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Wizards are widely acknowledged to be one of the most powerful classes and the absolutely most versatile, so they probasbly needed less help than the martial classes which were a bit less spectacular at high levels in 3.5.
As for the Rogues, how does your friend think they're overpowered? Is he taking Combat Trick multiple times (which is a common mistake)?
I have a few questions to start off. Is it the perception that 3.5 Wizards were overpowered and thus the recieved the least amount of alteration of the 3.75 mods? I have a friend who makes combat-oriented characters and he seems to think that because of the feats every two levels and the rogue talents, rogues are overpowered if they go the combat route?
Your friend's notion about rogues is ill-conceived. They are fine the way they are.
Each Rogue Talent can only be taken once. So if he takes the Combat Trick talent at second level he can never again take the Combat Trick talent.
Many people don't fully read the rules and miss the part about only being able to take the talents one time each and thing they can take Combat trick multiple times to get more feats -- which is false of course.
The most extra feats you can get out of the rogue is 4.
1 Combat Trick
2 Finesse Rogue
3 Weapon Training
4 Trading an advance trick for a feat
After that they have to take the other rogue talents.
I might as well toss my opinion into the blender before we make the delicious opinion juice:
Wizards: Wizards were fine in general power level. No help needed. The only thing that was a problem was that there was very, very little incentive to go specialist. You lost a huge chunk of versatility and gained very little. Thus, specialists in Pathfinder now aren't hit as hard by their school bans and actually get something out of the deal.
Rogues: I hear that all the time "rogues are combat monsters, they're too powerful!" But I've found it isn't actually true. Sure, they can be effective in a fight and still do lots of things out of fights, but they need the right circumstances to unfold their full combat potential, and they still lag behind a warrior character. Warrior, in this case, means those classes that get full BAB and associated benefits that mainly affect combat; don't confuse with the warrior NPC class.
Stuff like "6 attacks with 11d6 damage each" might sound like a lot, but ignores all the disadvantages a rogue has: He needs to sneak attack in order to get that sort of damage (meaning that if he cannot maintain favourable combat conditions, his damage output will virtually disappear) and his attack bonuses will be a lot worse than a warrior's, meaning he'll hit less (which statistically decreases his damage output). Plus, warrior characters can accumulate considerable damage bonuses, too. Damage bonuses they can often maintain more easily (especially fighters. Fighters don't have much in the way of conditional advantages. A huge chunk of their power is just always on. )
And the requirements for making a "sneak" attack were lowered so dramatically that they are almost laughable now. I mean, just flanking? That's all? In my games flanking occurs constantly, the fighters work to get into the flanking position for bonuses to hit, everyone tries to. You can pretty much assume that the flanked condition is going to come up, it's not like it's rare.
Then I dont think you really read the rules that well in 3.5 because that flanking rule pre-dates that Pathfinder changes.
from D20SRD (and yes it's in the 3.5 PHB as well pg50)
Sneak Attack
If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage.
The rogue’s attack deals extra damage any time her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target.
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I was unclear; when I said the requirements for making a sneak attack were lowered to the point of laughability I did not mean to imply "lowered by Pathfinder", I meant "lowered from 1.0 or 2.0 or I believe even 3.0". Lowered to be easier than in any time in the last 25 years of pen and paper gaming. Rogue Love, feels more and more like WoW all the time. :)
Then I dont think you really read the rules that well in 3.5 because that flanking rule pre-dates that Pathfinder changes.
What they didn't change, though, was the rogue's chance of hitting. In fact, they even closed some loopholes like sneak attacking with splash weapons. By the time the rogue deals the 'impressive' 11d6, a fighter with the same stats and equipment will have 10 points more of attack bonus. He will also have a higher AC.
The rogue isn't that powerful when it comes to combat. He's not as weak as I thought, but he certainly isn't a match for a fighter or a bard.BTW: Why isn't there a thread about bard being overpowered, yet?
Stuff like "6 attacks with 11d6 damage each" might sound like a lot, but ignores all the disadvantages a rogue has: He needs to sneak attack in order to get that sort of damage
I'd say it's grossly overpowered, since no method short of attaining some sort of godhood is going to give a Fighter the ability to dole out "6 attacks with 11d6 damage each" in a round of combat. And the requirements for making a "sneak" attack were lowered so dramatically that they are almost laughable now. I mean, just flanking? That's all? In my games flanking occurs constantly, the fighters work to get into the flanking position for bonuses to hit, everyone tries to. You can pretty much assume that the flanked condition is going to come up, it's not like it's rare.
