Kalis's page

My preferred conversion is taking the OA Samurai and adding some Warblade maneuver progression.

Kalis wrote:

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If a game designer honestly believes that there's only one legitimate option for a character build but still designs other options and then implies that folks who take those choices are being sub-optimal... he's doing the game a disservice by being a game designer.

You mean like when a certain Pathfinder designer said that using Combat Maneuvers is only for showing off on mooks or being desparate?

So... MY RANT!

The concept of "optimizing character builds" is at great odds to providing character choices. The goal of optimization is to build the most perfect build for a class, at which point the notion of not playing that particular build is a "poor choice." I disagree with that on every level of my role-playing being. I've seen many times a player come up with a cool concept for a character that an optimizer then picks apart and "tries to help" by making it more number crunched and "correct." Invariably, the result is an embarrassed roleplayer who comes away from the experience thinking he made an error in building his character. In fact, his only error was to listen to the optimizer.

RANT OVER.

-1

It doesn't seem like you even understand the concept of character optimization. The reason why somebody goes to a forum like char-op(before crazy theoretical builds that should never see play) is that they have an idea for a character(great or not), their DM may be allowing a ton of say 3.5 resources, but the player doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of character crunch options. Some options he may have looked over, but not realized the potential of at first.

Char-op regulars didn't generally say "Take this or your character doesn't deserve to hang out with his adventurer buddies" unless they were trolls, which happens in a forum, any forum. They present tons of ideas, that all fit the character and can synergize well. The player doesn't need to take all or even any of the advice offered, it is his character afterall. The point is that more options are highlighted for what they could offer.

A -17 penalty, at best. Because normal twf penalties still apply. So -2 for light offhand weapon, and -15 for the attack itself.

Meanwhile, if read in the good way, it helps elevate the two-weapon fighter. The advantage of thf, is that your attacks of opportunity get the weapon(which will typically be stronger than a twf) and str*1.5. So do spring attacks. The two handed fighter actually makes a better mobile combatant than a twf because of this. The "usable" interpretation of PTWF I gave changes this so they are roughly equal in mobility, at the huge cost of 3 extra feats. The weak version makes the fancy dextrous duelist reliant on standing in one space and slugging it out, with an 8th attack at a -17 penalty.

To me, it's quite clear that the feat is meant to be the 4th Two-Weapon Fighting feat, giving you the 4th attack with your off-hand weapon.

Evidence of this is that the feat's "normal" paragraph only talks about how you can only make 1-3 off-hand attacks with the other feats. It also never says that you get to ignore the "only one attack unless you make a full attack" restriction, and that normal part never says "without this feat, you need a full attack action for more than one attack, regardless of source).

I'm not quite sure the feat doesn't belong in normal levels (i.e. as the 16th-level feat for two-weapon fighters), anyway.

I'll say right out: If you don't read PTWF the way I read it, it isn't worth the feat, for anybody, epic or not.

If one of the PCs has been dipping in 5 different classes, how do they have time to go adventuring full-time (ostensibly between training sessions)?

Simple, the character isn't training with anybody, he is developing his own adventuring style/unlocking his dormant powers on his own, and they happen to be similar to abilities that appear in 5 different classes.

SkullBeard wrote:

Where is Perfect Two Weapon Fighting from?

What he said?

Where is it from?

Epic Level handbook. It is the most important one. Whenever you have an attack with your primary hand, you get an attack with your offhand. AoO = two attacks; Spring Attack = two attacks(or more with phbII feats) etc.

Dissinger does bring up one point that I hadn't thought of though in regards to this discussion…

Every cleric I ever saw in 3.5 cast spells 1st and foremost, and rarely thought about actually getting into melee until such a point as where they didn't want to waste their spells, and melee combat appeared safe enough to attempt a few mediocre attacks. Only one I remember taking the spells that boost clerics in combat, and the PC was a multi-class fighter/cleric.

Then, I am going to say that those clerics were wasting their potential. A few of their self only buffs turned them into monsters that a fighter wishes he could be. A spell or two in the first rounds to buff the party, should be enough to ensure survival for other frontliners(if there is another caster).

Clerics are very much warrior-priests, by default. The majority of a clergy is going to of course be experts or adepts, but most likely to go on an adventure is a warrior-priest, rather than the type that is cloistered.

We cut the weapon proficiency for a variety of reasons, the largest being that it made for some strange changes to the game world. Every farmer being proficient in greatsword was not something we wanted to see. I realize this is the most extreme example, but it is still valid. To top it off, we realized it was a bit redundant. If that is something you desire for your character, you still get a free feat.

