to the Bard: more Magicka points, better weapon selection, proficiency in Destruction spells over Restoration, less Hit Points, and more Experience Points required to raise the Character Level.
- The Illusion series of spells, introduced in The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall with the start of the shift from Class and Levels to Skill Scores and Perks, invokes this, being the branch of magic dealing with perception: it includes spells that make the user invisible, spells that increase or reduce aggressiveness in opponents, and spells that raise the user's perception. Any player who makes a build based on this skill, plus other "stealthy" skills, ends up as a Magical Rogue. Naturally, among the premade character classes, the Nightblade has Illusion as a primary skill.
- The Ring of Khajiiti is a Ring of Power that increases the wearer's speed and stealthiness, and can grant invisibility. In fact, the in-universe lore says it originally belonged to the Daedric Prince of thieves and deception Mephala, before it was stolen by the Khajiit hero and master thief Rahjin.
- In The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, it turns out that the Gray Fox, leader of the Thieves Guild, became this entirely by accident. The original Gray Fox stole a cowl from the Daedric Prince Nocturnal, and as revenge, she cursed whoever wore it to become an Un-person—putting on the headgear magically erases all knowledge of the wearer's identity from the minds of everyone in the world, to the point where bystanders can watch someone put on the Cowl and then immediately forget the person. The latest Gray Fox is determined to break the spell and has the player steal an Elder Scroll itself to learn how to do it; we later find out that this Gray Fox is the long-lost Count Corvus Umbranox, who's motivated by his desire to reunite with his wife, since even she can't recognize him so long as he bears the Cowl.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Trickster returns as a DLC-class as part of the Cindered Shadows DLC. They have Locktouch and Stealth as class skills, similar to thieves and assassins. They can also cast spells, but they lack the class skill which doubles their use unlike the specialized mage classes.
- Hearthstone: The Rogue class has many cards themed around stealing cards from other classes, including spells. For example, the Hench-Clan Burglar is a Rogue minion that lets you add one of three random spells from other classes to your hand.
- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning: The Finesse/Sorcery line of Destinies leans towards a skillset that deals elemental and/or poison damage, and accordingly boosts elemental and piercing damage. Higher-level Destinies make critical hits drain mana, make attacks against panicked enemies automatic criticals, and turn their dodge command into a Flash Step that poisons enemies left in its wake.
- Thief: The Keepers are an organization that are masters of stealth and practitioners of magic, which they use to further their goal in achieving balance in the world. After leaving them, Garrett shows little talent for magic or any desire to learn, but he'll use elemental crystals as arrowheads or mess around with magic should it be necessary.
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: Of the playable Clans, Nosferatu, Malkavians, and to a lesser extent Tremere have powers to support a stealth-and-intrigue build: Obfuscate for Invisibility, Auspex to detect bystanders at a distance and buff your Hacking score, and Dominate and Dementation to twist people's minds or kill them undetectably.
- Vermintide II: Kerillian's Shade career is a stealth-focused Critical Hit Class with a unique ability that lets her become invisible and phase through enemies to deliver a powerful Back Stab.
Webcomics
- The Order of the Stick, which is set in an RPG Mechanics 'Verse:
- The Rogue's Guild keeps an Arcane Trickster on staff who dresses like a wizard and has magical abilities but otherwise has the same job as everyone else in the Guild: robbing the local townsfolk.
- Serini Toormuck is an epic-level Rogue who is quite adept with magic, using wands, potions, and magic from her friends to misdirect and distract her enemies and stay hidden. In combat she makes heavy use of invisibility and surprise attacks as well as poisons and debuffs.
- Downplayed with Haley in later arcs. Always the party rogue, she develops the ability to use magic wands and using either her or V's magic is almost always flying and/or invisible in combat situations.
Web Videos
- Critical Role: Campaign Two: The Cerberus Assembly is a mysterious organisation who project power via highly trained Tyke-Bomb wizards, who use their magic to infiltrate, spy and more often than not, assassinate. Caleb was trained as such an agent, but was left catatonic after realising the treasonous talk that motivated him to kill his parents were False Memories implanted to ensure his loyalty.
Western Animation
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: In the episode "The Runaway", Toph uses her earth bending to pull a series of scams on a Fire Nation town.