As to the trap thing, there's nothing wrong with having multiple - seemingly unrelated - traps together. Likewise, traps can be dangerous past the initial threat of the trap itself. A great example would probably be one of the rooms in a recent kobold game I ran last week.
Imagine if you will the party squeezing (-4 AC/Attacks) through a very narrow passage to come into the room on the other side. What they don't realize is that there's a 20ft pit trap on the other side, and the tanky fellow in the front takes a dive right into the trap (bam, 2d6 falling damage, and a 20ft climb to the top), but look, the bottom of the pit is filled with oil, and also a burning hands trap. Ok, so now you're in the pit and you're on fire. Now, since you're on fire in a burning pit, you can't take 10 to climb back out. Each round you're taking 1d6 fire damage from being on fire, and the place is filling with smoke (see environmental hazards) making it harder to breath.
Now, this wasn't an encounter with the kobolds, but the smell of smoke and the sounds of the traps going off then alerts the 4 kobold sentries (CR 1/4 warriors) armed with 4 acid flasks each (4 x 10 gp = 40 gp consumables) who arrive on the opposite side of the pit. So we've got the following:
Now, the traps were completely separate from the kobold encounter down the hallway. Each of the traps was only CR 1. The kobolds were only CR 1 (total), but even without the kobolds the trap was pretty mean and wasn't "over and done with". It introduced a "oh crap timer", since being in the flaming pit trap made it harder to climb, prevented you from taking 10, etc. It was more easily survived by characters with Climb and so forth.
Heck, even when they finally did manage to chase off the kobolds, throw another rope down, and manage to hoist the fighter up and get her healed, they had to use a solid amount of their party healing, and then figure out how everyone was going to get across the pit trap (it took up the room), which required them to climb across the walls to get to the other side (one member had to carry another member, since he was pretty sure he'd fail the DC 15 climb check to get around.
They kind of wished they had the artificer check for traps (the disable DC was pretty low actually). :P
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On the subject about the 17th level wizard, I do have to agree that a 17th level wizard would probably be much better off than that. Not saying that he would necessarily have detect poison prepared (my wizard PCs do, it combos well with Craft(Alchemy)).
However, you have to consider that any 17th level wizard worth a portion of his salt (just NPC gear) will likely be sporting a cloak of resistance +3, a +2 amulet of health (assuming they don't wear a amulet of proof against poison), and the wizard would be sporting something akin to a +11 on their Fortitude saves before any spells or buffs. Likewise, having access or carrying an antitoxin would probably be a pretty good idea for a wizard who's a BBEG (I mean, it's not like people wouldn't want to poison you) for another +5 on the saving throw for hours. That's assuming he doesn't pop a limited wish and mimic neutralize poison, or similar.
CoDzilla is correct that taking out the wizard so easily seems like the GM was fiating it. As a GM, I'm a bit skeptical myself as to how the 17th level evil wizard even crawls out of bed in the morning if a 10th level character with an 800 gp poison is going to kill him like that. Then again, the GM just might not be experienced (such as having high level nekkid NPCs and/or dumb NPCs, which is common with newbie GMs).
I had a similar experience with an "epic level wizard" in a game run by a horrible GM in an online persistent campaign. Imagine if you will, this half-black dragon troll wizard 21 versus a group of 16th level players. The encounter blows by effortlessly because the troll wizard is amazingly stupid, and also gets blown up by fireballs and fire-spells because this epic level wizard was too stupid to pack a ring of fire resistance or even cast resist energy: fire, or use anything defensively like spell turning or sphere of invulnerability.
Against the same party (persist world, I was GMing, we had multiple GMs), a 16th level NPC wizard using NPC WBL who was thrashing the party, and ended up fighting them solo over 20+ rounds of combat without hardly being scratched, and it resulted in the majority of the PCs being so amazingly awed by her power that they started using stuff like planeshift to break out of the combat and retreat, and the party kept thinning as more and more were breaking from morale, and the encounter actually ended up being fought to a stalemate with one PC out of 8+ that was in the game. The remaining PC and the lich both agreed neither was getting anywhere, so they decided to play a game of chess instead, which actually took the campaign in a very different direction.
(On a humorous side note, I was running the game by request, and the original writeup for the nameless lich included a bunch of overpowered artifacts that only the lich could use, a +8 intelligence item, much higher level, and so forth. The original GM said, "the players are really strong, so these should help the BBEG last a few rounds". I chuckled, and scrapped all that stuff and used the normal rules and non-cheesy items.)