The thing is, that it makes more sense for a farmer to choose short or long bow or scythe. They are farmers after all. They don't want to get close to anything and fight in melee. Or, while growing up they liked to pretend they were an adventurer and their reaping scythe was their weapon of choice.

I like my characters human, mostly due to the familiarity. Also, my understanding was that nobody really paid any attention to AD&D level caps on demihumans in the first place.

I did pick half elf for my recent wizard, but that is mostly because I thought nobody else would choose it(since I was playing 3.5, and half elves sucked in 3.5). Ironically, I was wrong, and half the group ended up choosing half elf, initially.

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Add most of this list, and tumble.

The neutering of certain spells, power attack and combat maneuvers feats.

The new combat maneuver mechanics, and rounds for rage/bard music.

The art and rogue talents/master strike...

Psionics were always an issue since First edition. They have always been unbalanced. In second edition a third level Psionicist could kill a red great wyrm with the disintergrate power...In third edition the Psion was still unbalanced and far superior to arcane magic or divine magic. I like psionics and all but please put in on equal level with the other powers in the game

I have to wonder if you even read the rules for 3.5 psionics. Arcane spells are just plain better than equivalent psionic powers, and because wizard and sorc are core classes, they get a ton more options in every single book produced.

Make no mistake, Arcane and Divine are still the kings, with psion being a nicely flavored "Also ran".

I hope that when it is time to do Psionics, they don't change too much for the sake of change. 3.5 psionics are some of the best rules in the system.

I support a character optimization forum. The char-op boards were more than just thought exercises on breaking stuff. It also included stuff like viable Gish builds, especially ones that try to be useful characters at all levels. Not everybody is really gifted at choosing effective choices for their character concept.

Obviously there are broken things like the over the top uberchargers or people throwing small moons at each other. But a lot of it in the early stages was "My character wants to end up the country's greatest user of a Bastard sword, what choices can I make to help that?" Then the board would look at what he has and give a few options. They wouldn't tell him to make a kobold with infinite stats or a caster that can cast wish an infinite number of times a day, they would give him some crunch help to help match his character concept, because few people like playing Joxer when they wanted to play Conan(the munchkin, combining rogue and fighter levels like that). He may still end up playing Joxer, because his dice are out to get him, but he may also get a chance to shine once in awhile.

I like the idea of a Rogue//Psychic Warrior/Slayer(with a variant to use int for manifesting)

First, I have to say this:

Any samurai, any samurai at all, who even contemplated the idea of taking even a little bit of ninja training, would almost immediately kneel down and commit seppuku.

No, he wouldn't. At least not in real life, maybe in the super exaggerated world of Rokugan where the honor and stuff is so serious they don't use leather to make saddles. Until the Tokugawa was solidified and safe, nobody really cared about bushido. In fact it was so out of caring that one Japanese writer of the late Tokugawa/Early Meiji era thought that he had invented the word to inspire people in loyalty to the emperor. Most shinobi were just the more specialized samurai of the Koga or Iga provinces.

Anyway back on topic at the end of the day if the pc's want to build and or find a near indestructible place to make a campsight they can. However In order to do that the pc's have to use up spells the more spells you use the secure the area. So yes a group of pc's could use magic to planeshift, magnificent mansion, Block scrying, Alarm and multiple other spells to turn a camp area into a small fort but using up half your spells just so you can relearn the other half seems somewhat counter productive at best.

Personally I have found nothing beats a good locked door and the non casters taking turns to keep watch while the others get there sleep

You do have a point, but if the DM is going to use such hardball(dispelling it and dropping you in front of a gang with a ballista a few levels ago) tactics to prevent you from getting your spells back altogether, you do whatever it takes. Since even if you are using your own spells, the Cleric doesn't have to use as many. And you can both recover your spells from you using a few of yours the day before.

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The BBEG does almost always have better resources than the party, but anybody who can be persuaded to harass somebody for some a shiny 10gp isn't the type that has arcane sight or see invisibility. BBEG's as a whole, though there are a few exceptions, are not the type that go trotting through the woods and swamp tracking pc's. That is why they have mooks and more powerful followers.

The entire point of going to Celestia is that any BBEG(Evil, is right there as the third letter) is going to attract a lot of very powerful, very unwanted attention from Plane Shifting into Celestia. The infinite celestial host would not take well to evil people just popping in to attack good adventurers.

