Should the Rogue have been full BAB?

[Keovar]

Nicos wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

As for the question the rogue does not need full BAB, they do put out decent damage. The issue with the rogue is that they need to be better at scouting, skills, and/or social situations than they are.

+1

What if rogues got half their rogue level as a bonus to their class skills, minimum +3. Up to rogue level 7 you'd have a normal in-class bonus, but at level 8 it would be +4, through to rogue level 20 which would be a +10. Heavy investment into the class would give the rogue true expertise over skills that would not be easily duplicated.

[stringburka]

My quick fix for rogues? They add half their level (min 1) to _all skill checks_.

That said we usually play to lvl 8 or so so spells don't outshine completely.

[Fabius Maximus]

Ice Titan wrote:

Monks have full BAB when flurrying.

Rogues should have full BAB when attacking flat-footed, Dex-denied, surprised or flanked opponents.

Why? They already get a boost to hit in those situations.

[Dabbler]

The reason rogues look at ninjas and cry is because ninjas got much cooler abilities. The rogue needs better rogue talents to do the things he is meant to be doing, and they do not always include fighting.

The rogue should only be getting a few hits in the fight but they should really count, and he has the ability to do this.

Rogues do need a boost, but full BAB is not the boost they need.

[Kyoni]

Full BAB won't help the rogue.

More skillpoints is a bad idea, imho: I want that whole "skill-monkey" concept gone! It's just making the rogue the center of attention out of fights and everybody else just gets bored while the skill-guy does his dice rolls. That's roll-playing, not role-playing.

What I would like to see for the rogue is some kind of skill-tricks that rogues can use in combat. Basically some cross-breed between Ninja Tricks and maneuvers from the Swordsage (Tome of Battle).
Rogues could be choosing a "type" of tricks depending on their flavor:
- swashbuckler (cha to maneuvers): charisma to defense or dazzling tricks
- assassin (int to maneuvers): crit multiplier if he studies his target
- cutpurse (dex to maneuvers): gets to cut laces of armor and disarm with better chance even at high level

something along those lines...

[ImperatorK]

In my games I combined Rogue with Factotum.

[gnomersy]

Kyoni wrote:

Full BAB won't help the rogue.

More skillpoints is a bad idea, imho: I want that whole "skill-monkey" concept gone! It's just making the rogue the center of attention out of fights and everybody else just gets bored while the skill-guy does his dice rolls. That's roll-playing, not role-playing.

What I would like to see for the rogue is some kind of skill-tricks that rogues can use in combat. Basically some cross-breed between Ninja Tricks and maneuvers from the Swordsage (Tome of Battle).
Rogues could be choosing a "type" of tricks depending on their flavor:
- swashbuckler (cha to maneuvers): charisma to defense or dazzling tricks
- assassin (int to maneuvers): crit multiplier if he studies his target
- cutpurse (dex to maneuvers): gets to cut laces of armor and disarm with better chance even at high level

something along those lines...

Well since many people don't really care for the idea of increasing to hit for Rogues, I'd like to suggest switching the topic of conversation from what we think was done right/wrong so far to ways to get the Rogue to do what we think it should be able to do via new Rogue Talents. If we're very lucky somebody from paizo will like it and grab some of our ideas when they want to release a new Rogue related book. Maybe this would be better in another thread but I feel like it's a decent transition.

To this end I'd like to separate the Talents into several categories:

Combat Talents: These exist to provide the option for the Rogue to focus on his/her combat efficacy either in terms of increasing his defense, his to hit, or something special.

Scouting Talents: These exist to allow a Rogue to scout the way we thing he should.

Utility Talents: These are supposed to make the Rogue a true skill monkey by allowing him to use skills to do otherwise impossible things which bring true utility.

[gnomersy]

So here's some things I'd like to see on the Rogue.

Combat Talents:
1)Roguish Flair - A Rogue may take the first Style feat in a tree this ignores the need for the Improved Unarmed Strike requirement but nothing else so long as he wields light or one handed weapons.

2)Defensive Blade - Gain the Combat Expertise feat as long as you fulfill all of the requisites.

