Another way of looking at it:
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Another way of looking at it:
The rogue got trapfindnibng! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got 8 skills per level and a lot of good class skills! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got rogue talents! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got Sneak attack! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue can only use light armor! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got good reflex saves! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got 3/4 BAB and d8 HD! OK, so what? Why is that good?
Answer to most of the above: ... It's really not.
Answer to most of the above: ... It's really not.Another way of looking at it:
The rogue got trapfindnibng! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got 8 skills per level and a lot of good class skills! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got rogue talents! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got Sneak attack! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue can only use light armor! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got good reflex saves! OK, so what? Why is that good?
The rogue got 3/4 BAB and d8 HD! OK, so what? Why is that good?
I dunno, having 3/4 BAB and D8 has a good chance of you being a caster. Can't be all bad. Wait, its a 3/4 BAB class without a way to raise its attack to something reasonable and no magic or even support skills? Well then...
I would like to note that the Agile weapon property has indeed appeared in officially published Paizo material. It is considered a legal option.
I never said it hasn't been in any officially published Paizo material, but it is Golarion specific and is not on the PRD.
We can argue a lot of things, but this is a fact.
It is also one of the things I and a lot of other people have requested from Jason, but so far he and the rest of the Devs has said no.
No trading Str for dex.
Rogueless, everyone in my campaign would be dead.
It also allows me to go crazy with trap invention.
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I would like to note that the Agile weapon property has indeed appeared in officially published Paizo material. It is considered a legal option.I never said it hasn't been in any officially published Paizo material, but it is Golarion specific and is not on the PRD.
We can argue a lot of things, but this is a fact.
It is also one of the things I and a lot of other people have requested from Jason, but so far he and the rest of the Devs has said no.
No trading Str for dex.
No reason you can't just rule that agile is allowed in a home game, is there? Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Rogues just can't cut it. I think that is something the two of us can agree on.
Rogueless, everyone in my campaign would be dead.
It also allows me to go crazy with trap invention.
"The GM has filled the dungeon with traps. Release the Mounts!"
By the time you have the ninja grabbing evasion and the rogue grabbing ki pool, and you're throwing 25k magic items like the ring of evasion into the mix, I'm telling you: the rogue and ninja are so indistinguishable you couldn't tell them apart in a Pepsi challenge.
By the time you have the ninja grabbing evasion and the rogue grabbing ki pool, and you're throwing 25k magic items like the ring of evasion into the mix, I'm telling you: the rogue and ninja are so indistinguishable you couldn't tell them apart in a Pepsi challenge.
Aside from the rogue being unable to do what the ninja can, but the ninja can do everything the rogue can.
The rogue can get ninja tricks. Why not?
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10 levels... that's about a year to wait for Evasion at the rate most of the groups I play with get through an AP... if the group's all still together a year later.
I'd much rather have the ability levels 2-10 than cross my fingers a half-dozen adults can stick to a campaign until it reaches level 10.
Different tables, different groups, different campaigns...
A campaign that starts at 15 has a completely different picture. Classes without magic are at a huge disadvantage unless they have a good UMD and/or a lot of consumables to keep pace.
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The rogue can get ninja tricks. Why not?
The rogue's ki pool is extremely gimped. Does not scale with level, runs off wisdom which rogues normally can't spare the points to build around (although they could if you wanted your UMD and bluff to be kind of meh), and a lot of the rogue tricks are kind of necessary to fix all that is wrong with the rogue. Just getting a wannabe ki pool and a few ninja tricks won't bridge the gap.
Why wouldn't you just take your 1 ki and run with it, adding Extra Ki later if for some reason you think it's all that advantageous to have lots of ki power? I mean, i'm basically thinking about flurry of stars.
Why wouldn't you just take your 1 ki and run with it, adding Extra Ki later if for some reason you think it's all that advantageous to have lots of ki power? I mean, i'm basically thinking about flurry of stars.
