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.
Ah, true.
Perhaps freeform would've been a better comparison.
Amber would at least get rid of the dice blindness!
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.
I have no doubt that in specific situations that a Paladin can out damage a Fighter, that a Fighter can out damage a rogue, and so forth. But in our experience fighting orcs, goblins, human thieves and bandits, Hobgoblin slavers, and other assorted nasties, the rogue stomps the fighter in damage output except in encounters such as the undead. And the answer isn't "your fighter sucks at his build"
IIRC they used the average AC of a CR 10 creature against a level 10 party. Now if you use under CR'd opponents you might get different results. The fighter does not have to suck to get outdamage. If you make a fighter that puts all his feats into CMB feats then his damage will drop, and if he does not even care about damage, but the rogue does then I see no reason why the rogue or any other class should not outdamage him.
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.
ninja'd by a lot.
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.
Once you get to higher levels beating the CMD + 5 is not as easy as you are making it sound. Why are the squishes(assuming they are casters) getting beat up by rogues. The rogue's most likely need to round to get to them since you can only tumble at half speed. By then the caster should see the problem coming, and find a way to handle it. If they assumed the giants can stop any threat, , just because they are big, and did not prep any spells to handle such situations then they deserve to die.
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).
That is almost always the case. This normally leads to a descriptive example of what took place in a session, and if the person provides all the detail we get to say X, Y, and Z are wrong. Sometimes we get the response of that is because of houserule #298, and that is the issue, or the person understood the real rule.
Other times the poster will post the actual build, and several flaws will be found. Sometimes the flaw is in the supposedly OP'd character/class, and at other times it is in the weak character/class.Edit: That has been my experience since I have been posting online anyway.
Any GM trying to tell any other GM how they "ought" to run their game is on a fools errand, I completely agree with that. Each group is very different and like I pointed out above the degree to which combat dominates the game sessions is going to a very large factor in determining many issues such as the one under discussion here.
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. All sorts of variables that can be a factor for decisions various GM's make about their games.
The "they don't know what they are talking about" is one factor, but I feel it's likely overstated. I'd well bet that in many cases the GM and players well understand the rules as written but feel they are in some cases a serious problem for their games.
4th Edition DnD doesn't work for every game play style, for instance.
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?)
What does the amount of combat have to do with the fighter not being able to out damage a rogue? If you have one fight or 20 the fighter should still be coming out ahead most of the time.
Repeated references in this thread to the fighter not knowing how to build their character, repeated references to go check out some optimized fighter builds to solve the issues instead of nerfing the Rogue (not that the fighter has the option of redoing his character from scratch in the middle of a campaign), and so forth. 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. Certainly didn't MEAN to go creating strawmen to argue against, there's plenty of actual points of fact to debate and consider without making up new ones. :)
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.
So is the rogue is optimized and gets all the buffs, and the fighter is not optimized, and does not get the buffs, so in response the rogue gets nerfed.
Now if that is not the case I please tell me how this rogue is outdamaging this fighter.
Yeah a rogue can outdamage a fighter, but that is not a problem with the rogue. That is a problem with the build. The way you are presenting your argument makes it sound like the worst built fighter should out damage the best built rogue. If someone is built to do a certain thing, and another is not then the spec'd character could possibly do it better even if the class is not made for that job.
If we have never seen a fighter be outdamaged by a rogue what else are we to assume about super-rogue, and the fighter.
If I tell you my friend hates trees because they always cause accidents when they get in the way of his car, but other people don't routinely run into trees. You will probably assume my friend is a bad driver.
repeated references to go check out some optimized fighter builds to solve the issues instead of nerfing the RogueThe difference between "there is no problem because these optimized fighter builds proves it" and "these optimized fighter builds would solve the problem you perceive" is essentially nill. It's certainly not enough of a difference to accuse someone of arguing against strawmen.
Of course the fighter is concerned about doing damage, it's really all he has to contribute to the success of the Adventure. He's also concerned with being able to take hits, 'cause he's going to be the one doing that if he can at all help it.
This doesn't change the fact that the primary contribution of the fighter in an adventure (not in a singular combat, done in a vacuum, but in an adventure) is his ability to kick butt and take names. As a general rule fighters are poor at being the party spokesman; lacking skill points to afford good levels of Bluff or Diplomacy or various Knowledge skills that would help them in a social situation (and a general tendency to use Cha as a dump stat). They can't heal worth a dang, they can't teleport the party home for dinner after the dungeon crawl, they can't disarm traps (except through the brute force method of just letting the trap hit them to save their lower hit point comrades), they can't sneak at all, they can barely climb a wall even with a rope unless they strip off their armor, and so on. What they CAN do is kick butt in a fight; it's all they really have.