Deadly Sniper - A Rogue may sneak attack as allowed by the stealth rules for sniping within the first range iteration of your weapon instead of 30ft, if attacking with Greater invisibility or a similar effect this ability still only allows you to make 1 sneak attack per round.

Master Sniper - Advanced Rogue talent, requires Deadly Sniper, A rogue may apply sneak attack on all attacks within the first range iteration of his weapon so long as the normal condition for sneak attack are met.

Scouting Talents:
Keen eyes - Grants the Rogue Low Light Vision.

Heightened Eyesight - Gain Darkvision 60ft requires Low Light Vision from any source.

Perfected Vision - Gain True Sight requires Darkvision and Advanced Rogue Talents.

Hide In Plain Sight - A Rogue with this talent may ignore the need to have cover or avoid being observed for the purposes of making use of the Stealth skill.

Utility Talents:

Poisoner - A Rogue with this talent can no longer accidentally poison himself while creating or handling poisons and may create poisons at double the normal rate.

I Know a Guy - The Rogue may use Knowledge Local to gain favors from people in an area which he has spent more than 2 weeks in. This ability requires the locals to not be hostile to the Rogue, and has a scaling DC based on the difficulty/danger of the favor.

Smuggler - A Rogue with this talent can attain unusual goods at either a discounted rate or with particular haste. The Rogue may commission magical item creation from NPCs for 80% of Normal Market Value to arrive in an amount of time equal to their creation time plus one week, or the Rogue may receive magic items which are not particularly obscure at full market price in 1d3 days regardless of whether or not they are available in the town or city he is at. The DM may limit the availability of certain items on the basis of obscurity and this ability on functions in a location larger than a village. The benefits of this ability cannot be shared with the group or others or local merchants immediately become hostile.

Well that's all I've got off the top of my head. Any opinions or things you guys would like to see the Rogue have?

[Dabbler]

gnomersy, I like your ideas.

[Nicos]

I like several of the talents, however, as sad as it sounds the arqueologist bard can take them all, making the rogue non-unique.

[gnomersy]

Nicos wrote:

I like several of the talents, however, as sad as it sounds the arqueologist bard can take them all, making the rogue non-unique.

True but the Bard has access to half as many of them as a Rogue so that's something but you're right the Bard is too much better than the Rogue. But the Bard is just better than most classes in terms of generalist functions and many specific uses. They needed a nerf batting imo but what can you do.

I'd also like to add

Utility Talent:
Smoke Cloud - The Rogue may throw a Smoke Bomb at his own feet or at an enemy as a ranged touch attack the bomb encases a 10ft area in thick black smoke which blocks both sight and scent this expands by 5ft in each direction for 2 rounds after the first round, after which the smoke disperses. In a light wind this disperses after 2 rounds, in moderate winds it disperses in 1 round and in high winds it disperses immediately.

And maybe suggest doubling the availability of rogue talents or at least starting them from 1st level maybe.

[Freehold DM]

Interesting. But does the rogue get full or half?

TOZ wrote:

3/4 BAB should have been eliminated when PF rewrote the rules. Then BAB would have matched the Good/Poor paradigm of saving throws.

[Kyoni]

gnomersy: No permanent true sight... permanent true sight is a very bad idea, especially as a (su) that's not dispellable.

Ok, here's my suggestion:

All rogues loose "trapsense" (I guess we all agree it's close to worthless).

All rogues gain Ki, like the Ninja.
However: Ninja's key ability isn't charsima any more, instead Ninjas will use wisdom.

Rogues in general will have to choose between 5 flavors:
- swashbuckler (cha)
- assassin (int)
- cutpurse (dex)
- ninja (wis)
- thug (str)

this will settle what their key modifier will be.
Depending on what flavor they choose they will gain special tricks at these levels: 1-4-7-10-13-...
I make this a different mechanic vs rogue talents on purpose... these are supposed to be rogue-only (and bound to a single flavor, worst case the dm and player can always houserule their own flavor according to the background).