Also the vampire in this case has two problems, he can most certainly not go to Celestia himself and he wants to stay with the hostages so he can do his BBEG taunting when the heroes get to him.

In fact, if he knows that they have in fact shifted to another plane(via scrying on cohorts) his best move is to cast Gate, attempting to call one of the party members. And if he doesn't come through the gate, well the vampire in question still has the adventurer's family. He knows that if they have plane shifted to sleep, they are low on resources anyway.

mdt even said that the vampire in question is not really that strong in a fight, he just attempted to take the cleric and wizard out of the battle before engaging. The problem is that he should not have been able to find a whole lot of capable people willing to harass a group of heroes for 10 gp. I wouldn't care how evil or mercenary I am, you aren't going to persuade me to shoot at the Justice League for 10 gp.

The pc's wake up in the morning(the head was sent to them directly, so they had been in one place for awhile), receive the head of poor old aunt Gladys and greater teleport(or teleport if it is the wizard's hometown) to a clearing in the forest next to the village to do recon.

I did not call anybody a liar, but maybe take a minute and learn about the game first, since you see no problem with a BBEG(a vampire, no less in this case) plane shifting to Celestia(which has a minor positive energy alignment amongst other things).

Edit: On topic, the problem with melee is that, while they can swing as many times per day as they need to, without spells or the rest of the team to back them up they die to most monsters their level. If the party is level 10 for example. The party has had a rough day of it, 4 encounters already and the wizard and cleric are both out of spells. If the fighter wants to go on, he will be taking a lot more damage because the wizard stands there and shoots his crossbow or uses his weaker wands instead of using his real spells. The cleric can't heal, and can't buff the fighter(or himself) into a god. If the iceworm eats the fighter, they rest of the party has basically no damage(unless the rogue wants to be eaten too), and the fighter can no long use his greatsword due to his now cramped conditions

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So, you have enemies just wandering around with truesight or detect invisibility up? The door is invisible once closed. Or if the party really wanted safety, the good cleric could just Plane Shift them to lower celestia to get a good night's sleep.

Or Plane Shift to Celestia, and then use MMM to get some shuteye.

It is good for story, but would have been more believable if the PC's were level 8-9, rather than 16.

Yes a Rogue can always use an ally to gain flanking and get sneak attacks. The purpose of the initially posted build was to allow the Rogue to get sneak attacks without relying on a partner to setup the flank as that is not always a viable option.

If he is going to be that high level(such that he gets MW), the best way to get reliable sneak attacks with no partner is a ring of blinking, or umding a wand or scroll of greater invisibility(preferably created by a Teflammar Shadowlord).

Also, the twd feat is terrible because it gives 1 AC at the cost of a feat(like dodge). I realize pathfinder is a bit kinder with the number of feats, but it is still a large investment, and if they were willing to let people treat it as a shield and increase the shield bonus, then they wouldn't need improved twd. It is a waste of limited resources(a feat), when you could simply get a cloak of displacement, and end up with a x% chance to ignore the attack.

The problems with feinting include:

It relies on the same stand there and slog it out with the enemy in melee position as Two weapon fighting, even with improved feint.

Without improved feint, you only get 1 attack every 2 rounds, and even with improved feint you can only perform 1 attack per round.

It does way less damage than a decent two weapon fighting(or even 1 weapon fighting) build with a halfway decent party.

Opposition(in 3.5 anyway) gets their BAB as a bonus to Sense Motive attempts, so even if you bend over backwards to increase bluff, every melee class gets a scaled bonus to defend against it to various degrees.

Also, dropping Two Weapon Defense would be smart, since it adds basically nothing. A good feat would be Savvy Rogue from Complete Scoundrel, if you plan to take any of the Advanced Rogue Talents(and you should, some are very good).

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How does he scry on people around them anyway? Just scry on a guy randomly, see if they are around, if not move down in the phonebook?

Anyway, Scry + Greater Teleport(or just teleport really) + Mage's Magnificent Mansion renders the entire low level grunt tactic ineffective. Greater Teleport means they get there as soon as the group is finished buffing and scrying. Mage's Mansion means that if they want to rest, they rest and none of your 10gp throw away mooks can stop them.

You said level 16. That is one level away from Time Stop or Gate. Level 16 is a group of superheroes, and your entire tactic relies on DM fiat to stop a simple use of 3(or 2 if they really want) spells.

Kalis wrote:

My only problem with that samurai, is that it is too specific of a fighting style. To use Rokugan terminology, all you can do is create a crane clan swordperson. The OA samurai at least gives a little variety.

