No, as concerro says. TOZ mentions "looking for" ways around it--I assume he is saying there are some 3.x splats that give you ways to increase sneak attack options (the only ability I am aware of that does that is an epic feat, however, but I did not collect a lot of 3.x splats). I would assume that these ways would involve feats or alternate class abilities.There were spells that allowed you to SA undead and golems, weapon crystals from the MIC, and I believe an ACF in Dungeonscape that allowed half damage from SA on anything (maybe only certain things) that didn't normally allow it.
LBJ took the IRT down to 4th Street USA?
MIC is Magic Item Compendium, and what's ACF?
IIRC in 3.X there were feats a rogue could take to increase the die-type for SA damage. I believe these feats were in the Song and Shadow splat (gonna injure my brain digging this deep...oh look...a french horn...how did that get in here?).
As a concilliatory gesture in PF rogues have talents that allow them to shore up poor damage rolls by replacing 1's with 2's (and later, 1's and 2's with 3's)
My honest opinion is the Rogue is still weak if none of these archetypes didn't force you to trade in any class features to get their benefits.
Depends on the Build. If the Rogue has the Rogue Talent of Offensive Defense, maxed-out Bluff, and the Improved Feint feat, then the Rogue feints as a move-action, attacks regularly as a Sneak Attack, and until his her her next action has an AC bonus equal to his or her sneak attack bonus. Mind you, a Rogue can manage this with a Human Rogue at 2nd level, or any other race at 3rd level. An 11th level Rogue would be hitting with a Short Sword for 7d6 damage with an AC boost of +6, in addition to other AC-boosting talents.
And that's for just an ordinary Rogue without any alternative Rogue abilities.
IIRC in 3.X there were feats a rogue could take to increase the die-type for SA damage. I believe these feats were in the Song and Shadow splat (gonna injure my brain digging this deep...oh look...a french horn...how did that get in here?).
As a concilliatory gesture in PF rogues have talents that allow them to shore up poor damage rolls by replacing 1's with 2's (and later, 1's and 2's with 3's)
The Knife Master archetype in Ultimate Combat uses d8s for sneak attacks with all knife-like weapons (at the expense of d4s for other weapons). They can combine that with the rogue talent that replaces 1s with 2s (and better), which combined with a good Flank or Feint build (and possibly TWF if you can manage the feats) can be damned nasty. If you're a good tactical player you could milk that build for insane damage in most circumstances, all with daggers.
(Note to Self: Re-do Annah of the Shadows build...)
That said, even for normal sneak attack, if I'm choosing between improving minimum damage (the 2s for 1s talent) versus maximum damage (the 3.x feat), I'd go for the former, personally, given my usual die rolling luck.
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There is just as good a chance of a trap resetting as well as not, since they only exist in Schordinger's theory world.
I have to design a Schrodinger's cat trap now. . .
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Uhm... In 3.x you couldn't sneak attack undead, elementals, oozes, and constructs. Now you can't sneak attack oozes and some elementals.How are rogues worse at damage, or are you saying everyone got a damage increase except for the rogue?A combination of others getting better at damage dealing and sneak attack not being nearly as easy to obtain.
No, in 3.5 Core you couldn't.
But Dungeonscape you can trade Trapsense (that bonus to AC/saves vs traps) for dealing sneak attack to creature otherwise immune but only flanking. Penetrating Strike is the name, but 1/2 sneak attack damage if immune.Complete Champion has Death's Ruin: Pentrating strike but only undead but all types that qualify for Sneak attack.
Heck, you can deal Cha damage (yeah few people have a lot) in 3.5:
MAIMING STRIKE (Exemplars of Evil book) paraphrased:
You can make dreadful attacks that disfigure your opponents.
Prerequisites: Evil, sneak attack +2d6.
For every 2 dice of extra damage that you sacrifice, your attack deals 1 point of Charisma damage.
It affects undead btw.
2 levels of Skullclan Hunter: Divine Strike lets you sneak attack undead
Razing Strike: lets you sacrifice spell slots to deal some GOOD damage against these creatures. It requires sneak attack ability, and affects undead if your spells are divine, or constructs, if arcane.