We house-ruled this a long time ago to only allow the first attack the rogue makes per round get the sneak attack bonus. That still gives them some pretty good damage output, without putting the fighters, clerics, and mages to shame constantly.
If your fighters can't outdamage a rogue, and they are actually trying to there are threads on this site and several others on how to build fighters. There are even fighter builds to go off of. The problem is definitely not with the rogue.
We house-ruled this a long time ago to only allow the first attack the rogue makes per round get the sneak attack bonus. That still gives them some pretty good damage output, without putting the fighters, clerics, and mages to shame constantly.
Unless you also house-ruled that monsters should all have ridiculously low ACs or rogues get +10 to hit when flanking, you just put fighters way above rogues in combat capability.
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We house-ruled this a long time ago to only allow the first attack the rogue makes per round get the sneak attack bonus. That still gives them some pretty good damage output, without putting the fighters, clerics, and mages to shame constantly.Unless you also house-ruled that monsters should all have ridiculously low ACs or rogues get +10 to hit when flanking, you just put fighters way above rogues in combat capability.Agreed. The Rogues ARE still far better than fighters at disarming traps and sneaking and hiding in shadows. And the Mages are far better than fighters at Summoning Monsters and Teleporting. And the Cleric just blows the Fighter out of the water at healing damage too.
"Kicking Butt In Combat" is all the fighter does, that's his thing. He should be better at it than anyone else, not "competitive". The other classes have their things they are far better at than fighters are.
Even under the normal rules, the rogue isn't competitive. Off all the medium BAB classes, only the rogue is unable to increase its attack bonus.
"Kicking Butt In Combat" is all the fighter does, that's his thing. He should be better at it than anyone else, not "competitive". The other classes have their things they are far better at than fighters are.
And that's true -- using the rules as written. Rogues simply do not out-damage Fighters. The only classes that have any hope of outdamaging Fighters are Rangers (against their favored enemy only, and only if they've concentrated their bonuses against that enemy) and Paladins (against evil dragons, evil outsiders, and undead only). Rogues can't. Barbarians can't. Spellcasters sure can't. You don't have to nerf Rogues into uselessness in combat to make Fighters the king of damage-dealing.
"Kicking Butt In Combat" is all the fighter does, that's his thing. He should be better at it than anyone else, not "competitive". The other classes have their things they are far better at than fighters are.
Ah, so in addition to nerfing the rogue's sneak attack, I assume fireballs are limited to 3d6 and clerics simply cannot target enemies with their spells?
Or are rogues the only characters whose combat capabilities got completely eliminated?
We house-ruled this a long time ago to only allow the first attack the rogue makes per round get the sneak attack bonus. That still gives them some pretty good damage output, without putting the fighters, clerics, and mages to shame constantly.Unless you also house-ruled that monsters should all have ridiculously low ACs or rogues get +10 to hit when flanking, you just put fighters way above rogues in combat capability.Agreed. The Rogues ARE still far better than fighters at disarming traps and sneaking and hiding in shadows. And the Mages are far better than fighters at Summoning Monsters and Teleporting. And the Cleric just blows the Fighter out of the water at healing damage too.
"Kicking Butt In Combat" is all the fighter does, that's his thing. He should be better at it than anyone else, not "competitive". The other classes have their things they are far better at than fighters are.
A fighter does a lot more damage than a rogue. A rogue has his moments, but the fighter will do more damage, over the course of the campaign, a good amount more.
Level 10
Rogue~45.65
Falchion Fighter~60.11.
Ranged fighter~68.25.
This is from the DPR Olympics. I don't think the fighter has to much to worry about.
We're run it with the "Rogue gets sneak attack on first attack of full round attack only" since 3.5 came out and I've yet to have a rogue player feel like he/she didn't contribute to the success of the party in an adventure.
And I've played it the way it was written since 3e came out and never had the fighters feel like their combat role was stolen by the rogues.
You're fixing a non-problem, and in so doing eliminating a lot of fun moments for rogue players -- a class that typically already gets too few.
I'm curious about the parameters of that test. Since there are a great deal of variables at play there's no way I can even think of to state flat out that Rogues don't out damage fighters, or vice versa. What is the AC of the foe? If it's a high AC lower hit point sort of creature the Fighter will have an advantage over the rogue in damage output. If it's a low AC high hit point sort of foe the rogue turns into a La Machine, giving a completely different set of resulting numbers.