I'm not saying a Rogue should be as poor at fighting as a Fighter is at Detecting Traps or Moving Silently or Picking Pockets. But imho increasing their "Back Stab" ability from maybe once per fight (1.0 and 2.0) to every almost single round of a fight (flanks are just that common at least in my game) then increased again to every single attack made during every round of every fight... well, when I was running 1.0 and 2.0 I never saw the horrible "Oh my, thieves...
So you are admitting there is nothing wrong with rogues, but your group just happened to make changes because that is what your group wanted to do?
PS: Fighters can be sneaky. The can take skill focus(stealth) to make up for it being a non-class skill. They can also focus on UMD if they want to. They won't cast as well as a casting class, but to say they can't do it is incorrect, but then again they should not be able to they same way a rogue can't outdamage a fighter if the fighter wants to do damage.
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I'm a little curious why the baddies are just standing there waiting to be flanked, and then not doing anything about it once they are. Maybe that's not the case, but the way I'm reading it, it certainly seems that way to me, if flanking is happening
every almost single round of a fight (flanks are just that common at least in my game).
Also, where are the baddies buddies?
I'm a little curious why the baddies are just standing there waiting to be flanked, and then not doing anything about it once they are. Maybe that's not the case, but the way I'm reading it, it certainly seems that way to me, if flanking is happeningevery almost single round of a fight (flanks are just that common at least in my game).Also, where are the baddies buddies?
I think getting a description of a combat would help a lot. If his game is the only one in this thread where a rogue greatly outdamages a fighter it has to be the way they play.
PS: I think he said "greatly" in one of the post anyway. I might have to go back and check.
So I looked at the DPR thread again and calculated the damage assuming a .95 hit chance, and the falchion (not elven blade, since there wasn't an attack summary for it and it's too close to 3am to bother) fighter comes out to 78 average damage while the rogue comes out to 101. Kind of interesting, the difference between the fighter's max damage and damage he does deal out is smaller than the equivalent difference for the rogue, so I can see why the rogue might outshine the fighter if you'd dunked him in a vat of buffs.
Still think Treantmonk's point that the extra damage is attributable to the buffer stands though. And to some degree to the fighter too, if he's the one setting up the flank for the rogue in the first place.
So I looked at the DPR thread again and calculated the damage assuming a .95 hit chance, and the falchion (not elven blade, since there wasn't an attack summary for it and it's too close to 3am to bother) fighter comes out to 78 average damage while the rogue comes out to 101. Kind of interesting, the difference between the fighter's max damage and damage he does deal out is smaller than the equivalent difference for the rogue, so I can see why the rogue might outshine the fighter if you'd dunked him in a vat of buffs.
Still think Treantmonk's point that the extra damage is attributable to the buffer stands though. And to some degree to the fighter too, if he's the one setting up the flank for the rogue in the first place.
If I am the tank, and the party insist on not buffing me then I would insist on playing another class. Why even play a fighter if the rogue can do all the damage, and has all the skills? You can always fluff the rogue into a light armored fighter.
PS: I don't think rogues do to much damage, but if Rick were correct there would be no reason to play a fighter.
So I looked at the DPR thread again and calculated the damage assuming a .95 hit chance, and the falchion (not elven blade, since there wasn't an attack summary for it and it's too close to 3am to bother) fighter comes out to 78 average damage while the rogue comes out to 101. Kind of interesting, the difference between the fighter's max damage and damage he does deal out is smaller than the equivalent difference for the rogue, so I can see why the rogue might outshine the fighter if you'd dunked him in a vat of buffs.
Still think Treantmonk's point that the extra damage is attributable to the buffer stands though. And to some degree to the fighter too, if he's the one setting up the flank for the rogue in the first place.
So like I said.
When you only buff the rogue and you buff him a lot and put him in his best situation against monsters far lower level then him...
...THEN he'll outdamage the fighter.
But in normal games? No.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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How poor are Fighters at Picking Pockets and Detecting Traps? Are they within 10% of a Rogue's proficiency at such endevours? Because the Rogue is pretty much within 10% of the Fighter's proficiency at kicking butt in a fight.