Because that's a lot of feats and investment to try and mimic another class, which is why it isn't a choice way to go.
By 10th level, dropping two talents on spitting out stars is a valid choice. Mind you, it wouldn't be my first choice. The ninja's ki abilities are sufficiently limited I tend to shy away from the class in the first place. I prefer a classic rogue, either buckler and one-hander, or a two-weapon fighting and ranged double threat. I always plan on pumping up UMD at least by mid-levels, which ultimately makes the ki pool mostly a non-issue.
The problem with the rogue is mainly that by level 15, relative to the fighter, they've lost four points of BAB, three doses of weapon training, and the difference between a fighter's Strength and a rogue's best bonus (which is lower if Strength, or involves a damage trade-off if using finesse). The rogue can get within hitting range with the aid of buffs, but that represents a significant vulnerabiliy, and relies to an extent on party members building toward synergies. The core rulebook assumes, implicitly, that the rogue is going to attack foes that are deprived their Dex bonus to AC in one of several ways. However, that doesn't always work out in practice, and some monsters don't really have much of a Dex bonus to begin with.
If I want to build a really self-sufficient rogue, I'd probably go rogue 2 as a human, and plow through four levels of fighter before returning to rogue. For a straight-up rogue, though, I usually look toward deploying grease and summon monster spells through items. Beyond that, i'm looking at jacking up my Dex through the roof and every attack bonus I can grab. A lot of people grab Weapon Finesse before Weapon Focus, but for a balanced offense the difference is small, Weapon Focus works fine with a shield, and ultimately, you can have both.
"The GM has filled the dungeon with traps. Release the Mounts!"Rogueless, everyone in my campaign would be dead.
It also allows me to go crazy with trap invention.
"I pull out my adamantite weapon and we just burrow through the wall. *rolls* The wall takes 120 damage this round."
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I have no clue what DPR even means.Dragon Punch Rate.
lol, nub dragon using Unarmed Strikes instead of Natural Attacks.
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"I pull out my adamantite weapon and we just burrow through the wall. *rolls* The wall takes 120 damage this round.""The GM has filled the dungeon with traps. Release the Mounts!"Rogueless, everyone in my campaign would be dead.
It also allows me to go crazy with trap invention.
Adamantite instead of adamantine? Damn man, you must've been at this a while. .... not that I have room to talk.
Bah, Ada-something.
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Bah, Ada-something.
I figured it was a reference to ye olde adamantine. It actually was called adamantite way back when. Not quite sure why they decided to swap the second t with an n but they did. Kinda sucks though. Adamantine sounds more like an adjective used to describe something with diamond-like qualities, where adamantite sounds more like a metal.
The only adjustment we made to rogues was to give them a second full progression save: Fortitude and Improved Evasion without taking a feat.
At lower levels the rogue's two bad saves isn't as detrimental as at higher levels, but it becomes a real weakness given the sheer number of Fort and Will saves that are far more dangerous than reflex saves. Reflex saves usually involve damage which can be mitigated by low level spells like resist energy and protection from energy. Whereas Fort and Will saves are made against petrification, mind control, death spells, stuns, sleep, energy and ability drain, and other effects that a rogue is weak against.
Rogue offense is quite powerful. We felt no need to enhance it. Rogue defense is under-powered to the point of making them no fun to play at higher level. Always suffering every major devastating effect in the game makes a character hard to enjoy.
That pretty much made the rogue playable past first quarter to a third levels and enjoyable. We think it brought them up to par with classes like the ranger or monk who they compete against for playing time. They still can't match the Magus, Inquisitor, and Bard, but then not many classes can.
Adamantium?
"I pull out my adamantite weapon and we just burrow through the wall. *rolls* The wall takes 120 damage this round.""The GM has filled the dungeon with traps. Release the Mounts!"Rogueless, everyone in my campaign would be dead.
It also allows me to go crazy with trap invention.
