I am running Way Of The Wicked for a group of 6.
They are very melee heavy and are about to reach 9th level.
The rogue in question is satisfied with RP situations but feels very overshadowed in combat.
I'm pretty lenient (because the game is about having fun after all) so I allow the occasional class rebuild.
I suggested to him oracle or sorcerer inter ut with his rogue levels, but he would still lag behind the partty.
He doesnt want to give up on rogue completely for background purposes.
so how can I help him out here?
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You could suggest a Slayer or an Investigator instead, depending on what kind of Rogue he's trying to be.
if he wants to keep his roguishness but wants to be better at combat, why not look at the slayer from the advanced class guide? A lot of similar theme, but much better combat abilities.
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Slayer if he wants to be a sneak attack combat rogue, Investigator if he wants to be a skills rogue. Either way, Slayer has good skills and Investigator is better at combat. I think Investigator is actually more powerful than Slayer if you make good use of extracts and mutagen.
They're going to be overshadowed in combat. Just see any of the multitude of forums on that!
How good are they at using positioning? How system-savvy is the player?
His only real "advantage" is Sneak Attack, but they have to be flanking to get it, and undead are immune to it. (I don't know the AP you're playing, but assume there are a lot of undead.)
Slayer is the improved Rogue, especially for those who want to be more martial in their game-play.
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Pretty much everyone would recommend your player to rebuild his character as a Slayer, Investigator or Vivisectionist Alchemist, since those clases not only feel "roguish" enough but are better combatants.
If not, you could apply some house rules to help him stay in toes of other full BAB characters.
For example giving a +1 to all sneak attack rolls for every odd sneak attack die he has as a class feature (+1 at 1D6, +2 at 3D6 and so on).
Or, allow sneak attacks on other conditions other than flat-footed or flanked: Like Frightened, Panicked or Stunned. He could gain new conditions to sneak as he levels.
Etc, the point is to help him to do more damage and keeping his character more or less intact.
If not, then the only way i see for him to improve in combat is heavily investing in magic items or multiclassing on a full BAB class.
Undead are not immune to sneak attacks. If I recall Incorporeal, oozes, and elementals are. Undead and constructs were immune in 3.5, but no longer.
Rogue will almost always lag behind a martial class in combat. It isn't what they are designed to do. The little bit of combat capability they do have is mostly melee. You have a melee heavy group. That will exacerbate the situation.
Multiclassing with a caster will probably not help, since he will then also be a very weak caster. Unless he is going for something very particular in the build.
Like if he was working toward arcane trickster using vanish and/or improved invisibility to get sneak attack damage with ray spells from safely behind all the melee guys.
That can be effective. Yet still very different from the other melee guys and still being rogue-ish.
As suggested above, investigator or slayer can have a very rogue-ish feel to them but definitely increase the combat capability. Definitely worth looking at anyway.
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Throw another ballot in the box for rebuild as Slayer or Investigator as appropriate for the character goals.
Undead are not immune to sneak attacks. If I recall Incorporeal, oozes, and elementals are. Undead and constructs were immune in 3.5, but no longer.
Correct, I had it wrong. Undead are immune to stun and some other effects, not sneak/precision damage.
For reference:
Precision-Based Damage (like Sneak Attack)
The following creature types (or subtypes) do not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack):
Elemental (subtype): "<An elemental...> does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack.)"
Incorporeal (subtype): "An incorporeal creature is immune to precision-based damage (such as sneak attack damage) unless the attacks are made using a weapon with the ghost touch special weapon quality."
Ooze (Type): "<An ooze is...> does not take additional damage from precision-based attacks (such as sneak attack.)"
Protean (subtype): (50% chance to ignore, see below*)
Creatures Immune to Flanking
Opponents do not gain any special flanking bonuses against the following creature types (or subtypes):
Ooze (Type): "<An ooze is...> not subject to ... flanking."
Swarm (Type): "A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernible anatomy, so it is not subject to flanking."
Elemental (subtype): "<Elementals are...> not subject to flanking."
*Special: Proteans have a special ability called "Amorphous Anatomy" which might protect them: "<Amorphous Anatomy> grants <a protean> a 50% chance to ignore additional damage caused by critical hits and sneak attacks."
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They're going to be overshadowed in combat. Just see any of the multitude of forums on that!
How good are they at using positioning? How system-savvy is the player?
His only real "advantage" is Sneak Attack, but they have to be flanking to get it, and undead are immune to it. (I don't know the AP you're playing, but assume there are a lot of undead.)
Slayer is the improved Rogue, especially for those who want to be more martial in their game-play.
This is not true for pathfinder.
