Why play a Rogue when you can be a Trapper Ranger right?Because rolling 10d6 is more fun than adding +5 against specific opponents.
Then I'll play a magus or a wizard! if 10D6 is fun, how about 20 or even 100!
Wow really? What trait is that?From Pathfinder Player Companion: People of the Sands:
** spoiler omitted **
Honestly, I'm glad that trait exists. The ability to disarm magical traps has been historically overpriced in Pathfinder. This is probably as close as we'll ever see to the ability being part of the core Disable Device rules.
While I think the rogue is a fun class and is plenty of fun in its own right (again, I find regularly rolling oodles of d6s to be loads of fun, personally), I do agree that most Rogue Talents are, generally speaking, underwhelming. When you claim a new Magus arcana or a new Oracle Revelation, you're genuinely excited. Rogue talents don't have that same appeal, in part because so few combat-oriented rogue talents exist. Most of them are interesting skill buffs, but that can only take you so far.
Rogues can work just fine. especially compared to other bab classes. spells are nice but are not omg orgasmic amazing until level 12+.
Can we define Orgasmic Amazing? I always thought there were plenty of fun ones before level 12+.
Why play a Rogue when you can be a Trapper Ranger right?Because rolling 10d6 is more fun than adding +5 against specific opponents.
Which is cool up to the point you realize that half the fight and some fights you just don't get to roll it whereas that +10(Because lets compare 20th level Favored Enemy to 20th level Sneak Attack) is against all enemies easily when you think about the time it takes to actually qualify for Sneak Attack.
Also holy crap BBT how did that get through? WOW. Like. No reason to not play a Ninja at all now.
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Noncombat capability and combat capability cannot be traded against each other. Every class must provide the player with avenues to not be a waste of space during all stages of the game. Fighters have issues too, but a real class that isn't for NPCs needs to be adequate at both fields of endeavor independently.
Man if this was being taken into account from the beginning I can only imagine how great the game would be.
The Inquisitor, Alchemist, Witch, Oracle, Ranger and I'm sure there are plenty of others who are rightfully considered amazing classes because they achieved this.
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@bfobar: Thanks, great post! Err, if you want qualification, expansions, 20pt buy, half and half campaign.
Great point as to vital strike, that certainly adds 7 damage (though the other bonuses are coming from various buffs which we probably shouldn't include). That's a better feat than Smack Attack, but I don't know why a fighter wouldn't take a few smack attacks in addition.
I don't particularly want to get into a DPR game here, and rather focus on the three points I mentioned in the original post. However, I can say that an average damage for a full round sneak attack at level 16 is 243. Not sure what a vital striker can do at that level, but please don't post builds on this thread. You can link to them though.
I ranked Heavy armor as 2 feats given that Rogues already have light armor. It's not on the original post (which I can't edit anymore), but it is on this post here.
I could be convinced on both Evasion and the saves. Can you think of a feat or two that is as strong as Evasion?
@BBT Your prophecy is coming true already it seems. Ah well...
@Atarlost: Thanks for the relevant, succinct post. I disagree that combat and non-combat cannot be weighed against each other, but that's a mater of opinion I suppose. My one question is do you think advanced rogue talents are worse than feats? Given that every non-advanced rogue talent can be turned into a feat, their other merits don't seem relevant.
The relative value of damage depends on how likely the damage is to be done. +2 damage is an okay feat on a fighter. +10 damage with weapons would be a trap feat on a wizard. Between the rogue's poor accuracy and the restrictions on sneak attack 1d6 precision damage is not worth a feat.
But half of those restrictions on sneak attack actually bolster the rogue's accuracy; you get a +2 bonus to hit someone you are flanking, an opponent who is denied its Dexterity bonus to AC is easier to hit, and both are the easiest way to pull off a sneak attack. Complete immunity to precision damage is actually fairly uncommon; its mostly restricted to elementals, oozes, and proteans.