I do believe that skills can be awesome though. I could actually see most of the rogue vs wizard story going exactly like that, but it would probably be harder, trickier, require more setup, and possibly a Rasputin style poisoning (enough poison to kill a large mammoth perhaps), and that would be the 1st of probably 7 plans to take out the 17th level NPC, most of which would probably be used in conjunction with each other.
I believe in giving credit where credit is due.
IF some of the posters here played in my campaign you would grow to appreciate a rogue and i GUARANTEE i could kill your all mighty fighter or wizard with traps and sticking to the rules, or easily use up 20% or more of your resources. And yeah you could probably avoid curtain traps with a curtain spell but what if you can't cast that spell or ANY spells. spell components can be taken away so can spell books and bonded items, the GM controls what spells you can get and therefore anticipate spells that are harder to spell around.
I can't really agree with this. Mainly because it seems kind of pointless. A GM can always kill the party (no brainer there), so I don't get that part. Likewise, if you have to keep making them naked (destroying or preventing them from having gear) to let the rogue shine, then you're actually making the rogue sound incredibly bad.
Likewise, sorcerers can ignore spellbooks and spell components, for example. They have less spells but it's quite possible to make a well-rounded sorcerer. If wizard's can't buy scrolls then you're house-ruling against them to make the rogue look better. Pretty much everything RuneBladeX is saying just suggests that everyone else has to be scaled back in heavy handed ways to let the rogue seem meaningful in any way. I don't agree.
traps that trigger anti magic sphere's and shut doors and lock them, traps that release monsters that target your weaknesses (ex-pit traps with rust monsters in them-fighters love those), traps that trigger other traps and unleash monsters with easy access to the wizard, rotating rooms that provide violent motion, traps that summon monsters were they need to be, traps that trigger in the next room but have an effect 1 or 2 rooms away for summon set-offs, traps that divide the party to rooms with other traps. put bluntly a clever dm can build a trap that will kick any player in the nuts if he wants to, and should if there's a rogue in the party.
I agree that traps can be nasty. I usually don't overuse antimagic field (inexperienced GMs use it as a crutch and it's really not that great most of the time, and it's fairly easy to overcome if you're wearing a pointy hat), but occasionally using an AMF as part of a trap could be acceptable. Continual antimagic fields are stupid though, since being a continual use magic item, it would immediately collapse itself the moment it was activated (continuous item + antimagic field = most expensive paperweight ever).
plus rogues have one bonus that no one has mentioned or fails to even apply. traps should be fairly plentiful in parties with rogues. if a rogue scouts a bit ahead, and finds a trap and disarms it and none of the party is withing range of the trap guess what? ONLY THE ROGUE GETS THAT EXP! in the party i GM for the rogue is over 1 level ahead of the other level 3rd level pc's
And my final problem with Runeblade's post is this. Rogues aren't the only ones who gets experience from the traps. If the fighter walks into the trap and survives it (disabling it, on a non-resetting trap), then everyone gets XP for it. If a sorcerer blows up a hundred enemies with a pair of meteor swarms cast in the same round (meteor swarm + rod quickened meteor swarm) then everyone gets XP.
Merely being out of range of the trap doesn't mean everyone else doesn't get XP. RuneBladeX is making up something in favor of the Rogue that doesn't exist. As a house rule, sure (though it's a bad house-rule, since it's something of a double standard and encourages competitiveness and conflict over who can try to overcome an obstacle first), but it's not part of the standard game and speaking like it is serves no useful purposes for anyone; and only further makes the Rogue look really, really bad ("I have all these house rules and mean spirited things to do to everyone that isn't a rogue, so rogues can feel useful, so rogues are great" doesn't fly).
Likewise, I think traps can and probably should be fairly plentiful even in parties without rogues. No one expects GMs to stop using undead because there's no clerics in the party, or demons if they lack a Paladin, or grappling monsters in a fighter-lite party. Why should anyone expect that not having a rogue (or other trap-springer) in the party will mean you won't encounter traps often?
Everything else aside (and it's a lot of everything), what kind of 17th level wizard doesn't have limited wish or wish prepared, or at least on a handy scroll, as a get out of anything free card?One with a sane DM. Letting a wizard scribe wish or limited wish into his spellbook is one of two things:
1) The DM has given up, and will basically give the players whatever they want. The fighter is probably wielding a +12 adamantium brilliant energy vorpal lightsabre of wounding...that also grants 3 wishes per day.
2) The DM intends to twist the wishes to the point where the wizard would be better off burning the spellbook instead of ever preparing the wish spell.
I disagree with this entirely. As an almost sane DM.