The DPR Olympics uses the Bestiary default AC. Since it's a level 10 comparison vs creatures of CR 10, that's 24 AC. Which is far from being high, especially if you're using primarily humanoid enemies rather than monsters.
Give me some parameters and I'll show you mathematically that the Fighter outdamages the Rogue by about 20-25% against a Bestiary default AC monster.
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Even under the normal rules, the rogue isn't competitive. Off all the medium BAB classes, only the rogue is unable to increase its attack bonus.
In our experience that isn't the case, but I expect it depends very much on what levels you tend to play at, what sort of foes you tend to encounter, and whether or not every fighter uses utterly optimized builds and whether or not every rogue uses utterly optimized damage builds.
How do rogues increase their attack bonus in your experience? Druids have Wild Shape, Bards have Inspire Courage, Heroism, Good Hope and Haste, Clerics have Divine Favor, Divine Power and Righteous Might and Monks have Flurry of Blows.
What special rogue ability did I miss that isn't also available to other classes?
I have seen rogues in play and I wasn't impressed. Even the sorcerer was stronger in combat (although that was in the Beta when sorcerers could use their claws all day).
As mentioned above, there is no power on on earth or in heaven or hell that's going to give a fighter of any level 6 attacks that do 11d6 damage each in a round. That fact will be mitigated by campaign specific factors such as I mentioned above, but it's certainly something to look at when wondering why the fighters are fairly constantly getting their thunder stolen in combat by the rogues.
You are right, they wont be rolling dice, they just are adding flat bonuses to their damage.
11d6 I assume that means 2 weapon fighting with short swords and a level 19 rogue (10d6 sneak attack). 11d6 averages to 38.5 damage.
Level 19 fighter with 2 short swords, power attack is +10 damage, he will have a higher strength then the rogue (who needs more dex and a better int then the fighter) so thats 3 or so damage per hit. Weapon Spec and Greater weapon spec, thats +4 daamge, Weapon training thats 4 damage. That alone provides a flat bonus of 21 flat damage(plus average 3.5 from the weapon) to the fighter's every strike as opposed to the rogue's variable damage, in addition the fighter has a dramatically higher to hit bonus (which increases overall damage output) and by that level will probably be blinding/stunning/bleeding etc on each of their crits (which will probably have a higher crit range because of the excess feats). Not to mention the fighter has 7 attacks to the rogues 6.
And they do it while having a better AC, and more hit points the the rogue. If someone is stealing the fighter's thunder, they arent doing the fighter right.
In the dpr olympics temptest ted (two weapon fighting fighter level 10) averaged 53.46 damage per round. A 2handed weapon fighter (falchion fred) did 59.25 damage per round.
Jack B nimble a human 2 weapon fighting rogue 10 does 45.65 damage per round with sneak attack and 15.9 damamge without it. So the fighter gets good damage all around, every round. The rogue has to move into flanking first, losing a round at least in the process.
So who is having their thunder stolen? I think you are confusing stealing thunder with also getting to play. They are not the same thing.
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How do rogues increase their attack bonus in your experience? Druids have Wild Shape, Bards have Inspire Courage, Heroism, Good Hope and Haste, Clerics have Divine Favor, Divine Power and Righteous Might and Monks have Flurry of Blows.Really? What magical items and/or buffs cast by the Mage or Cleric or effects granted by a Bard will increase a Rogue's base attack bonus? Really?
The rogue isn't operating in a vacuum, dependent entirely on just his own skills and stats, at least not in my game very often. When preparing for a fight or when divying up the magical loot the Fighter doesn't always get the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, sometimes the Rogue got that bit of loot because the Fighter wanted the +4 chain mail that was also in that treasure horde. The Cats Grace buff cast on him before the fight threw another +2 onto his attack bonus going in, and so on and so on.
Like I said above, much depends on the style of gaming the particular group is doing; if the adventuring is 90% combat time then equalizing damage output among the classes is going to be important. One should consider making sure mages can cast their essential damage spells every round instead of 3 times a day, and so forth.
If Sneak Attack was only allowed in the more traditional situation, such as the rogue is successfully oh... say... SNEAKING, this would be a non-issue at my game table. But since they changed the rules to allow "Sneak" Attack every time a foe is flanked as well as any of dozens of situations where the target has lost its Dex bonus to AC? Well, that's a seismic shift in the balance of combat. A shift which didn't make sense in the gaming we do at my table, considering that combat is very much not the primary focus of what we do during our weekly game sessions.
