looking for a small boost to the Rogue class for my home game

[Joe M.]

Ahoy, fellow Pathfinders!

I'm starting up a home game soon. I've heard (endlessly) on here that the Rogue class is underpowered. I don't like that, so I'm looking for some small ways to boost the class's power without dramatically changing it.

The game is Core Rulebook (CRB) and Advanced Player's Guide (APG) only, and the Base Classes from the APG are disallowed. (Just to keep things simpler. It's my first time GMing and several of my players are new or returning to pen-and-paper RPGs after many years away.)

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Here are a couple things I've thought of. I'm not set on any of them, they're just thoughts.

* Allow the skill bonuses from Trapfinding to apply to all Perception and Disable Device checks, not only checks made to find and disable traps

* Fold the Trapspotter Rogue Talent into the Trap Sense class ability, letting the Rogue do its trap-finding thing and freeing up a Talent for something else.

* Maybe boost the Rogue's hit die

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So, do I even need to boost the class? Or is the Rogue not as bad as everyone seems to think?

Are the above possibilities good ideas or bad ideas? Do you have any suggestions that I could try instead?

Again, I want to boost the class a little bit without dramatically changing it, so small things like this, close to the class abilities as listed, are about the scope of what I want to try. And I guess I don't mind if I overshoot just a bit and give the Rogue a few too many nice things. If that happens, I'll just up the encounter difficulty or have baddies target the backstabbing one, as needed.

I'd appreciate whatever help you can give me. Thanks!

[Daniel Chaplik]

Byrdology has a thread you might want to check out.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2prly?Byrds-Homebrew-Bible#1

Personally, I completely rewrote the class from the ground up, just like I've recently done with the monk. Some people prefer smaller-scale tweaks, others feel that there's just too much bad to begin with. All depends on your campaign, too, because you can easily adjust encounters to highlight the rogue character's capabilities without exploiting his weaknesses too much. XD

[MechE_]

For our group, we gave the rogue bonus feats at 5, 10, 15, and 20. If we didn't have so many players who liked to dip single levels, it would be more than fine to give them a bonus feat at 1st level as well. In addition to that, we gave the rogue a good fortitude save - no reason it should be the only 3/4 BAB d8 hit die class that only gets a single good save, if you ask me.

[mplindustries]

To be honest, if I were to improve the Rogue, I would simply combine it with Fighter.

A full BAB class with all good saves, maybe 6+int skill, all the rogue stuff like trapfinding, and the Fighter's Bonus feats, which could be used to acquire Sneak Attack dice.

[DrDeth]

We found the rogue hit hard enuf, assuming he got into flanking. But, if he didn't kill the BBEG in one round, that bad guy would squish him like a bug.

Now the rogue does have some cool talents that will keep him alive, but they are useful only once a day. Just change those to the standard 3 x + stat times per day, and you have a winner.

Drop a few cool items his way, and that's all you need.

A system that gives a few more hp for everyone can't hurt. We have a fun one. The player and DM both roll, but the DM keeps his hidden, then the player picks . It's fun.

[Caligastia]

There's a product out there called "Rogue Glory" ( costs about $10 for the pdf ) that gives improvements to the Rogue. I've seen Rogue players who give it good reviews!!

Also, look for The Talented Rogue by Super Genius Games for more help.

[Joe M.]

Okay, thanks for the suggestions, folks. I'm only looking for simple tweaks. Don't feel like doing too much rewriting work (especially since these are new / returning players).

Here are some thoughts, then:

• Raise the Rogue's hit die to d10 rather than d8

• Give the Rogue good Fortitude saves

• Grant the Trap Spotter Rogue Talent as part of Trap Sense

• Adjust the Rogue's Trapfinding ability as follows: "A rogue adds 1/2 her level to Perception skill checks [excluded: 'made to locate traps'] and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). A rogue can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.