Remember that on average, Sneak Attack is going to be worth +3.5 damage per die, but while averages are nice, the very real truth is that 6s happen, and when they do, your rogue feat is effectively worth 150% of the fighter's Weapon Specialization.
Noncombat capability and combat capability cannot be traded against each other. Every class must provide the player with avenues to not be a waste of space during all stages of the game. Fighters have issues too, but a real class that isn't for NPCs needs to be adequate at both fields of endeavor independently.
I'd be willing to debate on whether or not the cleric, oracle, or several of the other "powerhouse" classes are adequate in skills.
Noncombat capability can certainly be traded against each other. Theoretically speaking spellcasters can cover the rogue's utility, but the fact remains that most characters aren't going to be able to cast invisibility or knock at-will. Rogues can, and if you have a rogue, your wizard can invest the several thousand gp he would have spent on a wand of knock on something else.
Like maybe a wand of cure light wounds, because apparently all tactics that do not deal damage or negate opponents are useless.
No. Rogue talents are not good, uncanny dodge is only useful for high dex builds, and evasion is available from a ring. Oh, and trapfinding is a sop to an obsolete style of play and trap sense is even worse than bravery for most games. As a rogue I would trade all features other than sneak attack and skills for a fighter's proficiencies, weapon training, and armor training without hesitation. I would never trade the other way as a fighter.
I agree with you that many Rogue class features are far too weak, but I don't agree with roughly half of your choices. Uncanny Dodge doesn't require Dexterity; it is blanket protection from being sneak attacked. Evasion may be available from a ring, but that ring costs 25,000 gp and occupies one of the most powerful item slots you have available. I agree that trap sense is incredibly weak for what it does (and always has been), but trap sense as a flat bonus on Disable Device checks and Perception checks made to spot traps is still a great benefit.
In the long run, more combat-based Rogue Talents need to be created that aren't simply feats-under-a-different-label. The new Sneaky Maneuvers rogue talent from Magical Marketplace is a great example of a strong combat-based rogue talent.
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By the way, if you are a Rogue fan, don't go in guns blazing, defenses up, with a mouthful of fighting words every time you come to a thread.
Basically, you come off as having your fists up, asking everyone who wants to punch you in the face first.
Also, for everyone, Rogue fan, or not, don't be a jerk.
It's in the messageboard rules.
@Atarlost: Thanks for the relevant, succinct post. I disagree that combat and non-combat cannot be weighed against each other, but that's a mater of opinion I suppose. My one question is do you think advanced rogue talents are worse than feats? Given that every non-advanced rogue talent can be turned into a feat, their other merits don't seem relevant.
Rogue talents are not equivalent to feats because they can be turned into certain feats. 2 of them are specific feats. The ability to take a specific feat is inferior to being able to choose from a large number of feats. The same way a half elf getting to take skill focus, is not equivalent to a human getting to choose any feat. While a fighter might very well take weapon finesse or weapon focus with a bonus feat, he doesnt have to. That makes those rogue talents less valuable then a bonus feat.
I don't particularly want to get into a DPR game here, and rather focus on the three points I mentioned in the original post.
I enjoyed your point in your OP, and agree with them and this. It's interesting, the Min/maxers hold everything up vs DPR- but then say the Fighter is underpowered as it can't do anything *but* DPR. huh?
Then, if they need to compare rogue, they insist upon the rogue not being allowed Sneak Attack. Huh? I guess we can't allow Fighters iterative attacks then.
Next is a goodie- they say the Core monk and core rogue is underpowered, and try toprove that by comparing them to archetypes from others sources. huh? In other words, in comparing Rogue, those of us who like the class aren't allowed to suggest archetypes, but then they say the rogue is useless due to Trapper Ranger and Archaeologist bard. huh?
They post thread after thread after thread stating the rogue, fighter and monk are underpowered, then claim that the fact they have so many threads complaining about them proves they are.
That being said, a dev promised me some cool new rogue talents are on the way, and I will be happy to see them.