You tell us. Given that you're still using 2e terminology, I suspect you don't even know how those mechanics work.
Hint: For pick pockets (and, hide in shadows, move silently, use scrolls and whatever other 2e specific thief skill existed except for trap-finding), the rogue has an extra +3 due to having those as class skills. The fighter and rogue both have climb as a skill, so they can have equivalent skill in that area.
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Eh, even after digging through the 850,000 pages of the DPR Olympics, I can't find evidence that the Rogue, as written, isn't completely competitive with the Fighter in doling out damage in a fight. Sneak attacking TW rogue at about DPR ~56.39 vs. TH Fighter DPR ~62-ish. And frankly the DPR on that rogue could go higher within the rules of the DPR Olympics I do believe.
How about proving it. Good luck.
Even the Barbarian can't compete with that Rogue's DPR according to the builds I've scoured over.
That's because barbarians are horrible.
Eh, even after digging through the 850,000 pages of the DPR Olympics, I can't find evidence that the Rogue, as written, isn't completely competitive with the Fighter in doling out damage in a fight. Sneak attacking TW rogue at about DPR ~56.39 vs. TH Fighter DPR ~62-ish. And frankly the DPR on that rogue could go higher within the rules of the DPR Olympics I do believe.
Where did you get ~62-ish? And no, the rogue could not really go higher within the rules. Unless you'd like to state how.
Even the Barbarian can't compete with that Rogue's DPR according to the builds I've scoured over.
That's because the Barbarian is rubbish.
And that's before taking into account party wide buffs and how the Rogue benefits more from just +1 more than the Fighter will, etc.
Yes and no. The rogue benefits from small buffs to damage and attack. The fighter, on the other hand, has the almighty Haste, which is an incredible buff for the fighter, and a hilariously small one for the rogue. Haste alone is what gives people a reason to make a TH rogue - it's that good.
How poor are Fighters at Picking Pockets and Detecting Traps? Are they within 10% of a Rogue's proficiency at such endevours? Because the Rogue is pretty much within 10% of the Fighter's proficiency at kicking butt in a fight.
Yes, actually. Should a fighter choose to put his points into sleight of hand and search, he'll be, at best, three points behind the rogue.
Eh, even after digging through the 850,000 pages of the DPR Olympics, I can't find evidence that the Rogue, as written, isn't completely competitive with the Fighter in doling out damage in a fight. Sneak attacking TW rogue at about DPR ~56.39 vs. TH Fighter DPR ~62-ish. And frankly the DPR on that rogue could go higher within the rules of the DPR Olympics I do believe.
Even the Barbarian can't compete with that Rogue's DPR according to the builds I've scoured over.
And that's before taking into account party wide buffs and how the Rogue benefits more from just +1 more than the Fighter will, etc.
How poor are Fighters at Picking Pockets and Detecting Traps? Are they within 10% of a Rogue's proficiency at such endevours? Because the Rogue is pretty much within 10% of the Fighter's proficiency at kicking butt in a fight.
I see moving goalpost. First we were talking about damage, lately you have switched to rogue abilities so is the damage the reason, or is it other reasons? I am just trying to figure out where the issue is because it's not damage. The fighter I was using recently had good damage numbers so the DPR thread is pretty accurate.
Actually they can be within 10%, if the fighter chooses to focus on such things. Anyone can find a trap in Pathfinder even magical ones. Setting a trap off at a distance will keep the party safe 90% of the time.
Even with party wide buffs the fighter still out damages the rogue which goes against your original argument.
Out of curiosity how much damage is the rogue in your group normally doing, and how much is the fighter normally doing?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I shouldn't have to optimize my rogue for the traditional rogue skills to be better than a fighter optimized for rogue skills. The rogue should always be better than the fighter at everything a rogue could ever do by a significant margin or else the fighter is just better than the rogue and makes the class obsolete. In my campaign, which is full of 4 Int/2 Dex rogues and 18 Int/18 Dex fighters, the fighters always outshine the rogues on skill usage. This proves fighters are as good as rogues at everything a rogue can do (or, at least within 10%).
So, I take it from your last post that you have no intent to actually back up your assertion about the rogue vs. fighter DPR?
Just freaking play 2e already. All you're doing at this point is making crap up and then whinging about the nonexistant crap that you've made up.
