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I guess I put extremely low value on trap disabling (including magic traps) because of how they're usually included.
Often they're stand alone encounters that pretty binary and boring.
Did you detect the trap? No, here's so damage you're going to heal with a wand.
Yes? Can you avoid the trigger? Yeah, we walk around it. No? Okay, let one character alone, disable it.They're just not interesting as usually implemented IMO. And it was always bad (IMO) to put it forth as one the thing to do for one class.
And precision damage really isn't a great or important niche either. People care about more damage, not so much precision damage itself. The hoops you have to go through to set it up and the lack of accuracy just meant the theoretical damage potential almost never materialized.
Especially compared to playing a stronk fighter, barbarian, or ranger.
I disagree that there was nothing wrong with the rogue, I think they were bad even in the core rule book.
That is a problem of traps from 3.0 onward. Previous editions had challenging traps that were interesting, from 3.0 onward they have become binary, either speed bumps or deadly, and both can be resolved better by having a lot of hit points, good saves, and healing (in healing I include negative status removal) than by defusing the trap.
Maybe it is because combat is long in in-game time, and short in rounds, but the idea of the Rogue scouting ahead of the party and operating alone, the only way to make his main skills shine, has almost completely disapparead.
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I agree that a rogue operating alone is a good way for them to shine, but also means no safety net when one bad roll on the player part or one good one from an enemy can mean a horde of enemies attack. Even if the rogue is higher level than the enemies the action economy alone means it's not in their favor.
The rogue excels most when they're alone, in a game that's mostly about working together as a team.
One of the nice things about PF2 and investing in stealth means at a certain point you can carry your allies to being decent enough in stealth to even try. In PF1 it was pretty much an all or nothing investment and many characters would never both. Which meant stealth was never really a party tactic.
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Inquisitor is pretty over-tuned. It's not as noticeable because their abilities mostly cover different spheres of the game. But each one of those abilities is fairly powerful. And the book it came from featured other over-tuned classes like the Summoner. It's just not a good measuring stick for any other class.
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That would be wise on your part. I'd add that if a player wants to play a good roguish character, I would point them to other classes too.If a player wants a combat option that works 99%+ of the time, I would point them to other classes than a rogue.
I'll one-up that: Even if a player wants to play a dex-based character without spells who's good at stealth and skills in general, can disable magic traps, and targets an enemy's vital points with their attacks and get extra d6s on damage rolls when doing so, I would still point them to other classes!
Among the Core classes with no archetypes, Rogue is the ONLY way to deliver Sneak Attack damage.
I'll respond the same way you last made that statement: Despite what emo teens that listen to NIN all day long and think that playing a Rogue makes them hard and edgy believe, Sneak Attack is not a unique ability. It's just bonus damage, nothing special. Everyone can do HP damage. Doing the same thing others do in but a more conditional way is not a niche, it's the opposite of one.
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Inquisitor is pretty over-tuned. It's not as noticeable because their abilities mostly cover different spheres of the game. But each one of those abilities is fairly powerful. And the book it came from featured other over-tuned classes like the Summoner. It's just not a good measuring stick for any other class.
I beg to differ, it shows what a class 3/4 BAB d8 hit dice class can be.
Is it one of the best such classes? Absolutely. That doesn't make the comparison invalid.
Unless we're going to stop using wizards as the point of comparison for what 9th level casters can do. Wizards are often regarded as the default best high level magic class because they are a prepared arcane caster with 9th level spells. Which allows people to pretend to be Schrodinger's wizard and be prepared with the right spell at any time. Despite that not being true, it is the measuring stick other class are put up against.
Among the Core classes with no archetypes, Rogue is the ONLY way to deliver Sneak Attack damage.I'll respond the same way you last made that statement: Despite what emo teens that listen to NIN all day long and think that playing a Rogue makes them hard and edgy believe, Sneak Attack is not a unique ability. It's just bonus damage, nothing special. Everyone can do HP damage. Doing the same thing others do in but a more conditional way is not a niche, it's the opposite of one.
