You remind me of the babe.Or a bard who took Perform (Sing), Perform (Dance), Perform (Juggle), and Perform (Mind Screw) that has a lot of goblin minions and loves to juggle glass balls and hide in mazes.This is why a straight Fighter 20 isn't the end of campaign BBEGIf you're going to be honest, you'll admit that that's equally true of a straight Wizard 20. He's simply too squishy against a party of end game level. The usual BBEG is something that's going to combine elements of BOTH. Such as an ancient spell casting Dragon or Pit Fiend.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What babe?You remind me of the babe.Or a bard who took Perform (Sing), Perform (Dance), Perform (Juggle), and Perform (Mind Screw) that has a lot of goblin minions and loves to juggle glass balls and hide in mazes.This is why a straight Fighter 20 isn't the end of campaign BBEGIf you're going to be honest, you'll admit that that's equally true of a straight Wizard 20. He's simply too squishy against a party of end game level. The usual BBEG is something that's going to combine elements of BOTH. Such as an ancient spell casting Dragon or Pit Fiend.
The magic of the Fighter is supposed to be feats, but the Ranger is only 2 behind by 10th level. In our home game we greatly expanded the number of feats a Fighter ends up with but with certain limitations. If you want to check it, see here
http://pathfinderhomebrewrules.wordpress.com/about/
Note: Specifically Changes to the Fighter
Yes, because making fighters even more MAD is self evidently a good idea.
Weaknesses are fine. Being almost entirely made of weaknesses is not. The fighter has exactly 1 strong point; combat. The Rogue has... well... it has... umm... no not skills... no not combat... umm... I got nothing.
Weaknesses are fine. Being almost entirely made of weaknesses is not. The fighter has exactly 1 strong point; combat. The Rogue has... well... it has... umm... no not skills... no not combat... umm... I got nothing.
It's not the monk. That's what it has.
Weaknesses are fine. Being almost entirely made of weaknesses is not. The fighter has exactly 1 strong point; combat. The Rogue has... well... it has... umm... no not skills... no not combat... umm... I got nothing.Nope. The rogue has nothing. Not even good skills. Only 8 a level , but still terrible at skills.
Like I said, the player base has unattainable expectations.
An INT based caster starts with 7 a level, ends with at least 15 a level. They also have spells that can greatly enhance or completely replace skills. And that's not even talking about Bards who have 6 a level, spells that greatly enhance or obviate skills (Glibness!) and lets not forget Bardic Knowledge to get multiple skills at once and Pageant of the Peacock with makes your lies about INT checks reality at the low low cost of a single 2nd level spell slot. That's right you can lie your way into being a master blacksmith, professor of extraplanar events, or a high magister of spellcraft. By lying. Through your teeth.
An INT based caster starts with 7 a level, ends with at least 15 a level. They also have spells that can greatly enhance or completely replace skills. And that's not even talking about Bards who have 6 a level, spells that greatly enhance or obviate skills (Glibness!) and lets not forget Bardic Knowledge to get multiple skills at once and Pageant of the Peacock with makes your lies about INT checks reality at the low low cost of a single 2nd level spell slot. That's right you can lie your way into being a master blacksmith, professor of extraplanar events, or a high magister of spellcraft. By lying. Through your teeth.Weaknesses are fine. Being almost entirely made of weaknesses is not. The fighter has exactly 1 strong point; combat. The Rogue has... well... it has... umm... no not skills... no not combat... umm... I got nothing.Nope. The rogue has nothing. Not even good skills. Only 8 a level , but still terrible at skills.
Like I said, the player base has unattainable expectations.
And back to caster martial disparity again.
Not every int based caster has a 20 starting stat or puts a favored class bonus into skills. Making exaggerated arguments doesn't prove anything. This is back to optimization causing problems not the class.