Christ.
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How about this, RickA.
Since you're totally convinced of your opinion, maybe put it to the test. Post the most 'overpowered' TWF Rogue you can (keeping within the PFS rules) and let's see if one of the others, preferably from the DPR Olympics thread, can beat it.
We'll compare the two on DPR, defenses/saves, and skills, and see how much they encroach on one another's schticks.
I'm probably wasting my time with this request, and I'll be met with more hot air and goalpost changes, but I'm genuinely interested in showing you the truth about the rules. If you react like I think you will, then I'm done with this thread.
When I start reading multiple threads with the same people arguing in each, I should learn to stay away, lol.
Edit: Mostly posting so I can find it later.
I believe I did, AvalonXQ. The Rogue they tested had too little in equipment, pretty sure you could add another +1 to hit with the gold left over.
Making crap up and whinging about the nonexistant crap you've made up?j Wow, perhaps a chill pill will help you comrade, 'cause I'm not saying you need to change jack about your game, just saying what's worked in mine; primarily due to the playstyle of my group not being real focused on the combat elements. Just one of many elements of success in an Adventure.
If the Rogue isn't substantially better, the preferred class for the "I want to be sneaky and theifly" player, then.. what is?
Or is this just a basic continuation of the homogenization of the classes? I saw that in 4e, the first version of DnD I couldn't stand to play.
No, the problem is that you want the rogue to actively be bad at combat, but you also want everyone else to be actively bad at skills.
3e is not the game for you if you want someone to actively be bad at a lot of things, most especially combat.
Pathfinder is: Everyone can be kinda good at most things, but classes really shine in their niche. Yes, the rogue WILL be the best skills dude at rogue stuff. The fighter can be kinda good at it if he tries for it. A human fighter has three skill points, and favored class can knock that to four. He won't be replacing a rogue, god no, but he can give it the ol' college try and be sorta good at some of the things. Likewise, the fighter is the best at murderan dudes. The rogue can be kinda good at it. A rogue who puts everything into murderan dudes will be pretty good at it - considering how much he's poured into murderan dudes, he should be. But he won't equal the fighter, unless the fighter is derping around.
The problem is that you keep claiming the rogue is this mass murdering machine. He's not. The fighter will always be better then the rogue in a normal game. If your spellcasters are only buffing the rogue and ignoring the fighter, or you're regularly sending enemies with pathetically low armor at the party, or you continuously send a single enemy that's easily flanked, then yes, the rogue will be better - as it damn well should be, considering that you and your party are doing everything you can to MAKE the rogue better and the fighter worse. Likewise, if your casters pour all their stuff onto the fighter, and the fighter gets a lot of gear and feats that give him boosts to skills, and the rogue is terrible with his skills, then the rogue will be better - but again, at that point, you're hardly playing the same game.
Lastly, combat is the part of the game that everyone gets involved in. Clerics can melee or throw out heals or buffs, wizards are slinging spells, rangers are shooting dudes, fighter is charging forward to bash people in the skull, monks jump around uselessly because they have no good points, barbarians rage and charge and are mostly not that great. Rogue flank, catch the enemy on their offside using their ally as a distraction, and carve into them.
You seem to want rogues to actively do little to nothing in combat. I would then have to ask: why do you hate rogues so much?
Really? You guys have Fighters who have Dex scores comparable to Rogues, skill points/level comparable to Rogues? Because in my Pathfinder game it seems Fighters can count on having about 2 skill points per level and Rogues 8+ per level, which pretty much blows the fighter's chance of being within about 10% of the Rogue's various classic thief abilities utterly out of the realm of possibility, doesn't it? And that "mere" +3 that the Rogue gets on all his class abilities? That's a 15% improvement right there over what the Fighter could hope to get, already putting him past the Fighter by a more significant degree than the Fighter is past the Rogue in the damage sweepstakes.
You listed specific skills. If we only have to have those skills within 10% it is possible. You did not say all the skills.
Never have seen a fighter even try to be competitive with the Rogue at sneaking, climbing walls, picking pockets, detecting traps, picking locks. There's a variety of really good reasons for that; mainly that it would be an exercise in futility....
Not if we only have to match the skills you listed.
As far as the wealth increase the rogue has to pay for two weapons, while the fighter is only paying for one. I dont know if the rogue would have the money to upgrade two weapons which basically means he falls farther behind.
How about this, RickA.
