Rogue Combat Lore

I suspect that rogue abilities, when viewed through an in-world perspective, are like a Shinobi's (hope I got the word right). Like, one moment you don't know where they are, then all of a sudden, you're seeing an enemy drop. They're likely the parkour specialists, the snipers, the combat engineers.
The combat mechanics seem to be a bit exaggerated for effect since it's hard to express stealth as simply being hard to notice by enemies (because how would you know if it's working?) Stuff like thousand cuts or hidden blades, I'm not sure is as it literally looks, but it probably would be impressive to see from an outside point of view.
Damn, I want my mage to be as agile as that! I wish for cross class specialization!