I agree with you to a large extent in terms of flexibility -- although the class I wrote works well for a mounted charger as well (spur mount and draw blade; cut down demoralized targets). But, really, the OA samurai is pretty much geared towards TWF -- and he does that worse than a fighter, and much worse than a rogue.

No, the Complete Warrior Samurai is geared towards TWF, the OA Samurai allows you to pick a style to mimic the clans of Rokugan(and get sweet feats for it if you use the Rokugan book) through bonus feats at a bit slower of a rate than the fighter, but making up for it with more skill points and good will and fort saves. The CW samurai is not an update of the OA samurai.

edit: I am not a huge fan of Rokugan myself, but OA Samurai with technique feats add some nice variety. It really allows for different character types.

Here is the variant Samurai I developed:

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My only problem with that samurai, is that it is too specific of a fighting style. To use Rokugan terminology, all you can do is create a crane clan swordperson. The OA samurai at least gives a little variety.

The Rogue (still the Thief, in my opinion), spends much of his time avoiding real work, always looking for the easy way out. This does nothing to build his constitution or health.

Rogues in 3.5(and Pathfinder) are not just the Thief of old. They certainly have some skills very similar to a Thief, but they are just as skilled with a weapon as a Cleric(the priest-soldiers of the gods or philosophies). Rogues in 3.x+(and many other games) aren't thieves, think of them more as special ops.

They handle things like traps, can spot ambushes, scout, report numbers back to the group and use various magical trinkets restricted to magic users. In a one on one straight up fight, they might not be the greatest combatant in the world, but when working with deception(stealth, bluff, hidden weapons, poison etc), magical tricks(invisibility, blink, etc), allies(flanking), and/or the environment(stealth, concealed position), they are a terrifying force on the battlefield.

The fact that all the pathetic, coward Thieves of past editions got changed to Rogue is a bit of a mistake. Unless the character was somewhat skilled in actual combat, they should have been moved to the expert class with thief skills as their chosen class skills and a special expert trap-finding class feature(if appropriate).

What happened is that called shots are silly thing to have in 3.x. Either they do almost nothing, and nobody uses them, or they rule combat, and the penalties to hit are rendered meaningless by spells like True Strike and Wraithstrike.

Jason Nelson wrote:

Hit Die: D10

Full BAB
Good Saves: Reflex

I like full BAB, but I think d8 makes more sense for the hit die. The duelist is supposed to avoid getting hit in the first place. This also gives us more room to be generous with other more interesting abilities.

To a certain extent, a higher hit die is avoiding getting hit in the first place, or at least making them very close misses rather than fatal strikes.

One comment, this PrC has no capstone, and no real reason to get the 10th level.

1) Justifying the rogue's ability to dish out massive damage by pointing out that wizards can also do this is incongruous - the wizard uses up his resources (i.e. limited spells per day) to do this - sneak attack is free forever.

What about the fact that a well built rogue does less average damage to enemies that are actual threats than a well built fighter? Or how about the fact that a rogue that is going down the twf path is devoting a good portion of his feats to doing damage that still averages below the damage output of a similar fighter? Or the fact weapon finesse and twf only really help because the rogue can add sneak attack to each attack? Or the fact that a wizard and two handed fighter have an easier time bypassing damage reduction?

Yes, but Pathfinder is supposed to be able to support my 3.5 material(with a few changes for simplification). That is part of the draw of PFRPG. And nobody wants a capstone ability that anybody can pick up at level 1 by burning a feat(which you get more of in PFRPG).

And when does the fighter get this ability? Also his strength and constitution are still his most important stats for a few reasons:
1. Weapon finesse doesn't add dex to damage
2. Being a mobile fighter means you need even more strength to make lower number of hits count
3. Even with the int or wis to ac, he still won't have the ac of a normal fighter unless the player was blessed by the gods when rolling stats, so you need constitution for hp.

An option for their capstone could be:

Unrelenting Stealth.
A rogue choosing this ability is undetectable by tremorsense, blindense, and scent. A creature possessing one of those abilities gains a +2 to perception checks to discover the rogue A creature possessing more than one of those abilities gains a +3 bonus.

-S

Or the rogue could just take the Darkstalker(LoM) feat at first level(which any stealth focused character should) and get the same effect, only the creature gets no bonuses to perception.

May have been covered but i can't find it anywhere.

In 3.5 raising Intelligence by magical means didn't give you any extra skill points, which i think is slightly odd as boosting Constitution gains you extra hit points.

