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Trapfinding: Rogues (and only rogues) can use the

Perception skill to locate traps when the task has a
Difficulty Class higher than 20.

I have never understood this rule in D&D, either. Why should I multiclass just to be able to locate dangerous traps? I especially do not understand this is Pathfinder, when the walls between classes has definitely lowered. The ranger does not have the Track ability, and a even a non-ranger can track with the survival skill. There is no penalty on buying non-class skills.

If the reason is that Perception is a way too generic skill to include the findig of more dangerous traps, and we assume that the Rogue has some special training in this field, then maybe this problem could be solved with a "Trapfinding" feat.

My other problem is with the rogue talents. These either focus on combat or the rogue's sneaking ability. According to the original rogue concept:

Some are stealthy thieves. Others are silver-tounged tricksters. Still others are scouts, spies, diplomats or thugs.

I would be happy if I were able to see some talents that strengthen the "silver tounged trickster" or "diplomat" side of the rogue. Maybe the rogue could be made able to retry a failed Diplomacy check (she can lie so fluently). Maybe she could gain some bonus social skills (like she is able to get Weapon finesse, a combat maneuver or Weapon focus as a talent). Maybe she could gain bonuses in social skills against some races (not unlike the ranger can choose racial enemies).

What do you think?

We started testing the Pathfinder RPG yesterday. We decided that we would convert our existing campaign; so we converted the characters to the new rules.

First we had to decide what to do with the character levels: after some hesitation I -- the DM -- ruled that we adjusted the xps to the character levels and not vica versa. I decided that way that I simply did not want to take away powers from the character they already earned.

The party is made of a human 8th level rogue/1st level fighter/1st level shadow dancer (Mayte), a 7th level lizardfolk cleric (ECL 10) (Shraash), a halfling 6th level fighter/4th level rogue (Jillian) and a human 6th level wizard/3rd level cleric (Quinquin).

After recalculating and readjusting the skill points and the feats, re-rolling the necessary hit dices, it turned out that the rogues became slightly more powerful than before. (It is important to say that we used a house rule: if a character had a skill as a class skill in any of her class, she could always develop it as a class skill.)

Mayte had the Investigator feat -- since it has been eliminated, she chose Two-weapon fighting instead. She also had Weapon finesse, but now she was able to choose it as a rogue talent, so she took in Agile Maneuvers instead of it. At 9th level she has chosen Combat Expertise only to be able to take Improved Disarm -- now Combat Expertise is not a perquisite of Improved Disarm, so I also let to swap these.

She only had to subtract 3 skill points from her new skill's ranks, but since all her skills were class-skills, she got a +3 bonus on every of her skills, so she obviously became much more skilled.

Jillian was specialized to short swords, so she obviously chosen the "light blades" armor training, becoming even more deadly with her short swords. Since she also could get weapon finesse as a rogue talent, she swapped it for double slice. After recalculating her skill points, she even had 3 points to distribute, so, as a specialist (she only has Climb, Stealth, Acrobatic, Perception, Disguise and Escape Artist) she also became much more dangerous.

Compared to them, the spellcasters did not seem to improve that much. Quinquin is a transmuter, and his school powers are useful indeed. Since he intends to use mainly his telekinetic fist in combat, I let him swap the rapid reload feat to Improved channeling. However, since most of his skills remained the same, he had to lose quite a lot of skill ranks he originally acquired at first level; this change was barely balanced with his +3 bonuses.

Shraash fights with axes, so he has no much use neither the Wooden fist, nor the Icicle power. Obscuring Mist, Barkskin and Resist Energy seem to fit well into his combat-oriented style. He also had to give up quite a lot of skill points he originally distributed at 1st level. However, since he is now able to sunder not only weapons, but armor, too, he will be a much more dangerous opponent from now. Since he had Power Attack only to be able to have Improved Sunder, I let him to swap it to Toughness (a much more powerful feat than before).

So the two rogues became instantly and obviously more powerful -- this change seems a bit more drastic than in the case of the spellcasters. A rogue use her skills a lot; the rogue/fighter fighting with two short swords profits highly of the weapon and armor training. They also have more feats than the spellcaster. I am not sure that the few school/domain powers can make up for it. Shraash, on the other hand, who is using a few combat-related feats, also gained some benefits.

However, everybody seems happy with his/her character, so so far, so good.

I also converted the NPCs of the next adventure. Since cross-skills do not have the previous disadvantage, the guards (fighters) of the mansion the player will have to infiltrate insantly became much more vary (they have relatively high Perception skills). I really like that. They also became more dangerous opponents because of the new fighter abilities.

The main opponent (not an enemy) is a sorcerer with the Fey bloodline; she certainly became much more interesting and unique.