swashbuckler
- special attack "piss off", will save: infuriates the enemy, he gets +1 dmg and -2 atk for the rest of the fight (power attack progression)
- charisma to AC for cha-mod rounds, swift action to activate, costs ki-points
- Improved Feint
- Dazzling Display
- Shatter Defenses

cutpurse
- Improved Called Shot
- cut armor straps, 1st hit: armor is considered "donned hastily", 2nd hit: armor entangles, 3rd hit: armor drops to the floor
- disarm: sleight of hand check to disarm opponent as move action

assassin
- study 2 rounds while stealthed, single attack + fort save: drops the enemy to 0 HP
- crit multiplier with finessable one-handed piercing weapons equals your int-mod... if your int is 16 and you use a rapier, it crits for x3 on 18-20
- use poison (no self-poison chance)

ninja
- light-footed: you cannot be tripped and you cannot be tracked by footprints (scent still works)
- ghost: requires light-footed, you cannot be tracked by scent
- see through the fog: pinpoint creatures 2 square away in fog/smoke, no penalty for fog for adjacent squares

I might add more at some point, but that's a start

[gnomersy]

Kyoni wrote:

I might add more at some point, but that's a start

Maybe downgrade true sight to see invis I've never actually played with access to true sight in PF.

But more importantly the reason I'm introducing my ideas this way is because ideally it can be rolled into the current pathfinder system instead of requiring a system rework which may or may not be coming anytime soon.

Edit: Or maybe make True Sight into a Spell like ability at spell level 5 or 6 treating your rogue level as half your caster level and you get it maybe 3x per day or 2+Cha mod times per day or something like that.

[TriOmegaZero]

Freehold DM wrote:

Interesting. But does the rogue get full or half?

Ask your DM. :)

[Kyoni]

gnomersy wrote:

Maybe downgrade true sight to see invis I've never actually played with access to true sight in PF.

rules wrote:

You confer on the subject the ability to see all things as they actually are. The subject sees through normal and magical darkness, notices secret doors hidden by magic, sees the exact locations of creatures or objects under blur or displacement effects, sees invisible creatures or objects normally, sees through illusions, and sees the true form of polymorphed, changed, or transmuted things. Further, the subject can focus its vision to see into the Ethereal Plane (but not into extra-dimensional spaces). The range of true seeing conferred is 120 feet.

sooo... you'd ignore all illusions, all transmutations and can see all incorporeal and ethereal creatures, and ignore darkness

permanently... um, not gonna happen in my games

and if you like some ideas I had for the flavor tricks, you can use them as rogue talents... but bards/etc would get access too

don't forget the feat: Extra Rogue Talent
a bard could get that as soon as he gets the rogue talent feature through that Archetype

[Sellsword2587]

Allowing Rogues to gain a +5 bonus to trained class skills instead of a +3 bonus would seem more fitting. Even better would be a class feature that allows a Rogue to choose X number of class skills and then apply one-half his level to them.

Many rogue talents do alter the way certain skills are used, which helps make the rogue more skill/utility focused. However, the changes are usually quite minor.

Something that would be really beneficial to rogues is making their rogue talents scale with level.

I also wouldn't mind seeing sneak attack dice being used as a resource in certain situations. Sacrificing X number of sneak attack dice for +X bonus to something, for example.
- When a rogue performs a combat maneuver on a creature that he could sneak attack, he get a bonus to his CMB equal to the number of sneak attack dice he possesses (+3 CMB if sneak attack is 3d6).
- Slow Reactions* (Ex): Opponents damaged by the rogue's sneak attack can't make attacks of opportunity for 1 round per sneak attack dice.

OR

- Slow Reactions* (Ex): Opponents damaged by the rogue's sneak attack can't make attacks of opportunity for 1 round. At 3rd level, the rogue can forego 1 sneak attack dice to increase the duration of the talent by 1 round. Every odd level after 3rd, the rogue may forego one additional sneak attack dice to increase the duration of this talent by an additional 1 round, up to a maximum of 10 rounds for 9 sneak attack dice.
- And so on...

[Freehold DM]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

Interesting. But does the rogue get full or half?

Ask your DM. :)

I'd say worse, but that's just me.