Is this still the case in PF?
I've read through the stat and skill sections and can't find anythiing to sway one way or another.

So does a magically boosted Intelligence give the same kind of thing as Constitution or is Int boosting still only really worth it for a wizard?

Increasing Int, in 3.5, already has the same mechanic as increasing constitution.

It increases future performance in the same way that con increases hp. You don't gain skill points in the past for the same reason that you don't retroactively have more hit points in the past.

Thanks for this simulation!

The best option for TWF, starting at 12th-level is to fight with a bastard sword and a short sword, both with the complete Weapon Focus Tree.

The real best option for a twf fighter is great sword and spiked armor. Or if you interpret it loosely, greatsword + snap kick + superior unarmed strike at level 20. That way his primary weapon gets all the benefits of two handed fighting and gets to through in a little extra from the armor spikes. Or he gets two attacks for 2d6(one at 1.5*str mod, and one on 0.5*str mod) for each iterative attack.

Maybe I am just jaded, but I don't really see the characters in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as being represented by monks. Monks have a bunch of side abilities that have nothing to do with anything the characters do.

I feel most wuxia characters or heroes of myth are best represented by Book of Nine Swords characters. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon characters are best represented by Swordsages, with Superior unarmed strike, who just didn't have access to the more flamboyantly supernatural stuff.

I think if you take weapon finesse you should have the option on damage to either use your strength modifer or 1/2 your dexterity modifer to the damage. Which ever is higher. I mean this charcter has obviously devoted himself to speed this attack.

No he has devoted himself to the use of agility in attacking. Strength is speed.

What people saying Strength for intimidate don't understand is that the Intimidate skill goes beyond just scaring the local bakery for protection money.

The stranger who intimidates the local merchant can hand the merchant his gun, and the merchant will not ever shoot the stranger. The stranger can even go so far as to take a sleep in the merchant's bed and tell to merchant to wake him if anybody comes buy. The Intimidated merchant will not decide to kill the stranger in his sleep with the loaned gun, because he is considered friendly towards the stranger.

Kalis wrote:

The rogue doesn't deal more average damage than a properly built fighter.

True.

But the Rogue deal the same (or more) maximum damage. This is where I have a problem.

There is a lot of PrC and feats from other sources. I prefer sticking to the corerules to find a balance.

And I don't think that changing combat feats to 1/round is a good idea, but this debate is in another thread. Right now I concentrate on the published 3.5 corerules. If PFRPG stick with this, there is no way that Sneak Attacks should be allow to go more than 1/round.

There is no balance to find in the core rules.

Your problem is, for lack of a better word, silly. Against the same fodder that the rogue can hit every attack against, a cleric can kill every single enemy in a 40ft radius from himself with no save or paralyze for 1-10 minutes(a death sentence). Sure it burns a spell, but the spell doesn't affect those higher level than the cleric(non-fodder) anyway.

Additionally, since you are assuming every attack hits, we might as well assume that a cleric has unlimited spells.

Squirrelloid wrote:

The rogue is the 3.5 paradigm of a perfectly balanced class. Why ruin what's already working? Rogue's combat role is DPS machine, and that's fine. Rather than nerfing rogues, who do measure up, why not give martial classes good abilities that bring them up to that level. Unless you seriously plan to rewrite the entire 3e spell system... and the monster manual...

I don't know what is the specific combat role of the Rogue, but I know for sure that the Rogue is not suppose to be the main damage dealer.

A Fighter should never have to say: "Take my place in melee, you deal more damage than me". (To me that sounds like a Cleric stepping aside to let the Wizard heal someone... weird)

In an optimal situation, The Fighter MUST be the class with the higher potential damage output. Period.

A player who wants to play a caracter who deals lot of melee damage should always put the Fighter on top of his list.

No. In an optimal situation, the fighter should have a higher average damage, which they do against non fodder. The fighter was near the top of the list for players who want to deal melee damage in 3.5(behind such monsters as the Frenzied Berserker, a PrC which I would never let join my group as an adventurer). The only change now is that Paizo nerfed Power Attack, and combat feats are 1/round. So no Pouncing, Leap Attacking Shock Troopers with full PA adding 60 damage to a each primary attack at level 15 and losing no attack bonus in PF.

The rogue doesn't deal more average damage than a properly built fighter.

It would be better as a general feat, as you are limited to the use of one Combat Feat per round.

I didn't knew that crits and double damage from a lance would multiply damage from the Smite Evil.

Do the rules really allow to multiply the smite evil extra damage?