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Up his strength by 6 points (or dex if he is a dex to damage character.) This is ridiculously unfair, but that is what it is gonna take to get the character up to par. Having had this problem regularly for years no amount of rebuilding will help, it takes unfair cheatery. If you want to be a rogue, you have to accept having no magic or combat ability. I'm not sure why they make such a horrible job sound so glamorous, but the best part of being a rogue is getting to write "Rogue" on your character sheet.
Sorry if that was a harsh rant, but I am sick of "I want to be a Rogue rather than the class with mechanics that fit my character concept" syndrome. It plagues me in real life and here on the messageboards.
Throw another ballot in the box for rebuild as Slayer or Investigator as appropriate for the character goals.
Eeeeyup.
Slayer is the Rogue Done Right, and Investigator is Lord of Skills, with solid combat ability on top (though he's only marginally better than the Bard, who can buff teammates as a plus).
What does he like to do? There are all manner of rebuilds we can suggest, but it won't help unless we have a better goal than "rogue-y".
I particularly like Worldbuilder's take on the sneak-stabbing arcane trickster, for instance, but I don't know if that's going to float this guy's boat or not. Ninja 2/Magus X might work, too. A couple of rogue or ninja levels and going synthesist the rest of the way has plenty of advantages, depending on his stat spread. A complete rebuild as a heretic inquisitor with the Night domain might get him quite a bit of what he wants, too.
If he wants to stay rogue, the Chill Touch rogue seems to offer a lot of combat potential.
There are some rogue guides here. I'd recommend checking out GM Solspiral's guide as well as Shaman Bond's "A Guide to the Pathfinder Rogue", at least.
Aye, rogue still doesn't have the love it needs in this game. If a 3pp solution is amenable, come PM me. The class I have in mind is a cheap one, and I can give you a copy for free in the name of spreading the word.
If you're up for 3rd party or homebrew goodies, Tarkxt and Lemmy here on the forum both have their own "rogue fixes" that are quite solid.
I was impressed by "Rogue Glory", a 3rd party product as well. It offered solutions for a whole lot of things that I find nonsensical in the standard rules, such as construction of simple traps like snares and tripwires affixed to alchemist fire.
The last thing I can think to mention is that there are a number of good advanced rogue talents. Now that the player's close to 10th level he'll find those tasty. Letting him use Skill Mastery on UMD is probably a very good thing, even though there's some controversy over the legality of that.
If you're up for 3rd party or homebrew goodies, Tarkxt and Lemmy here on the forum both have their own "rogue fixes" that are quite solid.
I was impressed by "Rogue Glory", a 3rd party product as well. It offered solutions for a whole lot of things that I find nonsensical in the standard rules, such as construction of simple traps like snares and tripwires affixed to alchemist fire.
The last thing I can think to mention is that there are a number of good advanced rogue talents. Now that the player's close to 10th level he'll find those tasty. Letting him use Skill Mastery on UMD is probably a very good thing, even though there's some controversy over the legality of that.
UMD is not allowed, and it wont make him a better combatant. I would just let him switch over to slayer, but keep the same flavor.
This may be going a bit on the deep end, but grant him access to the vampire template ala the feats from Way of the Wicked or just straight out. That's built into AP 3 or 4 I believe to allow PCs to get the template. Then give him the shroud from book 5 that allows the vamp to run around in sunlight, or a bunch of protective penumbra scrolls/items and he can be a daywalker. He gets energy drain, a bunch of stat boosts, several useful feats, gaseous form, a bite attack that drains Con, spider climb, summon bat or rat swarms, wolves, natural armor, a dominate person gaze, skill boosts from racial bonuses, and the ability to beast shape into a dire bat or wolf. And he's still a rogue without any class changes. The evil clerics or antipaladins or negative energy channelers can heal him all day, he can use conducting weapons to transmit energy drain via sneak attack, and get into most areas without real issue. Perfect for an evil rogue.
If you're just houseruling, then I recommend changing half of the rogue's sneak attack dice to precision dice. The precision dice are always on and work against anything that can be affected by precision damage.
The worst thing about rogue is how unreliable sneak attack is. But it's probably too strong to let them have it all of the time, so there's the compromise. The rogue still wants to set up flanks and ambushes, but isn't worthless without them.
I did a rewrite of some of the rogue talents here if you are interested.
A lot of them are too limited or niche to be of use in a real game as written, so this somewhat fixes that.
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If you're up for 3rd party or homebrew goodies, Tarkxt and Lemmy here on the forum both have their own "rogue fixes" that are quite solid.
....I forgot I even wrote that. I had to do a forum search just to double check.
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Ninja might be worth a try, the name is just flavour so he can remain exactly the same character but with some awesome new tricks. Ninja is basically a rogue on combat steroids so it should help keep the non combat skill stuff he enjoys but also allow a lot more combat power for him, specifically, guide him towards vanishing trick and next level invisible blade, with these two he has an excellent boost to combat ability straight off.