So, the rogue gets on par with the fighter when the party's ressources are invested in the rogue and not in the fighter?
Do you really view the fact that a rogue that is strongly supported by the rest of his party gets a damage output that rivals that of a fighter who isn't supported as proof that the rogue is overpowered?
Really? What magical items and/or buffs cast by the Mage or Cleric or effects granted by a Bard will increase a Rogue's base attack bonus? Really?
When you get into "Rogues can compare to fighters in combat if they get buffs from helpful party members" then it's time to give up the position that rogues are overpowered.
Of course you are correct that Rogues may receive these buffs, and they may gain more from these buffs than a fighter because the fighter is already hitting reliably.
However, your mistake is crediting this to the power of the rogue, when the one who needs the credit for the extra damage is the BUFFER themselves.
Increasing a Rogues DPR from 40 something to 60 something because he received an inspire courage and a heroism spell from the Bard is not a statement of the rogue's power, but the Bard's.
Now I'm hesitant to put too much weight on the DPR olympics because it was just one level 10 snapshot - but I will say this - rogues did not do well - even if it was assumed they were flanking and getting sneak attack - they were still being outdamaged by multiple classes.
As for the OP: Rogues aren't overpowered. I would place them bottom 1/2 power wise, though close to the middle.
As for Wizards - spells are very powerful and the Wizards have the best list, which makes them very powerful. However, their are less roles a wizard can fill now. In 3.5 it was quite easy to make a wizard by mid-level who could out-melee a fighter (true as well for sorcerers, clerics, druids, spirit shaman, favored souls, etc.) This was a problem because once a class fills another role better than a specialist, then any shred of game balance is lost.
In Pathfinder, with the changes to Polymorph - you won't find this the case anymore (arguably a Druid may still outfight a fighter - but they have to really specialize their build for melee to do so, but definitely not with a Wizard).
If Sneak Attack was only allowed in the more traditional situation, such as the rogue is successfully oh... say... SNEAKING, this would be a non-issue at my game table. But since they changed the rules to allow "Sneak" Attack every time a foe is flanked as well as any of dozens of situations where the target has lost its Dex bonus to AC? Well, that's a seismic shift in the balance of combat. A shift which didn't make sense in the gaming we do at my table, considering that combat is very much not the primary focus of what we do during our weekly game sessions.
So lets call it precise strike ability or under-hand attack. Have you still got the problem with sneak attack? It seems that the issue is with the mechanic really and the urge to stiffle a key ability of a class because of a GM perception that it is somehow overpowered when it is not.
Can you list these "dozens of situations" that you mention when sneak attack works please?
The Rogue will never out perform the Fighter for damage output and your assumption that the Rogue does is erroneous.
Really? What magical items and/or buffs cast by the Mage or Cleric or effects granted by a Bard will increase a Rogue's base attack bonus? Really?When you get into "Rogues can compare to fighters in combat if they get buffs from helpful party members" then it's time to give up the position that rogues are overpowered.
Of course you are correct that Rogues may receive these buffs, and they may gain more from these buffs than a fighter because the fighter is already hitting reliably.
However, your mistake is crediting this to the power of the rogue, when the one who needs the credit for the extra damage is the BUFFER themselves.
Increasing a Rogues DPR from 40 something to 60 something because he received an inspire courage and a heroism spell from the Bard is not a statement of the rogue's power, but the Bard's.
Now I'm hesitant to put too much weight on the DPR olympics because it was just one level 10 snapshot - but I will say this - rogues did not do well - even if it was assumed they were flanking and getting sneak attack - they were still being outdamaged by multiple classes.
As for the OP: Rogues aren't overpowered. I would place them bottom 1/2 power wise, though close to the middle.
As for Wizards - spells are very powerful and the Wizards have the best list, which makes them very powerful. However, their are less roles a wizard can fill now. In 3.5 it was quite easy to make a wizard by mid-level who could out-melee a fighter (true as well for sorcerers, clerics, druids, spirit shaman, favored souls, etc.) This was a problem because once a class fills another role better than a specialist, then any shred of game balance is lost.
In Pathfinder, with the changes to Polymorph - you won't find this the case anymore (arguably a Druid may still outfight a fighter - but they have to really specialize their build for melee to do so, but definitely not with a Wizard).
One thing I have to say about this is that in the DPR olympics, Rogues got more benefit from a +1 to hit than any other class that I saw. A couple well placed buffs, or sub-par monster ACs and I think you could see a rogue catching up to, if not beating, a fighter, even if both get the same buffs.