Since you're totally convinced of your opinion
Oh, my, the ultimate sin on the intertubz: having an opinion. :D
To be clear I've stated over and over again in this thread that there are so many variables at play in a game group that it's just foolish for anyone to tell other GM's "You ought to change the rule to..." just because it works in that group. The more combat-centric a GM is then the more it's important that every class of Character have a pretty solid combat role to play. The less combat-centric the GM then it's more important that every class has it's Adventure Role to play, which may or may not be being a significant factor in combat situations.
I believe the TWF Rogue in the DPR thread was addressed just above? Within 10% of the best fighter's damage output was, I'm pretty sure, the result.
Of course the Fighter isn't within 10% of the Rogue's various abilities, nor is the Rogue within 10% of the Wizard's ability to teleport the whole party home, and man, the Fighter doesn't heal 90% as well as the Cleric. But it's okay for the Rogue to be about 90% as good as the Fighter.
Why do you all hate Fighter's so much? ;) /snark
I noticed that the Druid ended up being the best of the bunch in the DPR Olympics, which is a pretty sad statement on the state of the game, but all those Druid players must be feeling the love.
This started with you saying rogues did too much damage since they can outdamage fighters and I quote:
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.
Later the DPR thread was brought up proving a correctly built fighter that wants to damage will out damage a rogue. You tried to question AC, but we stated that the AC used was the average AC for that level. You thing admitted, probably by accident, that the only way a rogue could compete is with buffs from the party members.
Then you listed specific skills and said the fighter could not get to within 10%. That was proven wrong. Then you tried to switch it to all skills.
History line.
Rogues out damage fighters: Proven Wrong
Fighters can't stay within a small subset of a rogue's skills:proven wrong
Rogues are better at fighters at all skills: We already knew that. If the fighter had the rogue's skills the rogue would be useless.
A rogue however is not near a fighter in combat. AC and HP is a big part of combat. You might not want to admit it, but put a rogue on the front lines and see what happens.
You listed specific skills. If we only have to have those skills within 10% it is possible. You did not say all the skills.
It's true I didn't itemize the classic thief skills. I assumed everyone would more or less be familiar with what they were.
And while it might be possible for a fighter to utterly gimp himself as a fighter by taking skill focus Stealth in order to be almost but not quite as good as a rogue at one skill among many the rogue is excellent at, it's not required of the rogue to gimp himself as a rogue in order to be almost as good as the fighter in kicking butt in a combat.
In some group's games there is enough of a focus on combat that this is important, in others there isn't. If you spend 5 hours out of a 6 hour game session running combats then it's probably a pretty big deal that the rogue have some pretty good combat abilities, after all he isn't do anything else during a fight except... fighting.
But if you spent 1 hour in combat and 5 others in investigation, NPC interaction, puzzling over the (insert plot hook here), and poking your noses around corners in damp underground dungeons, then it's quite a bit different.
We do know what they are, but when you list skills A, B, and C that is what we went for. You can't list 3 skills and then later expand the list. Dropping a feat wont gimp a fighter. My previous post shows why the rogue does not kick butt as well as a fighter.
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The obsession with Combat capabilities as the primary contribution of a particular class is an unfortunate side effect of the MMO-ing of pen and paper gaming, imho. The rogue has many other contributions to make to the adventure success (note: adventure success, not just combat success) than what they can dole out in the fights that occur. Obviously the style of the gaming group is a big factor. If a group runs combat after combat and that is the primary focus of what they are doing at the game table, ala MMO gaming, then DPR equalization is much more critical to ensuring each player feels they are contributing equally. This was the thinking behind 4th Edition as far as I can tell.
You've brought up MMO's multiple times here - at least three and I'm not through the first page of this thread - as the rational behind rogues sneak attacking repeatedly. You do know that most popular MMO's came out AFTER 3.0, yes?
I'm not saying a Rogue should be as poor at fighting as a Fighter is at Detecting Traps or Moving Silently or Picking Pockets. But imho increasing their "Back Stab" ability from maybe once per fight (1.0 and 2.0) to every almost single round of a fight (flanks are just that common at least in my game) then increased again to every single attack made during every round of every fight... well, when I was running 1.0 and 2.0 I never saw the horrible "Oh my, thieves....
.... I really hate the Paizo forum habit of not quoting entire messages. In any case, I did at least get most of what I wanted to comment on.
