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how do you give lookout to your familiar? I have an unchained rogue that would like that very much...A valet familiar would be the way to go.Interesting. I wonder if Pack Flanking works with a familiar. Then you need a familiar large enough to flank.
6 – Rogue Talent, minor magic
8 – Rogue Talent, major magic
10 – Rogue Talent, Familiar
Use retrain on an earlier feat for Improved Familiar - valet familiar
Add the teamwork featsIt’s feat/talent MAD, but sets up some nice things.
it's faster to get leadership at 7th level with a guy that also has lookout (i.e. cost to rogue: lookout, leadership (two feats); instead of lookout (one feat) and three rogue talents.)
for ultimate cheese it costs the rogue only one feat (leadership at 7th: you take cavalier (strategist) cohort that will grant you the lookout feat for 12 min via the drill instructor class feature; the only drawback is that it can be heavily influenced by DM fiat i.e. "you can't drill instructor your rogue for ten minutes because you have no time / because this is a stealth mission / because you're in a high society function that requires the utmost etiquette, etc. etc. etc.)
for ultimate cheese it costs the rogue only one feat (leadership at 7th: you take cavalier (strategist) cohort that will grant you the lookout feat for 12 min via the drill instructor class feature; the only drawback is that it can be heavily influenced by DM fiat i.e. "you can't drill instructor your rogue for ten minutes because you have no time / because this is a stealth mission / because you're in a high society function that requires the utmost etiquette, etc. etc. etc.)
Just take a Holy Strategist Holy Guide Warrior of Holy Light Paladin.
Weal's Champion to permanently grant a Teamwork Feat, and the ability to change it to something else as a Swift Action. Plus, bonus Teamwork Feats at 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11.
how do you give lookout to your familiar? I have an unchained rogue that would like that very much...A valet familiar would be the way to go.Interesting. I wonder if Pack Flanking works with a familiar. Then you need a familiar large enough to flank.
6 – Rogue Talent, minor magic
8 – Rogue Talent, major magic
10 – Rogue Talent, Familiar
Use retrain on an earlier feat for Improved Familiar - valet familiar
Add the teamwork featsIt’s feat/talent MAD, but sets up some nice things.
it's faster to get leadership at 7th level with a guy that also has lookout (i.e. cost to rogue: lookout, leadership (two feats); instead of lookout (one feat) and three rogue talents.)
for ultimate cheese it costs the rogue only one feat (leadership at 7th: you take cavalier (strategist) cohort that will grant you the lookout feat for 12 min via the drill instructor class feature; the only drawback is that it can be heavily influenced by DM fiat i.e. "you can't drill instructor your rogue for ten minutes because you have no time / because this is a stealth mission / because you're in a high society function that requires the utmost etiquette, etc. etc. etc.)
Minor Magic and Major Magic are not taxes though.
Using Major Magic creatively can be a huge boost to power. True Strike, Heightened Awareness, Shield, etc. are all good uses of Major, and Minor Magic comes in handy to use Detect Magic as a loot radar and such.
Not to mention that a familiar comes with a stat bonus (initiative and saves being most tempting) and has several other uses, which include scouting and additional senses.
Intimidate builds will be good for the new Rogue. The Intimidate skill unlocks are really good, and Hurtful would be a great way to increase the number of attacks per round you get without taking TWF penalties.
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So i've been fiddling around with things for the unchained rogue, and here's what I've come up with, at least initially:
half-elf unchained rogue 20
FCB: 18 human (+3 talents), 2 hp
Alt racials: dual-minded (+2 will)
example stats (dex>cha>con=wis>int>str)
base: str 10, dex 16 (5+2r), con 14 (5), int 10, wis 14 (5), cha 14 (5)
final: str 16, dex 32, con 20, int 16, wis 20, cha 24
+5 dex (level), +6 all (gear), +5 dex/+4 cha (book/wish)
traits - river rat/reactionary
edges
5 - stealth
10 - perception
15 - sleight of hand
20 - escape artist
talents
2 - combat trick (TWF)
4 - minor magic (detect magic at-will)
6 - fast stealth
6* - major magic (chill touch 8/day)
8 - ninja trick (pressure points)
10 - double debilitation
12 - slippery mind
12* - crippling strike
14 - opportunist
16 - improved evasion
18 - ???
