two quick question

[trek]

OK so I am getting ready for my first game with Pathfinder and I have a few questions.
1. What is the point of the Rogue talents Finesse Rogue and Weapons training? Both feats can be gained using the Combat trick talent.
2. Channel smite feet. OK I why would you take a feet to add a channel energy charge into a melee weapon? I can see the point if you could add it to a ranged weapon, but a melee weapon? I mean you turn a 30 foot area affecting all undead in that area onto just one and it makes the same save.

[FireberdGNOME]

Quesiton #1 is easy:

per the PRD:

Quote:

Rogue Talents: As a rogue gains experience, she learns a number of talents that aid her and confound her foes. Starting at 2nd level, a rogue gains one rogue talent. She gains an additional rogue talent for every 2 levels of rogue attained after 2nd level. A rogue cannot select an individual talent more than once.

So, Finesse Rogue, Weapons Training and Combat Trick allows a rogue to take a Combat Feat, Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus. If you did not have Finesse Rogue or Weapons Training, you could only take one of the three feats. There is an exception to the "more then once" clause and that is with the Swashbuckler: a Swachbuckler can take Combat Trick up to two times :)

Question #2 I do not have a good answer! I have no idea why you would restrict your Channel to a Single Target. Unless you were a Paladin laying the Smite Down for Justice! lol You could do some serious damage that way... *shrug* I don't know how useful it is though ;)

GNOME

[Shadewest]

1. Rogue talents can only be chosen once. Finesse Rogue and Weapon Training allow a rogue to get these feats in addition to a third combat feat for Combat Trick.

2. Channel smite lets you add the channel damage to your attack. Basically, you channel and attack as a single action. The best time to use it is against one big target. Use it against the Vampire, not the spawn.

[trek]

A see I missed that only take ones bit. Now the rogue thing makes since at least.

[gran rey de los mono]

Regarding the Channel Smite feat: It makes more sense for a Cleric that channels negative energy than one that channels positive energy. You can hit one target with your channel energy using the smite, rather than having it affect everyone in 30', including your fellow party members. Sure, you can use Selective Channel to have it not affect some people, but unless your Charisma is very high or there are few members in your party, you would wind up hurting some of them too.

Although looking at the feat again, it does make sense for positive channelers as well, as long as they have multiple attacks (two-weapon fighting, high BAB, hasted, etc). It is a swift action to apply the channel to an attack, so you could make all of your attacks as normal, with one of them doing extra damage. That way you get to do the channel damage in addition to, potentially, the damage from multiple hits from your weapon.

[BigNorseWolf]

no channel energy feat= whack or zap

channel energy feat= whack AND zap.

[James Risner]

trek wrote:

Both feats can be gained using the Combat trick talent.

You take those feats as your Combat Trick and you can't take something else.

This way you have 3 talents each can give you a Combat feat. 3 is better than 1.

[RuyanVe]

Greetings, fellow travellers.

Well, call me stupid in big capital letters, but I don't get the benefits for the rogue talents mentioned.

As far as I understand, you can not take Weapon Finesse via Finesse rogue and then choose it (again) as your regular feat on levels 3, 5, etc. They do not stack.
Same goes for Weapon Focus.
Now, I do get the idea, that the combat trick option for your rogue talent makes feat gaining by a rogue similar to the fighter progression - which is nice. Is that, what you are trying to say?

What is the big deal about those feats?* Ok, I get additional combat viable feats but again: what prevents a rogue from gaining them anyways via the regular way at levels 1, 3, 5, 7, etc.?

Ruyan.

*You may use big pointy sticks to drive the point home, but try to be gentle.

[Johnico]

There's nothing preventing a Rogue from grabbing those feats at an odd level. The talents are there to make it so the Rogue can grab those feats at an even level and use the odd level to get something else.

[Greg Wasson]

Talents may only be taken once.

Combat Trick may only be taken once. NOT once for each different feat it emulates. ONCE PERIOD.

That makes Finesse Rogue and Weapons Training so nice. You do not have to waste your Combat Trick one time choice on either weapon finesse nor on weapon focus.

By using your talents to emulate feat selections, you may use your character feat selections of feats that CANNOT be emulated by talents. Some of which, I am told are pretty nice.

Greg

[RuyanVe]

Thanks a lot, got it. Put the sticks away!

Ok, my misreading then concerning combat trick. It gets saved for something nice by the existence of Finesse Rogue and Weapon Training.

Ruyan.

[MicMan]

The idea is that both finesse and weapon focus are essential to a bab starved rogue who also needs a lot of feats for two-weapon fighting.

So you have the luxury to get these two feats as rogue tricks and the added benefit of choosing yet another combat feat as rogue trick so that you can use your regular feats on something else.

Indeed if you want to make a combat oriented rogue taking all of these three rogue tricks to gain additional combat feats is almost mandatory, especially for a non human.