Bringing 1.0 and 2.0 into the discussion is pointless. The systems are literally so different from 3.5 as to be not worthy of comparison, particularly in terms of damage. 10d6 was a big deal in 2.0 because you capped at 10th level hit points, and didn't have the same kind of whooping bonuses to hit points that you get in 3.5/Pathfinder. 10d6 is NOT a big deal anymore. One sneak attack does not decide combat when monsters frequently have hundreds of hit points.
10d6 is NOT a big deal anymore. One sneak attack does not decide combat when monsters frequently have hundreds of hit points.
This is an excellent point, and it is also the reason why casters that blast are not the best way to play them. A caster with exploding dice(multiple dice damage) could wipe out monsters in previous editions, but due to hp inflation all it does is make the monster upset. If you(RickA)don't beleive it compare the hp of a 1st edition balor or dragon to the current one.
Your case has been heard by the Court and you have been declared... the winner! Winning arguments on the internet<winning the Special Olympics.
I was very glad to see that the DPR Olympics thread was brought up in response to my original statements. No one bothered to link to it or cite its specifics, but at least it was mentioned so I was able to search it out and read the parameters and what it is (and isn't) attempting to answer. It was a very informational read and I learned a few things about both the Pathfinder rules and the mindset of some of the people who play it.
Turns out that on average a rogue will only be 90% as effective as a fighter in doling out the hurt! Hey, that makes my statement about them doing more than the fighter wrong!
Doesn't really invalidate my point, but it does make that one statement wrong in it's specifics. Here's a cookie, Perry Mason.
The insistence by all of the Fighter Haters that Rogues deserve to be at least 90% as good as fighters in doing damage is fascinating, but I have to assume there are real good reasons they feel that way, based on the sort of game they play. I know the more combat there is in a night's adventure then the more important it is that each class be fairly close to each other in combat contribution abilities, so that explains much of it I figure.
And you know what? There's nothing wrong with that. I've never said there is, and still don't. If the average 6 hour game session at your table is 5 hours of miniature combat, then that's a good thing if y'all are enjoying it. If the average 6 hour game session at my table is 1 hour of combat and 5 hours of other elements of pen and paper RPG, then that's fine too, and it's going to affect how I judge various elements of the game as far as including them or modifying them for my group. So... I run the Rogue a bit more like the AD&D Thief and a lot less like the WoW Rogue. No big deal, it works.
Making such comments wins you no points here. All you have to do is prove a rogue is a good as a fighter in combat. You never addressed the ability to not get hit, and the ability to take a hit as being important, unless you think such things are not important.
You also never explained why it matters if the combat in a session is one hour or 15 hours. The way I look at it the rogue massively out damaging a fighter would be an issue either way, even though we know that statement is false now.
This was a debate. You made a call and we countered it. It was that simple. If you had wanted to focus on the overall effectiveness we could have debated that. We only debate what is put forth. Now if you have another idea we can debate that, but it is considered bad practice to start on one thing, and then try to debate something else.
We are not fighter haters. We saw you make a ridiculous claim, and knocked it down. Now if the damage is not the issue then you should state that, and we can focus on the issue. Maybe giving the fighter more skill points might help, but nerfing the rogue who only gets his 50sih points of damage in certain situations is not the answer. How about not letting your NPC's get flanked easily. If the fighter can do his damage almost all the time, and the rogue has to get set up that is normally at least 2 rounds that the round is not doing a lot of damage. These points were brought up before, but you ignored them. You actually ignored a lot of points.
A lot of us don't even play WoW so that is not even a valid comparison. The issue was you have no idea of what balance is, and you never did the research. I don't expect you to go out and crunch numbers, but since these things have been discussed on this site and other sites several time, at least doing the research would have let you know that. If you want to think a rogue can go up front and do the fighters job we can run those numbers also.
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If the average 6 hour game session at my table is 1 hour of combat and 5 hours of other elements of pen and paper RPG, then that's fine too, and it's going to affect how I judge various elements of the game as far as including them or modifying them for my group. So... I run the Rogue a bit more like the AD&D Thief and a lot less like the WoW Rogue. No big deal, it works.
considering that combat is very much not the primary focus of what we do during our weekly game sessions.