Playing a Rogue allows you to roll big handfuls of d6s. Of course you could do that as an Alchemist too, but you'd probably make the DM sad. Performing well on adventures with an Alchemist or Summoner is like playing an Atari game on the teddy bear level (or riding a bike with training wheels for folks who don't remember the 70s). Sure, it might be fun once in a while, and it could be handy if the game is too hard like the Second Darkness game with a "Killer DM" I'm in. If you've really mastered the game shouldn't you turn up the difficulty and try something more challenging once in a while though? The Monks and Bards secretly laugh at the Wizards in their ivory towers. They say, "We know kung-fu. We're rock stars. We're getting the ladies. If you kill all the monsters so we can get our treasure we'll let you hang out with us though."
As an aside, Gang Up can be a pretty good feat for sneak attack based PCs.
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And by the way, I dont consider rogues underpowered anymore since they are essentially replaced in my group with the talented rogue from rogue genius games. No more need to deal with crummy options, just take the good ones. You end up with a very capable class assuming you make good choices.
Vivisectionist Alchemist with the Trap Finder trait folks. Like a Rogue but better!
I'm actually kinda happy about it. Full sneak attack, extracts, you get all those tasty skills and you're int based! Grab Student of Philosophy and you're the face too.
By the way, if you are a Rogue fan, don't go in guns blazing, defenses up, with a mouthful of fighting words every time you come to a thread.
Speaking of which, I feel like someone has to say it...
You can have fun with a rogue, and you can have fun playing the game.
When people are talking about a class being supbar, they aren't telling you that you can't or won't or shouldn't have fun with it.
Vivisectionist Alchemist with the Trap Finder trait folks. Like a Rogue but better!
I'm actually kinda happy about it. Full sneak attack, extracts, you get all those tasty skills and you're int based! Grab Student of Philosophy and you're the face too.
That's tempting to be honest...
So, I had a super long response posted, but I realized that it's kinda pointless without a base comparison.
Instead of saying that the rogue is not under-powered, go ahead and post a build of the rogue that you think is on par. Not overpowered mind you, just equivalent.
That's what was done in the lets make the rogue work, and I've yet to see a rogue that seemed like it worked well without some wonky mechanics. (oracle, obscuring mist rogue was good, but unless it's well planned can be devastating to the rest of the party for instance).
Finally, let me just say that I think you're down playing the bab problem that the rogue has. By level 20, there is a +9 minimum (up to plus 12) difference that the rogue cannot get to match the fighter in bab. Forget everything else, that's a huge differential when the rogue needs to hit to be able to actually do damage.
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I think its important to point out that the optimization view isn't about us hating on the Rogue because it doesn't do the most damage or whatever.
It's that it doesn't do a whole lot period. You have skills, sub par damage and maybe trapfinding.
Apparently I can play an Alchemist who can do everything the Rogue can but better. Why not? He's got the skills, sneak attack, ways to buff himself and he can disable traps.
The point is, why the rogue when I can play something that fills the niche and does more?
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@ Sub-Zero: I don't want to turn this into a thread about comparing builds. We've had plenty of those, and they spiral out of control pretty quick. Instead, I want to try reframing the discussion based around the class feature comparison in the original post. I'd be eager to hear your responses on those.
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I think its important to point out that the optimization view isn't about us hating on the Rogue because it doesn't do the most damage or whatever.
It's that it doesn't do a whole lot period. You have skills, sub par damage and maybe trapfinding.
Apparently I can play an Alchemist who can do everything the Rogue can but better. Why not? He's got the skills, sneak attack, ways to buff himself and he can disable traps.
The point is, why the rogue when I can play something that fills the niche and does more?
essentially this. For me the class and label are different. If I play a trapper ranger, I can call myself a bandit/rogue/thief whatever.
If the class doesn't present the skill set/ combat abilities to do the job effectively, then I can play another class and just call it what I wanted it to fill.
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Here is one of my MANY rogue builds, this one can get sneak attack -almost- whenever he so desires.
This being said, I think the rogue class can function just fine, but if you want pure raw DPR, the ninja will do better. Though I do so love some rogue talents.