[Freehold DM]

I'm working on something like this for my homebrew

Sellsword2587 wrote:

Allowing Rogues to gain a +5 bonus to trained class skills instead of a +3 bonus would seem more fitting. Even better would be a class feature that allows a Rogue to choose X number of class skills and then apply one-half his level to them.

Many rogue talents do alter the way certain skills are used, which helps make the rogue more skill/utility focused. However, the changes are usually quite minor.

Something that would be really beneficial to rogues is making their rogue talents scale with level.

I also wouldn't mind seeing sneak attack dice being used as a resource in certain situations. Sacrificing X number of sneak attack dice for +X bonus to something, for example.
- When a rogue performs a combat maneuver on a creature that he could sneak attack, he get a bonus to his CMB equal to the number of sneak attack dice he possesses (+3 CMB if sneak attack is 3d6).
- Slow Reactions* (Ex): Opponents damaged by the rogue's sneak attack can't make attacks of opportunity for 1 round per sneak attack dice.

OR

- Slow Reactions* (Ex): Opponents damaged by the rogue's sneak attack can't make attacks of opportunity for 1 round. At 3rd level, the rogue can forego 1 sneak attack dice to increase the duration of the talent by 1 round. Every odd level after 3rd, the rogue may forego one additional sneak attack dice to increase the duration of this talent by an additional 1 round, up to a maximum of 10 rounds for 9 sneak attack dice.
- And so on...

[Serum]

gnomersy wrote:

Maybe downgrade true sight to see invis I've never actually played with access to true sight in PF.

Instead of true sight, go the clouded vision oracle route and add blind sense 30ft or blind sight 15ft.

[shallowsoul]

We still have people playing rogues in our game so it must be doing something right.

Also, not everyone's campaign is a "mixture" of everything out of the books. Ninjas only exist in my games if the game has an Asian theme to them.

I like for my worlds to be living, breathing, and actually make sense.

[Steelfiredragon]

No

I think they should have been given weapon finese for free though

[Humphrey Boggard]

shallowsoul wrote:

Ninjas only exist in my games if the game has an Asian theme to them.

No reason why you can't reskin the "asian" classes. One of the possibilities I've been considering for my next character is a monk/ninja skinned as a effete master of the brutal arts of Savate, fashion and courtly intrigues.

[Ascalaphus]

"Esprit" instead of Ki (in terms of the movie Ridicule)?

I don't think the rogue should be full BAB for the same reason I think the cleric and druid shouldn't be; they're not full warrior classes. And they aren't meant to be.

[Neo2151]

Ascalaphus wrote:

"Esprit" instead of Ki (in terms of the movie Ridicule)?

I don't think the rogue should be full BAB for the same reason I think the cleric and druid shouldn't be; they're not full warrior classes. And they aren't meant to be.

By that logic, the Ranger should be downgraded to 3/4.

[TriOmegaZero]

Wizards should also get zero BAB over 20 levels. Because they get full spellcasting.

[gnomersy]

Ascalaphus wrote:

"Esprit" instead of Ki (in terms of the movie Ridicule)?

I don't think the rogue should be full BAB for the same reason I think the cleric and druid shouldn't be; they're not full warrior classes. And they aren't meant to be.

Except they are a full warrior class. In simple terms the game only has two key differentiations or supertypes in the classes, Things which can cast spells vs things which can't cast spells. Now you could arguably include a third type which is Hybrid but that's not actually necessary.

If you look at it from that point of view every single class in the game which doesn't cast spells has full BAB even Monks(when flurrying which is whenever they expect to do real damage I think) except Rogues.

And yet the Rogue brings nothing special to the table, his abilities are worse than or equal to his fellow non casters Talents vs Feats or Rage Powers, skills are largely marginalized and can be fulfilled by other characters with the same degree of competence as the Rogue since class skills long term growth is identical to non class skills.

Really at the end of the day the only reason to want lower BAB growth is from a balance perspective for the sake of reducing damage from sneak attack but that already requires the Rogue to jump through dangerous hoops which may get him killed. Ideally sneak attack would change to something more consistent/useful but also be tweaked down in damage so it wouldn't be ridiculous while the rest of his kit was pushed up, particularly the bringing something special to the table bit.