18* - ???
20 - ???
feats
1 - skill focus (stealth)
1* - weapon finesse (dagger/???/??? +D2D)
3 - eldritch heritage (shadow 1)
5 - steadfast personality
7 - hellcat stealth
9 - ITWF
11 - improved eldritch heritage (shadow 9)
13 - dampen presence
15 - ???
17 - ???
19 - ???
-pretty much always attacks touch after level 6 (helps offset TWF penalties and low bab)
-can inflict 2 debilitations + stat damage (str or dex) on sneak attacks
-has HiPS light+dark+blindsight/sense at levels 7, 11, and 13 respectively, moves full speed during stealth at no penalty, and the stealth-break sneak attacks last all turn instead of a single attack (depending on stealth ranks).
-fairly MAD, but gets both wis and cha to will saves as well as slippery mind.
kinda lowish on accuracy, but after activating chill touch and you get an AC debilitation on them you're all set for the most part.
the build becomes MUCH more flexible with the action economy rework, since he could [move or step+stealth]+[TWF]+[ITWF] for four sneak attacks and loads of debuffs pretty much every round.
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Thoughts? suggestions? any glaring flaws i missed?
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Minor Magic comes in handy to use Detect Magic as a loot radar and such.
Just a note, If you use Rogue's Edge/Signature Skill to unlock appraise, you can use Appraise to Detect & Identify magic items. You are probably better off with the actual detect magic, but this is a way use a different Minor Magic.
1) Since Rogues get to benefit from Dex to damage on a specific weapon, I'm assuming it runs off the same rules where the offhand will only benefit from half of the modifier applying to damage. Any guess on if Double Slice (the feat that allows the full strength mod to off hand attacks) will be revised to include this? Initial thought is yes.
2) I have two rogues in my player group. If they both get a sneak attack off on their target and apply the bewildered debilitating strike, does the target suffer from -4 AC for party attacks? Or just -2, since the source of the decrease was the same ability? Is this the same for the attack roll reducing one?
If there is a better spot to ask these questions, please let me know. Thanks!
2. It says these penalties don't stack specifically.
2. It says these penalties don't stack specifically.
The way I read that was that a single rogue could not stack the benefit from his own debilitating strike. I'm not sure if the wording also concerns the possibility of two rogues using debilitating strike.
2. It says these penalties don't stack specifically.The way I read that was that a single rogue could not stack the benefit from his own debilitating strike. I'm not sure if the wording also concerns the possibility of two rogues using debilitating strike.
it makes no mention about the rogue or other rogues only the debuff itself. so i would assume they would increase the duration as normal, or replace a previous debuff.
2. It says these penalties don't stack specifically.The way I read that was that a single rogue could not stack the benefit from his own debilitating strike. I'm not sure if the wording also concerns the possibility of two rogues using debilitating strike.
Two Debilitating Strikes can provide different effects, so -AC plus no 5ft-movement is both legal and hilariously dickish.
They just can't stack penalties, so -AC plus -AC doesn't equal x2(-AC)
I really like the new Rogue, except for their rogue talent selection. That they can only select talents in the book and from the sidebar on page 24 means that all the talents introduced in the "Player Companion" books are unusable, which is really dumb.
It's not dumb, it's basically the only option the design team could take, since the RPG lines and Player Companion line are run by completely separate departments.
Yep, Milo has it right! On the other hand, it's totally cool if you want to go through your old PComps and CS and find the ones you like and keep 'em (or change 'em to fit better).
I really like the new Rogue, except for their rogue talent selection. That they can only select talents in the book and from the sidebar on page 24 means that all the talents introduced in the "Player Companion" books are unusable, which is really dumb.
They probably CAN choose Player's Companions Talents like normal.
Remember this is a PRD book, and PRD books only reference other PRD books, not Player's Companions or other Golarion-specific stuff.