"Well then, all the doors from now on will just be made of magical adamantine and-"
"And we take the adamantine doors off their hinges and run! Look, now we're all thieves!"Alternatively, the gm says adamantite, and apparently that throws the whole game off the rails when it was supposed to be about a group of rogues.
A Ki Pool Rogue needs to blow a Trait on the Ki Pool AND *2* Extra Ki Feats in order to equal what a Ninja has at 10th level,
and that is assuming the Rogue's WIS is 2 greater than the Ninja's CHA: (1/2)*10=5+CHA vs. 2+2=4+WIS
The Ki Pool for Rogue is so weak that they are probably better off NOT spending the Trait on it, much less 2+ Feats to try and compete.
If they want to do all that to have a useful amount of Ki, and THEN spend another Trait/Feat for Flurry of Stars,
they still need to spend a further Feat because Rogues aren't proficient in Shuriken, and non-proficiency penalty atop FoS's -2
means not many of those will hit decent CR threats, especially considering Shuriken's miserable 10' range increment.
40% of your Traits and 60% of Feats can probably be spent in better ways, if you're trying to optimize your Rogue.
If you want Ninja, go Ninja. If you want Rogue, Ninja might be OK there too.
The only reason I can see to gimp Rogue Ki Pool so much vs. Ninja is because if they didn't, every Rogue would take it.
Adamantium?
You got it bub.
The only reason I can see to gimp Rogue Ki Pool so much vs. Ninja is because if they didn't, every Rogue would take it.
True. Ninja is far superior to rogue due to Vanishing Trick and its upgrade. A rogue that can more easily take advantage of Sneak Attack is a vast increase in power.
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The only reason I can see to gimp Rogue Ki Pool so much vs. Ninja is because if they didn't, every Rogue would take it.True. Ninja is far superior to rogue due to Vanishing Trick and its upgrade. A rogue that can more easily take advantage of Sneak Attack is a vast increase in power.
It also has several other things the rogue won't be able to get without trying to compensate for its borderline useless ki pool trick. The class as a whole is just plain better than rogue; I see no real way around it. The ninja can literally do everything a rogue can do plus a whole host of things it cannot.
@Zark
Unfortunately i don't own Hero Labs and i don't have the time to spend on builds but as far as DPR calculations are concerned you can do your own using this formula:
The damage formula is h(d+s)+tchd.
h = Chance to hit, expressed as a percentage
d = Damage per hit. Average damage is assumed.
s = Precision damage per hit (or other damage that isn't multiplied on a crit). Average damage is again assumed.
t = Chance to roll a critical threat, expressed as a percentage.
c = Critical hit bonus damage. x2 = 1, x3 = 2, x4 = 3.
Make sure you have an AC for the target before you beging crunching numbers.
On another note, the barbarian build provided by Buri seems to have a +4 STR belt.
@The Beard
I think i understand how the half elf (drow) ninja got deeper darkness at will, what i don't understand is how he got the ability to see in supernatural darkness (where darkvision doesn't work), can you explain to me?
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I'm surprised there isn't a ki using variant of the Fighter. I'm surprised that's not what the Samurai was.
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Let me see if i can lift a beatstick big enough to bash the the "I create deeper darkness and I see in deeper darkness build" into the oblivion it deserves.
It doesn't matter what kind of DPR it puts out, how awesome it was the 47 times an adventure path or scenario did it to you, or how good it looks on paper. It is an absolutely, horrible build for a player character for the obvious fact that it blinds your entire party against the thing you're fighting.
Your party.. you remember those guys? The actual flesh and blood people you're sitting with around the table who want to have fun too, but now can't swing at the badguy because they don't know what square they're in, can't throw a spell at him because they can't target him, oh, and incidentally can't heal you because they have no idea where you went.
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I think i understand how the half elf (drow) ninja got deeper darkness at will, what i don't understand is how he got the ability to see in supernatural darkness (where darkvision doesn't work), can you explain to me?