I'm comfortable with those adjustments. Would all four together be a bit too much? I'm not planning on adjusting any of the other classes (except maybe to boost some of the 2+ skill classes to 3+ or 4+), so I don't want to tilt things too much out of balance.

[DrDeth]

Umm, rather than make it a D10, which is always associated with full BAB, why not just give him Toughness as a free feat? And Great Fort, too.

[Joe M.]

DrDeth wrote:

Umm, rather than make it a D10, which is always associated with full BAB, why not just give him Toughness as a free feat? And Great Fort, too.

Thanks, those are good suggestions. I'll take them on. Makes it less of a power boost and lets me space them out to avoid making a 1-level dip too tempting. So here's the current plan:

(1) Trap Spotter: at 1st level, a Rogue gains the Trap Spotter Rogue Talent as part of her Trapfinding ability

(2) Toughness: at 3rd level, a Rogue gains Toughness as a bonus feat

(3) Save Feat: at 5th level, a Rogue gains either Iron Will or Great Fortitude as a bonus feat

[Malith]

Im in a similar position so bumping for future reference.

[cnetarian]

Not being sure how the new stealth rulings work in the game I'm not sure how much improvement is really needed for rogues but here are some simple things which can help.

1) end the MADness. give rogues the weapon finesse feat for free (and maybe add the agile weapon enchant to the game even though it isn't in the PRD, this is maybe too much if rogues are getting flanking all the time).

2) rogue armor training. if a rogue goes for DEX they wind up not able to use the best light armor because of the max DEX bonus and armor check penalties. give rogues a variant of fighter armor training only applicable to light armor so that they don't all wear celestial armor until they get to the point where even celestial armor doesn't let use all their DEX when buffed.

3)solo tactics & outflank. it makes no sense that an inquisitor can have this combination and a class which lives and dies on flanking cannot. make it cost a rogue talent for solo tactics and a feat for outflank but let rogues be able to get this.

[rainzax]

i suggest:

get Rogue Glory, but allow the Glory Rogue to use choice between INT/WIS/CHA for Guile Pool.

or

1) Weapon Finesse* for free
2) grant Fortitude as a good save
3) fold Trap Spotter into Trapfinding; Perception bonus applies to all Perception checks (an ambush is a trap!)
4) all skills are class skills
5) if not Weapon Finesse*, grant proficiency with all Martial weapons and Medium armor

if you want to get more play out of Sneak Attack, consider this for triggering it with greater frequency, and for better field control, allow them to use one additional special asterisk (*) rogue talent per two full sneak attack dice past the first; that is two talents at 5th (3d6), three at 9th (5d6), four at thirteenth (7d6), and five at seventeenth (9d6). Each advanced asterisk talent counts for double.

cheers.

[GeneticDrift]

Build the rogue for defense and back up range attacks.

...i doubt crane style and spring loaded wrist sheeths. are in your allowed sources. But I would always make a str based build.

[Veldan Rath]

I'm a fan of just starting with d10 and full BAB.

It's a martial class, with stealth options.

[Cheapy]

I second Rogue Glory. It is very well done.

[doc the grey]

Personally, in my home games we allowed rogues to do double sneak attack damage if they attacked a character who was flat-footed. That way they could have a serious chance of pulling off that insta gib stealth kill most players want from sneak attack on weaker targets. Second we either increased or removed the limits on some of the later rogue abilities that were cool but were hamstrung by the arbitrary limits on uses.

[Atarlost]

The rogue's problem in combat is accuracy. Their problem out of combat is magic.

If you want them to remain mundane MPLindustries' fix is pretty good. There's not a lot of space between a fixed mundane rogue and a fixed mundane fighter. Theoretically sneak attack should increment every 3 levels on a full BAB class to be comparable to something like weapon training with the focus/specialization chain.

If you want them to retain their noncombat and shenanigans emphasis make them a 4 level arcane spell list out of all the spells wizards and bards have that make nonmagical rouges redundant.