I've never seen such in my games; we do have quite a few long sword and shield fighters though.
So now your complaint is that Rogues who are focused on dealing damage outdamage Fighters who have willingly sacrificed their damage-dealing capabilities to gain not-dieing capabilities? It's either that, or your complaint is that your Fighters don't know how to build a dual-wield sword-and-board Fighter (which still does more damage than a Rogue, for the record, on top of having more hit points and much higher AC than the Rogue).
In much the same way that we house ruled the tumble/acrobatics ability to remove the ability to actually tumble through an enemy occupied square. My players decided, quickly and eagerly, to forgo such in-melee-silliness themselves if I promised not to have acrobatic troupes of Fire Giants bounding over the front line to massacre the squishy targets at the back of the party.
And once more another Rogue trick is removed from his bag. I'm feeling Rogue hate.
As for the Fire Giants...Yea, they'll just have to use reach weapons now to smash the squishy targets at the back.
Or rocks.
Of course you are correct that Rogues may receive these buffs, and they may gain more from these buffs than a fighter because the fighter is already hitting reliably.
That is sort of the point, in our experience. Yes, they all get buffed, but the Rogue benefits more from it. They have access to the same set of buffs that the fighter does, but benefit more from them. It's been our experience that you get more bang for your buck buffing the rogue than the fighter.
I notice that the comparisons for combat functionality (I assume that's the point of the comparisons) are all like "short sword dual wielding fighter" and "2H Falchion fighter" and such. There is a great variety of gaming groups out there, I must admit. I've never seen such in my games; we do have quite a few long sword and shield fighters though.
But the dual wielding rapier focused monkey ninja rogues were going to become a real problem in our game, both on the PC side and (most importantly) on the NPC side.
In much the same way that we house ruled the tumble/acrobatics ability to remove the ability to actually tumble through an enemy occupied square. My players decided, quickly and eagerly, to forgo such in-melee-silliness themselves if I promised not to have acrobatic troupes of Fire Giants bounding over the front line to massacre the squishy targets at the back of the party.
You should check out the new tumble rules. They ar emuch less dumb.
I've never seen such in my games; we do have quite a few long sword and shield fighters though.So now your complaint is that Rogues who are focused on dealing damage outdamage Fighters who have willingly sacrificed their damage-dealing capabilities to gain not-dieing capabilities? It's either that, or your complaint is that your Fighters don't know how to build a dual-wield sword-and-board Fighter (which still does more damage than a Rogue, for the record, on top of having more hit points and much higher AC than the Rogue).
Zurai, there seems to be a flood of "XXXX Class is overpowered" on the boards recently and it has generally boiled down to either the GM/Player not understanding how the rules work or one player optimising and the other players not.
Zurai, there seems to be a flood of "XXXX Class is overpowered" on the boards recently and it has generally boiled down to either the GM/Player not understanding how the rules work or one player optimising and the other players not.I've never seen such in my games; we do have quite a few long sword and shield fighters though.So now your complaint is that Rogues who are focused on dealing damage outdamage Fighters who have willingly sacrificed their damage-dealing capabilities to gain not-dieing capabilities? It's either that, or your complaint is that your Fighters don't know how to build a dual-wield sword-and-board Fighter (which still does more damage than a Rogue, for the record, on top of having more hit points and much higher AC than the Rogue).
+1. Some GMs nerf underpowered classes because they don't know what they're talking about.
It's their game. If the players don't mind it and still have fun, it works out. It's silly and it makes no objective sense, but none of that really matters.Now, if the GM implies that the rest of us need to nerf the terribly overpowered rogue, hit him with the Stupid Stick.
I still don't feel the answer to any issue with Rogue damage output is "The fighter players aren't playing one of the premium optimization routes that have been mathematically calculated to squeeze the maximum DPS from the class".
That's very nice, but quite irrelevant since no one other than you has suggested such a thing. Please stop making strawman arguments and either cede the point or actually address what's been said.
There's all of those other elements as well, such as many examples of damage and such being at 10th level whereas our campaigns rarely go higher than that, many of them run for months and months before even 5th level.
I prefer lower-level play myself, so I agree that I tend to focus on these low levels when determining game balance and mechanical outcomes.
I still don't feel the answer to any issue with Rogue damage output is
There is no issue with rogue damage output. That's been our problem all along.