A rogue could just as easily have a 14 intelligence for the static 10 points +1 favored +3 from a headband and have 14 points a level. Your continual argument on this topic and across the plethora of "this class sucks threads", as is others, is that another class can do it better so this class sucks. This premise is a fallacy. You don't need to be the best to be good at something.
The goal posts will forever change as the arguments will just be countered by how another class can do something better. Post builds and do real comparisons that have actual meaning and provide a real analysis.
Favored doesn't really count since anyone can do that and unlike INT based casters who get more spells per day (amazing), higher save DCs (great) and better Concentration checks (nice), all the Rogue gets is 2 more skills. They may start ahead but they are going to fall behind quickly and they are not likely to catch up to the INT caster unless they dumps their physical stats which will in turn weaken their combat effectiveness. Note the INT caster gets skills *and* combat effectiveness for their investment.
I'm not saying the Rogue has to be the best, but if it's the only thing you are "good" at, you should not rank behind Alchemists, Bards, and INT based casters (and Ninjas just to really rub it in) and coming soon Investigators! When they are that far behind at their "best" trait are they really "good" at it?
Weaknesses are fine. Being almost entirely made of weaknesses is not. The fighter has exactly 1 strong point; combat. The Rogue has... well... it has... umm... no not skills... no not combat... umm... I got nothing.It's not the monk. That's what it has.
Not even sure if it's worth harping on the Monk anymore; sure, the core Monk is still awful, but that only exists to teach new players to research the hell out of this game if they don't want to get screwed. Nobody who knows better plays the core Monk anymore; Qinggong is the base Monk now, and archetypes like the Sohei and Sensei are really solid.
It's really just the Rogue and the Fighter that don't work.
I really do like Sohei and Zen Archer, going to have to look into Sensei here. Core Monk may be a confused class with no direction, but with Archetypes it's quite solid.
Weaknesses are fine. Being almost entirely made of weaknesses is not. The fighter has exactly 1 strong point; combat. The Rogue has... well... it has... umm... no not skills... no not combat... umm... I got nothing.It's not the monk. That's what it has.Not even sure if it's worth harping on the Monk anymore; sure, the core Monk is still awful, but that only exists to teach new players to research the hell out of this game if they don't want to get screwed. Nobody who knows better plays the core Monk anymore; Qinggong is the base Monk now, and archetypes like the Sohei and Sensei are really solid.
It's really just the Rogue and the Fighter that don't work.
I know. That was meant as a joke ;)
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
A 20th-level Fighter that is balanced against a 20th-level Wizard begs the question: how does his non-magic skill transcend what is humanly possible, and, if it does, how is it not magic?
Hey, Nethys may have transcended to Godhood through the understanding of Arcane knowledge -
But Irori did it through sheer willpower and self discipline.
Why shouldn't a martial class be as capable of being as powerful as a wizard when the God of martial classes was able to do the same thing as the God of spellcasters but better?
I really do like Sohei and Zen Archer, going to have to look into Sensei here. Core Monk may be a confused class with no direction, but with Archetypes it's quite solid.
I'm loving my Sensei right now. Insightful Strike and Inspire Courage are a better to-hit enhancement than Flurry could ever hope to be; I took a level of Oracle for Nature's Whispers and got the Guided enchantment so I'm entirely built around Wisdom and Charisma. So now I've got a front-line combatant with strong defenses, a notoriously strong support ability that makes my defenses relevant (Inspire Courage makes me a threat just by existing, after all), and the charisma to be a great party face. I'm useful all the time and it feels nice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rogues aren't good at skills though. They may have many skills, but they aren't any better at a singular skill than someone who invested at the same skill. A Rogue isn't much better at Stealth than a Fighter with the same dex who put all his ranks in Stealth... But the Alchemist has the same number of ranks and is packing invisibility extracts to make himself stealthier in a way that the Rogue can't.