Feel better now that you fired off that rant Runeblade? You definitely seemed to be venting some steam lol.
yup pretty much! lol. i just hate posts about how this class is worthless or that class is underpowered. i also am not fond of posts like "well yeah but my wizard is god cause he would just cast this or cast that, encounter over moving on". and im also a firm believer that its the GM duty to make sure each and every class being played has equal time in the spotlight. if classes don't stand out and apart then the GM has failed telling a story about ALL the players.
you know people can have whatever opinion they want that's life, but if you feel a class is weak or worthless than just don't play it, others will and always have. if your the rare player ,who im fortunate have 4 out of 5 players, that don't powerplay or even take weaker classes cause it's a challenge or god forbid just FUN and FLAVORFUL than i have much respect for you. just know your not alone! i always enjoy the sneaky, stealthy, crap talking, shady seeming type who ends up being the most generous, and face of the party in my campaign. i would GM a party of weaker classes full of fluff over a powerplaying tank/casters party any day of the week.
i agree that casters are very powerful and i dont hate them at all. just that a gm needs to make sure the wizard isn't ruling the campaign. while a wizard can do a lot of things with spells he shouldn't feel invulnerable or all powerful. many books have evil wizards as the BBEG they don't have every spell at whim even being high level. and while it's an easy cop out to say they should or would cast this or do that, you know the villains always seem to die in the end. Evil dudes always seem to reveal there plans, are overconfident, get betrayed by there apprentice, are destroyed by there power hungriness and so on. it's easy to say "what a dumb #@! i would have just done this and killed the heroes". but what good a story is that and who would ever here about it? Take VORDAKAE from kingmaker, his spells blow and he's a 1000 year old lich, i could have made him 1000% more deadly than he was made out to be. but thats not how the story was made too be. pathfinder is a story not WoW and should be handled as such IMO.
i do agree rogues could have gotten a bit more incentives combat wise. like giving rogues access to specialize in a light weapon or maybe giving them access to many more fighter feats and trees for light weapons only. also giving them light armor training maybe where there light armor strength increases as they level making them harder to hit, but alas thats not not the case.
Every rogue has a place in someones own imagination and in there heart no matter his "POWER" and thats what will always make a rogue truly a powerful character...
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* Traps almost never have an equivolency to a strong encounter of the same CR in terms of damage output. Even under the conditions of failing the appropriate save (which most often is reflex) or getting hit by an attack. And because that damage output rarely represents a constant source of potential damage output surviving it at all effectively reduces it to a mere resource tax. Unless, of course, it is used in conjunction with an immediate combat (which of course means a direct addition to the CR of said encounter).
In other words, if the trap goes off and knocks you to 1 hp, you "win". If the orc knocks you to 1 hp, you are at risk because he can still attack.
The trick is that the orc won't do that with single attack, but rather in smaller doses and thus the party eliminates him while he rougly causes the same amount of damage. The additional threat from other attacks is about the same as the trap rolling high. Unless the fight protacts for some reason not accounted for, like the fighter having to prick some meat from his teeth, the result would be similar. That's what the CR is about.
...* Even injury poisons give you the round in which you make a save in order to see if you are affected. Which gives you or your other members the time available to cast a simple delay poison and deal with it later. As to the fun of save or die effects, while I agree it isn't fun in the immediate sense to die to such things, it is a great tension builder and creates a better game. A game lacking those elements lacks a lot of fun. There is a reason the creators of D&D had those elements in the game, and it wasn't a lack of foresight.
Aehm, the poison first attacks upon contact, it doesn't wait untill your next turn. That's when it makes it's second attack already. Delay poison can stop the poison from doing more harm for a while, but it doesn't prevent the initial damage unless the spell was in effect before the poison struck.
Please note that I wasn't saying tat the traps shouldn't be deadly. CR appropriate traps shouldn't be deadly. Just like the CR appropriate encounters shouldn't be deadly. A deadly trap is deadly because the it's CR is high above party's APL. The CR measures how the encounter measures up to party's capabilities and thus the results, if the system works properly, must be comparable. The trap would be deadly because of it's CR, not in spite of it.
As to being unaware of being poisoned, that circumstance is going to be abnormal. 99% of the time the party is going to know it has been affected. A DC 15 will save to recognize domination, a DC 10 heal check to recognize poison, etc etc. And a reasonable person knows that if they just got their finger pricked by the dart in the keyhole one of the others should go ahead and cast a delay poison.
* While many things represent a resource tax, not all encounters do. Some encounters represent a "win or die" element, not simply a (25% of your daily awesomeness, please). Traps use to do that, and thus rogues use to be 1 of 4 necessary elements to a balanced party.