So, UMD + Wand of Gravestrike (or Golemstrike) is still your best bet (swift action wands that let you sneak attack for 1 rd)
Sacred Strike feat (BoED): Against evil sneak attack dice are one size larger (so normally 1d6 to 1d8)
Staggering Strike feat (CV) deal enough damage, you stagger foe.
MIC book: DEATHSTRIKE BRACERS let you do full damage, but you're limited to 3/day
MIC book: TrueDeath Crystals work
Telling Blow feat (PH2) which gives him sneak attack damage when he scores a crit
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As a concilliatory gesture in PF rogues have talents that allow them to shore up poor damage rolls by replacing 1's with 2's (and later, 1's and 2's with 3's)
Pity that comes at the cost of giving the Rogue a -2 penalty to hit. Bumping the average sneak attack die's value from 3.5 to 3.67 isn't worth an extra 10% chance of missing - using that talent actually reduces the Rogue's damage output unless the Rogue is hitting on a 2 even with the penalty (which, as a 3/4 BAB class, is unlikely).
Some "conciliatory gesture" - I can spend a talent to make myself worse at fighting. Hooray.
What others said. In core, your SA targets were limited. But you could take penetrating strike to do half SA to anyone, there were swift action 1st level spells (and late 3E revised the rules such that swift action spells on wands can be used as a swift action themselves) to sneak attack undead or constructs or plants just fine for 1 round, there were weapon augment crystals (can have one in a weapon a time, move action to insert or remove one, basically) to SA undead and constructs too. And so forth.
As 3E went on, they realized restricting the SA list so heavily was a mistake and it just got easier and easier to SA anything.
As for less opportunities in PF...
Tumbling is MUCH MUCH MUCH harder now, making it take longer to get into a flank (cause you're 5 ft stepping around or moving in a wide girth around the guy) or far deadlier.
Blinking no longer gives you SA. This is huge. A ~10th level rogue in 3E could get a ring of blinking and literally SA every round all day long.
Balancing no longer makes you flatfooted except when actually moving. In 3E, the caster putting grease under a foe was a popular low level tactic to give the rogue full attack SA.
You can no longer SA with flasks. In 3E, you could use flasks to hit flatfooted touch AC and ignore DR. Pretty awesome...
In short, rogue offense is massively nerfed from 3E to PF.
And I didn't even bring up some of the awesome-sauce SA feats 3E had. Like this one, or that one.
I don't know how I miss staggering strike, but I never liked craven because it only required a one level dip into rogue. I would have liked it better if it was restricted to certain classes or somehow tied into SA.
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of the TF droppers, I found the knife master to be most appealing. bonuses to hide light blades, d8's for damage with daggers, right there make sneak attacks sting a little more, and with just a couple talents, you're getting lots of free SAs; hunter's surprise is amazing for guaranteeing a flurry of SAs, and underhanded gets you that maximized SA at the start of a battle, which has a serious sting to it. Bring a couple iron bands of binding and you're denying a lot of creatures their dex bonus: if they're flat-footed, you're basically hitting AC 10 to guarantee a bind; stab away.
Doesn't take a lot of work to get damage out of a rogue; just takes a little prep time, a little patience, and a little positioning.
I don't like knife master. I don't like being limited to only those weapon choices (you can use others, but then you onl get d4, ouch) and it basically shuts off the sap adept/master chain as an option. And it precludes getting an archetype that adds to your special effects budget. Namely, Rake to demoralize with every SA, or Thug to demoralize longer, turn shaken into frightened, and apply sickened debuff to every SA.
Much prefer those to knife master.
Hunter's Surprise is 1/day and therefore sucks. Underhanded by RAW doesn't seem to do anything, and there's a ninja trick called Hidden Weapons that's basically "underhanded, except useful." And it doesn't use ki at all, so any rogue can grab it and get use out of it.
Aren't iron bands really expensive? They're basically 1/day auto-lose on whoever you bind with them... You get them in the binds, doesn't really matter what class you are at that point, you basically win.
As a concilliatory gesture in PF rogues have talents that allow them to shore up poor damage rolls by replacing 1's with 2's (and later, 1's and 2's with 3's)Pity that comes at the cost of giving the Rogue a -2 penalty to hit. Bumping the average sneak attack die's value from 3.5 to 3.67 isn't worth an extra 10% chance of missing - using that talent actually reduces the Rogue's damage output unless the Rogue is hitting on a 2 even with the penalty (which, as a 3/4 BAB class, is unlikely).