The Unchained Rogue only being able to chose Talents from Unchained more than likely means it can't choose Talents in the CRB, APG, UM, UC, ARG, ACG, and MC (in this case, because they're either redundant, like Finesse Rogue, or are downgrades compared to the Unchained versions).
Books from this point forward will almost surely assume that the Unchained Rogue is the new official Rogue everyone will use, and Talents will be legal for them.
Have a player playing one, ran it for the first time last night. It went remarkably well, though I also used the new Action Economy rules, which made his dual-wielding work much, much better. At level 2 he was having a lot of fun, and free Weapon Finesse freed up his first level so he could actually do something with his feat, which was Two-Weapon Fighting. He was able to move, feint, and attack with both weapons, and his damage output was pretty nice. Not as nasty as the unchained barbarian, but he didn't feel gimped at all. He took the Combat Trick talent so he could grab Improved Feint. Overall, he had a lot of fun, and looking forward I can see that the class should be able to keep up for the most part with Debilitating Injuries, talents, and potentially a variant multiclass.
I'm planning to add in Rogue's Edge at level 1 as well, because I think the Skill Unlocks come online too late for too little effect at the level they're received, as written. I'm shifting all of the effects down 5 levels, making it rogue-exclusive, and then not bothering with messing around with a level 20 ability, since we aren't going to get to 20. He chose Bluff. I'm thinking it'll be pretty well balanced.
ITWF has a bab requirement of +6, not sure he can take it at 1 without retraining at a later level.
Then Two-Weapon Fighting. My mistake. Thanks.
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I'm planning to add in Rogue's Edge at level 1 as well, because I think the Skill Unlocks come online too late for too little effect at the level they're received, as written. I'm shifting all of the effects down 5 levels, making it rogue-exclusive, and then not bothering with messing around with a level 20 ability, since we aren't going to get to 20. He chose Bluff. I'm thinking it'll be pretty well balanced.
I understand the design reason for starting it at 5th Level as it prevents dipping. But it does feel like it comes in a little late, I might move them down by 3 (first one kicking in at level 2).
I've also thought about giving a skill unlock as a reward for good character back stories like a bonus trait just to try them out for the whole party.
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Dipping is a poor reason to skip out on giving a class something cool at 1st level. I always cite the Barbarian as an example: you get medium armor prof., fast movement, rage, d12 HD, full BAB, and decent skills. You might only get 6 rounds of rage, but most classes can just use that as a free buff spell 1 encounter per day.
What you suggested could work, though. Second level does give a talent and evasion, though, which is pretty nice. I like the idea of it being a backstory bonus. Over on the Skill Unlocks thread rainzax is introducing them at 4th and doing a 4/7/11/14/17/20 spread. It sounds like they get to pick a new skill at each of those tiers, and previous ones upgrade when new ones are gained. Ranks stop mattering in his system, from what I understand, and it becomes more about level.
2. It says these penalties don't stack specifically.The way I read that was that a single rogue could not stack the benefit from his own debilitating strike. I'm not sure if the wording also concerns the possibility of two rogues using debilitating strike.Two Debilitating Strikes can provide different effects, so -AC plus no 5ft-movement is both legal and hilariously dickish.
They just can't stack penalties, so -AC plus -AC doesn't equal x2(-AC)
I think I understand the fact that the same one would not stack, just extend the duration.
So are we intrepreting it as the debilitating strike would not be combating each other constantly? The wording states that you can only have one debilitating strike effect on a target at a given time (unless using the advanced talent), so if rogue 1 uses bewildering and rogue 2 uses hampering, hampering would not override the bewildering, and both would be in effect?
I just take it to mean that a given rogue can have their own debilitating strike in addition to anyone else's on a target, but you can't double up on one. Isn't it the same as two witches using their Evil Eye? So yeah, a party of rogues would be very good at cutting you up. That makes sense to me, gives an interesting flavor boost, and makes ambushes by bandits or thugs in dark alleys a lot scarier. Rogues "gang up," and you "go down."