Half Elf rogue (take dual mined alternate racial trait) Scout acrchetype
Str: 10
Dex: 18 +4 levels
Con: 14
Int: 13 +1 levels
Wis: 12
Cha: 14
(alternatively, you can be a human, drop the Int to an 8 and up the WIS to a 14 and still gain 8 points/level)
Saves without items
Fort: 8
Ref: 18
Will: 11
Feats:
1-Combat Exp., skill focus (acrobatics/perception/bluff)
2-Finesse Rogue
3-TWF
4- Offensive Defense
5-Shadowstrike
6- Weapon training Short swords
7- Iron Will
8- Combat Trick Improved TWF
9- Improved Two weapon Feint
10- Crippling Strike
11- Butterfly Sting
12- Skill mastery (acrobatics, stealth, UMD, Bluff)
13- Improved Steal
14- Weapon Snatcher
15- Dodge
16- Hard to Fool
17- w/e
18- w.e
19- w/e
20-w/e
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Rorek, bbt's point was that it took a mass of resources to pull it off, and you responded by... quoting a build that requires 16 out of 20 levels and can only almost always pull it off? Were you trying to prove him right?
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I was posting that before I saw his post, so meh.
What I was saying is that rogues can work just fine, also, by level 9 the rogue is sneak attacking anything that has an Int score of 5+ or whenever he chooses to move/charge. so. yes, at level 9 he can sneak attack ANYTHING that is not immune to it. the rest was just fancy stuff stacked on, such as -2 str per hit, stealing weapons mid combat, base take 10 checks yadda yadda.
EDIT: also, with agile weapons he will have a pretty decent base damage. the only resources I "spent" to get it was improved two wep feint, improved feint, and combat exp. and an Archetype. (along with a 13 int but.. eh. more skill points is always nice)
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Nice write up; I agree rogues are not that underpowered but they are more situational and yes their skills are widely available to other classes however which can take away from that classes primary abilities.
I have had rogues in my games who were consistently dealing more damage than anyone else; also they were the party face with enough diplomacy to talk a dragon into leaving them alone. Able to find and disables traps and use practically any magical item they found.
I have also had fighters that were useless at damaging and rogues which died when you sneezed on them.
Just saying that rogues are weak because so many other classes can do their job just tells me that the rogues abilities are crucial if so many others try to emulate them. Yes they fall over easy but that is part of the fun of them. They make an excellent dip class; they benefit from combining with practically any other class; they can stand up in a fight with the right build and with the correct feats can consistently sneak at least once a round.
But their primary role is not combat, sneaking, locks, traps, talking to the undesirables, providing witty banter and giving halflings a ‘respectable’ class to aspire to are all viable alternatives.
Leave the poor rogue alone; try sneaking into a dragon’s den without a burglar next time and see how your clunking dwarven fighter gets along stealing the dragons hoard. … Gets hot in that armour don’t it?
Regards
Sic
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While I generally agree with most of your postings broken zenith, this is one of those cases where I disagree with you. I will do my best to explicit why.
It is important to note that, the way I understand pathfinder is built, is that it's a combat-first game. Combat usefulness always comes first, with non-combat generally being a low-risk situation (if you cant fight, you die, if you cant skill, you fail, which doesnt necessarily mean death).
Is each level of sneak attack worth an extra feat?:
Yes and no. No if you choose a general feat, yes if you choose a situational one. The problem I've always had with sneak attack is it's situational nature. A number of creatures cant be hurt by sneak attack. Many cant loose dex to AC. You're just left with flanking, which is hard to pull off in a system that has attacks of opportunity. Plus, you're rolling dice, so your 10d6 has as much chance of being 10 damage as 60.
A feat like "weapon focus/specialization" is ALWAYS useful. Regardless of the situation. Others... may not be. But the fighter has the choice.
So I say: fighter wins if it doesnt hyper-specialize.
