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Maybe it's my paranoia, maybe it's the sleep deprivation talking, but I can't help but feel like Rogue is getting, and has gotten, way more attention than other classes.
I think Rogue and Ranger have been getting attention because surveys have shown that mechanically something is off with them.
To me, Paladin is in the most need of attention.
I agree that they need attention but not, necessarily, more than the Alchemist (maybe the Resonance Test changes that - haven't played it yet). I think it was Mark who said Paladins were his favorite class so... Personally, I'm hoping all classes get a number of 'path options' akin to Rogue with Paladin getting "Avenging" i.e. Retributive Strike", "Bane of Evil" i.e. Smite Evil, etc. I hope that bow fighting isn't locked in with these...as it would be lame for a Paladin to have to pick between "Smite Evil" and using class features with a bow.
They were already arguably one of the strongest classes and one of the highest damaging ones if they could sneak attack. They're the best class at skills as well.
IIRC, Jason shared that the surveys results had Rogues as the class most likely to die. I think he may have even added "by far."
I guess I'm just wondering if we're going to see similar reworks for the other classes in the same limited role situation like Paladin or to a lesser extent Fighter.
I hope so.
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[ I think it was Mark who said Paladins were his favorite class so... Personally, I'm hoping all classes get a number of 'path options'
I'm a big fan, but I probably didn't say they're my #1 favorite class. I'm just a little too biased for some of the classes I played full APs with and the ones I wrote to say that.
Anyway, as with what Jason said in the blog, what we adjust is going to be a combination of what we need to test and what would be reasonable to expect you guys to be able to apply in an update, plus measuring twice and cutting once. We're not going to be able to do a conclusive update on the paladin until we're sure how to handle the very contentious questions that swirl around the class, whereas the path to the rogue change was clear and simple.
[ I think it was Mark who said Paladins were his favorite class so... Personally, I'm hoping all classes get a number of 'path options'I'm a big fan, but I probably didn't say they're my #1 favorite class. I'm just a little too biased for some of the classes I played full APs with and the ones I wrote to say that.
Sorry to misquote! Thanks for clarifying!
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I would say the Alchemist needs the most help.
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Paladins are the most fringe class and the easiest one to completely drop, so it's not surprising that they aren't getting much attention.
I was going to say that Paladin wasn't getting attention yet because the design team was potentially considering very big changes as opposed to the relatively small changes done to Rogue and Ranger.
They were already arguably one of the strongest classes and one of the highest damaging ones if they could sneak attack. They're the best class at skills as well.IIRC, Jason shared that the surveys results had Rogues as the class most likely to die. I think he may have even added "by far."
Was that recent? I remember a while ago during one of the Twitch streams that the class which died the most was the Cleric, due to not having a backup healer to help them if they went down. But that was way back in Part 1.
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The PF1 boards were a snoozefest of people posting constantly about how rogues were "underpowered."
Post after post of people complaining about rogues.
Now rogues get too much attention.
Can't win.
Rogue tent to die because they are fairly low hp, light armor, they have to move into (usually bad) positions to do any serious damage and when they do good damage they become targets of monsters designed to attack tanks with lots oh how and heavy armor.
I love playing rogues, but in combat you either feel useless or your about to die.The AC argument doesn't work.
A light armored rogue has the same, if not more, AC than a heavily armored one.
HP maybe? But the HP differential isn't much to be honest. 1 hit maybe 2 at the most.
Not true. Rogues are at least 1 AC behind those who can wear medium armor until level 10. Max rogue AC is 6+level (4 dex +2 armor), medium dex+ armor is 7+ level.
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The PF1 boards were a snoozefest of people posting constantly about how rogues were "underpowered."
Post after post of people complaining about rogues.
Now rogues get too much attention.
Can't win.
Well, rogues are supposed to be stealthy, so if they are getting a lot of attention, they're doing something wrong.
Oh -- you meant attention from the designers?
Never mind.... ;)
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The PF1 boards were a snoozefest of people posting constantly about how rogues were "underpowered."
Post after post of people complaining about rogues.
Now rogues get too much attention.
Can't win.
New rogue is a winner for me.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The PF1 boards were a snoozefest of people posting constantly about how rogues were "underpowered."
Post after post of people complaining about rogues.
Now rogues get too much attention.
Can't win.
Yeah. I've been a rouge fan since basic D&D (when I think they were still called Thieves). But in PF1 they're rather uninspiring. Unchained helped, but not quite enough. I'm just now building my first play-test rogue for part 6, and I'm really impressed by some of these abilities, especially at higher level. Skills up the wazoo, loads of skill feats, extra ancestry feats (although for my halfling, most of those are pretty crappy, I imagine a half elf could be pretty great though, with all those elf and human feats available), dex to damage, ability to count anyone threatened by my ally as flanked, ability to do half sneak damage even when they aren't flat footed, the debilitation options, etc. I haven't gotten it into play yet, but the rouge certainly seems pretty awesome. And that's a good thing. I do find the smaller amount of sneak attack damage a bit odd, but that's probably because on top of magic weapon damage it'd be absurd.
I do agree that the other classes should feel as awesome, and most don't. It's not that rogues get too much attention, it's that the others don't seem to be getting enough. Paladins are pretty uninspiring currently, and their focus as armored defense specialists doesn't feel very paladiny. Alchemists are probably the absolute worst though. My reoccurring character is an alchemist. In part one I was mostly just slinging rocks because I had so few bombs that I saved for the boss. In part 4 I didn't have to keep things in reserve, but couldn't hit anything to save my life, that's even with the Quicksilver mutagen giving +3 item bonus to hit (at the expense of 20 hp). The most effective thing I was able to do was give the monk Bestial Mutagens to up his damage by one die. Being just a provider of performance enhancing drugs doesn't really make for an enjoyable play experience.