Both one single massive hit (usually via a Str focused non lethal build utilising the sap adept chain) or multiple attacks all delivering sneak attack damage (Dex and the TWF chain) will both work well with this.
If he's interested, multiclassing as Antipaladin or Sorcerer after that would certainly also add something (ninja goes very well with Paladin or Antipaladin due to the two classes Cha synergy). Either way, let him respend feats if needed and rebuild and he should be well on his way to dealing some great damage.
I'm going to agree with a lot of other people here, if you are staying with normal Pathfinder rules then rebuild as Investigator or Slayer. Doing it as Slayer would likely keep the character closer to what it currently is.
In my opinion the Arcane Trickster PrC is a trap, avoid it. If you want to mix magic and rogue, either go 2 levels rogue and the rest a spell casting class or go mostly rogue/slayer with a small dip to get some vital spell casting. Rogues already have a hard time hitting, so any dip into wizard or sorcerer is going to make that even worse.
If you could provide information on the current character build and what he most likes about it, we could do a much better job suggesting changes.
I will play devil's advocate and say that you can do well staying as a rogue...if it is theorycrafted to hell and back.
One advantage rogues have is that the seemingly useless minor magic trick talent gives them an SLA which qualifies them for feats like Arcane Strike. Since it scales with their class level, you can get at least a bit of damage out of that. Throw in the riving strike feat (anything hit with your arcane strike takes -2 to saves vs spells) for a use beyond just damage
After that, going with a sap adept/sap master build, with some feinting in there for good measure. All that together could get decent enough damage.
Obviously you skip power attack/piranha strike (you have enough damage and you are in dire need for attack bonus). Doing all that should at least get you hitting near inquisitor levels. Obviously this has a bit of a problem against anything immune to nonlethal...but hey, it still works well enough otherwise.
EDIT- oh, how about dipping into MoMS and grabbing pummeling style/charge? It looks like it can work rather well. Scout rogues can get sneak attack on their charges. Unarmed strikes can be used for sap adept/master. DR is less of an issue. The brawling armor property gives a +2 to unarmed attack/damage rolls. It looks like you can get this all together at level 7....so while the slayer is rejoicing their ability to study target each and every round, you can be falcon punching everything in your way.
Thank you all for the many(and varied) replies.
I particulary liked the one about flat-out cheating. Heh
I will bring up several of these with my player during the week and see what we can comeup with.
thanks again for the help
Be aware that outside of the existance of the Ninja's Vanishing Trick and Invisible Blade abilities they're not particularly stronger than a rogue. Also, the normal time a ninja gets access to these abilities is also about the same time when enemies have true sight or other abilities to negate invisibility. Humanoid enemies have it in the form of see invisbility and glitterdust.
So while the Ninja is an umprovement, it depends heavily on being invisible. If those are negated it still has the same basic problems. And if you never bother to negate them...well you're being unfair to the other players. Not that it isn't really just leveling the playing field, just keep in mind what you're doing. Invisbility can be relatively easy to negate, as a PC if you know there is an invisible enemy about you usually do as much as you can as quickly as you can to make them not invisible anymore. NPCs should do the same.
I'd do a Snake-Bite Striker 1/Scout 8 build... Maybe Snake-Bite Striker 1/Ninja-Scout 8... Or Half-Orc Snake-Bite Striker 1/Scout-Skulking Slayer 8.
If Human you'd get 6 feats plus Ninja or Rogues Talents, a few of which can net you Feats.
Half-Orc you'd get 5 feats plus talents.
A half-orc Skulking-Scouting 8/Snake-biting 1 Rogue taking Sap Master line would tear stuff up. 6d6 SA dice 12d6 if non lethal sneak attacks.
Weapon Focus Great Club
Sap Adept
Sap Master
Bludgeoner
Furious Focus
Power Attack
Horn of CriosphinxAssuming the character has 22 STR, on a Sap Master charge he'd do 1d10 +12 (Horn/Str), +9 (power attack), +24 (sap adept), +12d8 (sap master non lethal skulking slayer). Average of at least 95 damage on a nonlethal charge. Doing regular charge damage he'd be 1d10 +12 +9 +6d8.
You could also just skip the Sap Master/Bludgeoner line and take a high 2 handed crit weapon instead and go with Vital Strike, Racial Heritage Ogre, Savage Critical, Imp. Critical, Horn of Criosphinx, Weapon Focus Falchion (or whatever). This lets you SA anything immune to SA using Savage Critcal/Vital strike and anytime you Crit on a swing you add SA dice too, which helps if it wasn't a SA to begin with.
Ah, thinking about it, there is a religion trait for Sarenrae that lets you do nonlethal with slashing weapons for no penalty (and you actually get a +1 to the nonlethal damage), which can let you go sap adept/master with that falchion. So yeah, nonfatally cut their head off. It will save you a feat.