Contact poison != injury poison. These things just require naked skin touching the object. They can be used as injury, but they are fare better used in some other way. Inhaled poisons with onset are ofen colorless and without any smell. You can tell you are poisoned when you start feeling weird, which is when thepoison is already in effect = late for total prevention of damage.
CR appropriate encounters are % of resources CR +5 are avoid or likely die usually. The CR mechanic was installed just to allow the DM to easier tell which is which. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not telling you to always build a CR appropriate encounters, that is a nonsense. CR is not there to tell you what to do, it exists to help you determine the outcome of the encounter. Thus if you want to have a deadly trap, you arrange it so that it has the CR appropriately high, becuase you are not just making a trap, you are building an encounter with foreseeable result that contains only traps, just like it could contain those frost giants.
To get a result X, you just need to set up a CR and then accomodate the encounter. With that CR 12 we used earlier we could just use three dart barrages, or three frost giants looking for a fight. Hidden giats = terrain favouring the monsters (they'll likely get a surprise round), which according to encounter building should net them another +1 CR. I'd have to up the damage for the traps a bit to make up for that. Adding another d6 to each of the traps should bring those recommended 10 points of average damage to make them CR 13 as well.
"CoDzilla", the poster you are mocking in such a disgusting manner could have, nevertheless, have killed a wizard of a lower level, with less powerful resource and in a more reasonable CR range, with the use of skills.
The main point that you blatantly ignored to spam stuff about OMG how invincible a level 17 wizard is if the DM is brain dead, distracts from the fact that the poster used his great array of skills to perform a task in an imaginative manner.
THAT is a good way to play the rogue and one of the reasons of why rogues can be awesome.
I can agree with the level 17 too high, but the base issue it's "use skill and think outside the box". let's talk more about these things, because are fun at the gametable, and less about sneak attack DPR.
IF your gamestyle does not conceive things like this, it's a feature of the game you cannot enjoy. BUt I suppose that it would be like explain red and blue to a color blind person, so i give up.
Good gaming.
Round 1 of con damage "ACk i'm being poisoned!"
Round 2, walk to the edge of the anti magic field, teleport to temple of healing.
Round 3: Slow poison please!
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Assertions without backup are irrelevant. What would you have done differently when dealing with a friendly NPC in your own home?Kept my guard up. Not treated them like a lifelong friend no matter what the Diplomacy dice say. Kept the long duration buffs up, because they should be always on. Kept the magic items on, same reason. Kept in mind I didn't get to live long enough to learn 9th level spells without having Contingencies (both the actual spell, and just plans) and contingencies to those contingencies, and contingencies to those contingencies.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagnificentBastard
If this does not describe your high level Wizard, I dare say that you are doing it wrong.
Posting as multiple aliases doesn't make more people agree with you.
Also whoever pointed out that you can recognized posters, even when they change accounts, +1
Don't feed the troll kids, maybe he'll go back under the bridge.
Everything else aside (and it's a lot of everything), what kind of 17th level wizard doesn't have limited wish or wish prepared, or at least on a handy scroll, as a get out of anything free card?One with a sane DM. Letting a wizard scribe wish or limited wish into his spellbook is one of two things:
1) The DM has given up, and will basically give the players whatever they want. The fighter is probably wielding a +12 adamantium brilliant energy vorpal lightsabre of wounding...that also grants 3 wishes per day.
2) The DM intends to twist the wishes to the point where the wizard would be better off burning the spellbook instead of ever preparing the wish spell.
Don't those spells cost money, and there is no way to guarantee that you won't need the get out of jail free card later. With that said I don't think it is all that free.
I see no problem with allowing the wizard to cast the spells for those reasons. I am sure they won't always be available.
My problem with Rogue is that unlike almost all other martial or semi martial chars he doesn't get bonuses to attack. Ranger gets attack and damage bonus for favored enemies next to full bab. Paladin gets Cha to attack when he pops Smite Evil next to full bab. Barbarian gets +2 from rage (later more) and got full bab. Inquisitor got 6th level spells and judgments to offset his 3/4 BAB, which comes down to a lot even at first level he can net +4 to attack. Than we got rogue, who next to having 0 static damage gain (so no need for high crit) is in need of heavy feat tax for TWF, which isn't even that great anymore without buffing from party members.
So in my honest opinion Monk is better than rogue simply cause he gets TWF chain tree for free and counting as full BAB class for it. Scaling damage thats not situational at all and at least there is no illusion about him being good so people ain't walking into a trap.
My problem with Rogue is that unlike almost all other martial or semi martial chars he doesn't get bonuses to attack.Yes, he does. The Rogue gets his bonuses to hit from attacks which bypass Dex. The class is really good at sneaking around, tumbling into flank, etc.