I just take it to mean that a given rogue can have their own debilitating strike in addition to anyone else's on a target, but you can't double up on one. Isn't it the same as two witches using their Evil Eye? So yeah, a party of rogues would be very good at cutting you up. That makes sense to me, gives an interesting flavor boost, and makes ambushes by bandits or thugs in dark alleys a lot scarier. Rogues "gang up," and you "go down."
But evil eye doesn't have anything saying that if you use it again it overrides the previous effect, and that only one effect can be working
I just take it to mean that a given rogue can have their own debilitating strike in addition to anyone else's on a target, but you can't double up on one. Isn't it the same as two witches using their Evil Eye? So yeah, a party of rogues would be very good at cutting you up. That makes sense to me, gives an interesting flavor boost, and makes ambushes by bandits or thugs in dark alleys a lot scarier. Rogues "gang up," and you "go down."
I feel like this might be the best way to run it, based on the comparison of the Evil eye of two witches. I'll roll with that. Thanks!
The minor and major magic buffs make the Bookish Rogue feat from the Advanced Class Guide very enticing, I'd imagine.
Thanks to your preparation, your arcane ability is more varied than most.
Prerequisite(s): Minor magic rogue talent.
Benefit: By studying a spellbook for 10 minutes, you can change one spell you are able to cast using your minor magic or major magic rogue talent to one sorcerer/wizard spell of the same level contained in the spellbook. This change is permanent until you take the time to change it via this feat again.
The minor and major magic buffs make the Bookish Rogue feat from the Advanced Class Guide very enticing, I'd imagine.
Thanks to your preparation, your arcane ability is more varied than most.
Prerequisite(s): Minor magic rogue talent.
Benefit: By studying a spellbook for 10 minutes, you can change one spell you are able to cast using your minor magic or major magic rogue talent to one sorcerer/wizard spell of the same level contained in the spellbook. This change is permanent until you take the time to change it via this feat again.
Oh, wow. Sweet catch. That also makes a rogue that steals spellbooks a much more interesting sort of archetype.
Yeah, I was considering that feat when I suggested the increased daily uses of those talents. It seems like a pretty fun combo!
The minor and major magic buffs make the Bookish Rogue feat from the Advanced Class Guide very enticing, I'd imagine.
Thanks to your preparation, your arcane ability is more varied than most.
Prerequisite(s): Minor magic rogue talent.
Benefit: By studying a spellbook for 10 minutes, you can change one spell you are able to cast using your minor magic or major magic rogue talent to one sorcerer/wizard spell of the same level contained in the spellbook. This change is permanent until you take the time to change it via this feat again.
Oh my god, that is sick.
Mark, how would you treat the Elven FCB for the Rogue considering that Minor Magic is now at will?
seconded.
(my vote is 1/4-1/3 of another at-will cantrip)
because they're CANTRIPS
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I just take it to mean that a given rogue can have their own debilitating strike in addition to anyone else's on a target, but you can't double up on one. Isn't it the same as two witches using their Evil Eye? So yeah, a party of rogues would be very good at cutting you up. That makes sense to me, gives an interesting flavor boost, and makes ambushes by bandits or thugs in dark alleys a lot scarier. Rogues "gang up," and you "go down."
So there is a reason I don't think these should stack.
Question 1: How often do you play in a party where two people have 4 levels of rogue?
Answer: Never or Rarely.
Question 2: How often have you played an encounter where more than one of the NPCs fighting you has 4 levels of rogue?
Answer: That's fairly common.
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Yeah, I was considering that feat when I suggested the increased daily uses of those talents. It seems like a pretty fun combo!
'
Out of curiosity, if you had the space, would you have Unchained the Minor Eldritch Magic and Major Eldritch magic talents in the Advanced Race Guide?
My wording might have been vague, but what I mean is that the rogue gets their own bonus and applies their own DS against a target. Other rogues can hit the target with their DS, but they don't stack the penalties ON the target, but each individual rogue gets their own personal bonus.