Strongly agreed. Sneak Attack isn't anything special. It's conditional additional damage. Most classes get something that does additional damage. But most do have such annoying conditions to make it work. And while it sounds nice to be rolling extra d6s, the truth is that due to lower accuracy and RNG that bonus damage rarely exceeds (for a total combat) what other martial character could do. In fact, it usually means being behind.
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Wizard is a measuring stick because it is Core. It's the base that other casters are measured against. The inquisitor is from a splat book that ran on the over-tuned side. And then following books in that series repeatedly pulled back from that heightened power level.
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Wizard is a measuring stick because it is Core. It's the base that other casters are measured against. The inquisitor is from a splat book that ran on the over-tuned side. And then following books in that series repeatedly pulled back from that heightened power level.
I don't think there is anything special about core vs other hardback books.
Now, if we were talking about something that came out in a "soft cover splat book" I would agree that those shouldn't be used as the measuring stick. Of course, I don't think we had classes that came out in those, only archetypes.
Advanced Player's Guide which the Inquisitor appears in was the second player facing (ignoring the 1st bestiary and GM guide) book published for PF1. If you're going to call that splat then you must mean "everything but the core rulebook".
At the time when the APG was published, we didn't have any 3/4 BAB 6th level spell progression classes besides the Bard, which didn't remotely try to focus on the martial side of stuff.
I prefer to think of the inquisitor as an experiment from an unexperienced design team. The fact that no class that came after the inquisitor was tuned as high as it was is proof that it's not a good standard.
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The Core Rogue is a terrible class with terrible talents. It has a lot of skills, but zero skill bonuses beyond trapfinding, making it a weak skill monkey. It's main damage steroid requires it to flank the enemy, but it lacks the survivability to be behind enemy lines. Beyond that, it lacks even a single offensive steroid, making it the weakest attacker in the game. This smattering of contradictory design is saved only by fix-it archetypes and alternate classes granting them both power and direction.
But even then, you're almost always better off just playing a Ranger. Rangers are better Rogues than Rogues and are stronger Slayers than Slayers (and stronger Fighters than Fighters, but that's besides the point). This really just goes to show you that it's not BAB or HD you need to succeed in Pathfinder...it's spells and action economy.
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Invisibility, Feint, Two Weapon Feint, Scout's Charge ability, Stunning, Shatter Defenses, Cowering, Paralyzing (poisons are great), Sniping, Stealthing, high enough initiative, Catch-Offguard, Strangler (lets you sneak attack), Vanishing/invisible weapons, etc.
All of which are situational, dependant on having a caster help you, work on just a single attack, require an archetype or don't work (invisible weapons).
Flanking is the only reliable way of getting all your sneak attacks out in a round, and thus making Rogue work 100% effectively, and that requires another player's support.
Rogue is the only class in the game that cannot consistently do the one thing it has going for it in combat without outside support. Even if it can, it's crap BAB and lack of accuracy boosters (slightly fixed in uRogue) means that it gets less out of that one thing than other classes get out of theirs. It's really a badly designed class that has literally nothing that would make you pick it over a Slayer, Archeologist Bard or a dozen other options that are better than Rogue at being Rogue.
But at least knowing that you think PF1 cRogue is fine explains a lot about your views regarding PF2, maybe if you would ever get to play it and see how PF2 Rogue works in practice, you'd change your mind :)
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Invisibility does not require a caster all you need is a wand of greater invisibility. Or even just a ring of invisibility.
First attack only. Does a Paladin need a magic item to smite? Does a Ranger need one for favoured enemy? Also, using the wand reliably requires you to get in the zone of hitting UMD DC 20, which takes quite a few levels and eats up your other resources to get quickly.
The unseen weapon property literally makes it so your first attack vs a target denies Dex to AC almost guaranteed against most creatures.