Since you prefer the lower levels -- are you actually going to argue that a typical level 4 rogue without your nerf would outshine a typical level 4 fighter? Really?
I still don't feel the answer to any issue with Rogue damage output is "The fighter players aren't playing one of the premium optimization routes that have been mathematically calculated to squeeze the maximum DPS from the class". In an MMO or other computer game, sure. But in pen and paper? In our game there's supposed to be more to the weekly session than computer RPG or MMO with truly crappy graphics (that 6 sider is a troll? Really?)
Certainly there are lots of other considerations. But the rogue is going 2 weapon fighting, and is getting buffed. He IS going the route that is mathematically calculated to do the most damage. He is choosing the option that does the most damage for his class. The fighter going sword and board, and not using the shield bash/two weapon fighting tree of feats is NOT doing this. So certainly there is no reason why you have to compare your game to an optimized character, just make sure they are not optimized on both sides of the equation. A rogue who fights with a rapier in a one handed style (because his backround is a fencer for instance). Will not outshine the fighter going sword and board who doesnt use sheild back/two weapon fighting.
And yes some pen and paper groups do care about the numbers. Mine does, and it has nothing to do with MMO's. I dont play MMO's and much of my group doesnt either. We still have been crunching the numbers for our characters, in fact we've been doing it since before there WERE MMO's and computer RPGs. And we also have a big emphasis on roleplaying, it is in fact possible to do both. All that number crunching happens away from the table at home in our idle time. At the table whether in combat or out, I assure you we do not play it like it's a video game.
Repeated references in this thread to the fighter not knowing how to build their character
None presented as actual arguments, however.
repeated references to go check out some optimized fighter builds to solve the issues instead of nerfing the Rogue
You mean zero references to go check out the Fighter builds to solve the issue, right? Because no one's saying the Fighter builds are a solution; they're saying that there's no problem.
That's not creating a strawman, that's um... sort of directly addressing various semi-snarky suggestions that the fighter player is an incompetent boob compared to the player of the dual rapier ninja monkey rogue.
You must be reading a different thread.
What has been argued in this thread is that your Fighters aren't concerned about damage, but your Rogue is, so you nerf the Rogue's ability to deal damage -- because, after all, he shouldn't care about being effective in combat.
Ahhh, Dice Blindness.
Rogues can almost match fighters in terms of pure damage if the rogue is buffed and the fighter isn't, and the fighter is a purely defensive build, and the rogue is a purely offensive build, and the enemy is specifically made for the rogue to kill. In those circumstances, yes, the rogue can kinda sorta maybe catch up to the fighter.
You keep throwing around 11d6 damage. But dice don't matter. That's how casinos take so much money away from you - you aren't looking at what the numbers mean. 1d6 means an average of 3.5. It doesn't mean "6."
Also, I will never, ever, in my entire life, ever understand this idea of "I don't want math in my tabletop, pen and paper, math driven, war-game born game." Some people like crunch. That's fine. Crunch is a part of the game. Some people aren't so hot with crunch. That's fine. It's not for everyone. But hating it?. If you hated math as much as you claimed to, you'd be playing AMBER.
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I still don't feel the answer to any issue with Rogue damage output is "The fighter players aren't playing one of the premium optimization routes that have been mathematically calculated to squeeze the maximum DPS from the class".
The DPR Olympics created a vacuum. A standard in which highly optimized characters could be objectively compared to check out how they balance against one another in combat.
In that sterile testing facility, they determined that even the best of the best rogues couldn't out-damage similarly optimized fighters. The logical extension of this is that as you stray further from these optimized builds, as long as the players make approximately equally optimal choices, the results will still hold true.
The crux of the matter is that a poorly-planned but properly-played fighter will still statistically out-damage an equally poorly-planned but properly-played rogue.
If you feel that the fighter (and every other melee class) should totally blow the rogue out of water in combat, then fine, good for you. But the numbers have been run and the rogue is not by any measure an overpowered combatant. No matter what level of play or level of optimization you're looking at, the fighter does more damage, has better AC and has more hit points.
Also, I will never, ever, in my entire life, ever understand this idea of "I don't want math in my tabletop, pen and paper, math driven, war-game born game." Some people like crunch. That's fine. Crunch is a part of the game. Some people aren't so hot with crunch. That's fine. It's not for everyone. But hating it?. If you hated math as much as you claimed to, you'd be playing AMBER.
Hey, wow, the Amber games I've seen were absolutely FULL of crunch.