Some "conciliatory gesture" - I can spend a talent to make myself worse at fighting. Hooray.
That is sucky (I missed that part the first time I looked at the talent), although if you are sneak attacking out of flanking (likely if you are full attacking), then the worst it does is cancel your flanking bonus to hit. It shouldn't make that tradeoff, but I think most folks agree rogue talents are inconsistently designed when it comes to power level.
That is sucky (I missed that part the first time I looked at the talent), although if you are sneak attacking out of flanking (likely if you are full attacking), then the worst it does is cancel your flanking bonus to hit. It shouldn't make that tradeoff, but I think most folks agree rogue talents are inconsistently designed when it comes to power level.
The math doesn't care where the bonuses come from. Whether it cancels out your flanking bonus or lowers your normal attack bonus, you still have a lower to-hit than someone not using the talents. Mathematically, so long as you are within the range of a d20, Powerful Sneak very nearly always hurts your average damage. Even if you hit, the talent only slightly deform the damage curve.
Knife Master actually makes this worse. On a d8, converting 1s to 2s means an increase of 0.125 damage/die, even lower than the regular, pitiful 0.167 of Powerful Sneak (which, again, mathematically hurts you in nearly all cases). I even makes the (occasionally positive) Deadly Sneak far worse, with an increase of 0.375 instead of 0.5/die. These talents are already jokes, and adding Knife Master makes them stop being funny.
The 3.5 version of Powerful Sneak, without the attack penalty or full-attack requirement, was merely passable as a feat. In PF, it is a trap. While it is an extreme case, I do think it is a sign of one issue Rogues have run into: talents with unnecessary restrictions or penalties, combined with a generally low power level, makes one of main Rogue abilities far less useful than it probably should be.
EDIT: Oh, right, the actual topic. Am I the only one that reads the Trapfinding-replacing archetypes and thinks "Wow, that would be pretty neat... if it was a talent?" I must say, though, in recent books they seemed to have gotten more comfortable things besides Trapfinding or the occasional Uncanny Dodge, which has really opened up some design space and led to some interesting archetypes.
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@streamofthesky: think we're mixing up some talents and stuff.
underhanded gets you maximum SA die if you hit with a concealed weapon on surprise round. I think it's the hidden blades feature of the KM archetype you're referring to.
HOWEVER, the hidden weapons ninja trick DOES seem to kind of supercede one part of the knife master archetype, namely the level on opposed SoH checks instead of half, and the move action to draw them. when you're wearing a spring-loaded wrist sheath and moving invisibly though, all weapons are kind of concealed, heh. Oddly enough, taking the KM doesn't necessarily preclude you from taking the trick as well.
As for hunter's surprise? yeah, its 1/day, but if you make use of any means to increase your hit chances and number of attacks, sayyyyy....two-weapon fighting? that's gonna be a whole lotta dice goin down that turn.
And iron bands? yeah, pricey, yeah 1/day each. but as thrown touch attacks, from stealth/invisibility, against flat-footed/unaware opponents? If your rogue has ANY kind of dex mod, you just cannot miss. then you walk up to your bound opponent and commence stabbity-stab-multi-dice-fun-time!
Will have to inspect the other archetypes closer, though, you present an interesting argument.
What I meant was, Underhanded doesn't actually work. It's impossible to use. You only get a standard on a surprise round, and it requires a move or standard just to retrieve a hidden weapon. I guess the Bandit archetype can make it work, maybe? Even then, it may be hard to find opportunities to use it.
At least Hidden Weapons lets you conceal weapons well. And has no per day limit.
Deft Palm (Ex)
Benefit: A rogue with this talent can make a Sleight of Hand check to conceal a weapon while holding it in plain sight, even while she is being observed.
Weapon in hand, hidden. Makes underhanded work.
Deft Palm doesn't let you keep the weapon in hand and have it count as concealed by my reading.
It lets you conceal it (ie, stash it away) even while being observed without anyone noticing.
I suppose it could be interpreted either way.
Yeah you need that deft palm trickto make it work best.
Also the two talents that let you attack someone while chatting away with them can work there, but those are also nicely paired with wave strike.
You could use spring-loaded wrist sheaths to draw as a swift. You even get a +2 to the check to conceal it.