Part of the reason I asked is I'm not a walking encyclopedia, but I know a fair amount of the rules, at least RAW. Drow is one race I never look at. Ever. Before today. I'm sad even reading it...
But, okay. Drow Magic Racial > Drow Nobility > Improved Drow Nobility.
Three feats for the deeper darkness. I wouldn't do it, but cool. I can see it.
I know Fetchlings can get gloom sight > Dark sight, but you then gain Light Sensitivity, and that is a racial feat.
Dwarves have the Elixir of Darksight... that'd be limited and as I GM I'd be hesitant to give a Drow a potion that's exclusive to dwarves.
Tieflings have Fiendish Darkness... or the "randomly" rolled #67, Variant Tiefling Racial. They also have a two feat chain, Fiend Sight, the second time allows you to see in deeper darkness.
Enveloping Darkness is a Shadow Bloodline power at Level 15, that's not actually deeper darkness though.
That's what I have off the top of my head.
Threads like these remind me on when I played World of Warcraft. "OMG rogues are nerfed, fighters are OP!"
Next week we are going to hear that Cavalier is...wait a sec no one plays the Cavalier.
-MD
Threads like these remind me on when I played World of Warcraft. "OMG rogues are nerfed, fighters are OP!"
Pretty big difference though. WoW has constant updates to try for balance(success may vary). Pathfinder mostly stays the same... mostly. And willingly decides to never ever patch some things, and then doesn't balance around those things, and then uses them as precedent for other things so if your weak you should really expect to stay that way. So we see mostly the same talk over and over too. Unlike in wow where in 3 months Frost Mages might not be OP and suddenly Arms Warriors will reign supreme!(Taking their rightful place! Er... Not that I'd main an Arms Warrior or anything. No bias here! Nope.) Also a big difference in the consequences of being over and underpowered and the measure of it.
I think fighters are next on the rotation. That or paladin alignments.
The extra attack is nice. Still, adding a limited, MAD-based resource to your build is not always a winning move.
@Rerednaw
Skill mastery may be OP to give out at 2nd level, but I'll allow it.
Warrior is to fighter as rogue is to X
X is a fairly large list
Humorously, sans the "heroic" stat boost, the warrior NPC class tends to be better than the Fighter class on NPCs, because according to the rules, the fighter levels are worth +1 CR / level on martial-oriented enemies, while the warrior NPC class is worth +1 CR / 2 levels on anything.
+1 BAB, +1d10 HD, +1/2 Fort, +1/3 Ref/Will, +1.5 feats, +1/4 armor training, +1/5 weapon training.
+2 BAB, +2d10 HD, +1 Fort, +2/3 Ref/Will, +1 feat.
EDIT: Now back to your regularly scheduled rogue-riot. :P
Oh, on a side note, I do believe the Rogue class is basically better than the expert class. While experts do get more skill points and to-hit bonuses and such CR for CR, I find that NPCs are generally more suited to working together because they don't have to cover as many bases.
A bunch of NPCs with sneak attack, longspears, and some flanking teamwork feats can be pretty awesome in the right circumstances, and Sneak Attack can look really scary on a monster with a lot of high-accuracy natural attacks (for example, a dragon who spends his surprise round cornering you and gets his full attack off while you're still flat footed will wreck yo' shiz).
That said, in general for adding more skills and base statistics, I would still probably tend to dump more expert levels onto a creature, or a combination of expert and warrior levels and just give them power attack, though it depends on the creature and its shtick.
It's weird, I used to naysay the bard continually. Then I was like "you know what, I'm going to play one, and play it my way." I found the Bard class to be nearly infinitely mutable, and ultimately amenable to my playstyle. I played a debuffer bard who spammed grease and glitterdust and hideous laughter which, on top of the Inspire Courage bonus to hit and damage, made combat encounters a breeze.
On top of that, I was a phenomenally talented party face and with tactful use of Glibness, had most of the quest hub town's leaders eating out of the palm of my hand. I even ran for (and won!) elected office!