First attack only. Splatbook material. Does a Paladin need Ultimate Something book to smite? Does a Ranger need it for favoured enemy?
Catch Off-guard just requires using improvised weapons and works vs anything that is unarmed. It's not hard to build around disarm as a rogue.
Does a Paladin need to take a specific feat, disarm somebody (needing more feats because you suck at combat manoeuvres without them and taking actions which other party members spend being useful) and use an improvised weapon (with all the associated problems, such as: not magical, no Dex to hit) to use smite?
Shatter Defenses is literally just an intimidate build. Which Rogues have plenty of leeway to put ranks into intimidate. Not to mention it stacks well with making someone cower. Not to mention how easy it is to trigger with Enforcer, which also makes Sap Master much more consistent.
Probably your best suggestion, but BAB +6 means level 8 for a Rogue. Intimidating somebody as a free/swift action requires extensive splatbook dumpster diving. Does a Paladin's smite become effective midway through their career and require considerable system mastery?
There are multiple ways to work with poisons that does not require situational stuff. Not to mention that you can just keep swing the poison until the enemy fails.
Ha ha, PF1 poisons and their static DCs and the laundry list of things that are flat out immune to poison in PF1, good one.
Scout is literally built around sneak attack, and it's a Rogue archetype. Are you going to say a Fighter shouldn't use the two-handed weapon master archetypes? That argument is extremely silly.
First attack only. And 2h Weapon Master is a crap archetype, but I can see why you aren't aware of that.
So yeah, the fact you consider some of the most reliable strategies in the game "situational" is weird. The rogue not having the most accuracy is meaningless when it has the most burst damage potential.
None of those are reliable. Flanking is the only one that is, and again, this requires a buddy. No other core class requires that to have their signature iconic ability work at full capacity.
* P.S. I literally play a Phantom Thief Rogue, the archetype that trades all sneak attack for even more skills. The one thing PF2 Rogue does well is get extra skill feats. Which is what PF1 Rogue does, expect PF1 Rogue has more access to combat feats and more synergy in how skill feats interact.* P.S.S. What does that comment even mean? If you mean playing PF2 you are many months too late for that argument. Which is not relevant to my opinions on the Rogue or the many that they can work in the context of PF1.
It means that if you aren't aware of just how bad PF1 Rogue is, it means you aren't really good at system mastery. This is hardly something negative, but it does drag down all your arguments about game design and how things work quite a bit.
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Wizard is a measuring stick because it is Core.
No, Wizard is the measuring stick because it's generally considered the strongest class in the game. The delayed spell access alone makes spontaneous casters clearly weaker, and the Wizard spell list is pretty clearly the strongest in the game (non-incidentally also the by far biggest).
The inquisitor is from a splat book
No. A splatbook is sourcebook dedicated to a certain topic, APG is no such thing. It's also the second most important and probably second most use book in the gamed (for PCs). Indeed, considering that it introduced archetypes, the definitive feature of Pathfinder, it's an absolutely central part of the game.
I assert SA damage was unique in that no other Core class had a class ability that deals precision damage.
The only thing unique about sneak attack is that it has a unique weakness. You responded to someone talking about a niche, and what you brought forth is not a niche.
@Temperans: You seem to be playing in either easy, or low powered games. And there is nothing wrong with that! And in such games, Rogue is indeed not a bad class. When you don't face fortitude or will save requiring effects that immediately take you out of the fight, having the weakest saves of any PC class isn't a big deal. When you don't have to compete with martials that kill non-adjacent targets in single rounds, making a single SA qualifying attack in a round can be notable damage, plus you can also profit from flanking set up a turn earlier. When you rarely face flying/unreachable or invisible/hidden/displaced/mirror image'd enemies, lack of class features to overcome those things isn't a problem. meanwhile, in such games, skills usually play a bigger role, including niche skills, making the Rogue's 8+Int actually useful.