+1
In case you haven't figured it out yet:GODWizard: When discussing a Wizard.
Ravenous Monster: When discussing weak characters.
Obvious Troll: When calling people on being one. Like now.
CoDzilla: Anything else.
You shouldn't give up so easily. Seriously. I'm really, really sad I can't be there, near you, to hug you.
But.. there are people out there that can help you.
A Dissociative Identity Disorder could be dire, but you could work it out, or at least improve your Quality of Life.
Maybe you could look around for support groups, and therapy.
Hold on.
Bottom line, rogues dont suck depending upon campaign. Like all classes.
Wizards were the weakest class in one of the campaigns I was in at first because you couldnt use magic because people would have enslaved you to perform deeds for teir cities. Provided that was the first five levels but a wizard can only do so much, eventually magic becomes dangerous to use, so you avoid fighting. maybe even pick up a sword for a while.
Fighters can suck more on a seafaring campaign. Full plate? on a ship? are you sure about that? what if you go overboard?
lets just agree to disagree. Rogues dont suck, no one sucks, its how you use it.
My problem with Rogue is that unlike almost all other martial or semi martial chars he doesn't get bonuses to attack. Ranger gets attack and damage bonus for favored enemies next to full bab. Paladin gets Cha to attack when he pops Smite Evil next to full bab. Barbarian gets +2 from rage (later more) and got full bab. Inquisitor got 6th level spells and judgments to offset his 3/4 BAB, which comes down to a lot even at first level he can net +4 to attack. Than we got rogue, who next to having 0 static damage gain (so no need for high crit) is in need of heavy feat tax for TWF, which isn't even that great anymore without buffing from party members.
So in my honest opinion Monk is better than rogue simply cause he gets TWF chain tree for free and counting as full BAB class for it. Scaling damage thats not situational at all and at least there is no illusion about him being good so people ain't walking into a trap.
The rogue can choose from the following talents that give him a bonus to hit:
Combat Trick
Finesse Rogue
Major Magic (True strike is only one option)
Surprise Attack
The following talents give bonuses to damage:
Bleeding Attack
Major Magic (Enlarge Person is an option)
Surprise Attack
Assault Leader
Lasting Poison
Powerful Sneak
Snap Shot
Sniper’s Eye
Deadly Cocktail
Deadly Sneak
Hunter’s Surprise
Then there are the archetypes that provide some of their own bonuses like the sniper and thug.
That's the cool thing about a theoretical battle - the theoretical characters always have the gear they need to do whatever is required.
Sure, but a potion of delay poison isn't really that. My players pack one or two or more as a group from about level 2 on, unless there's some reason they can't get to someplace to buy the ultra-cheap potions, in which case they'll buy it when they can.
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In case you haven't figured it out yet:GODWizard: When discussing a Wizard.
Ravenous Monster: When discussing weak characters.
Obvious Troll: When calling people on being one. Like now.
CoDzilla: Anything else.
You shouldn't give up so easily. Seriously. I'm really, really sad I can't be there, near you, to hug you.
But.. there are people out there that can help you.
A Dissociative Identity Disorder could be dire, but you could work it out, or at least improve your Quality of Life.
Maybe you could look around for support groups, and therapy.
Hold on.
+1
Slightly off topic, but I really never did understand why Rogues can't Major Magic divine magic. I'm sure there are many rogues who have a fair bond with a deity of choice and who consider their continued luck and success partly due to said deity's grace. Divine Favor (granted the 3.5 version was slightly better, but the PF version would still be useful) would be a much better choice of Major Magic talent to boost attack for a fight.
The rogue can choose from the following talents that give him a bonus to hit:
Major Magic (True strike is only one option)
I wouldn't have a problem with it as GM. Maybe it's because divine magic is granted while arcane magic is learned.
I wouldn't have a problem with it as GM. Maybe it's because divine magic is granted while arcane magic is learned.Slightly off topic, but I really never did understand why Rogues can't Major Magic divine magic. I'm sure there are many rogues who have a fair bond with a deity of choice and who consider their continued luck and success partly due to said deity's grace. Divine Favor (granted the 3.5 version was slightly better, but the PF version would still be useful) would be a much better choice of Major Magic talent to boost attack for a fight.
The rogue can choose from the following talents that give him a bonus to hit:
Major Magic (True strike is only one option)
The reason Divine isnt included is because then an alignment restriction would have to come into play :S. Lame excuse not to get one, I would love to see a rogue that is somewhat religious (Nightcrawler from the X men, Daredevil, Batman for a time, robin hood, ect.) mind you they didnt have spells but it wouldnt be unreasonable power level wise to let that happen. I would probably allow it as long as there was a back story for it :)
Maybe it's because divine magic is granted while arcane magic is learned.