Favored doesn't really count since anyone can do that and unlike INT based casters who get more spells per day (amazing), higher save DCs (great) and better Concentration checks (nice), all the Rogue gets is 2 more skills. The may start ahead but it is going to fall behind quickly and isn't likely to catch up to the INT caster unless he dumps his physical stats which will in turn weaken their combat effectiveness. Note the INT caster gets skills *and* combat effectiveness for their investment.And the rogue doesn't get evasion? Improved evasion? Sneak attack? Improved uncanny dodge? 10 rogue talents to make the character yours?
Why list what else a wizard does and then say the rogue only gets skills? Again your arguments are full of exaggeration and fail to make points.
The rogue doesn't have to invest much in intelligence and maintains a close comparison in skills. This allows the rogue to invest in his combat prowess.
I'm not saying the Rogue has to be the best, but if it's the only thing you are "good" at, you should rank behind Alchemists, Bards, and INT based casters (and Ninja's just to really rub in) and coming soon Investigators! When they are that far behind at your "best" trait are they really "good" at it?
So you rank behind alchemists, bards, wizards, witches, and variant sorcerers on skills. Are you still good at skills? This is still you arguing they must be the best to have merit.
Ninjas are a rogue archetype by the way. Even if you don't want to believe it the developers have said as much it's just there was enough variation to warrant its own entry. This is also why you can't multiclass a rogue/ninja.
That means they're still better at skills than 14 other classes. I'm still confused why you're not good if you're better than almost 75% of classes. Seems like some serious expectations you have.
... I'm not sure if you genuinely couldn't follow the logic of argument, but presuming you are arguing in good faith, the reason I didn't list evasion, improved evasion etc. is because they are not functions of increasing a Rogues INT. Furthermore, the Wizard *gains* combat effectiveness because of that, while the Rogue does not. And the Rogue is already not good at combat effectiveness, which I'll address in the response to your second point.
Yes, speaking plainly being better then 75% of classes is bad, when that is the *only* thing your class is supposedly *good* at. If Rogues weren't last in terms of combat effectiveness, or if they had buffing and support abilities, or debuffing abilities, then being better then 75% of classes at skills would be ok. But they aren't and thus that is "not ok".
Khrysaor, I think you missed the point. Yes, Rogues have plenty of skill points per level, but that isn't the only thing that makes a good skill-monkey. Total skill bonus also matters, and Rogues have nothing to help that.
Consider Climb. A level 10 Rogue can easily have +14 Climb. A Wizard, who dumped Strength down to 7, has +8. Who is better off? The Wizard, obviously, thanks to Overland Flight. Or Fly. Or Spider Climb. Or Dimension Door. Or...
And the Bards is better at Bluff then the Rogue and by extension all INT based skills (at minimum that is 12 skills plus all the crafts you can justify to your GM!) And that's just Pageant of the Peacock. The best part of this... you can use it for straight out intelligence checks, which means a Bard can Bluff it's way out of a Maze. And the Bard is pretty much guaranteed to succeed on that. So... that's a thing.
Rogues aren't good at skills though. They may have many skills, but they aren't any better at a singular skill than someone who invested at the same skill. A Rogue isn't much better at Stealth than a Fighter with the same dex who put all his ranks in Stealth... But the Alchemist has the same number of ranks and is packing invisibility extracts to make himself stealthier in a way that the Rogue can't.But this is still caster martial disparity. An alchemist gains spell effects through extracts. A rogue could take those talents to get vanish as a spell like ability and do something similar.
The rogue is still better than the fighter regardless of how much better. Being better isn't measures in degrees of better.
Again this is still just non stop moving of goal posts. With no builds for comparison anyone can spout off what a class is capable of and say it's better.
Builds actually get in the way, since they measure system mastery of the build maker more then anything. It's easier to just look at what the classes can actually do, while acknowledging that doing certain things means trading off others. This is the big advantage to prepared casters, since they don't really have to give up anything to be good a skills, unless you count some gold and pages in a spellbook to be a major trade-off on the level of feat/class ability or even trait.
