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For a rogue sniper:
what he said! + weapon proficiency light hammer + TWF + two of THESE:
if you don't want to take the martial weapon proficiency, cheese it out and get the proficiency intelligent weapon property from the Paizo Blog:
Proficiency Intelligent Weapon Property.
If you have cash make the intelligent hammers decent and give them some firepower... intelligent weapons get to act on their own initiative muhahahah!
With full BAB, the Rogue would probably tend to have the worst attack bonus of the full BAB classes, but he'd certainly hit better than he currently does, deliver his sneak attack, have a little more toughness to maybe survive flanking for a round... lots of small benefits.
Still not seeing it. Pushing a d8 to d10 is one more hit point per level, which in my book is giving them the Toughness feat for free.
What kills a rogue is the lack of effective defense and the fact that it's so easy simply to prevent sneak attack at all. Whatever you can't kill in one round will simply turn around and crush you.
And if you're using flank to get your sneak attack off, there's a good chance you're in a very exposed tactical position, since you have to be on the opposite side of your fighter who probably didn't move very well.
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Yes, full BAB and D10 make rogues stronger but I heavily disagree about it.
In my experience as a player and as a DM most people do not play rogues to be a fighter.
I think rangers and in the furutre salyers will cover that niche pretty well.
What the rogue need are more roguish things. Rogues need to do amazing things with his skills, in and out of combat plus other nice things.
Really, it's just +1 hp per level, not a whole lot of difference. They still only come with Light Armor Proficiency and are given strong disincentive to not pursue heavier more protective armor.
That being said, the HP exception wouldn't bother me. It's an unnecessary exception that breaks the mold (though we have Barbarian breaking the mold as well) but I'm fine with it.
The greatest benefit of full BAB is not the increased accuracy (although that does begin to add up as the levels go up), but the early access to combat feats and iterative attacks.
Personally, I don't like full BAB Rogue variants. It doesn't feel right for Rogues... They should get something else to boost their accuracy.
Here's a rogue talent that would help: outflank + solo tactics (applied ONLY to outflank). That would significantly help rogues dependent on flanking.
Another talent: you can feint or greater feint as a swift action.
These two alone would go a LONG way to getting those hits.
Personally, I don't like full BAB Rogue variants. It doesn't feel right for Rogues... They should get something else to boost their accuracy.
Have to agree on that point. I'm more inclined to give them a to-hit bonus while sneak attacking to help their accuracy problems, though that's not a perfect solution since it just further pushes rogues into the "I'm useless if I can't sneak attack" box.
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Speaking of Rogue Talents... Here is my attempt to fix Rogues without changing them too much.
I mostly tweaked talents to be, you know, actually useful.
while certainly not the best thing ever, i'm rather content with this rogue:
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Human (Focused Study) Rogue (Scout) 6 / horizon walker 3 / Rogue +11
Str 10, Dex 16 (5pts +2 racial), Con 14 (5pts), Int 14 (5pts), Wis 10 , Cha 14 (5pts)
+5 dex (level), +6 dex/con/int/cha (belt/headband), +5 dex (book/wish)
traits:
-Militia (+1 to hit while flanking)
-Blade of the Society (+1 damage/dice on SA)
feats:
ROG 1 - Weapon Finesse, Skill Focus (Stealth)
ROG 3 - Eldritch Heritage (Shadow 1)
ROG 5 - Endurance
ROG 7 - Hellcat Stealth
HW 8 - Skill Focus (Perception)
HW 9 - Dimensional Agility
ROG 11 - Dimensional Assault
ROG 13 - Improved Eldritch Heritage (shadow 9)
ROG 15 - Dimensional Savant
ROG 16 - Skill Focus (Use Magic Device)
ROG 17 - Dampen Presence
ROG 19 - ???