But you have to realize that your experiences aren't translatable to other tables. Every thing you listed requires notable investment. Investment thus unaviable for other things, and when you need to invest into shoring up saves, physical defenses, and attack roll, as well as anwers to unreachable and unseen enemies, you can't just willy-nilly grab four feats to get Shatter Defenses going. An option like Unseen weapon that costs 18k (thus only aviable at ~10th level) and only affects a single attack per combat is just not useful in anything but very easy or low powered games.
Rogue Talents gives more feats than Ranger Combat style, but of course you would ignore that.
Not if you count the saved prereqs - which you apparently ignore.
Are you going to say a Fighter shouldn't use the two-handed weapon master archetypes?
Do you mean Two-Handed Fighter?
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Invisibility does not require a caster all you need is a wand of greater invisibility. Or even just a ring of invisibility.
The unseen weapon property literally makes it so your first attack vs a target denies Dex to AC almost guaranteed against most creatures.
Sorry for dogpiling but I also have qualms with these options. The ring/wand would cost 20,000 gp which means they become available late in a character's career, and also when special senses that trumps invisibility are more common.
The Unseen property is really awful. You must pay for a +2 property that works once per combat, inflicts a -1 attack penalty unless you have Blind-Fight, and as a Dex-based martial it's entirely possible that your high initiative makes the benefit redundant. So compared to someone with a +3 weapon vs your +1 Unseen weapon you eat a total -3 attack penalty to maybe get a benefit once in a while.
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Cornugnon smash works, if you use elephant in the room it even works for low str builds (free powerattack yay), and a rouge can have OK int, and there is a "Intimidate goes off Int rather then CHA and is also a class skill" trait if I remember correctly.
I've never been very impressed by Shatter Defenses variations for (un)rogues. The reason it works so well for Slayers is that they have their full BAB+Studied Target to carry them through the hits you need to activate the combo: One hit to then get a free demoralize through Enforcer/Cornugon Smash. Another hit to trigger Shatter Defenses. And beginning with your third hit they're flat-footed.
So that's two attacks and one skill check needed to make it work. Considering that you're a rogue (and probably using TWF) those odds aren't too good.
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Does a Paladin need ....an evil opponent.
Yeah, sure, we all keep playing those games where CN criminals and NN golems are the main enemy, of course, that's the Pathfinder baseline. Thanks for reminding me!
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Yeah, sure, we all keep playing those games where CN criminals and NN golems are the main enemy, of course, that's the Pathfinder baseline. Thanks for reminding me!Does a Paladin need ....an evil opponent.
Really? Those are all the examples that come to your mind?
You were the one ranting about situational benefits using as an example a class that need a specific kind of opponent to shine.
Do you want a situation where smite evil is so-so even against evil opponents? Instead of fighting a single high-level BEEG, you have to fight several evil opponents that are reasonable treats at the same time. The paladin can smite one or two, but he can't smite all the opponents.
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I'm sorry, but in all my years of playing D&D/PF1 with different groups, evil enemies are the norm, neutrals are an occasional variety. Unless you're playing some kooky "Against the Golems" or "Proteans Unleashed" campaign, which I wouldn't mind, your Paladin can smite reliably 80-90% of the stuff they encounter. This pretty much checks out with the fact that Rogues can't sneak attack a whole bunch of enemy types (oozes/elementals), so that's pretty much the same.
Pinned denies a foe their Dex bonus. A grappler controlling a grapple can make an attack with a light weapon. A Sneak Attacker could deliver SA damage against a pinned foe. Just sayin'.
Turn 1 grapple, turn 2 pin, turn 3 hey one sneak attack. Scary!
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I'm sorry, but in all my years of playing D&D/PF1 with different groups, evil enemies are the norm, neutrals are an occasional variety. Unless you're playing some kooky "Against the Golems" or "Proteans Unleashed" campaign, which I wouldn't mind, your Paladin can smite reliably 80-90% of the stuff they encounter. This pretty much checks out with the fact that Rogues can't sneak attack a whole bunch of enemy types (oozes/elementals), so that's pretty much the same.