I agree, it should be because of this.
BTW, I've seen a similar power somewhere (some houserule, blog, something like this) for Barbarians, with few rage powers granting level 0 and 1 Druidic spells.
"Hello, I'm a level 17 Wizard. I regularly disable all of my own class abilities, leaving myself extremely vulnerable and weak for no apparent reason."
The only way the DM fiat could be any more obvious is if he were naked, tied up, and had a sign on his chest saying "Free experience here, just insert weapon!"
Because Wizards never, ever use their actual spells, and they never, ever boost their Con even though it's the second most important stat for everyone, and they never, ever rely on items that make them more magic resistant (+saves) and they never put their prodigious intellect to the task of determining how they will not be snuffed out by Fortitude based spells from their peers.
Have you, in fact, played this game?
Did you notice any of the other posts I made after the one you are quoting? You might find them interesting reading.
It doesn't help that people are making the rogue look bad by suggesting that you have to castrate (figuratively speaking) the other classes to do so, or play 17th level wizards like bumpkins with so much money that they commission or crafted items which don't even work* to have continual anti-me* fields around them, to make skills look good.
(*: An item that produces a continuous antimagic field would immediately shut off the moment it activates, so at best you might end up with an every-other-round antimagic field, or more likely a 198,000 gp paperweight.)
(*: I say anti-me fields because the wizard is sitting in a sphere that robs him of the vast majority of his power, including - but not limited to - his magical protections and items. Likewise, he surrounds himself with strong heavily armed guards. Using Diplomacy to have the guards kill him while in his own antimagic field and play themselves off like the heroes who stopped the BBEG would be surprisingly easy (maybe DC 33-37, most likely, and that's not very hard for a 10th level character).
Rogues can be pretty awesome. They just go about it in roundabout ways. Thanks to their ability to take full advantage of wealth by level, sneak attack, and so on and so forth, a rogue has a lot of options. While a Fighter leads the rogue in pure DPR and Tanking, the rogue has the advantage on the fighter in other cases. Some skills cap out in their usefulness, but many don't. Likewise, when things like Magic can fail (such as via spells like see invisibility) skills can still gain an advantage for the rogue.
The problem is, rogues aren't the best at anything but skills, and it takes a knowledgeable player to really capitalize on their benefits. I mentioned a few ways to play a rogue successfully in combat during my last post. Perhaps I should try to make a guide, similar to treantmonk's, for rogues.
*ponders this*
Maybe it's because divine magic is granted while arcane magic is learned.I agree, it should be because of this.
BTW, I've seen a similar power somewhere (some houserule, blog, something like this) for Barbarians, with few rage powers granting level 0 and 1 Druidic spells.
hmmmm as rage powers?
angry nature... I like. Have you tried this already?
It doesn't help that people are making the rogue look bad by suggesting that you have to castrate (figuratively speaking) the other classes to do so, or play 17th level wizards like bumpkins with so much money that they commission or crafted items which don't even work* to have continual anti-me* fields around them, to make skills look good.
(*: An item that produces a continuous antimagic field would immediately shut off the moment it activates, so at best you might end up with an every-other-round antimagic field, or more likely a 198,000 gp paperweight.)
(*: I say anti-me fields because the wizard is sitting in a sphere that robs him of the vast majority of his power, including - but not limited to - his magical protections and items. Likewise, he surrounds himself with strong heavily armed guards. Using Diplomacy to have the guards kill him while in his own antimagic field and play themselves off like the heroes who stopped the BBEG would be surprisingly easy (maybe DC 33-37, most likely, and that's not very hard for a 10th level character).
Rogues can be pretty awesome. They just go about it in roundabout ways. Thanks to their ability to take full advantage of wealth by level, sneak attack, and so on and so forth, a rogue has a lot of options. While a Fighter leads the rogue in pure DPR and Tanking, the rogue has the advantage on the fighter in other cases. Some skills cap out in their usefulness, but many don't. Likewise, when things like Magic can fail (such as via spells like see invisibility) skills can still gain an advantage for the rogue.
The problem is, rogues aren't the best at anything but skills, and it takes a knowledgeable player to really capitalize on their benefits. I mentioned a few ways to play a rogue successfully in combat during my last post. Perhaps I should try to make a guide, similar to treantmonk's, for rogues.
*ponders this*
If you do I would give it a gander... as long as it was as good as his but for rogues.
