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So, I was putting together a rogue to maybe play in a Second Darkness campaign at some time and I found a few things that seem either underpowered or ambiguous.
First Combat Trick should probably be better defined. There isn't a classification for "combat feat" which there should be. I can see this as combat maneuver which narrows it a lot and if that's the case, it should also include Combat Expertise which is a gateway to all of those and Agile Combat Maneuvers. If it's just combat feat, that could be more than half the feats in there and I'm not sure why you'd want to limit only to combat feats at that point.
In that vein, as one of the most skill-dependent classes, I think being able to take skill focus or one of the +2/+2 skill bonus feats would be a nice addition to this that would add a noncombative options that feels really worthwhile.
Keeping that in mind, it might be fun to increase the power of a few of the talents a little bit. The non-combat abilities seem incredibly weak next to their combat capabilities. Here's what I suggest, but obviously I'm not a game designer:
Ledge Walker: This would be a pretty rare circumstance to come up. I'd personally bump it to allow a thief to take ten under duress on acrobatics under pressure or maybe give a bonus of +2 to acrobatics and to resist trip and/or bull rush attacks. This is something you can use right away and gives some real right-now worth to it while still making it a uniquely rogue ability.
Quick Disable: I can't even see a real use for this. Maybe add a bonus to disable device to help it feel of real use. Maybe I'm missing something but usually when we're trying to disable a device we don't measure time to do it. We're usually waiting behind the door for it to happen or waiting outside to be able to cross the hall, no harm no foul.
Rogue Crawl: I also don't see a point to this. If you are on the ground and prone you can already crawl out of the way and it still provokes an attack of opportunity. I would honestly combine this with Stand Up and call it something like Down But Not Out. I'd give them a full round half-speed withdraw + stand or allow them to stand as a standard action and if the opponent takes an attack of opportunity and misses you get a sneak attack. It gives them a gamble and a sure thing and it seems like a lot more fun.
Surprise Attack: This one is mostly ok, but I'd give them a chance to actually act on the surprise round. Give them basically a danger sense, a perception check when you otherwise wouldn't get one, and/or a bonus to perception or even a bonus to initiative. Most of the time, this won't come up as both sides are fully aware of the other person once you open the door or step through the arch and more times than not, unless the thief is running well ahead of the party or you are an all stealth party then the advantage is on those that have the time to hide before you walk in on them as far as the surprise round goes.
Fast Stealth: I like this, but I think it needs a boost, even if that's just a prerequisite to a hide-in-plain-sight or rehide kind of ability. I couldn't really think of a fun option to add to this that also feels thematic with it, but it feels like it needs something.
Minor/Major Magic: Both of these are great. I'd personally make it a little more dependent on a spell-casting stat. charisma I think would be best. Maybe make them 1 + charisma bonus times. I'd also increase the number of available cantrips to 2. They're small and fun and can sometimes provide great flavor and roleplaying capabilities, though I see a lot taking Flare or Daze or Open/Close.
I think the others are fun on their own for the most part.
I personally would love to see the options fleshed out a little, otherwise, I see a lot of rogues looking very similar and that kind of seems antithematic for the rest of the pathfinder rpg.
Anyway, thanks for listening and cheers! Good luck with it all.
I think that they're fairly solid ideas, but I have no especially strong opinions about them.
I wouldn't use the Combat Feat talent as written, because it's just too open for abuse. I would limit it severely to, say, Dex/finesse-required combat feats and maybe only selectable three or four times.
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...maybe only selectable three or four times.
Well, the thing about rogue talents is you can only take each talent once. So you can take Combat Trick only once. My fear is that the combo will constantly be Finesse which gives Weapon Finesse, Weapon Training which gives Weapon Focus, and then Combat Feat. Which completely emphasizes combat. So the first 7 levels could look very much like swashbuckling warriors, without the BAB and extra AC from armor training. Which ought to be an option honestly, but there should be equally good non-combat things to go along side it and I just don't see that currently. Having a skill feat talent or and expanding other non-combat talents could round out. That way a sneaky rogue could be very sneaky and a swashbuckly rogue could be very swashbuckly. And I'd like to see better non-combat options. They generally have to be better anyway in many peoples eyes for them to justify taken something that isn't going to directly help the group in combat.