Is a point of BAB and 4 health worth 24 skill points?:
I'd also like to note that all other 3/4 bab classes have reliable ways to make themselves as likely to hit as a fighter. Monks have FOB (not great, but still there), magus's have arcane pool, clerics buffs (IE divine favor/power/others), inquisitors have judgments. As I understand it, the game design is assuming the foes of a rogue will always have their dex denied to AC ( to make them match up)... which doesnt work with a TON of monsters/NPCs. This greatly limits the combat usefullness of a rogue, since it is much more situational (and limited) than other classes. A magus can always change around it's arcane pool, same for an inquisitor's judgments. However, the class features of the rogue are static & unchanging.
Now, are skill points useful in combat? They CAN be, if you've made an investment in feats & have significant system mastery. They can also be useful out of combat, but that all depends on the stuff you take, and the type of game.
So I say: Rogue wins IF the players has the necessary system mastery to use those skill points. He will always have a harder time in combat though.
Are the Rogue's miscellaneous features equal to the Fighter's miscellaneous features?:
Again, we are running up against situational abilities. All the fighters random abilities are always on, and always useful. The rogue's talents are (in many cases) very situational. A player that knows the game will be able to make the right choices for the rogue.
So I say: Fighter is more reliable. Rogue can be very useful, if the player knows how to play it.
In conclusion, I've got to say rogues suck... for 90% of players. It's a class that is VERY situational. This requires:
a) A player that doesnt mind feeling useless sometimes in combat
b) A player that knows how to use the class best
That does NOT represent the majority of players, it doesnt even represent the majority of theorycrafters/builders. So, while the rogue isnt necessarily "underpowered", I would conclude that it's "poorly made". It's a class made in such a way that only the BEST of builders can make effective use of it. So most people cant enjoy it, which leads to the chanting of "rogue sucks".
There might also being a disconnect between expectations (I stab you die!) and reality (I stab and... nope, you just take a bit more damage).
The biggest problem with rogues, is that there is no reason to play one other than the fluff. Or you really like rogue talents. Because other classes can do everything a rogue can, but better.
And for failed saves, reflex is generally the least lethal of the 3.
Fort - Can out right kill you.
Will - If it doesn't kill you, it could kill your allies.
Reflex - Hp damage.
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Leave the poor rogue alone; try sneaking into a dragon’s den without a burglar next time and see how your clunking dwarven fighter gets along stealing the dragons hoard. … Gets hot in that armour don’t it?
Poor example.
This task is done far better by a number of classes.
ooo do tell, my rogue w/ wand of invisibility sure would LOVE to hear. (or read, as it were)
Leave the poor rogue alone; try sneaking into a dragon’s den without a burglar next time and see how your clunking dwarven fighter gets along stealing the dragons hoard. … Gets hot in that armour don’t it?Poor example.
This task is done far better by a number of classes.
Ones with a means of invisibility in class maybe? How about silence? or flight? or protection from energy? I've have better sneak and move silenty than the rogue in the party several times before.
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ooo do tell, my rogue w/ wand of invisibility sure would LOVE to hear. (or read, as it were)Leave the poor rogue alone; try sneaking into a dragon’s den without a burglar next time and see how your clunking dwarven fighter gets along stealing the dragons hoard. … Gets hot in that armour don’t it?
Poor example.
This task is done far better by a number of classes.
The wand of invisibility isn't a rogue class feature. Shocking I know.
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The biggest problem with rogues, is that there is no reason to play one other than the fluff. Or you really like rogue talents. Because other classes can do everything a rogue can, but better.
And for failed saves, reflex is generally the least lethal of the 3.
Fort - Can out right kill you.
Will - If it doesn't kill you, it could kill your allies.
Reflex - Hp damage.
That's another thing.
You can have other classes that meet the desired fluff, better, than the Rogue.
In fact, once you bring fluff in as a factor, the Rogue looks worse, as you can choose a better functioning class, and fluff makes it fit even better.
The only reason that one would need to choose Rogue, for fluff, is if they cannot see past a class name and have a hard time creating fluff in general.