Multiplying Damage

Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage are never multiplied.

Emphasis mine. So Smite damage(which is not extra dice), gets multiplied. This is especially important due to feats that multiply damage on charges.

As I said many times before, the problem with the sneak attack is with POTENTIAL max damage. And I know that a Rogue might hit less often than a fighter and would only be able to hit high AC with a natural 20.

The max damage is only likely to happen against fodder(things with low AC). And frankly it is a silly arguement. A well built fighter(ie, not a two weapon fighter) can consistently outdo the rogue in damage if the fighter is built to do damage.

Since many seems to think that the Rogue will rarely be able to hit a target more than once due to lower BAB, Sneaking as standard action does not cause a big loss to the rogue and prevent ridiculous amount of potential max damage.

One of my many problems with the rule is that it prevents the use of spring attack for the rogue. Spring attack doesn't give a standard action, just a single attack action. Thus the idea of the rogue popping in, hitting once for sneak attack damage, and fading away doesn't work as the rogue can't do the fade away part.

Now, just to make all of you think... What your PLAYERS will say if a two-weapon fighting invisible 13th-level Rogue decide to attack one of THEM? Next time you play, with a 13th-level party, just surprise one of them with this invisible sneaker (preferably the rogue)...

Well, other than how annoying it can be to fight an invisible opponent for anybody, the rogue(and barbarian and warblade) won't really care since uncanny dodge and improved uncanny dodge stop sneak attacks from invisible opponents of any level and flankers of roughly equal level. In fact the rogue might want to be the target, as they won't take sneak attack damage from this invisible sneaker, while their friends will.

PS: Paladin smite evil ability does less damage, but can be multiplied by things like charges(with lances on horseback) or criticals, while sneak attack can not.

First: It was backstap all editions before.

Second: If it's NOT, than the rogue has ABSOLUTLY NO reason to have this ability. It's SNEAK attack, not Precise attack. If it would be precise attack than it SCREAMS Fighter all around too!

The rogue and warrior classes both have precision in different rays. The rogue does more damage when the enemy is distracted or unaware for their precision. The fighter has a higher BAB, representing his precision.

As I said over and over and over and... again:
While the old thief (which is still the very basic of the rogue) was about skills and had the backstap ability as a very nice add-on, the 3rd Edition turned this upside down. Now the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the rogue is Sneak Attack.

No, the rogue isn't just the old edition's thief. He is supposed to represent more than that. The rogue represents the skilled combatant, the old thief just happens to fall into a more skill focused subset of that. The rogue can be the dungeon adventurer or a skilled warrior on the King's black-ops team.

1) Allow only 1 SA per round, regardless of the actual number of attacks made (like precision damage)

That isn't the way precision damage(ie: sneak attack, sudden strike, skirmish etc.) works. It only works that way in a volley attack. That is why you can't use manyshot to get multiple sneak attacks on the enemy.

1b) No SA when only flanking (this is one of the abuse-options I say)

Sneak attack is not backstab, so stop trying to make it backstab.

Consider not how to bring the rogue down to the fighter/commoner/warrior, but how to bring the fighter up to the rogue.

While it is not likely to change, the argument that his been put forth against most peoples desire to see fighter simply doing more damage is that it is role currently fulfilled by the rogue. If what we all want fighter to do is be able to dish boat loads of damage then that seems like what the fighter should be designed to do. Lay smackdown in liberal quantities. Flavourwise it seems the fighter should do what the rogue does.

...
The flavour of rogues is sneaky tricks to mess up the opponents ability to fight well. So to replace a diminished ability to do direct damage give them the crazy blinding, stunning, distracting, magic breaking abilities that Frank & K have suggest should belong to the fighter to give them a niche that fits.

Fighters can do damage in 3.5, they just do it in a different way without it being stated flat out in the class feature list like the rogue's is. It also seems to me that the fighter should be the one with the blinding, stunning, and distracting abilities. If he is supposed to be the last line between the enemy and his allies, those abilities could contribute to confounding the enemy.

Rogues encompass more than simply the 2e thief. They cover Mat Cauthon, Solid Snake, and Jack Styles. All characters who could do well in a stand up fight.

If you want to look at the problem, look at PF neutering fighter feats with the one per round limit, or power attack being limited to str mod.

Not specifically rogue related, but my only problem with the Pathfinder rogue(more the skill system really, but I see rogues as the prime example of it) is that the lack of actual skill points in the skill system prevents me from picking up skill tricks from Complete Scoundrel.