"Hello, I'm a level 17 Wizard. I regularly disable all of my own class abilities, leaving myself extremely vulnerable and weak for no apparent reason."
The only way the DM fiat could be any more obvious is if he were naked, tied up, and had a sign on his chest saying "Free experience here, just insert weapon!"
or play 17th level wizards like bumpkins with so much money that they commission or crafted items which don't even work* to have continual anti-me* fields around them, to make skills look good.(*: An item that produces a continuous antimagic field would immediately shut off the moment it activates, so at best you might end up with an every-other-round antimagic field, or more likely a 198,000 gp paperweight.)
Did everyone miss where I said this:
Wait a minute... that can't be right... because I used wands on him and the traps were magical.
I dunno, he had something going on. We couldn't just pop in with teleport, I remember that much.
And the post where I finally agreed it didn't make any sense, but it would seem strange it was DM fiat considering that this was a guy who liked killing his players.
The whole point is, a clever rogue can be amazingly useful even into the high levels. And last point:
And seriously, four aliases?
Maybe it's because divine magic is granted while arcane magic is learned.I agree, it should be because of this.
BTW, I've seen a similar power somewhere (some houserule, blog, something like this) for Barbarians, with few rage powers granting level 0 and 1 Druidic spells.
hmmmm as rage powers?
angry nature... I like. Have you tried this already?
Sadly no.
Obvious Troll: When calling people on being one. Like now.
Plese stop stealing my identity and my schtick. Thanks.
Sadly no.
Maybe it's because divine magic is granted while arcane magic is learned.I agree, it should be because of this.
BTW, I've seen a similar power somewhere (some houserule, blog, something like this) for Barbarians, with few rage powers granting level 0 and 1 Druidic spells.
hmmmm as rage powers?
angry nature... I like. Have you tried this already?
I would if I had a barbarian in my current party.. I will just tell my players about it.
If anyone decides to try this let me know the results please :)
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The problem is, rogues aren't the best at anything but skills, and it takes a knowledgeable player to really capitalize on their benefits.Sure they are. They are best at dealing with traps.
With a talent they spot traps without even stopping to search, most other classes cannot even TRY to disable magical traps while they can do so more adeptly than any other, in short a rogue rules trap finding/removing.
Others have devalued this, but that's not my experience nor do I think should it be theirs.
Along with spotting traps at full speed goes the role of scouting, which at worst they only suffer at high levels due to hide in plain sight not being a major talent (or a feat requiring major talents) which imho is an oversight but nevertheless can be remedied in a few ways.
When people try to play one class as another they tend to complain about the class not being the other class. This is true about sorcerers (thinking that they are wizards) and it is true about rogues (thinking that they are somehow fighters).
-James
I agree 100%. Every class is different and it can take some time to figure them out and adapt your style to what they do best. Most people don't even scratch the surface of more than 2 or three of the classes, and even people who DM regularly are surprised by ideas their players come up with for uses for their class skills and abilities.
It's part of what makes the game fun.
In a slightly apt display of perfect timing, was just looking over this board during the weekly PF session only for one of the party to go "Looks like we need the Rogue."
Course, Rogue player was working late this evening, meaning no Rogue for the moment. Party proceeds (2 Wizzies (Univ. & Abj (counter)spec), 1 Barb, 1 Sorc (Con boosted beyond belief) 1 Cleric with contingent of Undead, including recently deceased and raised zombie dragon).
1st Room: Send the zombie dragon forward to scout. Bam, activates grease trap, slides down slope into spiked pit trap, dies (again). Rest of the party goes "well, at least we know about that, shame most of us are likely to fail that save so we'll have to go around it." Take side exit from room that leads away from the advised path we were given before entering.
2nd Room: Mummies attack, Cleric sets off intricate chain reaction of traps that leaves the party split up from each other in force-cages fighting one mummy each. Blow 2 6th level spells each, and more than a few hundred points of healing.
3rd Room: No traps. Several chests. All locked. Anti-magic field. Upon sundering the lock off the first one, Barbarian sets off a vial of incapacitating gas. Party rendered unconscious and strength drained. All Captured.
4th Room: No idea, never got to it.
So, Rogue arrives, has his own intensely exciting adventure through half the rest of the dungeon, has an impressive one on three battle with the frost giant jailor and his two winter wolves that he wins by being clever with his terrain and local light levels so that he can re-hide when needed. Good use of poisons too.
Rogue frees us.
5th Room: Rogue disarms all traps, large force of giants engage us in battle with their pet greater earth elemental. Mages blow the rest of their 6th and their 5th levels spells on the elemental and ice storm the giants. Barbarian nearly dies, but Cleric manages to get to him in time. Fun, if lengthy combat.