They have a limited number of Smite Evil every day. So, no, they can't smite 80-90% of the opponents. Unless you limit the number of daily encounters.
Evil enemies are the norm to a point. A large percentage of people prefer to play "against evil" campaigns, and most printed adventures support that. But you are arguing about the "norm" in the game, not about how limited is the target population of the paladin.
A paladin is LG, a CG guy is as far from his alignment as a LE guy. A paladin would be the enemy of Robin Hood without any problem.
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Neutral enemies, such as nearly all animals, many fey, a bunch of elementals, or just mercenaries or soldiers of another feudal lord are pretty common. It is very GM dependent.
In my experience (of course campaign dependent):
% Not evil >= % of immune to sneak attacks.
Even a mostly evil organization like the Aspis consortium will have plenty of non evil members.
There are APs where you can smite, literally, from page 1 to last page (Wrath of the righteous) but thats far from all of them.
I can assure you that playing the PC version of Wrath of the righteous I would have been more than happy to have the ability to Smite Lawful against the Hellknights, and most of those are LN.
The limited uses of smite combined with the prevalence of smite-able enemies, means that you could likely use up all of your smites per day, since you'll eventually come across a valid target in an adventuring day.
It's getting off topic, but the big problem with smite is just that it's hard to know when to not waste it. You could use it up on lesser enemies without knowing a bigger enemy is right around the corner. Or you could save it for a bigger enemy that never actually comes. Either way the smite could be considered wasted.
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A paladin would be the enemy of Robin Hood without any problem.
A Paladin that goes after Robin Hood isn't a paladin, it's an LN twerp with a stick deep in their anus. An actual Paladin would say "look, I know the sheriff is a corrupt bastard who exploits the people and causes them harm, but I disapprove of your methods. So here's what I propose: we take him down together and if you help me and promise not to be a brigand anymore after we've done, I'm going to say that you've repaid your debt to society and we're good."
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I'm sorry, but in all my years of playing D&D/PF1 with different groups, evil enemies are the norm, neutrals are an occasional variety. Unless you're playing some kooky "Against the Golems" or "Proteans Unleashed" campaign, which I wouldn't mind, your Paladin can smite reliably 80-90% of the stuff they encounter. This pretty much checks out with the fact that Rogues can't sneak attack a whole bunch of enemy types (oozes/elementals), so that's pretty much the same.They have a limited number of Smite Evil every day. So, no, they can't smite 80-90% of the opponents. Unless you limit the number of daily encounters.
But my argument has nothing to do with the amount of smites per day, but with whether you need to jump through any hoops to use it. A Paladin doesn't, a Rogue has. To make matters worse, for Paladin the smite is a cherry on the top of full BAB, spells, mercies, defences and other funky stuff they can use in combat, while for Rogue SA is the only thing that separates them from being a glorified NPC class in combat. That one thing requires special conditions a Rogue can't reliably supply themselves, doesn't work on all enemies, oh, and is foiled by something as trivial as dim light, because I hope you all remember that for a cRogue without a special non-core feat can't SA when the enemy is under any concealment.
This means the iconic "a Rogue backstab an enemy in a dark alley" scenario is impossible RAW in PF1 without something extra (that feat, dorkvision etc.) to aid you. Of course, this got fixed with uRogue where Paizo gave us a straight-up fix of the class by removing some of the most egregious 3.5 mistakes that got carried over into PF1.
I'm really not sure how paladin came into this conversation. It has a lot going for it, even if you completely cut out the smite ability. Good BAB with great saves, self healing and decent AC makes for a solid martial combatant. Out of combat it has a focus on charisma for decent diplomacy, a few spells and the ability to freely detect if someone is "evil".
The problem with paladin is how limited it can be by its alignment restrictions. That can depend on the GM and party, but seems to lean on the side of making the paladin life extra hard.