talents (total rogue level):
2 (2) - Weapon Training (scimitar)
4 (4) - Combat Trick (dervish dance)*
6 (6) - Trap Spotter, Minor Magic (Detect Magic)**
11 (8) - Offensive Defense
13 (10) - Feat (Dimensional Dervish)
15 (12) - Skill Mastery (acrobatics, disable device, perception, stealth), Ninja Talent (Pressure Points)**
17 (14) - Improved Evasion
19 (16) - Crippling Strike
* - make sure you’ve got 2 points in perform (dance) to qualify
** - bonus rogue talent from human FCB (remaining 5 spent on hp)
Notable gear to look out for:
-+X heartseeker menacing courageous keen (in that order) Scimitar*
-headband of ninjutsu
-bane baldric
-ring of swarming stabs
-boots of soft step
-lots of oils of negate aroma and potions of heroism
-one cracked and one flawed pale green prism ioun stone (each)
-one opalescent white pyramid (scimitar) ioun stone, slotted in a wayfinder
-the ‘usual' defensive stuff (ring of protection, cloak of resistance, amulet of natural armor, etc.)
-the best armor you can get your grubby little hands on (with enough max dex to not limit it)
* - once you have the headband, trade out heartseeker for keen
While flanking you get the above along with: +2 (flanking), +2 (menacing), and +1 (trait)
After setting up sneak you hit them at flat-footed AC--which is likely, given respectable stealth and HiPS in light and dark from blindsight/sense, tremorsense, and scent.
You also get +1d6 precision damage from the ring of swarming stabs and +2d6 from the bane baldric
fits the dextrous/cunning rogue ideas, is good at sneaking (even in combat), works the trap route, and eventually gets a 'pounce' (that eventually removes the need for flank)
slow to start, but still decent i think.
IEH (shadow) can be swapped with dimensional savant if you want pounce earlier, but it delays that side of HiPS
The problem with the rogue is while every class in the game is gets better better. The rogue get better as they go up till about 10-12th level then they peeter off and become less power. Since most people don't play high level game, my group included this problem doesn't show up. If we are playing high level no plays a rogue or if they do they multiclass it.Not even that late, I've noticed rogues start to fall behind as early as level 4, it's just that around level 10-12 is when characters become fully developed and the weakness of rogues becomes inescapable.
I find rogues are good up to 8th level then start to slide after that. If you play in PFS you end by 12th so this isn't a big deal. If you run AP it seems at high level Paizo tosses rogues a bone by giving you APL -3 encounters. These encounter the rogue can actually hit and survive retaliation if there is any.
I've never thought about it until now but there is ofter encounter that quite a ways below the APL of the party in and AP. Maybe those are encounters to make the rogue feel useful. Or encounter that allow the wizard to blast an encounter oblivion in round.
I find the only thing that makes rogues work without a redesign is to endeavor to give them 1.5x WBL while curtailing the WBL of everyone else. I can't really do that with certain party compositions like Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard. I as a GM have a very hard time balancing a party like that even though it has been a staple party type for decades. The fighter is better at fighting than the rogue, and the rogue is better at skills than the fighter, but neither of them compare to the usefulness of the cleric and wizard. I find it much easier to run for groups like Druid, Cleric, Witch, Wizard or conversely Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Bard.
Something else that might work is give them more access to spellcasting and weapons/fighting. Make them more jacks of all trades. Instead of just the two magic talents, make it so they can take those twice and that they slowly stack (so the second time taking they can cast second level spells, third time, third level spells, etc) if they so choose to spend the slots that way.
Make it so that they can get bonuses to hit more easily with more Rogue talents to do that and perhaps even some talents to jack up other abilities, perhaps one that will help them heal others similarly to low level clerical abilities if they so choose, but non-magical.
Basically increase the number of Rogue Talents and make it so that they select talents more then once (if it works) and selecting one more than once stacks an increases it's overall ability.
Speaking of Rogue Talents... Here is my attempt to fix Rogues without changing them too much.
I mostly tweaked talents to be, you know, actually useful.
I like what you did here. I think your change makes the rogue actually work. I think I might house rule them in to my game.