So if Puna'chong gets ambushed by two rogues, and the first sneak attacks him (vagrant!) and uses their Bewildered DS, Puna'chong gets a -2 to AC and an additional -2 AC to that rogue. If the second hits Puna'chong (knave!), the -2 AC is already in effect, so if that rogue used Bewildered Puna'chong's AC would be a -4 against both rogues; -2 AC against everyone, and -2 against each individually. If the second rogue instead used the Disoriented DS, Puna'chong would receive a -4 to AC against the first rogue, and a -2 against the second; a -4 to hit the second rogue, and a -2 to hit the first.
That's how I'm taking it. It might not be entirely correct, but it makes a gang of rogues deadly.
Add +1 to the number of times per day the rogue can cast a cantrip or 1st-level spell gained from the minor magic or major magic talent. The number of times this bonus is selected for the major magic talent cannot exceed the number of times it is selected for the minor magic talent. The rogue must possess the associated rogue talent to select these options.
Looks to me like the Elf just spams the hell out of Major Magic pretty much infinitely.
Vanish 30 times per day at lv20 sounds pretty heinous.
Mark, how would you treat the Elven FCB for the Rogue considering that Minor Magic is now at will?seconded.
(my vote is 1/4-1/3 of another at-will cantrip)
because they're CANTRIPS
I imagine they will change it to 1/2 major magic per day.
Add +1 to the number of times per day the rogue can cast a cantrip or 1st-level spell gained from the minor magic or major magic talent. The number of times this bonus is selected for the major magic talent cannot exceed the number of times it is selected for the minor magic talent. The rogue must possess the associated rogue talent to select these options.Looks to me like the Elf just spams the hell out of Major Magic pretty much infinitely.
Vanish 30 times per day at lv20 sounds pretty heinous.
Yeah, but you have to divide the bonus between cantrip and 1sat level usage.
I imagine they will change it to 1/2 major magic per day.Mark, how would you treat the Elven FCB for the Rogue considering that Minor Magic is now at will?seconded.
(my vote is 1/4-1/3 of another at-will cantrip)
because they're CANTRIPS
i'd be comfortable with that as well.
Do racial class bonuses for the original classes still apply for Unchained classes? Or are we stuck with (1 HP or 1 skill point)?
If they still make sense, they should still work. For an example of a favored class bonus that no longer makes sense, see the the ongoing discussion about the Elf Rogue favored class bonus, which was based on increasing the number of times per day you could cast the cantrip from the Minor Magic rogue talent -- which doesn't make sense when that talent has been changed to let you cast your chosen cantrip at will.
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Teamwork feats were a good idea, but it feels like about half were balanced around classes being able to use them by themselves (inquisitors) or grant them to allies for free (cavaliers) and a few were balanced around being good enough that two characters would both want to take them. Many are just plain underwhelming. They're in a weird design space. :-/That was actually the intent.
They're meant for Hunters, Inquisitors, and Cavaliers.
They're also great for NPCs to have. They can turn the gang of bandits, or squad of hobgoblins into a much bigger threat.
Since this seems the thread for it, just wanted to share my experience:
One of the players in my current game is enjoying the upgrade from classic rogue to Unchained rogue, especially since they love to team up with our barbarian and Debilitating Injury helps out the whole team.
I like the fact that the rogue really wants to "team up" with another character. Their strength seems to lie in being a huge force multiplier on top of someone else's actions, and really reinforces the whole flanking/sneak attack thing.
A teamwork feat rogue archetype would be cool to see. Get all Lies of Locke Lamora on it.
I like the fact that the rogue really wants to "team up" with another character. Their strength seems to lie in being a huge force multiplier on top of someone else's actions, and really reinforces the whole flanking/sneak attack thing.
A teamwork feat rogue archetype would be cool to see. Get all Lies of Locke Lamora on it.
Agreed. It used to be that teammates had to build themselves around supporting the Rogue, with very little benefit other than maybe possibly getting some minor damage in. The Unchained Rogue is a pretty big benefit to everyone on the team once she's in position.
Debilitating Injuries also add in some great design space for talents to play off of. They're already pretty good, but you could easily do things like make a Hampered target flat-footed against the rogue's attacks, or even have a talent that temporarily shuts off spell resistance: it's sort of iconic, the rogue jumps on the evil wizard, stabs him to distract him just long enough that his shields go down, and the alley-oop happens.