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A paladin would be the enemy of Robin Hood without any problem.A Paladin that goes after Robin Hood isn't a paladin, it's an LN twerp with a stick deep in their anus. An actual Paladin would say "look, I know the sheriff is a corrupt bastard who exploits the people and causes them harm, but I disapprove of your methods. So here's what I propose: we take him down together and if you help me and promise not to be a brigand anymore after we've done, I'm going to say that you've repaid your debt to society and we're good."
Let's be Chaotic together. Not a paladin anymore.
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Yeah, a real paladin would collect evidence against the sheriff and present the information to the king (or someone else above the sheriff) and ask them to remove the sheriff from their position.
If that failed, then the paladin might be empowered to remove the sheriff by other means, but depending on how/why the removal was denied it might mean the paladin also takes aim at the denier too.
At any rate, the problems faced by a paladin are drastically different than the problems faced by a rogue.
If I had to pick a class to compare the rogue against, it'd be a monk. They fill similar niche's in a party and come from the same book. The monk even has Stunning Fist, an ability that doesn't work against certain types of enemies. And flurry of blows, an ability that doesn't work unless you are already positioned correctly.
A lot of monsters have really high CMDs. And having only moderate BAB without any built in CMB modifiers make the maneuvers harder to land.
Also the talents for dirty fighting are under powered, as most rogue talents are.
The half-orc’ skulking slayer rogue archetype has potential, but the bounty hunter slayer still does it better, if you want that play style.
I am playing the Rogue because we already have an Monk that rolls fairly well. I went in wanting to be a skill monkey I got a skill monkey. I don't need sneak attack because Magic Trick (Magic Missile) 4 times a day is more than enough in most cases.
But yeah otherwise I am currently playing in an RP heavy campaign. Doesn't mean that the strategies I mentioned don't work when other classes are also doing them. Other classes get a to-hit bonus, Rogue gets a damage bonus, it balances out. Not to mention all the conditions Rogue can apply with a single sneak attack.
Hm. If four uses of Magic Missile is enough then I'll have to agree with Derklord that you seem to be playing in a low powered game. As I'm assuming you are level 8 that means you deal 14 damage per round with Magic Missile. Which means that you'd need around seven rounds to take down a CR equivalent foe.
You're right in that the strategies you mention work... to a certain extent. But they all require investment and time to come online. If sneak attack is easy to secure then why is your character relying on Magic Missile of all things?
They're playing the Phanton Thief, the Ultimate Intrigue Rogue archetype that trades out the sneak attack for more class skills. Plinking away some low-level spells using rogue magic talents is literally their only combat ability.
Tons of skills though, can solve a puzzle or negotiate with the devil queen while the rest of the party is doing the fighting.
Oh, you're right. That explains the Magic Missile.
It's a bit weird to bring up one's experiences playing without sneak attack when arguing for the ease of securing sneak attack.
I don't know how Magic Missile 4/day would be effective. But if you want, you can use this fairly cheap and nifty item, The Quarterstaff of Entwined Serpents, to spam Magic Missile. Note that it's only ever 2 missiles at a time, but it's at will rather than only 4/day. Moreover, it doesn't require that you take terrible Rogue talents, especially when those talents can be spent on better things allowed by the Phantom Thief.
Though...as Wonderstell mentioned, it is indeed weird that you're defending sneak attack using an archetype that completely gets rid of it.
It's a bit weird to bring up one's experiences playing without sneak attack when arguing for the ease of securing sneak attack.
It fits the wider discussion of combat relevance.
Phantom thief was more like what I think the core rogue should have been. A true master of skills. And without sneak attack we wouldn't have so many trash talents based around sneak attack.
I had not paid too much attention to the Phantom Thief, but now that I have looked at it, it is great. Melidiador is right this is what the rogue should have been from the beginning. About the only thing I would change would be to keep the ability to disarm magic traps. Maybe by altering the skill unlock to give that at the first unlock. The could also make sneak attack a rogue talent that could be taken more than once.