The obsession with Combat capabilities as the primary contribution of a particular class is an unfortunate side effect of the MMO-ing of pen and paper gaming, imho. The rogue has many other contributions to make to the adventure success (note: adventure success, not just combat success) than what they can dole out in the fights that occur. Obviously the style of the gaming group is a big factor. If a group runs combat after combat and that is the primary focus of what they are doing at the game table, ala MMO gaming, then DPR equalization is much more critical to ensuring each player feels they are contributing equally. This was the thinking behind 4th Edition as far as I can tell. If the group runs a lot of social interaction, investigative endevours, role-playing, and general dungeoneering as well as combat then that changes the dynamic as well.
The rogue gets to be The Man many times in a typical adventure, at least as we run our games, without being a dual wielding flying monkey ninja.
The less combat-centric the GM then it's more important that every class has it's Adventure Role to play, which may or may not be being a significant factor in combat situations.
I'm seeing a pattern that's telling me that combat isn't too important in your sessions, and that's cool. But I'm also seeing that you don't like that the rogue can, with his skill point allocation, be amazing outside combat, and also amazing (by your account) inside combat, while the fighter only gets to do one of those. If combat is so backseat in your game, why nerf the rogue so bad? Just because his 'skills' let him do things better outside combat, and, when he manages to get sneak attack (BTW, you still haven't answered my other question on why it happens so often to your NPCs) can do a decent amount of damage?
Also:
rogue stomps the fighter in damage output except in encounters such as the undead.
Undead are no longer immune to sneak attacks and critical hits, making them a bit more vulnerable to rogues AND fighters
And:
so we took some steps to differentiate the roles of the classes, emphasizing the unique contributions
getting harder and harder to convince anyone that a mage or a cleric (much less a bard or a ranger or a paladin...) were worth playing at all
These look to me like they should work at canceling each other out.
Plus:
You guys have Fighters who have Dex scores comparable to Rogues,
If you happen to be an Elf fighter, damn skippy. Sure, you may not make it into the DPR Olympics, but (and no offense to those who swear by it) I hate min-maxing. I'll never dump a stat under 10 just so I can get more points elsewhere (assuming point buy, of course). The rogue I have in mind to build, assuming I get a chance to play instead of just GM anymore, will have an Elven curved blade, cuz I think it's cool, and want to play a character for his concept, not optimize a class. I had a universal wizard who learned elemental spells and called himself "The Tempest". Sure, I could've built him differently, but I didn't need or want to.
Finally:
If the Rogue isn't substantially better, the preferred class for the "I want to be sneaky and theifly" player, then.. what is?
Personally, I'd say Ranger. Stealth as a class skill, second highest skill points (tied with bard), and Favored Terrain FTW. As a matter of opinion, why not have all the fighters and rogues who compete for awesome factor in your game just switch to rangers? Not as many skills and no sneak attack at all, and can do decent damage all the time, and awesome damage against favored enemies?
Sorry for the long post. And this may catch me some flak, but personally, I think Monks get a really bad rap. ;-)
The reasoning is because the rogue has a lot of spotlight moments in the game session.
Ok, that is different than what was mentioned before, thanks. Yeah most fighters dont get to do much outside of combat, but that it does not have to be that way. That is another subject for another time though.
There are ways to foil sneak attack though. Concealment is one way. There is actually a thread on it somewhere around here if it's really giving you trouble. There might be still be threads on WoTC's site too, but a lot of things were lost with the switch to the new forum.
RickA, if you want your fighter to shine outside of combat, it can be done easily.
Fighters have Survival as class skill, they can easily guide their party in the wilderness or follow tracks. You can have your share of social interactions with Intimidate.
Moreover, there's a lot of Traits that make some skills class skills and the fighter has so many feats that taking a few Skill Focus or one of the +2/+2 feats is not a problem for him. And I don't even talk of PrC that give you new class skills.
There are plenty of ways to have something to do outside combat for a fighter, just don't stay in the background because the rogue has a better bonus than you for a particular skill.
Seriously man, when your fighter has a crush on the daughter of the duke, do you send the rogue to seduce her because his diplomacy/bluff is better than yours or do you do it yourself ???
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.
Can you list these "dozens of situations" that you mention when sneak attack works please?
Still waiting...
And if combat isn't the primary focus why get all worked up about a key class ability which all about combat?
Seriously man, when your fighter has a crush on the daughter of the duke, do you send the rogue to seduce her because his diplomacy/bluff is better than yours or do you do it yourself ???
I wise man once said, never let the thief play matchmaker!