6th Room: Take stock of resources. Rogue = fine. Barb = knackered. Wizzies = down to (1) fireball and a couple of magic missiles. Soceror = still mostly useless. Cleric = has 1 cure left. We cast 'Tiny Hut' and rest. A few hours later the Rogue gets back from scouting stealthed (and invis'd, but he did that himself anyway) with a map of the rest of the dungeon layout and a better idea of where we are headed.
Moral of this story: Never venture into a fortress of Giants with Kobold allies without a Rogue.
2nd Moral: Don't diss rogues, you need them more often than you think.
Not going to post party stats because a) I don't have them all anyway and b) lots of you would laugh at how pathetic they are (hey, some people, you know, ROLL their stats randomly and get average, and maybe don't find thousands of gp of powerful loot all the time and so have to settle for what they can get and make. And yes, some people just don't know how to make a Sorceror that works as an effective counterbalance to the rest of the party and think that having a dex of 8 is a good idea...)
Taziki, I have to point out. Under usual adventuring conditions in the games I play, the wizards would have multiple spell slots left open and prepare them when the grease trap was revealed, and the whole party would fly across the gap. (I trust neither of them banned transmutation, that's one of the two most important schools of magic there are to wizzies...)
But that aside, cool story :)
I was pretty sure Wizards could leave slots open in 3.5 to later prepare some spells. Are they still able to do that in PF? I don't recall reading one way or another, but I think someone told me otherwise; haven't yet checked it though.
Anyways if a grease/pit trap makes a caster spend several spells just to fly across a small area as well as nuking a zombie henchman, I'd say they definately got their money's worth out of that one.
The aforementioned poisoning incident: the poison has damage period of 1 minute, not one round, so the wizard has 10 rounds to either fry you and go for help, or more likely 1 round to polymorph you into a slug that doesn't remember its a rogue and then 9 rounds to get help.
The rogue can choose from the following talents that give him a bonus to hit:Combat Trick
Finesse Rogue
Major Magic (True strike is only one option)
Surprise AttackThe following talents give bonuses to damage:
Bleeding Attack
Major Magic (Enlarge Person is an option)
Surprise Attack
Assault Leader
Lasting Poison
Powerful Sneak
Snap Shot
Sniper’s Eye
Deadly Cocktail
Deadly Sneak
Hunter’s SurpriseThen there are the archetypes that provide some of their own bonuses like the sniper and thug.
Again, i was talking about attack bonus, not damage. No infinite damage in the world will save you if you got -20 attack.
Combat Trick - Weapon Focus, anyone and everyone will pick that up, rogue got it as a choice from class which is a bonus, but than again, he doesn't get incorporated TWF tree into his class like Ranger or Monk does (won't mention fighter cause he can pull pretty much anything off). So it boils down to 1 feat as a class ability versus 3 feats as a class ability.
Finesse Rogue - Weapon Finesse, this is so laughable that tear is going down my cheek. Ranger doesn't need dex for his TWF, neither does Monk, fighter does, but i am pretty sure Fighter can pull off to pay 1 feat for it. Point buy doesn't allow you to have both high strength, high dex and survive first encounter without being mentally challenged - and Rogue is skill monkey, weak will save and sometimes mouth of the party.
Major Magic (True Strike) - works against action economy and even if you were ready to give up one round to cast True Strike it gives you +20 on one attack, nothing to write home about, more like to be ashamed.
So to sum it up, yea, rogue got the short end of the stick in PF. He can brag about damage he can dish out ... but he can pretty much only dish it out versus a plank. And please, if any class needs to depend on rest of the party to be effective at what its supposed to do, than there is a problem somewhere in there. Imagine a Cleric needing help with Healing or Wizard needing help with battlefield control you would laugh at them. I laugh at Rogue.
Yes, he does. The Rogue gets his bonuses to hit from attacks which bypass Dex. The class is really good at sneaking around, tumbling into flank, etc.
Please... anyone can move into flank. Inquisitor is even better, just grab that Travel Domain. Monk got increased speed and he also got acrobatics, so he is even better at it than Rogue. Ranger got Animal Companion so he doesn't even have to move into flanking, his animal companion does it for him, nor does he depend on rest of his party on it. Lets not begin that Rogue without flank or disabled enemy does peanut for damage.
What i was aiming for is that he doesn't have any class abilities that boost his to hit AND stack with feats (Rage, Smite, Favored Enemy, Full BaB on full attack). So woop! He gets Combat Trick, so awesome, cause no other martial character won't pick Weapon Focus ... yea right ...