And the Bards is better at Bluff then the Rogue and by extension all INT based skills! And that's just Pageant of the Peacock.Khrysaor, I think you missed the point. Yes, Rogues have plenty of skill points per level, but that isn't the only thing that makes a good skill-monkey. Total skill bonus also matters, and Rogues have nothing to help that.
Consider Climb. A level 10 Rogue can easily have +14 Climb. A Wizard, who dumped Strength down to 7, has +8. Who is better off? The Wizard, obviously, thanks to Overland Flight. Or Fly. Or Spider Climb. Or Dimension Door. Or...
I can play this game too. It's fun!
A rogue can sneak attack better than a bard can.
You guys really can't leave the caster martial disparity alone. Everyone knows this exists. This still doesn't make every class that doesn't cast spells useless.
Well yeah. The Skirmisher/Urban Ranger and the Slayer are almost as good at skills as the Rogue while also excelling in combat. A well-built Ranger will usually have some option to participate in any given situation. The Barbarian and the Qinggong Monk are good too though usually for reasons that aren't directly comparable to the Rogue.
And the Bards is better at Bluff then the Rogue and by extension all INT based skills! And that's just Pageant of the Peacock.Khrysaor, I think you missed the point. Yes, Rogues have plenty of skill points per level, but that isn't the only thing that makes a good skill-monkey. Total skill bonus also matters, and Rogues have nothing to help that.
Consider Climb. A level 10 Rogue can easily have +14 Climb. A Wizard, who dumped Strength down to 7, has +8. Who is better off? The Wizard, obviously, thanks to Overland Flight. Or Fly. Or Spider Climb. Or Dimension Door. Or...
I can play this game too. It's fun!
A rogue can sneak attack better than a bard can.
You guys really can't leave the caster martial disparity alone. Everyone knows this exists. This still doesn't make every class that doesn't cast spells useless.
Sneak attack is just "deal more damage". A bard with Pageant of the Peacock will still most assuredly deal more damage then a Rogue. And that's not even touching the fact that the Bards' damage will be more reliable.
|
|
The issue with Rogues and skills isn't actually that they don't get enough skill points, it's that all they get are skill points.
Bards can get more, but they also (and more importantly) can use Charisma for non-Charisma skills, get large static bonuses to many of them, and have a built-in incentive to be good at Charisma based ones.
Rogues have none of that.
Investigators have the ability to add +1d6 to any skill any time they like. Many of them for free. And can eventually add +1d8 to all of them for free if they work at it a bit. And have built-in incentive to be really god at the Intelligence based ones.
Rogues have none of that.
Inquisitors have a large bonus on all monster lore rolls, as well as Sense Motive, Intimidate and the ability with Archetypes or Inquisitions to use Wisdom for several skills not normally based on it, and have incentive to be really good at Wisdom based skills in general. Plus Track, which isn't bad.
Rogues have none of that.
Heck, even Slayers get significant bonuses to a number of skills vs. their Favored Target, and have Track, which puts them one up on Rogue.
Rogues have none of that, either.
And Investigators and Bards have better Class Skill Lists to boot.
Rogues have Skill Mastery (which is nice)...but only at level 10+ and even then, that's worse than a +5 bonus by quite a bit. They have Trapfinding as well...but so do Investigators, any Slayer who wants, and some Archetypes of various classes, and it's a bit niche as skill abilities go. That's it in the way of bonuses to skills.
A skill character shouldn't just have a large number of skills (anyone with high Int can manage that), they should have bonuses to utilizing those skills. Which would you rather have at level 10, 14 skills at +13 pre-ability or 12 skills at +18 pre-ability? This is a game predicated on a party, some skills will be covered by other people, you don't need to have them all, you need to be really good with the ones you have.