But myself, I was a combat weakling.
Then I ran Ravenloft and a friend decided to play a bard, no doubt impressed by my turn in the role, and I expected him to play much like I had. Astonishingly, he played a buffer archer bard to great effect.
Back in 3.5, a friend of mine played a core (no splatbook material nonsense like dragonfire adept) melee bard in the Red Hand of Doom adventure path by James Jacobs and published by WotC.
That bard wrecked faces. He was out-damaging and out-tanking the martials in the party (because bardic music adds to hit and damage both, and spells like mirror image and displacement make it really hard to land hits against the bard), until you factored in his bardic music effects on their attacks in which case he was just powering them up too (so he was both an amazingly kickass warrior AND a power multiplier), though he was still a better tank.
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to mention that Bards are even better in Pathfinder. While they have fewer rounds of Inspire Courage each day, I've rarely seen a bard run out, especially if they have Lingering Performance (effects of bardic music persist 2 rounds after you stop performing). Arcane Strike is really nice on a bard as well, since it's effectively a +1-5 damage boost on all attacks for a swift action, which stacks with inspire courage.
Meanwhile, the various "Finale" spells combo very nicely with Lingering Performance, and spells like vanish and allegro are very nice at low levels for adding that much more kick to your bard initially.
Every year it seems to be one more nail to the rogue´s coffin. Just when you when it seems that the coffin can not allow more nails *BAM!* there is one more.
Witht he archeologist, the slayer and the trapfinding trait I can not guess how the rogue could be more outclassed in the future.
With a couple of notable exception (thug, scout, a couple of decent archetypes) it seems like the rogue class is not taken seriously.
Have this all been intentionally? It would be weird but How could it not be? Or the answer is "yes" or the universe conspired in a fantastical way to give the rogue their actual status.
/Rant
:(
Actually this trait isn't as bad for the Rogue as it looks at first glance. Sure, it may be one more Rogue thing that Non-Rogues will have access to... but it's also available to the Rogues and it is awesome for actual Rogues. It allows them to drop Trapfinding with an Archetype and get it back with a trait, giving them freedom gain some of their more powerful archetypes with only the cost of Trapsense.
Wow was posting this in the other rogue help thread and it got locked :)
So trying here.
A few ideas and suggestions. Take with a shaker of salt :)
My view on some easier fixes.
If class disparity is an issue, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that at every 2 levels, the rogue talent class feature should be on par with another class's feature. Spells.
Okay, Sudden Sneak Attack is too good as 1/rd as a normal rogue talent. I could see an advanced one though.
I see a normal rogue talent per day limit:
Sudden Sneak Attack:
3 times per day, a rogue with this talent may chose to apply his Sneak Attack against a target who is not currently flat-footed, denied his dexterity or flanked. After an attack roll is made and the result is known the rogue may choose to add his Sneak Attack damage to the results of the damage roll.
At 8th level this talent may be applied to an additional attack each day. At 15th level this talent may be applied to five attacks each day.
Then you release a feat that increases limit by 4 each time it is taken.
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The problem with the rogue is that it is built on the lousy 3.5 foundation. Rogues were never really awesome in 3.5 they were the 1 or 2 level splash class. This idea that rogues are the skill class is only cool in till most skills become obsolete.
The foundation for the "rogue" class should have been the 3.5 Factotum. The rogues should start at the crossroads of all other classes with the option of being the jack-of-all-classes or near masters of a few.
Trait schmait. 750 gp for a wand of summon nature's ally 1 will disarm more traps than you'll see in a campaign.No GM I know personally would give you the trap XP if you cheaped out like that and made a summon set it off.
Walk over it, take the damage, and use the wand of cure light wounds. It works for 99% of the time, and you don't need to disable the trap, just to survive it
Like casting a symbol of insanity or summoning a creature that full attacks you. Those are two examples from the last 2 weeks. Oh yes, traps can contain many surprises.