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Was that recent? I remember a while ago during one of the Twitch streams that the class which died the most was the Cleric, due to not having a backup healer to help them if they went down. But that was way back in Part 1.They were already arguably one of the strongest classes and one of the highest damaging ones if they could sneak attack. They're the best class at skills as well.IIRC, Jason shared that the surveys results had Rogues as the class most likely to die. I think he may have even added "by far."
If I recall, I think it was Clerics being the most likely, because of the lack of backup healer. But rouges were a close second, most likely because of the bad fortitude saves and need to get up into the thick of combat combined with relatively low HP.
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I've seen a Rogue/Fighter hurl out 40d6+28 at level 20 in one combat cycle with short swords.
(Haste, flanking, +5 weapon, +7 dex modifier, Doubling Ring, two uses of Double Slice.)
An average of 168 damage. That is a lot of damage. Even at level 20.
Nobody can use Double Slice twice in one turn - it takes 2 Actions, and the Quickened condition granted by Haste only allows either a Stride or Strike action (both of which are specific 1-act actions). At best that Rogue/Fighter could do Double Slice / Strike / Strike, which doesn't really change their attack bonus or damage but still gets hit by Resistance an extra time.
While 168 average damage looks high, it isn't the true expected damage - you need to compare it to enemy AC to find that. Fortunately, I have those numbers. TL;DR, the Rogue/Fighter invests class feats and resources to optimize their damage and when they're in the most ideal scenario they deal very slightly more damage than an optimized 2H Fighter using no class feats. I feel like that's not a big problem, especially given how hard it is to get to that scenario.
4 Attacks:
Rogue: 126
Barbarian: ~114
Fighter: ~124
3 Attacks:
Rogue: 103
Barbarian: ~98
Fighter: ~106
Also compare to a TWF Ranger and a TWF Fighter. Ranger uses Twin Takedown and Fighter uses Double Slice and Agile Grace (except for the 5-attack version, which uses Two-Weapon Flurry instead).
5 Attacks (Twin Takedown + Haste)
Ranger: ~111
Fighter: ~109
4 Attacks:
Ranger: ~92
Fighter: ~101
3 Attacks:
Ranger: ~73
Fighter: ~73
LOL at David knott 242. =P
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The Rogue isn't really miles ahead in skills anymore. A fighter with intelligence 10 starts with 5 skills, can add 2 more with a human ancestry feat, and can get even more with a multiclass feat. Rogues run out of useful skills to take, in my experience. The Rogue's extra skill feats don't matter at the moment, because they're so weak.
Skills don't matter that much if you do not have a good stat in it. Having a 10 stat in a trained skill is the same as being untrained with an 18 stat. If you have neglected the stat yo probably do not have relevant items for the skill either. So at level 1, assuming trained with a 10 stat, you have a 30% chance of success at an average, er hard check. At level 5 you have a 25% chance of success. At level 10 it is down to 20%.
I've seen a Rogue/Fighter hurl out 40d6+28 at level 20 in one combat cycle with short swords.
(Haste, flanking, +5 weapon, +7 dex modifier, Doubling Ring, two uses of Double Slice.)
An average of 168 damage. That is a lot of damage. Even at level 20.
Nobody can use Double Slice twice in one turn - it takes 2 Actions, and the Quickened condition granted by Haste only allows either a Stride or Strike action (both of which are specific 1-act actions). At best that Rogue/Fighter could do Double Slice / Strike / Strike, which doesn't really change their attack bonus or damage but still gets hit by Resistance an extra time.
While 168 average damage looks high, it isn't the true expected damage - you need to compare it to enemy AC to find that. Fortunately, I have those numbers. TL;DR, the Rogue/Fighter invests class feats and resources to optimize their damage and when they're in the most ideal scenario they deal very slightly more damage than an optimized 2H Fighter using no class feats. I feel like that's not a big problem, especially given how hard it is to get to that scenario.
** spoiler omitted **...
The issue is there that the Rogue (at the cost of 2 feats) should not be anywhere near Fighter/Barbarian/Paladin damage as long as the Rogue is also miles ahead of them in skills.
There has to be balance.
The Rogue spent 3 feats in my example (Fighter Dedication, Double Slice, and Agile Grace instead of their normal capstone feat choices), plus an extra magic item (Rings of Doubling), and still requires a Flatfooted target to get to that point. They invested quite a bit to be able to deal as much damage as a Barbarian or Fighter in an ideal scenario - IMO it's only fair that their investment is rewarded.
I think it would be better to balance around skill caps rather than damage, however - not to being the Rogue down, but bring more options to close that gap a bit for other classes. The Rogue Dedication and Skill Mastery feats are good in this regard but I'd like to see more options.
I was going to say that Paladin wasn't getting attention yet because the design team was potentially considering very big changes as opposed to the relatively small changes done to Rogue and Ranger.
That sounds right to me. The current version of the paladin (and alchemist and barbarian, IMO) just needs to be set on fire and redone from scratch. That isn't a 1.6 (or .7) update, but a lot of long term work.
The rogue is probably salvageable with tweaks and dumping forced extra skill feats for actual class features. The ranger can be salvaged by decent class feats, the basic chassis is sustainable.
And by throwing Hunt Target into the same fire?
Or at least, set it aside and have at least one other combat option that doesn't lock me into a single fighting style.