Now, you might argue that the Rogue talents that allow for different uses of skills make Rogue a good skill class. This is incorrect for a few reasons. First, those Rogue talents usually suck, and second the Investigator, Archaeologist Bard, and several other Archetypes also have access to them.
And before anyone brings it up, none of the abilities listed above are a spell or even spell-like ability (though I guess one or two might be supernatural), so the caster/martial disparity (while real) is basically meaningless here.
But this is still caster martial disparity.Well... Yes. It is. Notice how the Fighter and Rogue, considered by many (at least, on these boards) to be underpowered compared to nearly everyone else, have the common trait of "not having spells".
But if you want to take spells out of the picture, consider the Bard. Even without his spells (which can be amazing, btw), thanks to Versatile Performance, he can have as many skill points per level as the Rogue starting at level 6, more at level 10.
So what about the cavalier, and gun slingers? Must be terrible at everything they do as well since they don't cast spells. Not even worth playing.
Again with the argument that someone is better than another class. The rogue gains more skills than 75% of other classes. How good do they have to be for people to stop complaining that whatever class sucks because it isn't the best.
Seriously.... Post real builds and make proper comparisons. This isn't even theory craft it's just complaining.
Cavalier have massively better combat abilities and gun slingers built right can almost be on part with wizards.
But both are better than the rogue.
So does the alchemist do everything the rogue does better now? Post a build and prove it.A rogue can sneak attack better than a bard can.Oddly enough, the Alchemist is a better sneak-attacker than the Rogue. And is at least as-good with skills.
Here build:
Vivisectionist Beastmorph alchemist with the Eternal Potion discovery and a single potion of Greater Invisibility (hi thar Summoner!). That's all the build you need to compare.
I've never played with a rogue that didn't always have something to contribute. And almost as good is still worse. Being second place is still the first loser.Well yeah. The Skirmisher/Urban Ranger and the Slayer are almost as good at skills as the Rogue while also excelling in combat. A well-built Ranger will usually have some option to participate in any given situation. The Barbarian and the Qinggong Monk are good too though usually for reasons that aren't directly comparable to the Rogue.And the Bards is better at Bluff then the Rogue and by extension all INT based skills! And that's just Pageant of the Peacock.Khrysaor, I think you missed the point. Yes, Rogues have plenty of skill points per level, but that isn't the only thing that makes a good skill-monkey. Total skill bonus also matters, and Rogues have nothing to help that.
Consider Climb. A level 10 Rogue can easily have +14 Climb. A Wizard, who dumped Strength down to 7, has +8. Who is better off? The Wizard, obviously, thanks to Overland Flight. Or Fly. Or Spider Climb. Or Dimension Door. Or...
I can play this game too. It's fun!
A rogue can sneak attack better than a bard can.
You guys really can't leave the caster martial disparity alone. Everyone knows this exists. This still doesn't make every class that doesn't cast spells useless.
This is a team game that relies on individual players being able to assist the team in a variety of different situations. I'd rather be a switch-hitting Ranger and be second place in everything than a Fighter who can hit really hard but is entirely useless in every situation that isn't solved by hitting things really hard.
Besides, weren't you the one who was arguing earlier that the Rogue not being as good at skills as other classes didn't make the Rogue bad?
|
So does the alchemist do everything the rogue does better now? Post a build and prove it.A rogue can sneak attack better than a bard can.Oddly enough, the Alchemist is a better sneak-attacker than the Rogue. And is at least as-good with skills.
Ooh, this should be fun. What's the requirements? What level, point buy, any any other relevant factors. Proving Rogues weak against Alchemist is a bit of a hobby of mine.
What Justin Sane said.
Please note, these are just objective factual statements we are making. If the Wizard or Cleric was the class with faults and shortcomings we would talk about those instead, however in Pathfinder that is not the case. That's part of gaining system mastery, being able to sort through the system's information and note the strengths and weaknesses of each part of it. I couldn't claim the Rogue was weak if I couldn't identify why other classes are strong.